[ Gah-een-tee-vee-moon-da ]

Two weeks ago, two researchers from the Dharma Research Consortium (DRC) were found murdered in the group's Advanced Karma Mechanics lab. One of them laid bleeding over a desk, where a computer screen glowed with the words "Hum Mani Padme Hum".

One week ago, a package arrived at the DRC's head office in Putrajaya, Malaysia. The package incinerated the entire 23rd floor of the building, taking along five years' worth of research in so-called Biological Samsara Fields with it.

Aside from the relatives and friends of the deceased, the loss didn't seem to affect much of the modern world.

Two days ago, almost every E-mail account in the world received a message with an image attached. The image seemed to be nothing but the captured snow static of a dead television channel. A majority of the world's Internet-enabled population went on to delete this image without a second thought.

One hour ago, a girl, about five years of age, with brown eyes and auburn hair, goes into an MRI machine.

Something was born at that moment... and only the DRC was prepared for it.

___________________________________________


You can stop reading from here on, if you don't want the background process of making this.

___________________________________________


This piece was quite an experience in experimentation.

On hand, I had some white PVA glue that I once used to make custom magick focusing cards. I picked out one of those cheap, plain, overhead-projector transparent acrylic sheets, and spattered the glue on it. I semi-folded the acrylic sheet over along the middle, and pulled it apart, very much like you'd make a foldup butterfly or a Rorschach inkblot. I did this a few times, seeing if I could get any interesting shapes and patterns.

After enjoying the glue-induced high -- and the thing had dried completely -- I was sort of disappointed that it turned completely transparent. However, I noticed that it had a sort of "landscape" with the bump and textures the glue made on the sheet.

Surely enough, when I scanned the sheet in, there were some very subtle shadows and forms on the image. I went dog-crazy with the Levels adjustments to really bring out the patterns. It was also interesting that the plastic sheet had these small lines over it that gives the effect of televisional "scan-lines". I made the image negative and greyscale during the post-scan, because it seemed more effective as a darker-mooded thing.

I made a few other glue-textures, smaller ones, scanned them in, and composited them with the main piece, just for extra details.

Then I came across another problem: it needed a subject. If that little something wasn't there, this thing might unintentionally illicit some laughter (which was just fine with <a href="">Afterglow</a>, but not this one) or at least some unwanted bewilderment. I browsed my folders for half-finished drawings that needed homes, and came upon the original Gaintivimunda. With some tweaking, it was composited into the piece, and by then it was practically finished.

I like how I can make some random and spliffy textures with this glue-peel technique, so I might do it again sometime. Maybe with colour, yeah?

So, let's see... done with acrylic sheet, PVA glue, pen and pencil, with major post-scan work in PhotoShop 7.0.1.

I fear my art is becoming even more uncategorisable. ^_^;

Thanks for looking. :3