Hi Crowd!
I'm late getting my monthly photo edition up this month, but it's up now and can be yours for the next 24 hours (or whatever the math works out to be when you read this.) I picked one from the archives this month because it felt fitting with my headspace of the moment, and I haven't really been out shooting since I got back from NY which feels like it was months ago though in actuality it was less than 2 weeks ago.
The thing that has been eating up the majority of my mind share since then is all the drama around the CryptoPunks Artist In Residency (which will be talked about and analyzed and picked apart for ages). I wrote a bunch about it trying to give some context and also to propose a way forward, which has led to further conversations and ideas and I'm now helping think through the idea of setting up a non-profit foundation which would be a steward of the CryptoPunks legacy. This is super nerdy, but also pretty interesting and exciting from an art/ip/legacy/governance standpoint so if that stuff is your jam even if digital art isn't, take a look.
Speaking of drama let's talk AI art again for a moment, because of the Petra situation. What is the Petra situation? Buckle up. Petra is an artist who uses AI. She makes no secret of this, and talks about it often. Someone came across her art on Instragram and loved it, raved about it, and reposted it to their own audience - who pointed out that it was AI, at which point this person flipped out that they had been lied to and manipulated and betrayed. They asked people to find the REAL artists that Petra was ripping off, because there's still this completely incorrect notion that AI art is just stealing shit from other artists. Of course there is no artist that Petra was ripping off, instead she has her own very specific style that she's built with her own models and endless prompting work to get exactly the thing she's trying to do. Well, unable to find an artist being stolen from (because they don't exist) this person decided they were going to make REAL art and basically copied Petra but insisted since they were making it by hand their work was more authentic, even though it was a blatant rip off of Petra's style. This of course has led to much debate, and makes it clear how, as usual, the loudest critical voices attacking artists are often the least informed.
It's also interesting because many of the people screaming "NO AI ART!" are just repeating some of the same arguments that were used against early computer art and even photography before that. Suzanne put together an eyeopening thread documenting some of this historical criticism noting that it was a full century after the invention of the camera before photography was exhibited and accepted as art, and how no celebrated early generative artists like Vera Molnar were accused of "dehumanizing" art in the early 1970's because they were using computers to generate their pieces. I especially liked this 1967 rejection letter from ARTFORUM saying it was unlikely they would ever feature something about electronics or computers in art. Noah also takes a little trip down memory lane showing a number of examples of 1970's era back patting and chest thumping from various art publications espousing their disgust for anything touched by a computer.
Speaking of AI and drama, here's another fun one playing out right now. If you are on instagram you might have seen this ALL EYES ON RAFAH image that people are sharing, almost 50 million times at this point. It's an AI image of course, there aren't actually tents lined up spelling out those words nor is that landscape accurate in anyway, and it's also obviously much more polished and "safe" than any of the actual images coming out of Rafah. This fact upset a lot of people who have been posting real images and trying to get widespread attention for months, only to have this come out of nowhere and get 50x the engagement of anything else else has posted. The complaints were levied at AI, and at people spreading sanitized fiction rather than disgusting reality. But the fascinating thing is, this is kind of a fluke. It's not evidence of conspiracy or white washing or anything like that, rather it shows the power of the recommendation algorithm and what happens when something beats it. By chance it seems that this image didn't trigger any of the limiting flags, it didn't have any blocked words, wasn't graphic violence, didn't have flags or anything else to make it clear it was political, so as people saw it and passed it on the algos saw tons of authentic engagement and started recommending it to wider audiences who also resonated with it and passed it on as well.
We don't realize how much of what we see is decided on by others, and don't really know how to deal with it when that system hiccups. It's almost like there's a whole other world other there beyond what we all see in our own little bubbles.
Speaking of little bubbles, I deeply enjoyed reading the recent Red Hand Files by Nick Cave about meeting your heroes. Not so much for the story itself, which is of course great, but for the conclusion which picks at the creative spirit and what we need to get things done, as creative people. What environments work for us, inspire us, and which ones don't. And what we can (or can't) do to combat that. I struggle with this a lot, as you all know after reading my whiney navel gazing for the last few decades, but anyway this was good. Also, in my mourning the loss of Steve Albini, revisited this 2021 self reflection of his which has really stuck with me. The real clincher for me was where he notes that the biggest mistake he and his peers made was assuming a lot of social issues had been solved, because they were in his little bubble. I can relate, I feel lucky to have grown up in a supportive and progressive punk rock world, where no one gave a shit what sex or sexuality anyone was, as long as you rocked and hated fascists you were welcome. But the error of assuming if it's solved for you it's solved for everyone else can't be underestimated, and realizing how fucked up things were - and still are - for lots of other people, it's an important part of growing up and understanding the world if you have any interest at all in helping to improve it for everyone else too. And certainly some people don't give a shit about improving it for other people, but that's always been something I've personally wanted to have a hand in, if I could.
I also loved the handful of people who, in reminiscing about what a loss it was to lose Steve with comments like "the world needs more people like him" were self aware enough to recognize that Steve wasn't magic - he just tried. And you can try to. If you were talking about how wonderful it was so see someone in public trying to right the wrongs of an industry and make up for past personal mistakes, and lamenting there aren't more people doing that, what the hell are you waiting for? Step up.
I learned two new terms in the past week that I keep thinking about. Tolyamory and Passive Suicide. The first being a new term coined by Dan Savage to explain that uncomfortable grey zone area that isn't cheating but also isn't polyamory (like we've seen in shows like House of Cards or any number of other "look at these rich and powerful people breaking social norms" type stories) where couples might be together for reasons other than attraction which results in one or both knowingly partaking in extra curricular activities outside of the relationship and that being known and "tolerated" rather than encouraged or expected. That one is interesting from a spectator position but Passive Suicide hits a little closer to home. I've written before about my own youthful suicide attempts and how they shaped my ongoing world view, and made art to try and make sense out of my brother's suicide so having a term to describe this "not actively trying to kill myself, but if I accidentally died in my sleep tonight that would be fine" feeling is helpful. People are weird and being alive and experiencing all this weirdness is weird, so having words that better describe some of it is nice.
Unrelated to either of those things, but also weird and interesting, I enjoyed this piece about the assumptions and expectations and realities of coy/girl friendships and how jealousy and even perceived jealousy impacts them. It made me think, a lot. I always try to be a good friend, but I also realize maybe I haven't been as good of a friend as I thought I was at times - not recently, but way back, and I should keep that in mind and try to be better tomorrow with whatever that brings. If only to show that Steve isn't the only one who can learn something.
Speaking of learning something, someone should buy me this pictorial history of CRASS so that I don't have to buy it and pay stupid import fees.
OK, I guess I should go do some real work. Thanks for reading. I love you.
-s
