Trash - When an Artwork Is So Bad That It's Good

"Good" trash wouldn't let go of you and it will haunt you in your dreams and everyday life.

The internet ... A place where you can find everything from the greatest crap to the most wonderful masterpiece ... A place where I found stuff that both amazed and traumatized me, that made me a better artist and that turned me into a little devil at the same time. I've been "living" online for 12 years now and I slowly but surely ended up developing a strange liking for trash.

Don't get me wrong, though. There's a big difference between creative products (I struggle to call them artworks) that are just bad and masterpieces that are so bad that they're actually good. While pieces that are "just bad" are simply plain boring trash has something fascinating about it. "Good" trash wouldn't let go of you until you finish reading or watching it, and afterwards it will haunt you in your dreams and everyday life.

The Fascinating World of Fan Art - Why Creative Fans Do What They Do

The internet is a free space, and there are people with very diverse ideas and interests.

If you ever came across Harry Potter having SM sex with Draco Malfoy in tight leather underwear and your only reaction was to roll your eyes and say you've seen worse then you truly know what creative fans are capable of. I love fan art, I've been a fanfiction writer for over 10 years, and as an operator on Fanfiktion.de, a German fanfiction community, it's actually part of my job to struggle through really disturbing texts. And considering some rather traumatizing experiences I really understand why Anne Rice, the author of The Vampire Chronicles, used to forbid her fans to write fanfiction:

"I do not allow fan fiction. The characters are copyrighted. It upsets me terribly to even think about fan fiction with my characters. I advise my readers to write your own original stories with your own characters. It is absolutely essential that you respect my wishes."

There are also copyright holders who generally don't mind fan art as long as it respects moral values. For instance, the example above isn't something Joanne K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, and Warner Bros. like to see, since the series is targeted at a younger audience that should be protected from adult content.

What is Art? - My Subjectively Objective Definition

Defining art is difficult, since everyone defines it differently.

In my opening post for this blog I tried to define "art" with search suggestions by Google and I also mentioned my wary attitude towards academic definitions. Since defining "art" is the ultimate goal of this blog, however, I sooner or later have to deal with different views on this point.

Yet before I discuss what others have to say about this I believe it's a good idea to record how personally I define it right now, slightly more than half a year after starting this blog. By doing so I can analyze how my views changed later, after I've dealt with the views of others. Will other definitions change my own or will they make me stick to my definition even more?

Defining art is difficult, since everyone defines it differently. We used to discuss it in school, and ... I changed my views several times in my life. With every book I read ... with every story I wrote ... with every movie I watched and every game I played ... with every academic text I read ... My own definition changed with every new experience.

Random Reasons Why Translating Is Unrewarding

As a translator, your main objective is to pretend you don't exist.

There's an art form vastly underestimated by those who don't have experience with it: translation, the most unrewarding art form out there. Translating a text into another language usually takes more time than to write it, much knowledge, work and experience, and yet, as a translator, your main objective is to pretend you don't exist.

If the translated text doesn't feel like it's the original you've failed. If the translated text doesn't express what the original text does you've failed. If the words or idioms used in the original don't exist in the target language - deal with it. If you think the style of the original badly needs to be improved you still have to stick to it. If you think the original text is just sh*t you can either stop translating or accept its sh*ttiness. If you think the original text is brilliant you will hate your translation, no matter how good it is.

Art and Responsibility - How Immoral Is Art Allowed to Be?

Moral education is one of the reasons - if not the main reason - why art even exists.

Morality and responsibility ... Let's be honest, art is known for both entertaining its audience with violence as well as for moral education. While there's a long tradition of showing war and battles in heroic light there is also another tradition with artists like the painter Vasily Vereshchagin who aimed to show the horrors of war in order to promote peace.

At the same time there's also law. For example, here in Germany those who describe violence as beautiful, romantic or otherwise positive and/or harmless can be sentenced to financial penalty or even go to prison for a year. Most countries in the world have similar laws. Being a moderator of Fanfiktion.de (FF.de), a German mass archive for fanfiction, prose and poetry, it's my task to lock stories that violate the German law and the rules of the website, for example by plagiarizing, downplaying rape or uploading pornographic texts. What's interesting about this is that many immature "writers" who obviously don't care about the rules or even the laws of the country they live in consider it an insolent restriction of their freedom. They say we're just power-mad and enjoy suppressing them, and our admin was even labelled as a dictator. And no, it isn't a joke.

Is Technological Progress Good or Bad for Art?

Without an adapter to read the hard disk of my crashed notebook I don't have access to my art and tools.

On Christmas 2015 Akira a.k.a. my notebook a.k.a. my general servant died. Considering how important computers are these days and that I maybe wouldn't have graduated from university without Akira I think it isn't even embarrassing or ridiculous to say that the computer slowly but surely has become man's best friend. (You see, my notebook even has a name - and his very own loyal and sometimes trolling personality with it.)

The same applies more and more to artists as well. Without Akira or an adapter to read its hard disk I don't have access to my writing, my notes, my digital painting projects, part of my drawing software, my photos, my music archive ... I'm stranded, quietly envying all those traditional artists and writers who still use pen and paper.

Idealism vs. Realism in Art - Why Characters in Art Usually Are Too Pretty to Be Real

Throughout all of human history we see more idealizing artworks than those showing reality.

There's a question I frequently end up asking myself: Why do people usually create young and healthy characters? Why are at least the main characters almost always good-looking? Why are scars or any other injuries more decorative rather than ... serious?

This isn't a question which is only about modern days. Throughout all of human history we see more idealizing artworks than those showing reality. There's Napoleon's nose on Bonaparte at the Pont d’Arcole that is too straight to be Napoleon's actual nose (just compare it to other portraits). There are all those Greek and Roman statues showing perfect bodies. And today we have photoshopped models and anime girls with thigh gaps that are only possible if you have an extremely dangerous combination of anorexia and a deformed pelvis.

Art vs. Entertainment - Are Let's Plays an Art Form?

To make a truly interesting Let's Play isn't that easy.

As you may have noticed, I have a very broad definition of art. For me, art includes not only the classical forms like painting, sculpting, writing, music and so on, but also such things as cooking. With this in mind, it shouldn't be a surprise that for me it's only natural to consider video games an art form.

However, there is a phenomenon that is connected to games, but still is a different genre: Let's Plays, the scourge of YouTube. For those of you who don't know that it is: A Let's Play is a series of videos that shows someone playing and commenting a game. No more, no less. And believe it or not, they're highly popular. Many - if not most - successful YouTubers make Let's Plays.