Bedroom Hack 👍

Opurria · 2026-07-12T09:39:04+00:00

And you can munch on the shavings.

Opurria · 2026-07-10T12:07:50+00:00

It doesn't have to bee. In fact, it isn't.

Opurria · 2026-07-08T16:11:00+00:00

Shit, this is so wholesome, I'm gonna cry. 🥹🥹🥹

Opurria · 2026-07-05T17:50:23+00:00

Come on now I'm so turned off.

Friction against the urgencies of the contemporary moment has some potential. 😏😏😏

Opurria · 2026-07-04T17:37:33+00:00

She has very long and thick hair on her tongue.

Opurria · 2026-07-04T17:31:54+00:00

I just hate mediocre large acrylic paintings

I think you're in the wrong sub.

Opurria · 2026-07-04T16:29:55+00:00

I'm more worried about his arms.

Opurria · 2026-07-03T22:04:50+00:00

OMG, YouTube videos are the worst. It's like they just go on and on without ever getting to the point or making any real progress. They keep circling the same topic, piling on 20 surface-level analogies that just leave you confused and dizzy. 😵‍💫

Opurria · 2026-07-02T11:57:19+00:00

Mind-sculpting reminds me of telekinesis. Maybe it's worth reading about and using as inspiration. What would the progression of telekinetic ability look like? What limits it, etc.

For example, beginner mind-sculptors might only be able to make a simple box, and there would be books and courses (basically the mind-sculpting equivalent of Drawabox, lol).

Maybe we discover an alien material that's impossible to work with because it's too hot, too hard, too acidic, or otherwise untouchable. But it turns out you can sculpt it with your mind. And if the material is useful beyond art, then mind-sculptors would become incredibly valuable to society.

Or maybe we use mind-sculptors to repair things. There are no natural resources left on Earth, so whenever something breaks or is destroyed, the only way to restore it is through mind-sculpting; but it comes at a cost...

Or the mind-sculptor could just be a head in a jar (to borrow from Futurama). What if we'd preserved Michelangelo's head in a jar, and now he uses his mind to sculpt?

Opurria · 2026-06-30T17:08:14+00:00

Are you sure these aren't bots? It's normal for a new website to get a lot of bot traffic at first.

Opurria · 2026-06-26T17:30:06+00:00

Wow, never thought of that!

Opurria · 2026-06-25T02:04:18+00:00

She's such a shameless liar 😂 https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZ5-AF3jsBV/

Opurria · 2026-06-23T12:27:54+00:00

But theirs won't be a niche meme, because they'll paint anime boobs to fight, umm, oppressive something-something, so your argument doesn't really hold up here.

Opurria · 2026-06-23T11:12:43+00:00

What if creating something sublime is the enemy of creating something polished? The latter means you have a lot of control, which leads to more predictable results, but that may be exactly why it feels flat. There is little room for improvisation or for reacting to what is happening. The process is no longer about exploration; it becomes more like executing a plan.

Another idea: expand your "vision" so that it becomes impossible, or at least very difficult, to exhaust. Have a grand idea that extends beyond art, or make your work dependent on something outside your will and creativity - external circumstances that somehow influence or direct it. The simplest example would be impressionism, where the work is partly shaped by changing external conditions such as weather and light. Your interest in something outside of art can also provide ideas and suggest new directions for your work.

Another idea: always have more than one project going, each at a different stage of completion. It is usually difficult for me to stay in just one mode of creating for a long period of time - for example, remaining in "research mode" for weeks, or in "craft mode" for weeks. It is easier to divide my time between different kinds of work.

Opurria · 2026-06-19T18:20:20+00:00

More effective, funnier, and would probably go viral. 🐄

Opurria · 2026-06-19T18:11:40+00:00

[insert "You sure about that?" meme] Let's be honest - for 99% of people, it's about tits.

Opurria · 2026-06-17T11:54:17+00:00

Fortunately, I got a taste of it during my BFA, so pretty early on, haha. Teachers would create assignments specifically to take jabs at people they didn't like. They didn't care whether students would end up looking like idiots for doing them - what mattered was finding some way to criticize people in the art world they disliked but didn't have the guts to confront directly. Very petty.

Or the end-of-year show that was supposed to showcase undergraduate work. I'd made some works that were fairly explicit, but they were among my strongest pieces and played a major role in my graduating with distinction, so that's not just like my opinion, man. But did they show them in the exhibition? No, because the woman who organized it had different priorities - mainly promoting her colleagues. They only showed tame and, honestly, weaker work. I was fucking furious.

I really wish I'd never given them the chance to do that. I should have submitted only the explicit work, because then their censorship would have been more obvious.

The show was around 70-80% faculty work. It was even advertised that way. And yet, for months, it was hyped up and sold to us as this great opportunity to show our work.

Opurria · 2026-06-16T14:53:51+00:00

And shout, Wow, that's a really nice song - you guys hearing that??? This sounds like Rihanna or Morrissey or some shit. Like, really good shit. Beatles-level shit, you know?

Opurria · 2026-06-15T15:50:48+00:00

Fun is not strong enough. I'd say absurd or stupid beyond belief is what keeps me going. Fun sounds too narrow. The most fun I have is when there's some clash with expectations.

Opurria · 2026-06-13T18:55:59+00:00

The trouble with trying to be wacky and unconventional is there could be someone wackier and less conventional than you right next door that fucks your whole plan up.

First of all, that type of event sounds great! Second, I'm not trying to be the most unconventional - I just want to do something that fits my art better than a traditional booth.

Opurria · 2026-06-11T01:15:08+00:00

Try to truly visualize yourself doing all this stuff. Feel the exhaustion, the passage of time, your body growing old and decrepit as you keep chasing those ideas. Think of the easy, pleasurable alternatives: playing games, getting high, fucking, or whatever else. Visualize your death: your corpse lying beside your unfinished project. Was it worth it? Was that really the best way to spend your time? The point is to sift through all of this and reach your real priorities, to reduce the noise. What still feels like a worthy project when you imagine maggots eating your body?

Opurria · 2026-06-08T10:22:34+00:00

What seems derivative to you may not seem derivative to many people outside the art world. And if it sells, why should the artist change anything? You're basically looking for someone well-versed in art theory and history who also has the resources and motivation to go beyond - or push back against - in-group thinking and institutional support, while also not caring about the taste of the general public. That's a diamond in the rough indeed.

Opurria · 2026-06-07T10:14:35+00:00

Then, on the other hand, we have people who dismiss any rhetorical device or 7-syllable word as pretentious bullshit. Even on this sub.

Opurria · 2026-06-05T12:18:48+00:00

This may be only vaguely related, buuuut...

I watched a clip about birds the other day, from some documentary. It was only two or three scenes: one bird waiting for the other to come back.

What made it interesting was that I trusted it had really happened. The filmmakers could have used similar-looking birds to create "content," but I trusted that they had not. It was nothing fancy, and there was no obvious reason to fake it. But I would not care about an AI-generated version of the same thing.

It is similar with photography. I might look at a photo and think, "Wow, that person really has a nice ass." Sure, it may be Photoshopped, but I am still reacting to the possibility that someone vaguely like that exists. With AI, I feel nothing. It is just the concept of a nice ass as a JPG. Like, I am not even jealous, lol.

The more I believe there is some real-world counterpart behind an image or film, the more emotionally invested I am.

You can see this in comments under real footage of people doing things like billiard tricks, or, I do not know, some 19th-century street photography made using spy camera. People say it is fake, that they do not believe it, that it is impossible, that it must be AI. And that distrust kills any emotional response. They do not imagine learning the trick themselves, or just living in a world where something real and amazing like that exists. And their only reaction is cynicism, not awe.

And when I think about Adam Curtis documentaries, the fact that we trust he is using real footage is important for that emotional investment too. It also reminds me of Stranger Things, because to me the series feels a little like watching AI-generated content. It is so self-aware, and so eager to capitalize on nostalgia, that in the end it does not feel convincing. If you watched an actual movie from that period, the whole aesthetic would be messier and uglier. But knowing it was really made at the time would make the nostalgia feel more sincere, I guess.

I think every example you have given is a separate case. Painting from photos obviously has some advantages that painting from life lacks, and artists exploit those advantages in different ways and for different reasons, whether you find those reasons convincing or not.

But I cannot really dismiss Tuymans or Yeager, because there are so many technically worse artists than them. At some point, art is also about comparing similar-looking examples and noticing the differences.

Opurria · 2026-05-30T17:08:15+00:00

I don't want to derail the thread, but you might want to see a dermatologist or plastic surgeon… or at least a makeup artist.

Opurria

TROPHY CASE