It is entirely made out of paper and stop-motion animation. To show of its hand-madeness, the are many creases and pencil lines visible in the finished product.
Who gets to decide the definition of perfection? In nature, which I believe is as perfect as it gets, almost everything is asymmetrical and non-uniform, which seems to be the definition of perfection we humans use?
That’s a great perspective I didn’t think of earlier.
It seems to me that humans are attracted to a sort of “conceptual perfection”, E.G. the kind of perfection that the equation of a circle describes. It’s fine to use this as a guideline to achieve ever more accuracy but no such perfect circle exists in the real world. So, in my opinion, practices such as those mentioned in the article help ground us to realise that this form of conceptual perfection is meant to be a North Star to help our efforts to better humanity, but we must never literally try to achieve it. The overarching goal must always be to help humanity and not achieve perfection for the sake of perfection.
On a tangent - if one ever finds oneself chasing literal conceptual perfection — as I have found myself doing in the past - it might behove one to take a step back and introspect if this is merely a distraction from some deeper issue within ourselves. It certainly was for me.
Most vertebrates and invertebrates have some symmetry. The moon and sun are symmetrical, as are most flowers. The horizon on an ocean is uniformly flat from a sufficient distance.
The definition of ‘perfection’ is almost certainly culturally-dependent, but it’s not completely unreasonable to suggest that humanity is hardwired to be drawn towards some common aspects.
At the same time, (synthetic) human faces generated with perfect symmetry fall into Uncanny Valley territory. Perhaps, when it comes to our perception of the natural world, we subconsciously do appreciate an imperfect symmetry -- something that is symmetrical but only to a certain scale. I wonder if there are other well studied examples of such an effect.
A Most Extraordinary Gnome https://store.steampowered.com/app/2089710/A_Most_Extraordin...
It is entirely made out of paper and stop-motion animation. To show of its hand-madeness, the are many creases and pencil lines visible in the finished product.