I agree in spirit Simon, but in naming and identifying things, we help develop ways of talking about and sharing knowledge of emerging practices. Even if these terms are necessarily deficient in terms of capturing some of the ineffable and affective experience of work.
best wishes Tom Simon Biggs wrote: > I hardly have the energy to read your post in detail Rob. This is not > a criticism of what you have written but due to my lack of tolerance > for arguments over terminology. When I see an essay seeking > nomenclatures for novel practices I tend to turn off. They rarely > contribute to either the practice or its critical contextualisation. > > Borges had the right idea about this when developing his > classification of dogs. I like the category of “dogs that lick up > spilt milk”. > > Best > > Simon > > > Simon Biggs > > Research Professor > edinburgh college of art > [email protected] > www.eca.ac.uk > > *C*reative *I*nterdisciplinary *R*esearch into *C*o*L*laborative > *E*nvironments > CIRCLE research group > www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ > > [email protected] > www.littlepig.org.uk > AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > *From: *Rob Myers <[email protected]> > *Reply-To: *NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity > <[email protected]> > *Date: *Wed, 20 Jan 2010 08:08:34 -0500 > *To: *NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity > <[email protected]> > *Subject: *[NetBehaviour] Is There Any Such Thing As Digital Art? > > http://www.aesthetics-online.org/articles/index.php?articles_id=43 "My > main disagreement with Lopes concerns his claim that there is no > digital art form and the reasoning that leads him thereby to conclude > that the computer art form must be interactive. Art kinds for Lopes > are simply kinds of art, groups of artworks that share some feature in > common: Tuesdayartworks (artworks made on Tuesdays) are one such kind. > Appreciative art kinds are defined thus: “a kind is an appreciative > art kind just in case we normally appreciate a work in the kind by > comparison with arbitrarily any other works in that kind” (Lopes 2010: > 17). Being an appreciative art kind is necessary but not sufficient > for being an art form: there are other appreciative art kinds, such as > genres like horror, which cross different art forms. Digital art is > not an art form because it is not an appreciativeart kind; for we > don’t normally appreciate a digital artwork by comparing it with > arbitrarily any other digital artwork: we don’t appreciate, say, > digital paintings by comparing them with digital musical works. > Digital paintings are appreciated in comparison to other, often > non-digital paintings; digital musical works are appreciated in > comparison to other, often non-digital musical works. Those computer > artworks that are digital artworks therefore do not belong to a > digital art form, because there is nosuch form (Lopes 2010: 18). By > parity of reasoning there is no computer artform that embraces > non-interactive and interactive works, for digital non-interactive > computer works do not fall under a common art form that could be a > type of computer art." Does anyone use "digital art" to refer to > anything other than visual art? Except when trying to create a problem > that doesn't exist using plain language philosophy? ;-) There is no > "wrought metal art" but there are sculptures, typewriters that novels > are written on, and trumpets that music is played on. If you refer to > wrought metal in a cultural context you're probably referring to > sculpture. And this doesn't mean that trumpets or typewriters don't > exist or that they have to go on plinths. ;-) - Rob. > _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing > list [email protected] > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > > Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number > SC009201 > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
