[NetBehaviour] Fwd: [CAS] 43 Dodgy Statements on Computer Art – Brian Reffin Smith
Original Message Subject: [CAS] 43 Dodgy Statements on Computer Art – Brian Reffin Smith Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2010 08:20:40 +1000 From: Paul Brown p...@paul-brown.com To: c...@jiscmail.ac.uk Reply-To: Computer Arts Society c...@jiscmail.ac.uk, Paul Brown p...@paul-brown.com 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. 2. Constraint is liberty; reduce to the maximum. 3. If it looks just like, you know, ‘art’…it probably isn't. 4. Using state-of-the-art technology merely produces state-of-the-technology art. 5. Those who use computers to make art need to understand art as well as computers. 6. Most participative art is deeply authoritarian. 7. The computer is best characterised not as an information processor but as a general-purpose representation processor. 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. 9. If your system costs 10 000 € and mine 30 000 €, it does not follow that my art is thrice as good as yours. 10. In an ideal world, New Media institutions would employ at least one non-technological artist. 11. Are you pushing the frontiers of computational representation, or of contemporary art? Confusion rarely leads to success. 12. 99% of computer art is meretricious nonsense. But then 99% of everything is meretricious nonsense. 13. Self-imposed formal requirements are not inhibitive of expression. 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. 15. You know your amazing new computer art, rich in metaphors and analogies? It's been done. Years ago. Without a computer. 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. 17. Making computer art too dangerous to sponsor would be a good way to go. 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. 19. Using a computer merely to access the web is like using a Bugatti Veyron to deliver the papers. 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. 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. 22. The best interactive art always makes you look at the participants. 23. There is only one thing worse than studying art for the budding computer artist, and that is to study computers. Or vice versa. 24. Art is not craft. 25. What would be pretentious or nonsensical if one said it oneself does not become more worthy when spoken by a computer-generated avatar. 26. Seen in the light of Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle, computer art is very spectacular indeed. 27. Beware of computer art as farce repeating itself as history. 28. There is no normal computer art, in the Kuhnian sense. It is in constant revolution, hence constantly evading scrutiny. 29. When the first solitary Metro station was built in Paris, where could people travel to? They just admired the station. 30. Bugs are good; as with fireflies, the fertile ones shed light. 31. The Prix Pierre Gutzman, 100 000 Francs, was offered by the Institut de France in 1906 to the first person who could establish contact with extra-terrestrials; except with Martians, which would be too easy. 32. ‘All that is solid floats into air’ is not a celebration of virtuality, but Marx 'n' Engels' prediction for late capitalism. 33. A half developed Polaroid photo is different to half a digital photo. A half-finished pen-plotter drawing is different to a half-finished inkjet print. 34. When art processes happen near-instantaneously, doing art becomes synonymous with correction and selection, later with celebration; rarely with creativity. 35. Art is visual philosophy. But computer art is not visual computer philosophy. 36. Revolutionary modes of interaction between humans and normative structures do not a revolution make. 37. 'i', the imaginary square root of minus 1, is to the real numbers as the computer is — or should be — to art. 38. The purpose of the computer in art is to render it difficult and problematic, not easy. 39. We do not admire Picasso's Guernica or Goya's The Third of May
Re: [NetBehaviour] Fwd: [CAS] 43 Dodgy Statements on Computer Art – Brian Reffin Smith
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 needs. 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
