freddykuno - Tumblr blog

[freddykuno]

skylin’s “Odyssey” is a concept album of 8 tracks building a story arc on the foundations of bass music genres such as wave, grime, dubstep and future garage. The record is an exploration of the early “wave” sound, but even more so a work of sonic fiction melting together inspirations from dystopian cinematics, mysticism, and psychedelic imaginaries. Sonically, the album puts a focus on atmospheric sound design and emotive synth textures, supported by furious drum programming and droning reece basslines. From fragments of German and British rave culture to Bulgarian choirs, Chinese zithers and Japanese taiko drums, the album embodies its name in regards to its diverse instrumental palette. “Odyssey” is a journey through many trials and tribulations, taking the listener on a path of becoming. soundcloud.com/darkrealdark/sets/skylin-odyssey

credits:

released October 27, 2022

Mastering: www.instagram.com/fineztmasterz Artwork: instagram.com/chez.pawel skylin skylin.bandcamp.com soundcloud.com/skylinbeats instagram.com/skylinbeats

[freddykuno]

Is everything marketing?

The more I browse the web, the more I feel like everything has become a subgenre of marketing.

Wasn't marketing just a function of business? Why does it seem like everything must be infused with marketing if it wants to exist?

It’s like marketing your whatever has become more important than whatever it is you’re marketing.

Even worse: some things only exist in marketing but have no body beyond its representation.

This might just be a theatric effect of social media blasting advertisement-soaked content into our faces 24/7.

Even though it feels like online marketing is rather ephemeral, it wouldn’t be fair to say it’s all thin air.

There are all kinds of schemes and scams from multilevel marketing to bullshit coaching but it’s not like every online business falls into one of these schemes.

These scams are, however, the absolute low point of marketing: empty business models that sell no real product, just manipulative communications exploiting the feelings of greed and need of vulnerable people.

The problem I see is not that scams exist but that anything that doesn't do marketing falls into obscurity because there is such a fierce battle for visibility out there.

If you’re not visible on the internet, you don’t exist.

Thus, anyone who wants to be seen must engage in marketing to ascend from the shadows.

I guess that wouldn’t feel so bizarre if I thought of it as just „communicating or connecting with the world“ rather than „marketing yourself.“

Self-marketing is essentially the same thing framed in a business perspective: you create a supply of yourself on the attention market by shouting louder and more often, hoping to attract and bind people with the things you say, creating a demand for yourself.

It’s appalling for me to think this way.

The imperative to be loud, visible, and consistent runs counter to my introverted nature.

Yet I am attentive because it seems that if you ever want to be free by running your own business, you have to play in the theatre of the attention economy.

Maybe I can help myself by reframing this marketing as connecting with the world and those in it who care.

After all, we speak to emotions or reason or morals and someone out there has the ones that resonate.

Everything is connection, communication, correspondence. Making it marketing is a choice - one that I don’t have to make, but I might.

[freddykuno]

“No brain, No pain.”

— Unknown

[freddykuno]

The most important thing is to start.

There has never been a time that was perfect to start.

You’ll never run out of possible reasons why you should wait.

When you remember the one reason why you absolutely should start, take that chance.

If you want to create a work, a habit, or a product, you know the impulse to just begin - and the inhibition that often comes with that.

Taking the first step can feel disproportionately hard compared to the actual effort it needs.

To write the first word, strike the first chord, or make the first phone call isn’t actually that difficult, but it can feel like a massive challenge because the act holds so much meaning.

We think that once we open that door, we can't go back.

We are tied to the plan we made and that's scary.

A whole bunch of “what if’s?” inhibit us from taking action.

But that constraint we feel is an illusion.

We can always stop. Go back. Fail.

Actually, it's much more likely over time that we'll stop something rather than proceed forever.

But that shouldn't prevent us from ever starting to build an idea because you have unlimited starting opportunities with ideas.

You may lack the financial ground to build a business but you never lack the permission to pursue an idea.

You're not running out of lives in the creative game.

If one thing doesn't work, try another.

Perhaps the cosmic supercomputer of evolution had to try again and again and again to create life.

What if it had never started?

[freddykuno]

Thoughts on AI Art

Don't be scared that your creativity is worthless now.

Creative AI is simply a tool for increasing the world's overall averageness.

Synthetic media became so powerful that you can create stunning "AI art" in every genre with minimal human input. That scares creators left and right to be replaced by machines soon… and we need to solve the dilemma of what creativity is in the first place.

AI has given us clues that maaaybe it has always been about to "steal and variate" your inputs… Everything is always inspired by something else. The artistic merit is in how you mix your inputs into a meaningful message, less so in the technique used.

Now, if you're a creative/writer/artist/etc who is afraid of AI… aren't you admitting your own mediocrity? Do you think AI will take away what you want to express?

If you take a closer look at ChatGPT's or Midjourney's outputs, you'll realize that they are damn average. And I mean average, as in: suck up all the internet's data and create an average replication out of that.

Yeah sure it's impressive what designs or posts can be spat out in seconds but these replications do in no way move the culture forward because there is no inherent message - unless you give it one.

The world is oversaturated with average lookalike "content" now that we don't realize the difference between content and art. Technology has made it too easy.

That's not a bad thing. Creativity got democratized - so much so that you must accelerate your production of mediocrity if you still want to stick out - or focus on making art for art's sake.

Synthetic media will just take this to the extreme and make inauthentic creative work practically worthless. I think that's a huge chance to refocus on meaningful creations and leave "content" to the machines.

The message of AI art is AI art itself. What it reveals is what we have forgotten about authenticity while we were drowning in the ocean of meaningless content.

If you're still scared of AI, why not start breaking the rules it plays by?