Is Graffiti Wrong? | Synthetic Opinion

Is graffiti wrong? Short answer, yes. But before you start to freak out and shouting that it is a great form of art just stop and listen.

Lets analyse what graffiti is, according to the Oxford dictionary of English it’s “Writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place”, there are some key words in there that I want to emphasize, illicitly on a wall, in short it’s an uninvited person writing on a random wall, now please imagine your lovely house completely filled of ugly, unintelligible scribbles, because that is the only graffiti that I see on a daily basis! Not beautiful works of art (those normally are paid by city officials making them not graffiti’s, more on this topic bellow) but ugly, malformed and hideous blobs of paint with insipid messages or names of a little gang or sometimes even worse, messages to someone specific, because in this day and age letters, e-mails and phones are something nonexistent or at the very least so unknown to the major public that it requires a regression to that old technology know as cave painting...

Now, many will say “but there are some graffiti’s that are beautiful and really well made” and that is true, however just because it’s pleasing to the eyes doesn’t justify its existence, because in the end of the day the fact is that it is illegal. It is illegal because the person that does it, doesn’t own the wall. It is like painting some random car on the street, if someone painted your car without permission I guarantee that you would not like it one bit. The same goes with all the walls, some like graffiti some don’t if it’s not your wall, leave it alone. Furthermore, if you have the talent to make beautiful artwork, sell your skill, try to make a living out of it, and don’t misuse your time on a stupid little gang wasting your art talents.

 If you do it at your home or are asked by someone to do it or even if you get paid to paint a wall then do it to your heart’s content but remember, that is not graffiti it may be better qualified as urban art, to be a graffiti it has to be an illegal act and if you are asked or paid to do it, well it’s not a graffiti.

Concerning the legality of the graffiti, the car is a god example, nonetheless people tend to make the next claim “oh, but there are so many things that are worse than graffiti that are legal”. Ugh... This, this really destroys my inner core of logic. Bear in mind that the law exist in order to make the majority of people happy, smoking is legal and is a health hazard but you only smoke if you want, that is why it’s legal also is not a drug as damaging or as addictive as heavier ones that is why it’s legal (more on drugs another time)... If you draw an amazing gorilla on my wall and it just happens that I hate gorillas, I want it cleaned, that is why it is illegal. If the “artist” needs to draw on walls to express his message than the next person that in order to express his message takes a dump on the street is no better nor worse than the artist in question.

To conclude, if you enjoy paintings so much go to a museum and see art, if the kind of art you enjoy is not on museums the internet is great place to see wonderful images however if you defend graffiti just because it’s illegal or because normally they have an edgy subject, clearly you defend it because you haven’t think about it or because people haven´t painted your wall without permission.

Wall-E | Synthetic Opinion

I was just thinking about the Wall-E movie while I was lunching today, it doesn't make sense... Think about it, if they had the technology to make a gigantic spaceship that could recycle water and make food and oxygen to the entire populace, why would they leave the planet? Why didn't they built a giant station on earth with the same technology? It would eliminate all the problems with the lack of gravity over long periods of time, it would be far cheaper to make... Not to mention if the space journey failed by whatever reason the human race would end.

I am, be all means, in favour of space exploration, but only if it doesn't cost our possible extinction.

To end this small analysis I give my simplistic plan on that particular scenario, instead of making that monstrous spaceship, make it monstrous but on earth and make dozens of smaller space colonies to spread the human seed wherever possible, that way not only you would resolve the problem on earth in time and ensure our survival, but also create the possibility of a greater diversity not only of humans but also culture, science and even art.

“It’s just” | Synthetic Opinion

I come from a not too dysfunctional family, bear in mind that all families are bit crazy to some extent, so you can call my family normal. My point is that my father was not and continues not to be a so called regular Joe. He is an artist and woodworker and thought me to crave for knowledge no matter what, "knowledge doesn't take space" he usually says. It is with this frame of mind that I try to live, from art to science, painting to photography, 3D to writing, reading to watching a movie, I try to learn as much as I can and to be good at every task I set my mind to do.

My whole life has been lived like that, learn, learn everything you can before time runs out. It's almost breathtaking sometimes. For the most part of my youngest age, four years to twelve, my main goal was to know as much natural science as I could, documentaries were my cartoons, you see, I wanted to be an archaeologist, dinosaurs were a passion beyond belief. So I continued to learn about the world we live (although it's an ongoing project). With fourteen I made my first photomanip as a small experiment, my journey within the artistic world began there, from that moment forward I continued, and continue, to improve my skills, however with eighteen I got a job doing what at first started as a innocent hobby but evolved beyond that. Now it’s my job. This takes me to my point.

That is when people ask, even if politely, for some of my services, a logotype or an illustration, but ruin the request by saying things along the lines of “it’s just” a logo, or “do it fast it’s so easy for you” and the most disturbing thing of all, when they expect the service for free. Completely disregarding the years of effort poured into learning that set of skills. Forgetting that it is a job, my job. Sometimes when I get a bit mad (depending on the level of frustration) reply with the following example, “if I was a doctor would you go to my office expecting a diagnosis for free just because it’s easy for me? Of course not.” So why would you even consider asking a free job from a professional artist? “Oh, but a doctor is a trained person” “They go to school for years”, are the usual replies. Completely mediocre reply if you think of the time necessary for mastering a craft to a high enough level in order to sell it as a professional product.

Remember, I don't use the term professional lightly, if someone does whatever craft for a living, he is a professional. That's the definition of professional, a person who engages for his livelihood in some activity also pursued by amateurs.

Another example I usually think but rarely say is the following, imagine yourself going to a bar and asking the weightier for a coke, the weightier delivers the coke but you say that you don’t want to pay. Why wouldn't you pay for it? You asked for the bottle, the person delivered it, you are getting a service as well as a product and you don't pay? That is a ridicule scenario of course. You can't get a product for free. Exactly right. You can't.

This trivialization of the artist just because he doesn't have a flashy title like Architect or Film Director is ludicrous, think if you would do your work for free and then think twice about asking people to do work for you without payment. Be considerate of your artist friends.

As always thanks for reading.

Anime | Synthetic Opinion

I've been thinking on doing a synthetic opinion on my favorite anime, but then I thought that talking about the whole medium first would make a bit more sense. So, anime, is it good or bad?

Let me start by saying that I've grown up with both cartoons and anime simultaneously. Granted, I noticed the different drawing styles, but at the time there wasn't a clear distinction between them, even though there is, both story wise and music wise. As a consequence of this unclear difference, I always feel like I need to explain this to people that don't watch anime ("because it’s just cartoons" they say), it is not just cartoons, show me a cartoon where there is a decapitation or a child being impaled in the first episode and I will show you ten, even tough you most probably will not find any, anime on the other hand has, quite a few actually.  

With this I don't want to say that anime is good because of heavy violence and blood, no, it's good because it is not afraid of doing what it needs to, in order to give a compelling story, something that even movies aren't doing, near enough that is

Now, with that confusion out of the way, let’s talk plots. What was the last time you herd of a time machine inventor that meets a future girl in the present and falls in love with her just to find out later that it is his daughter? That is the type of complexity filled with glorious symbolism's that i love in a good, effective story. Of course, the example i just gave is over simplistic, both to make a point and to avoid spoilers of any kind. The fact is that it makes a point, good stories, out of the ordinary, original and beautifully drawn, only in anime.

Concerning music, a lot of the most epic and phenomenally well composed music of the last couple decades belongs to anime without the finest shred of doubt. Just search some mainstream anime soundtrack and be amazed with the quality and feeling in each note. I will post a top ten of my favorite anime tracks in the future so you can appreciate the magnitude of some personal favorites of mine.

Keeping the subject of sound, I love the Japanese language, the emotion it transmits in every word is something that both my mother tongue and English can't even grasp. I refuse to watch anime in any form other than Japanese. Concluding, it's quite special to hear a good anime, you will recognize what anime it is just by hearing a few seconds of a note or voice from whatever anime it is, that is a sign of good sound design and good anime.

But where anime truly shines is in the characters. There aren't two characters like each other in any anime, they might look similar, maybe have the same kind of back story or even act the same, but they never share more than one aspect at the same time. The way you root for the characters is quite unique too, you really wish them to succeed in their goals either good or bad characters, which leads me to villains, villains are just awesome, deep, developed, with set plans and filed with feelings and tragic back stories that usually accompany villains and heroes alike, which enriches heroes since they can exceed the difficulties of their environment, but also, gives villains a reason to get back at the world and not be bad for the sake of bad.

I will finish by saying that I acknowledge the fact of my vagueness in this opinion, however I tried to resume dozens of anime series in this overall opinion, which in such a diversified medium isn't easy. With that being said and to resume, the five reasons to watch anime are, the subjects are presented if necessary regardless of taboo, wonderful stories, absolutely perfect music, truly great characters and above all, the lack of fear the creators have of doing what they feel is necessary to deliver all of the above to you in the most flawless way possible.

Celebration of Ignorance | Synthetic Opinion

This opinion is a bit of a rant :) Proceed with caution.

There is a celebration of the "I don’t know and I don’t care" line of thought on this planet. And I don’t mean things like sports or the weather or even big brother results, those things stop being relevant in a few weeks. What I do mean are subjects that mater, subjects that are relevant to our knowledge of the universe and our evolution as a species. That is a serious issue.

When someone is alienated for knowing science related things or complicated matters and is put aside by his own society, there is a problem, and I don’t mean the new “nerd is cool” movement of today. I mean people that like physics and dinosaurs, these people are ridiculed on the basis of their passions and not their actions. When someone is praiseworthy for smoking when someone else is mocked by doing anything art related, crochet for example, that’s wrong. A great many things are to blame but media has a big part, when a serial killer gets more media coverage than the first legal cyborg (go look it up) it’s just ludicrous. It influences everyone especially the younger generations, by telling that bad things get more attention, more people are going to do bad things.

How to counter that? Not a simple thing, but an idea is to influence the younger to channel those urges to deviate from a decent path, into interesting projects, so many talented people are lost because of their bad surroundings, and above all, Bad Teachers! Oh my good Zeus, bad teachers crush young souls and rip every bit of wonder of the world by telling to “think about the real world” and “life is hard if you go that way, look at this instead” or even “you will never get work if you do this or that”, this way of teaching of the industrial revolution era is highly inconvenient in today’s world, this shaping of mind to either zeros or ones is unnecessary and backward.

We need innovation and free thought, philosophers and artists, not this emulation of one another, of bad behavior and glorification of stupid ideas you get, well, everywhere really, but especially on reality TV shows. Everyone is unique and has unique ideas, don’t be afraid to tell what you think for fear of what others will think of you. The sooner you get rid of that kind of people of your life the better, even if you end up alone with no one by your side because of the way you perceive the world, good! You are one step closer to be yourself and not another copy and paste of the low quality populace.

Concerning TV, it's no secret for those very few who know me, but I don’t watch TV, I just don’t, there isn't anything really worth watching on TV that you can’t watch on the interwebs, when you want. The when, for me, is a big thing. The thought of being told what to watch and when is troubling for me, even if it is a documentary, a good one, it’s not advised to learn what others want you to learn. You have a brain use it.

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Thanks for reading ;)