Got Slides? PS Club

I remain unable to do presentation slides from templates. When they nust happen, out comes the cloak of sarcasm.

For her graduate seminar Cori had to lead a session on Poststructualism. As we talked, it just became ironic to think of doing a linear progress of Bullet Point Slides. We jumped to a club concept and she was open to [consideration of] using my whacky remix idea.

It was a 2 slide deck.

First was a knock at the idea of railing agains the structure of slide decks. Rummaging around the DS106 folder I had a several time reused Photoshop version of Magritte’s pipe, it took almost no time to render Slide 1.

Icon if person gesturing to a slide with caption Ceci n'est pas use présentation. — *The Treachery of Slides remix after Magritte’s Treachery of Images of likely questionable use. What part of parody do you not understand?*

Ahh but the poster, now here was where I went into my years of DS106 remixery (cough 600+ posts, WTF?), using Photoshop layers, masks, cloning, all the old time remix by hand methodology. Enough prelude, the final piece.

The Poststructural Club never-a-movie poster featuring Barthes filling in for Brad Bitt and Derrida doing Edward Norton, with yes, the eight rules. Totally illegally remixed from some image poster. Sue me.

I hit gold before starting by finding the Fight This font.

I had to searcha bit to find heads of Roland Barthes and Jacque Derrida in profile, one was from Wikimedia Commons another from Some Other Place. The first rule of CogDog Remix club… Here is a bit of layer by layer view, but hardly showing all the steps (e.g. playing with Colorize to try to get same tones for the new heads, clone stamping background to fill around, messing with other fonts as the Fight Club font looked crappy small).

Photoshop layer deconstruction of Fight Club poster to make Poststructural Club.

And mea culpa, we did ask ChatGPT to generate the eight rules, because it excels in making up stuff. That’s where it shines, the realm of non-factism. These are the rules, and the machine did a fairly good job.

YOU DO NOT ASSUME MEANING IS FIXED.

YOU DO NOT ASSUME MEANING IS FIXED. IF YOU’RE DOING THAT, YOU’VE ALREADY MISSED THE POINT.

THERE IS NO SINGLE TRUTH—JUST INTERPRETATIONS, ALL ARGUING LOUDLY AND PRETENDING THEY’RE NEUTRAL.

THE AUTHOR IS NOT IN CHARGE. THEY LOST CONTROL THE MOMENT THE TEXT EXISTED. COPE.

LANGUAGE DOES NOT REFLECT REALITY; IT CONSTRUCTS IT… BADLY… AND THEN IMMEDIATELY CONTRADICTS ITSELF.

BINARY THINKING (TRUE/FALSE, NORMAL/OTHER, RIGHT/WRONG) IS SUSPICIOUS. IF IT LOOKS NEAT, IT’S PROBABLY LYING.

THE SUBJECT IS NOT STABLE, WHOLE, OR COHERENT. IDENTITY IS MESSY, UNFINISHED, AND DEEPLY INCONVENIENT.

THERE IS NO FINAL INTERPRETATION. IF YOU THINK YOU’VE FOUND ONE, CONGRATULATIONS—YOU’VE CREATED ANOTHER TEXT TO DISMANTLE.

For the same reasons D’Arcy explores his Claude Coding because “superficially and selfishly, it’s fun” I still relish the Photoshop layered remix process, it’s never about exact matching (close enough fonts, smudged background) e.g. perfectly imperfect. And while taking the time to tinker, find the image elements, carefully mask and clone brush backgrounds, the time spent to me is almost meditative as I am thinking about the concept I am trying to display.

I can’t help the remix reflex, it’s a manifestation as visual sarcasm. Which means it also often misses the mark. But that’s not the point.

Spending time in thought, why is that passé all in the guise of “saving time” and “being more productive”? Bahhhh.

I remix therefore I am.

I might be the last person on the internet not cranking out those garrish and boring as all well Studio Ghibli ripped off style images. When I see a preview of post with this style as a featured image, I am tempted to not click.