Hi and thanks for the list - some comments interspersed - Alan
A few comments - On Thu, 15 Apr 2010, Rob Myers wrote: > 43 Dodgy Statements on Computer Art ? Brian Reffin Smith > > 1. The sadness of most art is that it does not know its future. The > sadness of computer art is that it does not know its past. > Sadness for whom? And why should one know the past - unless art is necessarily based on irreproducible 'progress.' > 3. If it looks just like, you know, ?art??it probably isn't. > Why? - unless art is necessarily definition-based. > 4. Using state-of-the-art technology merely produces > state-of-the-technology art. > This is just silly, unless the art is making a statement about the state-of-the-art of a bit of technology. > 5. Those who use computers to make art need to understand art as well as > computers. NO! They don't need to understand anything. All these "need"s. > > 6. Most participative art is deeply authoritarian. Why? That hasn't been my experience at all. > 7. The computer is best characterised not as an information processor but > as a general-purpose representation processor. > Literally, it's best not to characterize the computer. > 8. Marshall McLuhan, at least as filtered through his sound-bites, was > often wrong. The medium is not the message, which is more often determined > socially and psychologically by the recipient. Yes, I think he was aware of that; it's not what was meant by the statement - it wasn't reduction, it was about the phenomenology of communications and its shaping by communications channels. > 11. Are you pushing the frontiers of computational representation, or of > contemporary art? Confusion rarely leads to success. > Why should you push anything when you make art? > 14. Post Modernism has never said that everything is of equal value, just > that the contexts in which we identify or attribute value should be open to > analysis. > Yes - and this is an error a lot of paper make, also in relation to decon. > 15. You know your amazing new computer art, rich in metaphors and > analogies? It's been done. Years ago. Without a computer. > But so what? Why this constant emphasis on 'progress'? > 16. We lose dimensions and scale. The computer in art is immediate and > almost always, however "global", local. Just as no well-found art school > would be complete without computers, so every such institution should have > a telescope and a microscope, connected to the computer or not. > As well as basic courses in physics and cosmology. > 17. Making computer art too dangerous to sponsor would be a good way to > go. For whom? > 18. Just as everyone has a novel inside them, many believe they have an > artwork. The purpose of a good art school is to seek out these people and > stop them. > This might be seen as a bit elitist; NSCAD had the opposite philosophy and the results were amazing. > 19. Using a computer merely to access the web is like using a Bugatti > Veyron to deliver the papers. No, it just means someone's using a computer to access the web. > 20. Many people think that graphic design is art. Art is undertaken for > art-like reasons, graphic design for graphic design-like reasons. There may > of course be overlap. There should never be confusion. > Personally, the confusion doesn't bother me - there are too many 'shoulds' and 'needs' in the list. > 21. Making the (arts) information revolution consists not only in enabling > the control of the means of computer art production by art workers, but > also in being kind, non-gouging and relatively honest. Without the latter, > one may doubt commitment to the former. > Some of the best or worst art (by whose judgment?) might well be utterly dishonest. > 22. The best interactive art always makes you look at the participants. There goes tetris! > 23. There is only one thing worse than studying art for the budding > computer artist, and that is to study computers. Or vice versa. > I have no idea why - in fact we held a conference in West Virginia precisely on the mix and how to do the opposite. > 24. Art is not craft. Another stricture. Of course it can be. > > 25. What would be pretentious or nonsensical if one said it oneself does > not become more worthy when spoken by a computer-generated avatar. > Totally agree here! > 28. There is no "normal" computer art, in the Kuhnian sense. It is in > constant revolution, hence constantly evading scrutiny. > It seems overly scrutinized to me, and in the list here, overly determined. > 29. When the first solitary Metro station was built in Paris, where could > people travel to? They just admired the station. Is this true? Were there tracks? > 30. Bugs are good; as with fireflies, the fertile ones shed light. > Yes. (Fireflies aren't bugs btw.) > 34. When art processes happen near-instantaneously, doing art becomes > synonymous with correction and selection, later with celebration; rarely > with creativity. > This leaves out every musical improvisation in the world. > 38. The purpose of the computer in art is to render it difficult and > problematic, not easy. > There is no purpose at all; again, it depends on what you want to do. > 41. Of course computers and other devices will never fully understand > flowing, allusive conversation. But they won't care. > Beautiful! > 42. Many of the ?objects? of computer art are instances, illustrations, of > some less tangible, invisible process. But it may be that the waveform > should remain uncollapsed, the artwork staying undecideable, problematic, > unobjectified. Lucy R. Lippard described the ?dematerialization of the art > object? nearly 40 years ago. > Not to mention the generation/completion of deities in Tibetan tantrism. - Alan _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
