GothPunk

 

With Autumn rapidly approaching Wales it is time for a new visual art exhibition at SnakeAppleTree gallery. It is situated on Floor Three of the gallery at Crystal Waters. 

GothPunk 

‘Gothic-Punk milieu’ was coined by Mark Rein-Hagen for the original pentacle White Wolf collaborative game books. They broke the mould because in the World of Darkness the players play the monsters. 

“A beast I am lest a beast I become.” 

The consequence was a flood of fresh blood including 60% females attending gaming conventions for the first time in roleplaying game history, which previously was a nerd boy thing and not because misogyny. Vampire: the Masquerade made roleplaying hobby Cooler Than Sex for the first time ever. 

They were billed as ‘Storytelling games of personal horror’. This is how they were intended to be played. 

Later, unfortunately, a watered-down experience where the characters did high-school power-game and romance stuff while just so happening to be ‘cool’ monsters, inflicting horror upon fictional others without necessarily experiencing it for themselves. 

The characters in World of Darkness are generically outlined as GothPunk. Later, after the early 1990s, the term was retrospectively pinned on what had previously been called variously and incorrectly DeathRock, or more traditionally, a very early off-shoot of the mid 1970s London Punk movement, Goths. 

This series of art is inspired by the illustrations created especially for those World of Darkness books by a number of artists. 

From that core it extends outward. Towards the sources of those sorts of gothic horror stories, including the Hellraiser movie franchise inspired by Clive Barkers modern classic novel The Hellbound Heart, through the glorification-of-suicidal-depression cult which was Emo and decades later toward the manga Blame! by Tsutomu Nihei. 

These images were created almost entirely in an iPhone using apps, including an original source image, designer text prompts, Wonder AI, PaintCan and the iPhoto editor. The process for these images is repeatable. 

Some of the images did not get as far as PaintCan and iPhoto editor because of comparative purposes for education and because noble though that sounds I am of limited patience and attention-span. Life is too damn short to fully process them all. 

There is also the source image in its natural form, a photograph of some graffiti. I did not make the graffiti myself. To my artists mind it looks like a cartoon of a goth girl with her fringe over her eyes in a classic emo look, or perhaps her face is half-shadowed like a moon, hiding her inner darkness. 

Along with the text prompt which presented to you in the form of a poem is now copyrighted material technically illegal for anybody else to use as a text prompt. I retain all rights to my original anchored terset poem to exquisitely highlight a double-edged problem-and-poetry that AI prompts are an art form in their own right. 

Not that I am intentionally making a mockery of the legal systems but, y’know, that oldschool ‘punk not dead’ ethos is a factor even where undead punks is the supernatural order of the night.

Gothpunk, Cartoon Portrait

Source image. Wales.
Photograph ©2024.
Original graffiti is public domain. 

“Godd in an Alcove”

more to follow ... 

NET STEN

NET  STEN 

[NO WALLS] 

SnakeAppleTree Gallery  @ Chelsea Arts 

A hundred years ago the Russian and European artists were making friends and working together, even when their governments hate and fear each other. It is not different now. Right-brained, creative people are united regardless of a delusion which occurs to left-brained, dogmatic people when the practicality regional management is replaced by xenophobic nationalism. 

This art is about that. The style is a combination of graffiti style with the principles of an art movement called Suprematism, which evolved as a response to Cubism in the political environment of the early 20th century, a time of change when the foundations of a Modernist world were established and entrenched based on specific ideologies. We have witnessed for a century how the right wing and the left wing meet in the same place, in effect to become the same thing. 

An influence for the title of this Exhibition, Net Sten, No Walls, was my living in the European city of Berlin a short time after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The history associating Communism, Fascism and 'Western' Democracy is the background thesis relating to the entrenchment of creeds and constructions of segregation and its impact on cultural harmony and wellbeing of We, The People. 

"Suprematism. Not to be confused with supremacism. Suprematism is an early twentieth-century art movement focused on the fundamentals of geometry (circles, squares, rectangles), painted in a limited range of colours. The term suprematism refers to an abstract art based upon ‘the supremacy of pure artistic feeling’ rather than on visual depiction of objects." 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suprematism

Limited colour palette for striking imagery, red, black white and cement-textures, aiming for 'the perfect harmonic' colour balance of 60% 30% 10% results in internationally identifiable symbolism inherent  both in colour psychology and as a political tool. 

We have seen historically Communism associating with colour red, a term historically used to describe communists. It is seen for example in national flags for the USSR (United Soviet Socialist Republics, and in Chinese Peoples Republic. *  Soviet literally translates into English language as 'union' referring to Workers Unions, something which was dismantled in Britain along with corporate privatisation of national infrastructural assets providing water, electricity and public transport, under the national management by Margaret Thatchers right-wing Conservative party (the Blue party). 

The architecture showed in the pictures is influenced by a combination of low-cost concrete Russian flats, the Khrushchevka's and high-rise version, the Brezhnevka **  and Chinese hi-rise apartments. Association of the theory and practise of Communism with 20th century communist architecture is inevitable. 

In this exploration we are consciously making connections between the physical infrastructure, the social infrastructure of supply of necessary resources, and relating it to Maslow's hierarchy of needs provision of which form the foundation of any civilisation. Architecture becomes a physical symbol for the mechanics of community. 

"For each their need; From each their ability." 

Karl Marx, Marxism Social philosophy in eight words. 

It is about the People

* 

"The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil War against the Kuomintang."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Party

"The concept of Two Chinas refers to the political divide between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC). The PRC was established in 1949 by the Chinese Communist Party, while the ROC was founded in 1912 and retreated to Taiwan after losing the Chinese Civil War."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Chinas

** 

"Soviet architecture usually refers to one of three architecture styles emblematic of the Soviet Union: Constructivist architecture, prominent in the 1920s and early 1930s. Stalinist architecture, prominent in the 1930s through 1950s. Brutalist architecture, prominent style in the 1950s through 1980s."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_architecture

[Unfortunately I am having problem uploading pictures to blogger at this time. Pictures will follow.]

Chelsea Art Walk Ekphrastic poetry

 

Hello Snakeappletree,

I am a poet who participated to the Chelsea Art Walk Ekphrastic poetry contest and I selected your painting Ishtar Is Itza for inspiration. It is a very powerful work, full of mystery and beautiful. 

I am sending you the poem it inspired to me which I titled "Ishtar". I hope you enjoy it. 

Thank you for participating in the art walk and for the inspiration it provided. 

Frederique Eilish McMillan

Ishtar

An ekphrastic poem on Ishtar Is Itza by snakeappletree

Where are you now Ishtar of the black kohl and red iris?

Do you still roam the green and fertile lands of the Tigris?

Cradle of the civilization, garden of Eden 

You brought true love and fertility to this near heaven.

The bright flame between your eyes compels all, farmers, beggars

To convene in the fields, delight in your carnal pleasures.

Ironically your figure of mystery hides dark

In a wall of fabric and flowing veils masking your spark

Hair gray, your curls now hide the dance of civilization

The slow footsteps leading us towards sterilization 

You show us a tear sinuous on your cheek for you miss

What was once a land of joy now facing the existential abyss.  

Frederique Eilish McMillan

11 July 2024

Hi Frederique, 

My most humble gratitude. 

I absolutely did not expect anybody to give any feedback at all, most especially something positive, and to be of any inspiration. Thank you so much! 

Your poem is both mirthful and sad. Full of life and color. Witty too, the rhymes and descriptions. 

I am pleased it helped you to bring that through. 

You are a good poet, you have a fan here not because of the picture but that you genuinely are talented. 

I am excited to hear more of your words. 

Do you have anything published? 

Do you do open mic sessions in sl? 

Hoping to see you soon

snakeappletree

omg Mirror

 

Watching & photo-record

 june.clavenham  experiment with SL's new feature,  Mirror! 

Location:  Sunset Sway Art Community Center

SLURL:  Symphony 

[NP] Network&Promote

This is what it takes. 

This ain't all of it, either. 

I went back in for another half hour under a different search category... 

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[20:18] jmanque: Hi, Joe. It looks like you're ready for the party.

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[2024/06/27 21:11] snakeappletree: hi, sorry i only just saw your message

[2024/06/27 21:11] snakeappletree: getting there

[2024/06/27 21:11] snakeappletree: autistic hyperfocus

[2024/06/27 21:11] snakeappletree: two hours of sending out party invites to everyone listed in sl classified as a writer

AI art UK Law

AI & ART - Copyright Law UK Jan 2024 

“Section 178 of the UK Copyright Designs and Patents Act (CDPA 1988) enables copyright protection in works generated by a computer in circumstances when there is no human author of the work.” 

“…exhibit the same skill labour and judgment required to meet the threshold of originality required for copyright to apply in traditional works. It is therefore uncertain whether arrangements such as prompts need to be sufficiently original, exhibiting enough “free and creative choices” for a human to meet the originality requirement for copyright…”

https://pec.ac.uk/blog_entries/copyright-protection-in-ai-generated-works/

The AI will not let me use the word ‘erotic’ so I made a conscious choice to use an alternative. I instead use the word ‘sleazy’ which is textural as it also includes a level of degeneracy and grime which can be differentiated visually from the word ‘erotic’, where such textures are not identified specifically. 'Sleazy' is a different prompt, arguably generating quite different images, than 'grimy, degenerate, erotic'. This is a custom genre or sub-genre of the general theme. 

Therefore the concept of "judgement required to meet the threshold of originality" and "sufficiently original" and "exhibiting free and creative choices", is relevant and applies to my work. It is creative because I had to discover a work-around solution to the problem of inhibition. It is free both because it exists outside that limiting inhibition and because a human decision maker with free will consciously decided with a human decision making process requiring free will to overcome an inhibiting restriction. 

“Artists who are passionate about the potential of AI technology have argued that the directive and curatorial instructions they use to guide AI tools requires skilled labour and judgment that is worthy of recognition and protection. Innovation-focused policy makers may view the ability to own and license AI-assisted creations as favourable to economic growth. What is urgently needed is evidence on the likely impacts of AI generated work – whether copyright protected or not – on the lives and livelihoods of creators.”

I am passionate about all forms of art. I do include AI generated images within this. I am a multimedia artist with an honours degree in the Fine Arts with decades of training and experience, ergo I have sufficient expertise to have valid opinion on the matter. I will be the first to tell you my opinion as to what constitutes art is equally as valid as the next persons because art is subjective. "Beauty is the in the eye of the beholder." Which in Art School philosophy mis interpreted that it is the gaze assessing the thing where the beauty lays, it is a perception. John Berger and many other philosophers teach about this in words.  

"Directive and curative instructions" used "to guide AI tools" do not materialise out of nowhere. A Human decision maker is involved, requiring a process of thought and decision making. 

How has using AI generated art in combination with prompts and a source-texture affected my ability to create visual images and develop as an artist and as a writer? Exponentially. Are the images comparable to traditional art techniques, ie; drawing and painting? Yes they are comparable, with pro's and con's, the same way that other technology focussed forms of print-based art, ie; photography and print-making is comparable, with pro's and cons.  

I will write more about this specifically. 

TBA