red alert all strange friends: new vibe pack, new supply drop, new style, is en route to your feed and potentially your life (if you want) right now. its a topic we havent covered in a minute. had this one cooking in the lab for a while now.
had the idea to periodically release some smaller fine art style prints from the studio in small packs with some stickers ive been printing along the way. did the first one sometime last year, made 40, they sold out, it was a good time. time for chapter 2
now its time for the [second] vibe pack. "second inkjection" - american cryptids print with the suite of theo-aesthetica stickers. some new. some classic. let me show you all about it in this thread. u can look for fun even if u dont want to pick it up
so, first up, the print. i wanted to make an image with some of my favorite, and some of the most essential, some rare, some well known, american cryptids. ive been working on getting this just right for a while now. i think i first started this last year in colorado.
so i have this really awesome printer here where the ink is almost more like paint. ill post a video of the print in a second. when ive done stuff like this, ive usually tried to base the feel and flavor of the image on a traditional printmaking technique, so it carries that vibe
last time i tried to land in kind of an etching or northern euro woodcut space. this time, i based the feel and flavor of this print on some japanese woodblock prints, specifically this image of white foxes carrying ceremonial flames at night by hiroshige, one of my favorites.
not that they look the same, obviously, but i can "go for" any flavor and feel i want so, i have found its useful to base the general timbre off something traditional so, thats what i used. the way the woodblock print utilizes fades and dark tones was perfect for this.
you can see how the print actually looks here and get a feel for the size. its printed on watercolor paper so it has a nice texture, its kind of thick, not to sound pretentious but i would call this a more fine art style print. im really happy with how it turned out.
theres a few older euro altarpieces and things like that from northern europe that have decorative writing around the outside, and its done so that when youre looking at the image the writing functions as a "pure border", but u can read it. the border says what cryptids are in it
we got:
- mothman
- dogman
- loveland frog man
- flatwoods monster
- bigfoot
- jersey devil
- pope lick monster
- skunk ape
- wampus cat
- various aquatic entities
and more. i tried to get the best selection possible
so yeah. could go on about that but really tried to capture a certain vibe and feel here. if ur on patreon you saw me working on this on and off for a while, started sometime last year, even collected visual descriptions and notes of things that should be reflected. good times.
anyway, moving on, the stickers. some people have seen some of these designs before, got some classics around, this first one is new though. theyre all vinyl stickers.
theyre all around three inches, which i have found is the largest i can print them without the effect being "woah, thats really large, what am i going to do with that". with pencil you can see how large:
also includes the holographic st odilo of cluny sticker, which you can see in the tweet below and in different lighting in the tweet above that. shiny. hes the patron saint of souls in purgatory
ive found its almost impossible to get these printed without some slight imperfections like a line or a bump or something so, just saying, but thats kind of the cool part of working with actual materials instead of pixels, imo. they look cool irl.
thats it. the set is $40 flat. that includes shipping unless ur in another country. comes in a small hard envelope to your house. i made 40, if it sells out super quickly ill make some more. thats the tale. thanks for looking at my stuff and hanging out on the internet with me
oh yeah i forgot the best part, i know this is going to push it over the edge for you, theyre signed on the back. hello big museum department. hello art world. hello sothebys ten million dollar opening bids. ten trillion dollar bids minimum by end of year (not financial advice)
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recently, i was discussing with a friend if children's general aversion to killing animals was innate, or a modern phenomenon. his response was that it's completely modern: in fact, it's intentionally implanted as a social control mechanism.
[...]
if you distance people from the process of obtaining their food, which entails slaughter, it's easier to control them.
obviously, i have no way of knowing if this is true, but i find this interesting because: i have it. despite my ideology, i have the aversion and always have.
he's showing me pictures on his phone of him butchering a pig: all the organs, the skin, everything. i have no problem with this: actually, i think it's cool, and eat more meat than the average person. but i still feel the slight spiritual recoil. was it spontaneously generated?
one noticeable aspect of older media is that to “be political” for normal people usually just meant adopting a particular niche cause, something like “save tigers”, and to be have the now common level of awareness about day to day politicians and events made you a politics junkie
there was a time within recent memory where being the “political friend” just meant that you thought people shouldnt throw plastic into the ocean. that was it.
‘jesus camp’ (the movie) was only released in 2006. notably in one segment a radio host, who is talking about politicized evangelical christians, says “these people aren’t politicos - they’re your friends and neighbors”. the idea of them “being political” was itself a novelty.
i was sitting in an office recently and looked down at a table of magazines. one had a decorated cake on the cover. i asked myself: is it real, or AI? all images will now be run through this hermeneutic. this is, literally, “dehumanizing”: to deprive of positive human qualities.
once again the AI image conversation should be steered away from “is it good or bad?”, “is it cool or lame?” (subjective, no way to prove these) towards: what does it mean? what does it do? but this angle is less explosively polarizing and more difficult to get attention with.
one time i worked at a traveling art exhibition. it was billed as art from egyptian tombs, but it was actually recreations of the art found in egyptian tombs. this was crazy unethical but i got the job via a long convoluted process accidentally, then quit.
zygmunt bauman (modern social theorist) says that the constantly shifting and unclear nature of our time period also applies to interpersonal relationships: no one is quite sure what it means, specifically, to be a parent, a grandparent, a friend, a coworker, and so on.
[…]
this sounds nonsensical at first - we can define all these terms easily: what a friend or grandparent is. but no one is clear on the obligations that these relationships entail, their day to day norms, what is expected, what assumptions are being made on either side: all unclear.
you see this a lot with present discussions about new parents looking to their parents to step into the role of grandparent. what does that look like, specifically? what is to be expected? this is a huge source of frustration and tension for many people, with no clear answer.
photos instead of paintings (all this was later removed):
this is one of my favorite image parings to show people. in person when you swipe back and forth you can sometimes see it rewire something in their brain about america. same room in the white house, before and after:
it looks like the AI conversation is going to cement around “are artists are coping or not” but id like to submit a second option: that its worthy of skepticism that my broke friends are beholden to copyright laws that apparently don’t apply to tech people making a lot of money
the AI question really should be: are we doing wild west on copyright laws or not. if we are, okay - then that should apply to everyone. if we’re not - okay, then that should apply to everyone. everyone is basically arguing that now tech companies get to be the exception to them.
if my friends can get cease and desist letters for making fanart about a movie or franchise when money gets involved but a guy can also make a billion dollars feeding that movie and franchise into his image maker and selling access to it, i dont think its out of line to ask: what