Friday, August 03, 2007

Splash du Jour: Friday

The serial number of a human specimen is the face, that accidental and unrepeatable combination of features. It reflects neither character nor soul, nor what we call the self. The face is only the serial number of a specimen.
-- Milan Kundera, in Immortality, Ch.3 –

I have just started what promises to be a fascinating book by Milan Kundera, entitled Immortality.
I picked this book up at a used bookstore off of Yonge Street in Toronto, for all of $1.00.
At the start of the novel the protagonist muses upon the lingering image of a woman he saw only briefly, and it seems that the entire novel may be based upon a single gesture she made to a lifeguard at a swimming pool.
She had looked up, smiled and waved at him.
Already he [Kundera, through his fictional character] has discussed many philosophical speculations… and I’m only on page 15!
For instance, the above excerpt is from a more prolonged discussion of the attributes of a possible Creator.
Isn’t the above image, the woman, beautiful?
Symmetrically perfect and all?
It’s quite the “serial number”.
Thing is… she is not at all real. It is a computer-generated image.
Check out This Fascinating Website on the subject!

Have a great Friday!

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1 comment:

Beth said...

So now "real" women have to compete with that??? Damn.

I wonder what a computer can generate with my face?

(I'm off to check out that site.)