mairin at linuxgrrl.com
Mon Jun 29 00:09:37 UTC 2009
On Sun, 2009-06-28 at 17:46 -0500, Michael Beckwith wrote:
> Keep in mind everyone that just because the codename is "Constantine"
> doesn't mean that we HAVE to include the guy in the theme somehow. We
> can go off on some inspiration derived from reading about him and
> whatnot and just make sure the tie in is there.
I found some inspiration in W.B. Yeats' 'Sailing to Byzantium' .
There are some interesting themes in there (and even a link to steam...
er.. byzantine-punk). I'll just throw these out there; they may all suck
but crappy ideas can inspire awesome ideas so if they inspire something
in you let's talk about it:
- Mortality vs Immortality - Byzantine art & culture flourished over
1000 years (330-1453) and is still known of today - We can relate this
to Fedora - Fedora does not try to only look 'cool' on the surface and
not have much substance underneath; Fedora is very concerned about
quality and doing the right thing. Fedora hopefully is at the forefront
of promoting a culture/philosophy and producing a quality system that
will bring order and the right way forward. A few ideas on representing
this: have a simple & transparent (or not quite drawn-in) subject grow
in complexity & depth and become more opaque maybe. Or go from weak to
saturated colors and/or values. The message would be along the lines of
Fedora's hopeful grasp towards greatness/eternity.
- The natural/impermanent/imperfect vs. technology/permanent/perfect -
building on the above theme... Yeats makes reference to Byzantine
Emperor Theophilos' singing mechanical golden birds (he also had
mechanical golden lions as well, hmmm... :) ) I feel like themes that
deal with technology vs nature usually pose technology in the 'bad guy'
light and nature in the 'good guy' light, so it might be interesting to
send a message that poses technology (Fedora) as an ally of nature (the
people using Fedora) to make it better (to improve Fedora users' lives).
Visually this could maybe take a steampunk bird form hehe.
- Order from Chaos - Constantine was known for bringing order to the
chaos of the Roman empire at the time he began rule and Constantinople
seems to have served as a central hub / symbol of that order. Perhaps
Fedora is the Constantinople to the chaos of crappy, proprietary
software. The message would be that open source software is inevitable
and is the way forward to order and progress.
- Liberation through enlightenment - '... Consume my heart away; sick
with desire... gather me Into the artifice of eternity.' Liberation of
the soul from worldly desires... liberation of the software and more
generally culture from worldly desires...? worldly desires = closed
firmware and patented codecs? hehe
- Unity/Coming together to make something great - and could quite easily
be communicated with the golden mosaic designs already being discussed -
alone one tile is nothing special, but the tiles together can make a
beautiful piece of art. Along similar lines, Constantinople itself was a
trading center where many cultures intersected.
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