[DracoTarot]

@DoctorEldritch Social media has always been woke! It's even worse now and I do not have the patience to deal with people who comment about things they know nothing about the "I'm always right" attitude is getting on my nerves.

[GoLLuM13]

Sorry to interrupt but can we not talk about "wokism" and focus on what's important here on this topic 👀 a lot of troubles can come from such a topic and we should avoid troubles here right? We should like and accept everyone (yes even woke people)
Or if CMs are OK with that we can just make a topic specially about that where everyone can share gently his thoughts 😁

[DoctorEldritch]

@GoLLuM13 "wokism" may be a bit too political, that is true. The discussion moved a bit in the direction of the perils of modern social media.

Going back to @Saka's art, again, best of luck.

[Saka]

Thanks. I am not happy that my topic with quite a lot of emotional baggage in the background turned into a political discussion. I have a lot of trauma after surgeries that did not go well and in this project I expressed my hope that things would change.

It turns out sounds of hope fade easily, drowned out by people bickering about who is in the right.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka I apologize for that. We're only human, and prone to losing sight of what's really important sometimes, I'm afraid. We'll try to do better.

And I do want to bring the discussion back to the art piece. To be honest, I am a bit afraid to look deeper into art pieces because I misinterpret them easily. But I wanted to ask, I mentioned before that I liked the purple that you used in the piece, but I got curious as to why you chose this color combination and if it had anything to do with Tantric chakra traditions?

I found it symbolic how the outskirts of the image, the frame, is of the Indigo shade of Ajna chakra, the one that symbolizes intuition. And it changes in the center where the color is more Violet of Sahasrara, the "higher" chakra, responsible for enlightenment.

So when you mentioned hope in your initial post and in the previous one, I saw it as a story of hope to achieve enlightenment in music through intuition. And I thought that the technical limitations of cochlear implants that you mentioned mean that people with hearing aid enjoy music intuitively to a degree, so that "color change narrative" illustrated that to me, the way music enlightenment can be achieved through intuition.

But I was not sure if you intended it this way when drawing, or chose this color combination for a different reason, and my reasoning is completely false. Could you tell a story behind this choice of colors?

[Saka]

@DoctorEldritch I am afraid that the reasoning behind the colours is not that deep.

Purple happens to be one of the colours I like, so I probably have a natural tendency to pick it a lot. When I was starting on the piece, I had no precise vision of what I wanted to achieve, so I took some random shades of purple, blue, brown and orange if I recall correctly, then blended them together. I was then drawing over the basic lines with randomly picked shades until it looked nice enough to me. Then after that I drew the notes, trying to make them both fit and contrast a little bit.

I like your interpretation though. In my opinion art can be interpreted in many ways, even if the author themselves had a bit different idea in mind. Who knows what the Muse really wanted?

I originally wanted to study architecture, not computer science. However, I got my joy of drawing completely killed by a heartless teacher in high school. I do remember the only compliment I got from her, though. She said that I have a great perception of colour and that the best ones in class should be learning that from me.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka Purple is a nice shade, I like it too. Interesting how it is simultaneously is at the end of the spectrum from one side and close to red on the other, has a certain "closed circle" feel to it to me. And I like all those symbolic and mystical meanings that people attribute to it, too, chakras being one example.

I did not originally see brown or orange in the mix, but now when you said it, I can see a bit of it at the bottom. Are the notes drawn in yellow or gold? It is hard for me to distinguish, I'm afraid.

You're right, I just feel bad if an author made an effort to convey a certain idea through their art and then I come in and miss it while seeing something else. I realize good art would convey many ideas, both intended and not, but I want to understand what the author wanted to say as well as what I may see in the piece, too. And more often than not I tend to miss. It is still interesting when it happens though.

Architecture is such an interesting field, balancing between creativity and strict math and physics. A bit like music, but more visual. Never had an inclination towards it myself, though, but I can see where you're coming from. Sorry about your experience in school. That reminded me of a quote from a Russian movie "The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!" that I mentioned to you before. There two characters, a surgeon and a teacher, talk about their professions:

-It is so hard to have your own opinion when you're a surgeon. What if you're mistaken? And mistakes of doctors cost a lot to the people.
-Yes... The mistakes of teachers are less visible, but in the end, they are just as costly.

Sad that a person like that was allowed to teach a subject as personal as drawing. I didn't have a good art teacher either. She was not critical or heartless per se, just indifferent, she would always just tell us "draw what you like" and do nothing the whole class. We never learned about composition or shadow or color combinations, no theory of art at all. And in my school, art class was in, well, a cellar, so the light was never good either.

But despite your teacher, you are drawing now. And you really do have a great perception of colour.

[Saka]

@DoctorEldritch The notes are orange, shades of gold and pale gold, and one is pink. The gradation from purple spectrum to red is intended, I just didn't have a specific train of thought behind it. But colours are a spectrum, so is music. The difficulties that CI recipients face also are on a spectrum. It's not a single shade or tone.



Sadly, the bad teachers can really ruin a lot. You generally spot the consequences easier in strict science, but it doesn't mean arts are affected any less. My grades took a harsh nosedive in high school due to a lot of teachers preferring a monologue as the way of carrying out the class. I had no accommodations for my hearing loss and really struggled to follow. Any notes I managed to conjure up were generally incomplete. Unfortunately, I was not getting any understanding from people for my struggles and just accused of being lazy.

If you have any hearing loss, processing speech takes a lot of added cognitive effort. Especially if the loss is profound and hearing aids barely allow to understand the speech at all. Generally, any way of splitting attention, for example to take notes, is out of the question. Unfortunately, I wasn't raised to advocate for my needs back then and my family kept downplaying my hearing loss. I learned much more as an adult about how my hearing doesn't work. Funnily enough, when I was studying in a way that fit my abilities (a lot of self-study, combing through research and textbooks, skipping all the audio and video content), I excelled in the subjects that I struggled with at my earlier education. I guess, I managed to prove to my family that I am not lazy or stupid, just deaf and burned out. It was years later though, and most people are no longer in the picture.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka Did you choose the notes randomly, or did you have some melody in mind when drawing them, even if notes do not actually transcribe into that melody?

In school, I was very bad in strict sciences. Biology was ok, but chemistry and physics were bad. I remember my chemistry teacher demanded us to learn Mendeleev table elements and all their numbers by heart and would fail us if we got it wrong. Not sure if this is how teachers in other countries or schools teach it, but I did not like it, for us, it came down to memorization skills rather than understanding the subject. When I grew older, I regretted how those subjects, interesting and important, were given to me when I was a child, I thought it was a shame.

Your story reminded me of that short cartoon series El Deafo that I mentioned before, the main character there, based on the story's real-life author, had to wear a big backpack-like device to school and give her teacher a microphone to wear to be able to hear. But in that cartoon, the teacher is more understanding and does not accuse the heroine of laziness as it happened to you. Is the situation better for the kids with hearing loss now?

I can imagine that such constant cognitive effort could be taxing, and family matters can be complicated. But you managed to find a way to study that works better for you, which is important, not to give up in the face of such hurdles.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka We're past Friday now, do you know the results yet?