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Silence of the Llamas: Faces of the Wild
Photomanipulated portraits and digital make-up effects to discuss the challenges of imprisoned animals…
Faces of the Wild
Kickstarter ending 8/3/2015
So…in terms of recommending this project, I don’t think I can. It doesn’t look like the artist himself is promoting it, and there’s little or nothing a page on Kickstarter can do to salvage a project that the artist doesn’t even mention on his own Facebook page. I rarely write about projects that haven’t at least taken a bite out of their goal after the first few days. But this is a handsome project and at the intersection of animals and art, and it’s worth a mention and a visit—even though it’s sitting at a miraculous $0 in pledges. Dude. At least mom should have chipped in!
Faces of the Wild is the work of Devin Mitchell, who successfully crowdfunded the “Veteran Vision” project earlier this year, a photo book of veterans, their stories, their challenges. In Faces Mitchell takes a more activist role, representing the pain and insanity of large animals trapped in a zoo environment through photomorphs and digital make-up merging humans and animals in poses suggesting blindness and silence.
The images are compelling and tragic, some are quite beautiful, a few aren’t as effective, but that’s art for you–you can see an expanded gallery of Mitchell’s work on graphic/everything blog-board “boredpanda.” He’s got some strong photo manipulation skills, and I particularly like the places where the image is mostly human, just stippled with its animal side. Or maybe I just like scruffy beards.
So, why the stark lack of crowdfunding success? The images are a little strange and unsettling, but that’s kind of the point.
I’m seeing three things here. First, and likely the biggest culprit, a simple lack of promotion on the part of the artist. Bare minimum, Mitchell’s facebook and the Veteran’s Vision web page should be calling out for the new project, that seems like the Big Obvious. And if he didn’t get a callout from the “Zoochosis” film that finished crowdfunding in April, that was a seriously missed opportunity. Secondly, price point may be an issue: with a base cost of $90 for the book and little incentive to buy through Kickstarter. Not having a convenient “shopping cart” pledge point can hurt your pledges.
But thirdly, I wonder if the subject matter and the specific nature of his protest is hurting him.
I do enjoy going to zoos—it’s hard to find a chance to encounter, say, a hyena or a tiger in its natural habitat, and I’m not sure I’d survive the experience if I did. But they’re not happy places generally. Particularly in small rescue zoos or old-school concrete constructions, the animals are obviously not happy. Furries are, as a community, pretty empathic toward animals, we see the human side in them and the animal side in ourselves, and it’s hard to watch a wild creature going insane from boredom, like a prisoner in solitary confinement—that’s the meaning of “zoochosis,” BTW. And certainly harder on the animal.
Is the public willing to let go of their zoos, or to make the financial commitment to the alternative? From Mitchell’s Kickstarter page:
“I believe in zoology, and the study of ethology. However, I also believe that large majestic animals should be kept in free range, land reserve environments, where there are no fences for dozens of miles. After all, this country owns so much land and I just wondered how I can spark a conversation about it.”
Zoos, unfortunately, are for humans, not for animals. They can do good work in preserving animals who are on the road to extinction, but can never really be the animal’s home. And that’s true for the majestic and glamorous tigers and lions, but it’s true for scruffy little meerkats and foxes, too. There’s probably a great German word for “a feeling of ambivalence for killing or capturing something to observe it.” (Google suggests Ambivalenz-Käfige, the uncertainty of cages.) While it is a topic that needs some serious conversation, it doesn’t seem like Mitchell and his photo project is ready to open that dialog.
Follow @furstarter on twitter for the latest fur-friendly crowdfunding projects!
The power of Hugs! ~ by Nogitsunegabriel
Legacy, by Hugo Jackson – book review by Fred Patten.
If your fursona had a theme song, what would it be?
Leave a link to your sona, and to a youtube video of the song!
submitted by CeresSergal[link] [31 comments]
Episode 87 – Age Of The Avenging Mad Max From The Future - Holy bagoodles, we're finally back! - In this episode's most rambly of ramblecasts, we talk about Mad Max, Zootopia, Age of Ultron, Steam summer sales, Christopher Lee, Kung Fury, potential time t
Holy bagoodles, we’re finally back!
In this episode’s most rambly of ramblecasts, we talk about Mad Max, Zootopia, Age of Ultron, Steam summer sales, Christopher Lee, Kung Fury, potential time traveling DeLoreans, and heaps more! Killick is even pimping a new story that you can find here.
So lube up those headphone and get stuck into this shiny new episode of Furballd.
Bye for now, but not forever.
This week’s song is “Crimson Twilight” by Dr. Manhattan. You can find the song on OCRemix here.
Episode 87 – Age Of The Avenging Mad Max From The Future - Holy bagoodles, we're finally back! - In this episode's most rambly of ramblecasts, we talk about Mad Max, Zootopia, Age of Ultron, Steam summer sales, Christopher Lee, Kung Fury, potential time traveling DeLoreans, and heaps more!
I made a Furry Fan fictions Subreddit!
I made this subreddit in about an Hour. It's basically a place where people who write furry Fan Fictions on Wattpad or FanFiction.net can show off there work to others and ask for advice/Feedback! The subreddit is /r/FurryFanFiction! If you need any help regarding the subreddit, feel free to drop me a PM or ModMail me!
submitted by IrishWolfy[link] [1 comment]
I really don't know how to explain this...
Dust: An Elysian Tail 80% off!
![[link]](http://i.imgur.com/rZq1sXW.png){kind=link}
![[link]](http://orig11.deviantart.net/087b/f/2013/193/e/f/werewolf_family_by_black_cat_chaos-d6d6q8f.png){kind=link}
Rummy's cuddle thread!
Cuddles all of the fuzzbutts, scaliebutts, featherbutts, and smoothbutts
So how's everyone doing today/tonight? I've missed my checkup thread for a few days and I apologize. I had a few days off of work and discovered Bojack Horseman, so I kinda zoned out for awhile.
Feel free to share and cuddle with your friendly corvus gryphon. :D
submitted by pretzelbagel[link] [11 comments]
Complaining about Starfox.
Bitch Whine Moan.
Ok so Star Fox was the most AMAZING thing growing up. It has studly smooth talking foxes, amazing almost naked blue vixens, and I'm pretty sure there was some space shooting in there too. But as I grew up...I saw Star Fox after Star Fox come and go and aside from Adventures it just...never changed. Its all kinda Star Fox 64 on nex gen after next gen after next gen console. It must be the biggest video game franchise which has done NO character development whatsoever. I mean these guys are still paper thin after 20 years. The Furry in me WANTS to care about the new Star Fox game but I just...don't. I want to see Star Fox change. I want to be given decisions to make that have an impact in the game. I want to see these characters grow over time. I want to understand WHY we are fighting for Lylat and what is at stake, and what does Andross offer the system that Corneria does not. Flying through power ups just doesn't cut it anymore. Games have shown me they can be more than that. Nintendo... step up.
submitted by Hemms3[link] [5 comments]
Re: State of the Subreddit - What could be added to improve it?
As a follow-up from this post yesterday - where it sounds like things might be starting to get stale and uninteresting here for some/many/most (I don't know, I haven't ran a survey) - I think it's worth discussing and brainstorming some ideas about what could be added that interests newer users, veteran users or both.
So it generally looks like that after an initial rush of "post, comment and read ALL THE THINGS" that new users can sometimes have, they slow down once they start seeing similar things get posted multiple times. They start to post less, then be more selective in their reading, then practically fade away from the subreddit altogether. I think we need to identify the core reason people use this subreddit and try to add a bit more structure, rather than it being a wild-west, anything-goes, everything-is-awesome, free-hugs-for-everyone all the time.
That's not to say I would want anything banned from here - quite the opposite. I want more things to be added, but in a more structured and consistent way so that people can say "oh, it's that time of the week where X happens on the subreddit - I'll go check that out", instead of maybe finding something really interesting that's happening on a whim. We've had the occasional creative prompt recently and that's good, but the monthly theme died a death a while back now and that was the last consistent thing of its kind.
Apologies if I sound blunt or somewhat aggressive in this, but my brain is in "event planning"-mode with having to organise equipment for a convention this weekend (which I'm not talking about in the post). I will say though, once I'm done with it, I am planning on running something eventful for this subreddit. I've already talked it over with the moderators, but it still needs a little more work before it kicks off.
tl;dr: What do what to see more of here? What sort of regular event would you like to see? When and how often do you want to see it?
submitted by Big_Red_Hothead[link] [17 comments]