When I was in high school I developed two stories that were intended to be my magnum opus when I was ready to tackle them and full of enough smarts to make them good. Despite trying to get good grades, most of my time was spent on the computer or (since my three siblings and I shared one computer with internet) in notebooks fleshing out all the details of these stories. I locked myself out of my home on Sunday and rather than breaking in or bothering my landlady at home, I went to spend the night at my parents' house, where rummaging revealed two notebooks/collections of paper that made up my life in high school. I never fully appreciated how much time I spent developing these stories that I continue to draw upon as part of my personal mythology, but somehow it really struck me when I briefly flipped through them. It dawned on me that I'm not that passionate anymore. I have nothing to escape from, thus, I don't care if I'm working on developing ideas so much. These stories were my spare time. I remember working on them after school until karate and then after karate late into the night. I would wake up and write. Write between periods. Think about what I would write while in class, and then write about it. But suddenly, I am at a point in my life where there is nothing that pressing to my day-to-day life. I work jobs for money, but I really like these jobs. Do I need to hate my life to be productive? I have everything I want and need right now, so maybe I'm just bored. Somehow, I've only been developing art when I have to, not when I want to. That's not right.
Part of me wants to see these old stories through, just for completion sake. Maybe that's what I need: something that is an escape from my actual responsibilities.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Art? Questionmark?
OK! Enough stalling! I worked everyday this week (including tomorrow) on things that had nothing to do with my own art. In my spare time, I've set up the internet in my new apartment and surfed that internet aimlessly, spent time birthday partying with/for a good friend of mine, watched two seasons of Arrested Development, and downloaded/played game demos on my Xbox for games I don't anticipate every purchasing. These are all great things, but these things also are not art.
I've put off work for long enough, and can't justify it any longer. I need to make progress, but it is so easy to shrug off creative work. Thus, I propose this alternative: I suck it up and quit wimping out. This is the only solution, for there is always an excuse not to do creative work--and it's always easier to consume than it is to produce.
This weblog is now officially a part of my work. It is a non-specific outlet for me to spill any excess energy I need to get me working and creating. Just as much for my sake as anyone choosing to read, I will detail my thoughts, projects, and processes for overcoming the creative block that is an omnipresent factor when making art.
I've put off work for long enough, and can't justify it any longer. I need to make progress, but it is so easy to shrug off creative work. Thus, I propose this alternative: I suck it up and quit wimping out. This is the only solution, for there is always an excuse not to do creative work--and it's always easier to consume than it is to produce.
This weblog is now officially a part of my work. It is a non-specific outlet for me to spill any excess energy I need to get me working and creating. Just as much for my sake as anyone choosing to read, I will detail my thoughts, projects, and processes for overcoming the creative block that is an omnipresent factor when making art.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Digital Line Versus Drawn Line
Digital art is hard. I've been experimenting with it on an outstanding comic project that I'm working on and it isn't easy to approach. Maybe my tablet is too small, or I simply haven't committed to making it work, but there is something about creating a digital file that just doesn't excite me for this project in particular.
But I wonder exactly what I need to do to make it work. And wonder exactly what it is that I have issue with. And I've decided that when I try to start an image that is purely digital, I get lost in the abstractedness of the method of input. When I have a 11x17 piece of paper with a 10x15 working space, and I set pencil to paper, overlap it with ink and then scan it into a digital file--I still have a physical understanding of the images I've created. I think I take for granted the mark I leave on what I create.
Drawings are nothing but the evidence of action--my pencil touches paper in a specific pattern and all facilities accounted for, I am left with a physical memory of of where my hand was and how it moved at a specific time in a specific place. This isn't all there is to drawing, but it is a base element.
When I touch a stylus to a drawing tablet that is connected to my computer, the process is altered. The lines I make on the screen, though analogue to the movements I've made, are only digital interpretations of a movement that once existed. They are physically different to a line on a piece of paper, and indeed, exist as without physical form. Sure, when I draw a line on a tablet, a line shows up on my screen, but that line is only suggestive of physicality--it exists as data to give the illusion that a physical action once occurred and when all is said, is hollow in content.
A digital line, no matter how suggestive, fluid, or varied, can still be broken down into a series of ones and zeros. Ons and offs. yeses and nos. But a drawn line isn't so easily analyzed. Yes, the line still may exist in a similar fashion to it's digital counterpart, but no matter how far it is analyzed, it can never be defined by a simple binary. The weight of the line, the hand of the artist, the rapid dulling of the tool, the slight powdering of the graphite, the slight burr of the paper and the pencil cuts into it; all these elements cannot be replicated by current programming prowess. And maybe it is these imperfections that I crave when I compose images purely digitally. It isn't as though digital art has no place--quite the opposite--but no matter how far we come, the gap only continues to widen between a line on a computer screen and a line on a piece of paper.
But I wonder exactly what I need to do to make it work. And wonder exactly what it is that I have issue with. And I've decided that when I try to start an image that is purely digital, I get lost in the abstractedness of the method of input. When I have a 11x17 piece of paper with a 10x15 working space, and I set pencil to paper, overlap it with ink and then scan it into a digital file--I still have a physical understanding of the images I've created. I think I take for granted the mark I leave on what I create.
Drawings are nothing but the evidence of action--my pencil touches paper in a specific pattern and all facilities accounted for, I am left with a physical memory of of where my hand was and how it moved at a specific time in a specific place. This isn't all there is to drawing, but it is a base element.
When I touch a stylus to a drawing tablet that is connected to my computer, the process is altered. The lines I make on the screen, though analogue to the movements I've made, are only digital interpretations of a movement that once existed. They are physically different to a line on a piece of paper, and indeed, exist as without physical form. Sure, when I draw a line on a tablet, a line shows up on my screen, but that line is only suggestive of physicality--it exists as data to give the illusion that a physical action once occurred and when all is said, is hollow in content.
A digital line, no matter how suggestive, fluid, or varied, can still be broken down into a series of ones and zeros. Ons and offs. yeses and nos. But a drawn line isn't so easily analyzed. Yes, the line still may exist in a similar fashion to it's digital counterpart, but no matter how far it is analyzed, it can never be defined by a simple binary. The weight of the line, the hand of the artist, the rapid dulling of the tool, the slight powdering of the graphite, the slight burr of the paper and the pencil cuts into it; all these elements cannot be replicated by current programming prowess. And maybe it is these imperfections that I crave when I compose images purely digitally. It isn't as though digital art has no place--quite the opposite--but no matter how far we come, the gap only continues to widen between a line on a computer screen and a line on a piece of paper.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Reading to Write
Typically, I don't read. Call me ignorant or uneducated, but anything that I can't stumble across while browsing the Internet isn't worth my time. Unfortunately, I'm an intellectual at heart, and hold a University degree in the Visual Arts from a school that was heavily theory-based (it was heavily practice-based too, but I'm talking theory right now, and that shit was heavy). When you're not the kind of person who enjoys picking up a book and reading it and your degree depends on it, you spend a lot of time searching through piles of books for snippets of information. My peers all know dates and artists and movements and events, but I am terrible to talk to about anything outside of my field of interest, because I never bothered to commit these things to memory. I was satisfied knowing that if it ever came up, I could probably Google it or--if worse came to worse--go to the library and do the fact-mining that got me through my degree. Yes, I was quite the prospector in my day.
But, much to my dismay, that's not enough. I say this as a bibliophobe that I am: I need to read more than just what I'm directly interested in. I've always known that the broad reading that is required of students is important for expanding one's interests, but it is only now, on the other side of the scholastic journey, that I realize it is absolutely essential.
As an artist I think I know what my work is about and no one can really tell me otherwise, because I made it and so I have a personal knowledge of my intentions. Yes, I'm sure that my art has elements that I'm not actively aware of, but my awareness of this unawareness is still a form of awareness; but as an intellectually-driven artist, this drives me crazy. Practices that are based in sound theoretical boundaries conform to more than just my own biases. And I need to be aware that not only are there elements in my work that I didn't intend to include, but that their inclusion is, in fact, the intention of the work itself.
Taking into account the holy-trinity of art: the artist, the art, and the viewer; I, as the artist, engage in an open dialogue with the art and the artist. But of these three members of the artistic trinity, only the art has a chance of living on indefinitely. My intentions and the interpretations of the viewer are subjective, transient, and insistent upon the art. The art however, exists only as itself. It doesn't take into consideration how it is being read or interpreted, and those readings and interpretations that it inspires do not change the physical dimension of a work of art.
For the sake of myself, and my ability to read and interpret my own actions, I need to read and interpret the actions of others like me, and others unlike me. I could sit around on Wikipedia reading all day about comics, and folklore, and popular culture, and link in back to my work easily. But art isn't about what something is, necessarily. It's about what it isn't. And for that, it's not good enough to read about the narrative structure of comics. I need to read about things that I don't consider when making art, and figure out why my work isn't that. In doing so, I might be able to figure out exactly what my art is and why it is that. Maybe, also, I will discover that my art is something entirely different than I would have ever thought.
Why?
But, much to my dismay, that's not enough. I say this as a bibliophobe that I am: I need to read more than just what I'm directly interested in. I've always known that the broad reading that is required of students is important for expanding one's interests, but it is only now, on the other side of the scholastic journey, that I realize it is absolutely essential.
As an artist I think I know what my work is about and no one can really tell me otherwise, because I made it and so I have a personal knowledge of my intentions. Yes, I'm sure that my art has elements that I'm not actively aware of, but my awareness of this unawareness is still a form of awareness; but as an intellectually-driven artist, this drives me crazy. Practices that are based in sound theoretical boundaries conform to more than just my own biases. And I need to be aware that not only are there elements in my work that I didn't intend to include, but that their inclusion is, in fact, the intention of the work itself.
Taking into account the holy-trinity of art: the artist, the art, and the viewer; I, as the artist, engage in an open dialogue with the art and the artist. But of these three members of the artistic trinity, only the art has a chance of living on indefinitely. My intentions and the interpretations of the viewer are subjective, transient, and insistent upon the art. The art however, exists only as itself. It doesn't take into consideration how it is being read or interpreted, and those readings and interpretations that it inspires do not change the physical dimension of a work of art.
For the sake of myself, and my ability to read and interpret my own actions, I need to read and interpret the actions of others like me, and others unlike me. I could sit around on Wikipedia reading all day about comics, and folklore, and popular culture, and link in back to my work easily. But art isn't about what something is, necessarily. It's about what it isn't. And for that, it's not good enough to read about the narrative structure of comics. I need to read about things that I don't consider when making art, and figure out why my work isn't that. In doing so, I might be able to figure out exactly what my art is and why it is that. Maybe, also, I will discover that my art is something entirely different than I would have ever thought.
Why?
Thursday, October 2, 2008
I can't play games right now
I have reached a sad point in my life: I now spend more time reading about video games than actually playing them. This has been a gradual process that will only intensify over time until I am so removed from anything gaming that I will not even read about games.
This upsets me.
Video games have been a part of my life, like so many others, for my entire life. Weekends were spent playing a single shitty game that my siblings and I rented, pouring hours upon hours of time into our NES and adopting the heroin addict schedule of wake, play, eat, play, sleep, play--only in this case the heroin didn't fill our lives with delicious sadness and dead babies. The point is, games used to be all I would do.
Then school happened, and for a time my interest in gaming was only strengthened. There was a time in my primary education when the entire social hierarchy of my school was determined by who played what games and how well. We swapped games, got high scores, beat hard parts, discovered glitches, traded codes, lied about exploits, and drew characters in class when we were supposed to be learning Canadian history or something. It was the most popular I've ever been in my life. But times change, and as most of my friends turned their backs on gaming for women or heroin, my interest would not subside. I knew, that what I was taking part in was different than anything else in the world. The people who didn't play anymore: they didn't understand in the same way that I did.
There was something ethereal about controlling a sprite onscreen--about the plight of my electronic avatar. Good or bad, I would play the game and always have empathy for my onscreen self, whether I was Super Mario, Leonardo, or a monster-killing knight. It wasn't just escapism for me--at least not purely, since I always enjoyed life and school and the summer when my mother would pack up all the video games and put them in the closet where I couldn't get to them apparently (whatever, that shit is dark in there). Gaming gave me a view into a world that was like my own, but followed different rules: it was magic and different. And now, after a lifetime of games, I think that magic is wearing off.
Want to know how to destroy a good thing? Find out everything you can about it, disassemble it and figure out how it works. That way, when the magic happens, you can know that it isn't magic, but actually quite logical and boring. When I turn on a console today, I struggle with an overwhelming indifference. Part of this I blame on the inherent structuring of modern gaming (I like shooting things, too) but somehow I feel like I'm just putting time in and going through the motions of actually caring about the missions I play and the flags I trigger.
I'm not just impossibly picky, however, since I enjoy games I played as a kid almost more now. Nostalgia aside, there's still something beautiful about controlling a sprite that only knows the flat world of two-dimensional gameplay. For me, it's all about immersion in what I'm doing, and the abstract premise of a two-dimensional game is always inherently more appealing than a three-dimensional one. I suspect this is because three-dimensions are closer to the realworld, which has rules, values, and biases, while two dimensions are rarely exclusively explored in the realworld, except in the form of art (and of course commercial mediation, which applies art); therefore, two-dimensional games invoke a greater sense of the essence of a video game. Three-dimensional games have to work harder to immerse the player, otherwise the experience is forced and hollow for no reason other than the player cannot fully suspend their disbelief. And let's face it, sitting in front of a monitor, holding a remote controller and pressing buttons to trigger flags or achieve specific values in a programme isn't exactly the fast-action bloody shootout that it's advertised to be.
This upsets me.
Video games have been a part of my life, like so many others, for my entire life. Weekends were spent playing a single shitty game that my siblings and I rented, pouring hours upon hours of time into our NES and adopting the heroin addict schedule of wake, play, eat, play, sleep, play--only in this case the heroin didn't fill our lives with delicious sadness and dead babies. The point is, games used to be all I would do.
Then school happened, and for a time my interest in gaming was only strengthened. There was a time in my primary education when the entire social hierarchy of my school was determined by who played what games and how well. We swapped games, got high scores, beat hard parts, discovered glitches, traded codes, lied about exploits, and drew characters in class when we were supposed to be learning Canadian history or something. It was the most popular I've ever been in my life. But times change, and as most of my friends turned their backs on gaming for women or heroin, my interest would not subside. I knew, that what I was taking part in was different than anything else in the world. The people who didn't play anymore: they didn't understand in the same way that I did.
There was something ethereal about controlling a sprite onscreen--about the plight of my electronic avatar. Good or bad, I would play the game and always have empathy for my onscreen self, whether I was Super Mario, Leonardo, or a monster-killing knight. It wasn't just escapism for me--at least not purely, since I always enjoyed life and school and the summer when my mother would pack up all the video games and put them in the closet where I couldn't get to them apparently (whatever, that shit is dark in there). Gaming gave me a view into a world that was like my own, but followed different rules: it was magic and different. And now, after a lifetime of games, I think that magic is wearing off.
Want to know how to destroy a good thing? Find out everything you can about it, disassemble it and figure out how it works. That way, when the magic happens, you can know that it isn't magic, but actually quite logical and boring. When I turn on a console today, I struggle with an overwhelming indifference. Part of this I blame on the inherent structuring of modern gaming (I like shooting things, too) but somehow I feel like I'm just putting time in and going through the motions of actually caring about the missions I play and the flags I trigger.
I'm not just impossibly picky, however, since I enjoy games I played as a kid almost more now. Nostalgia aside, there's still something beautiful about controlling a sprite that only knows the flat world of two-dimensional gameplay. For me, it's all about immersion in what I'm doing, and the abstract premise of a two-dimensional game is always inherently more appealing than a three-dimensional one. I suspect this is because three-dimensions are closer to the realworld, which has rules, values, and biases, while two dimensions are rarely exclusively explored in the realworld, except in the form of art (and of course commercial mediation, which applies art); therefore, two-dimensional games invoke a greater sense of the essence of a video game. Three-dimensional games have to work harder to immerse the player, otherwise the experience is forced and hollow for no reason other than the player cannot fully suspend their disbelief. And let's face it, sitting in front of a monitor, holding a remote controller and pressing buttons to trigger flags or achieve specific values in a programme isn't exactly the fast-action bloody shootout that it's advertised to be.
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