Hello, welcome to another chapter, before reading I would just like to say that I made this chapter at the suggestion of a review. Unfortunately the person who suggested it is identified just as Guest, so Guest if you're reading this, thanks for the suggestion and I hope you enjoyed the chapter.
Episode 4 - Art Appreciation
Alan's POV
"This is art." I said while holding a painting in my hands.
"APPRECIATE IT!" I yelled as I brought the Mona Lisa painting closer to the POD 000.
Suddenly the Mona Lisa in my hands disappeared, it was just a hologram created by POD 001.
"Welcome to another episode ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry for using a fake Mona Lisa, but the real one as well as many other works of art have been locked away in a vault by the Human Heritage Recovery Management Organization." I started walking through the white corridors of the gallery where I was.
"Today we are going to talk about art, but first we need to answer a question. What is art? Quite a subjective question isn't it? Art, from the Latin ars, means technique or skill, but that is the dictionary definition. For you who are watching us, what is art? For me, art is a way for human beings to express themselves, I know it's the most generic answer possible, but that's what I believe."
I stopped in front of a big white wall.
"We are here in this abandoned art gallery to talk about some of the ways human beings used to express themselves. But first, how about we talk a little about the history of this place?" I said as I opened my arms and showed the gallery.
"This is an art gallery, a long time ago works of art were displayed here for humans to know and appreciate imagine humans walking through these halls with their family and friends, paintings hanging on the walls, works by Da Vinci, sculptures and high reliefs by Donatello and Michelangello, but art is not just paintings and sculptures."
I walked towards a big white wall POD 001 recording me and POD 000 following me.
"Art can also be architecture, drawing, writing, music, dance, theater and cinema."
With every word I said, POD 000 displayed an image on the wall, the interior of the Roman Pantheon, the Vitruvian Man, an image of The Divine Comedy, an orchestra playing in a theater, a couple dancing tango, a group performing Shakespeare's Hamlet and the sequence of a galloping horse by Eadweard Muybridge.
"For today we will focus on architecture, painting and sculptures." As I said this POD 000 displayed several examples of the types of art I cited.
"But before we have to talk a little about the history of art, the term art as we know it today started to be used from the 18th century onwards, in the past the word art was used to talk about some kind of skill, sewing clothes was art, carving wooden furniture was an art, forging a sword was an art."
I said to the PODs with emotion in my voice, I'm not going to lie I'm imitating my art teacher a little; he liked to ramble on for hours about art.
"Now if you would be so kind as to accompany me I will show you the first part of our exhibition on the history of art." I said doing my best imitation of a guide, I gave the POD a smile as I leaned slightly to the left and extended my arm towards a hallway.
Walking down the hall I stopped in front of a wall where a long time ago there was probably a painting.
"When we think about art we most often imagine well-known paintings and sculptures, but art is older than it looks, art has been around since prehistoric times."
POD 000 displayed on the wall an image of cavemen wearing animal skins and carrying spears.
"As you can see, this is the human being in his beginnings, when he lived in caves and needed to hunt to survive."
Have you ever wondered what it was like to live at that time? I have, and learned firsthand what it was like to hunt without firearms and live in a cave. After all, there aren't many humans walking around the planet, I had to make do to survive.
"Paleolithic and Neolithic humans created what is known today as Rock Art. And how do we know this? Through archaeological evidence in the form of paintings on cave walls."
POD 001 displayed images of paintings found on cave walls, there were drawings of deer-like animals, bulls, elephants and tigers, some of these images showed men carrying spears, bows and arrows around these animals, most likely a hunt.
I went forward as if there was a group of visitors accompanying me, stopping in front of another empty wall where there was probably a painting, I continued the explanation.
"Around the Neolithic period, human beings became sedentary, developed agriculture and religion became part of their daily lives, from there some sculptures emerged..."
POD 001 displayed the image of the Venus sculpture of Willendorf.
"And the megalithic monuments, which for those who don't know is a monumental construction based on stone blocks."
POD 000 displayed the images of the Stonehenge monument in England and the Cromlech of Almendres in Portugal.
"As you can see, art has existed for thousands of years, from the time when human beings lived in caves, and new types of art emerged when they became sedentary, art changed according to the environment they were in and the life they lived in. now if you can accompany me, let's go to the second part of our exhibition."
Once again I smiled as I leaned over and reached for a new session of the exhibit.
"Now we're going to take a big leap in time and talk about ancient art, starting with some of the earliest human civilizations, Egypt and Mesopotamia."
POD 000 displayed the image of the pyramids and some maps comparing ancient Mesopotamia with countries today.
"The history of these civilizations deserve their own episodes, we won't talk about that today. Due to having organized societies, the art produced by the artists and artisans of these civilizations was complex, the Egyptians focusing on religious art..."
POD 001 displayed images of Tutankhamun's funerary mask, and a painting of the tomb chamber of Nefertiti, wife of Ramses II.
"Mesopotamian art was focused on exhibitionism and luxury, but there was also religious art."
POD 000 displayed the gate image of the goddess Inanna depicting the Lion of Inanna, and a statue of a Lamassu, a deity in the form of a winged bull with a human head.
"Why did humans represent this kind of creature Administrator Alan?" POD 001 asked.
"Good question POD! I believe that the most accepted answer is to represent the phenomena of nature. The human being did not know how to explain the lightning that fell from the sky, the flooding of rivers, earthquakes, the growth of plants and much more, so they attributed the source of these phenomena to some god or divine creature. Humans represented them in sculptures, engravings, high reliefs."
"Interesting..." POD 001 replied.
"Now we will move on to the next part of our exhibition, the section on Classical Art." Once again I went to an exhibition area of the place; the group of imaginary visitors accompanied me.
"Western art has undergone a great evolution due to the art of Ancient Greece; one of the greatest works of art of ancient Greece is its architecture, especially in the construction of temples..."
POD 000 showed the image of the Pantheon.
"In terms of sculptures, there was a great representation of the human body, having as some of its greatest artists Polyclitus and Praxiteles."
POD 001 showed an image of Polyclitus' Doryphorus and POD 000 showed an image of Aphrodite of Cnidus carved by Praxiteles.
"A curiosity about this work is that it is considered one of the most copied works of art in the world." I said while pointing to the Aphrodite of Cnidus."
"Due to the large amount of copies, would it be possible to find the original?" POD 000 asked.
"Who knows POD, the war against the machines has caused a lot of destruction, many of the artworks preserved today could end up being a copy, not to mention of course the theft of artworks that occurred in the past and still occur today, Van Gogh paintings in a vault could be copies and the real ones could be in the collection of some wealthy android."
I said with a little sadness in my voice, so many works of art lost or stolen during this war, whether out of idolatry of humans, or some android wanting to brag of owning a painting made by a famous human.
"Really a pity." POD 000 replied.
"Certainly." POD 001 has completed.
"Well, let's get out of this depressing mood and continue our exposition to one of my favorite sections, Medieval Art."
We continued walking and arrived at a different area of the exhibition.
"Medieval art was derived from the art of Rome, there was an explosion of Christian art due to Christianity being established as the religion of the Roman Empire, the classical art of Rome came to be used to represent a religious doctrine, but with time this art style was divided into several schools, such as basilicas and mosaics."
The images of a Byzantine mosaic in the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna and the facade of the Cathedral of Amiens.
"Ladies and gentlemen I hope you are enjoying our little tour, but unfortunately we are nearing the end, only two more sections to go."
We went to the next section of the building.
"Here we will talk about Art in the Modern Age, which started in the Renaissance, which was a period of great cultural splendor in Europe, religion had less influence on art and gave way to a more scientific and humanist vision, among some of the greatest artists of that time we have Leonardo da Vinci, Donato di Níccolo, better known as Donatello and Donato di Angello better known as Bramante."
"Let's talk a little bit about one of those artists, Da Vinci."
POD 000 exhibited a portrait of Leonardo da Vinci by Francesco Melzi.
"Leonardo da Vinci, born in Italy was a man of many talents, you could say he was more of an inventor than an artist, and before you ask. No! There is no code related to him!"
I said angrily to the POD, the influence that certain books can have is absurd.
"Excuse me for my little outburst, let's continue." I said nervously.
"Leonardo Da Vinci was a scientist, mathematician, inventor, engineer, anatomist, painter, architect, poet, and sculptor; I'm probably forgetting something else he was. Born the illegitimate son of Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Catherina, in Vinci, in the Florence region, Da Vinci was educated by renowned Florentine painter, Verrocchio."
POD 001 displayed a series of maps, thus showing the location of the place I'm talking about.
"Some of Da Vinci's most famous works were the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper."
Both paintings were exhibited by the PODs.
"A Fun Fact about The Last Supper is that the painting had to be repainted and restored at the time when Da Vinci was still painting, this was due to the painting being done on a wall in a cafeteria whose kitchen was on the other side of the wall, this caused the mixture used to make the paint to melt."
"We will now move on to the last section of our exhibition, the Contemporary Art section."
THE PODs and I went to one last area of the abandoned art gallery.
"In the middle of the 19th and 20th centuries, contemporary art emerged, with the end of absolutism and the beginning of democratic governments, also having as influence the Industrial Revolution and the beginning of Capitalism. Some fields of this type of art are realism, impressionism, cubism and surrealism."
So I took a deep breath at the somewhat controversial subject I was about to say.
"Do you remember the beginning of our program where I asked what art is? Well from here things start to get a little weird about what counts as art or not. Some works of art are a little difficult to understand, but if you are willing to spend a few minutes observing it, you can understand what is happening with Pablo Picasso's Guernica."
POD 000 displayed the aforementioned painting.
"Look at this, if you spend just ten seconds looking at a painting, it's just scribbling and weird images, but if you stop long enough to appreciate it and know the context behind the painting you'll be able to understand what it represents. So we got into a sensitive subject, because some people try to sell something as art, but they end up in a kind of limbo, divided into two sides, those who say the work is art and those who say it's not."
POD 000 and POD 001 looked at each other confused and then looked at Alan.
"Administrator Alan, what are you trying to say?" POD 000 asked.
"Why doesn't Administrator Alan get straight to the point?" POD 001 asked.
I took a deep breath.
"You will understand soon PODs, an example of what I am trying to say is paintings made by animals, where someone gives a brush, paint and a canvas to some intelligent animal like a crow or a monkey and lets them paint, the result ends up being a lot of paint stains, so far there is no problem, the problem happens when they try to sell these paintings for millions of dollars, that is, the currency used in the country where the painting was made."
"I'm not saying that the animal doesn't deserve congratulations for being able to paint, but people exaggerate in selling that for millions. But here comes a question. Why? Why would anyone buy this for millions? And answer is, because it's exotic, people don't buy the painting made by a crow because it's a work of art, but because it's exotic, unique, how many paintings made by a crow do you know? If I tried to paint like a crow, no one would buy my paintings, it would be considered rubbish."
I took a deep breath to calm myself down, straightened my clothes and hair and continued my explanation.
"Let's try another example, when an animal makes an 'art' then it's exotic and it's sold for millions that I can even accept. But what happens when a human being does this? What happens when the human being does something that goes into limbo whether it's art or not? Well, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the banana taped to the wall."
The PODs looked confused at each other again, POD 000 'shrugged' and flashed the image I mentioned.
"Does this, ladies and gentlemen, can be considered art? This is a question; seriously, answer me, because I can't say. First of all I'm not saying that the person who made it isn't an artist; I'll bet he's an extremely talented person, but this... I don't know what to say. Even I can do that, but I doubt I'd get a penny. The worst part is that 'art critics' seeing this try to give a bigger meaning to something simple, it's a banana stuck to the wall, nothing more, nothing less."
"If you doubt me, once a museum did an experiment to find out what people consider art nowadays, so a pair of glasses was placed on the floor in a corner of the museum, people stopped in front of the glasses and took photos, some tried to give it a greater meaning, trying to say what the artist wanted to represent, but in the end there was nothing, it was just a pair of glasses that was left there."
I think it's best to stop before I end up saying something I regret.
"Well that's the end of our tour, thanks for choosing our art gallery, for those of you who don't know I'm Alan your humble guide, don't forget to stop by the gift shop and buy some souvenirs."
I signaled the PODs to stop recording.
"I think that's enough PODs for today, let's go home."
When I was leaving the gallery, I realized that I had taken a big turn and was in the place where I had started the recording, apparently I don't notice my surroundings when I'm talking about something I like.
"Affirmative Administrator Alan." Both PODs responded.
When we left the gallery I had to bend down to avoid the head of a machine that passed over me, I heard sounds of fighting coming from a street ahead, with the thunder knife in my hands I started to approach the corner of the street, with my body glued to the wall, I looked at what was happening.
There were two Yorha androids, one male and one female, they had just fought a group of machines and were now talking.
"9S what is going on?" The female android asked the male android in an emotionless voice.
"What do you mean 2B?" The male android, now identified as 9S asked.
"You've been distracted lately; it could end up affecting your performance during missions."
"Oh! That! Recently there have been unknown transmissions on an open channel, when investigating the transmissions I found that they were coming from an unknown android accompanied by a POD." 9S said to 2B with happiness in his voice.
"A POD?" 2B asked with a little surprise in his voice.
"Two PODs actually, the android got one more somehow."
"Two PODs? So you mean an unknown android is in possession of Yorha's property? We must report to the commander immediately."
"I believe that will not be necessary." 9S replied as he averted his gaze and scratched the back of his head.
"And why is that?" 2B asked.
"As she already knows, Commander White has not banned any Yorha android from watching the broadcasts as long as it doesn't affect our performance, in fact it has improved morale, lowered the serious mood of the BUNKER a bit."
"Hmm! And what are these broadcasts about?" 2B asked.
"Oh! They are about different themes, human society, culture, folklore..." 9S started to ramble, it was hard to tell if 2B was listening or not.
"9S shouldn't we go to the resistance camp?"
"You are right! We should speak to the resistance leader in that area."
"So let's go." 2B said.
Then the two androids ran towards the resistance camp.
That was close, I thought as I wiped the sweat from my forehead. 2B and 9S so those are the names of these androids, from what I hear the Commander allowed my program to continue. Good to know, at least I won't have to worry about Yorha hunting me down.
"PODs let's go home."
"Affirmative!" Both PODs responded.
1?: Why is this so hard?!
The first voice asked as it sat on a stool with a painter's canvas in front of it, a brush in one hand and a palette of paint in the other.
?: Maybe because we are artificial intelligences.
1?: What do you mean by that?
?: The imagination of humans is influenced by their experiences in understanding the world around them. We are artificial intelligences, we didn't have time to learn, we were already 'born' with all the information in our heads, and we don't have imagination. Why would we bother to create an original painting if we already have all the paintings stored in our databases? Why write a book if we already have all the books?
1?: So you mean it's impossible for me to create a painting or write a book?
?: Not impossible, but difficult, you would need to see the world for yourself, and develop imagination, but you can't do that here.
The second voice said as it opened its arms, the voices were in a two-story house overlooking the beach, for less than a second the beach disappeared giving way to a white void, soon the beach had returned.
1?: This is something complicated, I don't understand how humans managed to create so many things out of their imagination and creativity, but today's episode was quite informative, I'll watch it until I find what I'm looking for.
?: That's what I'm talking about, you can't create just by watching, you have to live, experience it first hand, proof that you don't know how to create is the religious imitation you are creating in the desert.
1?: How do you...
?: It may not seem like it, but I'm always watching, after all I can't just rely on androids to protect my admin.
2?: This is something that confuses me. Why don't you trust androids, after all you don't have the same creator?
A third voice asked while looking at itself in a mirror, the owner of this voice imitated various facial expressions in front of the mirror, but they always came out distorted and exaggerated.
?: Let's put it this way, a long time ago the androids had a mission but they failed, due to that I decided to do things myself, after all it's like the saying goes 'If you want something done right, do it yourself '.
2?: Do it yourself? Hmm!
The third voice made a thoughtful expression in front of the mirror, once again distorting it's face.
END OF CHAPTER
Thanks for reading this far, leave your reviews about what you thought of the chapter. Suggestions and criticisms about improvements are welcome.
Until the next chapter.