MONEY FOR NOTHING
Quote from CohentheWriter on 26. July 2022, 19:54Museum Link: https://app.museumofcryptoart.com/collection/the-permanent-collection?collection=0x2a46f2ffd99e19a89476e2f62270e0a35bbf0756&token=25573&page=4
Source Link: https://makersplace.com/0xd9FF1Fbd68e910392dc404F8df0FCD23a64921c3/money-for-nothing-1-of-1-28732/
Date Minted: July 8, 2020
Artist Description: Art is not money. Is that why you do it? Would you do it for free? Money for nothing and art for free. Flashing neon pixels on a screen mesmerize and detach us from what is real. We now worship the digital Gods. Our obsession with it, and the importance we give it, may have the effect of diminishing our humanity. Pixels piercing through the soul, we become lost in a never-ending loop.
CohentheWriter’s Commentary:
It’s clear even at first glance that Forlenzo is a tireless admirer of the human form. Maybe admirer is not the right term, at least when considering that the human form as Forlenzo captures it is almost always mangled or messed up in some readily-observable way. Eyes bulge and bug. Bodies twist into incomprehensible positions. Demonic energies seem to possess the spirit, causing skin to turn ashy grey and eyes to become bright red. Some people in Forlenzo’s work are demons. Others are ghosts. Some are deific figures. And many are trapped, hounded by skeletons and death, in pain or in love, eyes buried in cell phones, bodies repurposed for some shady religious ritual. This is an artist interested in the human form, but not devoted to it, more interested in arranging it for the purpose of symbolism and motif than in capturing it realistically. But there’s a charm in that; these are not the most technically-impressive 3D images, but that lack of overt technical mastery lets them exist in multiple spaces: the playful, the vengeful, the allegorical, the brutal all at once. MONEY FOR NOTHING manages to exist in all four of those aforementioned spaces, and looking at it, we can feel the segmentation of these effects. Like how MONEY FOR NOTHING is frightening, but how it’s also a little silly, but also how there’s so much clearly to unpack here, and we can feel Forlenzo’s quiet rage emanating from behind the central figure here, which acts as the artist’s emissary.
“Art is not money. Is that why you do it? Would you do it for free? Money for nothing and art for free. Flashing neon pixels on a screen mesmerize and detach us from what is real. We now worship the digital Gods. Our obsession with it, and the importance we give it, may have the effect of diminishing our humanity. Pixels piercing through the soul, we become lost in a never-ending loop.” Boy, that’s powerful writing from Forlenzo’s Artist Description. “...worship the digital Gods.” “Pixels piercing through the soul…” Man. These are brilliant and hyper-specific, even melodramatic, ideas (which I love, being the king of melodrama myself), and they fit in with the piece’s brilliant and hyper-specific physical composition. The figure whose bust takes up nearly the entirety of the piece, their torso and neck composed in shadowy lighting, the skin a putrid yellow. Further upwards, the bust’s skull is completely cast in shadow, and we can see no further details of the figure underneath, only the exaggerated and terrifying mask they wear. With a bright yellow surface that flashes the color of a fiery orange and back again, the mask is characterized most notably by its shining yellow eyes —sans pupil— and by the large glowing dollar sign “$” on its forehead. It betrays no emotion, its lips perpetually pursed. Two jutting bamboo shoots of yellow light explode out of the figure’s ears, traveling out of the frame, seeming as much a mechanism of impalement as they seem a playful reimagining of angry steam erupting from a cartoon character’s ears. The background is a pixelated mess of rapidly-changing and glitchy rainbow lines, actually somewhat reminiscent of Sarah Zucker’s style.
Is this figure one of the digital Gods Forlenzo described? With its completely impersonal series of glowing attributes and accessories, it very well might be. Or perhaps what we’re looking at is the result of a human being seeing one of these digital Gods, engaging with it, becoming obsessed with it, experiencing its “effect of diminishing our humanity.” That allegorical explanation has much in common with Ancient Greek mythological stories of Gods appearing before mortal men, either destroying the humans outright or causing some oft-hideous deformity to become them. None can see the Gods and live, is the gist of it. What Forlenzo very much seems to be asking is, “Can we?”
The figure here has been stripped of almost all its identifying characteristics. Moreover, it’s been stripped of its humanity altogether, displaying no emotion, no spirit, no will. It is a conduit for the glowing yellow force which emerges from its ears and eyes and forehead, like one of those weird funguses that attack insects and grow stalks out of their skulls. This is a possession.
Which is a common theme throughout Forlenzo’s works. There are dark and possessive, almost demonic, figures lurking in many of these pieces, looming over more overt humans, whispering in their ears, readying them for sacrifice. In MONEY FOR NOTHING, Forlenzo has provided us none of the grounding effects that a recognizable setting or a relationship between characters provides. And so it seems less that we are witnessing a scene and more that we are seeing a moment, a deeply personal and specific experience. That, or perhaps we’re being confronted, the glowing yellow eyes of Forlenzo’s figure staring endlessly into our own, interrogating us about our own obsession, our own greed, and what digital Gods we ourselves worship.
Source Link: https://makersplace.com/0xd9FF1Fbd68e910392dc404F8df0FCD23a64921c3/money-for-nothing-1-of-1-28732/
Date Minted: July 8, 2020
Artist Description: Art is not money. Is that why you do it? Would you do it for free? Money for nothing and art for free. Flashing neon pixels on a screen mesmerize and detach us from what is real. We now worship the digital Gods. Our obsession with it, and the importance we give it, may have the effect of diminishing our humanity. Pixels piercing through the soul, we become lost in a never-ending loop.
CohentheWriter’s Commentary:
It’s clear even at first glance that Forlenzo is a tireless admirer of the human form. Maybe admirer is not the right term, at least when considering that the human form as Forlenzo captures it is almost always mangled or messed up in some readily-observable way. Eyes bulge and bug. Bodies twist into incomprehensible positions. Demonic energies seem to possess the spirit, causing skin to turn ashy grey and eyes to become bright red. Some people in Forlenzo’s work are demons. Others are ghosts. Some are deific figures. And many are trapped, hounded by skeletons and death, in pain or in love, eyes buried in cell phones, bodies repurposed for some shady religious ritual. This is an artist interested in the human form, but not devoted to it, more interested in arranging it for the purpose of symbolism and motif than in capturing it realistically. But there’s a charm in that; these are not the most technically-impressive 3D images, but that lack of overt technical mastery lets them exist in multiple spaces: the playful, the vengeful, the allegorical, the brutal all at once. MONEY FOR NOTHING manages to exist in all four of those aforementioned spaces, and looking at it, we can feel the segmentation of these effects. Like how MONEY FOR NOTHING is frightening, but how it’s also a little silly, but also how there’s so much clearly to unpack here, and we can feel Forlenzo’s quiet rage emanating from behind the central figure here, which acts as the artist’s emissary.
“Art is not money. Is that why you do it? Would you do it for free? Money for nothing and art for free. Flashing neon pixels on a screen mesmerize and detach us from what is real. We now worship the digital Gods. Our obsession with it, and the importance we give it, may have the effect of diminishing our humanity. Pixels piercing through the soul, we become lost in a never-ending loop.” Boy, that’s powerful writing from Forlenzo’s Artist Description. “...worship the digital Gods.” “Pixels piercing through the soul…” Man. These are brilliant and hyper-specific, even melodramatic, ideas (which I love, being the king of melodrama myself), and they fit in with the piece’s brilliant and hyper-specific physical composition. The figure whose bust takes up nearly the entirety of the piece, their torso and neck composed in shadowy lighting, the skin a putrid yellow. Further upwards, the bust’s skull is completely cast in shadow, and we can see no further details of the figure underneath, only the exaggerated and terrifying mask they wear. With a bright yellow surface that flashes the color of a fiery orange and back again, the mask is characterized most notably by its shining yellow eyes —sans pupil— and by the large glowing dollar sign “$” on its forehead. It betrays no emotion, its lips perpetually pursed. Two jutting bamboo shoots of yellow light explode out of the figure’s ears, traveling out of the frame, seeming as much a mechanism of impalement as they seem a playful reimagining of angry steam erupting from a cartoon character’s ears. The background is a pixelated mess of rapidly-changing and glitchy rainbow lines, actually somewhat reminiscent of Sarah Zucker’s style.
Is this figure one of the digital Gods Forlenzo described? With its completely impersonal series of glowing attributes and accessories, it very well might be. Or perhaps what we’re looking at is the result of a human being seeing one of these digital Gods, engaging with it, becoming obsessed with it, experiencing its “effect of diminishing our humanity.” That allegorical explanation has much in common with Ancient Greek mythological stories of Gods appearing before mortal men, either destroying the humans outright or causing some oft-hideous deformity to become them. None can see the Gods and live, is the gist of it. What Forlenzo very much seems to be asking is, “Can we?”
The figure here has been stripped of almost all its identifying characteristics. Moreover, it’s been stripped of its humanity altogether, displaying no emotion, no spirit, no will. It is a conduit for the glowing yellow force which emerges from its ears and eyes and forehead, like one of those weird funguses that attack insects and grow stalks out of their skulls. This is a possession.
Which is a common theme throughout Forlenzo’s works. There are dark and possessive, almost demonic, figures lurking in many of these pieces, looming over more overt humans, whispering in their ears, readying them for sacrifice. In MONEY FOR NOTHING, Forlenzo has provided us none of the grounding effects that a recognizable setting or a relationship between characters provides. And so it seems less that we are witnessing a scene and more that we are seeing a moment, a deeply personal and specific experience. That, or perhaps we’re being confronted, the glowing yellow eyes of Forlenzo’s figure staring endlessly into our own, interrogating us about our own obsession, our own greed, and what digital Gods we ourselves worship.