the state of the scene

acheron.org % discussions: General Art Discussion: the state of the scene
By
Count zero on Tuesday, December 8, 1998 - 07:44 am:

I'm just wondering what people think about the quality of the ansi scene today. I'm not talking about the social aspect; I mean the art.
It's my personal opinion that the upper level of ansi art in today's scene is better than it has ever been before, even including lordjazz and sommes and all the oldschoolers. That's only natural, because most of the upper echelon of today's scene has been drawing longer than any of those oldschoolers ever did.
The *overall* quality of the scene is perhaps a little lower, because of the influx of newer artists. But hey, that's good 'cause it bodes well for the future.
The overall quantity of art in the scene is lower than it used to be, I think.
What's everybody else think?


By Dangermouse on Tuesday, December 8, 1998 - 01:52 pm:

Quantity, yeah perhaps -- definately if take into account that there aren't as many *big* groups these days -- but hey, there's still a few.. I think a98 still proved one thing - there are still a shitload of ppl drawing, and that has to be a good thing.


By Inazone on Tuesday, December 8, 1998 - 09:27 pm:

I have this feeling that we're about to see a repeat of a year ago. Or maybe we already have. Zenith/Lore, Function and Force are gone, which together made up a considerable chunk of the scene. Fire is already gone, and who knows what's up with Dark or Legion? I guess the big difference is that unlike a year ago, we still have some fairly large groups thriving...Ice, Avenge, Glue, Black Maiden, etc.

As far as the quality of art, I think it's about where it was "back in the day", but people aren't as easily impressed by good ansi as they used to be. I personally think that a lot of people don't try all that hard; the same number of people drawing now would've been doing better artwork in 1995-96 I think, simply because it meant more then. Of couse, people spend more time surfing the web than they did back then. ;)


By Dangermouse on Tuesday, December 8, 1998 - 09:52 pm:

I don't think we heading down the tubes or anything tho.. It seems to me the more ppl talk about how the scene is going, the more fucked up it becomes..

(hence the 96/97 debates)


By Napalm on Tuesday, December 8, 1998 - 11:12 pm:

Go Outside.

Woops, i already used that one. I mean..er.. the scene is going to be on an upswing soon because my finals are almost over, i just dumped my girlfriend and i have PLENTY of work to put off!


By Filth on Tuesday, December 8, 1998 - 11:37 pm:

personally i think the scene isn't nearly as good as it was in say late 94 and most of 95. i mean, if awards98 did come out, and i landed somewhere in the top 10, then there's no doubt the ansi scene's quality isn't as good as it use to be. i feel i'm in no way comparison to people like lord jazz, aphex, somms, eerie, kamikazee, ts, the list goes on and on. they were ansi gods, and i have yet to see any of today come close to them. sure we have the 98 scene gods, like fever, tainted x, trip, dieznyik, zero vision, and others, and yes, they're all very talented artists, but really, nothing like the gods of 95. and personally i don't really see anyone surpassing them. i mean, if you even look at shitty ansis from 95, and compare them at the shitty ansis now, as a whole, the 95 shit, is better than the 98 shit.

i sort of feel that i'm on the 2nd wave of ansi artists. i'm in the wave of artists that were schooled by the scene gods. and i'm not trying to say that i'm anything great, but as i mentioned those scene gods above, i feel we're the guys other people look up to. and a year or 2 from now, people will say "yeah, if it wasn't for fever, i wouldn't be here." and thus the ansi scene cycle continues. and if the ansi scene is around 5 years from now, i don't see it being nearly as good quantity wise to what it is now.

so yeah, the ansi scene is doomed to obscurity. :)


By Dangermouse on Wednesday, December 9, 1998 - 01:55 pm:

I would have to agree with you.. I suppose its like any art scene though -- where there are times where we compare the new to the old, and wonder why it isn't like the old days..

But, who knows, there might be a new wave of fresh artists who will inject new ideas and shit into the scene.. Hell, it has to have happened in the 'real world'.


By Leonardo on Wednesday, December 9, 1998 - 03:11 pm:

I'm trying to get back into the scene. I must admit Acheron.org had a part in it. I've lost my modem dialer, havn't been on irc in a few years! basically I'm out of the scene!!

but anyways.. heres a thought that I'm sure alot of you share. The artscene is fairly new (around 6-8yrs old), and many of us started as teenagers. Well MOST of us grow up and lose interest AND time for the scene. I'm one of them. I've been scimming some of the articals here about how ansi is dying, and I'm sure it is, were growing up, and moving on to better mediums.

I don't think that ansi even COMPARES to vga, there TOO different.. and well, BBSs are dying and its just logical that ansi dies too. WWW has exploded.. shouldn't vga explode too? maybe the scene SHOULD concentrate on a revolution of vga??

maybe I'm starting to offend some people now, ansi is great! there was a time that looking at ansis really stirred something up inside of me. and its argueable that ansi takes more talent than vga, but there was a time when "non-scene" people would look at 'our' ansis and be AMAZED and have respect for these 'ansi gods'!.... do you think people still have the same respect for ansi?

Heres another thought: back in the BBS days, you had to be 'elite' to be on a good artboard (or just call LD :)) now, with irc.. lamers can rub shoulders with the ansi gods... its just seems to take some of the fun away.

I miss the old days.. but, like I said I'm trying to get back in the scene.. I have some new art and I'm even working on an ANSi!

- Leoarndo.iCE


By Darkmage on Wednesday, December 9, 1998 - 04:14 pm:

I think something is being overlooked here. The 'scene' is not ANSI, or VGA, or RIP, or LIT, or BBSs, or WWW. The 'scene' is the people that make it all.

I think its a pretty safe bet to say that virtually every imaginable medium of artistic creation is either distributed every month or at least practiced in the outside world by the scene artists. To concentrate on the advancement of a single medium at the exclusion of other valid mediums will lead to the loss of the diversity that makes the scene.

Focusing on the greatness of ANSI in an attempt to relive the 'glory days', or the widespread appeal of 16.8 million colors to bring the scene to the 'real world', would be against the whole concept of freedom of creativity.

It is up to the artists to create the glory days, and if these aren't the glory days it is our own fucking fault for not making it so. Not the fault of a medium. Not the fault of the groups that spread our work all over the world every month.

-Darkmage [iCE]


By Dangermouse on Wednesday, December 9, 1998 - 05:25 pm:

We had this debate 1 year ago, and it still amazes me how people still look on ANSI as a dying medium.. I mean, how many web sites do you see sporting graphics from the iCE and ACiD packs on their front pages? Exactly, pretty damned few.

What I'm saying is that VGA hasn't exploded because its needed, its just another medium for ppl to express themselves with -- as is ANSI.. ANSI doesn't need a BBS, HIREZ doesn't need a website -- its art, meant to be looked at.. duh..


By Filth on Wednesday, December 9, 1998 - 06:51 pm:

i totally agree with dangermouse. i always compare ansi art to grafitti. but in a way simple, but somewhat hard to be good at. i mean for vga, there's just so much stuff you can do to turn a few crapy lines into something great. with ansi, you have to do EVERYTHING by hand. just like grafitti. so you ever walk down a city street and see a beautiful array of tag, and think "wow, that must have been a talented artist" why not think the same thing when you see an ansi?


By Inazone on Saturday, December 12, 1998 - 11:48 am:

I just had a revelation about what has happened to the ansi scene. As has already been mentioned, the newcomers are rubbing shoulders with the "gods" everyday. But what about the process of starting a new group? It used to mean having affiliated boards all over the country/world, calling LD and trying to recruit members from beyond your local area. So the only way that was going to happen was if you had either money or connections. You needed coders to make you a viewer, and people willing to make sacrifices for the benefit of the group.

Now that every PC comes with a modem and Internet access is available on a worldwide basis, the problem of calling LD boards is gone. Everyone already has a viewer and their choice of ansi drawing programs. Most groups don't need a coding division, and realistically, small groups don't need a big staff to run things. Web sites are free in many cases. There are plenty of sites for grabbing packs, plus we have IRC. (This discussion area is the closest thing to an oldschool BBS message base that I've seen.)

So anyway, I think that because it's so easy to set up a group, and easier to get a free website than configure even a stock BBS, very little effort is required to start a new group. That means that if you're a new artist, it's also easy to get accepted, because new groups always need artists and don't expect to get the best. This, in turn, lowers the standard for ansi. Hirez quality stays higher overall, because there are new artists joining via the Web who already have experience that isn't dependent on the scene.
Ansi may not be dying, but we're at a point where there is a very distinct difference in quality between the incoming artists and the veterans. And when "oldschool" groups (or newly-formed groups with many older members) die, it has a vacuum effect and always results in more long-time artists leaving the scene than new ones joining. If we're patient and let the newbies develop their skills, things will be OK I suppose. But for quality art and stability, it's the big, old groups like Ice and CiA (and newer groups like Avenge and Glue) who will carry the torch.

Hope that made sense! And Filth, I agree with what you said about being in a second wave of artists. Those of us who really got active in 1995-96 are finally being recognized for our time in the scene, and a new wave as upon us again...new artists who probably don't know what to make of everything that's going on.


By Deceased squirrel on Saturday, December 12, 1998 - 10:24 pm:

i think the art is getting better because dico is coming back into style. YES!!!


By John Travola on Sunday, December 13, 1998 - 04:31 am:

yes! Dico! One wonders why Dico ever went out of style in the first place!


By Dieznyik on Sunday, December 13, 1998 - 08:01 am:

heh... *what napalm said*


By Rippa on Monday, December 14, 1998 - 05:07 pm:

the scene, a wild get away. the scene doesn't die as long as one person does seomthing about it. for every action there is a reaction, remember. and yeah.. i'm an ass. but err yeah i think that telnet boards suck ass. id never throw my board telnet. waiting ten billion years.have they even thought of a protocol to send and receive files telnet? sheesh.

the problem with the scene is that it's all based around iRC. and so that means of someone gets into the internet before he goes onto ta bbs, and goes to #ans and starts a new group..hes useless. these people don't even respect the people who built the scene for them. "i'll kick your ass you're a nerd - you're probably a fat cunt that wears glasses".

-rippa[polyester]


By Filth on Monday, December 14, 1998 - 06:03 pm:

erm, yeah it's a shame that ansi revolves around the net/irc, but well that's no reason to say that we're all lame for being apart of it. saying "telnet sucks, i'm not gonna run a board there's no transfer protocol" well um most people are using the net to telnet, so why not just use the www, ftp, or irc to get the packs? telnet bbses are really the cloesest home we can get to without ld boards.

and personally i'd rather spend my money on frying my brain cells than on phonebills.


By Mongi on Tuesday, December 15, 1998 - 11:06 am:

Yeah I like the old days! When you had to know the acronyms ACiD and iCE to get into a board! The kids just don't have respect anymore! They shouldn't be out playing after 6pm!

Seriously, I think it would help if all newbies got to know some scene history. I think that Product2 is a really good source.


By Leonardo on Tuesday, December 15, 1998 - 11:29 am:

Mongi, yeah. I remember. Sometimes you'd have to answer a dozen acronyms, essay questions, etc. and if you didn't do it fast enough you didn't get access.


By God among Lice on Tuesday, December 15, 1998 - 12:10 pm:

haha Didn't do it fast enough? never saw that one. :)

"This is a timed essay. You will have exactly 15 minutes to write your response after I say to begin." hehehe


By Leonardo.iCE on Tuesday, December 15, 1998 - 12:31 pm:

yeah, actually it was before I even heard of the scene. It was like early 1993 and some kid from school gave me some BBS #'s that he said were "elite". I called them, but failed the tests. The next day I asked the kid, "Hey dude, what does iCE stand for? What is ACiD?" he told me about art groups and stuff. I thought it was the coolest fucking thing, later it became my hobbie.


By Dangermouse on Tuesday, December 15, 1998 - 01:51 pm:

Mongi, It's funny you should say that because there's an article appearing on acheron in January about just that -- the history of the scene and an overview of the different mediums within it. The article is basically a replacement of my little effort "What the hell is the scene?"


By God among Lice on Tuesday, December 15, 1998 - 05:48 pm:

dangermouse: btw.. that reminds me. I was rereading your "What the hell is the scene?" and the description of how/why rip graphics was formed was way off.. It was always meant to be used for bbs's from the start, but just didn't catch on very well. The idea is the same as ansi, in that they're trying to get the most bang for the byte in terms of file size. (although it wasn't really meant to be used to create the big complex pics that some people make.. those can actually be inefficient size-wise)

It was created by Telegrafix, inc, and in fact they still exist today, trying to peddle some lame new version of ripscrip for use over telnet or something (www.telegrafix.com). There's even a rip plugin for web browsers.

Also, maybe you could avoid the "best" labels when referring to the artists in the examples..


By Dangermouse on Tuesday, December 15, 1998 - 07:45 pm:

"Best" labels? Oh yeah.. Welp, I realise that article is a bit off, so Napalm's article will be replacing it -- its a lot more complete and concise.


By RaD Man on Tuesday, December 15, 1998 - 12:52 am:

"have they even thought of a protocol to send and receive files telnet?"

This is kind of an aside, but any decent telnet client will support Zmodem. Yes, you can infer from this statement that the client packaged with Windows95 is indecent. :)

-r


By AntiAll on Wednesday, December 16, 1998 - 06:38 am:

I think the whole telnet/bbs thing belongs somewhere else, I could bitch about bbs scene topics for hours but that's not what we're discussing really. Maybe acheron should have a bbs discussion area?

AntiAll


By Walterns on Wednesday, December 16, 1998 - 11:03 am:

I personally am sick of hearing about how much life sucks now that bbs' are dead. :) I put my board back up for a month and then took it back down because honestly, what's the point? You can do pretty much the same thing with the web but better.


By AntiAll on Wednesday, December 16, 1998 - 06:34 pm:

that's totally debatable... and i'd debate with you if there was a bbs discussion board ;)

AntiAll


By RaD Man on Wednesday, December 16, 1998 - 07:42 pm:

Acheron is an art-scene site, not a BBS-scene site. Why not keep to the bases already created?

-r


By God among Lice on Wednesday, December 16, 1998 - 10:38 pm:

uh, just create a new topic on bbs's here in the general topic base then. I guess you can try to keep it focused on a specific issue..

actually over at hirez.org there's the start of a convo that began about the Hotline software, and is turning into ideas about what a proper vga internet-based board would be like.

Maybe I'll start my own topic here on the subject since I'd like to see what the ansi guys would think. I won't now though since I've gotta go and study. :)


By Walterns on Thursday, December 17, 1998 - 10:59 am:

It's not really debatable because it's really a matter of personal preference. But like you said, there's no where to debate this anywhere and honestly I don't feel it's worth debating. :)


By God among Lice on Thursday, December 17, 1998 - 08:16 pm:

I think it's completely debatable.. sure it's a matter of opinions, but isn't that what debate's all about? :)

For example what I thought was great in a way about old technology is the lack of multitasking.. you're visiting a bbs that a sysop has but a bunch of work into, it oughta be given your full attention. There's also the matter of full emersiveness, since ansi was generally full screen, and today with the web you've got the windows and the browser gui constantly in the way.. Sure there's lots of stuff I like better about the web, but I still think there's plenty of things that made bbs's better.


By F7 on Sunday, December 20, 1998 - 06:45 pm:

its the "FEELING" of being someplace thats lost.. though i have seen a few web sites give a certain feeling of space and being somewhere, I still ahvent seen anything to equal the feeling of dialing into a really well designed BBS.. and yeah.. I do think it has a lot to do with the interface.. the client is always present... IE and browsers built on its core such as NeoPlanet offer full screen mode.. i;ve seen a lot of very cool interfaces done with that... an immersive web BBS isnt that far off.. only as far as a standard for web browsers =) unless you want to provide a client.. but i think world group proved how much people ahte that idea.. oh well


By Leonardo.iCE on Tuesday, December 29, 1998 - 09:08 am:

Whats up with groups numbering their releases? I just noticed it, it seems to be the trend. What happened to dating their packs?

(this is a pointless post :))

Leonardo.iCE (been away from the scene 2 1/2 years)


By Nightstalker on Tuesday, December 29, 1998 - 09:38 am:

Ever heard of the Y2K problems :). the first iCE pack will be named ice0100*.zip and there will be a lot of confusion. ;)


By Dangermouse on Tuesday, December 29, 1998 - 05:44 pm:

ICE RELEASED IN 1900! I DONT GET IT, WTF IS GOING ON!!!!! ARGGH!HH!H!!H!


By Etana on Wednesday, December 30, 1998 - 12:56 pm:

Time travel, of course.
To save the art scene, Ice journeys back in time to shape a world where 'scene' artists are worshipped as gods. =)


By Mass Delusion on Wednesday, December 30, 1998 - 10:02 pm:

Anyone who can't figure out what ice0001 is, well, obviously, they're dumb. I mean, pashaw! Really!


-Mass Delusion / iCE Senior Staff


By Nightstalker on Thursday, December 31, 1998 - 06:33 am:

the very first ice pack ? :)