Re: Napier's King Kong and Durieu's Giraffe and OeilComplex

> > What other successful 3D art pieces
> > can you think of
> > on the Web that involve 'living entities'?
>
> If you want to play with responsive wireframes with muscles, gravity etc,
> get over to my good genius friends at Soda and try their Sodaconstructor:
> http://www.sodaplay.com/zoo/

How could I forget! I have visited there several times. Yes, it is an excellent site.

It is certainly one of the best 'roll your own' projects I've seen. And the dynamics of the
'world' are indeed very similar to Mark Napier's King Kong piece. But the contexts and concepts
are very different.

There is a tension in 'roll your own' projects that is competently addressed in the sodaplay
project. I don't think this tension is resolved in it, but it is very well addressed, as it is
also in several of Napier's pieces. And that tension concerns authorial control and the nature
of the "unfinished" work of art.

In the most satisfying 'roll your own'ers, there is no pretence that the player or user or
viewer or wreader or whatever is able to create something entirely original and entirely
satisfying, in its own right, as a work of art. It is clear that they are producing an instance
of the possibilities inherant in the device, are 'finishing' an inherantly unfinished work, or
are not finishing it but are participating in the ongoing project of its processual
machinations. To experience the work is to create an instance of the object(s) it allows you to
create.

This is different from using Flash or Word or Director or Dreamweaver or Sound Forge, etc. They
provide more range of possibility. They are tools rather than works of art. The better the tool,
the more possibility and granularity of control it offers to create something that does not have
the stamp of the software authors all over it. In pieces like sodaplay, the instance has all
over it the mark of the software. But the alternative is to create a better tool and less
interesting a work of art.

So, in this sense, the tension I mentioned in 'roll yer own'ers is not one that *can* be
resolved, but only explored with artistic sensitivity and programmerly dexterity.

There is a similarly unresolvable tension between art and game. Art is not a game somebody wins.
Though with all the jockeying for position we see in the art world, you might wonder. For all
that, there is an unresolvable tension between art and game. The middleground is the concept of
play.

Similarly, in successful 'roll yer own'ers, the play is engaging and meaningful. Even though it
may result in an instance of the relatively limited range of possibility inherant in the
software, the process of playing with it reveals a view of the whole work. Even though it is an
unfinished work, it is a single work, and playing with it reveals the character of the entire
set of possibilities of which it is capable.

In attaining this nominal view of the whole work, we glimpse the relations between the
materials, and the significance of the operations the software permits. The particular instances
we create should themselves be capable of interest musically and/or visually and/or textually,
etc, and there should be significant range of compositional possibility, but in an unfinished
work of art, as opposed to a tool, the emphasis is on seeing the instance within the set of the
software's possibilities, rather than seeing it as a unique creation. And the emphasis is on
seeing the larger contexts of the software, how it relates to issues in the world, via its
generative and interactive processes. And the emphasis is on examining play and composition and
just what can be created and considered original.

It highlights the tension between art and the tool, and explores that tension meaningfully. It
probably does not resolve it, however, because the tension may be unresolvable. It does not
offer a pathetic instant art creater, but seeks to create a work of art that problematizes its
own status as a work of art, and may offer a glimpse into new forms of art, also, hinted at in
the small or large contexts of the "unfinished" work.

Hmm. Don't think I've said the last word on this subject, rereading. Well, hopefully the play is
engaging.

ja