#art #linux #foss #pastel #music #blog

I don't know what your opinions on AI are and how people want to or don't want to use AI in their artwork. I don't have any intention about writing about that. Instead I want to write about the way in which we respond to it.

I have my laptop on my lap. I was going to use Krita which is excellent Free and Open Source Software which everyone should endeavor to use. Then i realized that i also had a box of pastels. Armed with this some paper and few moments to myself i decided to get back to what i really care about. Traditional mediums. In particular i really enjoy pastel even though I'm very horrible at it currently. I like how it feels and how portable it is. It has a really deceptive texture to it that i enjoy that is oily without there being any oil in it. There is just that much pigment in there. This doesn't mean I will never again use Krita it has all kinds of uses for me. It is just how i'm deciding to slice my time between technology and traditional work.

But also, I love other things a well. I recently started collecting vinyl so i could play it back without the need of the internet. Having offline music is a great way to reduce your stress. Climbing all in on a single device has enslaved us to our devices. Everything is there, everything is easy. Nothing is tactile. You touch a phone and you get the same experience everywhere. I don't know if you've spent a lot of time around actual turntables but they are a very different experience and not all the music is continuous there are sides to records sometimes as many as 4! There is a process to using it that creates memory and changes how you think. The phone changes how you think too.

I finally bought the equipment and instruments i need to get back into my songwriting process. I am pivoting from electronic music to using my hands again and touching steel and wood. I have a bass guitar and a 6 string electric and now also a 6 string acoustic. This is all i really need along with the 88 key Keystation MIDI controller which i operate as a lightweight piano/organ using synthesizers in Ardour which is another FOSS project. Since i have decided to focus on recording Ardour makes the most sense for me. It's uncomplicated enough you can create your setup as you go or create some more sophisticated templates to keep around and even edit for later.

What am i getting at? In each case I'm increasingly more inclined to go back to the way things were closer to my childhood. Not out of nostalgia but out of convenience and as a way to fight back against a world that keeps insisting on encroaching on every part of our existence. These are just some ways to keep in touch with what makes us human. I'm all for human art. I suspect since we already have a corporate art shift and corporations seem intent on largely utilizing AI in some way to generate more corporate art it's fine if the rest of us focus on human art. That is art made by humans for humans doing human like things.