So, Hmmm, struggle to come to grips with this months (time of the month) subject matter. John Beasley ,thank you, you artist, you sculptor, you really nailed what has been bothering me about Pirsig's statement that "Rotisserie assembly is actually a long-lost branch of sculpture". As a washed out chemistry major turned computer engineer, iconolastic cranky bastard Harley rider I have at least one blind spot :) With so much to admire in Pirsig's writings, I tend to get out the pedastal and forget that he too can be full of bullshit about certian facts. So here is my apology to Pirsig for the pedastal and a jumble of thoughts on this month's subject. ART and Technology, which came first the chicken or the egg? The oldest known ART artifact that can be traced down via the Web is a Venus figure the Berekhat Ram figurine. This rock is about 300,000 years old according to the authors. Look it up and read about it, the important part for this discussion is the age. Now, talking it over with my wife, another computer engineering professional, she pointed out an very obvious flaw in trying to set the stage for the beginnings of ART, no one, me included, can set a beginning point date at which a prehuman stuck a flower or feather in her hair to attract a moment of attention, or a hunter came back to the group smeared with blood to show off the kill. So when did ART begin? For us primates (Homo sapien sapien) with our precursors at least 300,000 years ago. When did ART begin in the mystic model of searching for absolutes? Well, I sure don't know the answer to that one, but if you twist my arm and I have to guess, when did we say the universe? began, about 15,000,000,000 years ago, give or take an epoch or two, so my quess is sometime before that event ART existed within Quality. What is ART you ask? Well, go find out, the Web offers all kinds of definations, mostly unsatifactory. Or ask an Artist, I know I did while we were diagnosing his crashed system. Gary, pots, sculpts, draws, writes, designs, did I mention ask a world class artist? Thirty minutes into overload, what I picked out is, "most ART is crap today because people are encouraged to believe from day one that their finger paint smears are "just beautiful" and this lack of critique in education in Art produces a rootless hollow result of semiskilled somewhat drifting misbeleiving people that don't know anything else than what they have been taught and call themselves artists". An engineer would say that the process today in creating artists has no negative feedback loop to control and discourage the creation of crap art and encourage the creative aspects of best art. Anyway Gary's harddrive is trash. We'll replace the beast on Monday. Technology residue is being found that shows a connection between rocks, edges, flakes and large animal scavenging that dates to about 2,400,000 years. Some modern day recreationists have used hand made tools of stone chipped and flaked to field dress an elephant, seems to corelate quite nicely with the chipped stone tools found in the digs around 2.4 Mil year old elephant fossils in africa. So to the Web and look up stone tools, technology etc, fasination personified in the reads. Now once again, no one can say that prehuman1 didn't grab a handy rock or branch or horn to use in the negiotiation with prehuman2 over a mate, a place to sleep or nice grub_nummy, a long time before the 2.4Million year mark. What is Technology you ask? Excellent sites out there that point to technology as a directed activity resulting to solve a specific problem. One or two do a great job of defining technology. So hunter, go hunt, seek the answers. So where in the hell is all this going? Aristole is a real late comer to the art/technology split for Homo sapien sapien. As a matter of opinion on my part, technology is the egg and art is the preexisting chicken. It appears that the chicken did not appear on the scene for a couple of million years after the egg, give or take. Prehumans made and used tools to survive and genes propagated that encouraged more tool use. Nicely fits with MOQ don't it? At some point ART appeared, it seems that it is first associated with magic, godness, the success of the hunt, Shaminism, three levels of hullunican, which is cross time cross cultural, take some peoyote and you too can see the six fundamental elements graphically inscribed in our Homo sapien sapien wiring, go a little further and see pictures, go further yet and become a part connected within the thinking scene internal and external. Cave art is trail of fasination all on its own. So where is all this babbling going without apology to anyone but Pirsig? Summary: Pirsig ain't always right. Technology can be best and technology can be piss poor. Art can be best and art can be piss poor. Homo sapien sapien distinguises between Art and Technology based on the Homo sapien sapien. Imagine an Arky bindfolded, handed a basket full of venomous snakes mised in pieces of rope having to tie a rope ladder to get down out of a tree that is on fire. Now laugh. Only the Best of thoughts to all. bens MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
