Topic: Further Development

Technology and Nature
The basic idea for this topic is to tie the seemingly unnatural to the natural. The technologies that we use today are a product of the creative minds that came in succession to build upon previous thoughts and ideas to ultimately reach this present point. However, throughout the development and use of these technologies there always seems to be a natural element.

We are in our own way animals of a kind. All animals need a habitat in which to survive. Our habitat is composed of much of the earth. Therefore, seeing that we live within this expansive natural habitat composed of other organisms, air, water, and land - we cannot escape natural influence in one way or another. Furthermore, natural influence tends to show up in those developed technologies and in the use of those technologies.

The technologies being explored here are web-based multimedia, means of creative expression on the web. There are several different common forms of creative expression such as poetry, short story, essay, nature writing, photography, and a number of visual arts. There are also other forms of expression that are explicitly web-based such as picture stories. Picture stories are created through the use of images and text compiled into a single presentation that can be manipulated by the viewer or simply viewed (examples of picture stories can be found in the Musarium link below). What each of these forms of expression have in common is that a certain number of works in each form contain some element or representation of nature. The presence of natural representation across a broad spectrum of multimedia suggests a relationship with the natural environment that is never lost even in this seemingly unnatural setting.

Musarium

The Artist and the Author
There are many influences on an artist, and natural influences seem to work their way into many an artistic composition.

It is the unique flow of influences that makes an artist an author of a work, because each artist is influenced from a different combination of sources. An author shouldn't be an individual creating a unique work with no outside influence that is locked in time and unadaptable. An author is an artist who serves as a filter for influences, taking the influences in his or her life at the time and creating a new unique work from them that will go on to be an influence for another artist. This process of influences becoming new influences is one of the reasons for certain themes to be carried from artistic form to artistic form. Also, the influences being ultilized by artists don't have to come from other artists. These influences can come from raw sources such as societies, cultures, imagination, and nature. Nature just happens to be one of those sources of influence that seems to see the most use, and why not?

The possibilities for influences stemming from the natural environment is as vast as the world the we inhabit. We are influenced by things that we see everyday, and there is generally something natural in what we see everyday. Therefore, it's only logical that many works should come to incorporate some natural element in all the various multimedia facets on the web.

Thus:
When an artist is surrounded by something (the natural environment), that individual will be influenced in some way.
Nature becomes the most well-traveled influence.
The harsh line between technology and nature is severed.
Artists are influenced by developed and raw sources.
The artist becomes an author through unique expression of influences.
Creativity is allowed to expand and flow.