[Maquisard]

Inspired by Spiderman's recent return to the black costume in the comics (worn as a promise of punishment to certain people for a great personal slight), I thought I'd combine the black costume & the Punisher's symbol. The two outer pairs of legs are supposed to wrap around and lead to the same symbol on the back, similar to the original black costume.

[pinkgothic]

I've actually managed to cook up a new short-story and can thus stop regurtiating my old ones.

The Host is roughly two or three weeks old now, written on the way to work and back from it one lonesome day. Trains are great. I'd like to see someone pull that off whilst driving a car. *snort-laughs ridiculously*

Edit - Oh, yes, and: surrealism / abstraction alarm. I don't usually write metaphorical nonsense like this, but maybe that's precisely why I had to write it. If anyone wants to know what it really is about, give me a prod.

[tsa]

That's one nightmare of a story! That was meant as a compliment pinkgothic . I've never read anything like it. Scary...

[pinkgothic]

I usually take references to nightmares as compliments. One of my (far too numerous) screennames is "nightmare architect." So, thank you very, very much, tsa!

Now... have I made you curious as to what it really is about? (The truth might be disappointing, though, I fear. )

*brims with happiness because of the compliment*

[tsa]

Originally Posted by pinkgothic

Now... have I made you curious as to what it really is about? (The truth might be disappointing, though, I fear. )

Is there a sequel? Or a prequel? I must say it's not really my type of story (I've lived through enough real life nightmares already) but the style is very good. You leave out just enough information for the reader to understand the story and still be able to speculate on it and be surprised by it. I liked that a lot.

[tsa]

I also write stories. I would love to have some comments on my stories about Sophie. They can be found on my website, in Dutch and in English. On average a new Sophie storie appears every two years. I promised my Swiss fan that there will be a new story this year but I still have no idea what it will be about.

[Kingzjester]

Originally Posted by pinkgothic

Edit - Oh, yes, and: surrealism / abstraction alarm. I don't usually write metaphorical nonsense like this, but maybe that's precisely why I had to write it. If anyone wants to know what it really is about, give me a prod.

I would've read it gladly if you hadn't attached this sad disclaimer. Why write it in this kind of fashion if you think metaphors are nonsense and there is something "real" behind it that you need to be contacted to disclose in case anybody wants the "real" scoop? What is the point? If you don't care about it or the way it was made, why should I? What you're saying is different from just not being sure the style fits, you're openly denouncing it without a reason. I feel that you are somehow ashamed of abstraction, metaphor, surrealism (whatever you may mean by surrealism*). It is as if you think it is embarrassing, embarrassing like an unsightly rash born of some social disease the good company of this forum would not approve -- nor would openly condemn -- but would just talk about behind your back in vague terms.

*) Which brings me to this footnote of artsy pedantry: you cannot honestly be writing surrealism, not in this day and age. You can either write some sort of a throwback to a bygone era, or something new that answers to a surrealists' method, or aesthetic, or goal, or message, or whathaveyou, but it would not be surrealism. It would be something new informed by history.

[pinkgothic]

Kingz, I would respond in length, but it's easier said in a single sentence: "nonsense" is not a word I use to denote something negative. Maybe this will help.

To bluntly translate: "Hey, guys, I usually write something else, so if you've read any of my stuff, be aware this is completely different."

Now, if you still wish to think I'm "ashamed" of it, go ahead. I find accusing someone of embarrassment is a huge insult, but each to their own.

[tsa]

Originally Posted by pinkgothic

If anyone wants to know what it really is about, give me a prod.

I think my prodding stick was a bit too short.

[tsa]

@ Kingzjester:

How can you say all that without having read Pinkgothic's story? Maybe there is a reason why she added the disclaimer that you would never have come up with. I don't think what you said is fair to her. If she were ashamed of the story why would she have drawn attention to it in the first place?

[Spiwak]

Originally Posted by Kingzjester

*) Which brings me to this footnote of artsy pedantry: you cannot honestly be writing surrealism, not in this day and age. You can either write some sort of a throwback to a bygone era, or something new that answers to a surrealists' method, or aesthetic, or goal, or message, or whathaveyou, but it would not be surrealism. It would be something new informed by history.

I agree with this. "Surrealism" is one of those words too often thrown around whenever something is simply strange. (This is not a reflection of your piece, pinkgothic; I read it once and need to read it again probably at least one more time before I could comment on it, as I'm a shitty reader).

[pinkgothic]

Well, unless you're going to start using the word "egoism" to mean "acting primarily in genuine self-interest" rather than "acting primarily in ways to make other people miserable;" and the word "hacker" to mean someone who's deeply involved in the inner workings of programs, rather than someone who is a computer criminal, I suppose I'm going to continue using 'surrealism' as I do.

More seriously, I've never been much of a fan of forcing some historic epoch on concepts. If I'm going to use a concept - be it futurism, cubism, surrealism, or any (possibly more generic, even) -ism - then I'm going to refer to the concept by the name it can be recognised at. Do you object to Renaissance Fairs being called as they are, too, because they're not taking place in the Renaissance?

Or, to be a touch less confrontative: Let's just say that while "egoism" as colloquially used is better substituted with "egotism," and "hacker" better substituted with "cracker" - and I would thus probably argue in favour of both 'more correct' versions - there's not really any descriptive word (that I know) that would carry the information "surrealism" does.

And no, actually, "strange" is not it, I assure you. I like to think everything I write is somehow "strange." I would think that's the point of art, even. Or at least of most art.

...that aside, I think I'm responding far more to Kingz' original points than to your far more general ones, Spiwak. I'm not sure to which extent you're agree with Kingz. For the sake of this post, I kind of assumed you were all-out agreeing. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

(Also, thank you for the disclaimer - even if it hasn't stopped me from getting involved in the debate in a mouthfrothing way anyway. *hug*)

[Spiwak]

More just in agreeance that the term "Surrealism" is one that rarely should be used to describe a modern piece of art. Not as much because Surrealism is a movement in a particular paradigm that, while the tenets of Surrealism can be mimicked or expanded upon, keep the piece from truly being Surrealist.

In fact my post had nothing to do with your story. Just a general agreeance with what he's saying. Since you used "surrealism" uncapitalized, I took it as more of an adjective than a genre. Hmm...I don't think I'm making sense. Anyways, I wasn't criticizing you or the story, is the point of all this.

[pinkgothic]

Ah. Yes, I would agree capitalisation matters a great deal, here. Gotcha - in more than that regard, even. Forget my ramblings, then.

I'll eat my words with some ketchup, then. Can you pass the salt?

[Kingzjester]

I can paint in Leonardo da Vinci's style, but because I am not in the fifteenth century Italy, I can never paint a Renaissance painting, not even a renaissance painting. What I am or can be doing is too informed by my current era. I have no real understanding of their life then, and even if I did, I would still be too well informed of the currents of thought that happened in the following 500 years, I would still have access to acrylic paints in tubes and Photoshop, so I cannot paint a Renaissance painting.

Likewise, you are not a communist and you don't necessarily read Freud as a hot new philosophy, you are not overwhelmed by the First World War and its immediate destruction and you are not foreseeing the Second One on the horizon, therefore you cannot make either a Surrealist or a surrealist work. Surrealism has become a buzzword for something that is merely weird and (what is worse) random. You can fake the aesthetic of the work, but never the actual philosophy or the wherefore of surrealism, therefore you cannot make surrealist work.

There has been 70+ years of people directly or indirectly responding to Surrealism. What could you add to the discourse by making a surrealist work? It is not a matter of ideas being confined to an era, it is that the era and all its ideas define and are defined by the term. I use a lot of weird symbolism in my work that I consider related to Russian Symbolists' work, and yet I do not make Russian Symbolist work.

Aside: I think as far as old philosophies of art go, Dada is the only one that comes to mind that truly transcends its era and can be tapped in every subsequent one. It is such a raw nihilistic-yet-righteous philosophy, it is simple and strong. It is inspired by the destruction of WWI that was happening around it, true, but it is more directly inspired by the loss of faith in humanity and western philosophy, still a worthy pastime if I ever saw one.

But all that has been more or less said and agreed upon. Moving on.

Originally Posted by tsa

How can you say all that without having read Pinkgothic's story?

Now, I am not talking about her work, I am talking about the disclaimer that turned me off from reading it! This whole thing has absolutely nothing to do with her work, which may or may not be good.

Originally Posted by tsa

Maybe there is a reason why she added the disclaimer that you would never have come up with. I don't think what you said is fair to her.

tsa, I really have no idea what you're trying to say here.

Originally Posted by tsa

If she were ashamed of the story why would she have drawn attention to it in the first place?

Because she is a person of contradiction, cognitive dissonance and maybe even cognitive absenteeism? Because maybe she strives for emo awkwardness and feels she would be justified by universal groans of disapproval of her fruity, gothy prose (which may or may not be both or either; I wouldn't know, I haven't read it)?

Honestly, though, I have more faith in her than that. But the disclaimer really irked me. I hear it a lot in younger artists who believe they should think bollocks of poetical devices and obfuscation and art that is more than exercise in style. I don't want to know that "to get the full scoop" I need to step out of the work and ask the artist! That is bad and wrong and ick and ack and phooey. I don't want human interest. The fact that you characterized it as nonsense -- and, what is a bigger crime, implying that all abstraction is nonsense -- pre-digested the work for me. If I had read it, I would read it with that baggage. I don't want that. I don't want introductions and entry points, especially not from the artist and especially not from without the work itself.

[Erwin_Br]

Or maybe she's just insecure of her work.

--Erwin

[Igor]

[Spiwak]

Originally Posted by Erwin_Br

Or maybe she's just insecure of her work.

--Erwin

Ah yes, I think that's the (obvious) answer. kingz is responding as the art world would respond, but pinkgothic is just an amateur (in the literal definition of the word, i.e. she "loves" to do it) and so it makes sense that she would be insecure.

[AFGNCAAP]

Nah, "insecure" seems to hold a negative connotation which hardly fits anything I witnessed of pinkgothic's personality. Why not take the disclaimer (and her later explanation of the disclaimer) at face value, ie. as a fair warning? Similarly as the artist who used to draw, say, fluffy bunnies may see it fit to accompany a link to her newest work with a warning of violence and nudity. Not because she thinks these elements make it inferior in any way, but rather because she honestly believes such a departure might be a turn-off to part of the audience. I see this kind of self-awareness as orthogonal to the level of insecurity/confidence about one's own art.

I totally dig the story.

[tsa]

My avvie was painted by my mother. Does that count?