Post AoN3nF673EMStJqA4m by pdcawley@mendeddrum.org
(DIR) More posts by pdcawley@mendeddrum.org
(DIR) Post #AoMpG95Mz3ylKZohUm by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T12:05:46Z
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OK one more musing about human pre-history. We have many cave paintings from all around the world and they almost always show animals, the accuracy and beauty of these drawings of the fauna are such that we can tell the sex, age and exact species in many cases. There is a wall of animal footprints carved in stone and you can tell the age and sex of the animals *from the prints* our ancestors knew the natural world intimately and made careful records of this knowledge. 1/
(DIR) Post #AoMpSUxNUejKdby8O0 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T12:07:59Z
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So, that makes it more remarkable that what you almost never ever find in this kind of painting are human faces. Possibly there will be human forms... humans hunting and running and swimming, having sex and giving birth... but the humans are like abstracted shadows. Sometimes with pinheads, hardly ever with eyes. And practically NEVER a face. It's very tempting to make up a taboo about drawing faces. A cultural rule, but I think it has to go deeper than that. 2/
(DIR) Post #AoMpgBQQuJq27I5JPE by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T12:10:29Z
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I'm speaking very broadly, about tens of thousands of years of human history across multiple continents and contexts. And where you find the fine careful paintings of wildlife you DO NOT find human faces.I think it says that people must not have felt motivated to make such drawings of the face, that they didn't like it or see it as useful. They also didn't do drawings of IDK, insects very often. Insects were not as important as the large animals they hunted and that hunted them. 3/
(DIR) Post #AoMppzYbt5dsCiaQYy by rayhindle@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T12:12:13Z
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@futurebird Perhaps, like Odo in DS9, they found faces “difficult?”
(DIR) Post #AoMprZV7jd5DyHi1jc by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T12:12:33Z
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But it still is very strange since when modern children start drawing one of the first things they will draw are faces. Faces dominate our minds, the brain seems to process faces in special ways that other things are not.I wish I could go back and just ask them... why not draw some portraits so we could see the emotions and faces of all of you people of the past?This makes me think they saw the world in radically different ways that we do now. 4/4
(DIR) Post #AoMpyfo8gXjZYfzQSe by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T12:13:49Z
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@rayhindle Maybe the uncanny valley made any attempt so creepy and horrible they might have tried it once or twice but quickly agree that such paintings were not "good"Meanwhile we churn out AI art even though everyone keeps screaming about how creepy it is.
(DIR) Post #AoMpzxmTLZw3afpDyC by daniel@mstdn.degu.cl
2024-11-24T12:13:50Z
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@futurebird What are the first face paintings documented?
(DIR) Post #AoMqPJJmPR2TcuUVUm by falcennial@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T12:18:36Z
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@futurebird WOW!!!
(DIR) Post #AoMqRaYtGhuDgbe47k by ptmesis@writing.exchange
2024-11-24T12:19:03Z
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@futurebird I'd never thought of that. That's interesting.One hypothesis is that these drawing are usually highly stylized. An animal, or a person needs to be reduced and abstracted to a kind of stick figure before it can be drawn. Perhaps because we read so much into the face and because the is so much subtlety there, it took much longer for us to collectively abstract the face to the level of a pictogram, where we felt comfortable drawing it.
(DIR) Post #AoMqTEfpcQ44Nfg36W by falcennial@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T12:19:20Z
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@futurebird @rayhindle I love this question. I am going to bed INSPIRED. thank you.
(DIR) Post #AoMqfvn98IXNaG9VGi by mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz
2024-11-24T12:21:37Z
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@futurebird and when they start building civilizations, that's when you see faces. But they're always portraits of the big leaders and gods, at first. The face as a representation of power.
(DIR) Post #AoMqh8ioXodTyXhbQe by JetlagJen@geekdom.social
2024-11-24T12:21:38Z
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@futurebird fascinating! Were faces just not important? Was loyalty to the group as a whole, not to individuals? That seems to be how other social animals work. Certainly, our adopted-as-an-adult dog settled in with us in ways that a displaced human might not - think how kids in blended families often struggle.I have to link in this thread from yesterday about how love evolved. I can't help but wildly speculate about how these two conversations might interrelate.https://ohai.social/@Garwboy/113531214616115585
(DIR) Post #AoMqiEUeZTiGAJbFnU by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T12:22:01Z
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@ptmesis Possibly. But many of the drawings of animals are not abstracted, they are absurdly accurate and your average non-artist couldn't render such accurate images of animals. Rendering three dimensional objects flat always requires abstraction, simplification... but so many of these drawings are "realistic" sometimes they are even drawn in a 1:1 scale. I guess if I were a hunter and thought about catching an animal all the time I might draw it to better understand it. To study it?
(DIR) Post #AoMqmhpTRXxKJ6TICu by ptmesis@writing.exchange
2024-11-24T12:21:32Z
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@futurebird In practice, the bridge was built from both sides: we got better at drawing in a non-abstract way, and we developed a more complex abstract visual language.That would suggest that the modern pareidolia, where we see faces even in things like plug sockets is not entirely innate, but at least partially a consequence of our shared language of visual abstractions.
(DIR) Post #AoMr3ZSxn3SrIBz5LE by ptmesis@writing.exchange
2024-11-24T12:25:54Z
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@futurebird That's true. Especially if you're a persistence hunter, and your job is basically to stare at that animal in the distance for days at a time. Perhaps your brain just rewires itself to make more room for animal shapes. Perhaps the fact that we spend so much time looking at each other is more responsible for pareidolia than any innate mechanism.
(DIR) Post #AoMrAWHW1rOrRUwWps by kechpaja@social.kechpaja.com
2024-11-24T12:27:07Z
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@futurebird Perhaps, as is often the case today, those artistic breakthroughs were made by neurodivergent people.(I don't know what the first thing I drew as a child was, but overall my early childhood drawing included far more vacuum cleaners than faces, if the latter featured at all.)
(DIR) Post #AoMrBhHibXwBrGbDmq by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T12:27:16Z
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@JetlagJen I'm deeply skeptical of suggestions that humans in prehistory were mentally radically different from modern humans. They had memes and jokes. They wondered how things worked and had aspirations and dreams. They loved each other and had little conflicts we could recognize I suppose. But, the absence of faces makes me second guess that notion a little. As if, were I a person of that time, I might not recognize the landscape of thoughts I might inhabit.
(DIR) Post #AoMrF1gfCoIE0Hr3Gi by coatilex@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T12:27:58Z
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@futurebird Maybe faces are not as interesting if you can never see your own face? Mirrored surfaces are a relatively recent thing and actual mirrors are even more recent. Yes, you can see some reflection of yourself in water but it's very distorted and faint
(DIR) Post #AoMrGOJCaJ20S8X104 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T12:28:07Z
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@VulpineAmethyst This seems very reasonable. Maybe they didn't draw faces, because looking at your own face was a much more rare thing.
(DIR) Post #AoMrN6WN7IkJJRtPHc by DoubleArobase@toot.aquilenet.fr
2024-11-24T12:29:24Z
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@futurebird I thought that too for the longest time until I ran into ONE example of prehistoric portraits in my town's museum! Sorry I'm ill and can't translate all but please find a way to look at this article : https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/l-entretien-archeologique/la-grotte-de-la-marche-ou-la-naissance-du-portrait-1893432
(DIR) Post #AoMrQHAtxlcrDuMXfU by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T12:30:01Z
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@DoubleArobase But this is remarkable because it's an exception!
(DIR) Post #AoMrfvL2uy668GZL9M by llewelly@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T12:32:50Z
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@futurebird @rayhindle when I was a small child, I went through a phase in which I drew a lot, including many faces. And my mother hated every face I drew. "How did I have a kid that draws such horrible faces!" she'd say, over and over again. Eventually, I quit drawing faces, and anything that might need a face.
(DIR) Post #AoMrhczQ6pmXntGZ9s by catselbow@fosstodon.org
2024-11-24T12:33:08Z
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@futurebird Only one possible conclusion: Early humans were invisible.Visibility didn't evolve until much later. City-states found it difficult to tax invisible citizens, so cities with higher proportions of invisibles had poorer social safety nets and did not flourish.
(DIR) Post #AoMrsdTocvKOVejTDk by DoubleArobase@toot.aquilenet.fr
2024-11-24T12:35:07Z
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@futurebird I'm not disagreeing with your previous point, certainly a lot of cultural changes happened over the world's entire history (and the Western commoner view of prehistoric culture is skewed by horrible ethnology from the previous centuries), I just wanted to add this archeological tidbit to the pile of wonderful things our ancestors did with their time on Earth. Little portraits of themselves. So beautiful!
(DIR) Post #AoMsGbxdvS8skU7H1M by faassen@fosstodon.org
2024-11-24T12:39:26Z
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@futurebirdPeople with autism have an unusual relationship with faces, and are often overwhelmed by them. They also tend to see many details. Perhaps the people going into dark caves to paint were special individuals. Maybe they were on the autistic spectrum.
(DIR) Post #AoMsRfCuCGMk0BWdPc by HydrePrever@mathstodon.xyz
2024-11-24T12:41:22Z
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@futurebird Vallée des merveilles, Parc du Mercantour. This is from neolithic though. Anyway assuming some kind of universal taboo on faces in paleolithic seems very audacious. Keep in mind that only a small part of paleolithic artwork survives. You can't use the art in deep caves, that almost certainly had a special, spiritual status, to draw conclusions about everyday art.
(DIR) Post #AoMseAByox7JZk3L4C by jmax@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T12:43:38Z
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@futurebird @rayhindle Maybe. Or maybe it just wasn't what they wanted to record.When I was a kid, I never understood why my parents wanted me in vacation snapshots. Maybe it's the same viewpoint.(My logic was that they could take pictures of me anytime; the point was to record the vacation. I didn't understand that to them, I was much more transient than the scenery.)
(DIR) Post #AoMshx4fXDty37RJnU by HydrePrever@mathstodon.xyz
2024-11-24T12:44:15Z
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@futurebird I'm pretty sure that children are asked a lot to draw themselves or their parents, especially at school, especially since it has been elevated to the rank of psychological development test. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draw-a-Person_testIt might be useful to look at what children in other cultures draw.
(DIR) Post #AoMt4Cp7ezRDGWmO9o by JetlagJen@geekdom.social
2024-11-24T12:48:25Z
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@futurebird there is an easy trap to fall into around assuming early humans were "just" animals, and I definitely don't want to invoke that.But at *some* point, we diverged from our common ancestors. The anatomical records are relatively complete. The social, mental and emotional steps on our journey are less mapped out.It makes me sit back and think about it all in wonder, much like I do when learning about animal habits that I had assumed were the preserve of humans.
(DIR) Post #AoMtmD6pxWXOtS33Vg by Tiempo@todon.eu
2024-11-24T12:56:22Z
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@futurebird and what about a cultural learning explanation? Like, what you needed to learn was about animals, recognize them, learn to hunt them, etc. And just as when you draw a technical drawing you put more effort onto the machine schematic and people are faceless or featureless , they put more effort in the animals as it was the principal reason to draw? After all, recognize an animal and learn how to hunt it was a matter of life or death, while social interaction (through emotion learning) was not (as opposed to later time, maybe). So you get art and learning as one and the same in this case. Maybe would be interesting to study the movement in the art depiction of things as city develops and social interaction becomes more prevalent than hunting for most of the people with time.
(DIR) Post #AoMu43elqIqamyQlxA by syntaxseed@phpc.social
2024-11-24T12:59:36Z
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@futurebird Interesting!Something that comes to mind is that they would lack mirrors. And without one I only see myself from the shoulders down.Obviously they would see other people's faces but maybe this is some part of it.
(DIR) Post #AoMuO7qpxNf7addyTI by SueDiOh@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T13:03:12Z
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@futurebird @VulpineAmethyst Idk. They saw their own faces reflected in water.
(DIR) Post #AoMuePVU56hqytQBPc by SueDiOh@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T13:06:09Z
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@futurebird @DoubleArobase Maybe those cave drawings were for developing hunting strategies.
(DIR) Post #AoMv7u9PE8o0Q49sQa by DamonWakes@mastodon.sdf.org
2024-11-24T13:11:30Z
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@futurebird Maybe faces were drawn, but using a medium that doesn't last? If children were drawing, it might have been with sticks in the earth, or maybe they were drawing on surfaces that got washed clean by rain. Since the cave paintings were presumably important, you likely wouldn't let your kids doodle in those places. (Similarly, maybe an individual represented by a face wasn't important enough for inclusion among the figures that presumably represented people as a whole.)
(DIR) Post #AoMvkRuU9uy07tYhzE by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T13:18:28Z
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@DamonWakes OK. That seems reasonable. So that makes me ask, why were the drawings done on stone, or carved into stone in places where they could last all over the world mostly drawings of animals and often very realistic animals (but drawn in very different ways in each place, cultural variation) but almost never faces?You are correct we can't assume faces were not drawn in other places. But I still think there is something unanswered here.
(DIR) Post #AoMwEG6mbMqwDBWcim by davep@infosec.exchange
2024-11-24T13:23:51Z
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@futurebird You can see some stick figures in profile with spears hunting their prey, but they don't seem to put the same effort into them. Maybe because people were all around them and the object of desire was the wild boar or auroch or whatever?
(DIR) Post #AoMwLaPxUTwzE7zLdo by NuanceRhymesWithOrange@mstdn.social
2024-11-24T13:25:10Z
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@futurebird perhaps it is related to our notions of time. Paintings of antelope on a cave wall were always useful and relevant, because the antelope were always around in that form.Paintings of human faces on the other hand, capture an ephemeral moment. We age.We may not have cared about memorializing the past. We were rooted in the present reality.Or if we cared about memorializing, maybe stone figurines were a more durable and transportable way of doing that.
(DIR) Post #AoMwV1I2wuDbAzmn1k by anantagd@ieji.de
2024-11-24T13:26:52Z
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@futurebirdThere are theories that point to cave paintings being animated with the aid of flickering light sources. Maybe to enact the hunt in symbolic form almost as a video game. In that case no need to depict the faces of those who took part in this from the human side.
(DIR) Post #AoMwYFuF3zbjNNC7KS by Foxxhoria@chitter.xyz
2024-11-24T13:27:26Z
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@futurebird There were a lot fewer faces back then, and a lot more animals. And while it was helpful to be familiar with the faces of your kin, it would have been more immediately important to have known how to hunt, handle and respect the animals you eat and could eat you, and to share that knowledge down the generations.And I have no idea, but thusly I wouldn't be surprised if many of these cave paintings were painted during such an occasion; elders recounting to the youngers of stories and reverence for the beasts they danced with over their lives, and perhaps such stories that had been passed down to them.
(DIR) Post #AoMx3LEPJXjArwRvnM by tofugolem@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T13:33:04Z
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@futurebird Wild guess: maybe something to do with the Uncanny Valley effect? Sounds like it happened across multiple cultures.
(DIR) Post #AoMyFwcmDIJaGqQCOG by jonquass@techhub.social
2024-11-24T13:46:33Z
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@futurebirdOne thing that has fascinated me is the wall art in the Cueva de las Manos.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cueva_de_las_ManosMy complete guess is that painting a cave wall with hands is more comforting than painting faces looking out at you. While we are obsessed with faces, it's not just to see each other, it's also to pick out predators. Seeing a bunch of eyes in the dark would probably be terrifying.
(DIR) Post #AoMygNUcwIf38CDKjo by JR_Kelly@mapstodon.space
2024-11-24T13:51:17Z
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@futurebird Just speculating: maybe it was an early uncanny valley thing. There are cultures where representation of human faces in photos or drawing is still taboo.
(DIR) Post #AoMz53VwMCoKPKazCa by noplasticshower@infosec.exchange
2024-11-24T13:55:47Z
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@futurebird you might enjoy reading this ...
(DIR) Post #AoMzYnJHAWLwq2quTQ by dnavinci@genomic.social
2024-11-24T14:01:10Z
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@futurebirdThese always bothered me too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cup_and_ring_markThey found these everywhere in the prehistoric world, all across the globe, and they're quite a lot of effort.
(DIR) Post #AoN047tEhd1Jdwc38q by lePetomaneAncien@fosstodon.org
2024-11-24T14:06:50Z
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@futurebird @DamonWakes Mostly animals? My speculation is that the images served symbolic and ceremonial purposes.Draw the image = capture the soul, exert control, make the game a little more abundant, and safer to hunt. Perhaps by cultural consent, you didn't use the same tools to exert control over fellow humans.
(DIR) Post #AoN11QDuBPlhaYYSiO by ngons@mathstodon.xyz
2024-11-24T14:17:31Z
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@futurebird There fantastic figurines, check this one out 25000 years old https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Brassempouy
(DIR) Post #AoN19cRcd2aLoCsaci by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T14:19:03Z
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@ngons Maybe, as more nomadic people it didn't feel so safe to leave image of you, and the people you knew and love in a cave where they'd be alone or something else might find them?But if you could take it with you it was OK?Probably reading too much in to it all ...
(DIR) Post #AoN1E4zsPfypWN1qKm by yonder@spacey.space
2024-11-24T14:18:02Z
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@dnavinci @futurebird There are loads of these where I'm from. It's pretty incredible to go for a walk, and there's just these carvings stone age people made all around*.There are a few theories about them like they're for divining the future, or art. Stuff like that. I finally decided on my own theory, that they are ancient kitchenware, used for grinding up herbs & foodstuffs, like a mortar and pestle.I'd like to think they had some tasty stuff eat and had some epic cookoffs on the moors.
(DIR) Post #AoN1J8VEo22rqH6oAi by Wharrrrrrgarbl@an.errant.cloud
2024-11-24T14:19:59Z
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@ptmesis @futurebird there's a developmental angle to pareidolia that's related to the development of the visual cortex; a few layers down we literally have neurons that fire in response to 😀 shapes showing up on our retinas. My evidence-free speculation is that that stimulus hits different when there's maybe two dozen friendly faces in all of existence and the rest are prey or predators (and the details of those two dozen are too ephemeral to be useful for teaching kids what to look out for) .
(DIR) Post #AoN1oj3IxwhmAw6f6u by benroyce@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T14:26:27Z
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@futurebird i don't necessarily buy it, but there's a book that argues that as late as the ancient greeks: 'The theory posits that the human mind once operated in a state in which cognitive functions were divided between one part of the brain that appears to be "speaking" and a second part that listens and obeys—a bicameral mind—and that the breakdown of this division gave rise to consciousness in humans'that the very notion of self, and self-image, is modernhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameral_mentality
(DIR) Post #AoN23qE0a312lTJwNk by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T14:29:09Z
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@wakame @ptmesis This is my very similar non-expert non-proven theory on some of these works:https://futurebird.tumblr.com/post/740768198010535936/is-this-the-first-human-made-textbook
(DIR) Post #AoN25B0OnwRlVIakC0 by lydiaschoch@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T14:29:13Z
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@futurebird I think you’re right about that.
(DIR) Post #AoN27LemAsMh7KVsjQ by edgeofeurope@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T14:29:23Z
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@futurebird "Faces dominate our minds," the other day I talked music with one of my brothers. He mentioned Queen - the favourite band of our other brother - and I said I never listen to them. I heard it so often that when I think about it, it's there.
(DIR) Post #AoN2DbgdUKOaZSMqUy by ngons@mathstodon.xyz
2024-11-24T14:30:55Z
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@futurebird I have no idea what they thought, but they sure put a lot of effort into their art, including human-like ones. The ~30k year old Venuses from Willendorf and Galgenberg are the highlight I never miss when visiting my local natural history museum in Vienna.
(DIR) Post #AoN2WlUJGuQOTFjmDo by faassen@fosstodon.org
2024-11-24T14:34:25Z
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@futurebird@rayhindle The latest image generation models do a great job on faces. They still break down massively (additional finger or even limb) but faces are fine. They can't do different flower species well at all though.
(DIR) Post #AoN2guf21Pk3oeailE by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T14:36:16Z
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@faassen @rayhindle "but faces are fine."then why do I so often get nausea when looking into their eyes?Maybe we need to do a blind study to see if faces drawn by people vs. AI faces have different impacts. I swear there is something "off" about them but I admit I may be biased and projecting. But... I don't *feel* like that is what I'm doing. I think something is WRONG.
(DIR) Post #AoN2rQLl3bjQzgaXEu by GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai
2024-11-24T14:38:08Z
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@futurebird @ptmesis Also note that an amateur researcher discovered that the cables were also tracking time, and if I recall correctly population numbers.So for some paintings at least they were calendars, or maybe almanacs. And we also forget that anything that humans created that was made of wood or other perishable materials would leave no archaeological record typically. Tally sticks etc, perishable
(DIR) Post #AoN2x4Ohaa3CeAepQ8 by project1enigma@chaos.social
2024-11-24T14:39:10Z
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@futurebird @faassen @rayhindle Perhaps not exactly what you're talking about but you might possibly want to know this page herehttps://detectfakes.kellogg.northwestern.edu/
(DIR) Post #AoN31NCtb6Fm8sBfaS by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T14:39:58Z
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@project1enigma link is broken?
(DIR) Post #AoN34NnVrG3sqIkXU8 by GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai
2024-11-24T14:40:29Z
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@futurebird @wakame @ptmesis You know, I would have a naughty idea that the children would see tracks every day in their lives. They be wandering around with their mother or other relatives and they be going about their business and there would be a deer here, a rabbit there and the bird over there and so on and so forth. The teaching would happen in the moment. But what we see in children everywhere they replicate what they see over and over and over again to build up neuropath ways.
(DIR) Post #AoN3DxUaVzrs9cSoSG by benni@social.tchncs.de
2024-11-24T14:42:12Z
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@futurebird i also wonder why there is so much similarity in these drawings from different continents. was the world one single culture back than? how did they achieve this without traveling faster than by foot?
(DIR) Post #AoN3HGV2Ir29yNFZ7A by tkinias@historians.social
2024-11-24T14:42:49Z
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@futurebird hmm, the link loads for me but the UI is broken (the buttons don’t work)@project1enigma
(DIR) Post #AoN3P701VaaqpDUAt6 by GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai
2024-11-24T14:44:14Z
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@futurebird @JetlagJen I also remember a bit from the story of Ishi’s life, that depictions for First Nations photographs and such for proceeded, capturing the soul of the person, and very problematic because of that.It’s all conjecture, but known sentiments can’t be excluded from the past either
(DIR) Post #AoN3XOqZ2IR8Uj0sVM by faassen@fosstodon.org
2024-11-24T14:45:44Z
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@futurebird@rayhindle I do suspect people overestimate their ability to recognize AI images. There's a lot of sensitivity about AI, understandably enough, that would lead humans to want to distinguish themselves from it (not implying it about you, I esteem you highly as a thinker) . But it could well be I am not skilled enough to see it. A double blind study would be good.I am really impressed by what the latest stuff like flux.d can do. Image gen has come very far in the last few years.
(DIR) Post #AoN3aUY6I9kb33qqNk by Infrogmation@mastodon.online
2024-11-24T14:46:18Z
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@futurebird Modern children grow up in cultures with ubiquitous images of human faces, likely commonly seen before they can pick up a crayon. In addition to the cultural background, for the past 2 centuries also children's books and past century also animated cartoons.
(DIR) Post #AoN3iSgL7LrpZfVOoC by Deixis9@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T14:47:45Z
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@futurebird except for bees i.e. honey
(DIR) Post #AoN3nF673EMStJqA4m by pdcawley@mendeddrum.org
2024-11-24T14:48:35Z
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@futurebird odd too because you also get those beautiful hand stencils, where someone's placed their hand against the wall and blown or spat pigment over it to leave what seems to be, from my end of the telescope at least, some kind of signature or "I was here!" statement. In that context, not representing human faces seems even weirder to me.
(DIR) Post #AoN49Ud5z57dQwsTRI by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T14:52:38Z
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@DavidM_yeg @project1enigma @tkinias It worked the second time I loaded it. I hope they update it with the newest and "best" images. I can get these questions right all of the time, but I know that AI images are growing more advanced and I don't think I have magic power to always spot them.
(DIR) Post #AoN4Dur4Q96fvdWVGK by nen@mementomori.social
2024-11-24T14:53:24Z
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@futurebird @rayhindle Exactly what I was going to suggest first. In a small community the important faces you'd draw would be faces you've always seen around. Realistic drawings of familiar faces would almost always seem wrong. It requires exceptional skill to draw a face well, and more so if people know the person. The people you know well often don't look like themselves even in *photos*!
(DIR) Post #AoN4L4F9ueb94dCUoS by sbourne@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T14:54:42Z
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@futurebird But there are hand prints. Perhaps what they did and made with their hands was more distinctive than what their faces looked like. Or perhaps pictures were for beings that could not leave their own mark.
(DIR) Post #AoN4NFrRgqRFgT9TjU by dan613@ottawa.place
2024-11-24T14:55:07Z
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@futurebird Kids are mostly indoors, now. The only animals they see regularly are family. But we don't know what prehistoric children drew in the mud and sand. I expect these drawings were teaching tools for young hunters. One cave had marks on each animal that were later found to correspond to the length of the respective gestation periods.
(DIR) Post #AoN4QhP9juxryhYuLg by Infrogmation@mastodon.online
2024-11-24T14:55:42Z
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@futurebird I'm sorry I don't remember the details, but decades ago I read an anthropologist's account of time with an isolated tribe that still used stone-age technology. Anthro had brought a Polaroid self-developing camera and took some snapshots of some of the people, and found they didn't recognize anything in the still photos. Antrho said it was because there was no movement. Anthro came back next year with video camera and display, and they recognized that enthusiastically.
(DIR) Post #AoN4rg58lY1Nh642vA by Myerman@toot.bldrweb.org
2024-11-24T15:00:36Z
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@futurebird I’ve thought about this a lot in my art practice especially as I’ve turned more and more to petroglyphs from the Americas as a source of inspiration. I agree it’s easy to turn to taboo as an easy way out here - might be true of some groups but not all. Certainly I can see where painting an individual face - much like taking a photograph- might have been considered capturing their soul as in some kind of sorcery. But also humans didn’t see themselves as the center of creation until relatively recently so, maybe that too.
(DIR) Post #AoN56FDWvkHMibvzrk by TasDave@aus.social
2024-11-24T15:03:02Z
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@futurebird@sauropods.winthnk you for this collective thread of thoughtful theorising. 🙏
(DIR) Post #AoN58f3Rq3LFQmN3ya by JR_Kelly@mapstodon.space
2024-11-24T15:03:34Z
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@futurebird @rayhindle Yes! I think this is it. An appreciation for the creepy or disturbing is acquired through cultural exposure (subculture?).
(DIR) Post #AoN5YmaOSYg0JnEjbM by tinydoctor@mstdn.social
2024-11-24T15:08:19Z
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@futurebird @faassen @rayhindle Whenever I see an online image, particularly a face or faces, that even slightly "looks too good" not necessarily because it's attractive, but somehow too perfect in composition or definition or composition, I think it's a deep fake or AI. I feel like I might be living in the uncanny valley. Perfection is a kind of hatred. AI hates the human face perfectly.
(DIR) Post #AoN6MS5ivsE3EaZjPM by tinydoctor@mstdn.social
2024-11-24T15:16:41Z
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@futurebird @faassen @rayhindle Of course, more and more images I see strike me that way. I don't know whether that's because the number of AI etc. images are increasing so fast, or whether it's a perverse sort of pareidolia on my part. Or both.
(DIR) Post #AoN6WuqasCkPJbUJQe by cshlan@dawdling.net
2024-11-24T15:19:12Z
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@futurebirdMaybe it's cultural for kids today, too? We see many artworks of the human form and faces all around us. Maybe as kids that's what we expect we're supposed to create.
(DIR) Post #AoN6yCdIr3TOIMHaca by xepia_@social.bau-ha.us
2024-11-24T15:24:12Z
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@futurebird @wakame @ptmesis "Faces dominate our minds" had me thinking about genres where faces are not a desirable feature of the portrayed, so:In (mainstream het) porn the males' faces are often held off-screen (or cast to be of average or subpar attractiveness, hardly worth looking at). I believe it's to encourage sentiments like "He's not a competitor" or "This could be me".To add yet another tuppence. Might even go along with your teaching theory ("This is you with a spear/child/...").
(DIR) Post #AoN7LCgooHab8CtX4y by cshlan@dawdling.net
2024-11-24T15:28:17Z
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@futurebird@JetlagJenI feel like that's another thing that has to do with population density. The more people there are around you the more weight human interactions will have on determining what's important in getting along. It seems to me that would affect the stories we tell, the art we make, and the information we feel the need to pass on.
(DIR) Post #AoN7hkGEfozbcbD2jg by nowan@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T15:32:26Z
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@futurebird I have heard that many small group based societies (eg, modern hunter gatherers) put what to us would be an absurd amount of effort into social cohesion. A drawing of a person would always be a specific individual, and having a specific person's face on the wall of your cave door generations would have a huge impact on social order, making that person and his/her descendants stand out.
(DIR) Post #AoN8QmB8OFrybIIOPY by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T15:40:35Z
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@tshirtman @project1enigma @faassen @rayhindle This could have been so wholesome, but that ant has an antennae growing out of her mouth. And her front leg is at an unnatural angle as is the right antennae. I don't know of any ant with creases like that on their head... oh.and maybe it's a little large. Sadly I don't think any ant is this big.
(DIR) Post #AoN8UT4fMTlOVY1xce by tkinias@historians.social
2024-11-24T15:40:24Z
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@tshirtman I had a different one with a child playing with a giant ant...@project1enigma @futurebird @faassen @rayhindle
(DIR) Post #AoN8UUaFkWclBnohUm by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T15:41:14Z
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@tkinias @tshirtman @project1enigma @faassen @rayhindle Don't look at me! I don't know why that is happening!
(DIR) Post #AoN8lmvwmIwP1WDA8m by tkinias@historians.social
2024-11-24T15:43:56Z
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@project1enigma Once I got the UI to work, what struck me is that I was over-aggressive about calling images fake—they did a good job of inserting real photos with fake-like features (e.g., bland-looking vaguely attractive person standing in a featureless hall or over-processed photos with very airbrushed-looking facial features) that kind of broke my go-to ‘tells’. @futurebird @faassen @rayhindle
(DIR) Post #AoN8nMrkfToakt0CCu by tkinias@historians.social
2024-11-24T15:44:36Z
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@futurebird the myrmepropaganda is working...@tshirtman @project1enigma @faassen @rayhindle
(DIR) Post #AoN9c41gTQH95qp0Xw by CuriousMagpie@beige.party
2024-11-24T15:53:47Z
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@futurebird If my memory serves, and it doesn’t always, one of the explanations for cave art is that it was a spiritual/magical work. Imagine crawling into a cave, perhaps even very deep into a cave system, similar to going into the womb of the Earth. You are aware that all life emerges from the womb of the animal, or the deep earth.And you paint representations of the animals that you want to honor - for the life that they offer you and your tribe - and to successfully hunt. You are asking the great mother/spirit of the earth to supply you with the abundance of these animals. I don’t know a lot of cave art but perhaps during times of drought, they would also paint plant life that they depended on.Humans are not on the menu, so they are not depicted in any detail.
(DIR) Post #AoN9zSmcarNyXJvy1A by faassen@fosstodon.org
2024-11-24T15:58:02Z
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@futurebird @tkinias @tshirtman @project1enigma @rayhindle I didn't get a giant ant picture! I blame you somehow anyway
(DIR) Post #AoNA5mnv4LLMMrYXSq by Urban_Hermit@mstdn.social
2024-11-24T15:59:01Z
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@futurebird there is a small chance that portraits of individuals would be marked out and destroyed by people coming after - basically a bias against them being preserved because of ego problems among social humans. But, if there was any evidence of such portraits being destroyed, someone would have published it by now.Still, there are preservation biases in anthropology. Everyplace humans populated needs a 'land bridge' because canoes are so rarely preserved (wood rots or is usefully burned).
(DIR) Post #AoNABeis1paT2bze88 by faassen@fosstodon.org
2024-11-24T16:00:13Z
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@futurebird @tshirtman @project1enigma @rayhindle I would fully expect these image generators to be as bad at doing ants as they are at doing flowers.
(DIR) Post #AoNAI3pfaHusefEBLU by cshlan@dawdling.net
2024-11-24T16:01:23Z
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@futurebirdYou may be paying closer attention to faces overall than many of us. I quite often see examples of AI generated faces with all the "problems" circled and I still can't always see the difference. I'm not putting myself forward as average, I think I might actually be a little bit face blind. But maybe you're my corresponding balance on the other side and pick up cues better than most. @faassen @rayhindle
(DIR) Post #AoND0leKEbzVCWMosK by Bodling@deacon.social
2024-11-24T16:31:54Z
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@futurebird Marvelous thread!I'm thinking a couple things: faces are hard to draw well;the cave folks already knew what each other looked like, so they didn't need instructional art showing people faces;kids back then would also have drawn faces right off, but either they weren't allowed to touch the 'good' art materials in the cave, or were only allowed to draw on impermanent materials
(DIR) Post #AoNDHSIpQ0m47ZGlYu by project1enigma@chaos.social
2024-11-24T16:34:53Z
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@futurebird @tshirtman @faassen @rayhindle the eyes of the ant are off too? You'd want the facets texture on the eyes, not around?
(DIR) Post #AoNDVfLRizLKcoGnSK by btuftin@social.coop
2024-11-24T16:37:28Z
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@futurebird I think one thing to bear in mind about taboos is they can influence not only art from your own time, but older art as well, so a finely painted face could have been washed away by someone a generation of more later.
(DIR) Post #AoNDaLcUUPI2teTVHk by StephanMatthiesen@troet.cafe
2024-11-24T16:38:18Z
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@futurebird This is an interesting question... I'm fascinated by all the "perhaps it is ..." replies; the study of rock paintings/and carvings is full of "just so stories" and good reasons to be sceptical of them.For example, Bednarik (in the book "Myths about Rock Art") mentions an Australian researcher who studied Aboriginal art and when he much later had a chance to ask locals, he found that the overwhelming majority of his interpretations were completely wrong.1/n
(DIR) Post #AoNDq11uoHZvfgq1Ds by freequaybuoy@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T16:41:08Z
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@futurebird That's really interesting! And makes me wonder - perhaps stranger yet are the anthropomorphic, hybrid, chimeric representations. Might that provide some insight? As if, like you suggest, they were more interested in relationships between animals and us, than our own appearance?
(DIR) Post #AoNEEdZLAr2Q9GDGBU by Lichtenbergian@mastodon.sdf.org
2024-11-24T16:45:24Z
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@futurebird I always joke that I wonder why experts never consider that the Southwestern rock art was done by kids whose mother just told them to go play and stay out of trouble while she watched the sheep or gathered plants for supper.
(DIR) Post #AoNFGS17C9qCqzdIhs by StephanMatthiesen@troet.cafe
2024-11-24T16:41:53Z
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@futurebird So (as you suggest) we would really need to ask the creators. However, even then this might not help, because much knowledge is secret and only given to the initiated. Bednarik has the anecdote that he asked an Aboriginal artist "Why is the explanation you give me today so different from what you told me when we first met a few decades ago?" - "Because you weren't ready and didn't know what you know now!".2/n
(DIR) Post #AoNFGT3dKHRw55opGq by StephanMatthiesen@troet.cafe
2024-11-24T16:45:30Z
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@futurebird One thing to consider is that rock art is not the only kind of art, but the one that survived best. So for example there is the Venus of Brassempouy which is of similar age, or older, than many rock art sites, and shows a very skillfully carved face. So possibly people were able and willing to depict faces, but for some reason just not in rock art.3/nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Brassempouy
(DIR) Post #AoNFGTrcKRQqa7CkBE by StephanMatthiesen@troet.cafe
2024-11-24T16:48:12Z
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@futurebird Also I think that also in many of today's traditional societies human faces are shown in figurines, statues or masks and other objects made of wood which generally don't survive long.4/n
(DIR) Post #AoNFGUmKvYnnQ1k2aW by StephanMatthiesen@troet.cafe
2024-11-24T16:54:57Z
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@futurebird When I first read your thread, I remembered when I was looking through old photos of my journeys: I never made a picture of myself, just scenery and interesting objects, whereas today people would first make selfies. Back then it never occurred to me to make pics of myself; my friends back home would not be interested in my face but in what the scenery looked like. (This was before internet).No "taboo", it just wasn't the purpose of the photos.5/n
(DIR) Post #AoNFREcnKMtYVIOpBA by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T16:59:06Z
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@StephanMatthiesen I'm much the same, although I feel like other people have drummed it in to me that this is abnormal. So it makes me wonder if these artists weren't going there in a group, but if it was more like just some person going off on their own to geek out over recreating the creatures they'd seen?More like a diary than the center of a communal culture. of course there could be many different ways these artworks came to be.
(DIR) Post #AoNG8VRueNNl8UwWDA by StephanMatthiesen@troet.cafe
2024-11-24T16:57:24Z
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@futurebird I'm not sure I'm going anywhere in this thread other than to say you made a really interesting observation, but that perhaps it is simply impossible to know and there may not really be any deep or meaningful reason behind it.But certainly worth thinking about!6/6
(DIR) Post #AoNG8WphVQ0LQZ51vc by StephanMatthiesen@troet.cafe
2024-11-24T17:04:03Z
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@futurebird An additional thought on post 2 ("secret" knowledge, "you didn't know what you know now") - of course we do that too and would explain, for example atoms to a child or lay person in totally different ways than to a physics student.So "secret knowledge" and "taboos" are labels that are easily attached to traditional societies, but might sometimes not be the correct way of thinking about it, I wonder.
(DIR) Post #AoNG8Xpjmld0Wy6Zcm by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T17:06:55Z
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@StephanMatthiesen There is something thought terminating about calling something a "taboo" since it mostly comes up in a context when you need to quickly learn how to be polite and fit in with some new group of people, and you don't want to do things that are rude or gross. Learning the "why" and understanding might not be possible. So you get a "JUST DON'T OK?"At worst it comes with a bit of "because it can't possibly make sense" eye rolling as the subtext.
(DIR) Post #AoNGnaBJxaUdgbljSi by eco_amandine@mastodon.cr
2024-11-24T17:14:18Z
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@futurebird some months ago I visited a cave with ptehistoric paintings. There were paints of animals, of a chaman (but I can't remember a detailed face) and a lot of white small handprints. The guide told us the printing of hands was a rite of passage to adulthood probably.
(DIR) Post #AoNGuvnK0CF8kE30Ma by StephanMatthiesen@troet.cafe
2024-11-24T17:15:38Z
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@futurebird Indeed. But calling it "taboo" gives it a kind of supernatural aspect, as if there is a belief that evil spirits will punish you or something like that. We don't use the word for Western "rational" culture, even though we also have many things that are inappropriate or unacceptable (at least in some situations).
(DIR) Post #AoNHNby6nHKPeYlj1c by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T17:20:52Z
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@StephanMatthiesen What if making a drawing was a kind of performance and some of what we have is just a lot of practice drawings? A person who would do a wonderful drawings for their family and friends goes off to a secluded place to practice?But since they wanted to practice without being judged they ended up doing their work where it could be preserved for thousands of years?
(DIR) Post #AoNHSxJUrS6xIkJyoi by faassen@fosstodon.org
2024-11-24T17:17:00Z
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@futurebird @tkinias @tshirtman @project1enigma @rayhindle I take it back, I just got a giant ant picture
(DIR) Post #AoNHSyUAVGF2w8K15c by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-24T17:21:49Z
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@faassen @tkinias @tshirtman @project1enigma @rayhindle Thank god!
(DIR) Post #AoNHUQUdrC645fEfK4 by StephanMatthiesen@troet.cafe
2024-11-24T17:22:03Z
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@futurebird Again, Robert Bednarik in his book (which I really recommend) gives an example that rock art of various animals is actually fairly recent and was simply made by shepherd boys who had to sit for hours watching sheep and were terribly bored, so they started to scratch various objects into the rock, including a steam lokomotive.
(DIR) Post #AoNHhTM6WgxejSSlpg by SeattleSanchez@social.ridetrans.it
2024-11-24T17:24:26Z
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@futurebird This thread reminds me of a TED talk about early human writing. https://www.ted.com/talks/genevieve_von_petzinger_why_are_these_32_symbols_found_in_ancient_caves_all_over_europe?subtitle=en
(DIR) Post #AoNHinsXhtdEfoGpmK by faassen@fosstodon.org
2024-11-24T17:24:33Z
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@futurebird @DavidM_yeg @project1enigma @tkinias Do you get them right because of the faces or because of other features. Most of my tells are other features, hands, feet, backlit hair, things like that. At least the ones I'm conscious aware of.
(DIR) Post #AoNJ5hQtwFIXIRp5WK by sewblue@sfba.social
2024-11-24T17:39:58Z
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@futurebird @ptmesis You have me wondering if there is something about the development of 2D thinking and these paintings. 2D thinking is not natural, and (like with dyslexics) can sometimes not really exist for some people. It takes years of exposure for most kids to consistently interpret a 3D image onto a page. b d p and q are the same letter in 3D, and kids will get that confused for years. 2D thinking is a huge part of early education. Humans are 3D to us - we see them from every angle. Animals up close to a hunter are dead on their side. A naturally 2D posture.Drawing a detailed animal in 2D from the side is drawing from lived experience. That is how your can get detailed, lifelike forms by only in profile, while humans are symbols.That 3D thinking with images wasn't broken until the Greeks.
(DIR) Post #AoNKARaCObSjXZzwVk by mathling@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T17:52:05Z
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@futurebird Just to emphasize the question, which is an excellent one: a thread with some pictures and contexthttps://mastodon.social/@mathling/113539105826689047
(DIR) Post #AoNKolNCEeWAVD8rKa by BernieDoesIt@mstdn.social
2024-11-24T17:59:20Z
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@futurebird @faassen @rayhindle The #ActuallyAutistic community on Mastodon has their own pet theory about who feels nausea when looking at AI generated images and who doesn't. You can probably guess what it is.
(DIR) Post #AoNMmnuo0qzFiR3X8q by sinmisterios@mastodon.uy
2024-11-24T18:21:21Z
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@futurebird Just expeculating, may be its a colective thing. They didn't paint an specific individual. They painted animals, in general, humans in general.Children draw faces because we teach them to.
(DIR) Post #AoNMyS6ouhb5YmEK6i by lePetomaneAncien@fosstodon.org
2024-11-24T18:23:32Z
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@futurebird @StephanMatthiesen Interesting idea. Perhaps the cave art was just sketches and studies. All the really good finished work was on display in places less resistant to the ravages of time.
(DIR) Post #AoNNqRDcRKlSR69Vsu by mcsquank@mastodon.online
2024-11-24T18:33:17Z
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@futurebird hahaha or maybe it's graffiti on the bathroom walls @StephanMatthiesen
(DIR) Post #AoNRQkMj1sfM6fPu8e by amorphophalex@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T19:13:27Z
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@futurebird @StephanMatthiesen There are some "animated" cave engravings in France where moving light across the walls will show a succession of animal figures moving. I assume this one is less practice and more presentation.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPQRylcPZDIAlso when I was reading the archeologist's journey into figuring this out I kept thinking "He could have saved a few years if he had asked a comic artist like me, because this is obviously a cave flipbook."
(DIR) Post #AoNS5vBfhPlvXgscr2 by Edelruth@mastodon.online
2024-11-24T19:20:53Z
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@futurebird Great thread!
(DIR) Post #AoNTc67eg4zUg6uMka by amorphophalex@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T19:37:55Z
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@futurebird @DamonWakes Are there any examples where the same cave painting has animals with eyes, but humans without eyes? Usually when I see paintings of people, they and the animals are both silhouettes. So it is easy to tell the difference between male vs female animals based on shape, but we're not looking at the animals' faces to indicate this.Also, what kinds of tools were used? Because if all I had were my finger and some dye, I wouldn't bother with a face either.
(DIR) Post #AoNVwdYQHxs845Lm4W by pamela6591@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T20:04:02Z
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@futurebird You don't have to try to figure it out."Prehistoric" cultures walk the Earth to this day. Borneo, South America, India . . .If you're willing to step outside your comfort zone, if you're careful and respectful, it's possible to locate them and ask them about it--but you better hurry because there are not many places where they are still free to roam.
(DIR) Post #AoNYD4aFlFsoRAAgG8 by slowtiger@berlin.social
2024-11-24T20:29:24Z
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@futurebirdVery intriguing idea!As an artist I like to add: it is so very much easier to depict any movement of the body than any expression on a face, let alone individality. The first faces were not even complete: 2 eyes, or a nose, sometimes with a mouth. The many faces which were drawn since 5000 yrs ago were all generic. Individuals show up ~2000 yrs ago, real expressions were still rare.
(DIR) Post #AoNYq2E8SPjgQCP8D2 by sollat@masto.ai
2024-11-24T20:36:22Z
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@futurebird This thread reminds me of a scene in the book “Time and Again” by Jack Finney. In it, a character from modern times travels back to 1880s New York. He attempts to impress some people he meets with his artistic sketches, but they find it unintelligible and ugly because it’s not strictly realistic. When he adds crosshatching for texture and other elements common to sketches of the time, they feel much better about him. I suppose that’s how I feel about the cybertruck. :blobcatlaugh:
(DIR) Post #AoNcdjboFkSh1IrsP2 by marshray@infosec.exchange
2024-11-24T21:19:04Z
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@futurebird To me, the few paintings preserved in caves don’t look like a person’s first attempt at drawing.It hints at the possibility there was great deal more artwork around at the time.
(DIR) Post #AoNgyeNRIclugxNKIS by WhistlerInTheDarkAges@mastodon.social
2024-11-24T22:07:39Z
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@futurebird Is it possible that it was seen as taboo?
(DIR) Post #AoNo0OOGPLrjMtXSLI by ecksearoh@infosec.exchange
2024-11-24T23:26:25Z
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@futurebird maybe they did make those drawings on more ephemeral media that did not survive, or maybe there was a prohibition against capturing the human form.
(DIR) Post #AoP5rEp9t8m8hdMHxI by deborahh@cosocial.ca
2024-11-25T14:21:08Z
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@futurebird 🤔 interesting. Given our neuro-bio setup, it seems unlikely, doesn't it? Maybe johnny wanted to draw faces on the cave wall, but momma washed it off and sent him back to the sandbox with a pointy stick … Maybe cave walls were high art (or spiritual art?) - reserved for those who had done their groundwork, observing nature - and practice happened elsewhere?
(DIR) Post #AoP6J5Wm2vDryj2UZE by SnowshadowII@beige.party
2024-11-25T14:26:10Z
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@futurebird We ignore or see the natural world as a threat.
(DIR) Post #AoP6s1kU5VBmOU71ea by deborahh@cosocial.ca
2024-11-25T14:32:30Z
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@futurebird @ptmesis from what little I've seen, modern indigenous people have/had a different connection to the natural world - different than our current "scientific" approach. So maybe "studying" animals was a side effect of something else? Communicating? Worshipping? Commemorating?* Thanking? (Oh, for a time machine!)* makes me wonder about the etymology of "commemorating" (also, how is that spelled? 😂) Me: switching to search engine …
(DIR) Post #AoPAIeBY6VLszi9lxY by deborahh@cosocial.ca
2024-11-25T15:10:54Z
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@futurebird @JetlagJen Hmm. Re: not depicting what is clearly present … If these pictures were part of communicating: communication uses (and creates) language, presumably a social construct led by whatever they need to accomplish with communication.Maybe related: some African tribes had no word for Blue. And apparently ancient Greeks also didn't name Blue, though Ancient Egyptiqns did …The Real Reason Ancient People Didn't See The Color Blue: https://www.grunge.com/285728/the-real-reason-ancient-people-didnt-see-the-color-blue/https://www.grunge.com/285728/the-real-reason-ancient-people-didnt-see-the-color-blue/
(DIR) Post #AoPCzuTrarfrtUTpDs by NatureMC@mastodon.online
2024-11-25T15:41:10Z
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@futurebird Fascinating questions! Today's children don't meet animals first ...As you speak of taboo: Many indigenous tribes believed that if you copy a face, the photographer/artist gets power over the soul of the people in the image. Perhaps something like this?We have all these hands ... faces only from shaman-like figures, mixed human-animals, like "The sorcerer", Cave of the Trois-Frères, ca. 13,000 BCE, then a human wizard with horns.Then, in 2005 they discovered a human portrait in
(DIR) Post #AoPDlxVddWADBfDo4u by NatureMC@mastodon.online
2024-11-25T15:49:50Z
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@futurebird The question is also: Why did they paint this? One theory of the animal caves are hunting rituals. Did they need human faces to summon the spirits of the animals to be hunted? They showed human hands ... they touched ...@ptmesis
(DIR) Post #AoPEb2oxeCOcQhcSO0 by NatureMC@mastodon.online
2024-11-25T15:59:04Z
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@futurebird We have more (see my other comment), but mostly shaman-like figures or sculptures.A different problem: We only found paintings in these caves because they were preserved by airtightness. The natural colourants are extremely volatile (which is why many caves were closed again).Who can tell us whether people back then painted much more, but it has not been preserved? They could have drawn in sand, painted on plant material ... all gone!@DoubleArobase
(DIR) Post #AoPwcRIQWwiWbwsRDU by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-26T00:12:21Z
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@linebyline Yeah. It's more like faces just didn't occur to them. As if someone came from the future "Why is it that on social media you so rarely post floor plans of your homes showing your location and the location of the objects around you? In our time the floor plan is how we relate to each other... do you see the world in some very different way? or uh.. do you have a floor plan... taboo?" I'd be like. "I think I see the world in a different way. What the heck is going on in 3480?"
(DIR) Post #AoPyGoQ0593FrQEbho by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-26T00:30:46Z
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@mattjhodgkinson 404 :(
(DIR) Post #AoPyg3VR7iINtToXxI by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-11-26T00:35:26Z
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@tshirtman @mattjhodgkinson Thank you, Gabriel!