On Media, New and "Old"

I made this as a part of a the "United By Edit" logo competition on Instagram.  No photos were used (or harmed) in the making of this image.

Ever feel like you are a social movement of one?  I know the feeling.  And of course, the irony of those two sentences is that they contradict: If there's two of us, we are no longer alone.

Click to enlarge to see a bit of my process in making this.

Now that we've limbered up with a little verbal calisthenics, let me get to my point.  I feel like I am waging a private war at times against the presuppositions of photography in  online image sharing.  The preponderence of sites (Twitpics, Flickr, Instagram, Picasa, etc.) default in their language to the idea of sharing photography, when a cursory glance through people's feeds suggests something more interesting is going on here. 

On Instagram, I participate in groups like #we_edit and #unitedbyedit, formed in part in response to photography groups who regularly criticize "too much honey" in a photo edit.  But even in these groups, photography is not always the base.  Plenty of folks are working with digital graphics apps and software that allow them to render from scratch or modify other captured content (preferrably open source or Creative Commons, but admittedly, not always). 

Actually began as a photo, but made to look painted.

Then too, many apps and software packages still predominantly identify their filters and effects by the ways they (roughly!) approximate darkroom procedures for retouching photographs.  "Burn," "dodge," "vignette," "HDR," "Orton," and so forth have become common parlance in digital photo editing -- although the results are often quite different from their print photography analogues.

Now don't get me wrong: I am not against digital photography or its imitations of its analogue ancestor.  And I see the value, on paper or on screens, of the minimally edited photograph.  But as we celebrate the ways tablet and smartphone technologoes are opening up people's creativity and generating "new" art movements (c.f. "iPhoneography"), I think it behooves us not to be too beholden to the familiar and to acknowledge the plethora of image creating possibilities these tools allow.

I think the real inovation of these tools is less the camera (although that is part of it, but certainly also available on lower IQ phones) than the screen.  The screen is increasingly how we frame our shots (as opposed to the analogue and early DSLR view finder).  It is also where we edit and view most images (since only very few of us print out our pics, and then only very few those, relatively speaking).  But it is also where we forgo the camera entirely to use stylus or finger to draw, paint, clip, and blend images.

So, there's a photo of a drawing in this one?

So what are the better terms?  What is a little less beholden to the way things were, a little more responsive to extant practice, and a little more visionary for the future.  Increasingly, I use "pic" (the online-savvy abreviation of "picture")  or "image" when talking about the images I create and share.  These may be photographs, may include photographic elements, or may never have involved a lens in the process at all.  I also object to "edit" as the default term for image manipulation since it implies some photographic original that I am revising and reworking, some qualitative distinction between making an image and revising it.  Instead of "edit," maybe we should call this work "pixel pushing."  Leaving aside vector graphics for the moment, "pushing" seems to capture both the sense of moving and also the sense of transforming through filters the basic structure of the digital image: the pixel.  "Pixel pushing" captures the idea of edit and of paint, and it frees us from the erroneous perception that we are engaged in anything really like darkroom editing.

Maybe this is all just a matter of semantics.  The "photo" in "Photoshop" hasn't stopped artists from using it even when they don't have a photograph to build on.  More people use Instagram than those using digital "Instamatics" or their imitators.  And every time someone complains about someone else's aesthetic or use of a tool, the offender tends to form communities as reaction formations to arbitrary rules.  Making art is frequently about breaking rules and using tools in ways other than they were intended.  No harm, no foul.

Click to enlarge some of the steps.

Even so, now might be a time to lift up our heads and take a good look at what is going on.  Something is changing in our capacity to make and circulate images.  The camera in your phone that is also a phone that is also a powerful computer....is also a powerful digital arts studio.  This combinatory morphing, this portability, and this digital ephemerality of the final work is creating truly new media, something that owes much to the predecessors we can name but something also significantly different.  With or without the social movement of one or many, our practices are leading the way into fascinating territory. 

Your Heart of Hearts.  Made with a digital brush made from a heart diagram.  
Happy Valentines Day!

Been a While

There's a total meltdown at school.  We're days away from a potential strike.  And yet somewhere in there I find the time not only to do the usual semester overload of work but to enjoy a little art exchange on Instagram.  Enjoy a few pics from my exchanges there.  And maybe I'll find a way to get back to Bungy Notin' too.

From my Instagram feed (these are all made with applications on my iPad):

And if you are interested in the labor conflicts at SIUC, I'm blogging now over at Deo Volente.  "God willing," I am finding appropriate and useful applications of my digital skills there, as well.

The Bois of Winter

Here we are, then, caught in the schematics of desire.  It's cold outside, so all the hunky athletes dress up warmly, as they should.  Except for the tease of removing outer layers in a restaurant or the suggestion of a bodily contour under drape, the season thwarts the the lover of eye candy and body (as) art.

Thank Heavens for the Internet, then.  But it's difficult for me to just rejoice in the digital capture of boi beauty, whether posed or candid.  I get bored quickly with just looking, my desire forever deferred to the next (web) page.  Before the advent of digital technology, I used to enjoy collaging hunky models from magazines (not ALL of them porn).  By "enjoy," I mean the full range of pleasure.  Sure, I experienced a prurient titillation in carefully navigating scissors around bicept, razor around buttock.  But there was also compositional pleasure of combining shapes, the artist's (or artist wannabe's) fascination with anatomy, shadow, and form.  

Now, in this age of pixels and fast download, images not only proliferate, but the capacity to manipulate them increases exponentially.  Sure, there's all that worry about copyright and who owns the image.  But always around the edges of that concern are people taking out their metaphorical scissors to "rip," "cut," and "edit" for their own pleasure in the making.  If I were doing this for money, I might feel guilty.  But the eye wanders where it will, and the hand makes what it will.  And the internet (Web 2.0) increasingly becomes a place not just of viewing disseminated images (or other information) but also for interacting with those images and sharing the, um, "fruits" of that interaction.

I admit to my queer male gaze, and its tendency to objectify.  I notice the world around me, and desire guides my eyes.  And yes, it is a desire shaped by my culture.  It would be reductive to imagine that my gaze is about sexual conquest only, that I notice what I find attractive because I want to possess it, or even just bed it.  My mind is full of fantasies, and not all of them have to do with sex.  Some involve color and texture and imagining combinations and compositions.  But...is an artist's gaze any less objectifying than a seducer's?  

I think I am not alone in my wandering eye that "violates" others by noticing them in public spaces.  I think I am not alone in gathering images (or other information) "owned" by others and using them for my own art on the internet.  Maybe the prohibitions against doing these sorts of things are silly.  Or maybe, just maybe, it's the prohibitions (silly as they are) that add to the fun.   

Another Dream -- With Color and Without

The vibration spread out across the universe, distorting wit and structure.  No rhyme, no reason...a train of thought in space, a toss of hollow dice.  Shadow and light.  Those who see do not smile; those who don't, lose perspective.  And if I listen really close, I see thunder. 

Stuck in the Mud?

 

This week's theme at Illustration Friday is "muddy."  I'm feeling this one as snow melts and the driveway and walkways become mud pits.  I also feel a sodden metaphorical weight as obligations increase, health stumbles a bit, and suddenly I don't seem able to do as much as I would like.

I'm afraid that my output on this blog is suffering for it not being my highest priority.  But for Illustration Friday the last few weeks, I might not have posted at all.  Still, I remain firmly committed to at least one blog post a week and will try to ratchet up the frequency.  But who can say?

In the interest of keeping any and all who might be reading this post updated on all things Bungy in the blogosphere, here's a short list of links where you can find me (as well as items of interest):

• I've been contributing a bit over at the "poemicstrips" blog, including a very exciting project putting together an issue of Xerolage on the theme of dialogue balloons.  Check out the open call for participation here and then check out the other beautiful work on the blog. Consider posting a link in response to the current Poemic Inquiry prompt "What might a love/romance poemic look like?"
• @Platea recently completed is sixth project, "PlateaKnit."  It was a wonderful collaborative project thematically linking fibre crafts with networking and producing a crowdsourced knitting pattern on Twitter.  You can read about the project here, and check back at the blog as we anticipate a wrap-up post soon including lots of pictures of the works people produced.
• I follow Artspark Theatre regularly.  Recently, one of my comments was highlighted there as both a post and an invitation to others to do art.  I'll be posting my contribution here soon to Susan's Valentine's challenge.  Artspark Theatre is another one of those gems of a blog that never disappoints.  I only wish I could post with something more like Susan's frequency (and, well, depth).
• I've been following Andre Molotiu's "Abstract Comics" blog, including both amazing artworks and really sophisticated analysis of classic comics.  I comment regularly there, but lately Andrei's post about similarities between our contemporary reception of comics compared to 18th Century debates over musical form has really got me thinking.  
• Finally, Piotr Szreniawski has started a new blog for "experimental comics."  It's new and eager for both regular readers and contributors.  Why yet another blog?  Well, his thinking is that many of us are doing work with comics that aren't quite poemics and aren't quite abstract comics.  This is a place to share that work under the broader rubric, "experimental."

So, did I mention I have a day job?  Quite a busy one, too.  And yet, somehow we make time for the work that matters, whether it happens at work or on our own time.  Maybe I'm less stuck in the mud than just really committed to getting my hands dirty.

Focus -- Losing It While I Gain It

 

This week's theme over at Illustration Friday is "Focus."  Yet another one of those serendipitous confluences as the theme itself seems to come into focus in my life.

It's that time of the year when my profession requires me to engage in the ritual of the annual review.  Polish up the CV, review what I accomplished in 2009, match that against what I said I would do, extrapolate from all that my plan for 2010.  I always put this bit of administrivia off until the last moment.  I loathe it, and I am convinced it will yield nothing but internal angst over my lack of direction, my lack of clear focus.  And yet, every year as I fill out the paperwork, I find I was more productive than I thought, and that there is a more or less clear direction in my labors.

And that's the point of it all, I guess: to demonstrate for others but also for myself that I am delivering on my commitments to profession.  To bring into sharp relief the fruits of those labors.  Still, it is exhausting work.  Even if the message is ultimately confirming, I find myself drained by the effort.  All evidence to the contrary, I feel like I've lost my way. 

So.  A dark illustration in shades of gray.  A lonely alley with noir shadows.  A face lost in black ink and crosshatch.  Call this an illustration of inner turmoil.  See in it how too much introspection, even if required, ends up being an exercise in beating your head against a wall.  And somehow, at the very edge of the frame, my life swimming in and out of focus.

Grace is in the Recovery

"What?"

This week's theme over at Illustration Friday is "clumsy."  I struggled a bit with this week's theme, and hence my offering of two submissions in one blog post. 

The title of this entry -- "Grace is in the Recovery" -- is something of a life philosophy (yeah, I have a lot of those).  I've never been the most graceful person.  I trip a lot; I bonk my head a lot.  Sometimes I think I never really grew into my body.  However, even as an audience member, I bore quickly of the precisely controlled performance.  But I find it very exciting when an actor or artist has to deal with an unanticipated problem.  Yes, that is painful if they don't deal with it well.  But I am ecstatic if they respond well.  I feel like I am in the presence of a unique moment where a scripted and precise action gave over to one that must respond to context.  And how do we access those moments if not for the willingness to be clumsy?  That's not to say I value the under-prepared performance -- more that I value preparation that readies the performer to deal with the unexpected.

I recently wrote a brief piece for an environmental education center's newsletter where I discussed my lessons learned from walking down the side of a glacier's lateral moraine.  In that piece, I talk about how you have to give up the idea of sure and stable footing and be ready to respond quickly to the steep and slippery gravel-mound's tendency to slide.  There is really no way to do it and look pretty.  At its heart, the experience is about letting go and trusting your ability to respond.  That is where grace resides.  Not in the perfectly executed gesture, but in the capacity to recover from the fumble.  And that is a lesson about grace that goes well beyond walking and performance. 

We all fall.  None of us are perfect.  All of us are sometimes (often times?) clumsy.  But beauty is in how we respond to clumsy -- in ourselves and in others.  And I think beating ourselves up about not being perfect, about not being graceful, is about the least graceful we can be. 

The Flexible and The Strange

The tag line of this blog: "Be Flexible.  Be Strange."  I like to imagine that as something of a life philosophy.   My interests are wide-ranging.  I like to think I can adjust to most situations.  And the strange part?  Well, that mostly happens without my attention or conscious effort.  Mostly, I mean don't be afraid of being strange.  Don't shy away from doing something just because it is not how others would do it.

That's not to say I don't learn from others.  That's not to say that doing things differently from everyone else is the only valuable way to be.  Trust me, I spend plenty of my life conforming.  But sometimes it's wise, productive, and best to heed to that inner voice that wants to go its own way -- regardless of whether that way is different or strange.

Probably one of the most frustrating questions an artist gets is "Where did you get that idea?" (or possibly, "Why did you do it that way?").  I put it right up there with the most annoying question you can ask a performer: "How did you learn all those lines?"  I guess the only way to really answer any of those is: it's just what I do.  This time, anyway.

If you find these cartoons cryptic, know that you are not alone.  I don't know what they mean.  I don't know where they came from.  I don't know why I did them this way.  They are largely unplanned.  Just ideas put to paper and then digitally processed.  All along the way, I let my interest and sense of the appealing guide me.  I break some "rules" here and there.  But mostly they are what they are -- me playing around.  Me stretching my abilities and interests.  Me courting the strange. 

Colorful, aint it?

 

Ah Wilderness

Illustration Friday's theme this week is "wilderness."  Okay, so this is a great one for me.  I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about the wild, and I recognize the problems with it as a concept.  Namely, we have a lot of romanticized notions of wilderness and what it means.  Orginally, the concept referred to something unpleasant -- and so is etymologically linked to words like "bewilder." The Puritans saw the wilderness as a site of evil and danger, something to be tamed (like all "baser nature," internal or external).  It took visionaries like Romantic poets and early American nature writers to see in the wilderness the sublime, that mix of awe and wonder at once terrifying and spiritually uplifting.

Today, several environmental thinkers posit that our perceptions of wilderness get in the way of meaningful environmental management more than they motivate it.  Folks like William Cronon and Neil Evernden posit that our received notions of wilderness are more social construction than actual nature.  Cronon notes that in the US, we tend to equate wilderness with the absence of humans, and in the process conveniently erase the humans that lived here before European colonization.  Evernden cautions that many neophyte ecologists tend to focus on the happy "light" side of wilderness by emphasizing harmony and balance and downplaying the shadow side of all that -- including predation, parasitism, disease, etc.  Both (and others) suggest that the evocation of wilderness is often a problematic call for preservation that fails to recognize that nature is always about change.

So what is "wilderness," given all this history and critique?  For me, it is about systems of relationship.  It's about organisms in relationships, be those relationships predatory, parasitic, symbiotic, nurturing, or what have you.  Wilderness is an "organic" system, by which I mean both living and emergent/unplanned.  This conception allows us to consider humans as both a part of wilderness (nature) and apart from it.  The first half of that observation is easy -- we cannot escape it, it's all around us, and it supports us.  But humans also create, with purpose, their own complex systems (towns, buildings, farms, ranches, factories, etc.) -- and those systems often compete with wilderness systems.  The result of that competition is often bad for the wilderness, although occasionally wilderness "wins."  More importantly, wilderness adapts from the competition, although perhaps a bit more slowly than human systems do.

The ecological systems we designate "wilderness" have developed over eons.  They represent incredible diversity that still extends beyond our capacity to catalog let alone comprehend.  And much as we like to ignore it in the name of human "progress," those finely honed organic systems support us, making our life on this planet possible.  We have yet to replicate the dynamic and intricate system of relationships that is a wild ecosystem.  Perhaps, one day we will.  But until we do, we are ill-served in the casual destruction of wilderness.  If that sounds like a preservationist's ethic sneaking back in, so be it.  Or maybe, just maybe, it's about humbly accepting our place in (and not above) these wild systems of relationship.

Doodle or Die

But what does it say?  A log, a pipe...but this is not a pipe, right?  It's a sketchbook page.  No, it's a scan from a sketchbook...digitally edited and colored.  It's not abstract enough to be an abstract comic.  It doesn't play with words enough to be a poemic.  Maybe it's just another doodle.  Maybe it's just a visual stream of consciousness drawing.  Maybe it's crap.  Maybe it's just a blog post.  And, of course, none of these possibilities are mutually exclusive.

And for those of us who prefer our world less colorful...

Confined...at home.

Actually, it was a lot more 

comfortable than flying coach class. 

This week's prompt over at Illustration Friday is "confined."  Given that I am more or less trapped at home this weekend since our car is snowed in at the top of an icy hill with unplowed roads, you'd think I'd focus on something like cabin fever.  However, I kind of like being stuck at home with plenty of groceries and art supplies.  Today, anyway.

Am I alone in a selfish response to the Christmas attempt to blow up a plane in Detroit?  I thought air travel was bad enough, but now we're making it even more loathsome.  I doubt it will be too long before mailing yourself somewhere would actually be more comfortable and probably more efficient than flying.  The prisons we build for ourselves are always worse than any dungeon imagined by others.  If that claim is too much of a sweeping generalization, it is at least a thought to carry with us as we return to contemplating how much of our liberties we are willing to sacrifice in the pursuit of "perfect" security. 

Maybe in the end, it's the rhetoric that is the most confining.  Here we are again, back among the pre-packaged arguments and memes, pointing the finger for political gain.  The world may (!!) have changed on 9/11, but the more it changed the more it stayed the same.

2010 -- A Year of Renewal?

The good folks over at Illustration Friday have kicked off the new year with a great prompt, "Renewal."  Indeed, as we put away the old and face the new, now is a great time to consider renewal.

Surely, 2009 gives us a lot to be cynical about.  In the US, Health Care reform consumed our political process, demonstrating that even though the bulk of the population wanted meaningful reform, special interests were able to clutter and stymie the process so much so that the current compromise(s) offers little in the way of real reform.  We thought with its hopeful beginning and a new President, 2009 might see significant changes in our foreign policy -- and we have.  But that change still involves more troop deployments and daily news of unrest in the places where we are involved.  Christmas Day reminded us that the free world is still vulnerable to terrorism -- avoiding it often only with a little luck.  And then, with a heavy sigh, we look at how little was accomplished at Copenhagen with regards to meaningful international agreements on climate change mitigation.

Now is not the time to give up hope.  And so, we recycle the wrapping paper, compost the holiday leftovers, pick up the party detritus, and come back from this liminal solstice time to the work of the new year.  The planet is doing its yearly tilt-thing, and the sun is coming back in the Northern Hemisphere.  Let us take energy from its shine and renew our commitments to getting it right. "It" being our lives -- individually and, more importantly, collectively.  We are all in this world together.

The Weight of the Undone

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is "undone."  Now, I could have (and probably should have) just taken a picture of all the busy work and end of semester administrivia I have waiting on my desktop.  All the work, in other words, that remains undone.  Instead, I went with the first image that came to mind: a close-up of a button fly coming undone. In order to produce this image, I decided to "undo" a little soft pornography.  So, the figure above was originally a photograph of a soon-to-be nude male model on whom I drew some pants (albeit suggestively coming undone).  I then filtered, processed and otherwise worked the image to get to the illustration you see before you.

Here is a scan of my drawing of the pants before digital manipulation:

 

Here is the manipulated photo of the male model:

 

 

 (I know, copyright and all that.  Look, if you

can identify this pic as represented, I will gladly deal with 

the rights issue.  But as a DIY, not-for-profit blog illustration, 

I say the ball is in the copyright owner's court to make 

the appropriate claims...)

And here, for your viewing pleasure, are some other versions of the final image above:

 

Not exactly stages in the process, but some indication of how much time I spent working on an Illustration Friday prompt when I, perhaps, should have been addressing the weight of the undone. Ah well, grades are due and I don't want to spend all weekend with a spreadsheet.  We make choices of how to spend our time, and those choices also can be our undoing.

(Cross) Hatch

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is "Hatch."  First, I thought of playing around with the idea of a porthole.  Then, I landed on the idea of a visual pun.  Yes, I'm pretty sure that bird is a Cardinal overseeing the "cross hatch," both in the nest and around the rest of the composition.  If only the internet allowed me to hear your groans...

Crunchy

Crunchy

The theme this week over at Illustration Friday is "Crunchy." A lot of images come to mind -- many involving breakfast cereal for some reason.  But my mind is apparently still, um, chewing on abstract comics.  I am wondering if this is a little too concrete to be an abstract comic.  The image is not really representational, but the stylized decay seems a bit too much like a narrative.  And then there's that cheesy comics sound effect.  Ah well, whatever it is, it is also my entry for this week's illustration prompt. 

Poemics?

I thought "abstract comics" was a big discovery (for me) of new directions in comics arts.  And then I come across this other term, "poemics," as a direction several comics artists and poets are pursuing.  Usually short pieces (often related to abstract comics) that combine poetry and comics, several examples can be found on the web, especially at the blog poemicstrip.

What fascinates me about this is that I think I've been doing this all along.  The piece above might be a bit of a stretch for a poemic, but I doubt it.  Certainly, when BAR Corporation was publishing conceptual art cards on the Comics page of the Daily Egyptian, I think many of those qualified as poemics (although they tended to be single panel works while most poemics seem to work with sequenced images).  So, with that in mind, I've included several of my contributions to the BAR Corp project below.  And well, I suspect I'll be working more with abstract comics and poemics in the near future.

 

A Rag Man

Space Limitations 

The Ballad of Baudrillard

One Last Challenge...

Eunice and Uncle Reginald had conflicting

opinions about the new Progressive Education.

As I head back into the "heat" of December and the end-of-the-semester *obligation* storm, I steal time to indulge in one last challenge/prompt for illustration work.  Susan Sanford over at Artspark Theatre offers a vintage photograph this month for an illustration challenge.  This calls for collage, but I've filtered the final composition to greyscale, giving it a slightly more illustration feel.  And here too is my prurient desire to muss up a more proper age.  Although, in truth, this image as altered is not all that historically inaccurate as some 19th Century progressive education movements did embrace child nudity as healthy.  

As with last time, here is the provided original:

Entangled

Right, so apparently I should have been more patient.  The Illustration Friday prompt did eventually come out, and this week it is "Entangled." I've been working a lot lately with pen and (black) ink, doing a lot of cartooning.  But I also have worked with other pigments and collage before.  At some point, these interests will fuse (dare I say, "entangle"?) in some interesting ways.  For now, though, I am oscillating back and forth between styles and techniques.

I really enjoy the Illustration Friday prompts.  They keep me active and engaged with visual communication as I prepare for some more ambitious projects.

Random Art

Inspired by (but nowhere near as good as) some Canadian First 

People's art that our Thanksgiving host had hung all over her house. 

It appears that Illustration Friday will not be providing a new prompt for this week.  Everybody deserves a break, I guess.  So, in lieu of an inspiration from outside, I've been tweaking some images from my sketchbook.  And then, once shared, I think I'll be heading outside.  This may well be the last nice weather for a while, and I wish to extend my thankfulness for a beautiful Friday when I don't have to go into work.  I may even stay out all night and gather further inspirations for space oddities like...

...the Food of Love

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is "Music."  My contribution may be a bit "normal" and lacking my usual weirdness.   Nonetheless, it is the season of returning juncos and white-throated sparrows to the feeder, with their recognizable songs of winter.  Two days ago, I went for a walk in the neighboring park.  It is hunting season, so parts of the park are wisely closed to hiking.  On a "safe" trail, I heard the autumn bird chorus silenced by the report of not so distant gunfire.  And then followed with a new birdsong: alarm, beware, look out. 

Music soothes.  It is the "food of love."  It takes us away.  But for some, it is the way we claim territory in a world of never ceasing competition for real estate.  It is both the alarm and the all okay.  It is the song of something fragile, striving to be heard even as it struggles not to be seen.  I feel ya', little birdy.  Even though it is my kind with the firearms, I often feel that competing urge to proclaim and hide away in the same gesture.