Singularity drawing in watercolour and #anitpost revealed: The World of the Machine.
Here is a bit of a study which became its own painting.
The entire piece
The sketch prior to watercolour
Here are the drawing and watercolour layers building up.
This piece, which is in fact a digital watercolour study for a Singularity painting, has become it's own piece.
I always like to consider my 'studies' as 'done' pieces as well.
I think they deserve a Life of their own. However, the story behind this piece was that I simply was sketching out an idea for a portion of a painting I am still laying out when I realized I rather liked this section as is. In fact I even cut back the head sketch I had started (which at the early stage is more similar to an egg with some facial positioning lines) and felt this section would be an interesting piece in and of itself.
I like the idea that one sees the robotic arm but also a fleshy neck. Is it a robot? Is it a hybrid? Who can say. And my often addition of the Monarch felt like they were almost the subject of the piece. I began adding more and more, as if they were hatching out of her; they the subject, she the background.
When sketching and dreaming up these works I always have little narratives running through my head.
In this instance, as I sketched more and more monarchs, I began to think what if these beings are a sort of immortal, or at least very long lived; perhaps moving to them would take on a new meaning.
If one has all the time in the world and no place to go, would standing still contemplating for days be a normal action?
I liked the idea of it, anyway. This hybridized post Human post Singularity creature, standing about in her finery, wondering at her existence and caught in a thought whilst caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly lived out their life stage. But, I digress...
As I have thought of this section as a finalized composition I will most likely do it in digital oils in this iteration as well. I will share that, of course, if it comes about.
Now, the other day, as part of my @sndbox required weekly posts, I shared this #antipost with you. I asked if anyone could guess what was the 'anti' bit of it. It seemed, in many ways, a post we often see here on Steemit, a few generic royalty free images (though I confess to altering the first image, I couldn't help myself) and the text sort of went on about this or that.
It was @ruth-girl who came the closest to what it was I had done, when she said in a comment:
BTW, I can hardly understand a whole sentence in here. My brain needs a break 😥
This was very astute of her, for what I had done was used this programme, developed in the 1990's, that became the center of a bit of controversy. The Sokal affair or Hoax was an attempt to route out the ridiculousness of the level to which graduate and phd papers and so called literary journals read or accepted submission. In other words, a piece peppered with many 'high handed' words would pass as a well written paper or article by a person.
It was Alan Sokal who was behind it, a physics professor at NYU and UCL. He did this as an experiment
to investigate whether "a leading North American journal of cultural studies publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions"
Sokal accomplished this with a programme that would randomly generate scholarly articles completely by a computer. Thus, I used this same programme and got a paper and simply cut and pasted the beginning of it into my #antipost, peppering it with easily found royalty free images. The point is, this could easily stand as a real post by a human. True, I did cut and paste it and added the images, but this concept of things simply being created by a machine also ties in nicely with my post Singularity concept in my paintings.
We live in a world that is quickly increasing in computer power and mechanized production. The level to which a programme today could generate anything from fiction to high brow papers including images is very possible. In fact much of what we see as 'news' today is often done so. And if anyone were to pay attention, the various language across the board of 'news' programmes today, despite their 'political' bent have an eerie similarity to them.
Thus, my #antipost was 'anti' in that it was meant to be made by machine not man.
We are all hurdling ever closer to a virtual and more mechanized life whether we want to or not. I hope you can enjoy today, but recall the world as it is now. Look at your flesh and blood arm and wonder, what will my grandchildren have?
If you like my work by all means upvote, resteem, and comment. I always appreciate comments.
And check out my other posts.
- Taking needed Nature breaks in a busy Summer. The importance of Unplugging.
- [Anti-post for @sndbox weekly question: What IS a Post?
- Black and White drawing with some layers.
- Sharing another bit of my latest Singularity Work In Progress
Copyright @donnadavisart - All Rights Reserved
I really love the sweet base colour you have chosen for this one
Brilliant conception! It was really clever what you did there!
It is nice that you don't keep your questions and philosophical wanderings to your paintings, but try to pass them on to others using every means you have.
Once again, very clever and interesting "experiment" 😊
I didn't get much engangement on that post, which was a bit frustrating as I thought I would, but your headache made me smile because I felt, 'this experiment worked' and of course you actually tried to read it, not everyone does that ;)
It was a puzzle, at least I had to give it a try!
And you didn't get the expected engagement because it was not an easy-to-digest, 50-word text with a nice picture or a meme. It actually makes you think and people don't like to think...
I always enjoy seeing how you work!
Thanks. I know I should be doing screen video capture, but just haven't felt inspired enough to do so. My gifs are the closest I've come :)
Love your singularity but the depth of thought behind 'anti' in post is incredibly on point, Donna!
Thank you. It just seemed relevant. When I first considered anti post I thought, well, opposite of well thought out human made would be algorithmic processed 'thought'.
Dear Artist @donnadavisart ! This post has been resteemed and upvoted from FineArtNow account ! See you soon !
Thank you so much, you are kind.
Dear Artzonian, thanks for using the #ArtzOne hashtag. Your work is valuable to the @ArtzOne community. Quote of the week: Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics. -Victor Pinchuk
Thank you @artzone, you do such a good curation job for artists :)
Hi @donnadavisart! This is just to let you know that...
You got SNEKKED!
Because we love your post!!
You Got Snekked is a curation project!
We aim to find good content, share a happy moment, & some visibility. Your post got our upvote, and we will feature your post and possibly an image from it in our 27th curation compilation if you don't mind! If you don't want to be featured, please let us know!
Also, feel welcome to join our community on Discord! -:
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://i.imgur.com/3063z61.jpg)
https://discord.gg/VWJxTEz
Thank you so much, I'll stop into your discord for sure!
You'll find a very friendly community ;) ... It has become my Steemit 'home' of sorts..
I'm excited to have joined. I have so many discord channels now it is hard to keep up, but I do go back to those that have the friendliest most engaging members :)
Well it is true that hip replacements and what have you are quite prevalent among the elderly, but our kids are generally 100% organic. What I find a little preoccupying is that we don't know the eventual results of certain medical practices in the long term. Somehow I always think Nature will win out, and rather than merge with machines, we will merge with her. Guess I am just an eternal optimist.
Who can know the future? I think it will continue to enter our lives not with a bang but with a soft cry to 'convenience'. We have shown that we can go from no phones to basic phones to needing our 'computers in our hands' at all times in under a decade. When the implantation of data receptors become an 'easier way to get connected' we might not be turning back. But, again, who can say?
Yes this does appear to be the current tendency. But I like Terence McKenna's idea of the emergence of novelty; life will always be unpredictable. Isn't it funny that in these times of "anything goes" art has become so prudish? So many contradictions.
I also find it an odd contradictory time in that we hear about 'all inclusion' all the more and 'celebrating differences' yet when I see facebook, I see people rallying into camps and not even wanting to talk or converse with others who have differing views or politics etc. It is indeed an odd time. Perhaps far too much data for organic beings at once is just not always a good thing :)
Yes, it is curious, this desire to define oneself as belonging to a particular group, and at the same time insisting that we are all alike and equal. So many contradictions. I avoid political conversations on the web because they become so venomous; people are incapable of polite disagreement or courteous exchange of opinions.
It's the contrast that I love, the android-esque arm, the fleshy neck and the incongruence of the old fashioned dress.
Hehe, lord, listen to me, is almost as if I ran this comment through the sokal software!
Ha ha, maybe we are becoming the machines...which is the Singularity. Look out you might be chipped! ;)
Hello,
I am making a list of people who actively read, react to or upvote comments on their articles.
This list will be everyone that I follow (my following list).
You are actively engaged in your comment section and upvote the usefull feedback, so I have added you to this list.
I hope this will bring you and the others like you good fortune! keep it up!
If you know someone who you think should be added to this list please let me know in the comment section under the article in the link below, so far I have found around 30 authors that are worth commenting on after reading.
https://steemit.com/list/@flyingdutchman/help-me-make-a-list-of-people-worth-reading-and-upvoting-your-opinion-is-worth-something-earn-more-steem-by-only-reading
Oh, that is really a fine idea. I'll head over and check it out, I can think of a few good folks who do just that!
That would be great, thanks for the help!