The Male Hysteric

I was thinking about the web art/photography phenomenon of 'liminal pools', and was watching a video by youtuber Nightshade most particularly about Jared Pike's art. The video itself is interesting and I also read I think on a reddit post about how people who tend to enjoy or desire solitude find these images calming while people who need people more find them distressing (I love looking at them, and my boyfriend was immediately put off by them).

But I think something that's missing from the overanalysis of Nightshade and a lot of analyses of liminal pools in general is that until very, very recently, you could not bring your phone (or any electronics) to the pool, which I think for at least a certain set of people brings a feeling of nostalgia and calm of not being connected. In the liminal pools, the vibe it brings you is that you are safe from emails, essentially, ironically, considering people are generally viewing these images on a device that receives constant internet communication. While Jared Pike does sell prints of his work, I have a feeling that just sticking it on a wall would not be the same.

A very interesting episode of the podcast Hooked On Pop came out last week called Invasion of the Vibesnatchers which seemed particularly relevant to my piece on AI art generators as potential IP laundering machines. It's a very, very interesting comparison on how two similar phenomena are being dealt with in two different mediums and how, with both of them, the artists seems to lose.

Most people are not familiar with how music credits and pay works. Various methods of what might be called 'collageing' have been used in popular recorded music since forever -- from literal clips being 'sampled' and used in a new way in a new song, or melodies repeated and reinterpreted and on and on. Also, in the United States, there's a very defined structure of who owns music, and therefore who gets money every time a song is played, so when pieces of a song are used in another song who gets a cut and how is very predetermined. Because of this structure of the business, nobody wants to step on anyone else's toes too badly, so often credit will be pre-emptively awarded before there's any kind of conflict leading to lawsuit if a company thinks there might be an issue. All of this is happening under the listener's nose unless they really look for these credits. Actual disputes like over Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" are not common and when they do happen they're usually settled pretty quickly.

Now, an "interpolation" isn't as straightforward a copy as a sampled clip or a repeated line of melody. The example analyzed at the beginning of the podcast showed that no individual piece of the song could be considered really copied directly from the old song being credited, but given that it has a a similar instrumentation, similar structure, etc and certain parts that are relatively unique, like a repetitive whistled melody, the old song is given credit, and with that credit the owners of the credited song get some small cut of the profit of the crediting song.

Later in the episode the host reveals that interpolation credits in popular music have increased from about 10% per year before 2017 to about 20% per year afterward, and the major reason cited why is that, well, the record companies that own songs are encouraging it. There's a definite profit motive here -- when someone uses a song they already own to make something new, they will get a cut of the profit from that song, and the more vague the definition of "use" becomes, the more credits they can have, and therefore the more money they will make without having to even acquire more songs.

Now, I can make an argument against this practice due to the "modern media companies encourage homogeneous sludge" argument, but the more important note is how different the music industry is treating music credits versus how visual art credits simply do not work and allow for AI art to sneak in. If you made an AI music generator instead, made it scan top 40 hits back decades for its learning set, and then started posting the music as your own creation or as a way to get "free music", the RIAA would have your ass on a platter in less than a week.

And I am not saying this because the RIAA is 'good' -- it's not like the record companies, once they get that interpolation credit, are actually distributing that cut of profit fairly. But it's so demonstrative of how, when it comes to who makes money on art, it's entirely down to might makes right, and the only reason AI art is allowed to exist as "free art generation" is because it is taking exploiting artists who have no legal or financial power to stop them.

In the meantime I've been thinking about having more serious posts on here but in the meanwhile I'm having serious early 2000s internet nostalgia, thinking about the geocities and pixel art I made in elementary school. Some things have definitely improved while I do think the way most social media is, putting lots of people in a small pit to fight it out and intentionally making them see content that makes them angry for "clicks" has... well, made the world worse.

Back in the days of neopets I had a geocities website with a seafoam green background and a page counter where I posted my pixel dolls. I was very fond of certain artists, and one of them at least, KawaiiHannah is incredibly still around though she seems to do traditional art mostly now though her pixel art is still online.

I was thinking about how I probably would not have the patience to do pixel art now. I mean, I have a lot of tedious hobbies and interests, sure, but I guess the reward for it would not be as much now. There was a lot of community around this stuff and now I have no idea what I would do, it just seems like shouting into the void. I mean there's doing art for art's sake, I know that and do that, but like, when I do that I use physical media, because having something that's not just computer data is... well, it's something, at least.

I was looking at carrd as an alternative to the old-style static sites and I have a resounding maybe. There's also neocities, but again I do not know how much I remember of HTML and CSS and if I have the patience or energy to make a new site from scratch right now. There's also, you know... what I'd put on it. I don't even know. It's hard enough to maintain a blog, because I think I should have something important to say to post. A static website? That's even moreso!

It's really hard to be the change one wants to be, especially when there's no one else around. I really should use this site more. Bleh.