Austin-based artist Shawn Springs makes wooden sculptures crafted to look as if they were pixelated 8bit creatures manifested into our meat and bones world. Although his pieces normally range from leaping mahi mahi to flaming hats, it’s his latest project, Vicious Venue, that’s taken his craft to the next level. As Springs explains: “My recent work explores my interest in birds of prey as a source of conceptual inspiration and analogy. I am fascinated by vultures and the visceral way most people react to them…I asked the question, ‘What would a digital vulture eat if it was somehow trapped inside this reality?’ Vicious Venue is a sculptural installation consisting of a group of life-size pixelated vultures devouring an analog office full of obsolete technologies (like a typewriter, rolodex, and a rotary phone). The viewer becomes an intruder into the space, as if they are stumbling into the middle of the ongoing carnage as the vultures pick the office’s carcass clean.” They should make large format framed giclee prints of these images and hang them at record label and newspaper headquarters across the country, just to scare them into keeping up with the real world. Note to Motown/Universal: If you remain clutching that rusting typewriter, you just may end up getting your bones picked clean by an 8bit vulture…metaphorically speaking, of course. Either that or you can just sue some kid over RIAA copyright laws and end up looking like totally clueless dipshits. Up to you, of course…