I must say first I really like the review; I have to take issue, however,
with a couple of points which may be central to you -
"I, and others, have claimed that artists who use computers need to be
able to program."
- I strongly resist this (not because I can't program - in fact I've
programmed in basic, pascal, vb, perl, unix scripting - I just don't have
well-developed skills in these) because I think that 'need' or 'should'
have to be taken out of critique almost a priori. For example I do 'stuff'
in Second Life that involves programming - which for me also involves
copying, kludging, cheating, hacking, etc. I work with available tech and
my available knowledge as do most people I know. As far as impressionist
painters go - they might have to know nothing at all.
You say "But mastery of tools is a prerequisite for competent expression."
What is a tool? What is competency? What constitutes expression? For that
matter, what constitutes prerequisites? One of my favorite artists is Vito
Acconci who had very little of this sort of mastery, if any. I could give
other examples but the point for me is critical and something I've con-
cretely fought for at every school I've taught at - mastery is in the eye
of power, the eye literally of the _master,_ and that's a stranglehold.
The two best teachers I've ever seen (with records of students doing
amazingly well for that matter) taught no 'skills' of this sort at all -
I'm thinking of Lutz Presser in Australia and David Askevold at NSCAD.
David's classes were free-for-alls - you learned what you wanted to learn
and learned enough to do what you wanted to do, and that was it. Some of
his students were showing at Dokumenta.
You mention "A hacker and free software activist I know asked me what
exactly makes the Microcodes code listings art (interestingly, they didn't
ask why they are code) - but why would they be art in the first place?"
Part of your answer is "Firstly, the text of each program listing is
short enough to be taken in as a single visual composition. When presented
under the claim that they are art they therefore fall into the tradition
of conceptual text-as-art." - well there's a lot of cnoceptual art that
worked from the beginning with dispersed texts - this was important in
feminist work such as that of Nancy Kitchel, not to mention groups like
the N.E. Thing Co. which had a conceptual basis.
I feel you're drawing all sorts of distinctions; where you might see these
as openings to work, I see them as barriers. I really appreciate your
analysis of the microcodes - it's brilliant - and your description of the
environment they're produced within - but the idea that a particular level
of knowledge is necessary to create a 'valid' work of {x}-art, fill it in
as you please, is really anathema to me. The great thing about the net is
how open it is; the idea, for example of net.art always seemed behind the
times with its exclusivity. I think programming can be anything from
machine language to somebody typing 'date' at the prompt - what's
important is how it means to a viewer, whether the viewer's moved by it,
and so forth.
- Alan
On Fri, 3 Jul 2009, Rob Myers wrote:
> On 03/07/09 15:20, james morris wrote:
>> Hi Pall,
>>
>> I've got to admit that I've had trouble too, understanding your
>> MicroCodes. Sometimes I think I get it, other times I read what you've
>> written and think I've been misunderstanding.
>
> I reviewed Pall's earlier Microcodes for Furtherfield, which may provide
> a different angle on them -
>
> http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=337
>
> - Rob.
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>
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