AI art and Ecdytoxin: yapping about The Works of Vermin :)
I admit that on finishing the book, I was mostly just confused. It seemed more a sequence of (albeit beautiful) absurdities than a coherent, tightly-knit story to me then. But I think, at least for me, that it’s the kind of thing you need to sit with for a while before it all falls into place.
To start with, the writing is entirely singular, and off-kilter in the best way possible. Every sentence feels so new, and it’s a joy to give yourself over to such unexpected and unfamiliar connections and imagery, it’s like fireworks for your neurones! I am not sure how many of the references to specific historical periods I picked up, so I may be way off base with what I felt were the underlying themes being tackled: that being said! I really wanted to explore the connection I felt between ecdytoxin and art in a post-AI world, so here it is:
Being a 2026-pilled newsmaxxer, I found the resemblance between the effects of ecdytoxin during the initial BG uprising and AI attempts at art very interesting. The source of the toxin is the artwork of others, fed to a creature that quite literally chews it up and spits it out, requiring the labour of the most vulnerable to keep it alive. Its idea of beauty is jarring, even uncanny- corpses bloom and peel, bone lilies sprout from chests- it is perhaps as if you trained an AI on conventionally beautiful things, then simply asked it to make the world around it beautiful. It creates, violently. The edcytoxin makes the same ‘errors’ of taste, discernment, restraint that AI does, and the results are similarly unsettling.
The estrangement of human sensibility from art and culture continues as BGS ascends higher- indiscriminate sprays of the toxin remake entire parts of the city, with no labour involved. Colour and intricacy are plentiful, but reason and intention are not. It is beauty for the sake of beauty. There’s even some part of this corporate extraction of beauty and taste from people in Aufhocker’s fate- churning out stories against his will that are later changed without his consent, driven by threats.
Cut to a decade later, the toxin is running out, the slop has been slopped, and the movement turns once more to feed on more human craft. Extemporism, as pointed out by this fascinating essay from BAMB on neocities (https://booksandmorebooks.neocities.org/posts/reviews/theworksofvermin) is about taking ownership of one’s art, of not allowing it to be coopted by fascism. The imperfect incompleteness of Elspeth’s paintings, Aster’s highly skilled perfuming- they are the new prizes of the post ecdytoxin world. The humanness, the markers of style and craftsmanship and individuality, are the new status symbols to be appropriated by the powers that be- eerily mirrored by the way Big Tech cretins now talk about taste. The Extemporists react with unpredictable, violent, beautiful art that cannot be used or mass produced (please read the Books and More Books article! It’s so good!). It’s like how artists today are trying to resist homogenisation by the algorithm, making weird art that cannot be sanitised.
Hiron Ennes, The works of Vermin | BAMB
My favourite (and rather half baked) part of this theory, or connection rather, is the extra significance it adds to threads and sewing being Mal’s art and part of the power that eventually defeats the Revivalists. I scratched my head about the possible significance of the sewing for a while, before it hit me that if there’s one thing that hasn’t been heavily automated and remains squarely a product of human labour, it’s textile crafts! (Of course, this is not to gloss over the exploitation of the textile industry, only to point out the irreplaceable skill involved).
I had so much fun thinking about this book. If you’ve read it l would love to hear what you felt about it!
(Here’s a video about big tech and taste: https://youtu.be/FjVmtxKXMbM?si=G7L0fW5Ka0rczrFz)
