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City of New Antideath – Painting by Ekaterinya Vladinakova, Commissioned by Gennady Stolyarov II

City of New Antideath – Painting by Ekaterinya Vladinakova, Commissioned by Gennady Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
Art by Ekaterinya Vladinakova
Painting Commissioned by Gennady Stolyarov II
June 28, 2017
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City of New AntideathCity of New Antideath – Painting by Ekaterinya Vladinakova
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Commentary by Gennady Stolyarov II, Editor-in-Chief of The Rational Argumentator, Chairman of the United States Transhumanist Party: 

For my coming thirtieth birthday, I have commissioned a colossal cityscape depicting my vision and hope for the future progress of humankind. Artist Ekaterinya Vladinakova, a long-time supporter of transhumanism and life extension, was the evident best choice for this project.

The City of New Antideath represents a future society which has overcome death, disease, and today’s principal sources of material scarcity and discomfort. This city contains more than ample living space in ornate, radiantly illuminated skyscrapers. Smaller villas, domed towers, and other luxuriously ornamented buildings adorn the central walkways. There is ample room for pedestrian traffic and plant growth sculpted into geometrically complex patterns – including on the rooftop terraces of many of the mega-skyscrapers.

Flying cars and autonomous drones appear as streaks of light from the ground level. There is so much room for aerial transportation that no more traffic jams exist on the ground. One can opt for efficient transport, or for open-ended leisurely walking, and the two modes will not collide.

Over the years I have created a large number of building models using Sketchup, Minecraft, and even LEGO bricks. In my quest for permanence, they – or images of them – have been preserved and provided to the artist for inspiration. The first City of Antideath consisted of my Sketchup models. The City of New Antideath was not intended to be an exact replica, but rather a successor inspired by the prospect of juxtaposing the best architectural elements of all eras – past and yet to come.

I conveyed to Ekaterinya Vladinakova that the skyscrapers should exhibit a variety of bold colors and geometric shapes – but also be orderly and ornate. I have a great admiration for historical architecture from the 16th through 19th centuries – so while some of the buildings are geometric and futuristic, others borrow significant elements from Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, or Victorian styles. Russian and Eastern architectural traditions find their manifestations in this cityscape as well. The idea is to portray a future of extreme diversity, where all of these elements will exist side by side and interact with one another in interesting ways. Far from cultural separatism or tribalism, the future needs to borrow and develop upon the best elements from all cultures, times, and places. The culture of New Antideath is rational, scientific, progress-oriented, universalist, cosmopolitan, and at the same time hyperpluralist and welcoming of all peaceful individuals.

The most significant vision I have for this artwork is that it will become the iconic vision of a techno-positive future. Accordingly, I am rendering it available for free download and distribution via a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License so that it might be used by others who seek illustrations of a future we can all aspire for.

I still hope that I was not born too soon – that I may someday personally witness and experience a future of this sort. But for now, although the third decade of my life did not see such a future emerge, I am happy at least to have enabled its depiction so that others can be inspired to strive toward it. Given that our immediate world has become suffused by a pervasive, destructive malaise over the past two years, we will need visions such as this to overcome it and achieve better ways to be.

There are three versions of this digital painting available for free download (left-click on the links to open, right-click to download):

– Small (1200 by 1931 pixels)

– Medium (2400 by 3861 pixels)

– Original Size (11250 by 18100 pixels – a vast canvas with immense detail. Note: This file size is immense as well – but you will be able to zoom in to view individual buildings and regard them as smaller-scale paintings in their own right.)

For those seeking musical accompaniment in viewing this painting, I recommend my Transhumanist March, Op. 78 (2014) (MP3 and YouTube)  or Man’s Struggle Against Death, Op. 58 (2008) (MP3 and YouTube).

Find out more about Mr. Stolyarov here.

Ekaterinya Vladinakova is an accomplished digital painter. See her gallery here and her DeviantArt page here.  

Stripes Building – Art by G. Stolyarov II

Stripes Building – Art by G. Stolyarov II

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G. Stolyarov II
March 27, 2017

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The Stripes Building – a Minecraft creation by Mr. Stolyarov – is the next step in the beautification of the unfinished Aqueduct Plaza of the Minecraft Imperial City, a collaborative project coordinated by users Rigolo and Comeon, and freely downloadable here.

The most current version of the Imperial City, as expanded by Mr. Stolyarov, is downloadable here.

The Stripes Building replaces a former dark rectangular cavern. As its name suggests, this structure is characterized by distinctive striped motifs at various scales. It represents an attempt at a new esthetic in a new era – an era of great contrasts and the recurrence of both glorious and tragic developments both on an individual level and for the world at large. At the same time, this building endeavors to respect the architectural elements of great historical styles, while combining and illuminating them in a way that hints at a futuristic outlook.

The Stripes Building is situated on the opposite side of the Aqueduct Compound – its taller, airier, more optimistic cousin, which represents the forward-looking spirit of an earlier era. The Stripes Building is more nuanced and suggests that the future might turn out in a variety of ways, but there is still value in a structured, rational way of contemplating it.

Left-click for a full-image view of each screenshot. Right-click to download the image.

Aqueduct Compound and Staircase Buildings – Art by G. Stolyarov II

Aqueduct Compound and Staircase Buildings – Art by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance HatG. Stolyarov II
November 16, 2016

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Aqueduct Compound and Staircase Buildings

This set of structures was created to begin the beautification of a desolate plaza beside an unfinished aqueduct in the Minecraft Imperial City.  The main 15-story building replaced a previous cavernous outcropping (whose counterpart can still be seen on the other side of the plaza) and connects the aqueduct to the gardens on the other side. The building has an open floor plan on the inside, and one can see all floors simultaneously from most vantage points (clearly a structure meant for observation rather than routine occupancy – but the views are quite intriguing).

To render the plaza accessible, large staircases were constructed, doubling as roofs for three geometric conference centers featuring some experimental ornamentation.

This was the sporadic work of approximately 10 months. Everything you see in the airy/translucent white/turquoise/blue motifs was built by me one block at a time! These are actually some of the least traditional buildings within the Imperial City world, and this is possibly the stylistic direction in which modernism would have gone in an alternate, more rationalist-driven universe where the Enlightenment influence still predominated.

This structure was created within the Imperial City map in Minecraft, a collaborative project coordinated by user Rigolo and freely downloadable here.

Left-click for a full-image view of each screenshot. Right-click to download the image.

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Spiral Tower, Op. 79 (2015) – Musical Composition and Video by G. Stolyarov II

Spiral Tower, Op. 79 (2015) – Musical Composition and Video by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
May 25, 2015
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This piano composition by Mr. Stolyarov evokes an ascent up a spiral skyscraper. Each passage builds and introduces variations upon the last while remaining within the overall pattern describing the climb. The spiral ascent can be seen as a metaphor for incremental but rigorous and goal-directed progress toward a brighter future.

Download the MP3 file of this composition here.

See the index of Mr. Stolyarov’s compositions, all available for free download, here.

Photographs in this video are of the F&F Tower in Panama City and were taken by Muribeg, Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz), and Rubydiazmendez. They can be downloaded here and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike Unported 3.0 License or the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike International 4.0 License.

This composition and video may also be freely reproduced using the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike International 4.0 License.

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