The Kinship of Flesh

All hail the new flesh, same as the old flesh.

The constant stream of "we are so fucked" from the indie game community continues unabated, as does the constant stream of "you are so fucked" from the garbage-farting computer machine community.

The extortion emails are so funny. "I have committed a crime," they say. "Give me money or I will commit another one." Which is, itself, a crime. It's like reverse blackmail. "You didn't commit a crime, but I did!"

I'm waiting for the first copyright case where they use this email as evidence. "Your Honor, we know the plaintiff committed criminal copyright infringement because they told us themselves." Did you know there's a $250,000 fine for that? Somebody's gonna find out.

The big tell for fake art from the garbage-farting computer machine right now is perspective. You might see an image like this and go "why that looks fine." But an artist immediately clocks that something is off. Something is wrong with this picture. They may not immediately be able to articulate why, but it doesn't feel real.

If you just draw a few lines, it becomes clear to anyone who knows what perspective is that these edges don't make sense. Lines that should be parallel are clearly not; parallel lines go to the same vanishing point, and vanishing points all sit at the same horizon. These... don't.

The most damning bit here is the pyramid, which not only has its sides pointing wildly at a lower horizon than the rest of the glass cubes, but the visible far edge of the pyramid through the glass body doesn't even go to the corner of the pyramid. And while it's understandable that the cubes may all be turned slightly differently, the edges of cubes are always parallel to one another. Hence, these are not cubes. They are weird, almost-cube shapes.

In addition, the mirrored surface they sit on... isn't flat. It's subtly wavy, tilting the cubes so they converge on entirely separate horizons. But it reflects the cubes as though it is perfectly flat, which it can't do if it isn't flat. The perspective is telling you things about the image that the lighting is telling you aren't true.

And then there's that pyramid edge, which is just plain wrong. Everything is a mess until you see that and realise this image is fake.

This is, incidentally, the same problem Hitler had with his paintings. Most people will look at this picture and go "it's all right, I guess."

An artist -- especially one deciding whether to let someone into art school -- is going to be absolutely repulsed. What even is this bullshit. 

It's also been observed -- famously in season 1 episode 6 of "Justified," with Robert Picardo making the observation -- that Hitler couldn't paint convincing people because something was always a little off. They didn't go into it in the episode, but what I observe is that he was putting people where people might be, but he didn't seem to understand WHY the people might be there.

He would scatter people through his paintings where he thought there ought to be people, mostly to break up large areas of empty space, and it looks like he was told to do this. Like he didn't observe where people went and what they did, he was just told to put some people in, so he sprinkled them around a bit. A bit. Just a bit.

And it interests me slightly to observe that the garbage-farting computer machine, so popular with fascists and fascist sympathisers, should have the same problems with art as the most iconic fascist of all time. Because to them, it's not a problem.

There is a scene in David Cronenberg's 1986 film "The Fly" where Seth Brundle is explaining to Veronica (Did she have a last name? I don't remember her last name) that the steak he's sent through the machine doesn't taste good because "I haven't taught the machine to be made crazy by the flesh, by the poetry of the steak."

A dozen years later, Joe Pantoliano would do his iconic scene as Cypher in "The Matrix," where he reflects that he knows the steak is not real and he does not care.

In full, his reflection is "You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss."

He doesn't want the steak to be real. He wants not to know that it isn't.

This is fundamentally where all the jackasses who like the garbage-farting computer machine are sitting. They don't understand. They take a bite of a real steak, a steak that didn't come out of the machine, and they're not crazy for the flesh. They don't get the poetry of the steak. They can't hear the secret song at the centre of the world.

When they give you the nasty, synthetic, foul-tasting steak that you instantly know is not a steak, but some kind of twisted imitation of a steak... they don't understand why you don't accept it as juiicy and delicious, when the garbage-farting computer machine is clearly telling you so.

They asked for a juicy and delicious steak, after all, and this is what the machine farted out. It must be juicy and delicious; the computer said so. If you think it is not juicy and delicious, you are wrong. Trust the computer. The computer is your friend. You must not understand what juicy and delicious really means. You must be jealous. You must be afraid that nobody will want your juicy and delicious steak anymore, because this juicy and delicious steak is free.

The machine can't make art because the people who made the machine can't make art. And then they gave the machine to other people who can't make art, telling them it can make art, and when we say it hasn't made art... they don't understand.

But flesh recognises flesh. If you understand art, if you hear the song, if you get the poetry, if you're made crazy, you see the artistry. You recognise it. You know that this is from someone who is just like you in certain important ways.

And if it came from a machine, it's not. You can tell before you can explain. You feel that connection with the artist, deep down, and with the machine there's just... nothing there.