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hewhofragments · 3 years

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If you're feeling down today or if you feel like you're stuck in a rut in life, if you're fresh out of college, if your marriage has collapsed, if you're between jobs, or if you're just so jealous of other people, please give this essay a read:

A Left-Handed Commencement Address (Mills College, 1983)

I want to thank the Mills College Class of ’83 for offering me a rare chance: to speak aloud in public in the language of women.

I know there are men graduating, and I don’t mean to exclude them, far from it. There is a Greek tragedy where the Greek says to the foreigner, “If you don’t understand Greek, please signify by nodding.” Anyhow, commencements are usually operated under the unspoken agreement that everybody graduating is either male or ought to be. That’s why we are all wearing these twelfth-century dresses that look so great on men and make women look either like a mushroom or a pregnant stork. Intellectual tradition is male. Public speaking is done in the public tongue, the national or tribal language; and the language of our tribe is the men’s language. Of course women learn it. We’re not dumb. If you can tell Margaret Thatcher from Ronald Reagan, or Indira Gandhi from General Somoza, by anything they say, tell me how. This is a man’s world, so it talks a man’s language. The words are all words of power. You’ve come a long way, baby, but no way is long enough. You can’t even get there by selling yourself out: because there is theirs, not yours.

Maybe we’ve had enough words of power and talk about the battle of life. Maybe we need some words of weakness. Instead of saying now that I hope you will all go forth from this ivory tower of college into the Real World and forge a triumphant career or at least help your husband to and keep our country strong and be a success in everything - instead of talking about power, what if I talked like a woman right here in public? It won’t sound right. It’s going to sound terrible. What if I said what I hope for you is first, if — only if — you want kids, I hope you have them. Not hordes of them. A couple, enough. I hope they’re beautiful. I hope you and they have enough to eat, and a place to be warm and clean in, and friends, and work you like doing. Well, is that what you went to college for? Is that all? What about success?

Success is somebody else’s failure. Success is the American Dream we can keep dreaming because most people in most places, including thirty million of ourselves, live wide awake in the terrible reality of poverty. No, I do not wish you success. I don’t even want to talk about it. I want to talk about failure.

Because you are human beings you are going to meet failure. You are going to meet disappointment, injustice, betrayal, and irreparable loss. You will find you’re weak where you thought yourself strong. You’ll work for possessions and then find they possess you. You will find yourself — as I know you already have — in dark places, alone, and afraid.

What I hope for you, for all my sisters and daughters, brothers and sons, is that you will be able to live there, in the dark place. To live in the place that our rationalizing culture of success denies, calling it a place of exile, uninhabitable, foreign.

Well, we’re already foreigners. Women as women are largely excluded from, alien to, the self-declared male norms of this society, where human beings are called Man, the only respectable god is male, the only direction is up. So that’s their country; let’s explore our own. I’m not talking about sex; that’s a whole other universe, where every man and woman is on their own. I’m talking about society, the so-called man’s world of institutionalized competition, aggression, violence, authority, and power. If we want to live as women, some separatism is forced upon us: Mills College is a wise embodiment of that separatism. The war-games world wasn’t made by us or for us; we can’t even breathe the air there without masks. And if you put the mask on you’ll have a hard time getting it off. So how about going on doing things our own way, as to some extent you did here at Mills? Not for men and the male power hierarchy — that’s their game. Not against men, either — that’s still playing by their rules. But with any men who are with us: that’s our game. Why should a free woman with a college education either fight Machoman or serve him? Why should she live her life on his terms?

Machoman is afraid of our terms, which are not all rational, positive, competitive, etc. And so he has taught us to despise and deny them. In our society, women have lived, and have been despised for living, the whole side of life that includes and takes responsibility for helplessness, weakness, and illness, for the irrational and the irreparable, for all that is obscure, passive, uncontrolled, animal, unclean — the valley of the shadow, the deep, the depths of life. All that the Warrior denies and refuses is left to us and the men who share it with us and therefore, like us, can’t play doctor, only nurse, can’t be warriors, only civilians, can’t be chiefs, only indians. Well so that is our country. The night side of our country. If there is a day side to it, high sierras, prairies of bright grass, we only know pioneers’ tales about it, we haven’t got there yet. We’re never going to get there by imitating Machoman. We are only going to get there by going our own way, by living there, by living through the night in our own country.

So what I hope for you is that you live there not as prisoners, ashamed of being women, consenting captives of a psychopathic social system, but as natives. That you will be at home there, keep house there, be your own mistress, with a room of your own. That you will do your work there, whatever you’re good at, art or science or tech or running a company or sweeping under the beds, and when they tell you that it’s second-class work because a woman is doing it, I hope you tell them to go to hell and while they’re going to give you equal pay for equal time. I hope you live without the need to dominate, and without the need to be dominated. I hope you are never victims, but I hope you have no power over other people. And when you fail, and are defeated, and in pain, and in the dark, then I hope you will remember that darkness is your country, where you live, where no wars are fought and no wars are won, but where the future is. Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country. Why did we look up for blessing — instead of around, and down? What hope we have lies there. Not in the sky full of orbiting spy-eyes and weaponry, but in the earth we have looked down upon. Not from above, but from below. Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that nourishes, where human beings grow human souls.

--Ursula K. Le Guin

#ursula k le guin #ursula le guin #a left handed commencement address #no need for ambition #no need to play by their rules #you're doing better than you think you are #stick to the darkness #you don't need their false light

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laughableillusions · 3 years

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Farkas Meets Neloth

((AN: I wrote this at like 2am last night and I thought it was funny, I proofread it a little but of you find any errors just ignore them)) ((Also idk if this is a bit out of character for Neloth, but mostly I think he’d be at least a bit curious abt the LDB romance choices bc of research abt the magical aspects of dragons or smth))

Lindir wasn’t expecting a manhandling interrogation when he floated up to the top of the Tel Mithryn tower, he almost tripped when the old wizard rushed up to him; berating him with questions as he held his chin in a tight grip. Poor Farkas, he could tell he was a bit overwhelmed. Then again, how many times in a Nord’s life does he float about in a giant mushroom tower?

“Well you seem fine to me, or at least you’re still exactly the same as when I last saw you…” Neloth sounded disappointed.

“I-I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner, I didn’t know you still needed m-“

“Who is this?” Neloth had now turned to Farkas, his yellow eyes narrowing as he eyed the Nord.

Lindir stammered, his protective instincts slamming right into him at the question.

“H-He…I-I got married remember?” Lindir managed, his charm automatically masking his nervousness.

Neloth’sbrow furrowed, he was ironically a few inches shorter than Farkas. But he examined as if he was some kind of strange insect, he walked around him looking him up and down. Farkas watching him stiffly, his hands balled into fists at his sides.

“Well, he certainly is quite the specimen.” Neloth concluded, halting back in front of the man.

Lindir was struck dumb. He didn’t know if he should be flattered or offended at the wizard’s remarks of his husband. I mean the approval of an old Telvanni Wizard was something to be proud of right?

Neloth didn’t seem to notice or care about Lindir’s reaction, only taking his hand and yanking Farkas’s face down to his level by the chin. He looked over him, turning his face this way and that, brow furrowed in concentration. The poor Nord only glanced fearfully at Lindir, awkwardly leaned down at the mercy of the dunmar. He knew better than to stop him at least, he trusted Lindir enough to know when to act and when to stay back. The half-elf knew how to charm and maneuver social situations as well as Farkas could hear a rabbit in the brush. So he would do what he did best, stand and be silent and wait until he felt it was safe enough to speak.

Lindir on the other hand was still caught up in his mind, he didn’t know if he should stop him or not. If he did he was half convinced he would be thrown down the long shaft of Tel Mithryn by Neloth if he protested. Usually if anyone even tried anything like that to Farkas they’d receive sharp consequences (be it verbal or otherwise). One could safely say Lindir was overprotective of his husband, he had the scars from multiple altercations to protect his honor to prove it. Farkas was no exception either, though he was long-cured of Lycanthropy. The possessive instinct to “protect his own” lingered, and it showed. There were many a man (and woman) who had the bruises to prove that too.

Neloth finally let go of Farkas’s chin, brushing the dust that had coated his face off his palms.

“Well, he doesn’t seem in any way special.” The old wizard half-sighed. “But I can see why you like this one, he is quite pretty if nothing else.”

Lindir flushed a deep red at that. His temper now flaring at the back-handed compliment. “This one” “specimen” “not special” it was all simply intolerable. He couldn’t allow any more of it. Farkas was probably the most special person in his life, and he wouldn’t have some old grouch determine his worth.

“How dare you speak to him like that!” Lindir shouted, his hands flying all about him. “Why do you care about who I marry?! It’s not any of your business anyway!”

Neloth didn’t even react to his tirade, which only fanned the flames of Lindir’s anger.

“You act like he’s not even a person while he’s standing right in front of you! How about you treat him like a normal person would and address him properly you wrinkly freak!”

Neloth gave the half-elf a sidelong glance of withering boredom. Sending Lindir sputtering uselessly for words and insults.

“Of course you’d say that, you’re his husband.”

Lindir let out a cry of complete and utter disgust, looking angrily at Farkas. The Nord met his eyes, obviously taking his look as a sign that ‘this was not okay, and he had to do something.’

“I think he married me for a reason other than just the way I look.” Farkas interjected firmly.

The look Neloth gave him silenced him instantly.

“Where did you find him anyway?” The wizard sounded like he was referring to a prize horse. “In Skyrim I know, but what province?”.

Lindir huffed.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself? He’s literally standing right in front of you.”

Neloth frowned, obviously he didn’t enjoy having Lindir be pouty with him. Not that he much cared for what Lindir felt, but it was much too noisy and it distracted him. But if it would shut him up, he supposed he would ask him.

He sighed annoyingly, turning back to Farkas.

“Where are you from?”

Farkas forced himself to look at him, he would hate to admit it, but the wizard scared him. He was always a bit wary when it came to magic, even when Lindir taught him some basic restoration spells he never really trusted it. But those countless burns he sustained from battles against mages, the fireballs shot straight at his face…it was enough to at least have some respect for the craft. He could never really picture going into battle without any sort of weapon, sure swinging a sword around took training. But even then anyone could pick up a sword and use it training or not.

Coming face to face with a master wizard, a wizard that probably studied his craft for more years than he had been alive; honed and perfected every spell so that even the twitch of his fingers would produce what he wanted. Farkas couldn’t fathom the ability this man had over magic, and it was awe-inspiring as well as terrifying.

Neloth was obviously getting annoyed from Farkas’s lack of answer. He could feel himself being read by the Nord, like those pale eyes tried to prod into him.

“Well?” Neloth barked.

Farkas blinked, glancing back at Lindir before pulling together an answer.

“Whiterun, Jorrvaskyr actually.” He choked out. “I-I’m with The Companions…”

Neloth nodded a bit thoughtfully.

“The Companions eh? As in the 100 companions of Ysgrammor...” He thought for a moment, looking Farkas up and down once again. “I suppose that means you’re his legacy hm?” He concluded.

Farkas decided to keep the obligatory Companion Value Lecture to himself, he only knew so much anyway, and didn’t care much for the history either. He just nodded, hoping it would appease the wizard.

It seemed to, and he finally turned away from him. Farkas let out a breath of relief, scooting closer to Lindir to try and recover himself. He didn’t know how much more of this interrogation he could take.

Lindir took his large hand and squeezed it, obviously feeling the same way.

“Well with that out of the way, what is it that you want?” Neloth now said, his back to them.

Lindir thought for a moment, he had gotten so carried away with protecting Farkas the reason for making this tedious trip had escaped him briefly.

“Oh right! Yes,” Lindir said, now completely composed once again. “I’m here about the black books?”

Neloth turned back to him, not even paying attention to the couple’s interlocked hands.

“I thought as much, now come…I have something to show you.” He said, already walking off and not waiting for either of them to catch up.

#skyrim #the elder scrolls #farkas #skyrim companions #farkas x dragonborn #farkas x reader #neloth #mini fic #one shot #tesblr #skyrim oc #tel mithryn #tes v #tes #my writing #writing

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fuckmaniknowbuthey · 7 years

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i took 3 grams of magic mushrooms & saw ghost in the shell (rupert sanders, 2017)

ramblyyyyyyy but here we go

- not an adaptation of the oshii film or the manga and a distressing amount of dipshit fans & critics will scorn it for this but fuck 'em - very very aware of the multiple schools of thought on ghost in the shell (in conceptual reverence as much as aesthetic, this was clearly a film made by ppl who had intimately explored the possibilities of ghost in the shell & decided that this would be the most palatable configuration for an american audience in 2017 - the script, as a consequence mostly of the "for an american audience in 2017", is very banal & while it respects franchise legacy & prior characterizations it is also A Superhero Origin Story so that scarjo can have a non-marvel franchise BUT as a standalone film aside from the screenplay's cloying ambitions of franchise-building it is very good & enjoyable - kin very much 2 johnny mnemonic & for more reasons than just being a highly polarizing hollywood attempt at cyberpunk w/ a prominent beat takeshi supporting part, it has that same strange glee abt taking the big studio budget and going "now let's tease out past/present/future of an aesthetic", it's a film built entirely in its tiny little details (costuming, set design, the general dreamlike vibe, the sound editing, physical gestures) - scarjo is amazing in this!! i am generally not a fan but her interpretation of motoko kusanagi is fucking fascinating & weird & very much in the spirit of standalone complex's ver. of motoko (not quite at that level of brashly confident & comfortable yet, but possessing the same intensity & directness); she approaches the idea of "playing a robot" like, not just as "oh i've gotta be clumsy w/ my speech & motions + not emote very much" but instead like, genuinely behaving in a kind of alien impression of what "humanity" is??? like it's not even the usual sort of "robot that wishes it was real" shit, like she's hostile & inscrutable in affect in all moments where she isn't being hostile & there are so many weird little facial twitches + bits of odd body language she uses 2 communicate this is idea of like, struggling w/ being a constructed version of human rather than an authentic person and the arc is that she kinda just makes peace w/ the idea that she was once a person and now she isn't but she still retains like, this faint shred of this prior experience + she'll use it as fuel 2 live her new one fully in the terms afforded her, it's fucking weirdly heavy-lifting in acting terms for what plays out in plot beats as basically just tryna chum up ghost in the shell's whole franchise history into a post-raimi superhero origin story - the scene w/ the prostitute that's been in every trailer since the earliest teasers is a great moment for showcasing this performance's general vibes in a nutshell, she's like...not just doing bog-standard "oh wow this is a real human, how i'd love 2 be her" sorta wistful detachment, she's forceful + very fixated on how tactile & real the other woman is, like she wants 2 touch her not because she doesn't understand touch or the form of a face or the nature of skin but because she has an intense hunger for her original human perceptions of these ideas and she's got 2 find a way 2 reconcile this w/ her new body in a tangible way instead of just intellectualizing it - michael pitt's hideo kuze on the flip feels very much like a gimmick performance, but it's also a fun one: he's working w/ a lot of the same basic themes, but like cast as a villain for the bulk of it he's gotta dumb the shit down 2 shtick + so he's got the prosthetics & CGI freak body + he does a max headroom meets microsoft sam voice and he screams clumsily w/ every mannerism "I WAS HUMAN, I FEEL THAT I MAY STILL BE, BUT THAT I AM UNSURE I AM HUMAN IS AN IRRECONCILABLE TRAUMA" but he's fuckin' michael pitt so he's having a lot of fun w/ it and it's an interesting contrast of scarlett fucking johansson doing this very subtle character work while pitt's ham monologuing w/ scratched CD stutter tics at her from under cover of darkness - like seriously fuck this dumb screenplay it's very trite but unhelpful 2 focus on cuz this is a film that functions on so many more levels in ways that are compelling - the action is cool, riffing a lot on the peppier moments of oshii's films + kazuchika kise's arise OVA series but never just settling for carbon copy, uses 3D well (reminded me a lot of the sense of texture & movement & space in tron: legacy, which is a tragically overlooked film that maybe just doesn't work quite right outside of a theatre unfortunately) - pilou asbaek's batou is surprisingly good, i had him written off as far 2 generic action man but like he clearly did his research, his batou has a heart & a sense of humor & he absolutely has the body + the voice necessary 2 pull this character off (he manages 2 make the inherent goofiness of rendering batou's tiny camera eyes as a real thing on a person totally workable by having batou be proud as fuck of his augments & not remotely uncomfortable at the notion of them as a replacement for his real eyes, which considering they give him a dramatic "he got hurt on the job" moment after introducing him 2 the audience as a dude w/ normal eyes is cool & not corny cuz any other fucking film would've milked this for a subplot where batou could go "MAJOR, I ALSO FEEL YOUR PAIN, FOR I LOST MY EYES AND THEY GAVE ME ROBOT ONES, THAT'S JUST LIKE LOSING YR HUMANITY, RIGHT??" and that would've sucked) - beat takeshi gets way more screentime than you'd expect and as much as his performance is very much just him Doing His Thing that's honestly an ideal vibemarriage for the daisuke aramaki character + this also feels like a corrective 2 how sloppily he was used in johnny mnemonic hahaha like hollywood just karmically owed this dude one and he finally got it - chin han is a very good togusa, like all incarnations of togusa tho he gets fuckin' paltry screentime compared 2 everyone else and he also is just there 2 be like "he's the normal guy who is a pretty good cop" which is a downright shame - the rest of section 9 all feel like characters who are begging for a sequel and/or spinoff 2 rly flesh out proper but that also means they serve in a perfect capacity for fulfilling both the superhero origin shit (give you a hook 2 intice you 2 dig deeper) and also just like the general cool fringe sci-fi genre piece vibes (everyone looks badass, there's some neat little distinct tic or visual quirk on top of said general badassness that makes you think "maaaan i wanna see more of this guy" which fucking like all of these movies have, like again johnny mnemonic, that's an entire film of characters like that) - i love the retrofuturist plastic shell cars, it's extraordinarily "some high school kid's loving blade runner fanart" but it's executed w/ a respectable unwinking nature abt its whole shit, like it doesn't try 2 make this like the slick CGI ver. of a retrofuturist plastic shell car, it's just a shitty old car w/ hyper-stylized plastic shell on it hahaha - most of the spider-tank scene pales in comparison 2 mitsuo iso's beautifully animated take from the oshii flick but the actual exact sequence where motoko breaks 2 pieces prying the tank open is fucking gorgeous & riffs on iso + oshii's original work sublimely w/o just straight-up jacking it (this is a moment where the 3D rly shines, the frantic swaying of the arm as the last tendons shred and it pops off)

overall this was dumb as fuck but very gorgeous & kept compelling by performances that are strong & play well w/ the genre elements

#movies #long post

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wolfwalkerstudios-blog · 7 years

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The Compass of Balance and Order

More concept art for Lustre Zeal. While attempting to try and develop the look and feel of the world the characters interact with I've also been trying to learn how to balance the aesthetics that I enjoyed while growing up with more modern sensibilities as copying the past because it was a simpler time won't necessarily make you a better artist. If anything it just makes you look dated. Also development log.

Development Log 7.21.17

So between working on various pictures and time spent trying to piece my psyche back together, apparently the development of the self and the deconstruction of the ego can be arrested at various stages in the individuation process leading to psychoses that I've no doubt Freud would have had a field day with, I've been developing a model of thought based on the nature of the Artistic Identity, the use of Inner Vision and our relationship to the social forces present in Emotional Economies to achieve what Jung would term 'a level of psychic functioning' that allows me to 'try and reach for an idea' without relying on the Extension of Self, Embodied Presence, the Avatar State, or the Panopticon Effect.

Don't know what any of those things are? Good, that saves me the trouble of trying to explain them because doing so would involve talking about higher-order thinking and metastrategic knowledge and I don't feel like being here all day. Suffice it to say that the two most prevalent processes I've come across in terms of communicating the means by which an artist experiences the creative forces analogous to the ones they seek to convey is Method Acting and Stanislavski's System, and I don't think I need to tell you which is the one that I prefer. Or maybe I do because quite frankly Method Acting has some very scary side effects and has caused many an actor to come back as something other then themselves. Think Alia from Dune when she gives Baron Harkonnen a place in her mind after speaking with him in other memory. Yeah, not pretty. Anyway back to talking about Artistic Identities and whatnot. Because working on Lustre Zeal has involved making so many freaking design decisions, I've lost count at this point as the sheer complexity of the processes involved has forced me to seek out even greater levels of organization then the one's I already rely on, I've had to focus more on a core set of techniques rather then my usual experimental and iterative explorations of various form languages. Good god that sentence was an absolute mouthful. Let's try that again shall we. Because I prefer to draw characters with more realistic looking anatomy and proportions, I've had to focus on things like the Reilly Method of drawing for my use of construction, gesture drawing for establishing the pose, Frazetta's Emotional Core for my relationships and blah, blah, blah for everything else. Seriously, do you think I'd actually sit here and list off every single artist, actor, animator or director whose work that I've studied in order to form the very foundation that I reach for when I sit down to draw? Well, I could, but it would be a fairly long list and a lot of the names would be Japanese so let's just stick with the whole Artistic Identity and whatnot as the degree of knowledge involved in achieving the level of realism I desire is fairly high and requires an obscene amount of investment in terms of time and energy to actually learn. Having said that, because of the desire to establish one's self both emotionally and mentally is a process of self-actualization, I figured that something similar must be happening whenever artists sit down to draw, writers write or musicians compose, if not only because such an identity allows us to establish our own individual presence in an Emotional Economy but because it also allows us to recognize the visual appeal of our work as well as further understand and define the form language we use to communicate our ideas with both our audience and our peers. A matter which is not helped much by the fact that the rites of passage artists undergo and the harrowing that we experience while setting out on such a path tend to have the unfortunate effect of either destroying our egos utterly or leaving us completely disillusioned by the nature of the realities we choose to engage with. The fact that I scare the absolute shit out of most people when I talk normally is something I've had to live with my entire life, so imagine my surprise when the art that I sought to create and the stories I started to tell became a reflection of the self I'd long sought to hide in order to pass off as normal. I don't doubt Jung would refer to that as the Shadow seeking to express itself in an otherwise healthy way, but then again my pursuit of finding my own Self amidst the ruins of a life ruled over by the fear of what others cannot possibly imagine has been motivated more by a desire to end such intellectual isolation then anything else. Anyway, as an Artist and a Writer I have the freedom to act and think as I want without hindrance or restraint, but balance that with the need for a Persona which to embody and the need for an Artistic Identity becomes both an ego defence mechanism and a means of self expression. There are of course countless downsides to this as dissociation and supplantation can and do occur, watching that happen to celebrities is disturbing to say the least, but then knowing the risks lessens the dangers so there is that. That said the purpose that I had in seeking out the concept of the Artistic Identity was because I wanted a way to discuss the idea of developing one's own Inner Vision without having to rely on the words 'feeling' or 'style' due to the incredibly vague connotations already associated with their use. Seriously, I hear those words used to describe everything related to art and it just grates against my mind because of how hollow and meaningless they are because if Art Deco is a style then no matter how much I may love it it isn't my 'style' its a style that I 'identify' with. Don't even get me started on 'feeling,' hoo boy, sensation is a much better word because not only can I externalize the concepts involved, I can internalize the information being gathered without harming my psyche in the process. But back to what I was originally saying, if we have an Internal Monologue, which can only be reported to exist as I know of no actual means by which to prove it exists save for maybe some form of telepresence or mind to machine transfer system, which in turn begs the question of machine learning and machine consciousness, it stands to reason that we also possess some form of Inner vision. By definition that would mean that if an Internal Monologue is about thinking in words, then Inner Vision is about thinking in pictures. Oh screw trying to dumb it down, there's a mode of meditation used in Vajrayana Buddhism that uses fully realized forms and sophisticated visualization techniques to create art. The fact it can also be used to achieve a substitution effect using imagined experiences that evoke the same cognitive and phsyiological consequences as their corresponding real world counterparts is in my mind an unintended bonus. Though not one I would personally prefer to try and teach someone as you can see by anything I try to draw, its a process that leaves little room for error and can seriously mess you up if you aren't aware of what the hell you're doing and what's going on. Seriously, ten years spent practicing a technique to achieve what people can experience in five minutes after eating a handful of mushrooms. Grumble, grumble, grumble . . . anyway, in order to differentiate one's own Inner Vision from, say, Mental Images or Mental Representation, its important to begin by distinguishing the idea of Inner Vision from the mathematical models and the spatial awareness skills we use to visualize objects as when attempting to represent an imaginary object rather then say, trying to recollect an object from memory in order to construct it, we rely on different visual processes to access and interact with the information in question. Which is to say that copying, transferring, transposing and transubstantiation all describe varying levels and degrees of the qualities we wish to ascribe to an object or form. Or in other words a sword can change its appearance to match its setting without altering its basic properties and still be recognized as a sword in spite of the differences between the artist's mental image of a sword and the way it appears in their own Inner Vision. And if that sounded confusing try applying the concept to architecture and you'll start to understand why so many artists default to the known forms that they've grown up with if only because doing so prevents them from experiencing the kind of trepidation and fear that comes from crossing through Liminal Space. Even I struggle with that one as the number of social constructs and intergenerational gaps that have created new and unprecedented chilling effects increase I find myself wondering what fresh new hell the masses have decided to pass off as popular opinion and commonly held belief. But then again the conflict that exists between attempting to establish one's own identity by rejecting the value systems of those who came before and the realization of one's own agency in a vanishing world is nothing new, its simply happening much faster now. Anyway, back to my point about developing one's Inner Vision, when we look for the primary influences that serve as the basis for the way we attempt to visualize objects, I found that focusing on those experiences that serve as our introduction to a work tend to form the foundation we unconsciously reach for when we draw as not only do they often have largest amount of emotional investiture but the degree of familiarity with the subject matter cannot be matched by the increasingly complex mental and emotional needs imposed upon us by the realities present in an adult world. Or in other words, the reason why the things we enjoyed as children absorbed us so completely is because the fabric of the social realities they presented us with served as a means of translating the elaborate social constructs of the adult worlds around us in a way that allowed us to relate to the events and forces that were shaping the geopolitical landscape of the time. The reason that I say this is because when I look back at many of the cartoons I grew up with I find myself seeing references to things that only those of us who were adults at the time would've recognized or even cared about. And this is in no way an isolated phenomena as not only is it present in my own work, but a few of the more recent cartoons that I've seen seem to be trying to reach a point where they appeal to both children and adults in a way that encourages parents to watch them with their kids so something to root for I suppose. That said, whenever I try to reach for an image in my mind that fits the parameters I've set in terms of design, I've found that comparing and contrasting it against things that already exist in reality is the only way to anchor the idea in a tangible way as asking myself to try and direct my own attention towards a certain emotion, theme, mood or even concept is all but impossible without associating my intent with some other established work. I suppose if I were to try and put it into words, its basically the difference between drawing, designing, and development. When I draw, I work from memory, when I design something I work from either an emotional intent or a previously established concept, when developing a novel or an illustration, I work with either a composition in mind or a set of parameters that in turn serve to define the work. Case in point when trying to visualize the Tower of Zeal I needed something that was simple enough to draw over and over again, and yet different enough from the rest of the surrounding architecture that no one would ever mistake it for having been built by the local population. Seeing that in my own mind on the other hand meant I couldn't rely on simply trying to copy pre-existing objects or styles even though doing so helps to familiarize us with the form language that human's use to try and express concepts like reverence and worship. That and ornamentation, people love ornamentation to the point that it is rare to see a truly blank surface anywhere in art or architecture. Anyway, I think that's enough rambling from me. As I said I'm still trying to develop the concept of the Artistic Identity and the function of Inner Vision so if I'm even less coherent then usual that would be why. Until next time folks, have a good one.

#concept art #Black and White #Lustre Zeal #fantasy

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