Plunderphonics/graphics is the art form of copies, of "the already played," where art objects dance in our imagination, pretending toward the Phallus yet deliriously never authenticating an experience of the Real. What we can realize through such a ludic praxis is that the Real is now something different than a reality full of discrete objects to which we think we've been annexed through language or symbology. Instead the Real is the annexation to a world of copies. We live in the immateriality of language, in a highly combinable space strewn with indeterminate pulsions we turn into arrows and objects. We mistake language as distinct from that which it posits. Simulacra are real and all that is real is simulacrum. The Real is always a fabrication dependent upon socially determined variables. In this case objects are only unique if that uniqueness is a characteristic intrinsic to their creation, if that is the specialness of their identity. It is a characteristic of production that it is now always possible to make several copies of any one thing. And so, the idea has become the only locus of originality. The bastion of the art object's aura, Benjamin's aura of originality, surrounds the concept. The necessary conclusion, the realization and materialization of the concept in a concrete form, is nothing more than ephemeral detritus fallen from a unique and insubstantial object. We moved the aura from an illumination of praxis through techn into our minds where it only shines around the most unique of ideas. What we get in the conceptual art object made manifest is an echo. We still privilege uniqueness and originality but our definitions of how these terms apply to an art object has changed to suit our reality. The aura has no place in our everyday experience and the wake of its withdrawal into thought and immateriality only highlights the ordinariness and drabness of our received cultural surroundings: concrete, functionality, lawns, gardens, etc. If our reality is entirely constructed from simulacra, then DJs and artists such as Goldsmith manipulate facets of culture with a facility heretofore only intimated in modernist and postmodernist art practices without succumbing to the mind-numbing castration anxieties of our previous generations. They dramatize the process of the Real in their annexing practice. The aura that would have existed around the cultural products they manipulate now enshrouds the activity of manipulation, and in this case, the act of plunder.
The idea of transporting a quotidian and time-sensitve object such as the newspaper into a posterity-ridden space like that of the book challenges our sense of utility. Words are meant to be read. Words don't have expiration dates. So, a newspaper that is two days old is already redundant by the simple fact of the two intervening days' issues of the newspaper that are each supposedly up-to-date up to their respective dates of issue. Books are meant to blanket the social aporia generated by newspapers' attempt at total coverage and provide a retrospective, albeit revisionist picture of a given historical moment. Books are meant to be read at any time, irrespective of 'when' they are written or published. But the deceptively honest question remains: how fruitful is it to read a newspaper as a book when it is continuously more and more out-of-date? Should such a book be read at all? I realize to some people it is almost sacrilegious to suggest that a book should not be read, that a book's function is other than to be read, but the question nonetheless remains. Duchamp challenged our notions of art and utility, of the height of the objet d'art's preciousness and the lowness of the objet quotidienne with his readymades. Goldsmith's Day functions similarly to Duchamp's Fountain in that it is still a newspaper as much as Duchamp's Fountain is still a urinal. Both are functional. But who wants to piss in Duchamp's fountain? Maybe the text of Goldsmith's Day exists otherwise than as a semantic outlay provided by a reader's dutiful reading of the words contained within the book (or on the back cover)? His text exists much like a DJ's mix: in the ephemeral space of experience, the concept, disassociated from but reliant on objects, created in transformation and left there, haunting the annex of the Real, created through an act of plunder, created by sampling the culture. And the book is an independent artefact of the process, a urinal, a recording.
Made In Heights Aporia In These Streets 1
Figure 7. Antoine Bardou-Jacquet's video for Alex Gopher's The Child. The materialization of text in an urban landscape is nowhere more in evidence than in French designer Antoine Bardou-Jacquet's video for Alex Gopher's The Child. [Fig. 7] Bardou-Jacquet's all-textual rendering of New York city borrows its basic concept from Jeffrey Shaw's Legible City project from the late 1980s, while stripping narrative volition away from the viewer. Whereas Shaw's project allows reader-users to simulate moving through geographically and architecturally correct streets of Amsterdam, Manhattan, or Karlsruhe on a stationary bicycle while reading the text of a story mapped onto buildings in the city, The Child delivers a high-speed chase through the streets of New York City with both landmarks and people rendered as all text. The tension that exists in these works hinges on the conflict between real and constructed environments, as well as the insistent interplay of surface and depth. This stylized dimensional tension is taken to new heights in LA design firm Logan's Information Contraband video for DJ Money Mark. [Fig. 8] Eschewing even the minimal narrative of The Child, Information Contraband revels in pure stylistic excess, drawing its inspiration from the colorful visual aesthetics of Thai movie billboards, where two- and three-dimensional characters interact, moving seamlessly between stasis and action. Also at issue in much of this work is an ongoing negotiation of the lines between live action and animation, and photographic and digitally generated space.[26]
And they've made decision - what stories do I leave behind? What stories do I carry across borders and trepidations in order to lend and gift to my children and grandchildren? And by the time I received these stories - and sometimes they're folklore. Sometimes they're personal stories. But all of them were already beautifully crafted through hundreds of retellings.
My grandmother knew when to pause, when to grow anticipation, what part of the scene to describe, what part to speed up through exposition. And we were all just enraptured by what she was able to do. And I think it made me understand then, you know, even more so, you know, what I would later come to know intellectually, which is that nobody survives by accident. Refugees and immigrants survive because they're innovative and creative. Survival is a creative act - you know, you stitching, you know, money in the insides of jackets - right? - I mean, all of these things.
And I think one of the drawbacks of diversity as an agenda is that it tokenizes us or it can tokenize us into slots, in individual traditions - right? - like Asian American, Latinx, Native American, Black writers. But, in fact, all of these traditions are woven in the shadow of Black thought - right? - from the Frederick Douglasses to the Phillis Wheatley, the Baldwins. That oppositional work of self-determination and self dignity - Toni Morrison - it goes on and on. We've come in in the middle of that project. Asian American writers come in in the middle. And so it's important for me at every stage to say I'm here because of these other folks, right? These are also my elders. They've made room for me to work.
SaberReal name: ArtoriaCharacter Data 001Affiliation:True Identity:Gender:Height: Weight: Three sizes:Image Color:Talents:Likes: Dislike: Worst enemy:Origin:Nasu Kinoko & Takeuchi Takashi Discussion>The catalyst for Saber's birthTakeuchi: Saber's character is rooted in the specific desire to draw a petite, blonde female knight. As we developed her character concept, we decided to aim for something that was fresh and stimulating. I guess the best analogy to illustrate what I mean is to say that if the archetypical characters you find in bishojo games are like juice, we wanted Saber to be more like pure spring water.>Changes that developed over timeNasu: It's pretty commonly known that Saber was a male character in the original work, so the only major change we made to the character on the concept side of things is the gender. In terms of the character's design aspect, we really didn't change much.Takeuchi: I don't know if this would really count as a change, but I did propose putting the Pendragon crest on Saber's loincloth. The idea was rejected, though.Nasu: You're right, she did look a bit more extravagant during the early stages.Takeuchi: In all honesty, I still believe the very first sketch I drew of Saber was the best one. It's something I sketched while I was working for another company prior to this one. (Said while looking at Fate/side material)Nasu: I remember... you gave her this distinctly supple firmness. Now that I think about it, you were drawing Sion from "Melty Blood" at the time, and she had the same look to her. According to Takeuchi, Sion was made up of the parts that were left over after he designed Saber.Takeuchi: More specifically, the leftover parts from designing Saber, Rin, and Sakura. One thing I can say about designing Saber is that I never really had a specific image in mind, but I did have ideals that guided me. I simply did my best to give those ideals a physical form. I didn't really like female characters who had their hair up, but I had to admit that Saber just wasn't as appealing with her hair down. I think exposing the nape of her neck was a key element in conveying that "purity" concept I mentioned earlier. The little stray bits of hair that look like antennae were also an important part of illustrating her character. I even had those stray hairs in my original sketch.Nasu: Oh look, you did! (laughs)Takeuchi: It's a bit off-topic, but I do believe that the devil is in the details when it comes to character design. You can give this character a totally different vibe just by adding one strand of extra long hair to an otherwise bland or common hairstyle.Nasu: I see...Takeuchi: I swear Saber looks like an ordinary girl without those tiny strands, but once you add those strands she magically becomes Saber. I recall someone referring to such stray strands as "evidence of the king", and I think they were really on to something. The horns on Gundam characters are another excellent example of how the smallest details can be the epitome of characterisation.>Designing Saber's outfits and armamentsTakeuchi: I basically infused every part of Saber's design with my own personal tastes and preferences. Her overall design is quite simple and decidedly rudimentary.Nasu: If you think about it though, Saber is a rather rare design... in fact, you could say it's really quite daring! I mean, when was the last time you saw a main heroine in a game like this who wasn't showing any skin!?Takeuchi: Exposing skin may be a reliable way to go in terms of design, but I guess I thought emphasising the knighthood aspect of her design made her appealing enough. If Saber shines as a character to an unusual degree, I would say it's because of the game's excellent writing, which really brought out the best in every character.Nasu: When the character was brought to life visually, it really reaffirmed for me the beauty of Saber as a concept and I fell in love all over again.Takeuchi: It was only afterward that I realised just how much of an impression this character design made. Oh, and I was delighted when you told me you thought she looked great without her armour too.>Standing pose variations for the gameNasu: It's great to have a wide variety of standing poses for the game, of course, but as a writer that very same variety can be a cause for distress. I feel so much pressure to make the best use of every pose and facial expression in terms of the text I provide for the game, which leads to hours of staring at these images in hopes of some inspiration. I had plenty of experience with this dilemma from the days of working on "Tsukihime", so at least I was prepared this time. I don't think there's anything wrong with games that only use about six different standing poses and leave the rest up to the player's imagination, but the driving concept behind "Fate" was to further evolve the methods we had refined with "Tsukihime", so it was important that we have as many facial expressions as possible to best match a wide variety of dialogue. Even the most basic human emotion like "happiness" can be expressed through multiple facial expressions, and working through these subtle differences can be quite taxing, but in the end it is precisely these details that really bring the characters to life. I know I may be repeating myself at this point, but as a writer, the multitude of poses and facial expressions is both a blessing and a curse. (laughs)Takeuchi: One thing I learned was that people adapt very quickly to any luxury provided, and the more you offer, the more it emphasises the specific things you are not offering. I suppose the lesson here is that moderation is key in all things. (laughs)Nasu: That's true. For example, when the player sees that we created an exclusive facial expression for a certain event, they might turn around and ask why we didn't provide one for this other event...Takeuchi: Something I will say is that I wish we had given Saber a little more variety in terms of her costumes.>The message Saber carries as a characterTakeuchi: Blondes are hot!Nasu: Hahaha yeah, totally... ...Seriously, this guy needs help...Takeuchi: There's definitely something hot about golden locks, but I think the true allure of blond hair is in the way it also carries a sense of style and nobility.Nasu: Now that I think about it, both Arcueid and Saber are blondes... I'm starting to worry that you intend on drawing even more blondes in the future...Takeuchi: Is there anything else we can say about Saber?Nasu: I shouldn't have made her such a glutton. I mean, I didn't intend to make her that way, but the results speak for themselves. (laughs) I just wanted to convey how bountiful our food supply is now compared to what people had to endure in the past, like what Artoria would have seen for herself in her original life.Takeuchi: You know, this one time I was pondering Saber's popularity and I came to the conclusion that it's her beam weapon that draws the fans. Graceful, young female knights are not all that rare, but you really don't see many who carry a powerful beam weapon!Nasu: Well, there is a certain "white devil"...Takeuchi: Of course that "white devil" is popular! She has a beam weapon too! You see what I mean? Blonde + beam weapon = victory!Nasu: That's a pretty specific victory...Takeuchi: In the final battle of "Hollow", I got goosebumps from the overwhelming trust I felt upon seeing Saber stand before the beast horde. I am convinced that this powerful emotion is rooted in our generation's reverence of beam weapons!Nasu: I see... It all makes sense now. It's no wonder I'm such a huge fan of "Hato No Oyomesan" (Hatoyome)!Takeuchi: Hato Beam!Nasu: Exactly! Though the Hato Beam hasn't been featured much lately.... 2ff7e9595c
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