#pinchbeck

[maslimanny]

"The Universe only pretends to be made of matter......

Secretly, it is made of Love.!!

[spiderh0rse]

my lovely duo. Dude (left) and Beck (right). Best of friends. Trying to convince me they're scheming.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The Artificial Intelligence Juggernaut ::  Where is it taking us?

Daniel Pinchbeck

Like many of you, I am field-testing the latest AI. The sudden explosion in AI’s artistic and textual abilities is mind-boggling. While I find the aesthetics of the Lensa self-portraits hideous, I am dazzled by the images that MidJourney can instantly punch out. I receive fairly eloquent, instant responses when I ask for poems and short essays on quite  esoteric subjects12 from OpenAI GPT-3s Large Language Model (LLM) that I already feel threatened, destabilized. I am guessing many of you feel the same?

Across the Internet, people realize that the capabilities of the latest AI platforms represent something new: A seismic shift in technology. Some pundits proclaim it as big as the invention of email, or the birth of the Internet itself. I hear that GPT-4 is exponentially more powerful than the current LLM. Perhaps we are lucky it won’t be released for another year, so we have time to prepare.

I don’t know about you, but I feel the need for a deeper context to frame what is happening. I turned to two books for answers (still looking for other recommendations). The first is The Age of AI and Our Human Future by Eric Schmidt (former head of Google and Alpabet), Henry Kissinger (99 years old but still ticking) and Daniel P. Huttenlocher (MIT Dean of Computer Science). The second is The Atlas of AI by Kate Crawford, researcher at Microsoft Research and founder of The AI Now Institute at NYU. While the book by the three esteemed white males was quite generic and uninspired, I found Crawford’s book a great, provocative read. She provides a slew of useful ideas and a meta-level context.

For Schmidt, Kissinger, and Huttenlocher, AI is an unstoppable paradigm-buster that will plunge us into a shocking new world – perhaps the most significant technological advance since the printing press, and one that also brings with it deep philosophical challenges:

Only very rarely have we encountered a technology that challenged our prevailing modes of explaining and ordering the world. But AI promises to transform all realms of human experience… The last time human consciousness was changed significantly — the Enlightenment — the transformation occurred because new technology engendered new philosophical insights, which, in turn, were spread by the technology (in the form of the printing press). In our period, new technology has been developed, but remains in need of a guiding philosophy.

As one delves deeper into The Age of AI, it is clear the authors do not have a “guiding philosophy” to offer us, just a slew of very disturbing questions: “When intangible software acquires logical capabilities and, as a result, assumes social roles once considered exclusively human… we must ask ourselves: How will AI’s evolution affect human perception, cognition, and interaction? What will AI’s impact be on our culture, our concept of humanity, and, in the end, our history?”

[mouth-almighty]

Given that an Aztec deity reincarnated in the form of a middle class white dude attends Burning Man every year, I would have expected everyone to be safe.

[itsrockinronnie]

Discover the Wonders of Horology at the Science Museum in London

The Science Museum in London, England, is one of the city’s most iconic and popular museums, dedicated to inspiring a passion for science in visitors of all ages. Located in the South Kensington area, it is part of the Science Museum Group, which also includes other major museums in the UK. The museum was founded in 1857 and has since grown into one of the world’s foremost institutions for the…

[stevefrancisworld]

time for the air guitar's

[jewellery-box]

Brooch

Pinchbeck and brass brooch with golden interlacing. The center of the brooch is an embroidery of flowers. Could also be worn as a pendant necklace. The technic used here is called "guilloché" it is a decorative technique in which a very precise, and repetitive pattern is mechanically engraved into a material with a turning engine. 

Circa 1850 France

Alexandre Vassiliev Foundation

[ltwilliammowett]

Pinchbeck fob seal set with an oval agate intaglio. The intaglio is engraved with a depiction of a ship. England, 18th century

[ceevee5]

“It’s not just that we’re just going to build as much infrastructure as fast and as selfishly as possible,” she said. “You’ve got to convince people that you’re doing the minimum amount that you truly need. Community benefits are also being mooted, which means cutting bills for those most affected by infrastructure to create and disperse green energy, or funding sports halls or other services in the affected area. “We really support that,” said Pinchbeck. “I think the nature of the energy transition is there will be some places where there’s more infrastructure than others, because you go where the resources are. The east coast is an example. Scotland is an example. Where you’re asking people to host a load of infrastructure for other parts of the country to benefit from cheaper energy bills, you can acknowledge that they are carrying more responsibility for the transition.”

[entheognosis]

In shamanic cultures, synchronicities are recognized as signs that you are on the right path.

Daniel Pinchbeck

[figdays]

Antique Victorian Pinchbeck & Black Enamel Momento Mori Brooch // mistyalbion

[manty-monster]

we're calling this one the um..

pinchbeck gorilla

real metal heads will get that.

[spaceintruderdetector]

https://archive.org/details/daniel-pinchbeck-breaking-open-the-head-a-psychedelic-journey-into-the-heart-of-/mode/2up

[ambiguouspuzuma]

The Portraitist

Corina circled the portrait, once, twice, admiring her own handiwork; a slender paintbrush poised in hand, ready to add the final touches once her vision was complete.

"You know, this will be my greatest piece to date," she declared, a last appraising glance tracing the way her subject's hair cascaded down her neck, the folds of her high collar, the satin of her gown. The model had been a common girl, but in art she was elevated to something approximating the divine; anointed with the most unlikely of oils. "Yes - I am sure of it. She will be quite perfect."

"Aah!" Lady Sibylla cried out from her chaise, as if grievously wounded by the thought. "Oh, but my dearest Corina, you must always strive to create works of great imperfection. You must endeavour to find flaws, to correct the natural course towards completeness!"

That took her somewhat aback. Corina had always known her patron to be an eccentric, but ever still a lover of the arts and all things beautiful. "With apologies, my lady, you have lost me on that point. Surely you cannot mean that I should commit flaws on purpose?"

"If you create a work of true genius, it will be ushered into a museum where just any one might glance at it," Lady Sibylla answered - or else continued as if she had not interrupted. "For just as a beauty of her age may find herself inevitably cajoled into the starlight, so too great works of art find themselves ogled by even the least desirable eyes - copied on pamphlets and tea-towels, diluted until they nothing but background scenery, familiar to all and miraculous to none!"

So, Corina thought, this was to be one of those lectures. She listened impatiently, placing the brush like a cheroot between her teeth. Lady Sibylla had first seen fit to patronise her work some eighteen months ago - and, after a spell, she had also begun to support her financially. The money still came with sermons attached, but at least she was now paid to listen to them.

"Yes, far better to create a piece which is merely good, to be sold to hang above the mantle of a good family, to be loved and cherished and handed down for generations. You must trust me on this."

"Of course." Corina's focus was back on the painting. Beautiful. Far more so than the real thing - in fact, she could not even remember that poor girl's name. Oh, but that gave her an idea: "Forgive me, my lady, but have you ever had your portrait painted?"

"In another time. When I was a younger woman, and artists still cared to, or sought to use it as an excuse to enter my good graces."

"Ah, but that cannot truly be the case! You are surely as beautiful as you ever were - I hope that is not too forward for me to say. In fact, if you would be obliging, you must sit for me yourself sometime!"

"Truly?"

"It would be my honour. Come, next Tuesday at first light - and please, do dress for the occasion. I want to capture you at your very best."

Lady Sibylla did not disappoint. She arrived with Tuesday in full regalia, looking her absolute loveliest in a rich satin sarong, its layers ranging from a pale, delicate rose-yellow to the deeper burnish of honeycomb and saffron tea, an effect of cloth-of-gold against her brassy skin. Her hair was coiffured with pinchbeck pins, and a heavy shard of topaz nestled at the hollow of her throat, as a drop of amber congeals in the whorls of a copal tree.

It was an effort usually spared only for the finest balls and occasions, and that was exactly as Corina had hoped. She wanted to capture the Platonic ideal of her patron: to create a portrait of her at her very best, and which was therefore better than she almost ever was. As a painter, she aspired towards such art that imitates and surpasses life - just as Pygmalion carved a form more perfect and pure, and thus deserving of his love, than any woman of flesh and blood could even hope to be.

"Do remember to reflect these lights in my eyes," her subject continued to instruct, despite having been told to hold still. "I cannot bear the thought of becoming one of these dead-eyed portraits one sees in other people's hallways - some distant ancestor, of course, with not a trace of life in our time or their own."

"Of course." Corina had lit her as a shrine, illuminated from all directions by flickering flames on slender candlesticks. Too long had she been an unwilling disciple of the church of St. Sibylla, Reverend Mother of Wisdom, Our Lady of Condescension. Tonight, her candles all carried the same prayer.

The portrait showed the curve of her jaw, unencumbered by the folds of flesh that had begun to gather underneath; the deep brown of her noble skin, untroubled by the frown-lines which had spread over the years; and those eyes, so alight with reflected fire, an effect so seldom seen in her recent life, now known to squint through burgeoning myopia. In short, this was Lady Sibylla as she saw herself. As the painting took its shape, she was undone, and remade in her own image.

Corina added the finishing sheen to her patron's painted skin, reflecting the gold of the morning light, and marvelled at another perfect piece. It had taken the finest of snares to capture this essence, and the most delicate brushstrokes to tease it from Lady Sibylla's canvas onto hers, but she had caught it in that horsehair noose and deftly drawn her soul across. Having achieved what she had set out to do, she couldn't be prouder of her creation - and now, with it complete, the real business of destruction could begin.

She hung the portrait in her parlour, in pride of place above the hearth, well-angled to greet her guests as they arrived. True to Lady Sibylla's wishes, the audience was small at first: her patron herself, come to nod approvingly at what she must see as a shrine to her image, a form of encouraged idolatry, but also other dinner-guests, visiting friends, and the unexpected callers that one must also suffer from time-to-time.

Those who also knew Lady Sibylla - for their circles did overlap to some extent, with her patron having introduced her to society - remarked on what a perfect likeness the portrait held, at first marvelling at her gilded glow, and fawning over her actual beauty, highlighted here more than ever before, as much as Corina's brushstrokes in imitating it.

But that was curious - for, when they next suppered with Lady Sibylla herself, their opinion would reverse. They were unable but to note how drab and tawdry she seemed in comparison - in fact, the more they visited with the reflection, the more they ceased to recognise the real thing. It was if Lady Sibylla's shadow had somehow usurped her place, grappling her in turn against the wall, such that now when people saw her they felt she looked unusually withered and frail - as if suddenly drained of the life they'd seen her radiate just two days hence.

She would age, whilst the picture did not; her moods would shift with the weather, whereas the colours held constant, not disfigured by the dark clouds of despair or the torrid winds of long-term stress. Her voice was no longer the equal to its echo, her footprints standing twice as tall as she could ever be. The portrait would always look her best, and so she could only ever be its worst.

Over time, those who might have sought an audience with her were seen to take their tea with the canvas instead; Corina's audience grew, finding a comfort in her depiction that was now missing in reality, as if she'd captured some aesthetic truth they found unsettling in its absence. She was less liked than her likeness, less personable in person. With every week that passed, the ranks of its devotees swelled, and her own standing diminished.

Unaware of the subtle magic being worked within their hearts, Corina's visitors continued to praise the quality of her art - a constant stream of compliments which served to feed her pride, together with her growing popularity, almost as much as this demonstration of her power. They clamoured to be next in line to sit for her; such that, as the wolf that stalks amongst the flock, she had her choice of victim.

"It really is remarkable," an unwitting gentleman was heard to say, before giving that silver a clouded edge: "I would never have expected such mastery from such a novice. Indeed, even now one would not think it to look at her."

Corina sidled closer, pretending not to have taken offence. "I am honoured that you think so, my lord. In fact, if you would be so obliging, you must sit for me yourself sometime."

[veganpsychedelephant]

“The visionary plants are the guiding spirits of archaic cultures. They are sacred because they awaken the mind to other levels of awareness. They are gateways to a spiritual, or multidimensional, universe.”

-Daniel Pinchbeck