hey don't be sad. deeply silly 18th century Iranian bird scissors.

(source: benaki museum, auction)

man something about comparing a shitpost made with a tool explicitly stated by its creators as intended to devalue creative labor to a shitpost made in order to challenge and decry a rising fascist movement feels really fucking bleak to me

like. people remember that openai was funded massively by elon musk and sam altman is a crypto scammer who runs a biometric harvesting operation using his own company's projects as fearmongering, right

the people who make applied-statistics generative systems are not your friends and have very different opinions from you on what the purpose of art is

arguments against ai art memes: doing free marketing for a get-rich-quick scheme, built off egregious labor exploitation, normalizes reduction of art to a commodity disconnected from the inherent process of creation

arguments against duchamp: Literal Actual Fucking Nazi Propaganda

I dunno if I can fully agree with this. I think in writing this response, trying to disavow the comparison between the Gay Sex Cats and Duchamp's Fountain, you're unconsciously demonstrating why the comparison is being made to begin with.

First of all:

I think one thing that needs to be remembered here is that, in its own time, it wasn't just Nazis who took issue with Duchamp's Fountain. Both conservatives and liberals did, too. It was widely derided by a lot of people across the political spectrum. And that was the point! It was intentionally trying to be provocative and challenge people's assumptions! The fascists may have been the most mad about it, but they certainly weren't the only ones.

Like, let's not forget here Fountain was made in 1917, which means that it actually predates fascism by at least a decade. But more importantly, I want to draw attention to these two segments here:

While these sentence fragments might appear tangential to your main argument, these are actually very important points to highlight, because they actually contain several of the exact same assumptions that avante-garde artists were challenging in the first place.

Most of arguments against Fountain in its day were not fascists making points about "degenerate art" — even though those are the people most vocal about it today. Instead, most complaints were about its lack of "craftsmanship" — in other words, how Fountain and the Readymades, etc. were "disconnected from the inherent process of creation." It's easy to forget in the discourse, but DuChamp didn't technically make Fountain. It was actually manufactured by Eljer Co., a plumbing corporation that is now part of American Standard. All Duchamp did was slap his name on it and call it "art" — thereby making it such. A big part of what these kinds of works are saying is that art never did require any "inherent process of creation" — its value comes from audience engaging with it on some level. Therefore, not only is "real art" is not actually a matter of labor at all, art itself has no inherent purpose, because it is only how it is perceived that gives it any kind of meaning at all. If you're going to make a point about how A.I. art is an attempt to devalue labor, and how this is dangerous to people who make art for a living, that's fine — the recent WGA strike was largely about this, as is the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike.

And it's good that they're pushing back against being exploited. It's good to challenge the way these new A.I. technologies are being used to screw people over!

But you shouldn't do so by making the same assertions about the Metaphysical Nature of Art that radical artists were pushing back against a century ago. That's why people are making comparisons to the dadaists here!

Naoko Ito

there’s gotta be a better way to store branches

Why does this remind me of Git

Artist will_o_wisps created a new bug type eeveelution during her livestream!

Pokedex Entries:

When threatened, it will spit a powdery substance from the tip of its tail to defend itself from predators.

Sometimes it feels conscious about having extra limbs and tucks them into its chest fur to hide them.

If you step on Hunneon’s tail, you’d better watch out! It shoots a powdery substance from the tip of its tail to defend itself.

The hexagonal pieces on its head and chest emit a sweet smelling scent that attracts wild Pokemon, predators and people alike.

Geode (x)

This character in this painting is simultaneously beautiful and menacing, but if I saw them in a social setting I might try to talk to them. That is unless their only way if communication was via high pitched bloodbourne style beast screams and the urge to either murder me, consume me, or assimilate me into their face.

LOVE this

@thehappinessmachine

Geodude

the King 👑

What pokemon is this?

yeah

Time is almost up on this round of OpenSquish, and my pinktoe tarantula still needs one last rush of support! Over the past two days she’s been waffling between 4.09 and 4.10 when she only needs a 4.15 to qualify!! The deadline is midnight tonight, July 1st! Please vote 5 if you want to see this design made, and please share if you think your friends would like it too - it takes several 5 votes to increase the score by just 0.01 points.

We did it with the rainbow jumping spider, and now he is a real and cute thing you can buy and rub your face on. We can do it again, let’s introduce another adorable arachnid plush to the world!

While I was drawing I started really wishing that my style was more appealing, like what CalArts or Sheridan grads can do

but fuck it, this is what I like.

I’ve seen a lot of videos going around of urban-dwelling critters coming to humans for help with various problems, ranging from boxes stuck on their heads to young trapped down a storm drain, and it’s gotten me to thinking:

On the one hand, it’s kind of fascinating that they know to do that.

On the other hand, setting any questions of how this sort of behaviour must have arisen aside for the nonce, does it ever strike you how weird it is that we’ve got a whole collection of prey species whose basic problem-solving script ends with the step “if all else fails, go bother one of the local apex predators and maybe they’ll fix the problem for no reason”?

well, come to think of it, we’re at the top of the food chain but we almost exclusively hunt and kill prey out in the country. 

raccoons and possums and foxes and crows all succeed in an urban environment because they’re opportunistic and observant. and almost none of them would have observed us pounce on one of their species and then start eating it, you know? a lot of them would have observed that we scream and chase them out of wherever we don’t want them to be, but other animals are territorial too. but there’s a number of situations where humans feed whoever’s bold enough to take them up on the offer, and we do tend to pull garbage off of other animals as soon as they slow down enough for us to catch. ‘a human got me but nothing bad happened’ is a much more frequent thing than ‘a human got me and tried to eat me’.  

anyway like, we’re masters of our environment, we make weird shit happen all the time, we have lots of great food and sometimes we share, and we almost never eat someone. it makes sense for urban animals, over the last century or so, to just keep an eye out for opportunities to use us, and to pass the habit on to their kids. 

It really is a weird, funny thing. Like yeah, technically they’re predators, and they get pretty screamy, especially if you try to take any of their stuff… but given the chance it seems like they’d rather help us out and sometimes they’ll just randomly give you food, so???

I mean, I guess in fairytales and myths we’ve got our fair share of stories about dangerous people/creatures who might well kill you or otherwise ruin your life, but to whom people nonetheless turn for help in desperate circumstances. So it’s not like the perspective is exactly a foreign thing to our own mindset, really… It’s just that, y’know, we can’t actually go make a deal with the faeries when there’s something we can’t figure out.

(Which brings me to an interesting thought about the ubiquitous rule about never eating the faery food lest you find yourself forever unsatisfied with anything in the human world - and the potential parallels to the dangers of feeding wildlife human food lest they become addicted and too tame and dependent to be safe for either themselves or us. Hmm.)

Okay, but that last bit with the Fae…makes almost perfect sense.

Of the stories I’ve read, the food of the Fae, its origins and effects, are often strange and/or obscure.- Just like our food to most animals.

The Fae are strange beings that seem to know weird things that give them power or an edge over us.- Just like us to animals.

The Fae work and live by strange rules also often nonsensical or obscure to us.- Just like us to animals.

The Fae can easily obtain vast amounts of things we consider rare/precious/desireable, and have no problem with dishing it out wantonly for no other reason than amusement.- Just like us to animals.

The Fae sometimes are amused by having us around, but only on their terms and IF it amuses/intrigues them.- Just like us to animals.

GUYS, I SENSE A PATTERN….

-they have arcane social conventions and the punishment for not paying the correct respects right is banishment, if you’re lucky, and death if you’re not.

-they have wild and unexpected parties where you’d least expect to find them, but if you’re bold enough to entertain them they’ll feed you and caress you and play with you all night.

-time runs strangely in their realm. their homes are summerlands: warm and bright, no matter the season. there is always fruit on their tables. but not everyone who comes in from the cold is let back out again.  

-their games are cruel and complex and unfair, but if you can beat them by their own rules you will access riches beyond imagining.

-sometimes they just fucking fuck with you, the fuckheads.

-they will absolutely steal your children away. when your children return— if they ever do— they will come back strange. they will have magic earrings or necklaces or bracelets. they will know things they shouldn’t. they won’t know things that they should. your strange children might survive, might even prosper, might take wives and husbands and have children of their own. but they will always be marked by their time away from your world.

-the price for pissing them off is always death. sometimes just you. sometimes your whole community. 

-if you are very good, and very smart, and very brave, they will grant your wish.

- they aren’t quite immortal, maybe, but they live a long, long time. Whole generations might grow up in the shadow of one of their nests. When one dies, it is a great and sad event, and many come from miles around to cry. 

Humans are fae

This is so, so amazing

The iron thing doesn’t quite work though. I really can’t think of a parallel. 

Iron is to fae what mercury is to humans?

I feel like that’s not super-equivalent because mercury is toxic to animals as well. If I had to pick an equivalent I’d say radiation- deer and foxes happily live around Chernobyl, but humans tend to stay away without masses of protection.

i mean, it’s not like animals are immune to radiation poisoning- they’re still dying, they’re just less equipped to recognize what the hell is happening to them. (and animals tolerate a way higher rate of inexplicable death before getting the hell out of dodge than humans)

not sure if there is a naturally-occurring thing that’s harmless to wild animals but is avoided by humans due to either irrational fear or special physical vulnerability. tarantulas? are tarantulas iron?

The Plague is iron. Or germs in general. Animals tend to deal with contaminated stuff a lot better than humans do.

One of the few gyms in my area is within a cemetery. These little guys have been in there for two days straight now, no joke. No one is attacking!

oh yo this is a lacewing larvae ! not gonna lie that first photo really threw me off h hha 

theyre little bugs that, when theyre in this stage, often cover themselves up with bits of whatever debris thats in their area for camouflage ( sometimes including…… other dead bugs )

hidden

theres a bunch of different species of em that look pretty similar, so its hard to get like… a specific species read, but i think this might be a type of green lacewing, in which case theyll eventually grow up and look something like this !

I found one of these walking on a wall in Texas

This beautiful girl is  Pseudophyllus titan  Because of course she is.  Stunning specimen! (if you wanna see previous finds, just check out my #beestiary tag!)

POKEMON EVOLUTIONS

That do not happen

Bellossom does not evolve into Lilligant

Dedenne does not evolve into Raichu

Bayleef does not evolve into Tropius

Diglett does not evolve into Weedle

Unown does not evolve into Sigilyph

Bounsweet does not evolve into Hoppip

Jirachi does not evolve into Uxie OR Azelf

Gastly does not evolve into Cloyster

Cleffa does not evolve into Flaaffy

Venonat does not evolve into Butterfree

Chingling does not evolve into Bronzong

Oddish does not evolve into Jumpluff

Minior does not evolve into Solrock OR Lunatone

Luvdisc does not evolve into Alomomola

Castform does not evolve into Nuzleaf

Bronzor does not evolve into Cryogonal

“Convergent Evolution”