flickr records each view of an image. tumblr records each like and reblog. as the shared reality of an image expands its privacy diminishes. the virgin image becomes the slut image.
branding is built into the internet and neoliberal public space. a couple reactions to this emerge: 1) sarcastic embrace of corporate values (power, property, expansion, modernism, helvetica, hierarchy, addition, multiplication, masculinity, relentlessness, glass, steel) 2) quiet embrace of the closed environment (subtraction, division, walls, children, naive, Montessouri, Quaker, garden, relax-in, relenting, arranging, sustaining)
a difference between exterior and interior space, perhaps. the public sphere vs the private sphere. or is it the other way around? facebook resembles the megamall atrium, echoing the voices of everyone inside. the corporate office. the comic convention. the megachurch. going to extravagant lengths to interiorize large groups of people. containment. crowd control.
private spaces are also about containment and crowd control - containing privacy and keeping the crowd at bay (at the door? at the window?). and these private spaces are also about property - about the private garden, the backyard, the studio. to sustain these spaces one needs income. the more private the store, the less traffic it receives.
the cult and fan mentalities of comics and sci fi are increasingly ubiquitous. nerd culture, gaming culture, japanese culture ... the rise of scott pilgrim. the transformation from hipster to yuppie. certain creators today are making work that is very exploitable, using gentrified style sites of the recent past as their work spaces / construction sites. these spaces kind of bum me out and i don't want to talk about them. (the uncanny valley...)
i like these comics (1, 2) because they have a screening/filtering process. andy burkholder's comic (especially) seems private, vulnerable, shielded. like a 'magic eye' image, embedding data within a cloak of noise.
images by carson fisk-vittori
12 comments:
i noticed that my comic for gaze books mocking self-indulgent artist-blogger types was just recently "liked" by tao lin on tumblr. i wonder if he knew it was directed at him and his equivalents?
i felt you 'understood' me in your comic even if you were unaffectionate in your understanding of me
i'm still not convinced that the blog posts / comments attributed to blaise larmee aren't just written by a machine learning algorithm
it would have to be a really sophisticated one... you know, like "ELIZA"
I'm drunk and I think I understood this.
"i wonder if he knew it was directed at him and his equivalents?"
or, more likely, he has a healthy sense of humor about himself.
i dig that first comic quite a bit thanks for the link dude
irony is pretty awesome because as your feelings grow/change so does the edge of the topics purpose
&/or sometimes mocking someone whos mocking another is beyond comprehension {lampoon squared?}
What a complicated way to say a simple and true thing. I like both those comics you linked to. Thanks.
man
let's talk about the fact that the comics community is so small, and information speeds are so fast,
that there are already people copping not-so-well-known artists like Jason Overby. the only thing the comics had in them that jason overby doesnt supply is the meta self loathing usually provided by blaise...
it just seems like sometimes that comics is such a slow moving, small community that there is a tendency now to "fetishize" anything that smells like a fresh turd. seems weird that something pretty idiosyncratic like Yokoyama has been called "trendy" yet a random two page comic with little original thought/content gets a mention. a mention in passing, but still.
either the dudes at comics comics are digging up another inane old 1960's comic artifact that in it's context perpetuated the stereotype of juvenile nerdom ( a stereotype that still exists and that has not won over the other 90% of the world with no interest in comics who dont know how ''mature'' the artform is)...or the dudes here, when they do mention tactile topics, seem eager to dig up someone who is a blatant, seedling manifestation of some much better artist.
@anonymous jason overby creates and breaks down structures of dealing with life and comics
these structures are naturally appealing/relevant to others who have similar concerns
"the only thing the comics had in them that jason overby doesnt supply is the meta self loathing usually provided by blaise..."
andy burkholder's comic uses running tracts of text that operate somewhat independently of the visuals, that are 'interrupted' by the visuals in a jarring/emotional way
this reminds me more of austin english's memory comics than jason overby's relatively sparsely worded comics
i am not sure what you mean by meta self loathing in this context
jason overby's comics have a sort of noisy barrier, that by entering it, stops being noise.
andy burkholder's comic also has a noisy barrier, but it finctions like a layer on photoshop, dropped onto the original comic. it is less organic, more synthetic. jason overby's comics are built out of the noise, whereas andy burkholder employs the noise like a texture/veneer.
"the dudes here [...] seem eager to dig up [...] seedling[s]"
I've always found the need to talk about how small the comics community is (and the "stay in your place" logic that goes with it) more of some sort of internalized inferiority complex. If other people like things, is that bad? If other people like things that you just found out about, why is that a problem? If somebody likes something that everyone else has forgotten about, why is that bad? And then why not worry about why the things everyone knows is good and talks about aren't known or unknown by more people? People like what they do and you can learn a lot from other people, when you forget about your own ego. Known/unknown are just two sides of the same silly coin. What do you like? Sharing is learning.
dylan, I think the smallness to me has more to do with the information flow...i.e how quickly for someone to be considered a major talent, how quickly to decide someone is a hack. this flow has a tendency to effect the fact that people form hierarchies in their heads based on this information process (so and so is better than so an so) and the work is then influenced by this.
I dont know how to put this i guess. it's just a little boggling that artists so talented/intellectual like blaise or JO reference work contemporary to them but entirely less original. i think there is a a good amount of both interesting pictures and ideas in their work...but the stuff posted on this blog is like an angsty attempt to make comics that appear to have an intellectual bend.
i don't think anyone here has to affect any angst or intelligence
the talent/hack situation is an innerstrugle for each artist
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