#if you remember this art piece in digital form no you didnt��

[redloftwingfeathers]

Worthy hero, unforgettable companion

[getgored]

hhai... i wanna get into art (to start drawing my sonas n ocs....)

do you have any tips?? ur art is so so yummy :3

Thanks man

My top tips for people who want to improve their art skills are

A. Study anatomy and realism.

Yeah, boring as fuck i know. But let me tell you, after years of art schooling, the things that most impacted and improved my style were the things i learned from drawing from life.

It doesn't have to be crazy htperrealistic drawings, i used to do figure studies once a week, drawing a model/person, no online images, just a plane body in front of me and my sketchbook. That shit did wonders for me.

B. Start cheap

As in, dont splurge on high-quality art supplies you won't know how to use. The supplies dont make an artist. the artist makes the supplies. I started drawing bullshit with a 2B pencil and a school notebook, and even now, i still use ibispaint x on my phone drawing with my finger. The only difference is that now i have premium.

But seriously, dont waste money on supplies you won't know how to properly utilize, this includes high-quality paper, fancy liners and pencils, premium drawing apps, digital pencils, etc. That stuff should come AFTER you get your footing and know you're serious about art

C. Be inspired

I always recommend people look at artists they love, analyze their style, what makes their art appealing, and apply it to ypur own style. Don't copy and paste an artists style, but take bits and pieces and frankenstein it into a personalized style that you love, every time i try to improve the way i draw something i look at artists or designs that inspire me so i can grasp what it is im trying to achieve in my art.

It can be as simple as the types of colours you use to how the body is proportioned or stylized, creativity breeds creativity, so be creative and dont be afraid to be inspired, ESPECIALLY as a beginner

D. Learn your basics

Wasn't originally going to add this, but to improve you NEED to learn the basics, i honestly dont recommend learning these things at the very start, but more towards when youre vomfortable with art and are trying to develop it.

By basics, i mean things like colour theory, point perspective, the elements of art, etc etc. Again, all very boring stuff that im sure everyone has heard of before.

I think trying to learn some of things by trial and error is great but it can only get you so far, you need to know at least a LITTLE about the basics, to be able to fuck around with them and be able to let loose with it.

Just also remember art is meant to be messy. it's meant to be disgusting and offensive, and human. Art is a wonderful thing i genuinely believe everyone should try in some form or another, but don't beat yourself up bevause it didnt turn out the first time, itll take a few lifetimes for it to be "perfect", so until then just enjoy the ride.

I am ALWAYS open to art tips and advice, even critique and red lining, i can even explain some concepts I've learned in school, mever be afraid to ask, sharing knowledge is punk rock.

[darlington-v]

galaxy and 1975 for the ask game? :0

Galaxy: What fascinates you?

thats a really hard one. there's a lot of stuff that fascinates me. i think learning anything is fascinating. like the act of learning. one thing that comes to mind is like art and learning more about my craft. also my friends! im often fascinated by them and with them. they're all so smart and intelligent and driven and creative and like kind and it's just a wonder to watch them do their thing.

lots of small things are just easy to pull me in, again, with learning. i really like learning about almost anything i have even a slight interest in, part of it really being that it's just intriguing? idk.

1975: if you could time travel to any time period, what would it be and why?

part of me wants to like impulsively say THE VICTORIAN ERA but like i really wouldn't. like that's The Brand but it's been really glorified in my mins by period pieces like women still didnt have rights and gay ppl also didnt have rights nor were on the radar for rights like. maybe rhe make-believe victorian era in my mind but definitely not.... the real. victorian period.

SO INSTEAD IMMA SAY LIKE THE 80S TO LIKE THE EARLY 2000S???

largely bc like a sense of nostalgia? like, i feel like things were a little better back in the 2000s but like also i was like anywhere from a literal infant to age 10 so i wouldn't ACTUALLY know i was too busy being a fucking kid.

but the music was nice and the tv shows were nice. i love the old tech that was used. there's a sense of imperfection to it that just FEELS good. i like grain and i like crunchy sizzle that digital recordings don't have.

and i think one thing i REALLY REALLY fucking miss the most was the weather. like... i miss when it used to ACTUALLY SNOW where i live and i miss falls being crisp and wet and ALWAYS being crisp and wet, not like having a random OPE ITS 81 DEGREES OUT TODAY like WHAT!? IT'S FUCKING FALL.

plus, i feel like, there was a form of a stronger sense of community in the US before. like, i dunno i often feel disconnected from people and also just my local community and i feel like... to a certain degree the world may have been a little kinder. not like on the most revolutionary levels, and maybe this is a culmination of media ive watched, my own nostalgia, plus my parents' nostalgia for these times but it just sounds like people were more engaged?

and like maybe its bc im not in public school anymore, but block parties? like i've never been to a block party, but i remember hearing them across town and singing along to the music with my cousin. like, i remember that with a LOT of festivities and i just don't think my younger cousins now, who live in the same spot, can relate.

also i miss 90s/2000s RNB and hiphop! and the tv that was airing in the 90s n 2000s. like xfiles? banger. well at least the first 2 seasons i'm still watching (im on season 4, season 3 fucking sucked)

also fresh prince! i started rewatching it last night and like. i was 10 when i last watched fresh prince so a lot of shit went over my head that i didn't pick up on, but i'm 22 now and it's just been like ohhhhh.

but also idk it's nice and idk if i live under a rock or if i feel like a lot of shows i watch or see now don't have the same vibes, but idk i just like 90s shows like that.

also will smith movies in general :(

i rly like will smith 😔

also just to tack on more fluffy nostalgia shit because reflecting makes it seem nicer than it really was:

old video games, casette tapes, mixed tapes, cute mcdonalds toys, the weird see through plastic for everything that was popular and made something in my neurotic little brain ignite like the 4th of july, the fashion and it being simultaneously tacky but also not, actually enjoying music played on the radio, THE PRICE OF LIVING!!!!!! AND BEING ABLE!!!!!!! TO AFFORD!!!!!! SMALL SHIT!!!!!! THAT WE CAN NO LONGER AFFORD AT ALL!!!!!!!!!, furbies and all perfectly fucked up things like furbies, practical effects in movies, jim henson, horror movies that i could actually enjoy and still enjoy.

ive lost my train of thought but like. man.

maybe its bc i was 10 like i said and life was already pretty easy being 10 and all but like idk i just rly enjoyed 90s and 2000s culture.

[baek--honey]

1-50 bitch

well since u asked nicely how could i resist

1. If you didn’t have to sleep, what would you do with the extra time? paint/draw or the like, or knit maybe,

2. What’s your favorite piece of clothing you own/owned? MY HOT MOMS SHIRT THAT I LOST ;n; also the big grey hoodie i have & a pierce the veil shirt i borrowed from my gf that im never giving back :)

4. How often do you play sports? never

5. What fictional place would you most like to go to? The Digital World

6. What job would you be terrible at? probably anything involving extensive memorizing and maintaining information for long periods of time. so basically a lot of things…… or maybe like. working at starbucks cos i cant make coffee OR remember lots of drink recipes omg

7. If you could turn any activity into an Olympic sport, what would you have a good chance at winning a medal for? playing kingdom hearts 2 on easy mode. i would have a good chance at winning because all the people that are good at playing kingdom hearts are gaming elitists that think playing on easy is for losers and if you dont play on critical mode you arent a real gamer :)

8. What skill would you like to master? making an omelet OR knitting

10. What would be the most amazing adventure to go on? some out of town adventure with my girlfriend where money and time dont matter 

11. If you could change one thing about your life right now, what would you change and why? uh i’d like to be less haunted by my traumatic past maybe! or be a few inches taller that would be cool i feel like both of these are pretty self explanatory 

12. What’s your favorite drink? W A T E R or milk tea 

13. What do you consider to be your best find? my girlfriend 

14. Are you usually early or late? way too early. too mcuh time i dont know what to do with it

15. What pets did you have while growing up? hm lets see i had a couple turtles, some fish, i had a gerbil that i got from a friend, an african grey named solomon, boston terrier named Tiny, two white boxers named Floyd & Lloyd, a mix named Macy, 4 chihuhuas named Dude, Pooty, Flout & Chief, and now we have a cat named Schrödinger :~), oh and an amstaff/dalmation mix named EL

16. When people come to you for help, what do they usually want help with? anything and everything but never really asking for advice i guess? its more of them talking about a problem cos im easy to talk to and then me trying to help them come up to a solution if they need it

17. What takes up too much of your time? S L E E P I N G 

18. What do you wish you knew more about? cats!!!! also dogs cos i know a lot but i want to know more

19. What would be your first question after waking up from being cryogenically frozen for 100 years? why am i still alive?

21. Who’s your go-to band or artist when you can’t decide on something to listen to? seventeen or monsta x, exo’s LMR repackaged album

22. What shows are you into? the office, lost, honestly nothing thats still running on tv, i havent watched a show in forever, oh god wait does anime count cos i could write the longest list of anime i love: haikyuu, nge, digimon, noragami ,,,,,,

23. Who has impressed you most with what they’ve accomplished? Seventeen (Hangul: 세븐틴), also stylized as SEVENTEEN or SVT, is a South Korean boy group formed by Pledis Entertainment in 2015. The group consists of thirteen members divided into three sub-units, 

24. What age do you wish you could permanently be? a dog mom & i hope i can make that wish come true

25. What would be your ideal way to spend the weekend? napping on and off in bed with my girlfriend and then going to town for sushi & milk tea and then uhhhhhhhhhhh coming back home to nap some more and then go out for noodles for another date :} oh and a dog would be involved if possible because cuddling dogs is best

26. What’s something you like to do the old-fashioned way? physically writing and sending cards/letters in the mail i guess? i dont know if that really counts as doing something the old fashioned way but i definitely dont get as many cards or anything in the mail anymore. i also like to keep physical hand written to-do lists & schedules and stuff

27. What have you only recently formed an opinion on? how bad exo are at dancing  turtlenecks and scarves. they are good 

28. What’s the single best day on the calendar? october 10th my dogs birthday and also narutos birthday

29. What are you interested in that most people haven’t heard of? asmr??? 

30. What is the most annoying question that people ask you? “did u have a little lamb?” OR when my grandpa asks me anything about his iphone 

31. What could you give a 40-minute presentation on without absolutely no preparation? my dogs or seventeen. OR a half ass presentation about kingdom hearts, trying to explain it while getting around all the plot holes and not nailing down my arguments cos i dont really get it either and theres a lot i dont pay attention to but i could come up with 40 mins of info im sure

32. If you were a dictator of a small island nation, what crazy dictator stuff would you do? no waking until 10am. no crime or anything will be allowed ill figure out some way to make everything perfect so women can go out alone at night and not be afraid. no discrimination !! all the poc, lgbt, disabled, any minority  will be welcome and have safe spaces and any hate will be punished by law. also everyones allowed to have pets in their homes and no home goes without food or power. am i doing this right

33. What is something you think everyone should do at least once in their lives? travel out of your comfort zone. like physically travel somewhere and make the most of it but do it with someone cos the buddy system is important

34. What’s worth spending more on to get the best? jackets. i will pay up to 100$ for a good jacket and wear it forever cos itll be confirmed long-lasting and also most likely very comfortable!!!

35. What is something that a ton of people are obsessed with but you just don’t get the point of? i just want to point out that its not that i dont get the point of it because everyone has their likes and i have my own that other people dont i like that people are into whatever they want to be its just that i am Not into it. and that thing is yuri on ice

36. What are you most looking forward to in the next 10 years? being able to wake up every morning next to my girlfriend and out pets :~)

37. Where is the most interesting place you’ve been? corning museum of glass was super neat……. , dollywood, gatlinburg, chicago chinatown, idk i havent been to many interesting places 

38. What’s something you’ve been meaning to try but just haven’t gotten around to? i wana get a tattoo !!!!!!!!

39. What’s the best thing that happened to you last week? getting a job interview at barnes & noble because now i have a job there!!!

40. What piece of entertainment do you wish you could erase from your mind so that you could experience it for the first time again? diamond edge chicago

41. If all jobs had the same pay and hours, what job would you like to have? all i really want is that job where im paid to sleep 

42. How different was your life one year ago? tbh not that much different?? other than i was in school and now im not. i didnt have a job and now i do. i was a year further away from moving 

43. What’s the best way to start the day? talking to my girlfriend and also let me just say that first pee in the morning. perfect

44. What quirks do you have? what are quirks exactly i looked up examples to help me think of some but all im thinking of is…i cant have the volume on my tv or radio on an even number it has to be on an odd number??? i have to sleep with a fan on. idk dude

45. What would you rate 10/10? [MV] 몬스타엑스 (MONSTA X) _ 걸어 (ALL IN)

46. What kind of art do you enjoy most? abstract w lots of colors and shapes. geometric stuff 

47. What do you hope never changes? my ability to collect myself (unless it gets better which then i hope it does), my passion for art of any sort

48. What city would you most like to live in? anywhere except charleston and somewhere thats not extremely highly populated

49. What movie title best describes your life? Scooby Doo 2 - Monsters Unleashed

50. What’s the best way a person can spend their time? sleeping or hanging out with their pet

[greywindow]

I will never understand what kept you near me aside from momentary need. I am happy you brought up all the ways you would never cherish me or protect me though. The true nadir began when you decided I was to “blame” for the state of our relationship. The true blame lied with you, it lay in the weeds you planted… I never even said it. Numerous times I tried to clarify that no one was “to blame”…. But i was wrong. It was you. Very simply it was the ways you would never cherish or protect me… Defend me when pressed… Sure… But only because you will defend anything…. You know unequivocally that I would have burned for you… Even if only to prove you were worth it… I would have never even attempt to ask 20% of that of you because I would have been simply disappointed… And even that was a stress I simply bore, not recognizing it for what it was. So when you made my two breakdowns… Yes breakdowns Under the stress of supporting and caring for someone who seems to care about anyone other than the two of us more than anything. When I get to repeatedly hear about how willing you are to help your friends get their lives moving forward… And how you sacrifice everything of yourself to a relationship and see none of that reflected on me….. Reading and writing with your one friend Listening to the music and reading the lyrics of your other friend (who you secretly love and pine for after reading the lyrics while telling everyone else in your life but not me) Constantly waiting for video and art updates from your other friend (who in public you refer to as your wife and lover but I am some unnamed shadow) And constantly going on discussions of cosplay with online friends and getting a couple “oh yah we’ll do some stuff so I can show off your body” basically…. For me. So yes. On the days you decide to be blatantly cruel due to some hidden and callous “slight” I cast your way or some offense to your astrology and drag out my punishment for an hour or two of silence, dejected refusal to acknowledge reality amd deciding my attempts to help you are really more proofs of me being hurtful or ignorant…. Or the day I was told my grandmother was entering palliative care and you decided it was a good argument to smash my property and scream almost hysterically until you had to be physically restrained and even then almost clawed out my eyes? On those days…… I finally break down. I dont know if anyone reads this or takes the time. I don’t care. You can judge me and say “what kind of man loves like this”? I do not care. I was willing to give this woman anything because that seems to be my role in meeting inescapably damaged people… It is the wound I carry and it doesnt bother me, now that i know what it is… I have been made to feel like the smallest nothing but I am intellectual and well built physically to the point that I can destroy people mentally or physically, people can be afraid of me just by being me…. When I stumble across someone female in the situation of being bent and damaged but not broken by the world I feel comfortable enough to give up my control to them because they can teach me the softness I don’t have. In the process, for the first time… They have the opportunity to hurt, the power of control… And the passed few haven’t handled that responsibility very well. You were no different. I don’t judge you for it, although it is true. You took the ability to be Poison Ivy with her Bane and gave it up because you didnt agree with the symbolism and instead wished for Superman, a few thousand miles away. I wouldn’t have cared. I am a Gemini remember (you’re with me if you want to be or you arent. Case closed)…. I could easily live with that… But you took my dedication to you and turned it into something wrong or bad You took away any chance of forgiveness for the two times i broke down and made it into that being who or what I am. You know my ability to cause violence and I never once turned it towards you even a tiny bit…. Because my tiny bits would cause incredible damage to someone as tiny as you… And yet…. When you made me out to be the problem, that hint of violence was your goto. That was why I broke down for the third and final time and why I cant speak to you until the passage of years has grown you, or until you grow into rest of the 98%‘ers and the point is moot. I would have burned for you. I gave up some of the things that men think make them men for you. You had a Lion that would give you his belly. I dont mind that you didnt love me. C'est la Vie. It hurt, not going to lie. There is no way I would have broken down the way I did and shouted you out of my house the way I did had you simply told me that. You dont have the right to say things about me in regards to love because that honour goes to your “friend”. I want to be clear. He didn’t break us up. You did. This is not about your feelings for the other people you pretend to be poly with. This is about your lack of empathy and love for me. I am sure you have people you have talked about astrology with and even if I was mentioned alongside his name… The focus turned to him and progressed with me as a side note. How many people have seen his chart? How many people have seen mine? Has nothing to do with him. It has everything to do with you. You couldn’t even see I was literally crumbling internally that last morning when I lost it… Its not that you have some different form of love than I, its that you don’t love me. A year in I never would have given two shits whether or not you loved me, but it kind of sucks to see you more in love with yourself and him than I. And you are only being disingenuous to yourself from this point if you don’t see it. When I finally broke down I was like turning in circles and I turned to you in some weird confusion to hug you (because i didn’t know what else to do) you only saw the beast and not the cub…. Remember telling me about needing to cry? Had you hugged me then amd petted my head and told me it would be alright this story would be different. That would have been the action of both a friend and a lover to seeing the one they care for in obvious distress. You put your hands out like I was unclean… And I still didnt even really know what I was doing. Do you know I actually can’t even remember at what point or what was said when I lost it…. That whole period I almost stood outside myself and watched me spin my wheels and wring my hands turning this way and that before turning to you for a hug… I want you to know if you made it this far that I dont hate you. I reserve my true indifference for those I hate. You would never get this piece of writing. I will never mail this to you though. It will remain buried here for a long as it remains a digital memory of this time. If you find it, even then you may still blind yourself. So here it will remain… I don’t need to prove anything. I never did, thats why when a fool and a wise man argue its hard to tell the difference�� I dont have any of the “pride” or ego based contradictions to iron out, prove or make fundamental to my life…. I live just fine in my skin, its you my dear that has those issues to follow through on. My lesson was to truly learn my role as the Blackbird in your life and if the alignments continue to bring me more like you I will only learn to be more patient and more caring until I get it right. One day when you are willing to be honest with yourself and actually sit down and learn who you are as a concept and not as what a concept defines you as we will talk. If there is the core inside you that everyone spiritual can see and that you cannot it will grow and break itself free of you and leave this cage behind… That will require you discovering your spirituality and that is inside not in some book or forum of painters all painting with the same color. Maybe you see the things I write, maybe not. This really isnt for you although I talking to you, its for me. I can finally just let you go… It’s taken so long and I am still hurt and mad, i am happy i know though and it’s worked its way through to the separation of our energies. I was thinking about how you would feel if you pushed him numerous times to the breaking point until he had his two breakdowns in the year you spent in his presence… And i realized that it wouldn’t happen because you are trying to buy your redemption and self worth through him… Because it was only his ex that pushed him to the point where he couldn’t handle it… Not sure how self aware you were when you made the claim that you could be like her to him… You heard and felt his pain over it, and you have projected your own insecurities into that place. The damsel in distress bit probably worked with whatever guy in town you were talking to before we were done, and if it has any effect on your true love…. It was only to show him where he wouldn’t find his redemption. The round about funny thing is… And i have never considered it until now people who have the “unrequitted” love syndrome pass it on karmically to the ones that follow.... sure to subconscious projection of superiority over the same arch type that previously caused them intense pain… You dont have to get over me, I have now finalized my getting over you... Its you who has to get over him. Maybe one day when you are ready to admit some things to yourself we will talk again... and if not then maybe in our next lives we can be cats. Take care of yourself

[pywooowar]

PROCESS Brief summative post

The process brief was a difficult project for me to complete. I think this was possibly because it came after the I Am Here project where I really began to feel comfortable in my practice, as the process brief completely flipped that on its head. I decided at first to run with it, to try and push how I work and try something new. Initially, nothing at all came to mind when tutors said ‘pick a process’. I literally could not think about anything. After going into the staff room and being told to think more simply, choose something so simple and don't overthink it, I walked away kind of bewildered. I decided to just walk home and if something came to mind as I was going home I would note it down. When I got home I had fried eggs on toast with ketchup (as per) and realised, I always have sauce on my meals. Apart from the obvious, e.g. cereals, I could guarantee I would always have a sauce or condiment on my dinner. Gravy, chutney, ketchup, mayo, tartar, bechamel, even jam, there was always something on my plate. This made me think of the process ‘choosing a sauce to go on my dinner’.

Initially, I researched into how I could show this. In my head, I could picture the fridge and me thinking of my meals and then planning if I have the right sauces in my cupboard / fridge. This to me was the thought process behind it, I was just unsure as to how to get that out of my head. I remember seeing Christien Meindertsma Fibre Market and loving it. Showing all of these objects in such a beautifully satisfying way worked really well, and I wondered how I could do the same with my process of choosing a sauce for my dinner. I debated lots of forms of design over the projects duration, constantly going back and forth between different ways of presenting my thought process, should I make a poster, a film, a GIF, a model, what should I do? I tried to forget about this part and just focus on the data. I collected every sauce in my fridge or cupboard and from there recorded how much I liked it and used it daily. I don’t think this worked that well as I didn’t use a large amount of them, but really liked this route of presenting data (especially after seeing Information Is Beautiful, that documents often quite mundane surveys and makes the graphic presentations really interesting) so wanted to push that. There were quite a few references that inspired this idea, such as Ian McDonnell When We Had Pigs, that uses a process that really isn’t nice to see and makes the poster beautiful. This is what inspired me to ake a poster outcome, how could I present my process of choosing a sauce for my dinner ‘beautiful’ to look at? 

I began to photograph the sauces in my house in McDonalds condiment cups, so that every sauce was shaped the same. This took branding / any other factors away from the sauces and just presented them as what they were (kind of like a science experiment). From there, I regimented them into a colour order, similar to Fibre Market, so it would be aesthetically pleasing to look at. However, I noticed there was no indication on this poster that it was MY process, it was me who was choosing one of these sauces for dinner. How could I introduce this personal aspect? Harry Freegard and Chrissy Denbigh’s ‘Big Girls, Small Men’ for Interview Mag really inspired the next step in this project. I added hand writing and lines to the poster, so that the audience could see that it was my process as opposed to a general process anyone could do, it was what was going on in my head. 

Initially, I thought this worked great. I had combined this data presentation aspect with a personal element to create an intricate poster that shows all of the sauces I have and which one I chose. However, when showing it to others, they couldn’t understand what they were seeing, and I realised this is true. The process is a thought process that goes on in my head, so making sure this was represented on the page was important, and something I had not put enough consideration into. 

From this point, I’d added lots of other elements to the poster. Changing it to a worksheet background, similar to what you’d find in a school note pad, was a hint to it being an editable page, something you could add to quickly when the idea came into your head. Then, I changed the poster so it now broke down the process into three meals, and they were graphs that showed how relevant the sauces were to my meals. By this point, the project had got extremely confusing and I had lost touch with what it was I was trying to make. 

After taking a short break away from it, I realised why the project wasn’t developing. Although I had all of these ideas and references and collected theory to put into place with my work, the actualy process itself was not correct. I didn’t care about any other sauce than ketchup, I never had any other sauce on my food. After realising this I went back at the other posters I had made, and decided to re think on them. Having ketchup on every meal gave me a kind of peace, a continuality that I carried through every day with me. I knew if I had a stressful day I would come home and do lots of little routines, including having ketchup on my dinner. It was this small process that actually made up a larger one. Once I had figured this out and worked out what my process really was, it felt like I could really start this project properly. 

I began to look at topographic maps, as I had seen quite a lot of 3D and visual art work online that involved lots of line work and layer work to make really cool animations and patterns, they reminded me of this georgaphic maps and weather reports. The way that the lines moved on the screen was very calming, and I thought if I could make an animation that moved in this way, this would be great as I could make the audience / viewer feel the way I did when I completed these routines at the end of the day. It began to get very complicated editing the layers from illustrator to after effects, and I think this may be to do with the size of the lines, as I realised as well they werem’t appropriate for printing. Although I did really like the final digital poster I made, I realised it didnt have a place anywhere. No one would be able to see it and understand it on a screen, and it could not be printed in as much detail as would be required. 

After a lot of confusion over this project, I came back to it at a later date and thought about how I could carry on with it. I know I wanted to communicate this sense of peacefullness, alongside the sheer amount of routines I stick to every day. The poster didn’t do this, as it would not be big enough to see. I realised as well that the poster is literally just a data presentation piece, its just documenting all of the things I recorded, rather than being an actual outcome. However, I really liked the topographic map idea, there was something about it that felt so relaxing. So I began to develop ways to physically make the map, so that the audience would be able to see it properly, be involved with it, be up close to it, and see my routines and comfort levels as a physical thing. Initially I planned on printing each layer onto clear acetate and lining them up (kind of like how slides are placed in boxes) but hung up and larger in size, so from the front you see one image, from the side you see hundreds. However, the many layers would actually make the front opaque, you wouldn’t be able to see the thin lines. 

Finally, I developed a 3D printed model, building up each layer on Sketch Up to make a physical shape. It couldn’t be printed as due to the pandemic I could not get access to the printers, but set up ‘scenes’ on Sketch Up so you can view the model as if you were in a gallery. I am actually so pleased with this final outcome, it took a lot longer than usual for me to understand what was happening in the project and where there was a lack of understanding of the brief and my own process. I got very tied up in the idea of producing a poster, and this limited the communication side of this project, every poster I had made I hadn’t understood why it didn’t work, however now I know this was because a poster outcome was not relevant, I needed to push this data I had collected off of a screen or a page and make it a physical thing, for people to understand the way I think. 

Overall, I am happy with the final outcome. I spent a lot of time on this project in the enquiry/process and realisation stages, often going full circle again and again to try and understand, through resources, what I should be doing with this data I collected. I think what often happened is I wouldn’t be applying appropriate processes and methods, however towards the end with the 3D model this is where I had applied an appropriate method, and learnt the appropriate skill set for this, to really push the project forward. There was a clear audience and this made it much easier to visualise how my model would reach them, and this really benefited the final outcome. 

Here is the link that takes you to the PROCESS BRIEF blog:

https://pywooowar.tumblr.com/tagged/process

[viralhottopics]

Net nostalgia: the online museums preserving dolphin gifs and spinning Comic Sans

Archivist Jason Scott has made it his mission to record digital culture for future generations. But why are we so keen to relive the days of Geocities websites and 56k modems?

Jason Scott is a guerilla internet archivist. Someones got to be. If youve got some content embedded in a site thats about to disappear, then he and his team of coders and data engineers go in there and Oceans Eleven the joint. In the name of digital archaeology, they migrate as much data as they can to a safe harbour even as the main site goes down. We swoop in and, to the best of our ability, take a snapshot, he says.

Scott is interested in conserving the stuff we have forgotten has value. Increasingly, our culture plays itself out on the internet, yet even now we have a tendency to view what we do on there as trivial. Or we make the mistake of assuming that digital means for ever. The problem is, the internets systems have been designed as though everything goes on indefinitely, he says. There are no agreed-upon shutdown procedures. When users die, what do you do? Because their accounts live on, and suddenly Facebook is telling you your dead friend also likes Snickers bars. Often, you dont even know whos running a site. Its as if you didnt know who was in charge of your water supply; then one day, it just stopped …

As one of the earliest adopters in the pre-world wide web 1980s, Scott took thousands of screenshots of bulletin-board systems early internet message-boards. In 1996, he decided to share his ASCII joy by building a website to host them all: textfiles.com. Its still online today, a piece of retro-within-retro. The site made Scott famous in net-nostalgia circles, and its legacy has made him one of the key movers in how we interact with and conserve an online kingdom, parts of which feel as faded as any Mayan temple.

Scott now works for archive.org. This is the new, broader umbrella for what used to be called the Wayback Machine, the online library that can show you what a given website looked like on any given day, now encompassing more than 279bn pages. Its $18m (14.5m)-a-year running costs are funded chiefly through donations, averaging $25 a time. Alongside Jimmy Waless Wikipedia, the Wayback Machine feels like a relic of a kinder, gentler era in the life of the net before Facebook algorithms were squeezing every penny out of your newsfeed. It was, we were told, a soft-libertarian wonderworld, full of dreamers who believed that private donations plus low information costs would breed a web where we were all equal, all beautiful.

It hasnt quite turned out like that. Which could be one reason we now look back so mistily at the web of olden times. Even in 2001, there were back-to-the-landers recreating the revolving Roman columns, dolphin gifs and mismatched spinning comic sans of the Geocities age. By 1999, Geocities was the third-most visited website in the world, enticing a vast quilt of hobbyists to make their own pages about whatever interested them. When it finally shut its doors in 2009, the Wayback Machine made a complete copy of it. But nostalgia for what it represented means that theres also Neocities an attempt to reboot its elemental qualities. Not to mention the Geocitiesizer which recreates the rest of the web in the same garish colours, autoplaying Midi-songs and intrusive tiled windows. Internet artist Olia Lialina has created One Terabyte of Kilobyte Age which serves up an unending spool of Geocities page screengrabs in the form of a Tumblr blog.

Go back another generation in internet nostalgia and you hit Tilde.club a website-building engine with a lengthy waiting list, where learning a few coding skills will allow you publish some authentically rough, poorly spaced web pages from the mid-90s. In addition to these retro sites, there are emulators to recreate the blocky tedium of waiting for 56k modem to serve a page. Then graphics patches to simulate the graininess of old cathode ray screens. These are often sinkholes of processing power. Making something look slightly grainy and a bit off is, it turns out, unbelievably energy-consuming.

An old webpage as seen on the One Terabyte of Kilobyte Age blog. Photograph: oneterabyteofkilobyteage.tumblr.com/

This nostalgic impulse is also playing out in the real world. Last year, AMCs much-admired but little-watched Halt and Catch Fire took the early internet era and dramatised it, one IRC chat log at a time. In music, the now-fading vaporwave movement imbued the silvery cyber-joy of the early internet with lashings of melancholia, as a generation that had come of age alongside the net began to look back and wonder where their dreams had gone.

Perhaps were experiencing this boom in nostalgia because theres suddenly so much more retro to go around, and easier access to it. Or perhaps its because the innovation curve seems to have plateaued; todays web giants are between 10 and 20 years old, and much of the past five years has been about tweaks, consolidation and monetisation of previous business plans. Theres also a sense that weve come through a lot of collective mental evolution in the past few years from an age where each new social network filled us with naive joy at the possibilities for connection, to an era of subtweets, dogpiling and virtue signalling.

Scott isnt convinced. In the final analysis, people will hook their own nostalgia on to their own brains very effectively, regardless of when the technological platform started. Oh, remember when we were all on Netflix? Remember when Twitter was just this little club? In the life of any platform, theres always an early-adopter phase, where the people who were there first get annoyed by the people who have arrived later.

Its also wrong to assume that your cherished experience is everyones nostalgia rapidly becomes obscure hieroglyphs if youre outside its target market.

One day on archive.org, I put up a whole lot of under construction gifs that Id taken from Geocities, says Scott. And Id watch as people linked to them. Some of them said: Hey, remember these? But others said: Ive never seen this before. Why did people do this? Then an art museum got in touch and said: We want to make a wall of them as an art exhibition. People didnt have any connection to them theyd go wow or what is this?, but it had become about as meaningful as someone making a dress from an old phonebook. It had fallen down into this general mulch of human culture.

The mulch is vast and every layer obscures another. Were all eating and excreting so much culture now that it has become very hard to keep tabs on it. The archive team are presently recording all US TV, 24/7. One team member recently phoned the White House switchboard to record every different voicemail message on there just to have a database of what it sounded like in 2016.

But while the team try not to make too many editorial decisions, they have to accept that not everything can be preserved. Even if it is just chucking out the washing powder ads on all that TV coverage and just keeping one version, compression must come, and that means stuff will inevitably get lost along the way. Scott shrugs. Life, he admits, is a lossy format.

Read more: http://bit.ly/2kf4Yrr

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