Theory Aniconism

[DenHaag]

Islam and Judaism — now bear with me my brother stormcels — seem to have caught onto something with the philosophy of aniconism.

That is, the avoidance of representation of human or natural forms.

Our world seems dominated by images.

This is older than the Internet, which poured gasoline on that fire, and then social media brought the napalm.

The Internet is still in some sense a textual medium in many places, of course, and we have less of the functional illiteracy of Gen X/the MTV era.

Nevertheless, the “faciality of the machine,” as Felix Guattari prophecied, is a fact of everyday life now.

Lookism spiraled into the hell we now know most dramatically over the past ten years, with Tinder and so on.

Face to face interactions have degraded.

We have only face to interface.

Imagine a world so sick of image feeds that people start to check out, and practice a sort of hygiene about it.

An aniconism not from doctrinal prohibition, but born from a spirit of authentic self-preservation.

One can see the image world breaking a little bit at the seams. So many memes are just shots of text—the image is irrelevant—sometimes there is no image component at all. The image format is used for text simply to get attention so the viewer can read the text.

Thoughts?

 

[Khanivore]

Interesting idea, man! Very interesting... Iconoclasm in Christianity. Who would know, really? The world is very complex, few people can understand even 1% of everything that is here

Sincerely... yeah, if only you could write this in russian) I am so painstakingly bad in murricanski, i cant convey the message good enough

Lets discuss this! By the way, how old are you?

 

[DenHaag]

Interesting idea, man! Very interesting... Iconoclasm in Christianity. Who would know, really? The world is very complex, few people can understand even 1% of everything that is here

Sincerely... yeah, if only you could write this in russian) I am so painstakingly bad in murricanski, i cant convey the message good enough

Lets discuss this! By the way, how old are you?

Thanks man. I’m. 38. I really want to learn Russian. Thanks for the reminder that I had better get started.

But anyway I don’t know what step one is in practical aniconism.

I use command line browsers like w3m where possible but JavaScript is a challenge. Image blocked extensions end up blocking buttons etc.

Of course these are just details. It is much bigger than this.

 

[Khanivore]

Thanks man. I’m. 38. I really want to learn Russian. Thanks for the reminder that I had better get started.

But anyway I don’t know what step one is in practical aniconism.

I use command line browsers like w3m where possible but JavaScript is a challenge. Image blocked extensions end up blocking buttons etc.

Of course these are just details. It is much bigger than this.

Hmmm hmmm... Aniconism, you say? You want to kill all images. Hmmmm... Actually interesing stuff! Are you wanting to kill only human depicting images, or all images everywhere?

First step is to reduce your image consumption, as the name of your ideology suggests

 

[DenHaag]

Are you wanting to kill only human depicting images, or all images everywhere?

Very good question.

My first thought is just try and avoid representation of humans.

(This is assuming the practice is self-propelled and not imposed from without.

Because if it’s a government ban, people will get into furfaggotry.)

But purism/absolutism has the virtue of clarity.

—

My heart cries out against all of this, as an artist.

My head cries out that I’ve got to find a better way, to get out of the hell of looking and being looked at online in the world of images.

 

[Khanivore]

Very good question.

My first thought is just try and avoid representation of humans.

(This is assuming the practice is self-propelled and not imposed from without.

Because if it’s a government ban, people will get into furfaggotry.)

But purism/absolutism has the virtue of clarity.

—

My heart cries out against all of this, as an artist.

My head cries out that I’ve got to find a better way, to get out of the hell of looking and being looked at online in the world of images.

First off you should destroy your own avi, it depicts a fat human male! How can you say things like that if you got a human-depicting image as your avi?

 

[DenHaag]

First off you should destroy your own avi, it depicts a fat human male! How can you say things like that if you got a human-depicting image as your avi?

Alright alright.

But now what do I do with my penchant for drawing and art?

I like calligraphy (English) and am pretty good at it, but I don’t know if I can stomach that as a substitute. Landscapes or something may be the way.

Of course before I know it I may end up making or finding faces in those too. Like the faces in the moon and mars.

I was going to put a smiley face after the preceding sentence but am glad not to. I shan’t miss emojis.

 

[Khanivore]

Alright alright.

But now what do I do with my penchant for drawing and art?

I like calligraphy (English) and am pretty good at it, but I don’t know if I can stomach that as a substitute. Landscapes or something may be the way.

Of course before I know it I may end up making or finding faces in those too. Like the faces in the moon and mars.

I was going to put a smiley face after the preceding sentence but am glad not to. I shan’t miss emojis.

Take it slow, everything is good - dont jump head-first into destroying all face-like imagery, it is good

 

[DenHaag]

Take it slow, everything is good - dont jump head-first into destroying all face-like imagery, it is good

I can't do it man.

It's too hard.

I can succeed in getting porn out of my life.

I can't yet wean my interest in art.

I don't know if I ever can.

Maybe "slow" means a lot, lot slower.

Or maybe it means treating the feed of images like food -- recognizing when I am full. And stepping away. Rather than trying to fast forever.

 

[lifefuel]

Limit internet access to 1-2 hour per day

 

[Khanivore]

I can't do it man.

It's too hard.

I can succeed in getting porn out of my life.

I can't yet wean my interest in art.

I don't know if I ever can.

Maybe "slow" means a lot, lot slower.

Or maybe it means treating the feed of images like food -- recognizing when I am full. And stepping away. Rather than trying to fast forever.

Hmm hmmm.. yeah, take it slow, you arent on a race anyway. Its your deal, at least you got something interesting in your life, unlike some of locals

 

[DenHaag]

Hmm hmmm.. yeah, take it slow, you arent on a race anyway. Its your deal, at least you got something interesting in your life, unlike some of locals

True enough. Not a race. Easy does it.