Friday 28th August 2015
It's probably fair to say that most artists hate to write. There are the exceptions, of course, those lucky few who have talents that bridge the multiple medium divide, but they are far from the rule. It's unfortunate that so much of the value of a piece of work is generated by the story behind it, when artists tend to be loathe to commit it to paper - or at least, to commit it to paper in a manner that is in any way sensible or understandable to the general collector. There is a certain joy in writing art-speek, the tangled mesh of intricate phraseology and vague aesthetic theories that tend to comprise most artist statements, but not everyone is equally adept at it. So why bother?
A new website has come to our attention, one with a cheeky purpose on the surface and a possibly inspiring purpose hidden beneath. Called the 'artybollocks generator', it does more or less what it says on the tin: it will use algorithms and a database of art-speek and aesthetic theory terms to generate an artist statement for you. The particular gem we received on our first visit runs as follows:
My work explores the relationship between acquired synesthesia and recycling culture.
With influences as diverse as Wittgenstein and Andy Warhol, new tensions are crafted from both explicit and implicit discourse.
Ever since I was a postgraduate I have been fascinated by the theoretical limits of the universe. What starts out as yearning soon becomes corroded into a dialectic of lust, leaving only a sense of unreality and the inevitability of a new understanding.
As intermittent forms become clarified through emergent and repetitive practice, the viewer is left with a tribute to the inaccuracies of our future.
By the time you reach the end, your eyes may be starting to go slightly crossed as you try to unravel the sense out of what is, in fact, complete gibberish invented by a machine. But to the unenlightened, it sure sounds good. In fact, it sounds so good that it leads us to the hidden purpose behind this post: next time you're stuck on where to go next, try visiting the artybollocks generator. Click through a few times to generate a nonsensical artist statement that appeals to you, and get to work creating the pieces described by the algorithm. Through the most random of inspirations, you may find yourself creating something that's actually quite wonderful - and hey, at least the artist statement is already finished for you!
Check it out at http://www.artybollocks.com/ and have some fun next time you're stuck for ideas!
Posted on August 28th 2015 on 04:30pm
