About Apes

About Our Apes

The SmokeApes Mission.


  To say that this project began a few years ago would be incorrect. This is a convergence of compassion and meditative reflection, even (especially) upon the path ahead. Each of our apes started their path in a unique way, at a unique time and at a distinct place. Misfits under duress.

  For some of these misfits, the world is rife with falsehood and treachery, worst of all, the false and treacherous self... and yet we must persist bravely. Some of us cannot push ourselves toward the material and, so, struggle with worth and validation. Others see entire thrones un-occupied and wonder why our culture doesn't put anybody in such lofty seats anymore.

Each in our own way, pilgrims, in our own lands foreign.

  Once, though, a group of these pilgrims (with the most peculiar views) coalesced as one from their scattered paths and helped change their society in a very drastic way. Through heat and monsoon and danger they worked for a new freedom of their own design.



  In their off-hours they meditated deeply on the nature of society. Each had their own secret tomes, multiple odd lifetimes of ubiquitous observations each encoded uniquely.



  It was clear that between them was a new way to understand the monkey race. Though the topic was obtuse, they toiled and toiled through inconsequence and through their own remembrances. Of the far future and the distant past and all the stuff in between.

That is a lot to keep track of!




  Thankfully this group of minds were able to boil down those ideas and visions and, with much effort, our framework to observe the singularity was built. Now there is much newfound light and darkness to explore through a custom prism articulated by our team (but possibly already being used by millions).

It's a prism that we call SmokeApes.



...What sort of light and darkness, you ask? What should we expect from this production, you ask?

  We answer that the human world is changing, ever quicker. The very fundamental substance of what it means to dream seems somehow 'up in the air', open to review. We will cast our lens upon that changing world and see it anew through fun pop art. The sort of stuff you can put on your body -and- put in your mind, to help you feel better prepared.



  What you'll be dreaming about, what the future will make real, what you could have had in another causality, and the consequence of the actions of man, ever faster and ever compounding... all of this are but logs on our fire. We will look deep into this red hot nerdy furnace of interest and do our best to share what we see. Sometimes it's sci-fi, sometimes it's fantasy, sometimes it's goofy or non-sequitur, even fan art! Sometimes our visions are without context, ready for you to insert your own. 


  One of these days our constant limiting (as a species) of unknown potentiate through rigid observation will force us to observe an extinction-level catastrophe (already underway?) and all we are made of that is digital will be at ultimate risk. One of these days all this.. the site, the sketchbook files, the .psd's and all the rest... will be gone, but the swag will persist. It'll be back to the paper and markers with me, and back to the picture books with you. Until then, we'll continue to share the prism as we have discovered it, one measurement at a time.



   ...What nightmares, what dreams may come, you regularly ask the universe? What expectations should humans keep? You'll never know, but Smokeapes can offer this message to all who sail the storm:

Your only hope is to keep dreaming faster than the chaos of reality drinks it, drinks YOU, up. Either way, you'll be glad you have shirts.


Lo, lamenting, a monkey blessed with twisted sight, thirsting for the timeless universe, cursed with shame and emptiness. He could only ever borrow, even life and soul a loan. Then did Smokeapes adopt him, and teach him to fill himself and to be proud. Verily, his visions were then put to toil.