On Thu, 30 Jan 2014, Rob Myers wrote:
On 27/01/14 09:02 PM, Alan Sondheim wrote:
I have the feeling that A&L _believed_ in _art_ as a category and I
think that the term/domain is increasingly problematic. Aesthetic
feeling doesn't necessarily imply 'art' and art, I think, has moved from
a discursive formation, in many ways, to a system of competitive
corporate structures. Even so, there's no longer an 'art world' - if
there ever was - but 'art worlds' - the family of usages again. So to
reify art as a category seems either a bit senseless, or bound to
particular notions of art history.
A&L mentioned the old non-definition of art as "middle sized dry goods",
so they didn't believe the category to be unproblematic. I think they
were/art good Marxists who were/are critiquing the site of class
struggle that they found themselves working in as it was constructed in
their historical era. I find their later interest in genre interesting,
as I think genre survives even if nothing or everything is art.
I had a lot of problems with A&L, especially what I felt was the
exclusionary density of their prose; there was definitely something
elitist about their theory and writing. If anything, at least for me, they
were hegemonic themselves.
"The Art World" of auction houses and blue chip galleries insists that
it is now hegemonic. I think that class is the determinant here, the art
that the rich invest in storing and preserving is the art that will be
seen and will last.
I agree with you but there's the other pull of art fairs worldwide which
are on the increase, as well as again all sorts of categories, people
investing in Native American art for example; even within the hegemonic,
there are pulls. In any case, this qua artworld is certainly something I
don't have to worry about personally!
I like reifying art as a category *within a given historical context* in
order to play with the results. I do like all sorts of things that
neither the artworld or the general public would recognize as art. So
maybe I'm just arguing from personal preference. :-)
I think just about everything is recognized as art by someone - biofilms,
telephone pole insulators, and so forth. I also want to deconstruct
"historical context" - I was around for example in the 60s anti-war
movement, but my context vis-a-vis that "movement" was wildly different
from anyone else's and vice-versa; I can't imagine the singularity or even
a recognizable description of "context" here. I've read histories of that
period, personal reminiscences, and they're wildly different, fractured.
I like meme generators as an example of this, a second-time-as-farce of
the idea of everyone as an artist.
Yes, but not farce for a lot of people -
It's possible to structure objects to more strongly encourage aesthetic
reactions [within a particular sociohistorical environment] and to
instrumentalize this. I don't want to mention peak shift and I enjoy
neuroaesthetics rather than finding it useful, but I think it is
possible to intentionally produce instrumental aesthetic fetishes or
sex-toy-equivalents. I'd happily testify in court that if there were
such a thing as artworks, these might number among them.
I'm not sure I'm following you re: neuroaesthetics and peak shift. I
certainly agree with you here, thinking of Hans Bellmer for example who
occupy an intermediary position.
I'm wary of the structurelessness or gentlmanly-gaze-iness of an art
that is purely a product of its audience's regard. But then again I'm
wary of the overdetermination of an art that is purely the product of
artistic intent. I've just reviewed Nathan Stern's "Interactive Art As
Embodiment" which I think has some nice ways around either extreme.
I haven't read that; I've seen his contribution to empyre and had some
difficulties about his notion of embodiment there.
It fascinates me that the idea of aesthetic sense has been applied - or
discovered - across organisms, at least fauna; it's been noted that some
insects respond strongly to symmetric mates, and you find aesthetics
playing a large role among birds and mammals for example. We humans just
have a hard time looking -
[...]
Without wishing to be naive I observed that my kids had very strong
aesthetic reactions to dissonance in music or art.
Of course dissonance is also a cultural field - the Chinese qinqin has 7
frets, equally (logarithmically) spaced to the octave, not 12 - and the
dissonance is different and resolves differently. There are also the
musics of Indonesia, gamelan, etc. At this point, when I improvise,
everything sounds "kind of equal" to me, and the movement's really not
towards resolution, but towards timbre or structural moment, something
like that.
A bower bird making protest art would be something to see. Something for
the bio-artists to work on. ;-)
Thank god they don't! I worry strongly about the effect of bio-art on the
natural world, what organisms etc. might be being released. I want to
learn from bower-birds, not rip them off!
I'd argue for a different way of thinking; art history, including A@L
etc. always seemed over-determined. One thing comes to mind - Bourieu's
book Distinction, which deals well with plurality in this regard. -
(I meant Bourdieu, apologies.)
When I have my Free Software zealot hat on I tend to argue that the idea
of code "gift economies" or "commons" misleadingly prioritize
epiphenomena of freedom over their cause. But that freedom does enable
people to collaborate equitably. I guess coding together is like having
a pen pal. I did talk about the social dimension of out-of-office coding
here:
http://robmyers.org/2010/02/05/livecoding_as_realistic_artistic_practice/
(Will look at this.) I think of it as a gift economy, but not even an
economy, as a gift. Collaboration has been wonderful; when I teach, I try
to teach accordingly.
I enjoy rewriting systems in different languages. It's a kind of
platonism, I guess. :-)
At my poor level, I've enjoyed varieties of the "Hello World" type in
different languages - but then I'm also interested in natural languages
the same way.
In human languages I'm a shameful monoglot...
I love the beer site for seeing how a simple task is approached in
different languages:
http://www.99-bottles-of-beer.net/
Here's a version for LambdaMOO:
http://www.99-bottles-of-beer.net/language-moo-403.html
Will look these up of course!
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-02/22/gps-spoofing
(Apologies for editing here -)
Thanks, Alan
- Rob.
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