"Much of the beauty that arises in art comes from the struggle an artist wages with his limited medium." - Henri Matisse
Instead of studying for my imminent AI quiz on Tuesday night, I attended a screening of the documentary Between the Folds hosted by OrigaMIT.
The documentary profiles a diverse group of elite artists in the world of origami, from the late Akira Yoshizawa, the Japanese master who pioneered new origami techniques and raised origami "from a craft to a living art" through his work beginning in the 1940's; to people like present-day "Postmodernist" Paul Jackson, who explores what aesthetically-pleasing structures can be accomplished with single folds and repetitive crease patterns, and "Choreographer" Chris Palmer, who makes paper structures that spin like tops, expand from 2D to 3D structures, or unravel in layers to expose geometric patterns. Appropriate for the MIT screening, computational and mathematical origamists were also represented by Robert Lang, a doctorate in physics from Caltech who has produced numerous papers and patents in the fields of semiconductor lasers, optics, and integrated optoelectronics, but left engineering to work on origami full-time; and Erik Demaine, who became the youngest professor in MIT history when he was hired at age 20, and now does origami research in CSAIL.
The film, brief at only 56 minutes, was a visual feast, both because of the beauty of the paper art and because of the moviemaking. Following the screening, Erik Demaine and his father arrived to give a Q&A in conjunction with Jason Ku and Brian Chan, two accomplished Origamit members. At first, no one raised their hands. But it was just shyness. A man broke the ice, and then the questions came in a deluge, driving the discussion for over an hour. We were all so curious; it was impossible not to be. What were the upcoming applications of origami research? What were the most complicated structures ever folded? I asked how they approached designing new origami forms, and they said, "Well... come to club meetings and you will find out!"
If I had the time, I certainly would. I did origami through elementary school, but haven't folded since.
What I can relate to, though, is one thing that struck me in the documentary. The older artists profiled remarked that they now folded much less technically complicated models than they did in their youth, that they sought instead to capture emotion. One man showed how he could add pockets to the jacket of a gnome he folded, a gnome already with expressive facial features, but that it required so many more folds and was ultimately not worth it, meaningless to him. He worried that eventually folding technique would overwhelm the art. That's a common thread through all the arts -- certainly in music. Technique "gets in the way"; that's why my old orchestra conductor had us sing what we wanted naturally, and then surmount the challenge of making our arms, hands, and breath control yield those sounds. There is the old criticism, "he plays too technically, but not musically." The conjunction of art and technique is always the struggle of an artist. But it seems that age and maturity do something to bring out the art, and I wonder what I kind of transformation my playing will undergo through the years.
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Wednesday night, I attended a talk by William Kamkwamba, now christened "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" due to his book of the same title. His visit to MIT was sponsored by D-Lab, which I have been inspired to take sometime in the next two-and-a-half years.
A historically severe famine struck Malawi, William's home country, in 2001, caused by a combination of crop failure and the sale of emergency grain stores by corrupt government officials. Forced to drop out of school, William turned to physics textbooks in English, which he could barely read, and taught himself electromagnetism. He fixed old radios and tinkered. Eventually, he found a book with a picture of a windmill in it, and decided to build one, reasoning that if it was in a book, "somebody, somewhere" must have gotten it to work -- and why not him? Everyone, including his parents, thought he was crazy or on drugs.
He was successful, and after the fame he earned for his windmill, he expanded his efforts to a solar-powered water pump that provided drinking water for his whole village. He built a system of irrigation for his family farmland, so that they can harvest three times a year instead of once.
William was a humorous guy -- listening to his presentation at the TED conference can show you that. I imagine, even in hard times, he could still keep cracking those jokes.
During the talk, I thought, with that kind of engineering inventiveness and buoyant personality, William, in more fortunate circumstances, could have been here at MIT. Easily. I don't think I would have been half as resourceful in his place.
I am so lucky. No matter how bad it gets here, mentally and emotionally -- my life is so good.
In whatever I do, I should give back to those around me, and those who have helped me.
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On Friday night, I saw the movie Lake Tahoe at LSC with Kyle. I don't have much to say for the plot and character development, both average, and the decidedly slow pacing of the film. (The film consisted of numerous shots in which the main character is seen slowly walking from one side of the screen to the other.)
What stood out was the beauty of the cinematography. Every scene would have made a perfect photograph; and even within some scenes, the characters moved in such a way as to constantly make the freeze frame a perfect photograph.
I will say, the slow pacing of the film was effective for its purpose, to make the audience empathize with the waiting that the main character does throughout the film. Watching this movie is not so much entertainment as an experience walking in another person's shoes, and that may well be the director's intent.
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Though these events seemed to be a waste of time before I attended them (before the Origamit screening, I debated going home to do a circuits pset), I'm glad I did go. I've found that being at MIT and constantly hacking away at homework, it's easy to lose sight of both the outside world and that light at the end of the tunnel. A dose of inspiration is priceless, and I will go out of my way to find it.
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