what is the best work on the Web done with Flash?

Ah…

http://abnormalbehaviorchild.com/

eduardoN.
—– Original Message —–
From: "Jim Andrews" <[email protected]>
To: "List@Rhizome. Org" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2003 1:57 AM
Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: what is the best work on the Web done with Flash?


> I'd like to see your favorite work done with Flash. Send the URLs to the
list. Just one or two
> links to specific works.
>
> What is the best art on the Web done with Flash?
>
> There's a lot of gunk, but I'm sure there is some fine work done with it.
>
> What is it?
>
> ja
>
>
>
> + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>

Interesting works done in Flash:

> http://abnormalbehaviorchild.com/
>
> eduardoN.

1. http://www.eale.hpg.ig.com.br/ppi Alexandre Venera (Brazil)/Clemente Padin (Uruguay)
This is a collaboration in visual and sound work by two poets. Venera did the Flash. Padin
supplied the media.

2. http://www.nobodyhere.com/justme/web.here Jogchem Niemandsverdriet (Netherlands)
This is one example of a Flash work by Niemandsverdriet. His site has many. Perhaps the thing to
note here, though, is the overall site; http://www.nobodyhere.com is very much 'of a body'.

3. http://www.hoogerbrugge.com/ml.html Hans Hoogerbrugge (Netherlands). His Modern
Living/Neurotica series is a large project done over a couple of years involving about ninety
Flash works. His animation of the human body in this series is relatively noteworthy in Flash
work.

4. http://www.donniedarko.com Donnie Darko is a movie. This is a relatively ambitious Web
project somewhat independent of, but related to the movie.

5. http://www.daxo.de Hans Riechel's site. Riechel is a well-known musician and instrument
maker. His site is well-done in Flash.

Note that these sites/works are quite distinctive. They don't have that designerly patina to
them that often, in Flash work, substitutes for work of deeper interest.

ja

But it is really only the first of the links that I cited, http://www.eale.hpg.ig.com.br/ppi by
Venera and Padin, that leaves a lasting impression of it being significant art, and
Niemandsverdriet's site as a whole.

It seems like it's so hard for people to put their all into this sort of work. Lots of
resistance from the tool and the bandwidth limitations and I suppose many other things, but
also, perhaps more than that, the difficulty of *thinking and feeling* through interactive
multimedia.

Though there are intellectual challenges to artists with new media concerning how to program the
tools, the larger challenge is emotional and spiritual, to think and feel through new media in
the same sorts of generative ways that writers feel through writing/language or musicians
through the instrument.

ja

Sorry, the Venera/Padin URL is http://www.eale.hpg.ig.com.br/ppi/001.htm for Pan Paz imagine.

ja


> But it is really only the first of the links that I cited,
> http://www.eale.hpg.ig.com.br/ppi by
> Venera and Padin, that leaves a lasting impression of it being significant art, and
> Niemandsverdriet's site as a whole.
>
> It seems like it's so hard for people to put their all into this sort of work. Lots of
> resistance from the tool and the bandwidth limitations and I suppose many other things, but
> also, perhaps more than that, the difficulty of *thinking and feeling* through interactive
> multimedia.
>
> Though there are intellectual challenges to artists with new media concerning how to
> program the
> tools, the larger challenge is emotional and spiritual, to think and feel through new media in
> the same sorts of generative ways that writers feel through writing/language or musicians
> through the instrument.
>
> ja








.

Interesting choices. I personally have a heavy bent for critical pieces
like the Venera Padin project that you mentioned, but since you asked for
interesting works in flash, I assumed it need not be heavy on the critical
side as in Art. The piece I mentioned I found appealing because it takes a
rather unique approach for a work on the web. It does fall heavy on the
design field, but there is definitely a crossover in terms of formal
investigation; something that is very important in the art field as well.

In any case, here is a piece everyone on the list is aware of by now, as
Doron posted a link a few weeks ago, and I think it is just very challenging
to understand while being beautiful at the same time:

http://64.39.23.133/wirefire/movies/client2.swf

I think it may combine some of the aesthetics I proposed with my initial
recommendation complemented with an abstracted political bent.

Best,

eduardoN.


—– Original Message —–
From: "Jim Andrews" <[email protected]>
To: "List@Rhizome. Org" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2003 5:22 AM
Subject: RE: RHIZOME_RAW: what is the best work on the Web done with Flash?


> But it is really only the first of the links that I cited,
http://www.eale.hpg.ig.com.br/ppi by
> Venera and Padin, that leaves a lasting impression of it being significant
art, and
> Niemandsverdriet's site as a whole.
>
> It seems like it's so hard for people to put their all into this sort of
work. Lots of
> resistance from the tool and the bandwidth limitations and I suppose many
other things, but
> also, perhaps more than that, the difficulty of *thinking and feeling*
through interactive
> multimedia.
>
> Though there are intellectual challenges to artists with new media
concerning how to program the
> tools, the larger challenge is emotional and spiritual, to think and feel
through new media in
> the same sorts of generative ways that writers feel through
writing/language or musicians
> through the instrument.
>
> ja
>
>
> + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>

> Interesting choices. I personally have a heavy bent for critical pieces
> like the Venera Padin project that you mentioned, but since you asked for
> interesting works in flash, I assumed it need not be heavy on the critical
> side as in Art.

It's true that the Venera/Padin piece (http://www.eale.hpg.ig.com.br/ppi/001.htm ) is
"critical", critical of the fucked up unjust starve or bomb or hack you to death world. Yet it
is also humorous and intelligent. Eloquent. It is also quite a well-done interface and you
proceed not simply via click click but via relatively intelligable interface controls developed
by Venera. And the sound is simple, original, and memorable.

It also handles the limitations of Flash quite well. Most Flash pieces jerk around at 1-3 frames
per second but were clearly intended to run at a higher framerate. Venera avoids those problems,
for the most part.

> The piece I mentioned I found appealing because it takes a
> rather unique approach for a work on the web. It does fall heavy on the
> design field, but there is definitely a crossover in terms of formal
> investigation; something that is very important in the art field as well.
>
> In any case, here is a piece everyone on the list is aware of by now, as
> Doron posted a link a few weeks ago, and I think it is just very challenging
> to understand while being beautiful at the same time:
>
> http://64.39.23.133/wirefire/movies/client2.swf
>
> I think it may combine some of the aesthetics I proposed with my initial
> recommendation complemented with an abstracted political bent.

I know Auriea Harvey has done some nice work in Flash.

A lot of the collaborations with Samyn she's done highlight their relationship and their
collaboration more than anything else.

I looked at the piece several times; it has quite a bit of variety in it. If that's her/their
music, that's pretty good. The audio was the best part of the piece so far as I experienced it.
That two frames per second framerate is really annoying. Lots of stamens and pistils and "i'm so
happy with you". a love collaboration. nice.

nice.

nice.

It's pretty flash.

do you know any unflash flash?

ja

This is one of those discussion subjects that pop up quite frequently on
the list. Admittedly, a lot of Flash stuff has a similar feel to it but
that's mostly just due to trends that come up. But Flash is an extremely
versatile programming environment and to say that something is really
"Flash"-y is like saying that something is really "Java"-y, "C++"-y or
whatever so why does Flash always have to fall under this type of scrutiny?

I'm not sure how big the Java interpreter download is; probably at least
7mb, which is the size of the Shockwave (Director) plugin; whereas the Flash
plugin download is about 1/14th of that, somewhere around 500kb.

This larger size is interesting; it is both the source of greater
possibility than exists in Flash and the main reason why Flash is so much
more popular in the commercial realm; people don't have to download a 7mb
plugin.

Flash is also popular because it allows non-programmers to do quite a bit
that has, previously, been associated with the activity of programming.
Director also does this, but the animation drawing tools in Director are not
as good as in Flash.

So there are 2 million users of Flash and 200,000 users of Director. I
don't know how many users of Java there are, but art done in Java
programming is even more rare than work done in Shockwave (Director).

The need for tools which allow non-programmers to accomplish results
normally associated with the activity of programming is ongoing. Flash is
the most popular of the RAD tools (rapid application development). Visual
Basic, Delphi, C++ Builder, and Director are also set up so that one has
access to a graphical authoring environment and access to a wide range of
pre-written behaviors and one doesn't have to program to do many things in
these environments, but programming is nonetheless unavoidable in them, at a
certain point. Flash pushes this point back some distance.

Given the large user-base of Flash and the reluctance of the commercial
sector to subject customers to a 7mb download, work done in Flash outnumbers
work done on the Web with other tools, at this point, like ten to one.

But the popularity of Flash is the result of a compromise with the quality
one expects of work on the Web.

To compare Flash with Java, C++, or Director in its flexibility is a bit
off, Pall. Certainly it has a programming language associated with it
(Actionscript), but this language is 30-60 times slower than Director's
Lingo scripting language; it would fare even worse in comparison with Java
and C++. And it is not merely slower but less comprehensive in its abilities
to manipulate and coordinate media. It is far less 'granular'.

It's likely that in the future, whether the same players are present or
not, we will see a similar situation: the most popular tools will be those
which sacrifice granularity in favor of small download size for the plugin
(or reader/interpreter) and relatively easy and powerful access for
non-programmers.

This tailors the expectations we have for work on the Web to the needs of
the commercial sector and to non-programmers.

Which is probably as it must be.

But art is a bit different from the commercial sector. Our expectations
concerning what passes for interesting net.art needn't be conditioned to the
lowest common denominator.

ja

Reading between the lines, it almost looks as if you're saying, "The more
complex the tool, the better the art." but of course we all know that that
would be absurd. I know that Flash doesn't have the flexibility of true
programming languages but it is still versatile enough to say that there's no
such thing as Flash-y Flash. There's trend-y flash but not Flash-y flash. Who
cares about the difference in speed between Action Script and Lingo? What
does that have to do with creativity and art? And I wouldn't go so far as to
say that "…Flash is the result of a compromise with the quality one expects
of work on the Web" It's more like painting with a limited palette.

Pall

On Monday 30 June 2003 23:13, Jim Andrews wrote:
> This is one of those discussion subjects that pop up quite frequently on
> the list. Admittedly, a lot of Flash stuff has a similar feel to it but
> that's mostly just due to trends that come up. But Flash is an extremely
> versatile programming environment and to say that something is really
> "Flash"-y is like saying that something is really "Java"-y, "C++"-y or
> whatever so why does Flash always have to fall under this type of scrutiny?
>
> I'm not sure how big the Java interpreter download is; probably at least
> 7mb, which is the size of the Shockwave (Director) plugin; whereas the
> Flash plugin download is about 1/14th of that, somewhere around 500kb.
>
> This larger size is interesting; it is both the source of greater
> possibility than exists in Flash and the main reason why Flash is so much
> more popular in the commercial realm; people don't have to download a 7mb
> plugin.
>
> Flash is also popular because it allows non-programmers to do quite a bit
> that has, previously, been associated with the activity of programming.
> Director also does this, but the animation drawing tools in Director are
> not as good as in Flash.
>
> So there are 2 million users of Flash and 200,000 users of Director. I
> don't know how many users of Java there are, but art done in Java
> programming is even more rare than work done in Shockwave (Director).
>
> The need for tools which allow non-programmers to accomplish results
> normally associated with the activity of programming is ongoing. Flash is
> the most popular of the RAD tools (rapid application development). Visual
> Basic, Delphi, C++ Builder, and Director are also set up so that one has
> access to a graphical authoring environment and access to a wide range of
> pre-written behaviors and one doesn't have to program to do many things in
> these environments, but programming is nonetheless unavoidable in them, at
> a certain point. Flash pushes this point back some distance.
>
> Given the large user-base of Flash and the reluctance of the commercial
> sector to subject customers to a 7mb download, work done in Flash
> outnumbers work done on the Web with other tools, at this point, like ten
> to one.
>
> But the popularity of Flash is the result of a compromise with the
> quality one expects of work on the Web.
>
> To compare Flash with Java, C++, or Director in its flexibility is a bit
> off, Pall. Certainly it has a programming language associated with it
> (Actionscript), but this language is 30-60 times slower than Director's
> Lingo scripting language; it would fare even worse in comparison with Java
> and C++. And it is not merely slower but less comprehensive in its
> abilities to manipulate and coordinate media. It is far less 'granular'.
>
> It's likely that in the future, whether the same players are present or
> not, we will see a similar situation: the most popular tools will be those
> which sacrifice granularity in favor of small download size for the plugin
> (or reader/interpreter) and relatively easy and powerful access for
> non-programmers.
>
> This tailors the expectations we have for work on the Web to the needs of
> the commercial sector and to non-programmers.
>
> Which is probably as it must be.
>
> But art is a bit different from the commercial sector. Our expectations
> concerning what passes for interesting net.art needn't be conditioned to
> the lowest common denominator.
>
> ja

–
Pall Thayer
artist/teacher
http://www.this.is/pallit
http://www.this.is/isjs
http://www.this.is/harmony
http://130.208.220.190/panse

> Reading between the lines, it almost looks as if you're saying, "The more
> complex the tool, the better the art." but of course we all know that that
> would be absurd.

The more flexible the tool, the less one is forced into realizing a default vision.

> I know that Flash doesn't have the flexibility of true
> programming languages but it is still versatile enough to say that there's no
> such thing as Flash-y Flash. There's trend-y flash but not Flash-y flash.

A distinction without a difference.

> Who
> cares about the difference in speed between Action Script and Lingo? What
> does that have to do with creativity and art?

When you want to do something that is too slow in Flash, do you go ahead and do it or do you say
'ah, can't do it, forget it'?

That is what it has to do with creativity and art.

> And I wouldn't go so far as to
> say that "…Flash is the result of a compromise with the quality one expects
> of work on the Web" It's more like painting with a limited palette.

The same limited palette as two million others.

ja

> > Reading between the lines, it almost looks as if you're saying, "The more
> > complex the tool, the better the art." but of course we all know that that
> > would be absurd.
>
>The more flexible the tool, the less one is forced into realizing a
>default vision.

THis is true. COnversely, in some cases there is a law of diminishing
returns between the learning curve of the Swiss Army Knife and its
capabilities. Sometimes Flash is more than sufficient for many
applications. I would argue that Flash is becoming more akin to an
Interpreted language, such as Basic, as the next version announced will
allow the creation of stand-alone applications.

But this does not have much to do with my argument that some artists do not
need to know programming to expound their ideas. Flash is truly not Bryce,
which puts forth much tighter constraints to genre and style. In saying
that Flash is an autoring environment that tightly constrains the artist, I
would argue that this contention is weaker than other potential issues.

> > I know that Flash doesn't have the flexibility of true
> > programming languages but it is still versatile enough to say that
> there's no
> > such thing as Flash-y Flash. There's trend-y flash but not Flash-y flash.
>
>A distinction without a difference.

This reads to me that Flash is still Flash, no matter what you try to do
with it. I hope I am wrong with this reading, as such an assertion is a bit
unilateral, and suggests a polemic that does not accept any piece made in
Flash as a viable artwork, or extremely few. This comes from many
directions from artists not considering designers as worthy, or
artist/programmers casting apersions towards artist/authors (as in
multimedia authoring). I think that these are differences, and ones not
too different from watercolor artists not accepting digital as viable, or
even oils as viable. This argument is merely an expansion of a very narrow
ongoing debate; a fairly weak one.

> Who
> > cares about the difference in speed between Action Script and Lingo? What
> > does that have to do with creativity and art?
>
>When you want to do something that is too slow in Flash, do you go ahead
>and do it or do you say
>'ah, can't do it, forget it'?

Well, that is the difference between getting a different wash with oil than
watercolor.
If it's a suitable tool, then use it.


> > And I wouldn't go so far as to
> > say that "…Flash is the result of a compromise with the quality one
> expects
> > of work on the Web" It's more like painting with a limited palette.
>
>The same limited palette as two million others.

If one wishes to expand on this; I could argue that I felt that JAVA is so
limited compared to machine-level assembly code (which I am currently using
in some works). Or, to take it to a silly extreme, that machine code is
limited as it uses zeroes and ones or can only be used on computers. I
think Java is terribly limited as it is only usable on computer
systems! Why can't Java be used in needlepoint (not to simulate it by
writing a program about it…), or in stained glass or ceramics, or even in
the seasoning of a pie?

This is an increasingly hyperbolic idea, but it makes a point of the
JAVA/Flash debate (which is slightly less older than the hills) is one by
two development paradigms that have their own levels of limitation (and
yes, Java has a lot of limitations), and different learning curves. I for
one, do not feel that the appropriateness of Flash is directly linked to
the nature of its structure as a program, or of the Java Virtual Machine as
a program , either, but is more directly linked to issues more akin to
whether one uses a Mac or an IBM and the various elitisms of either camp.

Personally, I use BOTH.
But not at the same time, and they're both great, but not always for the
same thing.

> > > Reading between the lines, it almost looks as if you're saying, "The more
> > > complex the tool, the better the art." but of course we all know that that
> > > would be absurd.
> >
> >The more flexible the tool, the less one is forced into realizing a
> >default vision.
>
> THis is true. COnversely, in some cases there is a law of diminishing
> returns between the learning curve of the Swiss Army Knife and its
> capabilities. Sometimes Flash is more than sufficient for many
> applications.

Of course it is sufficient for many jobs.

> I would argue that Flash is becoming more akin to an
> Interpreted language, such as Basic, as the next version announced will
> allow the creation of stand-alone applications.

Projectors, you mean? Isn't it already capable of generating projectors? Or do these projectors
require the player also, currently?

> But this does not have much to do with my argument that some artists do not
> need to know programming to expound their ideas. Flash is truly not Bryce,
> which puts forth much tighter constraints to genre and style. In saying
> that Flash is an autoring environment that tightly constrains the artist, I
> would argue that this contention is weaker than other potential issues.

I agree that some peoples' art does not necessitate they learn programming.

Like any sufficiently powerful tool, Flash loosens up its defaults when you pry into its
mechanisms. But it does need to be approached with intelligence and art in order to loosen up.

> > > I know that Flash doesn't have the flexibility of true
> > > programming languages but it is still versatile enough to say that
> > there's no
> > > such thing as Flash-y Flash. There's trend-y flash but not Flash-y flash.
> >
> >A distinction without a difference.
>
> This reads to me that Flash is still Flash, no matter what you try to do
> with it. I hope I am wrong with this reading, as such an assertion is a bit
> unilateral, and suggests a polemic that does not accept any piece made in
> Flash as a viable artwork, or extremely few. This comes from many
> directions from artists not considering designers as worthy, or
> artist/programmers casting apersions towards artist/authors (as in
> multimedia authoring). I think that these are differences, and ones not
> too different from watercolor artists not accepting digital as viable, or
> even oils as viable. This argument is merely an expansion of a very narrow
> ongoing debate; a fairly weak one.

If you read the thread, you'll note I have posted links to several Flash works. It isn't a
matter of me not accepting any Flash work as art.

What does it mean to say "There's trend-y flash but not Flash-y flash."? Flash does have its
defaults that, unless one is conscious about them, result in the tool asserting its presence
more than the work itself, like 'photoshopped' bitmaps indiscriminately and clichedly filtered.
This is true of many other tools. But the more flexible a tool is, the less it will unavoidably
assert itself in what is produced with it, the more granular it will be in its possible
configurations.

Anyway, let's see some more Flash great works.

ja

> I'm striking a polemic in contrast with the 'traditional' argument. Mainly
> rhetorical.

yes, house of the daunting tautology. you win the popularity contest.

now where is more great flash work? really outstanding stuff.

fahey's ada would be in there also.

ja

So far in this thread, Mr. Lichty seems the most perspicacious. I'm
always amazed at the sort of patronizing,
look-what-the-cat-dragged-in reaction that net artists have toward
Flash. The tenor of the dialogue usually runs like, "Could this be
art? Do you think so? Really? No! Could it be?"

Miltos Manetas forms the Electronic Orphanage around something as
inconsequential as "works done in flash," and it's greeted as a novel
movement. Even Lev Manovich gets all happy writing a piece about
Flash paradigmatics.

The implicit assumption that a Java applet is a more legitimate net
art medium than an .swf file struck me as bizarre the first time I
heard it, and it still seeems very parochial to me. One may just as
fruitfully have begun this thread by asking, "what is the best work
on the Web done in Java?" Pieces by golan levin, casey reas, martin
wattenberg, and bradford paley come immediately to mind; and then I'd
be hard-pressed to come up with more. For a NET artist, the question
is not what the Java programming language will let you do in terms of
creating stand-alone apps, the question is what will it let you do on
the net? Particularly on the mac, java BROWSER
support/implementation is much slower, glitchier, and kludgier than
Flash plug-in support/implementation.

[I'm sidestepping the open-source vs. commercially-owned debate
because it's political, diverting, and uninteresting to me.]

From the beginning, Flash was created as a vector animation tool, and
animation deals with visual aesthetics. That, methinks, is the REAL
reason why Flash is treated as a red headed step-child by both the
software-centric and concept-centric camps of our enlightened
"rhizome-ish" net art community – because Flash allocates much of
its computational muscle to making things move cool and look good,
and such priorities are not valued by many here.

Personally, a lot of my net art is "browser window" art (cf:
http://www.playdamage.org ). I like working in dhtml because it
falls apart in interesting ways. So my work looks and behaves
differently on different browsers, different operating systems, at
different screen sizes, at different processor speeds. And I like
allowing those variables to mess-up my art. That's part of the
"net-centricity" of it.

In contrast, Java falls apart in less interesting ways. Java is more
like all-or-nothing digital distortion, whereas dhtml is more like
warm-and-gradual analog tube distortion. Java usually either works
slowly or doesn't work at all.

I offer the above instance as just one example in which the "better,
more robust" authoring environment is actually "worse" for a
particular artistic approach.

It's facile to say, "I don't like Flash art," or "I do like Flash
art." Just like it's facile to say, "I don't like internet art," or
"I do like internet art." Flash has its constraints, as the internet
has its constraints, as watercolors have their constraints; but these
constraints still allow a fairly wide berth for stylistic approaches
and content choices.

Likewise, it's parochial to say "all Flash art looks the same." It's
like your grandfather saying, "all that rock & roll noise sounds the
same!" There are subtle differences within the genre of rock & roll
that your grandfather either can't discern or doesn't value. I
should also point out that there is an entire culture of
Flash-prodigy experimental web designers that visit Rhizome and say,
"all that net art crap looks the same." But our ideas of
"legitimate" net art are more "right" than their ideas because…?
Because Duchamp [mis-]signed a urinal 80 years ago, our predecessors
agreed that his doing so mattered, and we assented?

People who categorically say they don't like Flash-based net art
often mean they don't like net art that prioritizes a visual
aesthetic.

peace,
curt
_
_

OK this discussion is going the same direction it always goes. My medium
is better than your medium. No it isn't. Yes it is. Why? Because.

What defines quality in works of art is how the artist works with the
medium that he chooses to work with. Which is better, sculpture or oil
painting? That's an absurd question. A good painting can be as good as or
better than or worse than a good sculpture. They really have little to do
with each other. Which is better, an oil painting or an acrylic painting?
Again, same thing. It all boils down to what the artist does with it. Same
thing in our instance. Director or Java based work isn't automatically
better than Flash work. It all depends on how the artist uses his medium.
I would even venture so far as to say that a good indication of quality
creativity would be how the artist makes out within a confined medium.
Which would mean that if Flash is in fact a lesser medium, it calls for
more creativity on the artists part, but I'm not going to go that far. I'm
just going to say that the medium or tools used have absolutely nothing to
do with the quality of art work. It's all in the hands of the artist.

Pall

On Wed, 2 Jul 2003, Curt Cloninger wrote:

> So far in this thread, Mr. Lichty seems the most perspicacious. I'm
> always amazed at the sort of patronizing,
> look-what-the-cat-dragged-in reaction that net artists have toward
> Flash. The tenor of the dialogue usually runs like, "Could this be
> art? Do you think so? Really? No! Could it be?"
>
> Miltos Manetas forms the Electronic Orphanage around something as
> inconsequential as "works done in flash," and it's greeted as a novel
> movement. Even Lev Manovich gets all happy writing a piece about
> Flash paradigmatics.
>
> The implicit assumption that a Java applet is a more legitimate net
> art medium than an .swf file struck me as bizarre the first time I
> heard it, and it still seeems very parochial to me. One may just as
> fruitfully have begun this thread by asking, "what is the best work
> on the Web done in Java?" Pieces by golan levin, casey reas, martin
> wattenberg, and bradford paley come immediately to mind; and then I'd
> be hard-pressed to come up with more. For a NET artist, the question
> is not what the Java programming language will let you do in terms of
> creating stand-alone apps, the question is what will it let you do on
> the net? Particularly on the mac, java BROWSER
> support/implementation is much slower, glitchier, and kludgier than
> Flash plug-in support/implementation.
>
> [I'm sidestepping the open-source vs. commercially-owned debate
> because it's political, diverting, and uninteresting to me.]
>
> From the beginning, Flash was created as a vector animation tool, and
> animation deals with visual aesthetics. That, methinks, is the REAL
> reason why Flash is treated as a red headed step-child by both the
> software-centric and concept-centric camps of our enlightened
> "rhizome-ish" net art community – because Flash allocates much of
> its computational muscle to making things move cool and look good,
> and such priorities are not valued by many here.
>
> Personally, a lot of my net art is "browser window" art (cf:
> http://www.playdamage.org ). I like working in dhtml because it
> falls apart in interesting ways. So my work looks and behaves
> differently on different browsers, different operating systems, at
> different screen sizes, at different processor speeds. And I like
> allowing those variables to mess-up my art. That's part of the
> "net-centricity" of it.
>
> In contrast, Java falls apart in less interesting ways. Java is more
> like all-or-nothing digital distortion, whereas dhtml is more like
> warm-and-gradual analog tube distortion. Java usually either works
> slowly or doesn't work at all.
>
> I offer the above instance as just one example in which the "better,
> more robust" authoring environment is actually "worse" for a
> particular artistic approach.
>
> It's facile to say, "I don't like Flash art," or "I do like Flash
> art." Just like it's facile to say, "I don't like internet art," or
> "I do like internet art." Flash has its constraints, as the internet
> has its constraints, as watercolors have their constraints; but these
> constraints still allow a fairly wide berth for stylistic approaches
> and content choices.
>
> Likewise, it's parochial to say "all Flash art looks the same." It's
> like your grandfather saying, "all that rock & roll noise sounds the
> same!" There are subtle differences within the genre of rock & roll
> that your grandfather either can't discern or doesn't value. I
> should also point out that there is an entire culture of
> Flash-prodigy experimental web designers that visit Rhizome and say,
> "all that net art crap looks the same." But our ideas of
> "legitimate" net art are more "right" than their ideas because…?
> Because Duchamp [mis-]signed a urinal 80 years ago, our predecessors
> agreed that his doing so mattered, and we assented?
>
> People who categorically say they don't like Flash-based net art
> often mean they don't like net art that prioritizes a visual
> aesthetic.
>
> peace,
> curt
> _
> _
> + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
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>

–
Pall Thayer
artist/teacher
http://www.this.is/pallit
http://130.208.220.190/
http://130.208.220.190/nuharm
http://130.208.220.190/panse