sp
MARCH2017
artpack
info file
And here we are again! Not only cant I explain how we ended up in this crazy
situation -- of releasing monthly artpacks in 2017 -- but the more of these we
release, the more Im confronted with the starkest, most fundamental infofile
question: how on earth did we ever come up with enough to report on, back in
the 90s, throttled by period modem speeds, on a monthly basis? And yet you
can look back in the archives and see teeming hives of activity! I guess many
of us had the basics of food in the fridge and clean clothes in the closet
covered by our parents, so all the other time not spent at school or work could
be put into feverish, obsessive art production... at least, while waiting for
the sound of a modem connect handshake.
In the modern period we all have quite a bit more going on in our outside
lives, so as far as our artscene participation goes, there is less to report
on. Also, we are spending less time brewing drama on the IRC, which surely
provided a great deal of historical infofile filler. Ill open with two
pieces of errata: my apologies to two participating artists for problems with
released versions of their submissions in MIST0217: xer0s were released at
less-than-full resolution and can be enjoyed in full at his Tumblr, the
crossroads that complicated everything in the first place: x-ero.tumblr.com
as for Etana, a failure for the cloud to sync directories across devices fie,
thou cloud! resulted in her very Valentines art piece not ending up in the
artpack despite everything the infofiles would have suggested, and I have
pledged to remedy the issue by actually releasing it down the line... in the
upcoming MIST0218 artpack collection 8 Its just that thematically apropos!
But more things happened over the past 30 days than simply my making gaffes and
boners... sorry, that should read suffering unavoidable technical issues
The teletext world was rocked by live appearances from Raquel Meyers,
Illarterate and Horsenburger who you must all recall from past appearances
in previous Mistigris artpacks at the Block Party symposium at Cambridges
Centre for Computing History. I believe that TeletextR was there also, as
well as Polyducks logging the cameo appearance resulting in our reeling him
in for his debut artpack release here in this collection... and though he was
not physically in attendance, the party reports inspired TitaniumDave, also
represented in this collection, to get back in the saddle again. That makes
Block Party 2017 accidentally the most well-attended gathering of Mistigris
participants since the Misty Meet of 1998, despite not involving anyone with
any Mistigris involvement prior to 2015 8
But get-togethers arent the sole domain of faraway places not that, of
course, faraway means anything in cyberspace -- here in our traditional
homebase of area code 604, the Vancouver Chipmusic Society with whom we have
no formal relationship, this is just a free plug for the benefit of relevant
locals will be presenting another installment of their Overflow chipmusic
concerts later this month, this time at Vancouver Art and Leisure 1965 Main
featuring performances by boaconstructor, Hitori Tori, Fastbom and bryface
plus open mic sets by Doomczar, Jewel Maiden and Matthew Graves and live
visuals by Base64 and partlyhuman. And of course coming up in April Ill be
presenting another installment of my twice-annual Big Pixels vintage gaming
sessions... but we have some silly stuffs to get through before then!
This artpack also represents a success in the endless month-by-month search
for fresh blood -- in addition to welcoming TitaniumDave and the stylish
PETSCII/RexPaint creations of Polyducks, MIST0317 reprsents the Mistigris
debuts of Colombian pixelartist Cookieheart, Parisian painter Jordan Lyric,
and the prolific photo creations of Redeye who some of you may recall as
Marauder of EuphoniX... technically not appearing here for the first time, but
not since 1995-96. A lifetime ago, by some standards! Also we are pleased to
be dipping the ol art ladle deeper into the wells of Dubaiwallas and
Illarterates back catalogues, so enjoy the bonus portion of flavours you
already know and love! Also in this collection you will no doubt appreciate
Horsenburgers timely finger on the pulse of the popular zeitgeist, plus you
may appreciate my spilling the beans and explicitly framing Otnoo Ishphoos
suite of Instagram abstracts inspired by colour schemes of classic area code
604 TABNet Bulletin Board Services. If not here, then where?
New frontiers -- or at least extraordinary undertakings -- await Mistigris
into the Spring. After we discharge a years worth of terrible ideas on
April Fools, were hosting the third annual revival of the Blender IRC compo
April 8th, plus there will be another Trackerfix computer music competition,
hopefully some e-magazine releases and, who knows... we never lacked for
fanciful project ideas! But somehow with the start-and-stop of annual
artpack releases, we never stayed in operation long enough to realise them.
Now that were in constant well, lets not overstate the case -- ongoing at
least activity, itll be more a question of changing gears rather than
mothballing the operation every winter and starting up from square one again
every time.
So, uh, stay tuned to see where our grand aspirations succeed and where we
hilariously fall flat! And, in the case of our April Fools artpack,
hopefully both.
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