Document Decay by The Vixen
December 30th, 2007 3:19 AMThe original proof of this task outlined a weak rant on the state of the world (mainly: Chicago after Lollapalooza) and the apparently incurable habit of littering. It kind of sucked. Anyways, I've been task hungry for a while and since all the proofs I'm working on are still in their infancy, I decided to sift through my older completions and see what I could re-do. As this task was the only submission of mine that didn't have any votes, I thought:
"Hmm... I should milk this unsubmission thing and see if I can spiff up my existing tasks a little..."
The first idea that came to mind when I first saw this task was to document the process of aging. Though many age gracefully and our cells continue to reproduce, we inevitably decay over time. Unfortunately, there really isn't any way to document rapid physical change of one's visage unless the said documentation involves the life cycle of a blemish. However, though I've exposed quite a lot on this site, I don't think I'm ready for that kind of openness...
And I'm way too impatient to document myself aging over the next 50 years.
Then I thought, "ONLINE AGING SOFTWARE TO THE RESCUE!!"
I searched around for a bit, found a cool example on youtube and finally stumbled upon a site called the University of St. Andrews Face Transformer.
So the quality of the resulting stills is kind of crappy, but it's still really hilarious (and sometimes creepy) to see yourself at the different stages of life. When I began, I was required to indicate my gender and "race." The "races" included "Afro-Caribbean," "Caucasian," "East-Asian," and "West-Asian." An Anthropologist NIGHTMARE!!!! I decided to suck it up and chose "West-Asian" (I'm half Indian for those who don't know). I then had to indicate the age group of my face. I mistakenly hit "teenager" instead of "young adult" but I think the results turned out just fine (the older adult version of me makes me look 70!!). Here's the real time image:
I was then given a zillion options (the site also transforms your face to different "races," different artist styles, an example of drunkenness and "Neanderthal" style. However, since this tasks calls for decay, I'll save the other images for later.
The first option is for a Baby image.
CREEPY!!!!I swear I didn't look like that as a child!!! Here's the proof:
I'm the one on the left, gorging myself with cake. Ok, so maybe I do look a little similar, but only because I look completely wasted/drugged up in both photos.
The next image was supposed to be me as a Child but I instead decided that it looked more like me as a young teenager.
Real example.
No resemblance there.
Young Adult came next. When I first saw this image, I was horrified "I better not look like that when I become an adult!" Oh right... I AM an adult (or so I'd like to think...) and I accidently labeled myself as a teenager..."
See above for actual example.
The next was the one worth waiting for. The image that every person dreads, the Older Adult. But I can tell you, I was damn excited! Would I be a sexy elderly Vixen??? But when the image finally loaded, I laughed. Hard. Because it came out exactly like I expected. Now keep in mind, the following image is an example of what KristinawithaK would look like. No way in hell would The Vixen allow herself to decay in such fashion. She would have gotten 15 facelifts by then, not to mentions botox injections, hair implants, a new set of teeth and some sort of futuristic surgery to slow the inevitable growth of her nose:
I look like an old, cranky Punjabi lady who refuses to go to temple because her naan and butter chicken haven't been cooked yet. Come to think of it, she actually resembles an aunt of mine... I guess I lucked out; her butter chicken kicks ass!
In conclusion, I am extremely happy that my hair retained it's youthfulness and didn't succumb to the decay that my face fell victim to. However, most elderly Punjabi (north Indian) women dye their hair...
To heal your burning eyes, an example of what I would look like if Alphonse Mucha painted me:
I still look a little stoned, but what the hell :)
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It's the decay of the conscience of those who can't seem to see outside of their consumer driven, beer drinking, throwaway culture perspectives. So yes, society. I guess I wrongly assumed that people would pick up on that. Oh well.
But don't worry, I'll be back soon :)
Those pictures are beautiful...the skyline is amazing. On the subject of recyclying, I just had a similar experience in Pennsylvania. I was horrified to see so many recyclable goods being thrown in the trash. It blows my mind.
Thank you for the complement, I appreciate that. I'm beginning to wonder whether the "green" movement is something contained within the west coast. I was in England a month ago visiting some family and they told me that they didn't have a recycling system in their village. It was funny though, since they couldn't wrap their heads around the importance of conservation: they didn't "believe" that the world was being consumed by our wasteful tendencies.
After living for a very short while in Germany, I'm astounded by the wasteful tendencies even here in San Francisco... Every trash can in Berlin seems to have four designations- paper, plastic, glass and trash-trash. Behind my apartment, the bins were even more specific- I've had my head bitten off by little old ladies who were shocked that I was (unknowingly) dumping my brown glass in the green-glass-only container. Best of all were the daily tv-documentaries (sort of after-school specials) that detailed the processing of waste, from your doorstep to new bottles, poly-carbonates, etc.
All I'm really trying to say is, while we may be living in a bubble, there are other bubbles out there too, and hopefully one day they'll connect.
Hopefully we'll all wake up one day. But we need to work for it, and it won't happen just because one community wants it to.
if nuclear winter ever comes around, we'll be thankful for global warming. i'm gonna go kill a tree
This proof was un-submitted - any comments before this one are from before the un-submit.
An interesting and personal take on decay. But, one might have hopes that getting older is not decaying but rather fruition and maturation---just think what great tasking we will be able to do 20 years from now, with several decades more experience.
On an only tangential note, has anyone else wondered why there don't seem to be many people middle-aged or older folks playing SF0, and whether there's a good way to do some outreach to that demographic? I would love to see what a group of retired senior citizens came up with.
Rongo, I've got my hooks into some older people who may become players soon, we'll see...
Rongo: True, with age comes life experience and richness, but my implication that aging is directly related to decay is a joke on myself and wasn't intended to disregard the positive factors of growth.
this is awesome...now that you've linked to this website, i wonder if we'll see a rash of old lady/old man player photographs...so many age spots :)
I hope so!! OLD PERSON PLAYER PAGE FLASH MOB!!!
I just got my parents hooked on the Wii, now I wonder if I can get them hooked on sf0...
I could go to my grandfatehr's retirement home and recruit some players, lol
"I would love to see what a group of retired senior citizens came up with."
I look like an old, cranky Punjabi lady who refuses to go to temple because her naan and butter chicken haven't been cooked yet.Ha! :)
On the subject of SF0 player age, who are the oldest players? I suspect I might even be one of them, and I'm only 27. There's Lank and Burn Unit, yes, but who else is older than 27?
I'd name some people but... that would be a little rude.
what?... this is awesome. i want to be a painting... wonder what i'd look like if klimt painted me.
I can't believe I never voted for this.
Here's a Fleur.
I recycle! I may live in Chicago, but I still recycle...
... But I am also originally from the Bay Area, so my hand twitches when I hold something recyclable and my breath gets shallow if there isn't a recycling receptacle at hand. I don't think I will ever acclimate.
So explain to me... what is decaying here? Definitely not the plastic. Society maybe?
And thanks again for letting me cart you around behind my bicycle. Please come again!