Analysis - Crimson Pierces the Twilight

 Analysis - Crimson Pierces the Twilight

People should take the time to appreciate the cultural subtleties of what seems like an incredibly straightforward Video game MV.

Check this out, then read on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwrQzU1f99c

Design - What Won't Be

 Design - What Won't Be

One of my design regrets is that I sometimes design things that are SO niche and esoteric that they will both never get made or executed, and it feels deeply impossible to believe anyone would be interested in them. So they never see the light of day. Here's a thread of these.

I have a design for a game that is strictly and specifically about foraging for mushrooms (and plants) in the Canadian Rockies. The game structure is specifically that each day you range out, trap, forage, gather, grow, and then cook your findings. The Rockies are an incredible gift for Canadians and every time I traverse them, they are breathtaking.

I have a design for a game where you are a pinball repair specialist who takes salvage from un-repairable games and builds fighting robots out of them. All the pieces are specifically based off of pinball/pachinko style parts. Extremely mechanical/electrical engineering. I'm fascinated by the idea of salvaging prior-era technology and repurposing it, being forced to make do and kitbash existing things.

I wrote a 4 campaign short about running a Wrestling promotion that bridges between Indonesian and Mexican wrestlers for 4-6 players, where the goal is to put on a show using your mixed performance/wrestling styles and entice audiences. My players would never be interested in this, nor ever spend the time to understand the intricacies of it.

I started designing and programming a game that is only looking at a physics engine where you make pasta shapes out of dough. You have a worktable, a huge selection of Italian classical tools, and surgeon simulator style form pasta shapes for cooking with. This was inspired by watching Gianna make Pasta. The discovery of how it all worked and the specific experimentation exposed me to an entire world of that.

I designed a race simulation-style game where you are dog sled racing competing in the Ivakkak. It's a story based game and I spent literally 3 months researching and studying Inuit dog sled racers (the race is restricted to them). The stories from the race (and many dog sled races) are incredible feats of endurance and perseverance, and they're barely understood.

I wrote out an entire magic system based on verbal speech systems that have been lost because those languages are effectively erased. And there's a 20 page novella that's already done about the whole thing. This was specifically because I was fascinated to study lingually where and why humans began to add click sounds to their vocabulary.

I designed a 10 page pitch/GDD based on raising futuristic space Alpaca and spinning wool because I was inspired by various friends' work. The combination of ranching, of sci fi, of discovery.

I wrote out an entire design about exploring and bashing together fashion looks from salvaged clothing pieces in other nations who are frequently inundated with 'clothing donations'.

These are all cool ideas to me, and no one would ever be interested in them. People's eyes glaze over when I mention the wild tangential stuff that I'm researching or reading. Lost knowledge like treasure that I covet as a dragon.

When people ask me what I do with my day, and I say nothing...it's a lie. It's this. I read, I research, I study, I dream, I write, design, compose, draw, and I just keep making.

Books and books, journals upon journals of wild ideas that can never be done because they do not satisfy at the altar of profitability nor practicality.

It makes me sad.

Discuss - I Low Key Hate AI Art

 Discuss - I Low Key Hate AI Art

I low-key kind of hate a lot of forms of AI Art.

I see the trend this weekend was for a lot of people to post their selfies using Lensa, and I get it, it looks cute, it's funny, but to the average layperson it must seem no different than applying a goofy photoshop filter or two and bam you get an instant new avatar.

It's not that. And you should be educated a little bit about some of what AI Art is, and is doing.

First off, so you know, and so we're all clear... when you use Lensa, (the avatar AI image-generating app) to make an avatar image. You should know that Lensa takes all rights to use the photos you submit and everything they create in perpetuity for marketing, study, or really...whatever they want.

This isn't particularly new, nor particularly shattering. Lots of image sits and posting setups have the same ToS. But let's keep it in mind. What you send in, and what you create is theirs and part of the model. (And is exceptionally difficult to extract, unlike your image of your birthday party on facebook that might end up in marketing material somewhere).

Everyone has a crackshot joke about "AI is coming anyway" or "I don't own anything personally anyway that they aren't already taking", and that's sort of true. But take it from someone who literally studied AI Ethics...there's a lot of dangerous ground being rapidly lost here, and people are not asking any of the even simplest questions around the technology that are probably worth asking.

"Well Lester, I don't care about them using my image for marketing"

Sure, fair. Are you concerned if they sell your photos and images to a military or national power for surveillance? What about a private company? What about individuals? Do you care if your image gets sold to a country with perhaps less-democratic intentions like...Iran?

Do you care if someone with low scruples like Musk and Twitter suddenly own rights to create with your likeness? Or derivatives with your likeness?

Do you care if policing institutions are perhaps using sorting likenesses in order to pre-screen people for crimes based on race and facial markers/tattoos/hair colors styles, genetic indicators?

Would you be mad if a private company say suddenly had photos of you? Like what if it was the United Conservative Party? What if it was Rebel Media? Probably wouldn't even be that hard.

Stable Diffusion (the AI learning dataset that Lensa is based on) is also utilizing technology methodologies based on illegally acquired medical records (specifically facial imaging, images from studies, and medical scans), acquired without consent (or knowledge) of patients. As well, they disavowed 'awareness' or responsibility that their image gathering techniques could be sourcing potentially problematic material (such as illegal pornography).

The Laion Dataset (from which Stable Diffusion sources its data), is notoriously predatory. And built without an opt-out system. When confronted about how to get materials removed from it, they said the best way is to remove the image from the internet itself, take it off a website. Think about that. That's not a solution. That also doesn't express anything about the image already in the model, nor about how the image might've already been used. They don't know. And don't care to figure it out. Images taken from medical telemetry, images taken from non-consensual porn, images taken of children, images taken from ANYWHERE.

And let me tell you, that using it as a convenient "I didn't know it did that," or "It's an AI, we can no longer control what it samples or how it is used," is not the ethical way for humans to be interacting with it. 

I know this particular technology is not going back in the box. I'm not so foolish to think we can all just convince people to 'stop using AI Art'. It represents a shortcut, and the shortcut is attractive. But studying AI Ethics is 75% a look at how we treat learning technologies and their expansive growth with an eye to the future. 25% of that is how we treat one another with respect to AI. I wish to point out as pointedly as I can, the last time we granted investiture of personhood to a non-thing like "ahem" corporations...it has not worked out so well. In an ideal society, we would not make the same mistakes with AI. 

Before we go too far down that route...

You might want to ask yourself some questions, and take the time to educate yourself about your values around it.

Media - "Fun"

 Media - "Fun"

I had an interesting interaction with sending a trailer for something to a friend, to which they responded with a very simple "This looks fun".

And I sat down with them to unpack that when I would not have used 'fun' to describe something so kinetically energetic and violent.

Despair - On Race

 Despair - On Race

I am thinking a lot about how to get people excited about learning and exploring other cultures. Because so far I feel many of my attempts with peers have been generally abysmal.

They are uninterested, their bubbles are too tiny, and the task for them appears daunting.

We are 8 months now into one of my largest undertakings as a creative force, and I feel smothered beneath the weight of their indifference.

Or worse yet, their constant comparisons to Western storytellers, characters or art.

As though anything and everything I reference is only best revealed through the lens of comparison to Tolkien, Rowling, Martin, King, or Jordan.

Always white creators. Always white writers. Always white historical touchpoints, or art, or people.

I think a lot about how their priority for learning about it is a privilege of their position. They don't have to. They don't have to welcome or embrace any other culture that is not their dominant one. They can step back when it is inconvenient. They can walk away until another night, push it off until next week.

My parents had no choice, when they arrived in Canada. They had to learn white cultures, pizza, and mac and cheese. They had to raise children listening to rock concerts, driving cars, staying out late, and all that. They had to raise me and work in and amongst, even worship in a system entirely of Western design.

I had no choice either. I grew up with this colour skin and this black hair, and the name "Lee". I had my attitude and capabilities determined for me before I met people, in every career, vocation, and hobby.

And my friends know none of that. Sympathize with none of it. To be straddling two worlds where you fit in neither. Never shall I actually be accepted. I am too Canadian to be Chinese/Malaysian. I am too Yellow to be White.

They nod with 'empathy'. They say..."Yeah that sucks" and then politely look away until it is appropriate to comment on the weather or what's on TV.

I think my soul is filled with a lonely longing because their silence is deafening.

Theatre - Catalyst: The Invisible

 Theatre - Catalyst: The Invisible

Many thanks last night to Kristi Hansen for inviting me to see The Invisible, playing at the Cultch. It was wild to go out to a theatre show after two years of staying literally as far away as I could from any manner of human.

It was wonderful to see old friends, many of whom I have not seen in years. Shout out to Lana Larisse Matthew and Michael Caron who it was lovely to see. And for Patrick who came with me to ensure I didn't stab anyone who coughed too close (or to help me bury a body if necessary).

 I have a myriad of thoughts about the show, some of which I discussed last night with crew and friend, some of which need to percolate through my brain as I consider them and reflect. But one I will share is that I think of the me of ten years ago, and my own views as a younger man of Catalyst shows. Which was the strange contrast of grotesque beauty we were all transfixed by. The combination of sound, music, movement, and design made its ethereal qualities engaging. The Catalyst that I watched then however was dominated by whiteness, they were European stories, done by white performers, with no voice given or space shared for anyone else. This weakness was overlooked because Catalyst was so 'amazing'. Or so we told ourselves then.

 The Invisible, I'm pleased to report does have People of Colour represented, (and is entirely performed by Women as well!). Though it is again a predominantly European story, there are people of colour on stage, telling metaphors about colonialism, and not just in a token way, but there are great strides being made forwards. Is it perfect? Well no, no piece of theatre really ever is. But they perform, they bring their voices, they bring their stories, and those things are intricately woven into the fabric of the spectacle that is a Catalyst show. They aren't merely tokenized and discarded, at least that was my feeling. If you told me, even five years ago that this is where we'd get to, I'd have scoffed at you. "That is not a theatre that cares about the voices of the marginalized that way." And yet last night, I am happily proven wrong.

 I'm glad to have gone out last night to see it. If you get the chance, either in Vancouver or sometime in the future, I would encourage you to do so as well.

Break legs friends.

https://thecultch.com/event/the-invisible/

Culture - On Music and Erasure

 Culture - On Music and Erasure

So normally when playing d&d in person, I score all my games.

Obviously, with covid and everyone playing remote now, I haven't been doing scoring because it's kind of a technical headache.

We played the other week though when Emry was in town in person, and I kicked on my old playlist.

And realized it didn't really fit though. Because it's mostly western fantasy music. A lot of European/American film scores and things like that.

Thinking I should source more Asian music, more Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian, etc.

And then I realized I've never actually composed any Asian music really (I did a couple Japanese style tracks back in uni) but nothing since then.

I've composed a lot of Western music, studied Italian masters, German composers, messed around with modern rock styles and transitioned into instrumental and post-rock.

Only extremely rarely studying Japanese rock music. But my knowledge of their styles and work are mostly confined to video games or anime.

And I'm thinking a lot about that invisible erasure I didn't know existed until today.

And I grieved this missing piece of myself, stolen perhaps by colonialism and my own missing ignorance.