Category Archives: Other

The Revolution of Digitization

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Mass digitization has become a real cultural phenomenon in recent years. With the rapid advancement of today’s technology, our society has evolved to adapt to the high speed of a modern, digital world.

The replacement of a large number of human services with artificial intelligence and computers has contributed to a greater satisfaction of clients but it has also sparked negative backlash and controversies. So, is digitization always positive? How far will we “digitize” and when is the limit to stop before it’s too late?

Personally, my first striking encounter with with digitization was when I visited the Netherlands for the first time. During my trip I had the sudden urge to visit a bank and I was unpleasantly surprised that the Dutch closed all their affiliates in order to “make it easier for the clients”. So, basically the only way to get the answers to your questions is to visit the bank’s website.

Not long ago, I also stumbled upon the new McDonald’s self-service machines. Instead of waiting hours in line to order your menu, these large machines, which resemble big touchscreens, are used as an alternative to traditional in-line-food-ordering. I really liked this concept because it drastically reduced the long time I have to wait in queue to get my food.

The problem with this kind of digization is that it will steal the jobs of millions of working-class employees, that heavily rely on their small paychecks to provide food and shelter to their families. Automatization of technology will always be ruthless to the lower spectrum of the social classes.

A more positive form of life-changing technology is the sharing of digital media. When I was born back in 1998, music and video files could only be shared via video-tapes and audio cassettes. These were later replaced by CD’s and DVD’s. Nowadays, music and films can be downloaded entirely on the internet (iTunes, Amazon) or via online streaming (Spotify, Apple music, YouTube).

The internet is also a great place for digitalized communcation. Social media has become the number one communication tool of our generation. Platforms such as Skype, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat make it much easier (and cheaper) to chat, to set-up meetings or to share photos. Via this big, digital world, everyone on Earth is connected in the expanding universe what we call the internet.

All in all, digitization is a process, designed to nurture the capitalistic needs of the wealthy, to win more money for less effort. Digitization, however, is also a sign of progress, of technological advancement. It can have many positive consequences for the society but it can also be poisonous for others. Before we start digitizing everything, we should first ask ourselves the question: “Is it really worth it?”, because some people’s lives will depend on your decision…

The Significance of Music in Our Lives

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Music is a wildly popular form of art and cultural activity that consists of sound organized in time. Being embedded in each and everyone’s life to a certain degree, music has played a huge role in the development of human civilization. Music comes in different styles and forms and each person has their own unique taste. So why is music such an important medium of entertainment for so many people? Why do people listen to music in the first place?

First of all, music can affect our lives by being a source of light in dark times. By escaping the harsh reality of everyday life, music can help you to heal open wounds. Sometimes life is difficult and people find refuge by entering a different world, by listening to music to take their mind off everyday problems.

Break-ups between romantic partners or friends, for example, can be really hard and agonizing. To cope with the pain, people often engage in listening to music to heal, to meditate or to just further nourish their emotional state. Personally, songs like “Black” by Pearl Jam or “Schism” by Tool are some of the most powerful songs when life is at its lowest. Furthermore, people might like to listen to songs to enter a new reality, a different world, usually to escape their boring, routine and monotonous existence: for me, such songs can be “Lady” by Modjo or “Paradise” by Coldplay.

Music is also a form of art, the creation of a person’s soul and mind. Just like paintings or drawings, music has its own meaning and it can be appreciated and interpreted in many different ways. Music is more about feelings and emotions and less about understanding and rationalizing. This is why I really like more experimental stuff, that mainly consists of instrumentals and lacks lyrics: songs like “Soothsayer” by Buckethead and “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Grieg

With the technoligical advancement of mankind and the arrival of the internet, listening to music has never been as easy and as accessible as it is nowadays. However, I personally think that now that music is so easy to access, people are afraid to dive deeper in the huge diversity of songs and prefer to scratch the surface, to only consume what the masses consume: songs from the Billboard Top 100 or other “popular” charts.

The problem with pop music is not that it is bad, there are many pop-songs that I really enjoy, like Adele’s “Hello“. The problem with a large quantity of pop-songs is that they are really similar: they are radio-friendly, heavily commercialized, have uninspiring lyrics, follow basic music structures and use a lot of auto-tune (see “Friday” by Rebecca Black).

Also, hip-hop and rap music can be a really bad influence for our children, mostly because it often incorporates a lot of profanity, hypersexualization and/or drug & alcohol use, just like Gery-Nikol – “Gotina & Luda” or Nicky Minaj’s “Anaconda“. On the other hand, hip-hop songs can be really inspiring and meaningful, justifying the use of profanity/drugs because they are created to be real art and not just radio singles: see “Changes” by Tupac.

All in all, music should be about creating something original, something from the heart and from the soul. For me, music is not about showing off posessions, money or how much weed you smoke. But at the end of the day, everyone should decide by themselves what kind of music they like. Music is a form of art that is created to be enjoyed and that is the most important thing.

The Law of Nature – Stop-Motion Animation

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Hello everyone!

As an avid fan of music in general, I enjoy other types of art aswell. I first gained an appreciation for stop-motion animation during my short stay in the Netherlands. In art class, our task was to create a short, 30 second long stop-motion animation. Needless to say, I found the challenge intriguing and had a lot of fun making it.

My love for stop-motion animation was further nourished when I first started listening to the band Tool. Adam Jones, the band’s guitarst, is also the key creator of their videos, which are based on the stop-motion formula. Their gritty style and surreal feeling totally caught my attention. The video for “Sober” is a great example.

Creating such a stop-motion animation, however, is not quite as easy as it might sound or look. It is a long and tedious process of perfectionalizing every shot, every take. Making even one little mistake will have a negative effect on the end-product, so it is necessary to work as careful and concentrated as possible. This can take a VERY long time to accomplish, even for a short, 30-second video. It took me and my classmate an hour of coming up with the idea, 3 hours of preparing the materials and 2 hours of filming. Luckily, it is enjoyable to do, so the time was spent wisely.

Our idea was to create something abstract, something very simple, yet original. Something that was stripped of a traditional meaning, yet something that made you think, made you feel. So, we thought about the most basic geometric shapes, the building blocs of everything: triangles and squares. We thought about how life is an endless cycle of construction and destriction, chaos and order. I plan on studying biology, so a huge inspiration for this project were enzymes: how they move, how they work, how they create and destroy.

Of course, when you look at our video below you might only see some weird, funny-looking shapes, moving in a strange way. That is totally acceptable, because art can be interpreted in different ways and to be fair, it looks pretty simple and hasty. Hopefully, you will enjoy our creation as much as we enjoyed making it.