The image above is unfinished, and being shown here at double size. My original goal was to fill up a 559px by 699px graphic document with intricate abstract pixel art, hand-drawn at the highest zoom level (where 1 pixel is about 8mm x 8mm, according to a ruler held up to my screen) with a limited color palette. The effect (and, I imagine, the process) is somewhat like hand-stitching patterns in fabric.
Here's what it looks like at full zoom:
And finally, here's what it looks like at normal, 100% magnifiation:
Maybe a waste of time, but it's sorta enjoyable. And what art isn't a waste of time, by definition? I'm content to let this blog be my contact with the outside world for a while, such as it is. Sometimes I think if I totally withdrew and isolated from everyone that would be good; I don't have much to offer people, and they don't have much to offer me. And yet here I am, doggedly losing weight again, just so I can be loved and accepted by a bunch of hairless primates. Man...life: do you honestly think anyone would "opt in" if they had full foreknowledge of what it was going to be like?
I think maybe for next time, for tomorrow, I'll do some tiny pixel art that's non-abstract (some little guys digging a hole or something). Or not. We'll see.
What you see above is sometimes described as pixel art. "Pixel art" is a category of digital image that encompasses the artwork I did at age 10 - 14 on my 512k Mac and Mac Plus (with a 4 MB RAM ugrade!), and I'd like to get back into that. I may find that I get tired of it and want to do more expressionistic stuff (I suppose one could imply that dichotomy), but for now I'm feeling a strong urge to return to my roots.
A danger in doing pixel art is that everything would tend to look like illustration, which although it's a broad category, is a category nonetheless. In other words, working in the illustration style -- fancified cartooning, basically -- is ultimately limiting to visual art.
That said, a lot of the most impressive stuff, or at least the stuff that's most impressive to the proverbial "Joe Average," ends up looking like book illustration. I'd put William Blake, MC Escher, and Alfonse Mucha -- three "fine artists" that are certainly part of the subculture of academic and exhibition-style art -- in that category.
I suspect it's why a lot of people like them so much: by naming those three (I'm sure there are other examples of artists who look like illustrators), "Joe Average" can stick to what he likes while borrowing some of the "I know what art is and you don't" mindset that the contemporary art world -- and by that I basically, roughly, generally mean "exhibition culture" -- is sometimes accused of harboring.
Normally I tend to side with "Joe Average" in his eternal struggle against "The Art World," but I'd like to point out that if the art world's judgement and tastes are as unimportant and narrow in the grand whole of visual culture as Joe likes to claim, then why the big fuss? Why not just ignore the art world as though it were some mental patient claiming that only piles of rotten orange peels were proper art? I think it's because Joe Average senses that the art world just might know what it's talking about.
It seems to me that much of the tension between Joe Average and The Art World comes from the mutual suspicion that the other side might and probably does have a point.
I like my resolve of doing a new image every day. Drawing in your sketchbook regularly is an important part of keeping in practice, just like writing in your journal. It's nice that this blog can serve both of those purposes -- indeed, this is a good demonstration of the main reason I like the web: it's a good and flexible channel for all of my avenues of self-expression (visual art, writing, and music...to be reductionist about it).
That said, I just found something neat:
Hit the white "play" triangle towards the left of the black strip above to play the sound file, entitled "Frozen Insect Zoo." I made this sound piece in 2002 or 2003, with a multitracked electric guitar and digital effects.
So, the upshot of this is that I can make music a part of my daily self-expression as well! Imagine that: some writing, an image, and a little piece of sound art. Maybe that's asking too much of myself, though, to do all three every day. But it's nice to have the option of going sonic in an easy, user-friendly way, if I want to.
So, here I am, blogging at 5:49am. The biggest thing on my mind is my new web setup. Specifically, I can't get my access logs to work. Oh well. That's minor. I'll figure something out eventually, even if it means calling tech support and saying HURR DURR I'm STUPID.
I don't know who you are or who I'm talking to, but you may have noticed I made a change to my blog. Now, going to the blog root directory will launch a CGI script that dumps into itself the most recently-uploaded html file with a 4-digit number for a filename (0111.html, 0112.html, etc). Readers no longer have to look in the archives for the highest number linking to the most recently posted page; now, going to index.html will show you the most recently uploaded blog page based on the server's knowledge of its file modification dates. Here's the script:
#!/ramdisk/bin/bash echo Content-type: text/html echo "" cat $(ls [0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9].html -t | head -1)
I colored it like a terminal so it can serve as an image for today in case I don't feel like making one later; I'm tired (time change was last night).
The last line is the important part. It dumps the contents of a file with the same name as a variable generated by the first line of a listing of the contents of /blog/. Only those files in /blog/ matching a filename pattern of "number-number-number-number.html" are listed. Files are listed in order of modification time, so that the "head -1" bit will grab the name of the most recent file.
When a browser accesses and executes index.html, the contents of, for instance, 0112.html (currently the most recently-posted page) will be the contents of index.html. There is no other readable html in index.html, so for all intents and purposes index.html = ####.html, where ####.html = the most recently posted page with four numbers as its pre-extension filename.
It's basically a file-within-a-file situation: index.html contains the most recently updated blog page, and so serves as an effective "bookmark" for what I've most recently written.
I realize this is extremely boring to just about everyone: people who don't do this sort of stuff for fun or for a living aren't interested, and those who do will find it trivial. But, I guess that tends to be a universal problem. Or, maybe I just can't imagine anyone actually finding technology interesting, although I sometimes do myself.
I find it's always hard to get back into the swing of blogging or updating or writing after doing techy stuff. It's almost as if I'm using two different parts of my brain that don't feel compatible. After I finish some tech modifications I tend to write about them, and the whole purpose of having a blog in the first place is undermined by some incredibly dull content (to most people, to sane people). So now I have to start writing about philosophy and art and so on again. But I can't help it that I do, even though I make fun of it, find technical minutiae interesting to some degree (especially if I built a given minutium myself, haw haw).
I wonder sometimes to what degree I've been victimized by the cultural notion of "right brain vs. Left brain" dualism. The idea of it is certainly pervasive, and people who can do math, science, engineering, tech are not seen as being the same people who can do art, writing, music, philosophy, etc. Broadening the way the split is regarded, one might think of it as detailed analysis vs. Creativity, or even logic vs. Creativity, even though these two are more obviously not antithetical. I wonder if there's some inherent truth to these two intellectual approaches being mutually exclusive ways of thinking and of dealing with the world, or if the split is just a relic of dualistic thought. Dualism might feel so natural to us due to our bilaterally symmetrical bodies.
Seeing through culture is always a huge task, and an important task. Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit. Who cares? Image time! I bought a new camera battery, and I'm testing to see how long it can go without recharging. Well, that answers that question: it's out of juice. I never charged it, but just started using it out of the box the day before yesterday. I guess I'll have to draw something. I think I should cool it with the abstracts, and maybe try to do something more substantial. Nevermind, I caved in. I wasn't feeling inspired enough to do any actual drawing.
I have to find some way of resurrecting my art practice. Or not...we'll see. Tomorrow I SWEAR TO ALMIGHTY GOD I will make you some bona fide pixel art, and not just scribble in bright colors and invert chunks of the scribbling. I'll start thinking now about what I want to make.
Well, I missed another day of blogging. That's ok. I don't think I kept up with blogging every single day, when I did it 2003-2007 or whenever that was; you can go back to the blog index and check if you want, not that you care...NOT THAT ANYONE CARES
Speaking of that -- of people actually seeing what I do on the web -- my new web setup is done. Now, I wait for Google search results to improve, which is the ultimate goal of any activity in the universe. In fact, I will check on them now. Nope, nothing yet...I trust that it's just a matter of time, though. For some reason Google started punishing my website recently, I think because my domain redirected. Now that it's legitimate -- i.e., my domain is a nameserved domain linked directly to a host -- I expect, I HOPE, that the Google search results for "matthew teigen" won't shut out my domain.
I don't know why I waited so many years to get my own hosting. Something as important to my identity as web stuff and blogging and etc should be something I am readily willing to spend $5 a month on, at least. But I waited, for many years. In fact it was a sort of ethos for me: I hosted on my undergraduate university account, then on a public access unix system's webspace, then on my home machine for a while (that was nice in some ways), and finally on a friend's server, and in all of these cases the domain name "my domain" was set to redirect to the "real" url of whatever web space I was squatting in. Oh well. No more. Deadbarnacle.net shall now receive the full glory it deserves.
In other news, I discovered the defective component in my two-monitor setup to be the cable (not the adapter, and not the monitor itself...certainly not my Mac, hoho). So, I bought a new cable and hooked it up, and now I have two monitors. It's a big relief not to be so squished-in and crowded with application windows. I will have to experiment a bit with placement to maximise awesomeness and optimize.
Everything seems to be going pretty well lately. I guess this means I'm in a good mood. Say no to drugs.
Ok, time for your daily image. What should I make? I think I'll mess around with another photo.
DO U LIKE
I made a pitcher of the MASTER CLEANSER drink: water, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and maple syrup, except I put way too much cayenne pepper, so it was like drinking chemical mace. I poured it out and started over, and now it's sorta ok. I think I'll just chalk it up to an experiment and maybe never make it again, even though now I have an $11 bottle of maple syrup that will be of limited use.
I started a project that is going to take forever, and is so dull and tedious that I can only tolerate it a few minutes at a time. More of an explanation can be found on the project page itself.
Just a picture of the southwest corner of my apartment, featuring some Photoshop filters and two random Wikipedia article titles. I think I can keep making images for the blog. I just can't keep making images of a particular type, like those abstract solid color things I've been doing for the past few days. Time for something else. Photoshop is mostly good for exactly what its name infers: altering digital photographs -- post-production. But somehow it got turned into a be-all and end-all graphics program, something for which it's not entirely suited.
Drawing up and even coloring up original images might be easier in Illustrator, which is a more "professional" program in some sense -- maybe just in the way it's regarded and used. Photoshop appeals to the everyman and a popular culture got built around it over the years, and I think I sort of got caught up in that. Photoshop, I think, has more appeal because there are so many automated functions that can make an image "look good," without having to perform exercises in mouse dexterity or line-creation to resemble an image of "a thing."
Of course, the real trick is in having a developed-enough aesthetic sense that you can pass over stifling cultural considerations like these, and appreciate an image as being beautiful or not-beautiful based on how it looks, rather than on (for instance) how "difficult" it was to create; taking the ego out of art.
Maybe it's time to focus more on Illustrator.
I did some domain/website stuff, and I'm waiting for that to propagate, or do whatever it needs to do, through the internet and various registrars. DNS is a weird and complicated world. It's hard to test results, because changes often don't take effect for a while. So, you spend a lot of time worrying "Did it work? Did it not work?! Help!!". DNS fiddling is a thing for the patient man.
Now I have to upload everything to two places. Pain in the ass. I hope my new registrar claims my domain soon.
Diet is going well. In other news, there's an internship I want to apply for but I don't know that it will fit with my holiday travel plans, not to mention my apartment complex's requirements to give 2 months notice before leaving. You may also have noticed that I have decided to start capitalizing properly. If, indeed, clarity is my primary ethos (as I have proclaimed it to be, in general, on more than one occasion), then I have no excuse for writing in all lowercase. Doing it right is not that hard a habit to get into, except I often fear that it's making me less fluent. Probably though any clunkiness will only last until I get used to a new way of writing. And, on my side is the fact that I just got done writing my thesis, and so have all that "proper writing" practice. Derp derp.
I guess the thing to do, as always, is not worry about it. I think I need to get out and exercise more. I'm not sure, but I think it makes me feel better physically and mentally; it seemed to today. That's what the conventional wisdom is, at least, and last I checked I was a member of the human species, albeit with some aberrations.
I might migrate to my own server instead of piggybacking on Matt Cipperly's machines. We shall see. Right now it doesn't seem prudent to spend the money on my own hosting plan ($60 a year or so -- not bad, I guess, but still not exactly pocket change), although I can certainly afford it since I'm saving a lot of money on food.
Happiness is such a strange thing. It feels so much like it's attached to external events, but in reality is has a lot to do with whatever little dipshit chemical reactions and neurological misfirings are taking place in the brain at some given moment, as they are determined in part by things as simple as eating and exercising right. It's humbling, in a way, that exercising and eating healthy food can have a bigger impact on your mood than moving to some hip urban center.
Maybe one day I'll have a job and a woman.
I'll keep doing these, even though some are definitely better than others, and I can't seem to arrive at a consistent method for doing good ones. It reminds me of doing my math drawings at school. A natural reaction to my abstract artwork might be "so what?" I often tend to agree; a lot of the time the result is just underwhelming, like in this case. After completion, I imagine how each of these past few abstract blog images would look as a 5 foot by 5 foot painting. In this particular case I am particularly undewhelmed.
I'm sort of embarrassed because I posted a link to my blog on the evil Facebook, which I have come to loathe, and rarely sign onto. I don't know what humans who have low or ambivalent opinions of me are looking and sneering at my blog. Maybe none. Maybe all. People are busy, or at least feel busy, and don't have time to click every little thing, especially if it's just some web 1.0 crap.
Facebook has a strong "frenemy" feel to it, as though everyone on it were steeped in schadenfreude and secretly hates each other, like rival bridesmaids at a wedding. There's just an underlying ugliness to it. Maybe that says more about me than it does about Facebook, though; it's not a big secret that I can be misanthropic. But I've heard other people say that Facebook has the effect of making you hate your friends even more than you usually do. Maybe I'll stay away, for my own good.
My great shame on Facebook is my viscious defriending practice; I'll get into a bad mood and just go through my friend list, one person at a time, and see who I can defriend, as though I were sniping ducks in a pond. I regret most of those defriendings, of which there have been probably a couple of hundred over the years. But pruning and customizing is sort of necessary if you spend a lot -- too much, maybe -- time in an environment. Unfortunately, that means that you lose a lot of friendly acquaintances who might be useful when it comes to networking. But isn't that a slimy way to think? That way of thinking is encouraged by the contemporary employment culture, and I just want no part of it. There's something I deeply, deeply despise about marketing.
It's better for everyone if I just spend as much time alone as possible.