DARK Newsletter 05/97 by Multiple Authors
DARK Newsletter 05/97 by Multiple Authors
darker than the nightmares of a blind man
A Short Story by Cthulu ---
It came to pass in the age of Polaroid that late one night, as is
wont to happen after holidays and natural disasters, a clerk was busy at
work developing rolls of photographs pictures of the Grand Canyon and Aunt
Martha and the 400 foot ash cone that had been left in the back yard after
the eruption.
As the witching hours drew longer and the reek of chemicals began to
cloud his mind, as legend dictates, he began to deviate a bit from standard
photo developing technique. Now, some will say that it happened because of
a spilled can of cola, and others say that he was a spy technology smuggler
from Japan. Some fancy an errant bolt of lightning during that dry and
tense nights atmosphere, but these are all just rumours, drawing away from
the soul of the story it turned out that he discovered a new technique for
developing film, one which produced prints so vivid and realistic that they
were generally held to be an improvement on the original subject matter.
No one knows who this legendary technician was, or if he ever
existed at all, but thats not important to the account. What is important
is that he forgot to patent the process, and thanks to his negligence the
whole world was given the gift of this awesome reaction. Film stores
everywhere adapted to the new standard or went out of business thus was the
publics hunger for these improvements on reality for an escape, albeit how
slight, from the world in front of them.
A Short Intro by XypherMC ---
I awoke early on the first of April to the sound of knocking at my
front door. Snarling, disheveled, and breath like a post-game jockst
rap, I
went to see whod decided to join the hoops anchored at the bottom of my
pool.
Hi! Were the members of Mistigris! Were here to tour with your
group, Dark Illustrated. May we come in? chirped one of the overly cheery
little hobbits wavering in front of my eyes.
I turned and slammed the door and headed back for my welcoming bed.
!@* canvassers. This was going to be a bad day.
No sooner had I breached the threshold of my room did I hear an odd
sort of gnawing sound at the door. By the time Id made my way to the hall
half the door had been consumed by one of the grinning zealots among them.
Neophyte, cut that out! said what appeared to be their leader.
Sorry about that. Its been a long trip. Well replace it when our work
is done. They immediately stormed the place and made themselves at h
ome.
Over the next month and a half, theyd use every imaginable surface
of my home to draw, write, or produce nearly symphonic barrages of noise.
And boy, they sure do talk a lot.
In the end, it turned out for the best. They got along beautifully
with the members of my DARK clan, and very few of my neighbours left the
area.
They didnt replace my door though.
Now there was just one side effect of this process which could be
considered bad whatever occured to animate the prints so as an aside also
irrepairable damaged the negatives. This was a stark concern for two months,
as multiple prints required tremendously greater quantities of film and even
so the results couldnt always be duplicated. This was all solved, however,
when some anonymous mind again, one philanthropic in his laxity under
copyright laws came up with the ingenius idea of taking pictures OF the
pictures, and this is where the problem first made itself apparent.
You see, as the first set of pictures were improvements upon the
mundane reality of the original subjects, the second iteration improved the
image that much more - a print at this stage would seem four times as
appealing as it originally was.
Advertizers went nuts. They reasoned, and quite correctly, that
this process was exponential - hence you could take pictures of pictures
indefinitely until you had arrived at a vision of an infinitieth away from
perfection. Chaos broke out in the streets of the developed world.
Husbands and wives would whisper most passionately in each others ears when
diverting their eyes from the base and real and instead addressing a
tenderly held framed print of sur-reality, as it was described, as an
improvement on reality.
DARK News ---
From out of the MIRE, the FIST shoves DIRT
in your MASK.
Or, to be a little clearer, after a successful tour with FIRE, MISTs
World Tour 97 continues on its next leg with yours truly, DARK Illustrated.
If you arent aware of it, Mistigris is a sort of West Coast counterpart to
DARK. Theyre incredibly talented in nearly all fields of the art sc
ene,
and theyve brought back what was thought to be a dead art in DARKs pack:
literature. Its been years since weve seen anything like desalvos
Bradburies.
This month has, without a doubt, been one of the most hectic in recent
memory, and the pack is definitely the largest. We have here a complete
representation of multimedia. And I dont doubt youll enjoy it all!
Ill give you a rundown of the happenings in DARK, and a little later
into this document, Cthulu will share his mind with you on Mistigris.
Seraphim returns from his OWN tour of the underground world, and wev
e
all rejoiced with his decision. His ANSI skills are one of the most unique
and entertaining out there. Expect him to blow your mind again soo
n.
The Lethal Aspect Online is gone. www.interlog.com/xmtrx still ha
a few links to things like the DARK Home Page, and Blender Compo Stats, but
the major content will come with TURF. More on that later. The rea
son
TLA Online was killed had a lot to do with the nightmare job of updating
each individual groups memberlist, links, and information. With DAR
K alone,
there was too much duplication in terms of memberlists in each pack, on the
main page, on TLA the BBS, and on the web page to make it worthwhile.
While were on the subject, DARKs WHQ, The Lethal Aspect, will be
undergoing a complete overhaul very soon, with a change of software to clear
the cobwebs from the old Renegade setup. Members are urged to keep i
n touch
and to re-apply once the time comes. The Telegard setup will feature many
things never before seen on the original system, or any BBS anywhere.
Purple Dye has recently vowed to revamp the DARK Home Page. Thisll
make it a site to see.
A note on next months Collection: dont be too surprised to see a
different spin on the way its done. Im turning the duty over to a trio
of our Senior members, wholl show you what theyve got beyond nice l
egs and
ANSI skills. Itll also give me a chance to work and worry on/about
things
other than pack collection. Ive been doing it for too long.
-XypherMC DIRTMASK
People began attaching, through clips, tape or other solvents,
idealized photographs of themselves to their foreheads, so that they could be
addressed directly without dishonouring their co-conversor by forcing them
to see gritty, filthy reality.
New mothers in hospitals waited three hours for the prints to be
returned before bringing the purple monsters to their swollen breasts
adolescent boys would masturbate at sur-realized representations of cars,
aeroplanes, cans of Campbell soup. Doctors and employers both were
concerned as workers would gaze for hours on pictures of dolphins, raw meat,
or even themselves as they might be depicted in their greatest and most
fantastic dreams, forgetting to show up to work, call in sick, or even take
the time to eat or defecate. Still, stylized graphs, charts and x-ray
diagrams always cast the bad news in the best light possible.
Indeed, medical practices of many kinds managed to prosper from this
strange love from the public, especially those involving cosmetic surgery.
Tattoos were no longer removed but instead recieved special layered
enhancements underneath the skin, whereby grafting the pictures directly
onto the patients surface not only improved the reception of the pigmented
image but also ameliorated the general tone of the skin and such reflection
of the patients well-being on a whole. A tattoo on its own was worthless,
but after a few repetitions of this formidable procedure, it became
obviously more pleasing than the most flawless of natural skins - even the
highlights of sores and past scars coming to life and telling their own
stories in marvelous reproduction. The richest of the rich, not content to
see their waking share of beauty, arranged for such sur-real images to be
implanted on the insides of their eyelids, out of sharp focus to compensate
for the extreme closeness, and illuminated by small lightbulbs inserted into
the tear ducts. A popular imitation in poverty-stricken lands was to merely
tear off the eyelids completely, leaving the optic sensors open to recieve
such visible delights even when one was asleep.
...Mistigris Meanderings and Musings...
The tour goes ever onwards, fading from the bright flames of
fame to a calmer sense of shadowy obscurity. We can open our eyes
again as the reassuring shadows draw longer upon the floorboards and
the music of bats on moths begins in earnest.
Here we are, enjoying a place out of the sun with our
Canadian compatriots in the superstar anti-art-group, Dark. Its
quite a change from last month with Fire, but again many things are
the same. Odd how that works out.
Were working with Samurai here in Dark, after missing
touring with his group, Project 301, in March, cause it died,
leaving us in the breach. But no hard feelings 8. In case you
missed us before that, by the way, we appeared in the last new
release of the art group Fistful of Steel before its retrospective
and then reincarnation as a mag, and with Blade before that.
But were here now, producing art which could arguably be
called our best ever, working with giants in the scene and
accomplishing things which we never would have been capable of nine
months ago without the peculiar bonding experience this road trip
has thrust upon us.
Are we having fun yet? As an administrator, Im having a
ball. Going nuts. Ripping hair out, smashing heads into things,
staying up all night on the IRC and almost managing to put an
infofile together. This? But the trip is taking its toll on the
members... theyre starting to look back home rather than forward
ahead. If theyre unhappy, theres no good motive to keep going...
though if we turn back, we might never come this way again.
Look, kids! The worlds largest artechoke!
Mists co-op relationship with fellow 604-based
music group Sonic Equinox has resulted in a release, SED0597
.ARJ
and A01. In addition to that, their local pursuits are flowering in
upcoming releases from New Media productions, such as the TrackerFix
disk part 2!
Catering more to the eyes than the ears, Silent Knights
comic book company Dream Factory is in full stride, and the first
promotional issue should be out any day now. Hes looking for
artists, writers, inkers, letterers, exotic dancers and lion tamers,
among others, so if you want to apply those skills towards the
production of a non-profit comic book, contact him at
knight@intergate.bc.ca!
Being in the tour has given Mistigris members time off from
focusing on the petty politics and power games of the art scene to
explore their other creative avenues and expand their repetoire of
styles and forms. Normal migration patterns have slowed to a halt,
and while new members are coming in from month to month, the lack of
pressure to release a pack competitively has kept them producing at
a level which makes them happy, catering to their creative impulses
but not demanding tedium from them.
But sometimes a little tedium is a good thing. Unexercised
muscles atrophy, and after spending all of this time developing,
pumping up, perhaps its just about time to flex a bit, discovering
our new space and stretching our improved abilities, without
distraction or crutches. On our own and loving it.
Whether we go back to releasing in monthly packs like
everyone else or not depends muchly on the reception of this pack
I will be the first to admit that the art in here is first-rate. I
would even venture that, quality and quantity considered, theres
more great ansi in this pack than in the past year of ACiD packs.
Then again, who cant say that? If the artists can see that their
innovation is really paying off, we will continue to spiral off into
the unknown, leaving a trail of imagination behind us.
Third star from the right, and straight onwards till dawn.
-Cthulu MistiDark
Now it had been known for quite some time that the augmenting effects
remained puissant, though to a far lesser degree, on pictures where there
was contained text stop signs and corporate names typically underwent the
process a few times over to ensure that they werent ignored but the process
to render mere words more appealing proved costly and inefficient, where 10
iterations of a catchy icon could supplant thousands of repetitions on an
exposure of more alphanumeric symbols. By and large the written word was
phased out, for a picture was, after all, worth at least a thousand words.
Intelligentia, academics, philosophers, logicians, engineers and
scientists of all sorts, no longer hunched over desks or tables but rather
reclining in lounge seats, gazing placidly at wall-mounted poster-sized
blow-ups of images gotten from the long-disused eyepieces of microscopes,
precise gradiations of drafting equipment and readouts of gauges and dials,
were alarmed. Words had always been the primary means of expressing precise
logic, identifiers et cetera. Pictures were quite handy but things were
getting to the point where one aptly presented graphic could sway the
reception of major theses and proofs. Obviously academia had to do
something to save the human race from falling into inescapable hedonism, with
its descent briefly broken by bouts of illiteracy, endemic ignorance, and a
renaissance of the Dark Ages, oxymoronic though the thought may be.
They immediately set about tinkering with the various elements and
forces in that elusive but widespread mysterious photographic process,
putting what remained of their brainpower to work, fighting for its very
survival, and within months a solution had been found a refinement of the
process by which text could be rendered simply and inexpensively as
appealing as photographs which had undergone the process many times over.
It was deemed a full success and students at institutions around the world
celebrated by covering university campuses with graffiti graffiti which was
soon covered up with pictures of the same.
Pages torn from dictionaries enjoyed a resurgence in popularity, if
only as a novel wallpaper pattern, and books and writing became the objects
of a brief but intense love affair from the public. The regurgitated text
allowed people to feel good about investing hours spent poring over sheets
of dead tree, and long-closed bookstores were restored in the second
childhood that only a passing fad can trigger, inundated by callers for the
most aesthetically pleasing, the least offensive and above all else the most
satisfying reads possible. Complete volumes of Camus and Kafka went
untouched but with minor revision, the vast majority of literature could be
distilled into palatable tales of two optimisms - where it was the best of
times in the best of all possible worlds.
Support Sites DARK ---
The Lethal Aspect World Headquarters Xypher Matryx
The Regency Internet Headquarters Halaster
Mad Cows?!? DARK Member Board Night Stalker
Savage Exile DARK Member Board Acidic Soap
Sight Sound DARK Member Board Drone-Fly
Special Sauce DARK Member Board Samurai
Abraxas/Diabolic DARK US Support Site Megga Hertz
ABCD Cafe DARK Support Site Kyo
Where to obtain DARK Collections ---
Via the Internet, DARK packs can be obtained from The Reg
encys FTP
site, at tregency.res.cmu.edu, or from the ACiD Artpacks
Archive at
ftp.cdrom.com /pub/artpacks/incoming/artpacks/.
Most DARK members can be contacted through e-mail addresses
available
in the memberlist, and some may be found lurking on the IRC, in chan
nel
dark. EFnet
On the World Wide Web, youll find support for DARK Illustrated, as
well as the latest pack, via www.darkillustrated.org.
For more detailed information on DARK Illustrated, DARKs own F
.A.Q.
Frequently Asked Questions text file is included in this archive.
Filename: DARK-FAQ.186
The greatness of a work soon became apparent by virtue of the speed
with which it could arrive at a satisfying conclusion if past works of
great literature were lacking such, ghost writers joined forces with ghost
editors and together gave literary plastic surgery to the greatest works of
the twentieth century and beyond, so that the masses responded to the
Savages attentions to Lenia in much the same way as they did to the feely
theatres, and these professional hacks knew that they had outdone themselves
when they managed to leave a reader sympathizing with Alexs forlorn need
for the stirring tunes of Luddy Von and Winstons ultimate love for Big
Brother. No one spoke out about the rearrangement and omission of a few
ugly words and distasteful phrases - they couldnt remember the book ever
having been this beautiful in the first place, and they certainly werent
going to act against this wonderful process.
Eventually this comeback, however, was given a boost by the
still-impressive forces of the graphic, which had not been forgotten by the
public. Indeed, when the two medias combined forces once again to provide
the formidable and venerable vehicle of the picturebook, the flaring heyday
of the word was already over. Passages of nice things were enhanced, then
supplanted, by pictures of nice things, and convoluted plots were slowly but
surely broken down into images of fewer twists and turns, until the length
of a book could be diminished tenfold while the enjoyment of it still be
increased, and this desperate attempt to preserve society as we know it was
pronounced dead when they started replacing book titles and author names
with tasteful reproductions of kittens, palm trees and carrion birds. The
focus had returned, inveitably, to the instant and gratifying fix that a
sneek peek could provide over the slow and imperfect thrill derived from
wasting time skimming over dialogue, literary devices and plot development
and then pondering and considering its washed-away message, often while
looking at nothing more beauteous than the insides of ones eyelids a
complete write-off.
Support Sites Mistigris ---
The Jade Monkey 604 730-2467 Happyfish / Cthulu WHQ / Net
C1ty iZ Burning 418 841-3410 The Extremist CHQ / Net
The Regency tregency.res.cmu.edu Halaster USHQ
Daemons Gate 604 948-0363 Mavrik KiTSCHNet WHQ/Ne
t
Harvest Moon 216 951-7059 QurAn Twingle HQ / Net
Savage Exile! Critical Illusion Underground HQ
The Fuzzy Doorknob 604 943-4626 Sylphid Old Warez HQ / N
et
StupidMop 604 ups-000n Geekboy Deep Cove HQ/Net
The Undiscovered Point 604 PRI-VATE Dr. CPU Member / Net
Dreams of Dark, Enchanted
Lizards 604 299-5191 Etana Member / Net
Entrance to Obscurity 604 525-2767 Eto Member / Net
Neosporin 604 942-9772 Rage Member / Net
Peaches 604 943-1482 Xavier Member
Paradoxius 604 931-6984 Pure Voltage Member
Crimson Helm 604 465-4247 Onyx Member
Sneakers 604 501-2395 Crystal Meth Member
Biproducts 408 372-7712 neoNEGRO Site
Power Station 353 041-32568 Madmax Site
Out of Order 510 796-5780 risu Site
Kongo! 714 693-0511 Cheeze Monkey Site
Tantalized Dreams 204 632-0684 Javist Site
204 632-0685
Caffeine. 360 336-5976 Prong Site
Blue Moon +618 8332-3403 Pulse Site
Juice 604 522-9797 Infinite Madness Net
WWW URL @ http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1758/mist.html
It was decided that mans ultimate calling truly was the organized
and ritual viewing of such images, and clever and cunning machines and
software were crafted to allow every adult to spend only a half of an hour
of every day at work, mostly in vast film-developing complexes, and the rest
of the day being dedicated to sitting in long rows in frugal chairs,
uncomfortable but unnoticed, gazing upon a wide, vast gallery of enhanced
pictures. A surreal spectacle, that of the silent and awed masses
enthralled by the sur-reality of visions of beaches, forests, the eyes of a
mighty stag and those of a killer.
While it was to have been expected, it was surprising that this did
not happen sooner a blind man, whipped into a frothing rage at his apparent
inability to appreciate those finest things in life, managed to find his way
to a gallery despite an inability to consult large friendly reproductions of
maps and street names, and, white cane flailing erratically like a lizards
broken-off tail, ripped a poster in two, tearing a terrible crevice down its
flawless sheening surface. A jury of twelve sighted folk condemned him to
death for the crime of blasphemy. This started a chain reaction where
hordes of Gods Chosen, those who could see the divine apparitions He had
allowed his children to create, rose up and, in a swift, bloody movement,
executed savage pity upon those whom had been deprived of the ability to
worship properly - the blind were rounded up and locked away, and those who
required glasses or bifocals were regarded, when at all, as highly suspect.
As has been noted, the subject matter of the picture of the picture
of the picture mattered hardly at all in relation to what pleasure was
derived from its viewing - masses reacted equally well to displays of
rippling puddles, miraculous fetuses in-the-womb, and mans ultimate
expression of power - mushroom clouds billowing menacingly but
beautifully. Of course, everyone was too busy looking into sur-reality to
actually spend the time singing in the rain, making babies or detonating
bombs, but archives provided an ample supply of past experiences which could
be re-lived, and better, through this irreplacable process. Any image,
given sufficient dedicated repetition of the process, could be rendered
equally appealing and they could all attain the penultimate pinnacle of
beauty regardless of what their source was - but eventually even that rule
was broken.
IF ART WEENIES RULED THE WORLD... ---
Seeing as Mistigris and Dark are two of the more prominent canadian art
groups...
We took a little political poll.
Yes, politics and the art scene shouldnt mix, but this is a great training
ground for ruthlessness and empty campaign promises...
In any event, we phrased the question to participants in mist and dark
thusly:
Which party would you vote for, out of the below choices, regardless of
whether or not you actually can vote - because of restraints of age, country
of citizenship or laziness...
And here are the results.
votes Party Oaths, comments and other editorializings are in brackets.
8 23.5 Liberals
Jean Cretian r0x0rs.
4 11.8 Reform
3 8.9 Green
green party. because they never get anything good to happen..
Im voting Green. Not because I think they will get in, but
because then my vote is actually counted and I dont have to
feel apathetic.
Cthulu voted Green!
3 8.9 Spoil your ballot
soil my ballot.
2 5.9 Conservatives
2 5.9 an Independant
2 5.9 Natural Law
Natural Law will Legalize Pot.
2 5.9 Rhino even if theyre not forwarding candidates this election
I dont know what youre talking about. But I like the sound
of this guy.
1 2.9 Bloc Quebequois
1 2.9 MAX HEADROOM FOR PRIME MINISTER!
1 2.9 New Democratic Party
1 2.9 Robin Williams
1 2.9 I vote for DON KING.
1 2.9 i vote for you going the hell away.
1 2.9 Self-exile!
1 2.9 Timothy Mcveigh
1 2.9 Royal LePage
0 0.0 Canadian Action party
0 0.0 Christian Heritage
0 0.0 Marxist-Leninists
34 100.0
So you can see that although the government and even the opposition
would have been the same, the distribution of votes and of the remaining
seats would have been drastically different.
Kind of a powerful political statement that Don King got more votes
than any of the bottom three legitimate political parties.
So what have we learned from this little exercise?
Man, Ive gotta get hair like that...
-Cthulu Mistidark
Perhaps it was instinct, or mere shadows of a mothers whisperered
warning long ago, but there was one thing which was rarely gazed upon and
never captured on film - the celestial orb above. Traditional photography
made it nearly impossible to take representative pictures of the celestial
orb above without running the risk of over-exposed film and damage to
equipment, both of the camera and of the photographers eye. This unwritten
rule followed through in this aesthteic movement but, when all else had been
captured to film and honed to a perfect print, this lonely star alone
remained to be immortalized on cellulose.
With only two or three iterations, prints of the sun quickly came to
note for their unique and exquisite beauty - singular and unique among the
blocks and blocks of static sur-real glaciers, lions, hummingbirds and
paramecia. Heads began to turn to the rising star, or at least wallet-sized
versions of it, and soon its shining face was seen peeking from every street
corner and in the wrapping of any package. This was to be the era of the
Sun, the dawning of a new age, and cults sprung up in veneration of its
perfect image, considered by many to be the face of God.
Weather machines were devised to divert clouds to uninhabited
regions, and early one morning, midway between dawn and noon, a joint
project sponsored by the twelve greatest nations on Earth took place many
miles up, where a series of shuttles and sattelites came together to
construct what had long been thought blasphemous but now was universally
regarded as the only remaining course of action. Tubes and reinforcements
came together in zero gravity, and by the time the sun was at its highest,
measured in the time zone of the most populous region on the planet, of
course, the field was activated. The Sun had been framed and new images of
itself, propagated through hologaph and lenses, appeared in the sky,
showering the entire world with the benign rays of a more perfect star.
One truly could make out divine features in the radiant face, and as
one, the world turned to see the most glorious sight possible. Faces
twisted and contorted into grotesque masks of rapturous ecstasy, and their
minds exploded as their eyes turned dark, to savour forever the most perfect
sight possible in the universe. The legions of the newly blind, though it
would no longer serve them, tried to position themselves so that they would
be facing the heavenly object, that God might see them as they had seen Him,
and as it swept over their faces the light reflected in their rotting eyes
slowly clouded and faded to a dull sullen glow of decay and eternity.
Filename Conventions ---
Filenames work like this: XXXXX-.*
XXXXX is a five-letter abbreviation of the artists alias.
Should the alias fall within five characters or less, the entire
alias will be used.
represents the current number of pieces the artist has pro
duced for
the year of 1997.
* can be any valid extension for images, executables, data fi
les, or
musical compositions. The most common are DRK for ANSI images, JPG/G
IF/BMP/
etc... for high-resolution graphic images, and MOD/S3M/XM/etc... for music
date files.
*SPECIAL* Filenames with the MASK- prefix are joint e
fforts by DARK
and Mistigris Members!
After the cities and megalopolises of the world were silent for many
days, the few remaining blind freed themselves from their captivity. Coming
upon the silent and unmoving shells of their former friends and relatives,
many still living, they moaned and beat their breasts and poked out their
own eyes in tragic fury. Still, theirs was the world to inherit - they had
lost nothing, and their daring resourcefulness allowed the world to live
again.
You may have noticed than many a grizzled storyteller is blind.
This hearkens back to tradition of the Norse and the Greeks and beyond, for
only one posessed by the spirit of the story can repeat it properly,
objectively, without clouded interpretation from personal sights and past
images. Their visions are the most perfect, their relations with God the
most personal, and they truly are set apart, for they smile more and greater
volumes with their useless eyes than most of us do with our sardonically
turned lips. Remember that behind the darkened glasses is inspiration and
prophecy beyond the most tantalizing of sights, and that the tinted glass is
there to protect your naked mind from being destroyed by the great forces
which operate beneath them.
The End ---
Its odd. Despite being relieved that the packing job for this month
is over, Im somewhat saddened too. This DARK/Mistigris collaboration was...
fun? I cant find a word for it. Suffice it to say though, that it
s been
an memorable experience.
To Cthulu, and all Mistigris members, from myself and the entire DARK
clan and local hanger-ons: Thank-you.
And good luck with your future endeavors.
-XypherMC DARK...
t
z
m
i
t
by the artists, for the artists
We now return you to your regularly sched--TZRTCH! Transmission Terminated.