An elephant paints...an elephant...

[smugbug]

And not JUST an elephant, but an elephant holding a flower. You know, it's the inclusion of those details that sets a good elephant artist apart from those ordinary elephant artists.

:painting:

He7Ge7Sogrk


Linkie to where I found this thang: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/29/elephant-paints-an-e.html

[Robert.B]

I wonder how many times that elephant was beat and tazered before it memorized those contours?

[0kelvin]

Great. It's bad enough that I have to worry about my job being outsourced to an Asian company, now I have to worry about it being outsourced to an Asian elephant. Those things literally work for peanuts!

I have a hard time feeling anything but conflicted about this. On the one hand, it's really cool that an elephant can be trained to do this (and apparently this training camp uses "humane" training methods, whatever those might be), but on the other hand I have a hard time justifying the whole animals performing for tourist dollars thing. I guess it's preferable to using them to carry logs around.



Eric

[Mirana]

http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=118516

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans

[Blue]

And not JUST an elephant, but an elephant holding a flower. You know, it's the inclusion of those details that sets a good elephant artist apart from those ordinary elephant artists.

:painting:

I really needed to this today.

[aph]

Hahaha, remember seeing this being sold on video/dvd during the Seattle workshop around the city.. proper funny, stopped about 20 of us in our tracks and sparked a debate about its authenticity lol!

[hart-verloren]

Ha ha! When I first read this thread title, I completely failed to register it as the sentence "An elephant paints an elephant." Instead, I got something like:

"An elephant paints." *pauses, leans forward.* "An elephant."

[Shmaba]

that elephants art is better than most i see on deviantart :P

[Meloncov]

I have a hard time feeling anything but conflicted about this. On the one hand, it's really cool that an elephant can be trained to do this (and apparently this training camp uses "humane" training methods, whatever those might be), but on the other hand I have a hard time justifying the whole animals performing for tourist dollars thing. I guess it's preferable to using them to carry logs around.


This is a creature that has been domesticated for centuries, so it's not the same catagory as dancing bears. Also, per the wikipedia article linked earlier, elephants seem to enjoy helping humans.

[0kelvin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans

This isn't a Clever Hans effect situation, the park is very clear and upfront about the fact that the elephant has been trained to paint these specific pictures and isn't necessarily aware it's painting representationally. Of course, the video doesn't have much information so a lot of people are going to jump to that conclusion.

This is a creature that has been domesticated for centuries, so it's not the same catagory as dancing bears. Also, per the wikipedia article linked earlier, elephants seem to enjoy helping humans.

Yeah, for sure, but that doesn't mean they can't be exploited. It really has to be judged on a case-by-case basis.



Eric

[Mirana]

I linked it to show animals can be trained to perform complex things, especially since the last vid that was linked took the situation out of context.

[lewisaurus]

If I was that elephant I would paint an elephant going berzerk and trampling a bunch of spectators.
Now that would be cool.:wink:

[ChristianWeeks]

Ha ha! When I first read this thread title, I completely failed to register it as the sentence "An elephant paints an elephant." Instead, I got something like:

"An elephant paints." *pauses, leans forward.* "An elephant."


haha yeah me too
im at school right now so the picture doesnt load tho : /
fucking blocks
ill look at it once i get home