The originality of the 1966 moving-dot graphics demo is likewise... overstated. Ivan Sutherland had done the first MacDraw-type program (Sketchpad) at MIT in 1962; the same year, undergrads at MIT playing around after hours did Spacewar, widely cited as the first video game. Those are also a far cry from a Pixar feature... but rather closer than Paik came later in the decade.
They now work on preserving many of these works, which often require CRTs and other now-vintage hardware.
CTL's newsletter and other publications from that era, like Radical Software and Guerrilla Television, have a 2600-style mix of tech advice and social theory. Nam June Paik contributed to many of them.
If you ever go to a museum and there is Nam June Paik exhibit on display, see if you can see the back. There are often interesting tidbits in the wiring and even sticky notes from him about how to set up and troubleshoot the art.
All the tech and theory was already out there. There was no shortage of visionaries. Take for example Engelbart's Mother of all Presentations (1968). Paik, like many artist showed that art and poetry is in that domain. In the early days there was alot of talk about abstract capabilities and not much concrete play.
Fair point, but it was more Paik's prescience about what this would do to society that I was interested in.
One interesting thing about Paik is that he assumed we would all be more creative with these new media, but unfortunately we seem to have moved back to a 'centralised creativity' world just as before. I guess, as an artist, he assumed more people had his impulses?
> I guess, as an artist, he assumed more people had his impulses?
I think this is part of the sixties zeitgeist: if people would be freed from capitalistic consumerism, there would be some kind of awakening, leading to a better society.
One of Paik's famous quotes is: "Television has attacked us for a lifetime, now we fight back". The attitude to hope for everybody's creativity is also well aligned with Beuys posit: "Jeder Mensch ist ein Künstler" (https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/beuys-joseph-beuys-ever...).
You can also write Processing sketches using their Python syntax[0], if that's your objection. Also as someone else has mentioned, openFrameworks is a great c++ alternative with an active community.
correct me if i'm wrong but i find a lot of buddhism makes at least some sense in fields of highly advanced technology (like quantum physics).
of course there's the obvious counterargument that any prediction or claim that's vague to an extent makes sense in a wide range of settings.
In the same way other religions made a lot more sense when our scientific understanding of the world around us was less developed.
Religion serves, in a large part, to answer questions for which there's not yet a formal answer. But that's more about getting the monkey off your back than it is accuracy.
You can find comfort from following that path, but you won't get correctness or the ability to develop towards further more detailed discoveries.
Your second paragraph perhaps needs more justification? Religion seems to PUT questions:
1. Physical-world questions, the classic being, "if God is good and omnipotent, why does suffering exist?"
2. Moral-world questions, such as "who is my neighbour?", (and what are my duties towards my neighbour?).
In your phrasing, we'd say that atheism 'serves to answer questions', by answering only:
1. All is randomness, we're here because we're here, etc.
2. None, unless you choose some duty, up to you, etc.
These could hardly involve less thinking (for 1) or subsequent moral effort (for 2), so it's easy to see how 'you can find comfort from following that path'. Perhaps this explains their appeal!
I think the appeal comes from being able to accept reality without needing to hide behind a child’s fairy tale and to know that leading a moral life does not require the fear of an invisible sky god, but can arise from simply accepting that others around you are actually human beings deserving of the same respect and consideration that you yourself seek. This approach does lack the shallow judgements and easy rule following of a theistic life, but some find that objective reality forces them to walk a harder path.
> simply accepting that others around you are actually human beings deserving of the same respect and consideration that you yourself
This sounds good, feels good, and maybe is good for you personally, but it's not universal.
Others look at world and infer that the natural order of things is about competition and survival of the fittest. For these people, it's about what's best for them, their families, and perhaps their immediate social group.
Without universals, it's difficult to get others to act collectively so that all benefit, instead of doing what's selfishly best for the individual.
When fairy tales and sky gods are universal for a population, they become the organizing force to make people act beyond their own self-interest.
But without fairy tales and sky gods, what is universal? How can you make the strong yield some power and resources for the greater good?
This thread starts out with buddhism, I’m not really knowledgeable in it, but from what I gathered it is far less about rule following and fear than for example christianity and more about guidance in the moral questions you mention that an atheist should “figure out”, cultural objects also seem to display respect and gratitude for an old leader rather than fear of some omnipotent figure.
> from what I gathered it is far less about rule following and fear than for example christianity
That probably depends on which sect of Christianity you're talking about. Protestants generally believe that one's actions do not actually cause one to be saved; instead it is faith in Jesus alone that provides salvation. This bothered people for the obvious reasons, with various attempts to walk back the extreme antinomian interpretation, e.g. "one's actions demonstrate that he has faith in salvation".
On the other hand, in Buddhism the escape from samsara is fundamentally tied to one's actions, not simply one's thoughts or beliefs.
What I feel about Buddhism is that it’s not about demonstration at all, i.e. in case of Christianity (old testament) people are trying to get back god’s trust or approval after expulsion. In case of Buddhism it is your choice to get rid of the suffering and the teachings provide a way.
I agree that fear of an invisible sky god is not required. But wrestling with the questions I listed may still be required. Caution: this may not lead you to 'shallow judgements' nor provide 'easy rule following'.
YMMV - or, efforts may predict results. Just as there may be 'jobseekers' who have hardly sought, so there may be 'seekers of the truth' who, upon finding that the supreme divinity wasn't physically manifesting on their first command, then decided that the system was bogus, and shut the shop down from then on. But we can still have dogs, which will at least come over on command. (Is this why it's 'god' spelled backwards?...the secret's in the runes?). And dogs are love.
Whereas if one took a different attitude, saying that God > job (crazy, I know, in capitalism), then possibly a similar amount of effort might be expected.
Then if a little seeking is permitted, it becomes only a question of trying different entrances. I hear good things about Kierkegaard (e.g. 'Works of love'); but no doubt there are many entrances.
The Dalai Lama has a book called, “The Universe in A Single Atom”. He’s incredibly interested in science, quantum physics in particular, and in the book he explores the intersection between those ideas and the ideas of various Buddhist thinkers throughout history. It’s really good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musique_concrète
(The rest of them seem to be not unreasonable claims though.)