The letter E (composed of lots of letter Es).

A bit of typographical design.

The letter E composed of a black rectangle with a couple of rows of small white letter Es superimposed on it.

Viral homophones

A piece of text-based art playing on the fact that the words influenza and influencer are near homophones (and actually are homophones if you’ve got the right accent).

Not only are they near homophones but they also have the following relationship in common: influenza is a viral infection and an influencer would like to be viral too.

A piece of text-based art with the words “Some artists are seriously singular people who can’t do anything else, and some are seriously privileged people who can do whatever they want”.

There’s a clichéd view of artists as driven individuals who are starving in their garrets so that they can pursue their art. Poverty is a small price to pay for the expression of artistic genius. This is the romantic view of artists.

While it’s a very valid view, especially when it comes to the artists who are driven individuals starving in their garrets, there is another type of artist.

These are the artists who are the offspring of wealthy and well-connected parents. A quick Wikipedia look at the biographies of a few famous contemporary artists will show you what I mean. In the UK where I live it seems to particularly apply to sculptors, maybe because to become a sculptor requires a greater investment in studio space, equipment and materials than is needed to become, say, a watercolour artist.

And even with watercolour artists being privileged is a great advantage, as apart from such perks as being well connected, a huge advantage of privilege is that you can afford to fail.

…are you betraying your former self?

A piece of text-based art with the words “If you change your mind about something are you betraying your former self?”.

I think that the idea that changing your mind is betraying oneself is one of the reasons why people often don’t find it easy to change their mind about some things, especially things that are important to their identities or their sense of self such as political, moral and cultural views. It may be thought of as betraying one’s principles.

And who wants to be rejected by their friends who haven’t changed their minds?

For social cohesion it’s important to have a common hate figure

Who shall we choose?

A text-based piece about what it is that binds groups together.

One of the points about social groups is that they exclude people as well as include people.

A piece of text art with the words “Facing up to reality has its drawbacks”.

Quiet

A text piece composed of a big speech balloon with the word “quiet” in very small writing.

Strong opinions are for the insecure

A work of text-based art with the words “Having strong opinions is for the insecure”.

The idea behind this statement is that some people who feel insecure construct an armoured carapace or strongly held opinions around themselves to protect them from the uncertainties that surround them.

It’s partly about the concept of identity. People hold strong opinions so that they fit in with their peer group and so that they can differentiate themselves from others. It could be a strong opinion about which football team is the best, which genre of music is the best or which political attitudes are the best (this final one being particularly relevant for advocates of identity politics).

Some people flaunt their strong opinions the way that others flaunt their gym-toned physique. As a power thing.

The work is created in a vey affirmative typeface, making the opinion in the piece a strong opinion itself. So maybe it was though up by someone who is insecure.

About AI generated art.

A piece of text-based art that reads “AI generated art will soon become so commonplace that it will devalue the appreciation of all art”.

I occasionally relax by spending time scrolling through social media looking at art and photography. In recent months I’ve become more and more perturbed by the amount of work that bears all of the hallmarks of being generated by artificial intelligence. They often betray themselves by being quite eye-catching while also being a bit slick and soulless. The outcome is that I no longer trust what I’m looking at. Things will only get worse as AI gets better at disguising itself.

One day in the worryingly near future we will be swamped by AI generated images that are for all practical purposes indistinguishable from images created by real human beings who have had real human experiences. Eventually it will be assumed that all images are AI generated, and all images will become essentially valueless as art. People will assume that Vermeer’s painting Girl with a pearl earring comes from the same source as his other painting, Girl with a pearl keyring. The wonder will be lost and we will all be poor for it.

This piece of text-based art isn’t so much art as a warning about the future of art. It’s generated by a human.

Vita Brevis

Translation: life’s too short to learn Latin

A piece of text-based art with the words: Vita Brevis – life’s too short to learn Latin.

Vita Brevis translates as life is short, and is mainly associated with the phrase Ars longa, vita brevis which is a Latin translation of a Greek aphorism by Hippocrates meaning something along the lines of “art [as in the learning of a craft] takes time but life is short”