Feb 3 – Photo

These photos were taken six years apart. One with a 21mp, full-frame DSLR, one with a three megapixel point and shoot that’s worse than what’s in my current cellphone. One was taken before four years of post-secondary photo education, where I made interesting work and learned about art and got excellent marks, the other after. The trick is guessing which is which. Checking metadata is cheating.

What am I saying? Don’t judge a photographer by a single photograph. Anyone can take one good picture, and on a related note, I have issues with straight photography. Creating bodies of conceptually interesting work is difficult. I didn’t mind being out at night, in the winter, as much when I was twenty-three. And lastly, please forgive any lack of writing competency, I have completely fallen out of my blogging groove and am desperately trying to wriggle my way back in again. Let’s see if this helps!

Jan 27 – Talking shop

As many of you may know, I’ve been struggling with making any sort of photo art over the last (eight!) months since I functionally finished school. I’ve had plenty of pithy thoughts and several false starts and not accomplished much; not many photos shot, images assembled, even sketches sketched or research researched. Just kind of spinning my wheels. It’s been pleasant enough in a frustrating sort of way, but it’s time to actually produce.

To that end I met with a prof with whom I had always gotten along. Well, that’s not entirely true. At first I didn’t like her at all, but that changed rapidly when she actually started teaching a class I was in. We met during her office hours and went out for a coffee (unexpected). She seemed very happy to see me (also slightly unexpected) and after I showed her the one image I’ve been messing around with she erupted in an astonishing, changing cascade of insights, suggestions, misinterpretations, potential approaches, and general advice and observations. It was remarkable. Her artistic practice is very different than mine (not in the least because it exists) and she comes at things from an appropriately different direction.

So, I’m filled with new ideas, new directions to explore. Many of them (tragically) involve some serious book research, learning about classical and ancient urban design and planning among other things, but the pieces I’ve been fumbling with are moving again. New permutations ahoy!

I’m not sure why the idea of the lone artistic genius, of producing masterworks in a vacuum, out of nothing, is so prevalent and so attractive. The end product of nearly all art is inherently social; trying to communicate, coerce, convince those experiencing it of something, so it makes some sort of (now that I think of it) almost obvious sense that its production should, or at least could, be social. This makes me increasingly excited for the upcoming inaugural meeting of an art club, an art support group, an art collective that I’m going to be involved in. I feel that my need for deadlines is somehow juvenile, but that is the least of things that this group-aided approach to art-making will provide. Feedback, criticism, ideas from as many sources as possible is invaluable; it gives unexpected insights, or things to rail against or… I’m rambling.

I like to art.

Jan 26 – Untitled, Amon Tobin & Kid Koala

This is not me being too lazy to write a post. This is a supplementary listening assignment. I’m brewing up a post or two about Amon Tobin, my love for his music, and possibly something vaguely to do with synaesthesia. Tragically, not everyone is familiar with the often-awesome that is Mr. Tobin’s (not to be confused with the one-time Minister of Fisheries) music, so here is one such song. Sure, it’s a collaboration with Kid Koala, and thereby not the most iconic, ideal, introductory example, but it’s new to me and I can’t stop listening to it, so you’ll just have to meet me halfway on this one.

Jan 25 – Lost hours

A series of late nights, early mornings, strange shifts from being up before the sun to sleeping in until noon, late day vats of too-strong coffee and syncopated eating schedules. Your ability sleep reliably is gone somewhere, off the tracks. After a nap, deep black and far too long, it’s 11:30pm and you’re up and eating breakfast and ready for… what?

This is a tiny fragment of a day, one that you could mistake for the real thing if you don’t play close attention. And not paying close attention is essential. Overthink things and you’ll notice your real life, sitting in class, commuting to work, living somewhere in the daylight, both ominously stalking closer and tantalizingly out of reach. But don’t focus on the grainy, bloodshot eyes, slowed wits and softly murmuring headache that tomorrow may well hold. These hours are strange, rare things.

This is a not-quite-right simulacrum of your life. Everything’s right where you left it, but you need to figure out how to use it again. Wear something you’d never wear during the day. Go for a walk and have lunch at 3 am at an all-night restaurant. Bake. Read something you’ve owned for years but never picked up. Listen to old albums you have on CD. (or cassette. or wax cylinder.) If you play your cards right, whatever you do will be just odd enough and you’ll have been awake (before sleep finally takes hold) for just the right amount of time, that when you wake up in the morning proper all that will be left of your few lost hours is a recollection of a dream that was a lot like your day-to-day. Bemused and bleary, relish that dissonance when you trip over a stack of dusty alt-rock jewel cases and find fresh oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies on the kitchen counter.

Jan 24 – Difficulty & Gaming (2 of 3)

On difficult games, a when, how, and why.

In the first in the series I touched on a slightly different approach to challenge/reward. Now, it’s on to certain things I look for when I decide to tackle a real tough bastard.

Fooled into a sense of financial security by a Christmas bonus that was both novel and substantial, I picked up copies of Bayonetta and Darksiders at the start of January. I tackled Bayonetta first, and discovered a difficult game with a complex and interesting combat system, all wrapped up in a vivid Japanese acid trip. When it was finally time to give Darksiders at try, I assumed that the combat would be both easier and similar enough to Bayonetta’s that I could start the game on Apocalyptic instead of just plain ol’ Normal difficulty. It turns out that, while it was superficially similar, I was wrong, and this brings me to my first point.

If you’re making a game that’s going to be hard, it had better be technically flawless. I’m not talking about the overall quality of graphics (resolution, lighting, art direction, etc) but about consistently providing the player with the information they need to respond to the challenges presented. A stable, high frame rate, responsive controls, and a reliable camera are vital, because if a player fails at a challenge, be it getting mobbed by demons, placing last in a race, or falling down a hole, they have to know that it was because of a mistake they made and not because of a mistake the developer made. F’rinstance, in Darksiders, the defensive options provided by R1 are nowhere near responsive enough to provide a reliable defense (much like how the timing for jumping off ledges, something I know back to front, seemed laggy and just generally… off). But it was not simply a few technical foibles that made me restart the game on Normal. I persevere, I’m pushing through Bayonetta on Normal, due to the crushing shame of playing on Easy and despite a camera with occasional bouts of ADD.

I gave up on Darksiders hard mode because it (bear with me, this thought is new and uncongealed) felt that the focus of the game was not the combat. Though usually fairly satisfying, it felt like cleaving demons in twain with Chaoseater served as something to break up the exploration and puzzling. So, it struck me as odd that I would want to increase the game’s difficulty and spend more time coming to grips with some of its weaker aspects. Of course, having variable difficulty somehow complicate/augment puzzles or exploration is something that I can’t think of having ever seen in a game… and for good reason, as changing enemy damage/hit points is dead easy, and I can only begin to imagine how one might carry out the latter. 

One last thing which half pertains to the challenge found in video games and half pertains to all video games in general. The game must abide by its own rules. I realize that the game, as an entity, calls the shots and it can’t truly cheat, but I can’t help but cry foul when it fails to abide by its own rules, or even seems to! 

(Of course, this from the guy who was so convinced that the subway was leaving the station closest to his house right as he got there on purpose that he resorted to recording the state of the subway (arriving, leaving, there, not there) in a notebook to disprove his own insanity.) Rubber-banding in any sort of racing game is a fine example, whereby those who are doing poorly in the race are somehow given an advantage to get back into the game; it never mattered how badly you were trouncing the computer players in Mario Kart, you just couldn’t get away from Bowser. Puzzle Quest is guilty, or seemingly guilty, of this too. For those not familiar with it, it’s an RPG wherein you do battle by playing Bejeweled. Every 5+ chain that the computer seemed to give itself with just the right pieces falling in from the top of the screen drove me up the wall. There needs to be due diligence in providing a very convincing illusion that your opponent is playing by the same rules as you are, but is just plain better. For now!

Jan 23 – Drumsticks

I am not having my last drumstick for breakfast. I refuse to eat a deliciously accessorized ice cream cone for breakfast. Again.

In the evening, a few days ago, I was experiencing an uncharacteristic craving for something specific, something a lot like ice cream. In consulting with my roommate, an expedition to the 24-hour supermarket was undertaken and before long I was back home with a woefully overpriced (screw you, Metro!) box of four drumsticks in hand.

These things and I go back a ways. They were always the treat of choice in my household of two in which I spent my adolescence. My mom had a particular routine in eating them. I think that all the best snacks should have a method for utmost enjoyment, like the traditional approaches to Oreos or the technique my younger self developed with Peek Freans fruit cremes. Her approach was thus:

1. Prepare the wrapper by splitting it down the side with the seam. Be careful to preserve any peanut bits which may have fallen off in transit, and use the wrapper as a plate to catch any truant peanut bits.
2. Eat the delicious chocolate/peanut coated protrusion of ice cream with its caramel core.
3. Meticulously eat the top edge of the cone while preserving as much of the ice cream as possible.
4. Use the ice cream and caramel to clean up the peanut bits on the wrapper-as-plate.
5. Eat and repeat steps 3 and 4 as necessary.
6. Be sure to relish the solid chocolate-flooded tip of the cone.

While I can appreciate the snack artistry required to pull this off, I had two issues with these steps. The first was that if the ice cream wasn’t sufficiently cold, you would often run the risk of losing melty globs of it on the wrapper. The second being that I tend to be far, far too impatient for this. I just want to eat the drumstick’s head in one gooey bite and then swallow the cone whole, sideways if necessary.

Hm. I think it’s time for breakfast.

Jan 22 – Treebras, ant-horses.

I was out of a warm, comfortable bed and coughed onto the seasonably cold January streets earlier than I would have liked on Wednesday. I wasn’t prepared for the bright chilly morning, short a scarf and a pair of warm gloves. Shuffle, my oldest, least reliable friend, was providing nothing but bad selections, turning up only weird, dissonant, agitating music. My mood was threatening to go from bad to worse when I spotted this weird sculpture in a vacant store window. There were no clues as to why it was there, who had made it, or what it meant, but it was just preposterous enough to give me pause; both in my walk and in my impending self-pity wallow. So, thanks, whoever made this. It re-made a morning slightly smashed by weather and work.

Jan 21 – Difficulty & Gaming (1 of 3)

In the past few months, I’ve been slowly shedding the heavy, cruel yoke of World of Warcraft, and so I’ve had spare time to spare. Back on the consoles, and, especially over the holidays, back on the DS. Playing newly released games and older ones that have escaped my attention until now has crystallized some thoughts on the difficulty level of gaming.

The thick, corrupt roots of gaming which trail from arcades are foul things – glistening with corruption and pulsating softly. I feel as though I’m stealing this metaphor, but I cannot remember where from; arcade machines were, to no small extent, electronic muggers, shaking children down for their precious quarters. Games were often designed to be punitively difficult as more deaths meant more continues meant more money. Of course, overcoming these challenges, honing one’s Donkey Kong skills to an ape-killing edge is a rewarding experience. Setting record high scores is all well and satisfying, but leaving the arcade with a record amount of change still weighing heavy in your pocket is all the better. So after you’ve dropped a small fortune in change, or, god forbid, tokens, and mastered a game, you can rest easy on your laurels, engrave your three initials where nobody can supplant them, and wow your friends.

For better or worse, gaming has moved out of the arcade and into the living room (or the bedroom, or the passenger plane/train/bus, or anywhere else) and the transition has been understandably rocky, and made all the rockier by the medium’s growing and diversifying audience. Different audiences want difference experiences, and I suppose that’s up to the developers to research and provide. But now, in a truly subtle manner, let’s forget the big picture and focus on me.

I’ve been playing video games since the days of my Commodore 64, but the hobby began in earnest shortly after I moved to the city and my mom, in what was perhaps a miscalculated move to ease my transition here, or perhaps just a unnecessary but very effective method of currying my favour, bought me a Super Nintendo. I’ll speed up the trip down memory lane: I’ve played platformers, RPGs, strategy and fighting games, both at home and at arcades, as a pretty serious hobby since then, so, having been building my core gaming skills for nigh-on twenty years, I’ve come to count a good stiff challenge among a game’s cardinal virtues.

All that said, I was amazed at how well Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story held my attention. By all accounts, this game was dead easy. The game showers the player in money and healing items, the enemies are not particularly deadly, nor are the puzzles particularly puzzling. I think the hook, the catch, the little bit of heroin at the end of the cigarette, is the game’s brilliantly designed combat system. On the surface, it appears to be a standard turn-based RPG affair – choose Attack, Magic, Item, Flee, as appropriate and take turns with your computer-controlled opponents punching each other in the face. The one with the tougher face wins. In this case there is, of course, a twist. It’s a simple rhythm microgame, played with every attack, with every defense. Just hit the appropriate button right as your attack lands and do more damage, and have your performance instantly judged as Okay, Good, Excellent!. Similarly, learn your enemies’ attacks, like a poker player slowly teasing out their opponents’ tells, and dodge/parry/riposte your way to victory.

The game has eschewed the old-fashioned big investment/big payoff system of reward with a slow, steady drip of tiny successes. Fail to make an attack land? Don’t worry, you can try again in five seconds. Botch your defense and get smacked for a ton of damage? Nom a tasty mushroom (Mario Bros., remember?)  and try again. No more having to finagle an allowance advance from your parents, you’ll be Excellent! soon enough.

Jan 20 – A return to form

I’m taking this blog down a few notches. Back to basics, posting basics. I was so pleased with my art revelation that I failed to notice that I was experiencing the same problem with my blog. Once upon a time, posts were good, and I felt I had to make them better, more complicated, more interesting, funnier! Bigger! Perfectly crafted MASTERPIECES… and it all just got a little out of hand. I would spend more time thinking about new, pithy things to share with my massive, sprawling readership than I would actually creating the posts.

I begin again, almost exactly a year after I started. Daily. Max.

Go!

An art aside

I’ve just had an art epiphany.

School had me thinking about everything in a completely assbackwards way, as schools are sometimes wont to do. I think about a photo project as though it is a whole object, a finished piece. Everything needs to be preordained, sorted out, working perfectly, and ready to go. The printing, the framing, where it’s going to show, what I’m going to shoot, how I’m going to work with the images, the concept; starting at the end is extremely daunting to say the least. As one who is easily daunted, this has landed me in a rut. How are you supposed to sit down and make something so hugely complex? Choosing a detail to work on is almost paralyzing. It’s impossible.

Over the holidays I made a gift using very simple materials: old magazines, scissors, a glue stick, an exacto knife, pen, marker, notebook. It is by no means a perfect masterpiece, but making something visual, however rough around the edges it may be, was exceedingly pleasing. It made me realize that photo, especially the way that I tend to approach photo, doesn’t have to be this gargantuan, epic undertaking. Just start shooting. Play around with things and see what happens. And for god’s sake, keep shooting, keep playing, and before long the epic undertaking will have been undertaken, completely by accident.