anon_huxo said in #4229 4d ago:
An intellectual cage match I'd love to see is Monumental Labs, the brothers Missor, and Fen de Villiers on the subject of slop vs innovation and kitsch vs tradition in the future of sculpture. Who would come out on top? Each is groundbreakingly interesting in their own way, so don't take my criticisms the wrong way; no one else is even worthy of mention.
De Villiers is rigorously and vocally against "slop" and "kitsch" in his attempts to bring "energy" back to sculpture with a style I am too much of a pleb to distinguish from re-heated Futurism. His stuff is good and it takes itself seriously, and his ideology is well developed and at least asking the right questions. If his work has a flaw, it's pretentiousness; most of the talk about how important and innovative his work is comes from him, and I don't personally see it. And maybe I'm just an Arno Breker pleb, but if I wanted to shock the world with a bold new energy revived from the forbidden past I wouldn't start with Futurism, which is comparatively lame and sterile.
The brothers Missor are *almost* a traditional sculpture foundry. Or rather they are that, and their energy is admirable and truly fresh and interesting, *except* that they make excessive use of AI slop in their imagery. It clashes with the vibe IMO. Sure use it behind the scenes for ideation or something, but these guys have the raw talent to ride solely on their actual work and paper sketches. The whole aesthetic narrative is this time capsule of sculptural tradition, pouring blood and sweat into a physical mold with careful attention to detail. Computerized fever dreams detract from that. AI imagery is for lazy talentless tech scammers to stick on their vibe coded botposting apps, not serious physical artisans. But strip the AI slop away and what's left? An anachronism. Maybe we need that kind of "last known good version" right now, and they do it very well, but it's also depressing in a way. Have we learned nothing of aesthetic consequence in the last hundred years? The promise to use titanian is the most interesting thing here. (And their Napoleon is truly glorious).
Monumental Labs is doing something very cool but also possibly self-defeating; using computerized robot arms to democratize ornamental stonework. "Using X to democratize Y" is a cringe formula. It sounds both kitsch and slop. I'm using it intentionally. In principle, robotic acceleration could allow a master to work an order of magnitude faster or at unlimited scale to create more beauty in the world. In practice it means any retard with z-brush and $10000 can pretend to be Michelangelo. Monumental Labs may or may not even be responsible for some of the atrocities they get blamed for, but they are aesthetically associated with "z-brush slop". The founder points out that in principle it's a perfectly accurate process that can be used to produce masterpieces. But the fact is, there's something "off" about many of the outputs of this process, probably because the artistry is divorced from the physicality and because it lacks the inherent taste filter of difficulty. The process has great promise, but the inherent democracy must be overcome with taste and iteration by real masters.
These are valiant attempts overall. Maybe one or more of them will help birth an artistic vision that confidently speaks for itself without having to make excuses, that has conceptual coherence in its values, and has the courage to break out of the aesthetic cage we've been stuck in since the mid 20th century.
Let's post some good stuff we find promising.
De Villiers is rigorously and vocally against "slop" and "kitsch" in his attempts to bring "energy" back to sculpture with a style I am too much of a pleb to distinguish from re-heated Futurism. His stuff is good and it takes itself seriously, and his ideology is well developed and at least asking the right questions. If his work has a flaw, it's pretentiousness; most of the talk about how important and innovative his work is comes from him, and I don't personally see it. And maybe I'm just an Arno Breker pleb, but if I wanted to shock the world with a bold new energy revived from the forbidden past I wouldn't start with Futurism, which is comparatively lame and sterile.
The brothers Missor are *almost* a traditional sculpture foundry. Or rather they are that, and their energy is admirable and truly fresh and interesting, *except* that they make excessive use of AI slop in their imagery. It clashes with the vibe IMO. Sure use it behind the scenes for ideation or something, but these guys have the raw talent to ride solely on their actual work and paper sketches. The whole aesthetic narrative is this time capsule of sculptural tradition, pouring blood and sweat into a physical mold with careful attention to detail. Computerized fever dreams detract from that. AI imagery is for lazy talentless tech scammers to stick on their vibe coded botposting apps, not serious physical artisans. But strip the AI slop away and what's left? An anachronism. Maybe we need that kind of "last known good version" right now, and they do it very well, but it's also depressing in a way. Have we learned nothing of aesthetic consequence in the last hundred years? The promise to use titanian is the most interesting thing here. (And their Napoleon is truly glorious).
Monumental Labs is doing something very cool but also possibly self-defeating; using computerized robot arms to democratize ornamental stonework. "Using X to democratize Y" is a cringe formula. It sounds both kitsch and slop. I'm using it intentionally. In principle, robotic acceleration could allow a master to work an order of magnitude faster or at unlimited scale to create more beauty in the world. In practice it means any retard with z-brush and $10000 can pretend to be Michelangelo. Monumental Labs may or may not even be responsible for some of the atrocities they get blamed for, but they are aesthetically associated with "z-brush slop". The founder points out that in principle it's a perfectly accurate process that can be used to produce masterpieces. But the fact is, there's something "off" about many of the outputs of this process, probably because the artistry is divorced from the physicality and because it lacks the inherent taste filter of difficulty. The process has great promise, but the inherent democracy must be overcome with taste and iteration by real masters.
These are valiant attempts overall. Maybe one or more of them will help birth an artistic vision that confidently speaks for itself without having to make excuses, that has conceptual coherence in its values, and has the courage to break out of the aesthetic cage we've been stuck in since the mid 20th century.
Let's post some good stuff we find promising.
An intellectual cage
