Botgirl's Identity Circus

The List of Things I Don't Know

noreply@blogger.com (Botgirl Questi) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 08:48:13 PST

The list of things I don't know is long. How long, I don't know for sure. But it's long. Very long.

I don't care about my ignorance of mundane facts, like the Earth's circumference at the equator, or who's playing in next week's Super Bowl. I leave that shit to Google.

What bothers me is that I don't know how the decisions I make today will impact my tomorrows. If a butterfly's flight in China can cause a hurricane in Florida, what might have happened if I had been named Batgirl instead of Botgirl. It boggles the mind.

(My entry in this week's 100 Word Story Challenge.)

Frank finally had enough . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Botgirl Questi) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:59:39 PST

Play or Prey (NSFW)

noreply@blogger.com (Botgirl Questi) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:09:38 PST

Soror Nishi commented here yesterday about the short lifespans of the digital work we post:

The constant desire for fresh content is a real problem for me too as a creator. Work which I have spent weeks or months creating (VR)is eaten up by the average visitor in 30 seconds.

Soror's comment inspired me to look back over the output my creative virtual life to see if there was anything worth revisiting. Funny thing, I found quite a few projects that even I had forgotten about. I'm going to share some of them here over the course of the next month.

The first is a comic I shared in May 2009 as a video trailer and then in June 2009 as a comic. I never got around to publishing part 2, although I have a draft version somewhere "safe" on one of my external drives.

And hey, is it just me, or did the new Lost Girl series totally scam my concept?

Video trailer:

Comic:

Open publication - Free publishing - More botgirl

The Challenge of Artistic Vision in an Inspiration-Saturated Environment

noreply@blogger.com (Botgirl Questi) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:26:32 PST

Whiskey Day published a great blog post yesterday questioning the impact of our inspiration-saturated lives on creativity. She wrote about childhood memories of how her mom, a successful artist, "would stop in the middle of a parking lot and wonder at the pattern of the water on the pavement."

These days, inspiration is less likely to come from our still, small voice than from the cacophonous deluge of other people's work on Tumblr, Pinterest or Flickr. As she wrote,

"We are spread so thin, and across so many mediums; our ideas and creativity are diluted."

Although I can imagine that some people's artistic vision is diluted because of our inspiration-saturated world, my main problem is that I consume so much media that I don't spend as much time as I'd like creating. Media consumption isn't the only culprit of course, but it plays a significant role. I've dealt with this so far my limiting myself mostly to work I can conceive of and create within a few hours.

I recently decided to try something different and bring my new 'big idea" to life through what will end up being a multi-month project using the physical world instead of the virtual world as the primary medium. Instead of relying on virtual sets, I'm in the process of constructing a series of physical dioramas that I'll use to create images, comics and videos.

I'm still in a very exploratory phase. The image above started as a photo I took of an HO scale building (I put together with glue!) and a Godzilla action figure. Although special effects were created on an iPad, my plan is to use as many practical (versus digital) effects as possible in the actual project.

Now if I can just overcome my inspiration addiction and stay focused!

Google's New Pseudonym Policy is Rorschach Test for Pundits

noreply@blogger.com (Botgirl Questi) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:29:25 PST

After six months of campaigning to change Google's pseudonym policy, I was thrilled to see this headline yesterday afternoon from the honest-to-god New York Times:

In a Switch, Google Plus Now Allows Pseudonyms

Woo Hoo! We Won! Or did we?

Over the next few hours I read dozens of conflicting reports from major internet publications, bloggers and social networkers:

Google Plus buckles to social pressure allowing fake names – Herald Sun

Pseudonyms on Google Plus? Wrong. – ZDNet

Google+ Finally Allows Pseudonyms – Mashable

Your Google Pseudonym Must Be Approved in Google Court – Gawker

Be Who You Want to Be, On Google Plus – BetaBeat

As Clay Davis, my favorite politician from the The Wire would say, "Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit!"

Google in its infinite genius has managed to come out with a new pseudonym policy that's even more ambiguous than its predecessors. It's as yet unclear whether the average pseudonymous Joe or Jane Doe can use their Twitter account for validation. Or whether your pseudonym will only be accepted if you have more than 10,000 followers and can document retweets from @scobelizer.

Beats me. Time will tell. Stay tuned.