lda
I want my... I want my... I want my Mistigris...
Happy New Year, everybody! We have now officially all survived 2020, except
for those of us who didnt. But they probably arent reading this infofile,
until Burps implements an IRC bridge between Discord and THE AFTERLIFE. The
communication link is overrated, many of those dead lamers are inveterate
shitposters! Ah, but I digress. The subject of this months Mistigris
artpack collection is of course music, which is celebrated as soothing the
savage beast, but what all the ANSI artists want to know is whether it can
soothe the Savage Dragon. Only Erik Larsen knows for sure, and hes not
talking!
But here I am speaking ill of the dead and the only shitposting that troubles
you is mine, clogging up my own infofile! So lets gently step beyond the gags
and get down to business. Thanks to LDA for providing this gnarly infofile
header, such an obvious good fit we had to check to see if we hadnt already
done it somehow, not... our MO is to skip lightly past the straightforward and
proceed directly to the obscure. He doesnt realise it yet, but MeatLotion
provided the footer here as well! Thanks also to CoaXCable for performing
similar duties for the memberlist and a great standing ovation to Hayn9 for
taking a Cthulu FILEID.DIZ concept always a dubious prospect to begin with
and making of it something that not only simply survives, but thrives!
This artpack marks a few firsts. The work of teletext whiz gkmac appears in an
artpack for the first time ever! Shapes has had work appear in other artpacks
previously, but this is her first time appearing in a Mistigris artpack.
Grymmjack has had work included in a Mist pack before -- a museum artifact
celebrating Mists non-existent 4th birthday, exhumed from the collection on
the occasion of our reunion -- but this is the first time weve shared anything
of his made in this century. And also we have smorltork -- surging to the fore
as a flagbearer for adept handling of pixelart-adjacent fusion bead
compositions, after we had been without beads for just about long enough wed
figured we were safely done with them for good. We may well never see him
again, but he sure makes the most of his time here with us this month! A big
hats off to all of these new contributors, and also to old hands exploring
their way around personal takes on musical themes. Joninscii, for instance,
has a substantial virtual collection of analogue drum macahines and sequencers
and he just cant wait to share them with you! Prunes formerly upper.case
has a small suite of pixelart screens inspired by the feeling of listening to
some of his favorite songs.
As well as the firsts backtracking a bit, this artpack also marks some
lasts... since September of 2016 we have been pumping out curated artpacks
on a monthly basis, populated without benefit of much of an active, organized
community -- our brand was bustling, but our crew was strictly a skeleton crew,
most of our artpack contents scraped with permission from the historical and
ongoing portfolios of worthwhile artists in and tangential to the computer art
milieu, theme and aesthetic. We accomplished stuffed themed releaseas by
skimming relevant works from a vast slush pile of works held in reserve for
weeks, months and sometimes years, giving our collections, though thematically
coherent, somewhat of the feel of a microwaved frozen burrito. Apologies for
the unflattering metaphor to the artists involved: the burrito had top-notch
ingredients, but they suffered from severe freezer burn. It was our hope that
by demonstrating curatorial rigor on a regular basis, we might invoke, calling
into existence, an active community of creators who interact, cross-pollenate
and encourage each other in their creative development. Sometimes we achieved
this. Other times, we puzzled the artscene by erecting a Potemkin village for
their benefit, promoting and celebrating the art of people who knew and cared
nothing about the attention of that historically distinct and rich community.
It is very odd to be bidding a fond farewell to the slush pile while huge
shivering gobs of slush are falling all around me. Since last June weve been
very slowly turning the ship around hey, do you know how quickly a ship
turns? Not very! toward the goal of taking on 2021 with a mandate for fresh
art made by involved members of our community, removing the focus from our
traditionally unignorable Massive Quantities Of Slush. Our January 2021 pack
which is, to say, this one represents our final discharging of the last major
chunk of it... you may still see sprinklings of slush in the packs ahead as
garnish, but hopefully its days as the main course are behind us from here on.
Probably, our track record of themed artpacks will also diminish in favour of
a focus on whatever fresh material our crew have been working on recently.
Furthermore, we will most likely also be reducing the frequency of our artpack
releases -- more-than-monthly since September 2016! Weve been monthly for
longer than Mist Classic was anything at all! So weve earned the right to
take a rest -- or a victory lap if you will -- and ask ourselves what other
kinds of projects we might be interested in pursuing. Our social media
presence is in dire need of some streamlining. Our website? Hopelessly
tangled. Our efforts to make electronic magazines and circulate music?
Stifled and thwarted! Our campaign to vend merchandise based on meritorious
Mistigris artworks? Postponed indefinitely. Our attempt to host regular
computer art competitions? Ah, as it so happens, that particular side-line has
been going swimmingly! In tandem with Warpus of Lazarus, weve stepped up the
frequency of the Blender improvised art competitions, and we look forward to
presenting another the weekend of April 17th in blender on the EFNet IRC. But
the general point still stands: we have a lot more wed like to get done, and
if were always behind the 8-ball of the next pending monthly artpack release,
its never going to happen. So well be taking some months off to do other
work. February ought to have a swell unthemed artpack, but March -- were
sorry, ladies, to give you short shrift during our traditional IWD celebration
-- probably will be our first artpackless month since August 2016. But maybe
itll see the first new issue of Kithe released since 1997?
How have I made it this far into the infofile and made so few music-related
jokes? Its almost like Ive forgotten what the theme of this pack is! And
yet... Ive almost run out of things to say. OK, heres one my girls like:
Q: Knock knock.
A: Whos there?
Q: Ow!
A: Ow! who?
Q: Ah-whooo! WEREWOLVES OF LONDON!
Anyhow, theres a ton of great art in this collection -- over 200 pieces by
over three dozen artists, representing a great many musical traditions in a
wide variety of visual styles including an extraordinary bumper crop of ANSI
art, for those for whom that is the only metric that counts -- so get out
there and enjoy the contents of this collection! And dont just rely on the
web browser gallery at 16colo.rs, which -- great as it is! -- wont allow you
to tap into the MP3 sound recordings and MP4 digital videos included. Well
try to feed them into the social media sausage grinder, but perhaps best is to
simply download the artpack locally and experience its contents with your
choice of software. If you find you are interested in learning more about the
participating artists, do make sure to check out the other infofile, where you
can find all manner of URLs leading you to their websites and social media
accounts. If you enjoy their work, undoubtedly they would love to hear from
you!
OK, Im just reiterating standard infofile boilerplate here now, a hazard of
writing this stuff while watching a movie with your family. Where is my focus?
Ill level with you, my brain is mush. Since mid-December Ive uploaded one of
these to 16c every eleven days! Enough infofile! No more
words! Enjoy the music instead!
- Cthulu
mL