Re: [_arc.hive_] "digital poetry" vs net art

I quite like being a passive soul sometimez, I can have a rest then :-}

marc

> Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002 17:57:13 -0500
>
> B+:"Should/shouldn't is a matter of curatorial
> classification; why not
> leave it there?
>
> L><:oh, ideally it is left at that! but lately i've
> been thinking about the differences and similarities
> between works, thinking in taxonomic terms/////and
> with net art, one distinction i've made is that
> between functional works and decorative works////
> 1.) functional works]]]]]use code toward some
> end///high degree of user-interaction
> 2.) decorative works]]]]use almost no code///no
> interaction
>
> one is open to the user, the other is closed////
> and these two classes, like all art, are indicative of
> political minds////
> i see functional works as more open, as
> democratic…with true software art being the ultimate
> expression of this///the work is a tool///the work is
> (hopefully, if the artist has her head on straight)
> freely available…..the work is a means of production
> in the case of software art///in any case, in any
> functional net artwork, the user can collaborate with
> the work, leaving authorship in the air…the user
> becomes the author, is empowered///or at least the
> user contributes literally to the manifestation of the
> work///
>
> decorative work is simply decorative///it's closed,
> ego-centric, doesn't allow silence to be silence,
> doesn't let the user in, the user is passive and
> unable to become empowered….
>
> of course, i prefer functional works////and i'm afraid
> my own bias there colors my perception of decorative
> works////which are often quite beautiful and
> intriguing///
>
> B+:What is your position on the critical significance
> of poietic *intent*?
>
> L><:Ideally, intent should play no part in a user's
> experience of a work////in the end, the work stands on
> its own, and ideally the user must look at the work
> isolated from any intent the author had====but if the
> author is successful, the intent's there, and the user
> feels it…
>
> it's all warmed over new criticism really…
>
> bliss
> l
>
>
> =====
>
> Anningan (in progress)
http://www.lewislacook.com/Anningan/AnningansDoor.html
> http://www.lewislacook.com/
> http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/385/lewis_lacook.html
> meditation, net art, poeisis: blog http://lewislacook.blogspot.com/
>
>
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>From: Peter von Brandenburg <[email protected]>
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Win98; U)
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>To: [email protected]
>Subject: Re: [_arc.hive_] "digital poetry" vs net art
>
>Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 18:33:30 -0500
>
>Dear Lewis,
>
>Interesting, I'd not have imagined you'd go here…
>
>lewis lacook wrote:
>
> > oh, ideally it is left at that! but lately i've been thinking about the
> > differences and similarities between works, thinking in taxonomic
> terms/////and
> > with net art, one distinction i've made is that between functional
> works and
> > decorative works//// 1.) functional works]]]]]use code toward some
> end///high
> > degree of user-interaction
> > 2.) decorative works]]]]use almost no code///no interaction
>
>I doubt this will work. For starters, you need another word. Those of us
>who are
>critical veterans of the late '70s all too well remember the ill-use the term
>"decorative" was put to. Its demonization by late-formalists, & the
>response; a
>reassessment of critical terms by feminists who attempted to heroicize the
>term in
>changing the field of contest for curatorial classification (& in so doing
>reflecting a larger struggle) – & simultaneously the meta-critique
>provided by
>early post-modernists who argued that there was no essentialism in the face of
>intent & utilization, & that "decoration" was a means rather than an end, thus
>obviating the distinction in the realm of a view of practice which allowed
>directed
>recontextualization (as presaging the nearly free recontextualization we have
>now). In short, it's still a really dirty word & you better have all your
>ducks in
>a row if you're going to use it – not that you can't yet rather that you
>are able
>to adr the historical & critical baggage, a bit of which I re to above.
>
> > one is open to the user, the other is closed//// and these two classes,
> like all
> > art, are indicative of political minds//// i see functional works as
> more open,
> > as democratic…with true software art being the ultimate expression of
> > this///the work is a tool///the work is (hopefully, if the artist has
> her head on
> > straight) freely available…..the work is a means of production in the
> case of
> > software art///in any case, in any functional net artwork, the user can
> > collaborate with the work, leaving authorship in the air…the user
> becomes the
> > author, is empowered///or at least the user contributes literally to the
> > manifestation of the work///
>
>I'm not following this on *several* fronts. First off, there is an excellent
>argument to the fx that "decoration" is indeed "functional" (in sociocultural
>terms). Second, where do you get off dragging democracy into this? Do
>you think
>you're living in one? I don't, I think I'm living in a plutocracy which
>masquerades as a democracy, just like Augustus' Rome maintained the legal
>& social
>trappings of the Republic. The vote has been changed from an expression of
>political will to something as significant as a Yahoo Group member's "pref
>pg" – a
>process advertising itself as an "envoxing" which is in reality a
>data-harvesting
>scam in the service of marketing. You think the very nature of a work as
>allowing
>or disallowing user i/a is a reflection of superior political ideology? I
>beg to
>differ, these are superscriptions which can be reduced to 'toon-like critical
>figures according to the schema of the work in Q. Given the preceding,
>you will
>not be surprised when I take slight umbrage at your according to yourself the
>privilege of saying whose head is perpendicular, & whose askew. You do
>not know
>the markets the artists are competing in or what resources are available
>to their
>peers or their audience, nor have you (that I know of) any means by which
>you might
>predict what an artists' needs are in this re – w/out these things I
>argue that
>you are in no position to say what should be available & what should be
>restricted
>(how much less so when the restriction itself might be a proper part of
>one of the
>work's aesthetic vectors?) or what utilization of source material should
>be made
>according to whether it was open-source or proprietary. Next you seem to be
>conflating "software art" w/ "net art", please tell me you're not doing
>this (&
>while you're at it, please clarify your statement). This idea that i/a is
>always
>coincident w/ "collaboration" is also completely bizarre – I know you've been
>doing a lot of reviews lately, & I've enjoyed some of these pieces, but that
>doesn't make you an "instant expert" & you may need to reconsider your
>grounding
>here in the face of those critical lineages which can adr analog & digital art
>practice simultaneously. Or perhaps it's just really fuzzy writing (which
>I know
>you are not restricted to), since if I parse this at its most basic
>reading you
>seem to be finger-painting w/ some of these critical figures. The first
>"collaborative" works of this nature may have been those by Laurie
>Anderson way
>back when – but that was according to the prevailing critical
>distinctions of the
>time. Since then authorship has been steadily moving, from writing to
>editor, from
>text to link, or (as I wrote elsewhere recently), from river to
>bridge. If ones
>art allows all who exp it to "be artists" then what does that make
>one? Another
>artist? I think not. That is a teleological impossibility. The Users become
>artists in context & *in* *terms*, if this is not allowed then the
>alternative is
>to call them all plain old "artist" & call the one who so empowered &
>employed them
>something else… meta-artist? Super-artist? Poietron? Contexts change,
>that's
>their nature, art made in local terms may have to face different sets of
>terms in
>time… there is no such thing as making art in terms which are
>irrevocably fixed
>(tho some may be relatively long-lasting, like formal religious art for
>instance).
>The bottom line is that in NO CASE is authorship left "in the air" just as
>collaborative systems can be authored, are you making a distinction between
>art-making & authorship? Perhaps you should, & it's important because the
>"social
>sculpture" once a projective cognitive figure of Broodhaers (& Beuys) is now a
>common modal of sodality on the Net. But does that mean all such are art?
>Certainly not, some are, most are not. Contribution to the work is not a
>consideration any more than it would be for the hoards of slaves who died
>building
>the pyramids. Lewis, this stuff has already *happened*, the distinctions
>you make
>(& do not make) therefore seem either rudimentary, superficial, & needlessly
>idealistic. Practical & theoretical critical taxonomy require far
>more. [& I'm
>not asking for a fucking dissertation, I know you have the rare gift of
>being able
>to render complex figures in compact form]
>
> > decorative work is simply decorative///it's closed, ego-centric,
> doesn't allow
> > silence to be silence, doesn't let the user in, the user is passive and
> unable to
> > become empowered….
>
>Ridiculous. Decorative work (which by definition is not "art" to begin w/
>{unless
>& until its mediumistic complexity is subsumed w/in its de facto critical
>appurtenance [w/ or w/out the hand of Mammon a la "the art of the "x"]})
>changes
>the modus of i/a w/ the thing decorated. It is not closed & if it's about
>ego then
>everything from the precision of its design, to the joy of creation can be
>transferred from artisan to User; motive is irrelevant in this case. If
>you want
>"suchness" then eventually you may see that decoration does not prevent
>this (even
>if the artisan wouldn't let a clay pot be a clay pot) – but you can
>always go w/
>the undecorated fttb. If the User is trapped in passivity then it's their own
>bloody fault & it means they don't know how to appreciate aesthetics (let
>alone
>u/stand them) to begin w/. I'm sorry, you sound like a "poet" here, not
>an artist
>or critic (& yes, either may use poetic figures but that does not affect their
>dedication). Now if we go back to my orig plaint, that you're using the
>wrong word
>here to describe digital work which is not i/a then I will repeat the
>foregoing w/
>even greater fervor. Don't tell me that the loss of self (or merely "place")
>required for the proper sensate appreciation of a Pollock is not
>empowering – just
>as he knew when the white box & frame would become purely referential
>figures &
>vanish, the skillful d-artist can make the telemetry vanish as well (or
>continually
>re to & reify it in a way which reveals something hitherto unseen in its
>nature).
>Do you deny that "passive" contemplation can be a stimulus to transcendent,
>ecstatic, or meta-referential states? What are YOU doing when you are
>listening to
>that "silence"? I would hazard to guess that your language is betraying a
>lack of
>synchronous between your political & spiritual values.
>
> > of course, i prefer functional works////and i'm afraid my own bias
> there colors
> > my perception of decorative
> > works////which are often quite beautiful and intriguing///
>
>…& are in no way "decorative". I'm sorry, you really, really need to
>re-think
>this whole thing. Cannot one author a work which, among its elements,
>some are
>random? & if those random elements are provided by User i/a, or a pigeon
>alighting
>on this roof or that, or a specific parsing of a data-stream running a
>course on
>the Net… what then is the empirical value of User i/a? Isn't it simply
>a means
>to provide the prescribed element w/in the work, this regardless of
>whether or not
>for the time they were i/a'ing w/ it, the User "felt like an artist" or not?
>
> > Ideally, intent should play no part in a user's experience of a
> work////in the
> > end, the work stands on its own, and ideally the user must look at the work
> > isolated from any intent the author had====but if the author is
> successful, the
> > intent's there, and the user feels it…
>
>Who the hell was talking about the *User's* intent? I was of course
>speaking about
>the artist. Early on in this place you & I had a difference about User
>intent & as
>I recall, I made my point. [11/21/01] Please consider your accession at that
>time, the issue is not so different now. On the other side of the ledger,
>the User
>*cannot* "look at the work isolated from any intent the author had" (oh, I
>*love*
>that; ANY intent) – for one thing it's teleologically & hermeneutically
>absurd, &
>for another, w/out a comprehension of both context & intent of the work
>experienced
>substantial portions of it may be invisible. I have been working on a
>text which
>outlines a critical formulation for how intent can be obviated in art
>experience
>but this relates to the theory of the Ready-made & the Dispensation of
>Eden (power
>over the material world by virtue of "naming all things"). To connect
>that to my
>earlier remarks, we will all be artists when we can all see art which was
>made by
>no one… a pretty sunset, sure; a piece of industrial machinery? Maybe
>that takes
>a deeper vision. Maybe that takes an artist's eye. & so if the artist is not
>required to "make art" then their status will be found inscribed in that
>place…
>the eye.
>
> > it's all warmed over new criticism really…
>
>I'm afraid it's past the point of "lukewarm" by now. I seriously hope
>I've grossly
>misread you here (& that would be both our faults), but it seems to me you're
>rapidly heading out of your depth (not that you won't be there at some point).
>There is a deal of push & pull required to practice functional critical
>taxonomy –
>the model will work when it can no longer be easily broken (just like
>s/ware) – so
>grab the lab-keys & just call me "Doolittle". In any case, you're a very good
>writer & a fine "practical critic" (for the literary side of that), but
>non-academic theoretical criticism is a whole other animal.
>
>best,
>
>Blackhawk.
>
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. . …. …..
pro][tean][.lapsing.txt
.
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www.cddc.vt.edu/host/netwurker/
http://www.hotkey.net.au/~netwurker/
http://www.hotkey.net.au/~netwurker/display.myopia.swf

…. . .??? …….

> oh, alright, i've got to get it off my chest—



Blackhawk:Those of us >who are
>critical veterans of the late '70s all too well remember the ill-use the term >"decorative" was put to. Its demonization by late-formalists, & the >response; a
>reassessment of critical terms by feminists who attempted to heroicize the >term in
>changing the field of contest for curatorial classification (& in so doing >reflecting a larger struggle)