Dark Art: The Changing Face of Public Relations

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If Dark Art is a genre then it would allow us to include those elements of historical work that seem to fit within it, absorbing Mayan death gods, Munch’s The Scream, and Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. It invokes dangerous forces, beings, and entities which are impossible to control once released, and which tend to hold a grudge about being forced into service — if they were ever really under the user's control to begin with and not just giving them the rope to hang themselves with. Dark magic in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic appears to be this since even Twilight Sparkle, who is very knowledgable on the subject, was surprised by it when Princess Celestia uses it to demonstrate the threat King Sombra poses in the Season 3 Premiere. Twilight herself manages to use it later, but it does not look anything less than painful to even cast .

With this movie standing as a kind of ouroboros of Dark Art, both inspired by and inspiring artists, should we consider the movie itself a work of Dark Art? Avatar: The Last Airbender and its Sequel Series The Legend of Korra have Bloodbending which lets user control water in a body of another person turning him/her into a Human Puppet. This technique is mostly seen as morally questionable, because it takes away victim’s freedom and violates his/her body. Almost every known Bloodbender seems to use it for sinister purposes (Hama kidnaps innocent villagers, Tarrlok forces Korra out of the city, Yakone used it to try and conquer the city, Amon/Noatak used it to remove people's bending) and only one that doesn’t (Katara) has to be forced to learn it, because she is terrified and disgusted at a very thought of using it on another human being. She does use it again when she's in an especially bad place mentally.All the products end up Going Horribly Wrong, or worse, Horribly Right. Robots rebel, resurrections are botched, superpowers cause insanity and death. Basically, if you can build a Fantastic Aesop out of it, it's this. A trait that seems common amongst the artists interviewed on the Dark Art Society podcast is that they have felt like outsiders. It is clear that in recognising Dark Art as a distinct entity, it creates a psychologically valuable sense of belonging. The value of this can create a desire to include all things held creatively dear to the artists involved, or to ensure that all artists interested in Dark work are included within the category. However, definitions are vital to the discussion and development of a subject, and definitions are created by exclusion. To define what Dark Art is, we must be clear about what it is not. In Pact, Diabolism is seen as this because making a Deal with the Devil tends to cause damage to the world itself and nothing good comes from it. Demonology in general is seen as a dangerous, risky and best avoided field of study. The line between demonology (using demons) and infernalism (being used by demons) is thin, it is easier to summon a demon than to control it or to banish it, and during the First Age the sorcerers of the whole world had to to gather for a great feast every Calibration night just to make sure none of them attempted the dreaded ritual to summon a Third Circle demon (which can only be done during that night).

With both of these artists rising to prominence in the 1960s and 70s, we are well served to look to other cultural changes happening in the west around this time. The rapid expansion of counter cultures in this time period (notably the freak, hippy, and punk trends) were rooted in questioning of authority and saw collective cultural fear, which is most readily identified by studying the production of horror movies, shift from the terrors of mad science, to fears centred in society itself. Depiction of possession, cults, serial killers, and zombies started to rise as the monster became an invading force from within. Basically, The Dark Arts are any science, discipline, magic, or martial combat style note (or all of the above, as a Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot of Supernatural Martial Arts and Crafts From Technology) that is deemed by society in general and the establishment in particular as a Bad Idea. ® (For some reason, actual artistic techniques are rarely considered a Dark Art (though the Wax Museum Morgue comes pretty darn close.)

Examples:

Although other magic schools serve to light people on fire or freeze them alive, hurt or even kill them by tormenting them with visions and so on.