Graffiti and Other Media

• According to the United Nations, about two-thirds of the world's population will be living in cities by the next 30 years.
• The World Health Organization recommends classrooms to be not louder than 35 decibels, which is never the case in big cities.
• Children are facing disruption in their learning, and research points out that those who study in a noisy place are 11 months behind the ones who are studying in quieter places in the same vicinity.

Most of the city planning is done so that the affluent neighborhoods are in quieter areas.

However, this is also nullified when the ultra-rich who travel frequently stay close to the transit hubs (like Airports), being exposed to high decibels of noise.

• From the 11th century until the end of the 17th century, the definition of art was anything that was done with expertise, with the result of knowledge and practice.
• The Romantic period of the 18th century, beauty became the main criteria for defining good art. Nature, spirituality and free expression were sought after and well received.
• The 19th Century started the Avant-garde art movement, with art becoming real, modern, futuristic and surreal. Whatever the definitions, the originality of art stands out as a time-tested measure, with new genres and manifestations like performance art, digital art, and electronic art.

• Art as Representation or Mimesis. Representation of art as an imitation or copying became the mainstream meaning of art in Greece. Plato first developed the idea of art as “mimesis,” which, in Greek, means copying or imitation. How immaculately it replicated the original subject became the measure of its value.
• Art as Expression of Emotional content. Dramatic, sublime and heartfelt art becomes a way to express oneself during the Romantic movement , with audience response becoming key to the valuation of the content. The emotions that were felt when the art was witnessed became its barometer for success.
• Art as Form. Formal qualities of art became influential in the 18th century, with the principles of art and design, like balance, rhythm, harmony and unity became as important as the content of the work of art.

The bodily symptoms of this strange appearance point to three dimensions:

• Sensory: The marvelous things take hold of our senses - we stare and widen our eyes.
• Cognitive: We are perplexed because we don't have a past experience to understand them. It leads to a suspension of breath, similar to when we are startled.
• Spiritual: We look upwards in veneration, which makes our heart swell.

At the mild end of this emotion, we talk about things being marvelous. More intense emotions might be described as astonishing. The extreme of this experiences is met with expressions of awe.

Digital tools are a weak substitute for a physical community. And screens don’t allow for touch, which is a powerful form of communication.

Physical contact, from friends, loved ones, even acquaintances and strangers, has the ability to lower cortisol levels and ease anxiety.

A great way to fight loneliness is to work toward a larger goal, one that is centered around teamwork and collaboration.

Focusing on a shared vision helps disrupt the lonely brain’s destructive loops, allowing us to let our guard down and reintegrate ourselves into the social fold.

“Loneliness, longing, does not mean one has failed but simply that one is alive.”

One way people have always dealt with loneliness is through creativity. By metamorphosing their reality into art, lonely people throughout history have managed to interchange the sense of community relationships could foster with their creative outputs.

The artist Edward Hopper (1882–1967) is known for his paintings of American cityscapes inhabited by closed-off figures who seem to embody a vision of modern loneliness.

Many people have minimalism forced upon them by circumstance. Poverty and trauma can make frivolous possessions seem like a lifeline instead of a burden.

Although many of today's gurus insist that minimalism is useful regardless of income, they target the affluent. The focus on self-improvement is more about accumulation.

True minimalism is not about throwing things out, but about challenging your beliefs in an attempt to engage with ideas as they are, to not shy away from reality or its lack of answers. 

Underneath the vision of “less” is a mode of living that heightens the miracle of human presence.

• Hungary’s Budapest Metro became operational soon after London in 1896. It is now a world heritage site.
• This four-line network had various expansions and extensions and features the world’s first automated metro route back in 2014.
• The travel time saved each year by the fourth line, called M4, is about 14 million hours.

• The same year when the Budapest Metro opened(1896), Scotland inaugurated the world’s third oldest metro system.
• The route remains untouched and carries 13 million passengers every year.
• The subway network has seen a number of upgrades and makeovers including extensive modernization of all the stations and replacement of trains and ramps.

Pizza - pieces of flatbread, topped with savories - was a simple and tasty meal for those who could not afford plates.

• Early pizzas appear in Virgil's Aeneid. Aeneas and his crew ate thin wheaten cakes with mushrooms and herbs scattered on them.
• In the 18th century Naples, pizza as we know it came into being. With a struggling urban economy and a great number of poor inhabitants, they needed food that was cheap and easy to eat. Pizza met this need.

For a long time, pizzas were associated with poverty and scorned by food writers.

In 1831, Samuel Morse described pizza as a ‘species of the most nauseating cake … covered over with slices of pomodoro or tomatoes, and sprinkled with little fish and black pepper and I know not what other ingredients, it altogether looks like a piece of bread that has been taken reeking out of the sewer.’

The new technology of escalators transformed not just how the walking person is transported in a building, but the way architecture itself is designed, and created fluid transitions without the limits of the sky or ground.

Nathan Ames, an inventor, applied for the patent in 1859 for the first kind of moving stairs, with a belt attached with three wheels, and powered by kinetic energy. This was never built.

As the 19th century came to an end, there were improvements in the way people lived and worked, facilitating the development of malls, skyscrapers, and electric subway trains. The print and photography industry paved the way for better advertising of products and services.