hi for the love of god hello! i haven't had the best january but i did make some art. mostly AI gifs — at least i lucked out on colab, getting big instances twice. and all images have alt text this time! i'm sorry if the words "AI generated gif" get repetitive... you can hover for titles
for starters, the first finished piece of the year, a raffle prize for hornfell. it feels like forever ago, i was really excited about everything in general.
my main project / focus at the moment! as i've mentioned on last month's log, originally a follow-up to TRANSGENDERIZE THE ESCHATON but it's evolved and shifted into something rather different. on my main page i called it a "zine about the man-made cosmic horror of data, featuring the transgender antichrist", and i guess that's a way to put it.
i'm not entirely sure what to call it honestly, i love zine as a catchall term and i suppose you could say it's cosmic horror, even if i don't intend it to be scary. i don't think i quite have a say on that though. i've had my art called macabre and horror at times, and while i'm flattered about it, it tends to be unintentional. i suppose it's just my love for the genre bleeding through. i love some cool ass monsters and a sense of incomprehensible distance and alienation. and i love when people tell me of unexpected things my art reminds them of! it always opens a new area of investigation.
well, these gifs are certainly not scary. as i said, not my best month, so i actually didn't get much work done on the zine at all. i settled on the layout and planned art i'll do, but not much more than that. i did draw a dead rat but i'm not even 100% sure it'll get used. oh well. i'll leave it for february. it's kinda hard for me to accept all my "failures" this month, but i have to make peace with them. with how little art i put out, with the internship i didn't get (which is gnawing at me... it was a miracle to find an opening in the first place and i can't help but blame myself for losing that opportunity. which is insane, i know, i know it's not my fault but it's so so so frustrating), with all the days i felt trapped at home. with all the days i felt i wasted away in my bedroom. i've been trying not to dwell and be so negative about it all but. i feel stagnant. i need change.
well uh. take a look at some gifs.
arbitrary little section break. for a short while i considered making my thesis revolve around AI-gen / interpretations of traditional art genres. hence the still life of meat and the nude. i think it'd be interesting to have this alien museum full of regurgitated centuries old ideas, created by an algorythm, etc etc. there's some meat on those bones but at the same time it feels a little... shallow. i just didn't connect with that very much.
what i'm currently thinking of is leaning on the esotericism and inscrutable nature of algorythms in general and machine learning in particular. in a way, an offshoot of dataplankton, perhaps? i was considering treating it like an oracle. doing automatic writing while the images are being generated, as if i was channeling visions from a world i cannot understand. oh it's all so nebulous in my mind.
still waiting on that book. it's taking forever for some reason? i've been tracking it and it's just chilling at the nearest international aeroport, supposedly "in transit". for over two weeks now. from my research it'll either take up to 40 days or not show up at all. i might have to make a phone call soon. infuriating. also did you know in the usps website they're all Post Office™ and ZIP Code™? these aren't ironic TMs, they're deadass trademarking... post office. the contempt i hold for the united states of america is unreal.
what i did read and watch this month though, and some ultra short opinions:
i've also been playing dark souls 2 again (that's the view from majula above), as well as a little dead cells. and watching a lot of let's plays by scribe. demon's souls, resident evil (remake, vii and village), silent hill (3 and origins), nier automata, siren bloodcurse, amnesia (dark descent and machine for pigs), shadow of the colossus... yeah i'm a little bit unwell in the head, these are good distractions. i also got pathologic since it was 90% off but didn't play much yet.
oh and also i've gotten into petz! i'm still working on my crew page but you can check it out regardless bc i like the look of it. it also has a link to my PUGS profile where i'm selling some petz i thought turned out fun :)
i think that's all for now! hope you're doing well!
