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By wearing this watch you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor

The Fence has published an exposé on Stuart Semple (of Anish Kapoor 'feud' notoriety) which they have been working on for six months.

investigation reveals Semple / his studio / his partner Emily Mann (who's described as acting as his 'enforcer' in his business) :

mishandled £400k grant of public money intended for a public gallery, allowing the money to flow freely between the public project, his own personal studio and personal projects such as Culture Hustle (his online business selling paint etc)

underpaid or failed to pay many of his assistants to the tune of several thousand pounds each.

former assistants have taken him to court and he simply hasn't bothered to show up and he's threatened to sue former assistants who asked for their back pay

repeatedly funds ambitious projects that never see release eg Abode, an 'Adobe-rivalling' suite of creative software (he claims he still intends to release this)

encouraged a cult-like atmosphere at his studio in Bournemouth

was frequently in debt and having to negotiate with bailiffs etc for his debts while at the same time crowdfunding various projects

ran fake social media accounts boosting Semple and his work

The portrait that emerges is one of decades-long scam artistry tbh and someone who's juvenile, manipulative, narcissistic.

The Fence btw is a decent fairly small-circulation quarterly magazine from the UK which specialises in satire, investigative journalism, culture, and fiction. You can read the piece in its entirety if you register (which is free).

a few links:

The Fence's newsletter from April discusses this article & how Semple has tried to muddy the SEO waters

Semple threatened to sue The Fence for publishing this story - many of you are American so here's the relevant UK law on defamation.

& the subreddit r/culturehustle is worth a look to get an idea of just how badly run his paint business is

#worth reading the full article

shaggytwodope-deactivated202104

sorry but were NOT still talking shit about anish kapoor nearly in 2021. this time we learn from our mistakes

shaggytwodope-deactivated202104

@yoursaltness ok so i dont have the original post that detailed exactly why, actually, anish kapoor did not deserve all the shit he got, because i can only find stuff against kapoor by looking him up (which is part of the problem..) but basically what i recall on this (do NOT quote me bc this is just my recollection of reading a much better overview of this issue which i cant find anymore):

1. the pigment anish kapoor copyrighted, vantablack, was never originally going to be made for public use, and therefore he wasnt “stealing” its use from other artists

2. vantablack was not an art pigment in the first place and generally not useable for most art, and was not made for art.

3. stuart semple already was going to release his pigments before the anish kapoor copyright happened, and just jumped on it as a publicity stunt.

the root of the issue is that stuart semple, a white british artist, painted himself as this big proletariat hero SAVING ART from the evil indian rich person, even though semple is rich himself, and his use of an artist of color as a stepping stone for publicity while villainizing him as greedy and selfish was cheered on by everyone everywhere - including me! i also fell for it!

i dont exactly care about kapoor. hes a very rich man, which i despise, and i dont hold his art in my heart either. but its more about the fact that we all fell into the trap of making a man of colors whole career into a big old farce for the benefit of a white competitor, and if we can do it to a VERY RICH man of color, then were doing it to people of color everywhere who dont have kapoors millions. so thats the issue for me ig

i like to believe that if the kapoor/semple feud happened today i would be smart and discerning enough to actually look into the facts instead of jumping on the bandwagon of treating people of color as cartoon villains the moment a white person paints them like such in the media. but idk that i really would, and maybe id fall for it again. i think its a good reminder that just because someone is telling a good story, or an entertaining or satisfying one, doesnt mean the story is true, and that we shouldnt question it when its about the real world.

oh yeah, also, millionaire semple didnt pay his employees, who were fellow artists. proletariat hero indeed! this is from 2014, the kapoor drama started in 2016, so i wouldnt be surprised if he started it not just for the benefit of his own reputation and publicity for his product, but also to build himself a better image after defrauding smaller artists.

dionysusbisexual

Thank you! This is v fucked up and makes sense

shaggytwodope-deactivated202104

thanks for bringing this up! i didnt know kapoor was also jewish. it really does make everything about this worse huh

mzminola

Yeah there’s a GQ article in which the writer interviewed Ben Jensen, the chief technology officer of the tech company Surrey NanoSystems that invented and applies Vantablack [https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/vantablack-anish-kapoor]

When I first shared this link I included a quote from the article that I find most relevant to the idea of it’s use as an artistic tool:

“When I’d spoken to Jensen, he’d said the decision to grant exclusive rights to Kapoor had been purely a practical one. Simply, he’d said, “Anish has exclusivity for a very good reason. We took the view that the original material couldn’t be used in works of art because of the sheer complexity to make it. And this new material is still very complex and very difficult.” It is, he says, a collaboration; they meet regularly. “And the other side of it is we’re a small company. We can’t work with hundreds of artists. We don’t have that scale - it’s just not our business. Our business is to create engineering components for satellites. It’s not to create works of art. So we took the decision internally that to do this justice we’ll work with one person because we had enough time to make that work. And not belittling other artists, but who else would you want to work with?“”

And this time I’d also like to say: the decision to make the artistic usage exclusive was reached by Kapoor & Jensen together, but how many of you even knew Ben Jensen’s name? Or that the company was Surrey NanoSystems?

Not only was Jewish artist of color Anish Kapoor villainized while white artist Stuart Semple was put on a pedestal, the white scientist and the company he leads development for were completely left out of the narrative. Not even named, let alone had their agency in the exclusivity decision acknowledged.

Hm.

gothycollie

Remember when the entire internet believed that it was entirely the fault of Anish Kapoor that consumers weren't able to purchase an airplane paint that required proper ventilation and a paint booth to use, entirely on the word of a pigment manufacturer who then used the video to advertise his pigments?

#many people never learned. it took me until I think like 2021 when my friend sent me some info on the matter

raccoonmilf

Chat, is it considered “abusive roommate behavior” to release a raccoon into the living space after you have asked your roommate for months to please clean up their messes (they do not pay any of the mortgage)

raccoonmilf

For context, when I used to live alone I would do something called “Princess Time” where I would do an initial sweep (to remove any significant hazards) and then I would release a raccoon into the living area and clean. This helped because I would 1) feel like a princess and 2) the raccoon would bring attention to things my ADHD brain had decided to ignore and I’d quickly clean that stuff up.

So like, if I’m expected to clean the house now, I will be doing it in the way that is most effective for me. And anything that has not been cleaned up after months of having sit-down talks and sending reminders and being promised things will change, might be deemed “trash” by the trash panda and thrown away.

raccoonmilf

We haven’t done since we moved into the house, because I didn’t want to cause my roommate or their cats destress or have their things destroyed by a raccoon

raccoonmilf

I am a raccoon biologist and one of the few people in the state allowed to take in captive bred raccoons that had been possessed illegally. The raccoon in the photos is Moonshine, but she is currently at the animal sanctuary where I work as I had been quarantining multiple new intakes from an abuse case. I still have two males (Rum Tum Tugger and Electra) left in my home enclosure as we are getting them neutered and then hopefully sending them to an AZA accredited zoo.

I wanna make things very clear that underneath all the whimsy, I am a trained professional.

raccoonmilf

Those vibes are likely because I’m the original creator of Dashcon and my personality has not changed since 2012 lmao

fipindustries

#wait this is a serious post— oh okay then— wait WHAT

witchrealms

(x)

#this is literally what ct egl meetups are like #our calendar is like. picnic potluck. laser tag. art museum. speakeasy. clock museum. bass pro shops

zomgcats

2007

cremsie

Please be critical of what videos you see now. Even cute animal ones. Does the animal move kind of weirdly? Is the fur a little too smooth looking? Do all of the non dog animals make actions eerily similar to how a dog would do a trick, because that's what AI has the most visual training on replicating? Its movements a bit too quick and perfectly timed? Watch out. They're infecting collections of animal videos everywhere.

It is legitimately sickening.

cremsie

An example of what kind of a thing you need to look out for. This is not how a possum plays dead. This is how a DOG plays dead to make you laugh and get a treat. Because when you tell an AI to have it play dead its got thousands of dog trick videos to reference and very few possum ones in contrast. So its going to look like a dog. When a possum plays dead it actually looks.. yknow. Dead. It goes utterly limp and most of the time in my experience their mouth is open somewhat. They go utterly still, don't move at all. Even if you pick em up and nudge em around a bit they’ll usually be stiff as a board. There's videos you can find of people interacting with real possums when they’re playing dead and its incredibly different from the dog drop and roll we see here. It also almost immediately stops playing dead to wander away. Something a real possum most certainly wouldn't do. AI slop thrives off using these lower quality cam video styles to trick you. I've seen countless 'Security camera' footage of AI bullshit now and its got its tells but if you're not looking you can easily be deceived. Watch out. Do your part. Call it out. Make them ashamed. Pollution on the internet like this shouldnt be tolerated. Especially when its actively trying to lie to you. None of these have ever been labelled as AI because they're actively trying to sneak into your life.

hellallamerican

i need everyone to get into college football right now i am dying to talk about the texas tech situation. this is the kind of thing that will be referenced for the next 100 years. there will be documentaries and biopics about this.

hellallamerican

no one asked but here

texas tech's quartback, brendan sorsby, was investigated for sports gambling. i know sports betting is all the rage right now, but athletes themselves are not allowed to do it. it is Rule Number 1 and it is the highest priority rule for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), who governs all athletic programs at about 1,100 colleges in the US.

the invesitagetion of sorsby revealed that, not only did he place more than 9,000 sports bets when he himself was a collegiate athlete, but 40 of those bets were AGAINST HIS OWN TEAM when he was playing at indiana university. immediately, this threatens the integrity of the sport, and especially because indiana is the hottest team right now as the defending national champion.

the NCAA, which is largely a sham organization these days (they've truly lost their grasp and college athletics are the wild west now) actually enforced their Number 1 Rule and told sorsby his career is over, that he would never play college football again (and, subsequently, that he would never get drafted into the NFL because his college career was cut short).

well, because the NCAA is a husk of its former self, sorsby and texad tech immediately took this to court. MANY athletes have learned these past few seasons that if you can find a judge who's a fan of your team, you can get any NCAA ruling overturned. that's exactly what texas tech did. they filed a suit in Lubbock, where the university is located and where every judge is an alum of texas tech. so sorsby was granted an injunction and will now only be suspended for the first 2 games od the 2026 season (which are alwayd against no-name teams that will be destroyed regardless of who's suspended).

every other school in the country immediately went on the defensive because this is a very clear integretiy issue. so nebraska and georgia (sic em dawgs) released statements saying that all currently-scheduled competitions witb Texas Tech in ANY sport will be canceled and there will be no future schedulings. at least 3 of the major conferences (SEC, Big 10, Big 12) , who account for almost all division 1 sports teams in the country, are also in discussions about cancelling comtests. Texas Tech is part of the Big 12, and there is serious talk of all other teams in the conference shutting texas tech out.

now would probably be time where i say that texas tech is one of the wealthiest programs in college football becaise there is a single billionaire alumnus pouring money into the program with hopes of essentially buying a championship. so texas techs integrity has always been questionable. anyway, the university president put oit a statement that he doesnt care that sorseby violated regulation and that texas tech will sue any school that refuses to play them because it jeopardizes their championship prospects if they're umable to play any games.

this is all just startomg but its so juicy and delicious. the NCAA is going to crumble to dust if they cannot get this injunction overturned. schools like georgia and nebraska have plenty of money so a suit isnt necessarily a concern, but this will absolutely change college football forever. i cant stop reading about it.

hellallamerican

update on this: texas tech is claiming that every school who has/is considering cancelling all contests is "afraid" that texas tech is better than them. what's funny about this is that sorsby's stats are average. he is not good enough for this kind of protection. many schools who have already cancelled or are considering it have much better quarterbacks than sorsby. also, texas tech's head coach had said that it's actually ok that sorsby bet against his own team because it "its not murder or assault."

hellallamerican

the attorney general of texas has threatened to investigate the Big 12 conference if they sanction Texas Tech

hellallamerican

the claim is now that texas texh university just cares so much about brendan sorsbys mental health that they have to sue everyone who calls this an integrity violation. any other school who wouldnt defend an athlete that committed this violation "doesnt care about mental health"

thegreatyin

PRECISELY!!!

me: ok I am TRYING to eat healthier

Jollibee bee right in my walking path: 🌚

me: 🌝

charl0ttan

long distance friends pets feel like celebrities because you can only be parasocial with them

#muttley my number 1 parasocial relationship #that stinky little man has no idea who I am

adobe-outdesign

So currently on Neopets:

If you do up to 100,000 cumulative damage to Vocivus (the current plot boss) you get several very good awards

Vocivus started with 850 mil HP, but players almost killed it within 12 hours so TNT boosted it to 3 billion

For players with untrained pets, grinding up to 100K points can take hours, so it's best if it doesn't die too fast

Elite battlers really like Vocivus as it provides a genuine challenge on account of having randomized element immunity and healing from light attacks

Therefore, people on the Neoboards have been "feeding" it light attacks to make sure it doesn't die too fast and have been petitioning it to stay as the "pet" of the Battledome Chat

Some users have also started a psudo-cult worshiping it so now the boards look like this