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3 things relating to transmutation/transformation spurred by “Fall of the House of Usher” watch inconsequentialia,
In the adaptation of “…Usher”, there’s this moment where someone prepares a law book, in the form of a cake. A coffee cup, that is actually sliceable into a cake. I’m thinking about the form of these hyper-realistic cakes that have become viral hits. Imagining someone constructing a cake in the middle of the forest. A tree that is actually an intricate cake, or convincing hidden fake. The purpose of the object becomes edible. Those candy cigs as kids. You pierce your skin and fluff comes out.
Luis Camnitzer, This is a Mirror, You are a Written Sentence (1966)
“An Oak Tree” conceptual work by Michael Craig-Martin
> Q: To begin with, could you describe this work? A: Yes, of course. What I've done is change a glass of water into a full-grown oak tree without altering the accidents of the glass of water.
Phragmosis
In ant:
The term phragmosis was coined by W.M. Wheeler (1927), to describe a cryptic defensive technique employed by insects that use specially modified body structures to block nest entrances. Phragmotic-headed ants, for instance, prevent intruders from entering nests by blocking the entrances or by pushing them out of entrance galleries.
Lyrebird
with regards to artificiality and “natural” - the sound sample of a “natural” scene vs the lens “the bird voice mimicing an artificial (unnatural) object like a passing plane”
Fully wrong transformation
That “latent space” idea relates back to that talk I had on the Greenbelt (a path of conversation choices that makes someone laugh), and is the closest I can get to the idea I am trying to express of having a question and all answers and how those would be arranged in space.
Almost like you can solve a question just by looking at the sign space and knowing that the answer lies somewhere in that field. “Who played on the stage?” “The Eagles” vs “An Eagle” vs “A venetian blind” (all of these shorthands for signs being that same distillation of a color I can express, that is actually a traversal in RBG space). I like it like physical computation, in order to know what is around the corner you can walk there and when you arrive you know the answer.
What would walking in that answer space look like, if you took a wrong turn? Burrow through a wall of venetian blinds.
On Lyrics You see these guys and they are voicing the lyrics (silently or otherwise), or doing air guitar. When I was driving home recently a song had lyrics and I had the strange sense that the words were coming out of my mouth. I wonder if there’s an element of that to song enjoyment.
Guitar voice
During this concert I went to (as a part of family bonding) there was this segment where Joe Walsh is playing and singing. Gradually his voice becomes the actual guitar. see, https://youtu.be/yYIjIpSPTuA?t=201 Also, fingerpicking with the lyrics becoming the voice.
There also was a part where Joe Walsh instructed the crowd to make this animal sound and be part of the song. “I’ve arranged for some audience participation here. When you come home at night you can say you helped be part of something”
Elusiveness
This single page comic by Joan Cornella in which each frame transforms your understanding of the scene.
Art Idea
“Remember that there is only one ‘poetry’. The opposite of poetry is professional expertise. Before you start making a film, write a poem, paint a picture, create a collage, write a novel, essay etc. Only by cultivating your ability for universal expression will you ensure you produce a good film.”
Maybe taking some creative liberty in my interpretation but I took that “one poem” to be just a varied, enthusiastic pursuit toward things (not even pertaining to poetry).
A poem can be a song can be an EP can be another EP, can be a thought in the woods etc. You can turn a song into a drawing. It’s really a creative transmutation about what you want to make of a concept, and I’m sometimes not sure what form is best.
I see the argument toward specialization as well (why learn flute and guitar with a finite life), however, I’d argue some middle ground is still worthwhile (and probably produces the kind of thing I’d want to do anyway). Like someone who has mastered a dance routine, versus someone who is a great dancer, versus someone who love dancing but is rhymical mess. I kind of feel there’s a special kind of quality to the last two, as much as the first would be exalted. Some of my favorite books are from first authors, because they have an uneven rawness, and unawareness (“I must get this thought out”) that is more compelling than complete awareness of their craft.
Similar just thinking of photography, these people really into photography, with tremendous gear setups. What I realized collecting gear early on, was that I actually liked some cheaper stuff/older smaller cameras that were more discreet. Just having the camera made a huge difference. To make another comparison, you see people taking photos that are brilliant straight on their phone and guys with ridiculous gear taking 1000 megapixel images of basically a dull thing. (I’m not speaking from a place of expertise or pride in anything I do necessarily. Like I’ll see beautiful pictures of my parents moving in together growing up, and it’s amazing and feels blindly artistic)
Minimal decoration
I was thinking how “minimal decoration” is a kind of transmutation. Some examples
- A car on a shirt, or any kind of object design
- A stamp on an envelope
- the statue of liberty is incongruously placed on a letter
- Those cellphone charms that dangle from a phone
- Or any kind of charm, like a metallic flower
- A pin
None of these accents really have anything to do with the object they reside on, but they combine and transform the original object to take a kind of likeness. So my shirt is just a thing of fabric, nothing to do with a boat, but I might have a boat on my shirt.
”Painted” Sky
I remember driving in the morning, and seeing this vivid “painterly” sky. It truly looked like brush strokes. I said to myself isn’t it strangely fortunate that the process of applying paint to canvas, so closely resembles the sky. We can, but do not generally paint with gears, dynamite or rocks, or the clouds themselves - though within degrees we might be able to. But something of the brush produces such similar features of the sky, at least on the macroscopic level (surely microscopic examination of the painted canvas doesn’t resemble the droplets of water and light of clouds.)
The sky looks like a painting when we’ve been painting the sky. The brush strokes look like the cloudy sky. At the moment in the hazy morning the brush strokes seemed to be mimicking the sky.
My point here, is that I’m seeing the sky as a “painting” when I was driving, but the painting’s brush strokes were originally meant to mimic the sky. It feels the sky has a stronger claim than the strokes, and yet in that moment I didn’t see the sky - I saw brushstrokes.
An Artist and a writer
There’s the question of being a comics writer and then trying to find the right artist. It could be you, who wrote it yourself.
But imagine that process where you have an idea, and numerous options of styles of people to create the visual component of your story.
Base64 Encoding
Maybe there’s a type of transmutation going on with interpretation of files on a computer. Also when you encode a file in Base64 (binary to text encoding)? Any kind of encoding?
Base64 will take sequences of 6 bits and map them to one of 64 unique characters.
Many hands make light work.
TWFueSBoYW5kcyBtYWtlIGxpZ2h0IHdvcmsu
Twinkie Products
I did an eBay search for some Twinkie esoterica as part of a joke. My recommendations have exploded with Twinkie transformations. I believe some quality about the Twinkie, is culturally, comical. So various transformations are seen.
Intriguingly they tend to be quite old, for example this cake soap was from before I was born. It makes you wonder the life of this object in those years. It could be that a Twinkie in the future, becomes a soap bar product and the sponge cake falls out of fashion. This would be then a perplexing and unassuming object at that point in time.
The Vintage 1981 Hostess Twinkies Cake Soap Bar is a unique collectible item that combines the nostalgia of a classic bakery treat with the functionality of a bar of soap. This unique piece of memorabilia captures the essence of 1980s baking culture and is sure to appeal to both collectors and fans of vintage advertising. Perfect for adding a touch of retro charm to any kitchen or collection, this item is a must-have for any enthusiast of bakery-themed merchandise.
