Author: Thomas Degroat

Why can’t art come from emptiness? For all artistic expression, the artist must be filled with some emotion. It can stem form anger, despair, elation, or confusion, but I have never seen anything grow out of emptiness. I guess the main reason would be that there’s no conceivable way to portray it. Thousands of years of creative expression and we have not come up with a way to show it except for extreme monochromaticity of black or white. Anything else and another emotion overwhelms. Even writing is constrained by this. Trying to write about emptiness really stems from the despair or anger that you feel empty. Those are the emotions that are portrayed through the writing, not the sensation of emptiness.

Emptiness needs expression because it is valid and it’s a unique temperament that may be alien when first encountered. It’s something that is easily ignored, but is always present. You don’t think about it until you start feeling guilty about it. This usual lack of emotional variance is worrisome, but it can also be relieving. You can express all that, the guilt, worry, and relief, but it doesn’t get to the heart of the matter. We make art to make a connection. We can’t make art about this because there is no way to truly represent it. Even the past passage is framed solely by emotions because there is no other way to describe it.

How did expression evolve through all these years without being able to express this? It’s curiously missing, yet most people must feel it at some point. It’s a loss of intensity and a general washing out of sensation, yet that’s not wholly it. There are ways to express nothingness, but nothingness doesn’t cover what this is. It’s something more, nothingness is just a part of it. It’s this enigmatic difference from nothingness that makes it impossible to describe.

I want to express this part of myself, but I can’t. I often feel empty, but I don’t have an easy way to represent that to the world. I want to connect to others through this, but I don’t have the resources to.

There’s a term in art analysis called suspension of disbelief. This refers to the ability of the consumer to ignore the implausibilities of a product. It is absolutely crucial to the enjoyment of the patron. Surprisingly, this can be pretty hard to break, though a lot can. Having too many implausibilities in one scene or expecting the consumer too believe too big of one can shatter this suspension. For me, my suspension seems to be much more easily broken than for others. I personally prefer this as it allows me to keep a critical mind, but quickly annoys the people the around me. The thought of how the scene fits in the real world often breaks my suspension, especially when it comes to the death of people.

I see the death of a nameless character and disturbs me. It breaks by suspension because it makes me wonder how the director can be so flippant about someone dying. In this fictional world, that character was a person, they had a life and people who will be devastated by their death. These movies ignore that and move on as if nothing happened. I think about who they are and how their disappearance will affect so many others. It especially disturbs me when they are just a bystander. They played no part in the plot, yet they are the ones to suffer. It’s an innocent’s death, yet the director treats them as simply an object. I stop becoming an active participant in the movie as I contemplate all of this.

Don’t get me wrong, death can be a very important part of a movie, but I think directors should consider if it is necessary because, more often than not, the death would be unrealistic in the real-world. Even in fantasy movies, the plot must follow some general rules of the real world. You can’t kill a person without some affect somewhere else. That is where the suspension of disbelief breaks. We can’t treat these characters as lifeless plot points, because they wouldn’t be if the film world was real. It is necessary to remember that because the film world must feel like a real world.

I always describe myself as an arts/science person. This is not because I cannot decide which one is more important to me. Rather, it is because both equally fascinate me and one side helps me appreciate and understand the other so much better. I love the science behind why Jesus is positioned the way he is in “The Last Supper” or why Adele’s vocal give us chills during “Set Fire to the Rain”. Conversely, I am a science major because I see the beautiful art that underlies most scientific functions. They are simple and random, but also complex and perfectly orchestrated.

Let’s take a look at the craft of beer making. I truly consider this to be an art form and both my appreciation of science and art make me appreciate this type of art immensely. Let me first start off by saying that I am not much of a drinker. I just personally get a lot of pleasure out of it. While that may be true, I am absolutely fascinated by the art of alcohol production and bartending. I want to focus on just beer for right now, though. All forms of it starts out with the same four basic ingredients: water, a grain, hops (or other flavoring), and yeast. Through different levels of each and addition of other ingredients, beer turns into the thousands of varieties that we can find today. I personally find this stunning and beautiful in its own right. It’s the same reason why I find the brain so beautiful, it is complexity from simplicity. Others may disagree with me, but this is how I find beauty and this is how I define art.

Art and Science comingle in my mind so easily that I can’t really see the boundary that others draw between the two. Science is beautiful and art has reasoning behind it. The two are siblings that exist peacefully and are the ones who force them to be separate. I think we should all take some time to appreciate the beauty of both.

The Magical Negro is a term in media analysis to describe a particular archetype of character that is very problematic. It is a black character that provides advice to the main (usually white) protagonist which seems to always solve all their problems. They always have the correct answers for the correct situation, but they never gain anything for themselves. A lot of people would be confused as to why this might be an issue, but the problem is that the people of this race are no longer treated as actual people, but are instead tools for the main character to use in order to advance the plot. The same archetype has expanded and has recently come to include queer individuals. This character, the Magical Queer, serves exactly the same purpose as the Magical Negro, just replacing the racial minority with a sexual minority.

The reasons as to why this happens can be varied, but one explanation, I believe, makes the most sense. The character sort of serves as recompense for the negative portrayals of the past. Since society has now turned towards a more accepting environment, Hollywood and other major industries are trying to fix the harsh characters of the past by making these new characters as flawless as possible. They think this serves as an appropriate fix to years of problems, but it is still problem, just of a different extreme. Queer individuals are no longer villainous and predatory, but are instead perfect and extremely well-composed.

We can see this through various examples across mediums of expression. In literature, there is Patrick from Perks of Being a Wallflower.

He is the first character to befriend Charlie and also a constant guide for him. His main role in the book is to provide support and give advice, while his own motivations and goals are relatively kept hidden from the audience. Patrick is not a perfect example though, as the character does have his own plot and growth, but this character helps to introduce the concept.

A more prominent example is Wallace Wells from the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels and film.

The film is a particularly good example as Wallace Wells does not have his own plot except to remind us that he is gay or to give Scott Pilgrim advice on his various relationships. Wallace Wells is a Oracle of Delphi type character that always knows the right answers, they just need to be unfolded correctly. Even though Wallace Wells may be a great character, it does not change the fact that the readers are constantly presented with the fact that he is both gay and perfect, as if the writers were trying to apologize for past misfortune.

The Magical Queer is problematic, even though it is a positive portrayal of an often underrepresented and poorly depicted minority. The main issue is that through these characters, members of the Queer community are not represented as actual humans. Instead, they are some mythical creature that knows all the answers, but has no story of their own. Through this, the Queer community is relegated to two extremes and neither of them helps to make them more accepted in society. The community cannot be seen as equals until we are treated as equals in the media that portrays us. Media has such a heavy impact on society and we need our stories to be told in a realistic way. The community is not full of perfect people and we have struggles and goals just the same as other members of society. This needs to be realized and remedied and we can slowly see this happening. The success of films such as Dallas Buyers Club, or shows like Orange is the Black demonstrates that it is getting better and the stories of members of the Queer community is being told, but cannot ease up now. This is a continuing battle and hopefully it will only get better from here.

People always describe me as bitter and I am not ashamed of that. Bitterness is my motivation. When a person gets confronted by a difficult situation, they become dejected for a time; when they are constantly in this situation, they can become many things: depressed, angry, or shielded amongst others; and finally when one is consistently rejected when they try to fix this situation, then they become bitter. I know what bitterness is because I constantly am in this state. There are so many things in society that are harsh and I can’t ignore them, yet I can’t fix them.

This may sound like I hate it, but I like it. Being bitter makes me realize that society needs to be fixed, even though I can’t do it by myself. On the other hand, I don’t want someone to become who I have become. These two factors cause bitterness to be my motivation. I know that I must do something in order to improve how fucked up society can be. I work, even though I can’t improve my own situation, I work because I want to improve the situations of those that come after me. We currently walk on uneven ground and it is at our behest to look below us to see the path that the past has started for us. They worked hard for us to start this and we must work just as hard in order to improve it. We must stamp it out and flatten so that the ones after us don’t have to trip as hard or as often as we do. I’m not talking about one specific community here. All of us downtrodden and underprivileged should be doing this work. It can be hard and trying, but I don’t want to lead someone down a path that I refused to improve and if I must, I want to carry as many as possible as I can while I walk.

I see my friends in similar situations and I see their optimism and brightness. I not want them to fall and walk this path. I may be happy being bitter and making these improvements, but I know how much nicer it is to be oblivious of the harshness. I want them to be able to live their lives fully and I’m not sure I ever can with this rage that I have. I want to be bitter so that I can see what parts need to be levelled, but I don’t want other to have to experiences the lumps and the painful trips they cause. I have been lucky and my trips have been mostly soft, but even those have lasting effects. I do not want others to go through that, or, even worse, fall harder than I have. I want my friends to not have to walk on this exhausting path and I don’t want the people behind me to walk it either; I want to fix it as much as I can while I’m here.

For those who have already fallen to the path, please help lift up those we can protect and even out the ground for those that come after us. We can’t all do it right now, but at least make it easier and better. We can’t refuse this call to duty, lest we fail those that count on us the most. You can remain bitter and wear that as a badge of pride. Work with me and fix what we see needs to be fixed while we are here.

Dixit is one of my favorite new board games that I have played recently. It is truly beautiful. If anyone reading this is interested in arts, games, and their intersection, then I highly recommend you pick up this game.

Dixit is a game designed by Jean-Louis Roubira in 2010. The games involves amazingly drawn cards and a scoring system that makes sure that everyone has a chance at any part of the game. In the game, every player has a hand of 6 cards with abstract pictures. The active player then chooses a card from their hand and says a clue about the card. The other players then choose a card from their hand that they think fits that clue. The clue that the active player says must be vague enough that not everyone will understand it, but clear enough that a few people could. Once all the cards are played, they are shuffled and revealed. Every player except the active player then uses a voting tile to try and choose which card is the active player’s card. If everyone gets the card right then they all move two spaces while the active player doesn’t move at all. The same is also true if no one gets the card right. If only some get it right, then those players and the active player move three spaces. It can be a bit difficult to understand when explained, but it is very easy to play in practice. Because of its beautiful cards and fun game play, it won the Spiel de Jahres, the top award for board game design, in 2010.

Let me just show some examples of the cards:

And my personal favorite card is:

These are just a few of the cards and there are many more that are just as beautiful. Because of these abstract drawings, the game becomes really fun as clues can mean anything and creativity abounds. If you want a wonderful game that inspires creativity, then this is definitely the game for you.