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24 Illustrations Depicting The Absurdity Of The Present-Day World By Santiago Bara (New Pics)
Interview With Artist
Santiago Bara is an artist from Spain who creates humorous and aesthetically pleasing illustrations as a commentary on modern life. He started making these "little cartoons" as practice for more serious jobs, but they unexpectedly evolved into something bigger than that, and now the artist has more than 7k followers on Instagram.
Santiago's creations attract attention with their simplicity and accurate depiction of the present-day world. He makes people laugh by highlighting the absurd elements of today's society. Santiago's inspiration comes from the real world and his interactions with people. The artist believes that the clash between one's expectations of the world and what one then finds in everyday situations can be a good starting point for a comic.
If you want to see more Bored Panda posts about Santiago and his work click here or here.
More info: Instagram | sbara.bigcartel.com
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Bored Panda has reached out to Santiago again, wanting to find out more about his recent work. First, we asked how he decides which ideas to pursue and turn into full-fledged comics. He told us: “Well, for the ideas for the comics, I don't set out to find a theme, but they come up in everyday life and the things I see or read. Although looking at what I do in retrospect, in reality, it's clear that I'm almost always circling around no more than two or three themes (love, memory, alienation...).”
We wanted to know his view about the role humor plays in art, and in society. Santiago said: “Humor works as a lightener, a sugar coating that makes it bearable to talk about certain things. Although there are certain people for whom humor on some subjects is not tolerable. Especially jokes related to identity issues, both political and tribal.”
From what I am interpreting from this: kids start out as thinking outside the box and using creative thinking skills and through the years with the public school system, they are compressed mentally into what the school wants them to be. Their creative skills are discouraged and it is basically like a really slow process of brainwashing. That’s the public school system for you… and it’s only getting worse. I think the video for Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” describes this perfectly.
It more made me think of dunce caps. That the school system is a bunch of morons and the students are just decorations to brag about.
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Alternate take: it's a icing piping tip. It's focusing the bag of messy icing into a focused tip that can create any design the imagination can conceive. The right schooling can have the same effect on people.
I think that's it.. it makes sense now. We all get pushed into funnel, its designed so we all come out the same.
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Frosting tip, not cookie cutter. 🤣 I kid. I almost used the same phrase in my comment but stopped myself.
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Yes, because a tested foundation of standardized knowledge on which our entire civilization relies is a bad thing... Really? You can still have a standardized education and "think outside the box". Problem is, there is a difference between creative thinking and superstitious ignorance: I hear "Think outside the box! The education system makes you a sheep, dude!" constantly from idiots like crystal healers, flat earthers, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, and the mentally ill. Maybe, just MAYBE, its because they need you to abandon reason and education to pass off their ignorance as some kind of wisdom?
Not everyone who says those things comes from those groups. You're simply highlighting the nutcases to disprove a point that actually has merit.
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It's a tip for a frosting bag...That's a star tip and is great for all kinds of shapes. The bottom edge sticks out a bit because a coupler goes over the bag and the tip to hold them in place. However: the text and the shape also imply a Dunce cap, but that is still a decorating tip used in decorating food.
The school molds children into what the system wants them to be. How kids and how many times are they told "no, that's not a good career for you. Focus on your challenges instead." at the same time "No, you're not good at that, so that will not be a good career for you. You're not going to make much money doing what you love and actually good at, either." Maybe not in those exact words, but the implications are there and it's always, "Now, go home and give this report card to your parents and have them sign it." Which is also saying "The school needs to make sure your parents are not free from the school system, and we need them to feel included in feeling bad/proud of their offspring's grades so the parents don't teeter to liberating thoughts that are not what the school system values."
Cookie-cutter children. Missing the fundamental life skills. And so many poor fish being judged for their inability to climb trees. EtA: yes, that could be a frosting tip, but there is also such thing as a cookie press...
Wh-what, everyone is thinking to hard and going philosophical? when in truth schools teach everything but what's actually good is just a small bit of it!
There's two sets of things that are summed up as "equality" - one is considering everybody worth the same, regardless of age, gender, colour and all the other irrelevanteries that have been considered the main determinator of what and who one is far, far too often ... and the other is actually making people identical as far as they can, suppressing everything individual or outside of the norm, punishing people for "not being like all of us are" - and that, usually, represents schools' take on it. Of course, this has been way, way worse in decades prior to those I went to school in, but, after all, I often enough got in trouble not for doing something bad, but for doing something differently than usual. I got punished for looking out the window after finishing what we were supposed to finish (some math or such), I was punished for attempting to use the bathroom regardless of being told to wait, and the idiot kid who grabbed my arm to stop me from leaving, who started screamcrying after I got myself lose from this not even not got punished, but praised and comforted he got, while I was accused of "attacking him" because I "didn't get it my ways", which was the only reason imaginable why I would even want to go to the bathroom. Not because I couldn't hold it anymore, and of course, nobody, especially not a snitch of 6 years, would just grab me because I was about to not obey. Of course not, although he was a teachers' pet and hadn't done such the first nor the last time, ... school does attempt to equalize people in an age of great influencability, and school failing at this, fails at the same age. When I went to school, making us equal, making us obedient units of economical exploitability and generally uncritical towards authorities definitely was a goal of our education, and definitely was considered more important than supporting any individual need or interest or even allowing students to learn beyond, besides or exceeding the schedule. Instead, if you were done before you were supposed to, it was an exercize in sitting silent and motionless, in obedience in general. On top of that, like half the world is even worse, some by not having any sufficient education system whatsoever, some by teaching mythology during biology classes, ... but, the key point here is, making people equal, with the goals of equal AND general obedience, non-criticalism towards authority is what was standing out from those teachers who just didn't care at all. But, obedience can only be anything positive if a lot of requirements are met that maybe not every firstgrader knows to their full extent - I certainly did not -, but nobody who is able to understand the concept of obedience is unable to understand that it cannot be a trait that is generally positive, but always only is positive because of specific reasons and justfications. Obedience in itself is neither good or bad, but totally depends on what is to be obeyed, who is to decide, why, for how long. Kids too young to get that are too young to obey anyway, at least whatever they do by obeying is neither important nor dangerous, unless it itself is totally off ...
The school system will only teach you to a level the gangsterment approve of, so never let your schooling get in the way of your education, you don't need school to learn things.
Looks like a playdough extruder. Instead of shaping the dough into the endless possibilities that it could become, it's pushed through to make the "proper" shape of a child.
It's for frosting. And they're saying that we all enter school without specific form, but are all molded into the same c**p.
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Asked about particularly challenging or rewarding experiences he has had as a comic creator, Santiago mentioned: “The most satisfying experience making the comics I do is the sharing of my work. That it reaches readers anywhere in the world, and they empathize with it and feel represented.”
Playing expressively is much more pleasing to your audience. They won't notice the slight departures from strict tempo, but they'll remember how the song made them feel.
Next, we wanted to know what in his opinion sets his artwork apart from that of other comic creators. Santiago explained: “I don't think there are any major aspects that differentiate me from other creators. Maybe some of my vignettes tend to be a bit ambiguous, or even abstract and do not leave a 100% clear resolution. But, although those are my favorites, I think that in general, they are the ones that people like the least.”
Lastly, we were curious if there are any artists or creators who have influenced Santiago’s work. He told us: “I'm influenced by everything I come across. For example, I've recently been reading about Frida Kahlo, and beyond the icon that everyone knows, there is a very inspiring life and work. I found it very motivating. Or another recent example, which has nothing to do with the art world, are the interviews I've seen with biologist Michael Levin. I think I understand about 10% of what he says, but what ideas? Very crazy.”
Bored Panda. Censoring suicide is certainly part of the problem. For f**k's sake.
God, I remember the way the pro-marijuana protestors would absolutely trash the parks. I haven't seen trash like that since before trash clean-ups of greenspaces started to become a thing in the late '70s.* I know there have been some unfair and misdated images of environmental protests; I do not mean those. But Hell, pot-heads I you gotta do better. (Maybe they do by now, this was a long time ago.) (*When I was a kid, urban greenspaces would often collect trash for years. You really can't imagine how disgusting it was. America went through its own phase of looking like those pictures you see of India's trash... not so long ago.)
The stem is where we start out and it branches out in many directions. Notice the different veins have different lengths, and the points of the leaf, as well. We take many paths in our lives and each one determines how far we'll make it out to old age.
The jury let's their organs decide? One follow the heart, one follows the brain, guts, etc? These are all so good because there's no one meaning to it.
I think this roughly translates to "I need you to need to be important to me," but I'm honestly slightly confused
An artist who consistently fails to convey the intended message is a failure. I refuse to accept that I'm an idiot for being unable to figure these out. One or two? My fault. All of them? The artist's to blame.
I'm afraid I didn't get most of them. On the other hand, the comments were most interesting, as usual
I think that perhaps because he is from Spain, there is something literally missing in translation. Different memes there, different cultural shorthand, different significance to well known images, so on.
I wonder if i threw up in a brown paper bag and placed it in front of a white canvas ... how would it be interpreted?
I'm sorry I tried to take these seriously, but I felt like I was scrolling through r/im14andthisisdeep
The cool thing about art is that your interpretation is the most valid, at least to you.
Pretty much all of these are based on things that are common or very discussed in our current global culture, or they reflect typical human nature, not sure how so many people are so confused. I get that not anyone knows what "canon" means and the lady archeologist/man archeologist but the reast seems obvious to anyone who reads newspapers??
An artist who consistently fails to convey the intended message is a failure. I refuse to accept that I'm an idiot for being unable to figure these out. One or two? My fault. All of them? The artist's to blame.
I'm afraid I didn't get most of them. On the other hand, the comments were most interesting, as usual
I think that perhaps because he is from Spain, there is something literally missing in translation. Different memes there, different cultural shorthand, different significance to well known images, so on.
I wonder if i threw up in a brown paper bag and placed it in front of a white canvas ... how would it be interpreted?
I'm sorry I tried to take these seriously, but I felt like I was scrolling through r/im14andthisisdeep
The cool thing about art is that your interpretation is the most valid, at least to you.
Pretty much all of these are based on things that are common or very discussed in our current global culture, or they reflect typical human nature, not sure how so many people are so confused. I get that not anyone knows what "canon" means and the lady archeologist/man archeologist but the reast seems obvious to anyone who reads newspapers??
