18.09.11 - a personal note

I was away recently, mostly because of some odd jobs I had to do to support myself. I'm running short of time and I really hope I will be able to keep up with this blog  in the future as I'm going to attend a trade school which is located about sixty kilometers from my house (provided they accept my application, of course). And the academic year starts on the first of the next month. A grim perspective for the next two years, but there are no other alternatives that don't suck.

Anyway, I did a piece in Blender, mostly inspired by the work of Andrew Price at blender.com. Kudos for him, he's amazing. This one is a simple scene and I seriously think about extending it. The final effect went as planned, but after seeing some reference photos of underground tunnels I thought that this one was too simple and additional modelling would be neat in this case. If I ever finish the new one, I'll show you guys.

07.09.11

Ever played the Silent Hill series? Ever read one of Kafka's novels? I bet you did at least one of those. If you didn't, well, I think you may not fully get what I'm about to tell you. Neither am I going to tell you about some new game – there's plenty of gaming blogs and I'm quite sure that there are also people who would handle that topic much better than me. What unites these two is the certain feeling of oppression and fear that I failed to find anywhere else but in Ligotti's books. Other horror writers and artists are usually very straightforward – bam, here comes the monster and that's it, you're supposed to get scared. This time, however, the type of fear is quite different. Nothing comes running at you, nope. I think the best words that illustrate Silent Hill and Ligotti (I wonder if it's right to put these two together; seems I'm a laic after all) and other horrors are fear and anxiety. Fear is the conventional scenario with the usual shock scene of a monster jumping at you from darkness. Anxiety has no definite shape and this is the thing that can be seen in these two. Every time I submerge myself in Ligotti's novels I feel intangible, ominous anxiety that you can't really put a finger on. A kind of worry some of the residents of the madhouses may tell you about (such phenomena are experienced by people with PTSD or dissociation disorders in a much more sharpened form).

The thing is, there's nothing with these texts and lyrics apart from that they're weird (which is why Ligotti's works have been classified as weird fiction). Most of these are neutral, but still threatening.

I can't really paste here a larger excerpt of some of his text without a major copyright infringement and smaller would only lose all the that this man achieved while writing his novels.

All I can really do is to get some Current 93 (another great band I should write about sometime) songs and one soundscape of which lyrics were written by Ligotti. Hope that explains everything.

06.09.11

The first thought that comes right after someone mentions „alt art” is the game art. Suddenly, pixelated Mario becomes quite real in his plumber suit, posing like a dictator, koopas about and bombs flying overhead. It seems that alt art has become something like a keyword for all sort of playing with original popular culture icons like Mario, Sonic and the like. It doesn't limit itself only to games, but takes other old-school icons into account, like Scooby-Doo or Simpsons, always merging the existent content with new ideas and playing with conventions. In any case of this type, the keyword is always “alt art”.

I'll write more about this one soon.

05.09.11

Jazz again.
I bet anyone who got a lick of the music also heard of the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy band. They mainly play swing and to be honest swing is the only jazz subgenre I like (as you can see, I'm very picky). I don't dabble in the bands' histories - all I really want to have is to listen to good music and to forward it to someone else so they can listen, too.
The second video is a classic of the big band golden era. And yes, it's Ben Goodman. Maybe I should be ashamed of posting something so obvious here, but I don't count on it that everyone who visits the blog listens to jazz music.
What really appeals to me in the genre is that is much more "intelligent" and "good-mannered" than popular music, provided we can apply such terms towards music. Small wonder if we consider the fact that jazz had its greatest peak of popularity some seventy years ago, when noone could use autotune in their songs and musicians were actually forced to compose music to achieve success. You know, it's quite like what that Cortez from the Longest Journey said about old movies which have much more sould that these produced currently.

Well, enough bullshitting for today, here they are:

04.09.11

Blogger recommendation: Flying Teapot

My recent post have been dedicated to weird art (frankly, the whole blog is devoted to promotion of alternative art). These mangas are particularly unpopular among mainstream consumers mostly due to the radical approach of their authors. Normally, people don't want anything that is that emotion-stirring.

I feel happy to say that I am not the only freak interested in such. Flying Teapot is the man behind a blog promoting alternative art, too, or so would I describe the stuff the guy posts. The content is highly varied, but guro mangas are also included. So, anyone feeling like they didn't have enough of blood pouring from the pages of the two aforementioned artists, feel free to browse. I've been watching him for some time and can recommend it with clear conscience for anyone who is deathly bored with rubbish the mainstream is throwing at us.

http://flying-teapot.blogspot.com/

02.09.11

Artist spotlight: Shintaro Kago

Weird manga day again!

Perhaps, guro means gore in Japanese. It doesn't really make much of difference. I just googled the term in Wikipedia and voila, it proved me right. Well, partially. The possible difference between Japanese macabre and forums devoted for morgue photos is that the amount of bizarre and grotesque in the West oscillates at quite low levels. In Japan, things are different, and these levels of weirdness are skyrocketing. Once, my friend said that if it's Japanese, it doesn't have to make sense and I think he's got a point. Kago's work is one of the most grotesque, nonsensical and weird piece of art I have ever laid my eyes on. Just look at this one:

Many people who arrive in Japan swear it's like suddenly finding themselves on an alien planet. Kago may seem to epitomize all the Japan bizarreness. Not that there are no alternatives, because you should know that Japanese manga library is full of weirdish stuff. Shintaro Kago is typical here. I could even say: so you want to explore Japan? Here, take this. And this. Yes, they have it, too.

I have to say that his works are not intended for the fainthearted. He did work on aborted fetuses worn as hats and on a village of which denizens drown women each year, to name only few. And there's more. Much, much more. In a strange-yet-fascinating way, he blends erotica with macabre, adding a few pinches of surrealism and his standard nonsense. Once you get to know his style, there's no way to miss it.

So, who is the work intended for? When you are bored with standard mainstream manga media (these dull and repetitive ones I mentioned in the previous post), you may give it a shot. Expect to be shocked. In fact, you will be shocked.

01.09.11

I don't like mangas at all. Most of them are terrible in many aspects. Poor plot, ridiculous anatomy of the characters and dull cliche repetition are only some of the more obvious. Yet, for some mysterious reason, people keep reading them, completely ignoring the west comic school.

But then again, there are notable exceptions. One of them is Junji Ito who fills a terrible hole in the market and indeed there are few good horror comics. And when I say good horror comics, I mean it. Too much ink has been spilled only to produce laughable abortions. Thank God that Junji Ito is different.

 

But what really hit me in all his works is that he actually tells stories and makes art. No grotesque big-eyed girls staring at you from every page. And yet you can easily pick his style from the crowd. It's distinct due to its anatomical realism or, perhaps better said, surrealism. Either way, things he draws look convincing and that is the point. His art and stories do stir emotions in the sea of dullness and misunderstanding.

(Images from: Secret of the Haunted Mansion, Uzumaki)