Interview with Slothy by iCE Staff for iCE PACK 11/2002 Converted to ASCII text by RaD Man of ACiD Productions (www.acid.org) HTML version available at http://www.ice.org/interviews.php?interview=12 ÜþþÜ ÜÛß °ÜÜþß Üß°Û þþß ß ÜÜÛ±Û Üß Û±Û þ Ü Ü ÜÛß Û²Ý ÞÛ±Ü Û²ÛÜß Ü±ÛÜÛ²Ý ÛÛßþÞÛ²Ý ÞÛß ° Þ²Û Û±Ý þß Ü ÛÛ þß ± ° ÛÛÜ ßÝ ÜÜ²Ý ÞÛÝþܲ±Ü ß ± Û²ÛßþÜ ÞÛ±² ÛÝ ÛÜÛ²ÛÜ ß ÜÛþ þÜþßÜÛÛ²Üþß ßþ ÞÛÛ±Û ßþ ßÛÝ ß ßß kzßþÜÛÛ²°Ý ßþ Ü ²ßþ ß ßþ Ü þß iCE: Tell us a bit about yourself - first name, age, occupation, hobbies, etc. slothy: I'm Jon, but everyone just calls me Slothy. I'm 24, and I'm a PC game programmer. Aside from keeping tiles.ice.org and www.ice.org happy, I also help Root88 manage the day-to-day operations of running iCE. In the non-digital world, I have a cute little car (http://www.slothy.com/sterling_10.jpg) that I like to work on on most weekends. I'm also obsessive about music, and I occasionally read those book things - but only books about copyright and patent law. iCE: Where are you from? Have you lived anywhere else? slothy: I'm from Sonoma Valley right now - just north of San Francisco. I just moved out here from Virginia, where I have lived since I was 7. I was working from home in Virginia, but my company tightened the screws and got me to move out here to work at the office with the rest of the company. It's quite a big change for me to be out here. I haven't been around as much recently, since I've been trying to get out and meet some new people out here. But once I get off this ghastly 56k at home I'm sure I'll be around more - especially since I get hours where I'm not "at work" now that I don't work from home. iCE: Is your cousin really an astronaut? slothy: She rules. (http://www.slothy.com/sts-112/) iCE: If you could live on any other planet, which would it be, and why? slothy: I think I'd like to live in a black hole, because I could keep a lot of things within reaching distance. iCE: How long have you been a member of iCE? slothy: I joined in late 1993 as a member of the horrific iCE Trial program. I was one of the only ones to make it out of iCE Trial - TooN GooN being another notable survivor. I was promoted to a full iCE Member by Shaggy on Christmas Eve when I showed him my Hell's Gate ansi (back in the days when you'd call someone and have them type ATA while you typed ATD and then coordinate when you'd both pick up and hang up the modems to talk again :). When he saw that ansi, he said, "Wait, YOU did this?" and it was history after that. iCE: So what was the deal with iCE Trial? slothy: Essentially, it started as a great idea. You find promising artists and kind of "take them under your wing" until they are good enough to release in the pack. Ideally they could get help from the many members of iCE to help them hone their skills. In reality, it failed in almost every aspect. It was decided that iCE Trial would release their own packs - to reduce the penalty for joining iCE Trial as opposed to being in a separate second-tier art group. Since those packs still were affiliated with iCE, many iCE members were embarrassed by them. As a result, they treated the Trial guys as second-class citizens and wouldn't associate with them much. So the Trial guys got insults from the rest of the scene for being essentially wannabe-member fanboys who "sucked", and in their own group they were treated like they had some contagious disease. Very few artists ever "graduated" from Trial to becoming a full iCE Member. Later on, when I was trying to find ways of helping out iCE, Syntax Error put me in charge of iCE Trial. Within one month, I disbanded the iCE Trial program completely (back in 1994) and put myself out of a job in the process :) iCE: So you're a programmer? Do you do any art anymore? slothy: Not really, sadly. I was never very good on paper except with some abstract sketches (I was never good with color, either :). Once the move to hi-res happened, I wasn't really able to hold my own in iCE. I am still very proud of the hundred-or-so ansis I released with iCE. I do think that I was pretty good, but I think my Senior Staff role has understandably overshadowed my artist role and not many people remember my ansi anymore. That being said, it was a conscious decision. When I was getting ready to start at Virginia Tech, I was decided whether to be an art major, computer science major, or psychology major. Given that I wanted to have a job after college, I chose computer science. I figured I could always do art as a hobby, and it would probably continue to be enjoyable. It's always kind of sad when you realize you dread doing something you love once you're getting paid to do it and have deadlines and other people influencing your work. To me, it's a bit more tragic for that to happen with art than with code - I always loved doing art. iCE: So tell us about your job then, Mr. Game Programmer. slothy: I'm essentially a Linux coder who got a sweet job thanks to iCE. In fact, every job I've ever had was a result of this awesome art group (no lie). Rogue Leader hooked me up with this tiny company called S2 Games back in March of 2001. They were working on a 3d RTS back then, and I joined as the second programmer. Now it's changed a bit, and we're working on the multiplayer-only PC game Savage (http://www.s2games.com/). I'll keep the plug to a minimum here, so that's all I'll say about Savage. But I'm just a C coder who has always been into graphics (guess why!) who got a sweet job from knowing someone. iCE: Speaking of work, what is your alcohol or substance of choice? slothy: Crown Royal. mmmm.... iCE: What would you be doing if computers didn't exist? slothy: Man, that's really a horrifying idea. I'm really one of the biggest geeks around, from my keyboard (http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/images/evol_chair2.jpg) to my linux-powered car stereo. Life without technology would be so much less interesting for me. I guess I'd probably be doing art or psychology, or just hanging out at bars :) iCE: What would happen if you let two linux geeks procreate? slothy: Hrm, they'd probably be a super Luddite. They would get into sports and hate computers. And I wouldn't have much to talk about with them :) iCE: Can we ask you a stupid question? slothy: I believe you already have. [Point taken] iCE: What do you like and dislike about the digital art scene? slothy: Boy, I could write a manifesto on that one (I know, this interview is long enough already). I've written lots of articles about the scene way back in the ansi days... nowadays I'm pretty unsatisfied with the scene. One nice thing we had awhile back was a general agreement on what art styles were acceptable. As a result, there was a solid hierarchy of groups from the "best" to the "local (aka crappy)" groups. Artists would work hard to join the best ones and work their way up the ladder. Nowadays there are a few really talented groups like iCE, Noir, Raster, Breed, and Equate, but there isn't a solid base of groups "below" them. So it's a jumbled mass of artists that doesn't get any prep before they join a "major" art group. There aren't any community norms that are established as part of our online society. This is both good and bad, since sometimes those norms can limit artists, but it's definitely more chaotic. We have no universal rules on what is acceptable and what isn't, and what role the group plays for the artists. iCE: There used to be a huge rivalry between ice and other groups, namely ACiD. There was so much trash talk that it seemed comical at times. Could you explain this a bit for those of use that just don't get it? slothy: Heh, it was an odd development of an us vs. them attitude. In most other scenes there was a friendly competition, but in the ansi scene it was just this crazy rivalry. There are a couple possible explanations as to why: first off, there was some ugly politics in 1992 when the iCE staff tried to merge the group into ACiD. That failed when a portion of iCE refused to rebuilt iCE with new leadership. In addition, I think most other scenes had more of a battle over who was best, with new demo groups showing up and such. But in the art scene, there really was just iCE and ACiD and the occasional short-lived split-off group. So there was a lot of time that helped carve out the absurd rivalry. Honestly, everyone wanted their group to have a better pack every month. Because of this, I released something in every pack for the first 30 packs after I joined, because I didn't want to let down the group. iCE: I heard that you hosted an Icecon. What's that? slothy: On a few occasions now, groups of ice members have gotten together to meet and party. I've been to a few now - one in Atlanta in 1998, one in California where we actually met up with ACiD folks, and then I hosted one at my house last summer. The last one was really a lot of fun, since everyone was living together in my house. I even managed to injure myself during our pathetic basketball game. Good times... iCE: Do you have any words of advice for artists or programmers that would like to join iCE? slothy: Do it! I couldn't possibly be more indebted to this group. I've met some really great friends in the group, I've obviously had a lot of doors open for me, and I have some really fun memories of partying with my friends. Better yet, join the group not just for you, but bring us some enthusiasm to make the group better. Not everyone has to be that way, but it's certainly a gem of a member that is willing to do the dirty work to make it a better place (thanks to all you guys and gals who help us out every month). SAUCE00Interview with Slothy iCE Staff iCE Advertisements 20021201 ,P×