#56: Imagery, Symbolism, and Human Consciousness

Organizer
Bruce McDiffett (Evil Genius)

Lecturers
Loren Carpenter (Pixar Animation Studios and Cinematrix, Inc.)
Loren Eskenazi (California Pacific Medical Center)
Carole Kammen (Pathways Institute)
Bruce McDiffett (Evil Genius)

Overview
Computer graphics is old enough to be entering mid-life, the years when humans start looking for deeper relevance and meaning, when we start asking ourselves "why?" This course opens a door to the symbolic realm where our images can lead us to those answers.

Prerequisites
None. Since this is an attempt to build a bridge to a new domain previously outside the SIGGRAPH experience, the course provides everything necessary for the journey, and doesnít require prior knowledge of what's on the other side. Familiarity with analytic psychology is helpful. More helpful still: a willingness to relax one's preconceptions and a desire to see the world in new ways.

Topics
Symbolism; different forms of perception; consciousness and the unconscious; analytic psychology; dreamwork; mythology; mathematics, physics, computation, and the origin of time; use of imagery in medicine and healing; deeper symbolic communication in film and television; collective consciousness of groups; questions of personal responsibility as creators of images; examining SIGGRAPH itself through its own imagery; how images and self-reflection tell us about ourselves.

Course #56 Notes (PDF, 5.3MB)