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Polyspectralized Art
 Image from John B |
Polyspectralized art is an artform which first appeared in the pre-Technocalypse period amongst sensory-augmented sophonts. In its initial forms, it involved generating material objects which affected the boosted sensoria of the artist and similarly augmented sophonts in manners congruent to art and the visual sense of baseline humanity. Note that this is more than just wavelength, intensity and resolution, it also is greatly affected by the augmentation suite used by the sophont(s) in question. Thus, the 'religious wars' as to the 'best' augmentation which raged amongst the augmented were further inflamed by the availability of specialized artworks restricted to this or that proprietary sensorium translation algorithm.
This continued through the First Empires time period, with aperiodic ascendancies of alternate augmentations for some time after. However, Golai Hertshaba changed all that.
In 6467, Zar Golai created the first of a new wave of polyspectralized art, entitled 'Perceive With Me'. This artform not only generated sensorium impressions beyond the baseline range, it also tweaked the sensorium augmentations of the perceivers over time! This brought about a slow revelation of alternate beauties encoded in the piece, and was possible due to the various augment safety requirements enforced at that time. To block a being's ultraviolet range, Zar Golai targeted the perceptors with a decoherent UV laser just 'bright' enough to trigger the internal blocks. Similar techniques worked with other spectra.
The difficulty in this artform is not only creating an aesthetically pleasing device, but also in ensuring the safety of the viewer, as was not done in the Hertshaba creation 'Short Sharp Shock'. Zar Golai's personal fortune (derived from 'Perceive With Me' and scores of other such active works) was totally wiped out in 6598 by the repair and reparation bills caused by the tuned laser sensorium blocks in 'Short Sharp Shock'. Zar Golai had recently upgraded eir perception suite to a new, non-standard version which had additional defenses against blinding at eir medicant's suggestion. E managed to forget that crucial fact while developing the piece, leading to some 1,000 sophonts loosing their vision at the unveiling of the newest piece.
Most 'second wave' polyspectralized art nowadays offers a graduated 'testing mode' which allows the device to check vulnerability to damage with less dangerous energy pulses.
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Development Notes
Text by John B
Initially published on 02 November 2004.
Initially published on 02 November 2004.
