Aidan

Thoughts on Diablo III

I’ve been playing Diablo III for about a little under a week at this stage, having sort of half-accidentally impulse bought it last Tuesday night (clicking a digital purchase button is too easy to do). It’s the first Diablo I’ve played; despite having heard hearing many words of praise over the years from friends about the wonders Diablo II brought to their childhood, I never got around to playing it (and probably won’t at this stage due to its poorly aged graphics[YEAH I SAID IT]). After watching a few Giant Bomb videos of Diablo III, in a bed ridden state of injury and boredom I  authorized paypal and began the 7GB download… not quite as wonderful as my friends’ unboxings must have been back in 2000 (but whatever, I had Dungeon Keeper). I came into the game knowing full well that it was a “click fest”, and though I’d fault the game on this lacklustre combat (click on an enemy, press 1 of 4 buttons, enemy dies, repeat), there is something satisfying about it: proably due to the superb sound design, which makes every hit feel empowering. Unfortunately the great feel and look of the game feel like glazes over a hollow core (more after the jump).

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Personal Photography in the Digital Age and the Aesthetics of Tumblr

(here’s an essay I wrote about tumblr and photography and stuff, good craic like)

I am sitting at my laptop as I write this. That seems obvious, but I find it so easy to underestimate the amount of time I spend behind it every day. I waste my time checking multiple websites, awaiting the moment a number will appear in a bracket signalling a new interaction. It is at the stage where I’ve labelled my gmail bookmark as “do you need this?” Regardless, I check my gmail, I check my facebook, I check my twitter, and lastly, I check my tumblr. In this essay I will be discussing personal photography and how Nan Goldin’s work (particularly her 1987 photograph Patrick and Teri reading Baudelaire) relates to the culture of blogging platform Tumblr.com. To do this I will also be discussing a photo taken from a tumblr blog, which I will refer to as Tee Vee Dinner’s “in 1994 i use to breed rats for pocket money” (posted February 7^th 2012 on teeveedinner.tumblr.com). I will attempt to explain the consistent aesthetic appreciation on tumblr for certain things, particularly nostalgic imagery. In doing this, I will discuss ideas of community photography, collective memory and structures of feelings. (more after the jump)

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Destroy Painting

CY TWOMBLY

(this is an essay I wrote about Cy Twombly for college. He passed away on July 5th. Yeah. RIP)

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect on my first trip to the United States, let alone New York. We were staying in Manhattan during the coldest winter they’d had in 30 years. To be honest, the place wasn’t quite what I imagined it would be, though visually dazzling and architecturally goliath; I found the stream of tourists and business men to be a far from who I would want to interact with in a city. I remember writing in my journal “For all the steaming gutters and beautiful Jewish girls, I just can’t see the good in New York, or the good people”. But then; MoMA. I could probably write a thesis length essay on all the things I saw in that astounding place, though I would like to focus on one particular artist who caught my eye. At the time of my visit, January 2011, there was a very interesting exhibition called “On Line; Drawing through the twentieth century”. Amongst colossal Julie Mehretu drawings and gorgeous Picasso collages, lay a gem. Cy Twombly’s Untitled (1955) [below] : a frantic pencil drawing on paper, 62 x 91.7 cm in size. I had never seen something like it, so gorgeously flowing, primitively aggressive and honest. It seemed like the sort of thing No Wave guitarist/composer Glenn Branca would make if you replaced his guitar with a pencil. Inspired and intrigued by what I saw in New York, I decided to read into his life and the theory behind his work (though for this essay I will be focussing on his life up until the late 50s). I found the MoMA published Cy Twombly: A Retrospective a very useful resource in this regard.

Cy Twombly’s Untitled (1955), 62 x 91.7 cm

Read more after the jump

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Saor Saor Saor

Coma Cinema – Abandoned Lands

I’m enjoying Coma Cinema’s latest release (download here). Some really nice poppy songs on here. While being mainly what I would lazily describe as “chillwave” there is a darker edge to this, via harshly flanged/pitch shifted vocals and themes of rape. The choice of song names and production seem to perhaps be tilting towards the “witch house” trend of recent, with heavily reverberated drums and droney synth sounds, but at the core, these are easily accessible and well written glittery pop songs. I’m looking very forward to what he does next.

Coma Cinema on twitter // Coma Cinema on bandcamp // http://www.comacinema.org/

(another free download after the jump)

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Boy, we can do much more together

I really like listening to music (pretty out there I know, but I’m just one of those kind of people), I like listening to music to the extent that I am going to dedicate some time from my busy schedule (team fortress 2, taking medicine, checking my email, checking twitter, eating strepsils and etc. x ∞), to check my last.fm to remind myself what I’ve been listening to lately. Oh yes, Sufjan Stevens. I saw him play a gig last Tuesday night with my father. It was one of those rare occasions where my father offered to bring me to a gig which didn’t entail a dodgy country singer called Mary ______ (in Whelan’s [seated gig (support from John ____)]). I was a big fan of Sufjan’s album from last year, The Age of Adz; it was one of my favourites apparently (according to this list). I fought the urge to heckle “Play the one from Juno” at him as the band performed the songs (with that said I did heckle Mercury Rev the next night by shouting “7/4” after they played Solsbury Hill in 4/4 WAT?). My Juno heckle probably would have been lost to a large portion of the crowd, who seemed to consist of “older bros who love Little Miss Sunshine and have listened to the first half of Illinois twice”. I felt a little lost within the crowd, trying to enjoy myself and “dance” (“dance”) to the extravagant pop masterworks being pumped out by the band. Sufjan himself seemed perhaps a little restless at this too, trying to encourage the crowd with “this is a dance number, so feel free to move your hips and your shoulders”. Even as the epic 25 minute closer of the album Impossible Soul was reaching it’s climax, confetti pouring from the sky, lights flashing bright and frantic, Sufjan dancing, the crowd around me was far deader than I would have hoped. [more after the jump]

by Mark Earley via raggedwords.com

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A study of DIY culture and its ideologies pertaining to the creation of art

This is an essay I wrote for a college Subcultures essay.

Mars live 1978

For this essay, I have chosen to write about something very close to my heart; the DIY subculture and its aesthetics/ideologies. Like many, DIY didn’t find me, but I found it; almost through complete accident as is often the case. When I was fifteen, a friend introduced me to a free audio recording software, and thus begun my life as a “musician”; home recording simple songs into my suburban computer. Little did my young mind know that this was an almost sacred tradition, done by the loners and outcasts of the world, for more than 30 years, in bedrooms and basements throughout the world. Home recording felt so natural and sincere, and now, even as I make a name for myself as a musician, I still use the same microphone my 15 year old self did. It has been thrilling reading into the subject, with Rip It Up and Start Again by Simon Reynolds and No Wave by Thurston Moore & Byron Coley being particularly interesting. In my essay I intend to talk about the origin of DIY record labels, the counter cultural ideologies behind DIY music and what DIY means in the 21^st century.

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Kill for salad, starve for culture

This is a blog, indeed, perhaps one of my projects which won’t dissolve into unuse (unlikely). I hope it remains in a nice position within my procrastination cycle (that is to say, I hope it remains something I do to procrastinate from something more important). I’m Aidan, hi. My interests include art, music, owen wilson’s suicide attempt, rap battles, cassettes, beauty, pain killers, fashion and “etc.”. I’m currently a student in the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland, and run a small record label which I use to support my own and my friends‘ music projects. I’ll probably be using this blog to post about what music I’m listening to, maybe some art that I do, and to share and talk about things I find interesting.

Essentially, I’m starting this blog because I have a throat infection and I’m really bored and want to cash in on Times New Roman becoming popular again (though the main goal of the blog is actually to make Comic Sans sexy again). I must credit my friend Niamh O’Hanlon for the title of the blog (which is from a great collage she did which I’ll be editing into this post when I get it). Send me music or art or whatever to my email arse.on.toast{at}gmail.com. My life is pretty much spent checking my email… The highlight of my week is when I see a double digit number within a bracket beside Inbox (though even then it’s depressing via facebook notifications). This is a song I currently love, bye.