opnet [OpNet] The Beauty of Colour.

[Tarot]

With the financial assistance of a patron who wishes to remain secure in his privacy, I have managed to recreated the pigments I used a couple of weeks back when maybe I shouldn't have. In the end its worked out better than I ever could have hoped! The emails from the Art institutes in Caifornia, Addis Abba and Israel have already arrived as well as a telegram from the French and I just got off the phone with New York. The Chicago Institute is still deliberating and I don't really expect to hear from the British.

As of this moment there is now recognized a class of pigments, or colours as the French prefer to say, refered to as Tarot Primaries. This is big and not just because I'm the artist that came up with the idea. Tarot Primaries are quantum active and reactive. I will be using these for the pieces I'm putting together with the assistance of Walker and others I've met through the Amp Room.

The showing is to be called 'The Other' and will be a collection of pieces dealing with the nova experience.

Sometimes I just can't believe how much my life has changed since I erupted.

[Jager]

Congratulations are in order?

This is just dandy, kid, but what have you done for us THIS week?

[Tarot]

It's only Monday and I slept in.

[Count Janos Rakozi]

Salut!

[Jager]

:grumbles:

Kids today, I tell ya.

[kestrel404]

Could you send me a sample? I'd like to see what you've done.

Congratulations.

[Tarot]

I'd love to Alchemist but I need you to wait a little while. The stuff is tricky to make, expensive to make a mistake with and I need all that I can mix up for the pieces I'm working on.

Different subject; realization of what you've gotten yourself into sinks in when a trio of drunken novas pounds on your door in the morning asking, "Are you the artist guy?" Unlike normal pigments and mediums, I can't just take some holosnaps and send them back to the Amp Room to wait. I need them there while I work to capture their essence and the Primaries take its own sweet time to cure even when you know how to nudge it along.

Its still fun!

[Jager]

You mean one of them didn't teleport in and open the door for the others?

Somebodies been stressing etiquette.

[Tarot]

That would explain the thump from the roof followed by another from the courtyard. Not to mention the sound of breaking tiles and the profanity. They were pretty drunk. Nice piece even if its just me saying so.

Haven't decided whether to call it "After the Bacchanal" or "Strange Bedfellows." Either works.

[kestrel404]

That's fine. Though I might be able to help out if you're having difficulty synthesizing it. Unless it derives from your own abilities, in which case I doubt I'll be able to duplicate it.

I'm most curious about what you mean when you say 'quantum reactive'. Does it react to the use of powers or simply the presence of quantum fields or auras? Is it active over a long term, or just when it's fresh?

[Tarot]

Not difficult exactly. Its just sort of a bitch kitty to get the proportions right and stable.

It holds a minute charge and reacts in the presence of quantum flux. Which, in a round about way, makes it ideal for my purposes. Capturing the essence of novas. It should be sensitive to quantum for a long, long, long time but there's only way to be sure.

The world is going to lose its mind over this one.

[kestrel404]

Don't tell me you're still mixing it by hand? Even if you've got superhuman reflexes, there are machines designed specifically to do that kind of thing.

If you don't have the capital for some good hardware (about half a million if you don't bargain hunt), I know half a dozen grants that would donate it to you and the only string attached is that you're a US citizen (you're from CA, right?) and you'd have to patent this stuff in the US first.

[Juri 'Salamander' McClendon]

I'm not speaking for Tarot here, but if he agrees with me, I hope he'll chime in.

Some things have to be done by hand, Alchemist. Especially in art. I don't have any good scientific or empirical evidence as to why, only to tell you that it does.

Sometimes it's the connection between the artist and the medium. Sometimes it seems less real to the artist if she didn't do everything herself. And you know, sometimes, it takes on higher levels of ritual and ceremony bordering on the magick that you and I butt heads about so often.

So, anyway, I can't give you scientific evidence for it, but doing it by hand is often the way it must be done.

[Tarot]

Juri's got it, Alchemist. Its not about chemistry or energies states. Its about art. Its about making a mirror subtle enough to catch the image of a soul then turn it outward to shine like beacon. Mixing the essence of pigment doesn't require superhuman reflexes or muscle enough to move mountains. Don't tell anyone this but one of the main ingredients is patience.

When the little voice tells me this mixture is ready now then it is. It just doesn't seem to work any other way.

[Noir]

It is much like cooking. You can have an assembly line in some plant that perfectly measures out the quantities of each ingredient for a cake or biscuit or virtually anything, for that matter. And the result is that you get virtually the exact same cake or biscuit each time. There is no real variation. It becomes bland and boring after a while.

When you make things by hand you do not always do it exactly the same and that allows for subtle variations that may not be immediately noticeable, but they are there and ends up making each baked good unique. That uniqueness and individual attention to detail is a lot of what makes art what it is. Each piece of hand made art (and in my opinion, cooking and baking fall into this category as well) has it’s own nuances and the care with which this colour of Tarot’s must be made simply adds to that.

Making a reproduction of a finished piece is slightly different as well. The mass reproduction of art is something of which I have mixed feeling about. Being able to share it with the masses and expose them to art they otherwise would probably have never seen is a good thing, but I feel it demeans the artist and his work. I mean, a Van Gogh being turned into a Paint-By-Numbers or slapping Starry Night on the side of a glass or mug is just wrong, even if it is in a museum gift shop.

At any rate..

As an aside Tarot, I have something of a trade to propose. In exchange for some of these Trot Primaries I would be willing to come by and assist you in the making of them for a spell. I would not have a direct hand in it, per se, but I can significantly increase your chances of properly making the colours and yet still allow each one the individual care it requires, while simultaneously greatly reducing the chance of losing a batch.

[Ramone Gemeos]

So, Tarot, you are saying that the mixing of your colours is an exacting science, as well as an art?

Science has much subtlety and art in it. And art has much science. The two are not incompatible, and are joined far more thoroughly than the practitioner of either is generally willing to admit.

[Juri 'Salamander' McClendon]

We weren't saying they were, Ramone Quimby.

What we're talking about is the difference between doing something yourself and being directly and intimately involved in the process of creation, and pushing a button on a machine and coming back in an hour or so when the machine says it's ready.

[Jager]

Juri, it depends whose touching the machine, dontchya think?

[Juri 'Salamander' McClendon]

No, Jager, I'm afraid in this case, it doesn't matter who is touching the machine.

[Lemmy Chillmeister]

Machines?

Fuck machines. We make, we create, we shape, we change, we destroy. WE do.

Tool using monkeys can sit and fiddle with fucking knobs.

We're NOVAS. Tarot, ignore the heathens, you sit and mix up the colors like Odur painting up the dawn.

[kestrel404]

I don't particularly care about the colors (something I'm sure will not put me in the good graces of the artistically inclined here). I see the beauty of Tarot's creation in the quantum-responsiveness of the medium. As they say, the medium IS the message.

Tarot, if you can create the quantum-responsive base without bothering to color it easily (without personal attention), then you've got a truly magnificent thing. Even without the color, it would be a marvelous creation. If it is inherent to the colour creation process, then it is still a great work of art, but one that isn't particularly useful (well, at least not to the Nova community at large, or as more than a work of art), and is probably a part of your quantum expression.

Either way, I would greatly like to watch you work at some point. Perhaps I will visit you when I've got the time, if you will have me.

[Jager]

Quote:

Originally posted by Juri 'Salamander' McClendon:
No, Jager, I'm afraid in this case, it doesn't matter who is touching the machine.

Juri ... some novas touch the machnes,BECOME the machines, then the magic happens.


Lemmy, tools have their uses, just as our QE's do.

[Tarot]

Noir, I'm turning it over in my head. Before I answer there's something I need to figure out how to explain to Alchemist first. When I figure out the words then you may understand better what it is that you're offering to get into. Or not. Either way it goes, there's something we'd have to change.

You would have to sit for me. That's the deal.

Give me a bit to mull this over before I try to put it into words, Alchemist. There's something you're not quite getting about the Primaries but I'm not sure how to explain it to you yet. And just what does "or more than a work of art" mean? Art isn't etch-a-sketch or paint by numbers. Its not posters on cheap paper sold as if they more valuable than the posters they are. I get that you're interested in valence values but what is that compared to showing you the soul?

I gotta admit that I'm thinking along the same lines as Juri on this one but maybe not for the same reason Jager. You may become the machine but that's still just the machine. Now if in becoming the machine its changed then its not longer a machine. Its a canvas.

Lemmy, I think you understand. I'm looking for the right words to explain it for Alchemist though. It all keeps coming back to the soul but I don't want to talk about magic or something. I want to explain it. And I will keep on keeping on. Couldn't stop even if I want to.

[Walker]

Tarot So are you saying that these quantum pigments capture the feeling of being in the same room as the subject? You don't just look at the thing and see it, right. You feel something of the subject from it. Am I barking up the right tree here?

Alchemist I think I see what you're getting at, my guess is that this stuff is a bit like Eufiber and it takes a Nova to shape it. To use it to it's fullest extent.

Some Nova 'inventions' are really weird and only usable by the Nova that created them. I've seen stuff like that, so arcane that only the inventor knows how to use it properly.

So this paint stuff may only have a practical use for Tarot or it may be like some sort of Eufiber thingy and generally applicable. Either way I find it just as fascinating as you

[kestrel404]

Quote:

Originally posted by Tarot:
Give me a bit to mull this over before I try to put it into words, Alchemist.

Please, take your time. You've got me intruiged.

Quote:

I get that you're interested in valence values but what is that compared to showing you the soul?

Not quite. If someone other than you can use these pigments, then you've found something. It existed before you, and will exist after you. You create things all the time (your art) as do many of us. But this could be a truly significant discovery.

Some people say that science is about creation and invention. It's not, that's just a destination on the journey. I think you've found a new path on the road. That's something special.

Quote:

I gotta admit that I'm thinking along the same lines as Juri on this one but maybe not for the same reason Jager. You may become the machine but that's still just the machine. Now if in becoming the machine its changed then its not longer a machine. Its a canvas.

I think you've got the idea of Jager's point now, Tarot. When the right nova uses a machine, it's not a machine anymore. It's like your brush and pallette. I can't do that with machines, I've never been very good with them. And I wasn't even suggesting that you should try either.

I was just saying that if there are parts of the process you can simplify, so that you only have to spend your attention on what's important, then you should. The repetitive stuff can be taken care of by machines.

[Juri 'Salamander' McClendon]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jager:

Quote:

Originally posted by Juri 'Salamander' McClendon:
No, Jager, I'm afraid in this case, it doesn't matter who is touching the machine.

Juri ... some novas touch the machnes,BECOME the machines, then the magic happens.

I knew exactly what you meant, and I still disagreed with you.

[Jager]

Flesh is just flesh; its that most of us are relaxed and comfortable working with it. We don't think of it as a tool for our souls, its so natural, but it is.

I guess I am just a big propponent of the Will Moving All.

[Wakinyan]

While I enjoy the perks technology gives you flesh bone and blood still feel much more important to me. Maybe because that is what I am used to dealing with. Maybe my view would change if I ever met a AI or a Nova completely made from totally artificial parts.

[Lemmy Chillmeister]

Totem, flesh and blood is important because it's OUR flesh and blood.

Man, the muscle and sinew in you ain't the same thing as what helps Bobby Baseline haul his weenie ass out of bed in the morning. Your's is godstuff.

We're talking the power to hurl yourself into the sky and take it for your own. The power to tear through that which stands before you. You are power. You are dynamic. You're flesh and bone is the stuff of legend and glory. You're the Power and the Glory.

Tools can't replace that. Even if you've got the magic mojo to make them dance and sing. They are still metal and plastic. You are still NOVA. And I know of what I speak Mister Monster. The Dark Princess and I have treked the world and I have seen the sights. Cyberwizards making like Merlin with ones and zeroes. Urban artists carving out beauty from ghetto blight. Lovely lasses who sing and hum steel into shapes of awe and wonder. I've seen the Son of Mike Fink reach out and call barges down the Mississippi as if he was calling children home for supper.

But in the end, we got two things. The Nova. The Tool. It's the Nova that digs sweet reality and curls it around her finger, it's the Nova that grins crooked when you say "It can't be!". The tool just waits.

[Ghostwriter]

I prefer to work with my hands and use traditional methods for my artwork. One thing I'd love to discover is if the primaries could be used as inks in illuminations.

Be happy to trade you your choice of some specially varnished feathers or one of my attempts at shaping rocks into sculpture.

[April Rice]

??

So ... what does this stuff _do_? You never really said.

[Tarot]

Yes I did, April. In the hands of an artiste it can capture the essence of you.

Alchemist, I've been trying to think of an explanation that would make sense to someone that wasn't an artist and all I keep coming up with are things that sound like a mystic cracked out on a binge weekend in LA. Did you know the color blue is the most liked color in the world but it was considered savage and barbaric by the greeks and romans? Or that a certain shade of blue was used only for religious icons? When humanity changes then art evolves.

Plato talked about "ideals" and Max Parrish painted them. In the works of both those men you can see an inkling of something greater than the eye the beholder. So the question I asked myself is what's next? And if art evolved independently what affect would that have on humanity?

Tarot Pigments are quantum active. A couple of my subjects would vouch for that since they can see it too so you don't have to take my word for it. I use the pigments to reproduce a reflection of you that is something more than visual. Its a sense of who you are. There's a lot of variety in my subjects so there's a lot of variety in my mixtures.

You think my mixing process isn't efficient but the truth is its required and I don't see how else to do it. I can't just pull out any batch of pigments and make it work because every subject is a little different. With the wrong batch I'd get something but it would be distorted. Distorted is bad. Its like popping in a T'rr chip at a kid's birthday party when you were expecting Alejandra. Machines can't help me with that.

The pigments are also quantum reactive. This is even harder to explain and gets a little weirder. Beyond the mixing and curing, beyond technique and brushes or canvas, there are continuous changes that even non-novas can pick up on. If nothing else they'll spot the variations of shading from viewing to viewing that give it a different look even if they can't quite grasp the different vibe. When the viewer is a nova... That's where the weird part comes in. The pigments react in the presence of their quantum flux. I'm working on a layering technique to use that. Haven't quite gotten it down yet but it's promising.

No, you've pretty close Walker. For example the "Strange Bedfellows" piece I did with Montoya in it spooks my housegirl. She's fine with the other two novas except for the "indecent" way they're holding each other. Makes her blush. Kind of distracted me too when I was painting them. She definitely has the hots for one of the elite pieces I did. Didn't even notice the bodies until I mentioned them, but then neither does he.

Saimhe you could use pigment that way. I'd guess it would have to be mixed for you and maybe play with the base a little. Not sure how it would work since I never tried it before. The rock for the mural comes in next week but maybe after that we could do something. I'll pass on the varnished feather but appreciate the offer.

[kestrel404]

Ahhh! That's something I hadn't picked up on from your previous posts. So the mixing of the pigments is individual to the subject being painted... That brings to mind a few hundred more questions I want to ask you. But the easiest way is for me to observe you in action.

[Tarot]

More like the 'type' of individual. Sometimes I can even remixture on the fly but I hate doing that.

As long as you have time to kill and don't mind the boredom of watching me paint fabulous novas you're welcome to stop in. I'm working on the mural next week and then after I'll be back to the portraits. Got a couple dozen dealers lined up trying to stab each other in the back for the showing before I even finish the series so I need to keep at.

Its great doing what you love though.

[Noir]

Tarot. Hmm.. that explaines things a bit better. I suppose I am still interested, though I may have a few questions still when I get there.

[Tarot]

Okay. Glad to have you. I need to check out the canvas before I concept the piece.