The Update that turned into an Essay
Jan. 10th, 2023 07:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootThis is a strange blank time.
Work wore me out, I get that, and have been trying to research, get myself back into that space of enjoying writing. Not so easy really. The City and The City by China Mieville is a case in point. I know rather than feel how good it is. Clinically I see why it is great, but it doesn't touch me yet. Right now reading it is work, not pleasure.
Ngih Vo's Empress of Salt and Fortune is a faster, sweeter hit, but I trip up almost straight away on the use of the pronoun They for a person singular. I suspect it works in context, but I don't know what the context is yet. When it comes to pronouns, saying they rather than he/she is not difficult* but seeing it on the page is jarring for me, it disturbs the movement of the story over the page. I don't get why; many years ago I read Tutuola's The Palm Wine Drinkard, which is full of what some might call grammatical errors, and others would consider a vibrant written record of oral patois in West Africa. It was fun, and I had no problems reading it. Likewise Hoban's Ridley Walker has a very distinct linguistic pattern full of 'mistakes', if we are absolutely insistent on ignoring the point of the book. I am sure it'll work, but right now, it all feels like duty, heavy and worthy, something I am doing because I should.
Conversely, I was able to binge watch Slow Horses straight off the bat. Yes, there's that sense of it all being a bit too familiar near the beginning. Gary Oldman is the abusive slobby boss, q curry fart jokes from the off, setting the scene, I know, I know, good old 70s earthiness, yes, OK. Fortunately the plot moves fast and kept me. But it's not just a case of viewing vs reading; most stuff on TV bores me as thoroughly as anything I read, it's just quicker about it.
AI art continues to supply me with short sharp little hits of satisfaction. There's so much furore about whether or not this is art, its levels of derivation, even theft. For me, there is something poetically appropriate about the fact that AI art cannot do hands properly; the hand is the first sign we have of man as artist, signing on a cave wall in Maltravieso.
The above was created by Neanderthals; this in itself moves me more than anything I have read or watched in the past month. Art is older than modern man, it is a sign, not of our species but of our genus - and our genius. Older than we are, I think it will outlive us. Whatever happens, something essential picks up the pen or paintbrush, tells a story, sings, dances, creates. That's a heartening thought.
AI Art can only reiterate imagery, however, I recall talking to Conroy Maddox about what defined surrealist art, and he said that surrealism did not look for original elements within an artistic piece, but rather the extraordinary that occurs in the juxtaposition of those elements, their incongruity in relation to each other. For me, that is what can make AI art different, the movement and distortion between a prompt, what is imagined, and what emerges. I applaud perfect convincing photographic imagery as a matter of someone getting their craft down to a T. But it isn't always interesting... after all, why not just take the photo? What I want from AI Art is the unpredictable space.
My most lauded pieces include these:
And yes, I love them to bits. But I feel close to things that are less loved, like this,
or this,
or even this.
Because,however hideous, baffling, or indeterminate, they take me somewhere to find the thing I really want, the story. Which is how I know I am a writer, not an artist.**
And just like that, I'm awake.
* Using 'they' as a single person pronoun in speech takes a bit of readjustment cos I am not used to it, but it's nothing much. People insisting on entirely new words to describe themselves when they are not present (zhir, zhe, fae/fi/fa etc) can just forget it; I don't have room in my head for a multitude of individual lexicons for the wounded and special. We're all wounded and special.
** That and skill levels obviously. Whatever ability I have in writing would exist with or without a computer. The same can most emphatically not be said for my attempts at art.
Work wore me out, I get that, and have been trying to research, get myself back into that space of enjoying writing. Not so easy really. The City and The City by China Mieville is a case in point. I know rather than feel how good it is. Clinically I see why it is great, but it doesn't touch me yet. Right now reading it is work, not pleasure.
Ngih Vo's Empress of Salt and Fortune is a faster, sweeter hit, but I trip up almost straight away on the use of the pronoun They for a person singular. I suspect it works in context, but I don't know what the context is yet. When it comes to pronouns, saying they rather than he/she is not difficult* but seeing it on the page is jarring for me, it disturbs the movement of the story over the page. I don't get why; many years ago I read Tutuola's The Palm Wine Drinkard, which is full of what some might call grammatical errors, and others would consider a vibrant written record of oral patois in West Africa. It was fun, and I had no problems reading it. Likewise Hoban's Ridley Walker has a very distinct linguistic pattern full of 'mistakes', if we are absolutely insistent on ignoring the point of the book. I am sure it'll work, but right now, it all feels like duty, heavy and worthy, something I am doing because I should.
Conversely, I was able to binge watch Slow Horses straight off the bat. Yes, there's that sense of it all being a bit too familiar near the beginning. Gary Oldman is the abusive slobby boss, q curry fart jokes from the off, setting the scene, I know, I know, good old 70s earthiness, yes, OK. Fortunately the plot moves fast and kept me. But it's not just a case of viewing vs reading; most stuff on TV bores me as thoroughly as anything I read, it's just quicker about it.
AI art continues to supply me with short sharp little hits of satisfaction. There's so much furore about whether or not this is art, its levels of derivation, even theft. For me, there is something poetically appropriate about the fact that AI art cannot do hands properly; the hand is the first sign we have of man as artist, signing on a cave wall in Maltravieso.
The above was created by Neanderthals; this in itself moves me more than anything I have read or watched in the past month. Art is older than modern man, it is a sign, not of our species but of our genus - and our genius. Older than we are, I think it will outlive us. Whatever happens, something essential picks up the pen or paintbrush, tells a story, sings, dances, creates. That's a heartening thought.
AI Art can only reiterate imagery, however, I recall talking to Conroy Maddox about what defined surrealist art, and he said that surrealism did not look for original elements within an artistic piece, but rather the extraordinary that occurs in the juxtaposition of those elements, their incongruity in relation to each other. For me, that is what can make AI art different, the movement and distortion between a prompt, what is imagined, and what emerges. I applaud perfect convincing photographic imagery as a matter of someone getting their craft down to a T. But it isn't always interesting... after all, why not just take the photo? What I want from AI Art is the unpredictable space.
My most lauded pieces include these:
And yes, I love them to bits. But I feel close to things that are less loved, like this,
or this,
or even this.
Because,however hideous, baffling, or indeterminate, they take me somewhere to find the thing I really want, the story. Which is how I know I am a writer, not an artist.**
And just like that, I'm awake.
* Using 'they' as a single person pronoun in speech takes a bit of readjustment cos I am not used to it, but it's nothing much. People insisting on entirely new words to describe themselves when they are not present (zhir, zhe, fae/fi/fa etc) can just forget it; I don't have room in my head for a multitude of individual lexicons for the wounded and special. We're all wounded and special.
** That and skill levels obviously. Whatever ability I have in writing would exist with or without a computer. The same can most emphatically not be said for my attempts at art.
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no subject
Date: 2023-01-10 12:18 pm (UTC)But as a metaphor, it is absolutely brilliant and one that I find myself coming back to again and again, particularly in places—which one frequently comes across here in the States—where two cultures crouch side by side, determined to ignore each other.
If you're looking for books to read that will involve you intellectually and emotionally, I recommend Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad and its follow-up The Candy House, which are both absolutely brilliant.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-10 12:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-10 04:36 pm (UTC)With Tutuola and Hoban there was a whole range of nonstandard usage so no one instance stood out. (And I love them both for it the way I love RL dialect.) With Vo, the singular they kind of stuck out. It threw me a bit too.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-11 09:48 am (UTC)