Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Aaron Keuter
212 Plays2 days ago
Aaron Keuter is an editor, motion designer, animator, and visual effects artist in Portland, Oregon.
SRTN is a worldwide podcast that features the greatest creators you can find.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00:16
Speaker
Hey everybody, this is Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. Really thrilled here um in 2025. I have a guest here, Aaron Kiter, somebody who I contacted a while back. in the um ah It's great to have you on on the show, Aaron. um Welcome to Something Rather Than Nothing. Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here. Thank you. Yeah. i um I wanna like, I think when people connect with artists, I think some time artists like to like find out like how the heck you run it into my stuff, but it was just the show bits and the music and the animation and jokes and using bits of um of of of lyrics from from songs. And it's, um of course, it's a visual that I'm gonna say right off the bat, everybody, I encourage you to look at it just so you know, you can see ah what I'm talking about. But for me,
00:01:15
Speaker
I saw that and I was thrilled that such a thing exists. I think I'm like in some sort of like targeted audience, loving the music and loving the animation. and so ah just Maybe maybe like starting with that, how I encountered you, um can you wo let us know about um show bits and some of the creative work you do?
00:01:42
Speaker
Yeah, I've been a yeah kind of motion graphics designer, visual effects artist, general kind of video post-production guy. um i've been doing some variation of like for i i I started doing photo and video editing when I was 15 on a computer. ah It's kind of my early interests were messing around with computers and messing around with video and media.
Aaron's Creative Journey and ShowBits
00:02:06
Speaker
But yeah, so that's been my career sense that's been my whole career has been some variation of video post-production.
00:02:12
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I get, I get kind of pulled into the the rat race of, you know, corporate video making and it can be very, feel very hollow. Of course, I guess it's a regular story. Um, and then I don't know, I was just screwing around on my iPad one day and I started drawing a picture of, uh, Bob Dylan.
00:02:32
Speaker
And then I was making Bob Dylan noises because it was making my then two year old son laugh. Good job. And yeah I was like, I think I got something here. And I was still drawing on my iPad. And then pretty soon I was treating a a Bob Dylan siren.
00:02:52
Speaker
where it's just him as a literal siren spinning his head around going, who and then i you know that kind of morphed into a ah thing. I posted it on the internet because ah the you know i'm I have the the regular 2025 social media narcissism that I want to share with the world and people were laughing. My friends were laughing. and then i turned it into a thing that's now ah got a big following.
00:03:20
Speaker
it's ah it's it's great to hear that It's great to hear about it. It's so much fun, everybody. I've been counting on Instagram, show underscore bits, B-I-T-S.
00:03:32
Speaker
and um and yeah Thanks for letting us, telling us a little bit more about that background. i it's so Sometimes I think as an artist, maybe on your side, like you can't see the reactions of everybody, but even in our like house and sharing them and i the songs and the animation, ah it's just it makes everybody laugh and smile. It's such a great effect. That always makes me feel good to hear. i i um When I hear that people are like,
00:04:03
Speaker
telling me that they share it with their friends. And ah they're like, everybody just loves it. i'm It's really gratifying to hear. And so I i always love hearing stuff like that. i like Just knowing that people are sharing it and laughing is kind of my
Joy and Challenges of Sharing Art Online
00:04:15
Speaker
my ultimate end goal. I've kind of crafted a little bit of a, I don't know, a desire and an intention to monetize it, which can can rob the artistry, I guess I suppose. But at the end of the day, I'm delighted by the that just the genuine human reactions of joy and laughter and sharing. Yeah. Do you drop into, I mean, is it a reflection, say like we talk about art and taste and things that people like. I mean, you obviously, you know, ah like music and and working with it. um Is it a reflection kind of of some of your kind of like what your interests or what popping in your brain or how does the process work?
00:04:57
Speaker
I suppose I mean honestly, I just I mean I I listen to music I like music I think people watch show bits and think that I'm I'm this like encyclopedia of music knowledge I'm really I've joked with people I'm less like a b-sides vinyl and more of a greatest hit CD ah when it comes to music knowledge Yeah, I don't have technical questions, right? I mean that don't worry. about Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm i'm but in terms of like I enjoy music like everybody um but it's ah I don't know, i just I find myself noticing things in and songs. And I'm like, hey, if you if you put that in a different context, it means something else. And so the the essence of ShowBits is decontextualizing a familiar musical lyric or tone and putting it in a different place. And then you sort of quickly find the the irony. And that's, I think, what people connect with and are delighted with. But it's they're very, very simple, base-level, one-dimensional jokes.
Philosophy of Art: What is Art?
00:05:54
Speaker
ah yeah ah Yeah, and when they work and they keep working and yeah, that's that's the ah that's the vibe. That's the vibe. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it's like i have I mean, I have a long list of them now that just it's animation. So it takes a long time to make one. So it's it's like a long a lot of effort. Well done for a quick joke. But if I so if I pitch it to my partner and she laughs, I'm like, all right, well, yeah, I got to do that one. So.
00:06:18
Speaker
Hey the partner check, thank you Hey, I wanted to ask you um, you know, obviously you've studied your practice in artisans and studied art directly You went to Savannah College of Art and Design I wanted to ask a conceptual question like that you think about just for a backdrop As you're going through this and studying art and design and creating, what do you think art is? What is art? I mean, that's what you're involved with trying to do. And for you, what is it? Yeah. I mean, if I were to give my hyper poetic conceptual answer, it would be that I think art is the output, the labor output of
00:07:10
Speaker
Um, people just endlessly that it's the output that is a result of our endless frustration with the fact that we have to die one day. Um, it's kind of my, my most immediate thought is just it's fast that tension and that anxiety, uh, to, to insist that, oh no, I was present. I, I, I existed for a minute. So I have to get to work and and demonstrate that and.
00:07:35
Speaker
um yeah i don't know I guess I think of like in terms of my own creative output, yeah as I mentioned earlier, it's not wanting to just be a a drone in a kind of corporate machine. that you know It's the desire to have my own sort of ah stamp on
Ken's Artistic Memories and Influence
00:07:55
Speaker
existence. and Yeah, i i I mean, there's so much in there in what you said that I was responsive to in my head, because, you know, like, I'm trained in philosophy, like, and in classic way, not deeply, but you know, I'm trained in that. And you know, the the Greeks and Plato and Aristotle, that's all ah philosophy is, is the contemplation of death. Like, so yeah oh, man, yeah, existentialist, right, right off the bat in my head, right.
00:08:24
Speaker
Right. I mean, I actually, I, I was thinking about this earlier as I was like, I think about, yeah, I think about death a lot, I guess. I make funny videos, but I think about death a lot. um And amazing strong connection yeah I think about the fact that like, what if, if I did live forever, if there was no death, what would I do? And the answer is probably nothing. Um, you know, there's always a tomorrow to do a thing. So yeah i don't know if you live forever, would you make a podcast?
00:08:53
Speaker
Hey, Aaron, this is this is this is perfect. You're perfect. Perfect. Yes. Perfect. Yes. For the show. No. um No, I wanted to. um There's different things to talk about. One piece I didn't want to miss in um before we jumped on chat in here, here in 2025. Aaron Kiter. Oh, I grew up in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Listeners might, you know, they know a little bit of my bio and stuff like that. I talked ah once in a while about Rhode Island School of Design, which had such an outsized meaning for me. and I was describing it and you know working class kid in this Mill City out in Rhode Island, you know just you know just just another another kid, but I had the mind that I did and I was like you know interested in shit as a little kid. you know yeah and have Having Providence, Rhode Island, which was
00:09:47
Speaker
and no I don't know. It was kind of a shithole at the time, to be honest with you. As far as the conditions were in, there were significant social problems. There's inattention to infrastructure and a down economy from the mills closing in the 70s and 80s. It wasn't a pleasant place. but you know around all this. You have Brown University over in Providence and Rhode Island School of Design. and My dad would tell me about these musical artists that formed there and connected there. Talking heads. Talking heads. They might be giants and you know other bands and collections of people. and I'm fascinated by that. so I heard these stories growing up, the ones that my dad told me. so like The idea of a school of design, and he would say, is was one of the top
00:10:33
Speaker
art schools in the world. He knew that too. So I was like, wow, I began to realize this is a really cool thing. One other piece connected to this, which might have a little bit more meaning, but kind of like background bio on me was, so the first time I went there was on a field trip, you know,
00:10:50
Speaker
now third or fourth grade, fifth grade, a bunch of us but was city kids. And they're showing us stuff and we're reasonably well-behaved. I don't know if that will stand up to empirical tests, but reasonably well-behaved. And I go into this room and there's this wooden Buddha and in in in this wooden Buddha to my head at the time is, wow,
00:11:15
Speaker
12 feet, 14 feet. It's enormous and it's weathered and you can see the skin weathered, the wood skin weathered and yeah pieces chunked off. So you know it's lived and it's formed for a while, but I'm going there. I don't even know what this is. I'm a little kid. I'm going there to sit and just look at it. I'm like, my head, I'm like, holy fucking shit. Like what is this?
00:11:40
Speaker
you know like um i don't And I was so awed by it. um And it was such a, just a wonderful experience in the Art Museum. Years later, when I went back for the whole proportion type of thing, how big is it? Is it still there? Back when I'm like, I don't know, 25 years later, something like that. And I go back and I go in. And of course, it's not as big.
00:12:06
Speaker
It's not as big as I remember, but the spots where there was chips of the wood gone that I remembered as a kid, like all that was the same because it's just the same and protected.
00:12:17
Speaker
a statue. Its size was smaller but it still had the overall effect. And by that time I had studied Buddhism and practiced it myself consistently. So my relationship to going back to Rhode Island School of Design and being like, first, I hoped it was there. It was. Second, I was like, what does it look like now? It's got to look different because my head's different. I'm different. And to have that experience. So It had such an effect on me, like thinking about it then that I get super excited about where places is a long lead up.
00:12:55
Speaker
no so a not i People's, you know, where they study or what the art school environment is. One other point, I've just finished reading this manga, it's called Blue Period. And it's about going through Japanese art school. I'm not sure if you've heard of it.
00:13:13
Speaker
It's
Art Education and Its Impact
00:13:14
Speaker
15 volumes and ah it's been this incredible experience because it feels immersive in the storytelling in the manga, but it also will break off into instructions of how to make something that you'll see in the manga. So it'll give you like like art school. So i yeah I feel so immersed in doing that. So I've been really like love hearing about like art schools and design. And I noticed SCAD, I have a romanticized Savannah, it's a beautiful place, but yeah I wanted to see, it was a long opening up, just like about your experience there or you know what an art school means to you or your experience with it, for me as an outsider.
00:13:59
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I mean, to me, RISD and ah Rhode Island School of Design and SCAD, Savannah College of Art and Design, are in two very different categories. I've never been to RISD, but I look at the creative output of that school. And it's, yeah, it's incredibly impressive. SCAD, I think, is a wonderful school. It's a bit more, I call it kind of a creative tech school. um I learned a lot of just basic like video production stuff.
00:14:26
Speaker
um ah Yeah, like you can you can get like a really good education in visual effects for you know film and television there. yeah um to me i feel i In my head, and i maybe somebody from RISD might correct me, but like i to me, RISD is more a highbrow. It's more like art for art's sake. The technical piece versus more of an explorative Yeah, yeah, I feel like RISD is more of the art for art's sake. SCAD, there's some wonderful creative output from SCAD, ah but they're very much, I believe it's even in their mission statement, it is creative jobs. like It's very much how do we put you and your creative mind into the
00:15:09
Speaker
the the the the wheels of capitalism and and stuff like that. And ah yeah, and i i I will vouch for SCAD. It's a great school, but um it's not that hard to get in. And for me personally, like it's what? It's a different approach too. Yeah, absolutely. And um and yeah, SCAD for was an awesome place to spend my college years. I loved being in Savannah. Beautiful town. And and i'm not there were some wonderful, wonderful, creative worlds and galleries and people and it was a wonderful place to collaborate creatively with others.
00:15:44
Speaker
um But, you know, for me as a ah youth, like I, when I was 18 or whatever, I, I grew up in Mississippi and I didn't really have any kind of direction or a drive or <unk> i ah ah the youre sorry, whereabouts in Mississippi. I grew up in Jackson. Um, I mean, I've lived in a lot of places, but I get high school and junior high was spent in Jackson, Mississippi. And I spent a year at Ole Miss my first year of college before I transferred to SCAD.
00:16:14
Speaker
um But like again, i had I liked music, I liked comedy. I was very much the the person who would hang out with his musician friends. and I think they were kind of a musician too, but also I never practiced guitar. I never made any effort to craft a skill. and But you know in my head, I was always this very self-serious kind of artistic mind. yeah and high In high school, i want to i want to I got the top prize in an art competition that my art teacher submitted one of my pieces for.
00:16:46
Speaker
And I think that was ah that put in my head that like, oh, I'm an artist. like And I think that's a kind of a ah dangerous thing to put in a young person's head that like- You needed it though. You needed it. Well, yeah. I mean, it was like, ah you're you're an artist. And it's like, yeah yeah, now I'm an artist. I don't have to prove it. like Did you feel it then? That's one of the questions I asked. Did you feel it then when when it was said or i mean what was the experience? i think it was just i was a I was a listless teenager who you know took his own attitudes and opinions very seriously. and but like i I guess I sort of bemoan the fact that I didn't really spend any time
00:17:24
Speaker
crafting a lot of skills in my youth. um you know like it was just it was that It's very much that thing of like, oh, no, I'm a rock star. I'm an artist. I don't have to learn anything. I don't have to actually ah prove it. But you know over time, i kind of i I got out of that um that mindset, I guess that sort of i slightly entitled maybe mindset of, you know, take me seriously because I should be taken seriously. And then I actually started realizing even later in college, like, no, you have to, you have to have output, you have to have creative output.
00:17:58
Speaker
um If you're going to imbue this title upon yourself, does that make sense? like Yeah, well, I mean, were both we're both both too serious and both laugh about it too. I mean, yeah, totally had intensity. I mean, when you took like going back, I mean, it's a philosophy show here is the undergird, but I mean, you were I think connecting to the point and like thinking about you know, Plato and Aristotle, like, ah for me, the take the Republic. The the Republic, for me, is is it was a profound profound work by Plato. And one of the pieces is that he says, ah society killed Socrates, that's fucked up, that's wrong. How does the society do that? Let me figure out what a just society is so we don't kill a Socrates. I'm like, man, that's pretty, like, I want to read that. Yeah, absolutely.
00:18:46
Speaker
I want to read that I want to read like the thinking about that and I think um, you know, there's an obsessiveness about Just in some philosophers that I enjoy about justice and in death and like what are we doing part of my the question is and I think you grapple with it what he's saying is like um You know, we're an art we're an artist I'm ah um' an artist we're artists we create What, what the fuck for? And at the bottom of it, you know, like when, um when our heads get squirrely, when my head gets squirrely, but that's not the predominant place I live, but those things are powerful of being like, shouldn't I, like the feeling, simple feeling like, shouldn't I be writing a book for the next two years? My own head in for, I existed or. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I guess I've always, um, uh,
00:19:41
Speaker
i've I've admired the the people in my life who that's just their default setting as output, as creating things. and it's just It's almost as if they like have no choice. I'm trying to remember, there was a quote from Prince about just I'm not even gonna try to bring it to mind, but it it would spoke to just how like making music was his default setting. There was no other, there was no choice. like Putting in time and practice and effort and crafting your skills was just the natural state of his mind. um For me, i have to I really have to get myself off of a chair and and be like, well, I don't know, it's either this or a heroin addiction. like i don'
00:20:29
Speaker
Yeah, let's go to best path. Yeah, yeah, totally. And it's like I ah maybe I spend too much time thinking about death because that's what that That could be the driving force, but also the sort of nihilistic like, well, why?
Curiosity, Creativity, and Artistic Evolution
00:20:45
Speaker
Well, no, here's how here's part of like one of the reasons I flip. I can kind of flip it on it. is Maybe it's this comedy and such. But no, it's curiosity. So I even talked about this um in a recent episode that I did. But there was a phrase, sometimes a phrase can help capture whatever strange things in your head. And you're like, that's true. I don't know why it is, but it makes me think. And it was morbid curiosity cures the blues.
00:21:10
Speaker
And it was this this it was this magazine, ah Lauren Rhodes, who I've had on the show and she does. um is gorgeous like cemetery tours. She has some stuff about Savannah, too, where it's it's it's deep, and it's mindful, and it's everything respectful. But goodness gracious, it's morbid. Here's a book about the gravestones and and and tours around that. But there's a lot of meaning to life for me within that. And that's, I think, the the underlying thing. but
00:21:41
Speaker
um that phrase, that magazine, in reading these strange stories that were like, why am I reading the morbid curiosity? But you felt better too. And yeah how do you explain that? I don't know. It helped my head get through like some of that stuff or going back or it's just a spooky story. And there's something about inhabiting that space, like, and being like, I'm curious about this because, well,
00:22:08
Speaker
Like that horror movie that shows things in particular ways. I have some morbid curiosity to see like, what the heck? Yeah. that Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. ah Yeah, it's kind of I guess my what comes to my mind right now is um my, my son is a really into cars. He's seven. And he convinced me to download this game.
00:22:31
Speaker
and it's It's a lot of fun, but the only purpose of the game is to crash cars. like We just destroy, and it's delightful, and it's a lot of fun.
00:22:42
Speaker
Like why are we so delighted by? this um delighted and so okay It's what you feel good that and like I mean obviously like we would both be actually horrified by real-life car crashes, but yeah so Putting your brain here for a moment and just destroying cars in a virtual space is wonderful I know I there's something there's something about that. um ah Yeah, talking about, ah you know, philosophy and some of the some of the cool ears, I think there's something about the artist, like I said, and like, you know, finite amount of time if we think about in that way to create and do and everything yeah can feel super, um super important. I wanted to ask you deliberately a question I ask is um the role of art and
00:23:36
Speaker
We're recording in 2025 here. I add the question, or just to mix it, is the role of art change? Or is art just, we're talking right now, you and I, is art, art in the way it has, or is something going on differently about its role? Has the role of art changed? I gotta think it has, I mean,
00:24:02
Speaker
I guess my I'm jumping from era to era. If you were to go to the Renaissance, like I don't want to pretend like I'm a scholar of the Renaissance. No, that's fine. We're talking about a good podcast here. yeah we don't have yeah yeah But if you were an artist, you were a you had a patron, you had a you had the the pope paying for a sculpture, or whatever the fuck. yeah yeah you know that That was a that was ah status in society who had that role. And now I'm thinking, yeah, in 2025, everybody's a goddamn artist. I mean, if if you have a TikTok account, you're an artist. And um and that sounds really cynical, but like,
00:24:43
Speaker
I don't mean for it to be. like it i think it's I think everybody should try and investigate their mind through creative acts. and um ah Who's to say? Part of the underneath these questions, people say there's who's to say, but who's to say sometimes? Yeah, exactly. and i mean It's actually and jumping from the Renaissance to TikTok and you know how to how did a serfs and peasants and the whatever, the 1500s,
00:25:10
Speaker
How did they satisfy themselves? and i i i i don't know i don't i don't Like I said, I'm not enough of a scholar to say what life was like for a regular person in the Renaissance, ah but um I imagine you had other sources of joy that were ah less burdened by the I don't know, the the constant demands for your attention that we have today. And there was probably a simplicity to life and living in existence that were just, I don't know, making a a few quick little crafts for your family or the people around you was ah was satisfying enough.
The Evolving Role of Art and Content
00:25:49
Speaker
um And yeah, today we, it feels like maybe we're
00:25:55
Speaker
We find ourselves so trapped inside of yeah you know corporate business boxes and sitting in front of computers and ben doing what feels like menial tasks that you have to find another thing to remind yourself that you are a human being and not just like a dog that's pushed through. um but So yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's a maybe it's a TikTok account. Maybe it's a k craft project.
00:26:17
Speaker
um I find it interesting that we we started using the word content instead of art. That was admonished by somebody. It was a good wake-up call a few weeks ago. said Don't say that shit. Don't say content? Don't say content. you know like It was more of like it was more of ah the idea. It was just distributive like distributive in the system. It felt reductionist. so I don't know.
00:26:48
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it really does. um It does feel like it does feel like ah I don't know what I'm trying to say, like a point, like a content. It's a thing that we pile up, like, and instead of focusing or existing or trying to be present with, it it becomes this sort of metric instead of ah an experience, I guess. Does that make sense? said There maybe is like ah just looking at it in a particular way of of it of it piling up.
00:27:16
Speaker
around right but yeah like found that idea. ah Yeah, for for sure. I um i think you know we have a ah greater democratic access to you know platforms and such. and even this like Talk about a podcast. right It's curious <unk> a curious thing. like I'm in the same way where all these called the distributors say to creators saying,
00:27:41
Speaker
Yo, you can have our platforms and runways and it's all beautiful through us. And here's my free stuff, which I've always done a DIY independent podcast. But you also see the business aspects of what's going on with podcasts. Like if every if the demographic showing that like podcasts are what?
00:28:03
Speaker
humans from 15 to 30 listen to in the US over a lot of other things, then your old thinking is, you know, so like something is going on in podcast, but it's this kind of like commerce. I've listened to podcasts lately, sometimes they sound like they have too many commercials. It's worse than radio. And I'm like, wow, that happened quick. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's interesting because I've always felt like when creating stuff,
00:28:32
Speaker
especially nowadays, what's been driven even in film school at SCAD, what's been driven into my head is say it short, say it tight, do it quick, get to the thing quick. um I perform improv comedy and like my my method of doing improv is like get to the bit quick, hit it as many times and then wrap it up and then start a new one. yeah It's a very kind of thing. Sorry, why was I talking about that?
00:28:55
Speaker
ah Yeah, yeah. Oh, with a podcasting. Yeah. I'm like, I would think that your your instinct would be to quickly slide in like say an advertisement or some sort of monetization method that is just yeah in and out. But yeah, some of these ad breaks are five minutes long. And I'm um like, you you have to realize your listeners If they're actually paying attention, they're skipping over. its But well um there there clearly is a a method there that's working in terms of monetization where it it goes the opposite of what my brain would instinctually think, which is quick and fast.
Humor in Art and Audience Engagement
00:29:29
Speaker
This is long and developed. and you know Yeah, on the quick and fast, I was thinking about that because on the your bits, you mentioned the some the show bits. and there's there's ah there's ah
00:29:42
Speaker
There's a purity or simplicity in there in that too. so like even did this Just looking at it that way, the discrete art objects that you're making are part of our the songs that are in a mind. Many people you know within the culture, hearing songs, and they fit within like that ecosystem, but there's a simplicity in ah in and and the irony in the and the laugh. It's all so quick there. and I think that's so effective, you know, like when you're talking about your training, for me, it'd be like sometimes the technical training could be so much whereas I need the creativity, but that technical training you have shows in what you're looking for, for like, there it is. There's the art piece right there. Yeah, and I guess maybe it's just the
00:30:29
Speaker
if If I were a person who had some grand vision that was like, no you have to sit with i need I need your time, I need your attention, I need and need you to sit down and focus. ah that's ah That's a challenge, especially when people are flicking their thumbs up on just too many things needing their attention.
Existential Questions and Buddhist Philosophy
00:30:49
Speaker
You have to get it really quick. And so I think ah part of the success of ShowBits is the fact that like I have to grab somebody literally in the first second. it's I'm also on TikTok, and you can see where like people's attention drops off. People are swiping to the next thing, and this is not exaggeration, within the first second, about 50% of the time.
00:31:12
Speaker
And so everything, everything that's first. It's a thing in our brain that is just responding to like, no, the better dopamine hit is just a thumb flick away. And I think you're getting more like, you're getting a ah tiny bit more dopamine from that like possibility than the actual interaction from the thing. Does that make sense? like It does if we leave it there. Oh my god. Yeah. I think we got a part two on that subtle point. of I mean, it's kind of dark and depressing, but like, I don't know, that's just and that that's what you're trying to grab is people's little, you know, brain chemicals ah quickly. and And it's the impacts of that. I think, um I don't know, there's something
00:32:07
Speaker
about what you create. I mean, it's weird to create a podcast for me, you know, like, I think, I think yeah it's expanded out and to have the ability to have these conversations, but also to recognize how idiosyncratic these conversations are becoming, right? Like being able to discuss and talk about these questions that
00:32:31
Speaker
what is art is neatly monetized into like oh wow that's a great experience of thinking about thinking yeah yeah you know so it's it's uh exploratory in that way and i i love creativity um uh i love creativity for that i wanted to ask you the big big big question of the show, which probably gets back to the heart of it all. Life, death, existence. ah Title of the show. Right. Why is there something rather than nothing? I'm afraid I don't really have like a a good sexy answer for that. I think that that question is ah
00:33:09
Speaker
is it a trap that conscious creatures have. Does that make sense? like what Why is there something rather than nothing? That's not a thing that like ah tigers on the savannah are pondering. they're It's just I mean, I, I don't, I, that's like, I'm saying that luxury. You what? It could be. bourgeois luxury Exactly. I, I kind of think so a little bit like, it's good and it's just like, I don't know. It sounds like a, my answer, which is like, it's just, it's a brute fact that something exists. I guess it can't it feels like it's going against critical thought. You know, I want to forever explore that question, but, uh,
00:33:52
Speaker
that It's also just maybe not really a question that exists outside of our own minds. and Existence and something is just a brute fact. I don't know I I think on these did One of the solutions which is absolutely not a solution, but it's a solution for philosopher I think is in the Buddhist tradition the unanswerable questions. There were questions of this like what came first There's a god what yeah like these questions and basically at least as part of the you know a traditional doctrine within the Buddhist tradition was like Yo
00:34:26
Speaker
don't go crazy over in that field. yeah yeah yeah like like but you know yeah Not minimize the question, but say, okay, you want to get into those questions, they are categorically unanswerable. so long yes totally and i mean i and I think it's ah part of the joy of being a human and a consciousness and everything is ah ah pondering that question and thinking, and and he again, finding the the tension and anxiety that lies at the heart of just being a person who has to face their own mortality. um it It makes me think of, ah there's a friend of mine, who's a comedian, David Huntsberger, he made these really funny comics. And one was like a depiction of,
00:35:13
Speaker
a It's like a bunch of scientists looking in at like a robot who had just hung himself, and they're all cheering and high-fiving because they they made a consciousness like self-aware. Now they knew they had. and like the moment yeah me cu yeah right right the The moment they created sentience,
00:35:37
Speaker
that sentience wanted to die and they're like we did it it's like uh so i don't know in terms of addressing why is there something rather you mentioned buddhism like it it i i try to spend i don't know if i would call it buddhist but i try to spend a lot of time in meditation and part of that is just um Acknowledging the fact that the thing that I call myself is a complete illusion that perhaps yes is Manufactured and made up and that that illusion is the one that is burdened by the question. Why is there something rather than nothing? Jeez, you unlock the key there. Yeah, I know I know I know the I know that did I think even just dropping down at the Buddhist no thing like not empty of
00:36:27
Speaker
empty of inherent existence, empty of thinginess, that critique, ah that that outlook, it really
Community and the Shared Experience of Art
00:36:37
Speaker
appeals to me. But I think you're right, attachment to the question pursuit of it. Heck, I'm almost 300 episodes in, Aaron, and I'm not closer to the answer. So, hey, there's your empirical proof. You say, hey, you can't stay out there, but he you know he's got some good stuff, but I don't think he has any.
00:36:54
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like that's what you know, when we when we ah create the the ego and You and I chat over a ah ah a computer ah and talk about that question the The illumination and the thoughts and the the things that sprout out of that question are what I don't know keeps me living that's right its Hey, um, uh Everybody talking to Aaron Kiter and um Aaron, can you can you tell folks ah deliberately? I mean, part of this is I really want folks to see the show bits and to see ah your creativity when somebody asks about, you know, your your your art, you know, what you do. How do how do you share it? what Would you let let the audience know about?
00:37:40
Speaker
I mean, Instagram is the easiest place. That's yeah at show, S-H-O-W underscore bits, B-I-T-S. It's the same tag on all the platforms. I try to keep that tag the same. um I think and I never update YouTube, but I think it's the same thing on YouTube as well. So YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, you'll find them all there. i But the most commonplace you'll find them is on Instagram because honestly because of monetization reasons. Just the the ways I've i've capitalized them thank you and the thing that was my own source of internal personal joy into a business um is easiest done on Instagram as it turns out.
00:38:21
Speaker
Oh, heck yeah. i mean for for that for i mean Folks, to check out it. It's fun, particularly if you really drop into into the music. But even if you're not familiar, it's too much. It's a great thing. And I'm glad at least you know we talk about the drives and the engines right in philosophy. yeah you know um but There is a piece where you know my coming in contact and seeing that and sharing around over here in a little like culture like here and all over the places. it I think that's what's special about art. It's pretty trippy. It's what you share with another person. that's what i mean you know if I guess I don't remember what I said about what art is earlier. but
00:39:05
Speaker
Obviously, there's a communal aspect that yeah keeps us going. it It keeps us connecting with
Art, Comedy, and Social Commentary
00:39:12
Speaker
other people. it's It's like what you share with another person is, um I don't know, it's it's a thought. It's an art piece. It's a painting. It's a movie.
00:39:21
Speaker
You know, how many how many parties have you been to where like all of a sudden you're talking about your favorite TV shows like oh, yeah It's where you it's how you connect, you know that narrative that narrative. Oh, it's you know, you know on the sports thing, you know here and there where uh you cut out everybody own little own little own little own little climate no um aaron it's been great it's been great to chat with you um i wanted to ask you one more little question if you if you indulge me on the show throughout time i uh you mentioned uh comedy stand-up comedy and i'm fascinated by stand-up comedy um for me i think
00:40:06
Speaker
um There's a decent amount of philosophers who, that's how they get their money, their convenience. What for you, for me that's, ah I'm fascinated by the courage. I truly am. Just just just me. But well yeah what's experience? well What's it like? Well, i actually, i don't I've done stand-up comedy ah a few times. And I actually i had reasonably good reactions to my my material. But most of what I've done has been improv comedy. So it's like getting up with a group of people to to to goof about and hopefully be entertaining.
00:40:44
Speaker
um But yeah, you you you mentioned the the like the comedians as like the philosophers of our time. yeah i think I think there's something to that. like you you ah they're They're the source of irony or exploring irony and and kind of ah finding the absurdities in which you know The absurdities and the dichotomies and the things that don't always fit and make sense. That's what makes them first. Even language. Language philosophers. Yeah, yeah. Not to interrupt you, but like obsession about language and how you say something. Yeah, totally. um i There was a a crossword puzzle recently. I do the New York Times crossword and it what the the ah one of the long line things was a Stephen Wright joke that was like,
00:41:33
Speaker
just simply, why is phonetically sped spelled that way? And like, like yeah yeah, it's just it's absurd that that it phonetically is spelled with a pH. So that right there is a a beautiful piece of irony that that kind of gently explores the the silly ways human brains craft meaning and thought. and Yeah. ah and Stephen Wright put in a humidifier and a dehumidifier. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That joke's got more gas in it still. Oh, yeah. and was a I remember that. I was exposed to that joke in an episode of the the kids show The Adventures of Pete and Pete when I was a kid. They did that.
00:42:20
Speaker
um But yeah, no, I mean what I I like I do improv because it's more yeah, it's communal and it's in my opinion like I'm gonna say easier to me stand-up comedy is ah You're up there by yourself and I've done it a few times to success and not so good success and I Can tell you the difference between doing a bad improv set and doing a bad stand-up set It's night. I mean like you do a bad improv set. You're like yeah I was kind of a bummer, but you're like high five and your friends and we tried
00:42:53
Speaker
Uh, you gotta you do a bad stand-up set and ah you you want to kill yourself You're like I thought this was it's what people yelling you suck and come on. Yeah yeah i I haven't experienced that necessarily but like like I really thought this would connect and uh, you know and uh Yeah, exactly. I I mean i'm i'm obviously being hyperbolic but like um Yeah, it's tough to to to Write a thing you're like, oh this this will be that exploration of irony and delight and funny Yeah, yeah and it's just told to blank stares People who go to an improv show they're rooting for you they're they're they're trying but they they want to find a reason to laugh and They they will very graciously ah At times laugh at your your poor brain connections um So I guess maybe that's the the difference but
00:43:50
Speaker
Yeah. no ah To me, improv is like ah it's a delightful way to... I don't know. It's weird because I find improv really cheesy and like silly sometimes, but it's actually like... It's as much for like the people on stage, I feel like, the you and your friends goofing off than it is for an audience you want to entertain. bro And you never know when... It's it's something screwy, like unscripted.
00:44:18
Speaker
Um, nah, well, yeah, thanks. Thanks. Uh, you know, uh, philosophy and comedians, uh, Stephen Wright and George Carlin talking about some classics. Oh, yeah. Harry Seinfeld, uh, the kind of, yeah.
00:44:34
Speaker
You know show about nothing and Yeah, I I mean yeah, I saw George Carlin and um when I was 15 and the family trip to Las Vegas of all places and oh my goodness and it was wonderful because I yeah, I Was a good moment to see this was like 2002 I think um That's wonderful to hear. I'm glad yeah so how we got that freaking George Carlin. and's freak Oh yeah, it was awesome. Like i I, you know, again, I think I described being kind of ah a listless teenager and um saying to my parents, hey, we're in my siblings, like we're we're in Vegas hanging out. George Carlin sounds like fun. And my parents were like, yeah, let's do it. and and And it was, it was a great show.
00:45:19
Speaker
ah yeah Yes, my parents love comedy, so I get the i always enjoyed it. I could hear i could hear the you know good you know Richard Pryor. Oh, yeah. To me, it was a growing up, it was a big one was David Cross.
Emotional Connections to Artworks
00:45:38
Speaker
um Yeah.
00:45:40
Speaker
i I mean, i I'd say I started college around 2003. And I loved Mr. Show. Like I watched that throughout the 90s. Mr. Show was sketch comedy. Mr. Show, everybody, if you haven't seen Mr. Show, drop in, make sure you capture those treasures. Yeah, in 2003, I was a very, like, again, in Mississippi, kind of token left of center of my community and my family politically and socially. And ah I just I 2003 I remember getting into yelling matches with my own father about the Iraq war. ah And but I was also like, I don't know, I felt like the whole everybody around me was against me and I was like, maybe I should just shut up and like
00:46:26
Speaker
I don't know, like maybe maybe I don't have all the right information and maybe I should just cool it. I'm not getting the positive reaction, these things. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, it seems so obvious to me, but maybe I'm wrong. And then I remember buying a David Cross stand-up comedy album and it was called It's Not Funny. And if you were to point to like a formative thing in my head, it was that album because it was the moments. I remember listening to it on a drive from Jackson, Mississippi to Oxford, Mississippi before I did my freshman year of college.
00:46:56
Speaker
And I was like, it was really fucking funny, really politically, socially dark. And I just remember thinking, no, I'm right. I was like, I'm actually right. i i five I thought I shared this attitude with some other people. It's good to hear that it's being validated. It's just not in my community. so Well, it's it's it's it there is something. I think that's just profoundly important. It's like if you look at a painting and and ah You never say a word about it, and the painters painted this a long time ago, but there's something about whether it's funny or morbid or strange and yeah that is, but I do know what it is a little bit, but I don't have the word for it. You have that experience of being like, somebody saw the same thing that I saw once. Is that Buddha sculpture your version of that? like ah
00:47:49
Speaker
Wow. It's such an outsized thing. It's so funny, right? Because like i going into it, there is the reverential piece, right? So like, city yeah, it's supposed to be big and everything like that. But. For me, it was so profoundly perfect because it was weathered, you know, it wasn't like like it. And was it art? You know, like we were viewing it as art and under lights and everything. i You know, it's a reverential statue. But for me,
00:48:19
Speaker
13th century from Japan. Oh, okay. That's incredible. Yeah, that's amazing. and In the scene, I was like, was it out? You know, as a kid, my brain goes, I had it to tell you this, i I got a poster of it when I was at Rhode Island School of Design one time, and my i i work I do union work during the day, well at night as well, sometimes, most of the time. um Back behind me, my yeah union office, the desk, I had that boot up for like, I don't know, like 10 years back behind it, right behind my desk. And it was that Rhode Island school. Does it just a promotional kind of nice poster? But um yeah, so profound, so profound in those. ah Because for me, as an intellectual, it's like I don't need idols, I don't need idolatry and stuff like that. But I also grew up Roman Catholic.
00:49:13
Speaker
So, you know, seeing those type of things could be a comfort that I'm like, I don't want that comfort. I don't want the candles. I think that's a wonderful thing to have. I mean, it's deeply personal to you. And ah yeah, in terms of being idle, I guess I was trying to think of my own version of that. I remember seeing ah the painting Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth. That's one of my favorites.
00:49:38
Speaker
Oh, yeah, me too. And I'd seen pictures of it and I was like, it's a beautiful painting. And then I was wondering... Go off on this painting. I'm telling you right up front, go off on this painting. Go, yeah. Oh, yeah, totally. I was wandering around MoMA and I just turned a corner and it's just like in a hallway and it's very striking and very moving and it's just the depiction of...
00:50:00
Speaker
you You see just the sort of dreary, dark scenery of a woman looking at like a like a farm building. Man, um it's been so long since I've looked at it. Building out in the distance is, I don't know what the is a hay or the long grass is around and she's reached out disabled, noted no physically disabled reaching.
00:50:26
Speaker
Yeah, and it's like I I didn't know the the history of the painting but like I just thought it was like oh It's a beauty. It's from behind of a beautiful woman staring out into this space And that it wasn't so later. I was like, oh sh she has polio like she can't walk Yeah, yeah, i'm uh, I'm literally, you know, it's really cool to bring that up because i'm literally looking at it's a small depiction but I have it over on the top of my mirror in the room. Do you really? Yeah, yeah, it's right up right up on top. And, um you know, a dress I'm looking at over there now, at least the reproduction dress is prominently white within that greenish brownish. Yeah. You know, field of of long grasses. But I saw it like you did for the first time in my life. I had adored this painting forever. i Wyeth books here and there. ah And I'd never seen.
00:51:18
Speaker
seen this world And I'm tripping around MoMA like you were, and it was within the last year or two. I've never seen it. I didn't even know it was there. I didn't even know it was there. I probably saw it in the same spot you were, and for me, I was like,
00:51:33
Speaker
so This is a weird-ass spot for this painting to be in cuz like I don't know them by my head. I was like Yes, Tina's world. it's It's just like it's out of nowhere. It's not prominently displayed and yet it's to me like one of the most moving pieces from the MoMA and i agree i think I Find that so weird Because I don't know what it is that you and I are connecting over. like there's i don't i'm ah I'm a very kind of materialist, determinist kind of guy, and I'm like, I don't know, maybe there's something there's some other dimensional aspects where I experience that. Listleness, impossibility. I don't know, there's positive readings of it too of like perseverance if you think that there's movement, but if you don't think there's movement,
00:52:18
Speaker
she's trapped yeah exactly you're just you're spending so much time thinking about a woman's experience and you're seeing the back of her head and yeah in the field yeah and the fact that like i i i love that you and i both had a similar uh impression and experience i was i was i was floored in like every once in a while so i ah Everybody goes to art museums in their own weird way. I don't go through them in any conventional way. I'll skip rooms if I know I'm not down for them right then. I'll skip areas. I'll be like and i and I'll focus or I'll explore but I was so startled like in a similar way you're saying because I was like
00:53:01
Speaker
they For me in me, in my head with the outside, like that painting, I was like, okay, like I don't know if I need a Grand Entrance or a Wizard of Oz kind of like piping bellows like, show, to like tell me that it's coming. But also being away from after, it ah being seeing it physically, the painting and being ah being able to look, I remember and looked in how he made I can't describe it, and I don't want to describe it, but the grass. The strokes. Yeah. The strokes. And looking at that and being like, oh my gosh, like it's you know I'd seen it in the books, and then it was right there. So wow. So everybody, at least they can know, with our obsession over this painting, it's at the MoMA, Christine. And you can't just walk around and be surprised by it.
00:53:50
Speaker
I'm like, maybe it's on the fourth floor. I don't know. Like, it's just tucked away. Not not tucked away. It's like on a path to somewhere else. You know, I know what it is. I might have gone and missed it. But it was not that sad
Reflections and Shared Experiences through Art
00:54:05
Speaker
story. I went and had the same experience. So we're exactly and it's like, I don't and there's a There's a mystery there of the fact that obviously we're probably not the only ones that had that experience, but like i can't I don't know what it is that ah we're all sharing. We're sharing something, and but I don't know what that is. I guess people are using the word AI a lot. ah yes ah and like i've I've messed around with AI models myself, just out of curiosity.
00:54:39
Speaker
And like you can generate some interesting imagery, but my experience with it so far is that it's just... I have no other way to put it except that it's incredibly hollow. like there's It might be kind of a striking image, but... like my experience of it just feels so empty. That's where that's where the philosophy is, right? I mean yeah think i think everything, it's in it's in if you're interested, it's in those areas because you know you're talking about an empirical or materialist in your sense, right? The things are the things or the and the colors and the whatever should be the same colors, a similar compass, but there's something
00:55:19
Speaker
Yeah, something that's not there's another dimension that where you and I are both high fiving each other on, you know, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. like Yeah. No. I final thing on the Wyeth that a friend of mine, a painter.
00:55:39
Speaker
overseas and um Well, where she where she lives they have books, but they didn't have um ah Kind of like Andrew Wyeth volumes and was really just Loved it and wanted American volumes, you know some stuff that don't be able to find around Wyeth family volumes Andrew Wyeth themselves the Hilda paintings, scandalous, yeah you know, all these all these kind of histories. And I sent a whole bunch. But it's kind of that type of. um
00:56:11
Speaker
Kind of like the deep connection to Wyeth and that type of painting that draws, you know, what is it that draws? We should talk some more of that, get a panel, get, you know, regular smarty pants like ourselves to kick that one around. Yeah, totally. Why is Christina's world have what it has in it?
00:56:33
Speaker
um Aaron Geiter, great um meeting you, talking to you on the podcast here. ah ah Everybody, home hope you hope you hope you have, ah if your listeners begin in 2025, new year recording here in the new year. And um really super glad to have met you Aaron and had the chance to to chat about shit like why this stuff like this stuff's important or like what would be all these things and right now too so I really appreciate your time and your creativity yeah absolutely I appreciate being on the show thank you so much for having me it was a joy thank you everybody check out show bits Aaron Kiter check out all his work take care thanks
00:57:28
Speaker
This is something rather than nothing.
00:57:38
Speaker
and listeners to stay connected with us in our guests visit something rather than nothingthin dot com join our mailing list for exclusive updates in access to guestc createdated art if you enjoyed this episode or any episode please like subscribe leave a review on your podcast platform people really read that shit Your support helps us reach more listeners and spread our community across the planet. This is a global show and we like to give a shout out to our many listeners across the world, including many listeners in Canada, Spain, Germany, UK, Argentina, Brazil, India, Thailand, and so many more places. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at something rather than nothing podcasts for behind the scenes content.
00:58:26
Speaker
And the best way to help the show is to tell your friends about us. If you love it, they'll love it too. Tell your friends who love it. We love you.