considering abstraction in digital art?

Hi Andre,

I've been reading Paul Klee a lot lately, and I like his take on abstraction. His answer might be "something like both a and b, with certain caveats." If there is a spiritual or a transcendental, we are not going to re-present it simply by drawing the surface of objects with illusionary renaissance perspective. So to get at the life/history/essence of an object, we have to try to represent that object over time, which is hard to do in a single, static, 2D picture plane.

So Klee developed a system of representation to try to get at the source of what something is. And of course his paintings don't look exactly like the surface of a thing. But they always have some relationship to the surface of a thing, because the surface of a thing has at least something to do with the essence of the thing. And since existence is very complex and the language of painting is necessarily more simple and reductive, then the painting will necessarily be an "abstraction," since it can't be a simulation. But the goal is not abstraction for its own sake. The goal is to get at the essence of a thing, and in order to do this using the limited vocabulary of (in Klee's case) painting, it's going to be abstracted.

Interesting that Klee's systematic approach to representation influenced Armin Hofmann who influenced Casey Reas whose Processing software is currently influencing the aesthetic of the generative art scene. All via a Bauhaus modernist graphic design door, which is a funny door for it to come through, considering it winds up in the midst of the late modern, often anti-formalist net art scene.

Some quotations that seem relevant:

There's this sort of ridiculous idea left over from the 20th century that abstraction and figuration are legitimate poles. And I from the very start have incorporated the two things together. I've been fascinated by the idea that there is really no distinction – it's just a question of scale. (matthew ritchie)


Forms react on us both through their essence and their appearance, those kindred organs of the spirit. The line of demarcation between essence and appearance is faint. There is no clash, just a specific something which demands that the essentials be grasped. (paul klee)


It is not easy to orient yourself in a whole that is made up of parts belonging to different dimensions. And nature is such a whole…

The answer lies in methods of handling spatial representation which lead to an image that is plastically clear. The difficulty lies in the temporal deficiencies of language. For language there is no way of seeing many dimensions at once. (paul klee)


There should be no separation between spontaneous work with an emotional tone and work directed by the intellect. Both are supplementary to each other and must be regarded as intimately connected. Discipline and freedom are thus to be seen as elements of equal weight, each partaking of the other. (armin hofmann)


In the face of the mystery, analysis stops perplexed. But the mystery is to share in the creation of form by pressing forward to the seal of mystery. (paul klee)


The chosen artists are those who dig down close to the secret source where the primal law feeds the forces of development. (paul klee)


To overcome an obstacle or an enemy
To dominate the impossible in your life
Reach in the darkness
(paul simon)


Art plays in the dark with ultimate things and yet it reaches them. (paul klee)

+++++++++++

Andre SC wrote:
Hello List

Just wondering, do you think Abstraction is?

a. necessarily reductive in nature
b. actually inherently transcendental
c. both a and b above
d. depends, if we are talking performative, generative, iterative or
retronascent
e. none of the above , but?

because?

Andre SC

I've been doing some research on related stuff recently and it's
beginning to lead into a kind of strange direction. What I'm going to
say is not about digital art in general but about Net-Art in general.
For a long time I've been touting the merits of the abstract and do
in fact feel that it's one of *the* most important moves in recent
art. So important that to simply abandon it as old fashioned would be
a shame. It's definitely important stuff. But as far as Net-Art is
concerned, it's hard to ignore the Pop-Artness of it. It uses
elements of mass culture and due it's (most often) screen-based
nature, it tends to have a graphic-design quality to it. On top of
that, it has one more very significant feature that Pop-Art didn't
have. Almost anyone can experience it in an environment of their own
choosing.

Here's a good description of net art, it's: "popular, transient,
expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky,
glamorous, and Big Business"

Only, this list wasn't devised as a description of net art. It's
Richard Hamilton describing Pop-Art in the late 50's. Eery, eh? So,
wow! If we consider the primary proponents of these two "schools",
we're looking to try to find a balance between Clement Greenberg and
Arthur Danto. That's pretty intense. I came across a true gem of a
find just yesterday. In the October, 2004 issue of ArtForum, they
published a previously unpublished lecture given by Greenberg on…
Pop-Art. Very interesting read but not surprising that he didn't care
for it all. Here's a great quote from the lecture: "But Pop art has
not yet produced anything that has given me, for one, pause; moved me
deeply; that has challenged my taste or capacities and forced me to
expand them."

Danto on the other hand says that art's flight from Abstract
Expressionism (Greenberg's forte) is a turning point where art
becomes philosophy which sounds to me like something very challenging
and deeply moving.

Of course, one of the interesting things to consider, is the
audience. Who were Abstract Expressionism's audience? Who were Pop-
Art's audience? Who are Net-Art's audience?

I'm not going to supply any answers. This is just stuff to think
about. But I do feel that Net-Art has the potential to create a
meaningful bridge between Greenberg and Danto and that it's truly
worth pursuing.

Pall

On 20.4.2006, at 13:26, curt cloninger wrote:

> Hi Andre,
>
> I've been reading Paul Klee a lot lately, and I like his take on
> abstraction. His answer might be "something like both a and b,
> with certain caveats." If there is a spiritual or a
> transcendental, we are not going to re-present it simply by drawing
> the surface of objects with illusionary renaissance perspective.
> So to get at the life/history/essence of an object, we have to try
> to represent that object over time, which is hard to do in a
> single, static, 2D picture plane.
>
> So Klee developed a system of representation to try to get at the
> source of what something is. And of course his paintings don't
> look exactly like the surface of a thing. But they always have
> some relationship to the surface of a thing, because the surface of
> a thing has at least something to do with the essence of the
> thing. And since existence is very complex and the language of
> painting is necessarily more simple and reductive, then the
> painting will necessarily be an "abstraction," since it can't be a
> simulation. But the goal is not abstraction for its own sake. The
> goal is to get at the essence of a thing, and in order to do this
> using the limited vocabulary of (in Klee's case) painting, it's
> going to be abstracted.
>
> Interesting that Klee's systematic approach to representation
> influenced Armin Hofmann who influenced Casey Reas whose Processing
> software is currently influencing the aesthetic of the generative
> art scene. All via a Bauhaus modernist graphic design door, which
> is a funny door for it to come through, considering it winds up in
> the midst of the late modern, often anti-formalist net art scene.
>
> Some quotations that seem relevant:
>
> There's this sort of ridiculous idea left over from the 20th
> century that abstraction and figuration are legitimate poles. And
> I from the very start have incorporated the two things together.
> I've been fascinated by the idea that there is really no
> distinction – it's just a question of scale. (matthew ritchie)
>
>
> Forms react on us both through their essence and their appearance,
> those kindred organs of the spirit. The line of demarcation
> between essence and appearance is faint. There is no clash, just a
> specific something which demands that the essentials be grasped.
> (paul klee)
>
>
> It is not easy to orient yourself in a whole that is made up of
> parts belonging to different dimensions. And nature is such a whole…
>
> The answer lies in methods of handling spatial representation which
> lead to an image that is plastically clear. The difficulty lies in
> the temporal deficiencies of language. For language there is no way
> of seeing many dimensions at once. (paul klee)
>
>
> There should be no separation between spontaneous work with an
> emotional tone and work directed by the intellect. Both are
> supplementary to each other and must be regarded as intimately
> connected. Discipline and freedom are thus to be seen as elements
> of equal weight, each partaking of the other. (armin hofmann)
>
>
> In the face of the mystery, analysis stops perplexed. But the
> mystery is to share in the creation of form by pressing forward to
> the seal of mystery. (paul klee)
>
>
> The chosen artists are those who dig down close to the secret
> source where the primal law feeds the forces of development. (paul
> klee)
>
>
> To overcome an obstacle or an enemy
> To dominate the impossible in your life
> Reach in the darkness
> (paul simon)
>
>
> Art plays in the dark with ultimate things and yet it reaches them.
> (paul klee)
>
> +++++++++++
>
> Andre SC wrote:
> Hello List
>
> Just wondering, do you think Abstraction is?
>
> a. necessarily reductive in nature
> b. actually inherently transcendental
> c. both a and b above
> d. depends, if we are talking performative, generative, iterative or
> retronascent
> e. none of the above , but?
>
> because?
>
> Andre SC
> +
> -> 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
>



–
Pall Thayer
[email protected]
http://www.this.is/pallit

On 20/04/2006, at 9:24 PM, Pall Thayer wrote:

> I've been doing some research on related stuff recently and it's
> beginning to lead into a kind of strange direction. What I'm going
> to say is not about digital art in general but about Net-Art in
> general. For a long time I've been touting the merits of the
> abstract and do in fact feel that it's one of *the* most important
> moves in recent art. So important that to simply abandon it as old
> fashioned would be a shame. It's definitely important stuff. But as
> far as Net-Art is concerned, it's hard to ignore the Pop-Artness of
> it. It uses elements of mass culture and due it's (most often)
> screen-based nature, it tends to have a graphic-design quality to
> it. On top of that, it has one more very significant feature that
> Pop-Art didn't have. Almost anyone can experience it in an
> environment of their own choosing.


Experiencing art within the domain of your choosing is important –
but this has always been possible. A buyer/collector of an art
object may choose to experience the object anywhere he/she wishes.
But a viewer – now, a viewer is restricted to the medium where a 3d
piece can be experienced without buying it – you know, an art
gallery, a museum, someone's home. The enviroment wherein net.art can
be experienced is definitely not of ones own choosing. net.art can
only be experienced within the confines of – well, the internet. It
will always take a machine to experience net.art. You will never be
able to walk around it, look at it from the back. It simply does no
exist in our dimension. Now THAT makes net.art (and before that,
video art, ie everything that needs a machine) very different from
anything produces before. Except perhaps fluxus, happenings.

Geert
http://nznl.com

>
> Here's a good description of net art, it's: "popular, transient,
> expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky,
> glamorous, and Big Business"
>
> Only, this list wasn't devised as a description of net art. It's
> Richard Hamilton describing Pop-Art in the late 50's. Eery, eh? So,
> wow! If we consider the primary proponents of these two "schools",
> we're looking to try to find a balance between Clement Greenberg
> and Arthur Danto. That's pretty intense. I came across a true gem
> of a find just yesterday. In the October, 2004 issue of ArtForum,
> they published a previously unpublished lecture given by Greenberg
> on… Pop-Art. Very interesting read but not surprising that he
> didn't care for it all. Here's a great quote from the lecture: "But
> Pop art has not yet produced anything that has given me, for one,
> pause; moved me deeply; that has challenged my taste or capacities
> and forced me to expand them."
>
> Danto on the other hand says that art's flight from Abstract
> Expressionism (Greenberg's forte) is a turning point where art
> becomes philosophy which sounds to me like something very
> challenging and deeply moving.
>
> Of course, one of the interesting things to consider, is the
> audience. Who were Abstract Expressionism's audience? Who were Pop-
> Art's audience? Who are Net-Art's audience?
>
> I'm not going to supply any answers. This is just stuff to think
> about. But I do feel that Net-Art has the potential to create a
> meaningful bridge between Greenberg and Danto and that it's truly
> worth pursuing.
>
> Pall
>
> On 20.4.2006, at 13:26, curt cloninger wrote:
>
>> Hi Andre,
>>
>> I've been reading Paul Klee a lot lately, and I like his take on
>> abstraction. His answer might be "something like both a and b,
>> with certain caveats." If there is a spiritual or a
>> transcendental, we are not going to re-present it simply by
>> drawing the surface of objects with illusionary renaissance
>> perspective. So to get at the life/history/essence of an object,
>> we have to try to represent that object over time, which is hard
>> to do in a single, static, 2D picture plane.
>>
>> So Klee developed a system of representation to try to get at the
>> source of what something is. And of course his paintings don't
>> look exactly like the surface of a thing. But they always have
>> some relationship to the surface of a thing, because the surface
>> of a thing has at least something to do with the essence of the
>> thing. And since existence is very complex and the language of
>> painting is necessarily more simple and reductive, then the
>> painting will necessarily be an "abstraction," since it can't be a
>> simulation. But the goal is not abstraction for its own sake.
>> The goal is to get at the essence of a thing, and in order to do
>> this using the limited vocabulary of (in Klee's case) painting,
>> it's going to be abstracted.
>>
>> Interesting that Klee's systematic approach to representation
>> influenced Armin Hofmann who influenced Casey Reas whose
>> Processing software is currently influencing the aesthetic of the
>> generative art scene. All via a Bauhaus modernist graphic design
>> door, which is a funny door for it to come through, considering it
>> winds up in the midst of the late modern, often anti-formalist net
>> art scene.
>>
>> Some quotations that seem relevant:
>>
>> There's this sort of ridiculous idea left over from the 20th
>> century that abstraction and figuration are legitimate poles. And
>> I from the very start have incorporated the two things together.
>> I've been fascinated by the idea that there is really no
>> distinction – it's just a question of scale. (matthew ritchie)
>>
>>
>> Forms react on us both through their essence and their appearance,
>> those kindred organs of the spirit. The line of demarcation
>> between essence and appearance is faint. There is no clash, just
>> a specific something which demands that the essentials be grasped.
>> (paul klee)
>>
>>
>> It is not easy to orient yourself in a whole that is made up of
>> parts belonging to different dimensions. And nature is such a
>> whole…
>>
>> The answer lies in methods of handling spatial representation
>> which lead to an image that is plastically clear. The difficulty
>> lies in the temporal deficiencies of language. For language there
>> is no way of seeing many dimensions at once. (paul klee)
>>
>>
>> There should be no separation between spontaneous work with an
>> emotional tone and work directed by the intellect. Both are
>> supplementary to each other and must be regarded as intimately
>> connected. Discipline and freedom are thus to be seen as elements
>> of equal weight, each partaking of the other. (armin hofmann)
>>
>>
>> In the face of the mystery, analysis stops perplexed. But the
>> mystery is to share in the creation of form by pressing forward to
>> the seal of mystery. (paul klee)
>>
>>
>> The chosen artists are those who dig down close to the secret
>> source where the primal law feeds the forces of development. (paul
>> klee)
>>
>>
>> To overcome an obstacle or an enemy
>> To dominate the impossible in your life
>> Reach in the darkness
>> (paul simon)
>>
>>
>> Art plays in the dark with ultimate things and yet it reaches
>> them. (paul klee)
>>
>> +++++++++++
>>
>> Andre SC wrote:
>> Hello List
>>
>> Just wondering, do you think Abstraction is?
>>
>> a. necessarily reductive in nature
>> b. actually inherently transcendental
>> c. both a and b above
>> d. depends, if we are talking performative, generative, iterative or
>> retronascent
>> e. none of the above , but?
>>
>> because?
>>
>> Andre SC
>> +
>> -> 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
>>
>
>
>
> –
> Pall Thayer
> [email protected]
> http://www.this.is/pallit
>
>
>
>
> +
> -> 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

Mmmm. All this sounds really mystic to me. Abstract art – or "the
abstract in art" is meaningless without looking at the way image
production has changed since the middle of the nineteenth century. If
looked at with a cultural birds-eye view, its easy to picture the
mainstream art system as one wherein art objects float from node to
node. And where the relevance of the content matter of those art
objects is weighed accordingly. Barnett Newman and Blinky Palermo
produced dummy art objects (well, Barnett probably didn't think he
did, but Blinky Palermo certainingly knew what he was doing) later
followed by many artists.

So, to latch on to Andre's mulitple choice – reductive, yes. Because
personal content is less relevant for the production of individual
objects. Transcendal, yes, also, because cultural/collective content
is more relevant.

Geert
http://nznl.com


On 20/04/2006, at 7:26 PM, curt cloninger wrote:

> Hi Andre,
>
> I've been reading Paul Klee a lot lately, and I like his take on
> abstraction. His answer might be "something like both a and b,
> with certain caveats." If there is a spiritual or a
> transcendental, we are not going to re-present it simply by drawing
> the surface of objects with illusionary renaissance perspective.
> So to get at the life/history/essence of an object, we have to try
> to represent that object over time, which is hard to do in a
> single, static, 2D picture plane.
>
> So Klee developed a system of representation to try to get at the
> source of what something is. And of course his paintings don't
> look exactly like the surface of a thing. But they always have
> some relationship to the surface of a thing, because the surface of
> a thing has at least something to do with the essence of the
> thing. And since existence is very complex and the language of
> painting is necessarily more simple and reductive, then the
> painting will necessarily be an "abstraction," since it can't be a
> simulation. But the goal is not abstraction for its own sake. The
> goal is to get at the essence of a thing, and in order to do this
> using the limited vocabulary of (in Klee's case) painting, it's
> going to be abstracted.
>
> Interesting that Klee's systematic approach to representation
> influenced Armin Hofmann who influenced Casey Reas whose Processing
> software is currently influencing the aesthetic of the generative
> art scene. All via a Bauhaus modernist graphic design door, which
> is a funny door for it to come through, considering it winds up in
> the midst of the late modern, often anti-formalist net art scene.
>
> Some quotations that seem relevant:
>
> There's this sort of ridiculous idea left over from the 20th
> century that abstraction and figuration are legitimate poles. And
> I from the very start have incorporated the two things together.
> I've been fascinated by the idea that there is really no
> distinction – it's just a question of scale. (matthew ritchie)
>
>
> Forms react on us both through their essence and their appearance,
> those kindred organs of the spirit. The line of demarcation
> between essence and appearance is faint. There is no clash, just a
> specific something which demands that the essentials be grasped.
> (paul klee)
>
>
> It is not easy to orient yourself in a whole that is made up of
> parts belonging to different dimensions. And nature is such a whole…
>
> The answer lies in methods of handling spatial representation which
> lead to an image that is plastically clear. The difficulty lies in
> the temporal deficiencies of language. For language there is no way
> of seeing many dimensions at once. (paul klee)
>
>
> There should be no separation between spontaneous work with an
> emotional tone and work directed by the intellect. Both are
> supplementary to each other and must be regarded as intimately
> connected. Discipline and freedom are thus to be seen as elements
> of equal weight, each partaking of the other. (armin hofmann)
>
>
> In the face of the mystery, analysis stops perplexed. But the
> mystery is to share in the creation of form by pressing forward to
> the seal of mystery. (paul klee)
>
>
> The chosen artists are those who dig down close to the secret
> source where the primal law feeds the forces of development. (paul
> klee)
>
>
> To overcome an obstacle or an enemy
> To dominate the impossible in your life
> Reach in the darkness
> (paul simon)
>
>
> Art plays in the dark with ultimate things and yet it reaches them.
> (paul klee)
>
> +++++++++++
>
> Andre SC wrote:
> Hello List
>
> Just wondering, do you think Abstraction is?
>
> a. necessarily reductive in nature
> b. actually inherently transcendental
> c. both a and b above
> d. depends, if we are talking performative, generative, iterative or
> retronascent
> e. none of the above , but?
>
> because?
>
> Andre SC
> +
> -> 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

Hi Geert,
Good point. I hadn't really considered that. When considering Net-Art
as a mass-media type phenomenon, I guess what concerns me as far as
the location of the experience goes, is the fact that people not
generally interested enough in art to go out and seek it in a gallery
or museum or even those who feel intimidated by formal art settings
(the "I don't know how to talk about art. I'll just feel out of
place." types) can experience the art in solitude without it being a
compromise such as looking at pictures of paintings or sculptures in
a magazine. They get the real thing. And the way things are now, that
doesn't necessarily have to be at home, it can be at a coffee-shop,
the library, school, even a park.

But as far as walking around and examining work in three dimensions,
I'm not sure that I would call that unique to screen-based art as
painting exhibitions usually don't invite you to examine the
paintings from behind.

Pall


On 20.4.2006, at 16:09, Geert Dekkers wrote:

>
> On 20/04/2006, at 9:24 PM, Pall Thayer wrote:
>
>> I've been doing some research on related stuff recently and it's
>> beginning to lead into a kind of strange direction. What I'm going
>> to say is not about digital art in general but about Net-Art in
>> general. For a long time I've been touting the merits of the
>> abstract and do in fact feel that it's one of *the* most important
>> moves in recent art. So important that to simply abandon it as old
>> fashioned would be a shame. It's definitely important stuff. But
>> as far as Net-Art is concerned, it's hard to ignore the Pop-
>> Artness of it. It uses elements of mass culture and due it's (most
>> often) screen-based nature, it tends to have a graphic-design
>> quality to it. On top of that, it has one more very significant
>> feature that Pop-Art didn't have. Almost anyone can experience it
>> in an environment of their own choosing.
>
>
> Experiencing art within the domain of your choosing is important –
> but this has always been possible. A buyer/collector of an art
> object may choose to experience the object anywhere he/she wishes.
> But a viewer – now, a viewer is restricted to the medium where a
> 3d piece can be experienced without buying it – you know, an art
> gallery, a museum, someone's home. The enviroment wherein net.art
> can be experienced is definitely not of ones own choosing. net.art
> can only be experienced within the confines of – well, the
> internet. It will always take a machine to experience net.art. You
> will never be able to walk around it, look at it from the back. It
> simply does no exist in our dimension. Now THAT makes net.art (and
> before that, video art, ie everything that needs a machine) very
> different from anything produces before. Except perhaps fluxus,
> happenings.
>
> Geert
> http://nznl.com
>
>>
>> Here's a good description of net art, it's: "popular, transient,
>> expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky,
>> glamorous, and Big Business"
>>
>> Only, this list wasn't devised as a description of net art. It's
>> Richard Hamilton describing Pop-Art in the late 50's. Eery, eh?
>> So, wow! If we consider the primary proponents of these two
>> "schools", we're looking to try to find a balance between Clement
>> Greenberg and Arthur Danto. That's pretty intense. I came across a
>> true gem of a find just yesterday. In the October, 2004 issue of
>> ArtForum, they published a previously unpublished lecture given by
>> Greenberg on… Pop-Art. Very interesting read but not surprising
>> that he didn't care for it all. Here's a great quote from the
>> lecture: "But Pop art has not yet produced anything that has given
>> me, for one, pause; moved me deeply; that has challenged my taste
>> or capacities and forced me to expand them."
>>
>> Danto on the other hand says that art's flight from Abstract
>> Expressionism (Greenberg's forte) is a turning point where art
>> becomes philosophy which sounds to me like something very
>> challenging and deeply moving.
>>
>> Of course, one of the interesting things to consider, is the
>> audience. Who were Abstract Expressionism's audience? Who were Pop-
>> Art's audience? Who are Net-Art's audience?
>>
>> I'm not going to supply any answers. This is just stuff to think
>> about. But I do feel that Net-Art has the potential to create a
>> meaningful bridge between Greenberg and Danto and that it's truly
>> worth pursuing.
>>
>> Pall
>>
>> On 20.4.2006, at 13:26, curt cloninger wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Andre,
>>>
>>> I've been reading Paul Klee a lot lately, and I like his take on
>>> abstraction. His answer might be "something like both a and b,
>>> with certain caveats." If there is a spiritual or a
>>> transcendental, we are not going to re-present it simply by
>>> drawing the surface of objects with illusionary renaissance
>>> perspective. So to get at the life/history/essence of an object,
>>> we have to try to represent that object over time, which is hard
>>> to do in a single, static, 2D picture plane.
>>>
>>> So Klee developed a system of representation to try to get at the
>>> source of what something is. And of course his paintings don't
>>> look exactly like the surface of a thing. But they always have
>>> some relationship to the surface of a thing, because the surface
>>> of a thing has at least something to do with the essence of the
>>> thing. And since existence is very complex and the language of
>>> painting is necessarily more simple and reductive, then the
>>> painting will necessarily be an "abstraction," since it can't be
>>> a simulation. But the goal is not abstraction for its own sake.
>>> The goal is to get at the essence of a thing, and in order to do
>>> this using the limited vocabulary of (in Klee's case) painting,
>>> it's going to be abstracted.
>>>
>>> Interesting that Klee's systematic approach to representation
>>> influenced Armin Hofmann who influenced Casey Reas whose
>>> Processing software is currently influencing the aesthetic of the
>>> generative art scene. All via a Bauhaus modernist graphic design
>>> door, which is a funny door for it to come through, considering
>>> it winds up in the midst of the late modern, often anti-formalist
>>> net art scene.
>>>
>>> Some quotations that seem relevant:
>>>
>>> There's this sort of ridiculous idea left over from the 20th
>>> century that abstraction and figuration are legitimate poles.
>>> And I from the very start have incorporated the two things
>>> together. I've been fascinated by the idea that there is really
>>> no distinction – it's just a question of scale. (matthew ritchie)
>>>
>>>
>>> Forms react on us both through their essence and their
>>> appearance, those kindred organs of the spirit. The line of
>>> demarcation between essence and appearance is faint. There is no
>>> clash, just a specific something which demands that the
>>> essentials be grasped. (paul klee)
>>>
>>>
>>> It is not easy to orient yourself in a whole that is made up of
>>> parts belonging to different dimensions. And nature is such a
>>> whole…
>>>
>>> The answer lies in methods of handling spatial representation
>>> which lead to an image that is plastically clear. The difficulty
>>> lies in the temporal deficiencies of language. For language there
>>> is no way of seeing many dimensions at once. (paul klee)
>>>
>>>
>>> There should be no separation between spontaneous work with an
>>> emotional tone and work directed by the intellect. Both are
>>> supplementary to each other and must be regarded as intimately
>>> connected. Discipline and freedom are thus to be seen as elements
>>> of equal weight, each partaking of the other. (armin hofmann)
>>>
>>>
>>> In the face of the mystery, analysis stops perplexed. But the
>>> mystery is to share in the creation of form by pressing forward
>>> to the seal of mystery. (paul klee)
>>>
>>>
>>> The chosen artists are those who dig down close to the secret
>>> source where the primal law feeds the forces of development.
>>> (paul klee)
>>>
>>>
>>> To overcome an obstacle or an enemy
>>> To dominate the impossible in your life
>>> Reach in the darkness
>>> (paul simon)
>>>
>>>
>>> Art plays in the dark with ultimate things and yet it reaches
>>> them. (paul klee)
>>>
>>> +++++++++++
>>>
>>> Andre SC wrote:
>>> Hello List
>>>
>>> Just wondering, do you think Abstraction is?
>>>
>>> a. necessarily reductive in nature
>>> b. actually inherently transcendental
>>> c. both a and b above
>>> d. depends, if we are talking performative, generative, iterative or
>>> retronascent
>>> e. none of the above , but?
>>>
>>> because?
>>>
>>> Andre SC
>>> +
>>> -> 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
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> –
>> Pall Thayer
>> [email protected]
>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> +
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>
> +
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–
Pall Thayer
[email protected]
http://www.this.is/pallit

I think, or whatever passes for thinking, we have o establish a few parameters before we discuss the issue of online abstract art.
Before I make a comment, we need to discuss the frame of a web art work.
This frame carries with it an accepted degree of drift.
An abstract painting in a gallery, museum, hallway of an insurance company doesn't share the same unique frame that online web art has.
Our first goal, before going off on funny tangents is to agree upon "the frame" and the context that "the frame" brings to the work.
Web art is framed in ways that museum art could only dream of (or reel in apoplexia during early morning nightmares).
What is this distance between the old static world and the newer mediated world?
Can we even begin to make comparisons?
Rhizome posts so many new works each day, which is why I love it, but could an old guard critic like Clem Greenberg get any sense of the new ideas and feelings these works explore? I doubt it.
Eric

On Apr 20, 2006, at 9:33 PM, Eric Dymond wrote:
>
> Rhizome posts so many new works each day, which is why I love it, but
> could an old guard critic like Clem Greenberg get any sense of the new
> ideas and feelings these works explore? I doubt it.
> Eric

hi Eric,
i appreciate what you have to say (the comments about framing - right
on), but do you really mean this? what's the point in having an "art"
that can be distributed over a network like the internet/web,
supposedly to reach more people than painting, and believe that someone
like Greenberg couldn't "get it"? don't get me wrong, i'm not saying he
would "like" any of it, but his dislike of it would be because he "got
it," not due to his ignorance - he would actively resist participation.
Take Fried's critique of theatricality in minimalism, for example. He
got it, and didn't like it. Or for a more current example, read Claire
Bishop's crit of relational aesthetics, which is so a contemporary "Art
& Objecthood." She also "gets" relational aesthetics and that is where
her crit comes from… despite her (very) valid points about the denial
of conflict in Bourriaud's relational aesthetics (and its simulation of
egalitarianism/anarchism), her crit comes down to a defense of "Art"
and its boundaries (gender, class, etc) - hence the importance of
Gillick and Hirschorn to her narrative. i mean, someone wants to
challenge the "collaborative" practices of Tiravanija and that's who
they come up with??
anyway, just some quick thoughts… that are maybe way off the topic of
abstraction, at least as it's being discussed here.
ryan

Hi Ryan,
These are great points, but I am trying to zero in on web art vs traditional art framing.
I understand traditional contexts, they have such a great history, and a great expectation.
The current disourse doesn't address the fact that my computer is expected to reveal art in the context of a web browser (with back buttons, history, lnks etc..) or software that always has an escape key.
This is a pretty significant difference between older static works and the new works that address the issue of the computed frame.
When I look at a Barnett Newman, in person or online, I am framed by the substances that created the work. He meant for things to be seen in person, in situu. He also was very particular about insisting that the existence that created the work be remembered.
Thats not true of online work. Often I spend very little time worrying about the programming/imaging/author that created the work.
The significance that the 'making' brings is so important in older art.
Don't we now tend to ignore the drag of a brush(which Newman felt was all important) and deal with the social/technological/mediated event as it presents itself to us? Its event driven, not individually expressed.
In other words when we take up the digital, we bring with it some baggage that never entered into the discourse of the older abstract and conceptual artists? The new baggage could be CNN, Yahoo, Google, Rhizome, The Thing, NetTime, and on and on.
I think most older abstraction was insulated from these issues
Could the old world of abstraction even be possible in the electronic digest?
Eric

Where is the back button on a Mondrian's 'Broadway Boogie Woogie'?

On Apr 20, 2006, at 11:08 PM, Eric Dymond wrote:

> Where is the back button on a Mondrian's 'Broadway Boogie Woogie'?

http://www.stephen.com/mondrimat/mondrian/yh.html
;)

Ummmmm….

Geert
http://nznl.com

On 21-apr-2006, at 6:08, Eric Dymond wrote:

> Where is the back button on a Mondrian's 'Broadway Boogie Woogie'?
> +
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> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/
> 29.php

@Andre:

What exactly do you mean with trancendental?
There are quite a few definitions of that
term on the market.

@Curt

>I've been fascinated by the idea that there is really no distinction – >it's just a question of scale. (matthew ritchie)

??????? this makes no sense to me. What do you think
how he meant that?
How do you apply that for example if you do
the abstraction from "chair" (meaning the actual thing*)
to "chair" (meaning the abstraction as a "thing which
can be used for sitting")??

(*like chair as in a chinese restaurant for eating hot and
sour soup :-))

@Geert

>You will never be
>able to walk around it, look at it from the back. It simply does no
>exist in our dimension.

This is definitely true for our nowadays internet.
However I think this will probably change if you look at the
already now available 3D technology.
I posted this link already on rhizome, but may be you missed it,
its an example of what#s on the way:
http://www.aist.go.jp/aist_e/latest_research/2006/20060210/20060210.html

and well finally -"one" can already now walk around an object as an avatar in virtual 3D space (e.g. on the internet).

On 20-apr-2006, at 22:45, Pall Thayer wrote:

> Hi Geert,
> Good point. I hadn't really considered that. When considering Net-
> Art as a mass-media type phenomenon, I guess what concerns me as
> far as the location of the experience goes, is the fact that people
> not generally interested enough in art to go out and seek it in a
> gallery or museum or even those who feel intimidated by formal art
> settings (the "I don't know how to talk about art. I'll just feel
> out of place." types) can experience the art in solitude without it
> being a compromise such as looking at pictures of paintings or
> sculptures in a magazine. They get the real thing. And the way
> things are now, that doesn't necessarily have to be at home, it can
> be at a coffee-shop, the library, school, even a park.
>
> But as far as walking around and examining work in three
> dimensions, I'm not sure that I would call that unique to screen-
> based art as painting exhibitions usually don't invite you to
> examine the paintings from behind.

Right. But what I mean is that in the case of screen-based work, like
digital work, like video work, the space of the work is removed from
the physical space where the box (computer, video set, projection
system) is presented. Which means that there is a conflict between
the art work universe (what goes on inside the box) and the design
universe (the outside of the box). More often than not, this conflict
stays unresolved. Of course, in painting (or any other form where
the image carrier is fixed to the image) this conflict is present.
But the conflict doesn't present itself as strongly as in screen-
based art, because of the simple possibility of switching of the set
(you then end up with just another tv)

Much of the appreciation of art comes with setting the context. As in
other art forms – for example: going to the pictures (to a movie
theatre) sets te context for the experience of a movie. Watching the
same on the telly is just not the same – as everyone knows. To pin
down a traditional form of art appreciation – lets say that would be
in a gallery, museum, or someones home, you'd really also have to
speak of the context of the art object, to some extent, the context
would be personal, other context would be collective, and yes, I can
imagine context that would be very unique to the person doing the
appreciating, so much so, that it would not be able to be articulated.

So – getting "the real thing" might just be somewhat different than
you think it is, Pall. Art needs its institutions – but art needs to
break its bonds now and again, too.

Geert
http://nznl.com

>
> Pall
>
>
> On 20.4.2006, at 16:09, Geert Dekkers wrote:
>
>>
>> On 20/04/2006, at 9:24 PM, Pall Thayer wrote:
>>
>>> I've been doing some research on related stuff recently and it's
>>> beginning to lead into a kind of strange direction. What I'm
>>> going to say is not about digital art in general but about Net-
>>> Art in general. For a long time I've been touting the merits of
>>> the abstract and do in fact feel that it's one of *the* most
>>> important moves in recent art. So important that to simply
>>> abandon it as old fashioned would be a shame. It's definitely
>>> important stuff. But as far as Net-Art is concerned, it's hard to
>>> ignore the Pop-Artness of it. It uses elements of mass culture
>>> and due it's (most often) screen-based nature, it tends to have a
>>> graphic-design quality to it. On top of that, it has one more
>>> very significant feature that Pop-Art didn't have. Almost anyone
>>> can experience it in an environment of their own choosing.
>>
>>
>> Experiencing art within the domain of your choosing is important
>> – but this has always been possible. A buyer/collector of an art
>> object may choose to experience the object anywhere he/she
>> wishes. But a viewer – now, a viewer is restricted to the medium
>> where a 3d piece can be experienced without buying it – you know,
>> an art gallery, a museum, someone's home. The enviroment wherein
>> net.art can be experienced is definitely not of ones own choosing.
>> net.art can only be experienced within the confines of – well,
>> the internet. It will always take a machine to experience net.art.
>> You will never be able to walk around it, look at it from the
>> back. It simply does no exist in our dimension. Now THAT makes
>> net.art (and before that, video art, ie everything that needs a
>> machine) very different from anything produces before. Except
>> perhaps fluxus, happenings.
>>
>> Geert
>> http://nznl.com
>>
>>>
>>> Here's a good description of net art, it's: "popular, transient,
>>> expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy,
>>> gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business"
>>>
>>> Only, this list wasn't devised as a description of net art. It's
>>> Richard Hamilton describing Pop-Art in the late 50's. Eery, eh?
>>> So, wow! If we consider the primary proponents of these two
>>> "schools", we're looking to try to find a balance between Clement
>>> Greenberg and Arthur Danto. That's pretty intense. I came across
>>> a true gem of a find just yesterday. In the October, 2004 issue
>>> of ArtForum, they published a previously unpublished lecture
>>> given by Greenberg on… Pop-Art. Very interesting read but not
>>> surprising that he didn't care for it all. Here's a great quote
>>> from the lecture: "But Pop art has not yet produced anything that
>>> has given me, for one, pause; moved me deeply; that has
>>> challenged my taste or capacities and forced me to expand them."
>>>
>>> Danto on the other hand says that art's flight from Abstract
>>> Expressionism (Greenberg's forte) is a turning point where art
>>> becomes philosophy which sounds to me like something very
>>> challenging and deeply moving.
>>>
>>> Of course, one of the interesting things to consider, is the
>>> audience. Who were Abstract Expressionism's audience? Who were
>>> Pop-Art's audience? Who are Net-Art's audience?
>>>
>>> I'm not going to supply any answers. This is just stuff to think
>>> about. But I do feel that Net-Art has the potential to create a
>>> meaningful bridge between Greenberg and Danto and that it's truly
>>> worth pursuing.
>>>
>>> Pall
>>>
>>> On 20.4.2006, at 13:26, curt cloninger wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Andre,
>>>>
>>>> I've been reading Paul Klee a lot lately, and I like his take on
>>>> abstraction. His answer might be "something like both a and b,
>>>> with certain caveats." If there is a spiritual or a
>>>> transcendental, we are not going to re-present it simply by
>>>> drawing the surface of objects with illusionary renaissance
>>>> perspective. So to get at the life/history/essence of an
>>>> object, we have to try to represent that object over time, which
>>>> is hard to do in a single, static, 2D picture plane.
>>>>
>>>> So Klee developed a system of representation to try to get at
>>>> the source of what something is. And of course his paintings
>>>> don't look exactly like the surface of a thing. But they always
>>>> have some relationship to the surface of a thing, because the
>>>> surface of a thing has at least something to do with the essence
>>>> of the thing. And since existence is very complex and the
>>>> language of painting is necessarily more simple and reductive,
>>>> then the painting will necessarily be an "abstraction," since it
>>>> can't be a simulation. But the goal is not abstraction for its
>>>> own sake. The goal is to get at the essence of a thing, and in
>>>> order to do this using the limited vocabulary of (in Klee's
>>>> case) painting, it's going to be abstracted.
>>>>
>>>> Interesting that Klee's systematic approach to representation
>>>> influenced Armin Hofmann who influenced Casey Reas whose
>>>> Processing software is currently influencing the aesthetic of
>>>> the generative art scene. All via a Bauhaus modernist graphic
>>>> design door, which is a funny door for it to come through,
>>>> considering it winds up in the midst of the late modern, often
>>>> anti-formalist net art scene.
>>>>
>>>> Some quotations that seem relevant:
>>>>
>>>> There's this sort of ridiculous idea left over from the 20th
>>>> century that abstraction and figuration are legitimate poles.
>>>> And I from the very start have incorporated the two things
>>>> together. I've been fascinated by the idea that there is really
>>>> no distinction – it's just a question of scale. (matthew ritchie)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Forms react on us both through their essence and their
>>>> appearance, those kindred organs of the spirit. The line of
>>>> demarcation between essence and appearance is faint. There is
>>>> no clash, just a specific something which demands that the
>>>> essentials be grasped. (paul klee)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It is not easy to orient yourself in a whole that is made up of
>>>> parts belonging to different dimensions. And nature is such a
>>>> whole…
>>>>
>>>> The answer lies in methods of handling spatial representation
>>>> which lead to an image that is plastically clear. The difficulty
>>>> lies in the temporal deficiencies of language. For language
>>>> there is no way of seeing many dimensions at once. (paul klee)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> There should be no separation between spontaneous work with an
>>>> emotional tone and work directed by the intellect. Both are
>>>> supplementary to each other and must be regarded as intimately
>>>> connected. Discipline and freedom are thus to be seen as
>>>> elements of equal weight, each partaking of the other. (armin
>>>> hofmann)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> In the face of the mystery, analysis stops perplexed. But the
>>>> mystery is to share in the creation of form by pressing forward
>>>> to the seal of mystery. (paul klee)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The chosen artists are those who dig down close to the secret
>>>> source where the primal law feeds the forces of development.
>>>> (paul klee)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> To overcome an obstacle or an enemy
>>>> To dominate the impossible in your life
>>>> Reach in the darkness
>>>> (paul simon)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Art plays in the dark with ultimate things and yet it reaches
>>>> them. (paul klee)
>>>>
>>>> +++++++++++
>>>>
>>>> Andre SC wrote:
>>>> Hello List
>>>>
>>>> Just wondering, do you think Abstraction is?
>>>>
>>>> a. necessarily reductive in nature
>>>> b. actually inherently transcendental
>>>> c. both a and b above
>>>> d. depends, if we are talking performative, generative,
>>>> iterative or
>>>> retronascent
>>>> e. none of the above , but?
>>>>
>>>> because?
>>>>
>>>> Andre SC
>>>> +
>>>> -> 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
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> –
>>> Pall Thayer
>>> [email protected]
>>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> +
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>>> -> questions: [email protected]
>>> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/
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>>> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>>> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/
>>> 29.php
>>
>> +
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>>
>
>
>
> –
> Pall Thayer
> [email protected]
> http://www.this.is/pallit
>
>
>
>
> +
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> 29.php

Hi Nad,

I don't think he's speaking philosophically. He's speaking in terms of abstract forms vs. figurative forms. If you zoom in on a human form, eventually you get to a scale that makes that form abstract. If you zoom out from a human form, the same thing happens. Think of the Eames powers of 10 movie.

http://www.powersof10.com/

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/

curt

+++++

@Curt

>I've been fascinated by the idea that there is really no distinction – >it's just a question of scale. (matthew ritchie)

??????? this makes no sense to me. What do you think
how he meant that?
How do you apply that for example if you do
the abstraction from "chair" (meaning the actual thing*)
to "chair" (meaning the abstraction as a "thing which
can be used for sitting")??

(*like chair as in a chinese restaurant for eating hot and
sour soup :-))

aka measurement is interference (procedure of quantum mechanics)
aka abstract is a bad question (posing as an answer, so people question it)
aka distinction is no really is (all i see is pixels on a screen)

+

chair is a word. How does one ever get to sit on a word? I think of fr
flesh while i ait that (untsoweiter)

Hence: correlating (atom-eating) through cycles of
differentiating>interrupting>differenciating picking up cycles of…

Net-art (or nAart or whatever) as the flux defined by the rhytmical
construct grid>absence>grid

my 2bit or what you make of it,
dv


> —–Oorspronkelijk bericht—–
> Van: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
> Namens curt cloninger
> Verzonden: vrijdag 21 april 2006 10:15
> Aan: [email protected]
> Onderwerp: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Re: considering abstraction in
> digital art?
>
> Hi Nad,
>
> I don't think he's speaking philosophically. He's speaking
> in terms of abstract forms vs. figurative forms. If you zoom
> in on a human form, eventually you get to a scale that makes
> that form abstract. If you zoom out from a human form, the
> same thing happens. Think of the Eames powers of 10 movie.
>
> http://www.powersof10.com/
>
> http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/
>
> curt
>
> +++++
>
> @Curt
>
> >I've been fascinated by the idea that there is really no
> distinction –
> >>it's just a question of scale. (matthew ritchie)
>
> ??????? this makes no sense to me. What do you think how he
> meant that?
> How do you apply that for example if you do the abstraction
> from "chair" (meaning the actual thing*) to "chair" (meaning
> the abstraction as a "thing which can be used for sitting")??
>
> (*like chair as in a chinese restaurant for eating hot and
> sour soup :-))
> +
> -> 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
>

> I posted this link already on rhizome, but may be you missed
> it, its an example of what#s on the way:
> http://www.aist.go.jp/aist_e/latest_research/2006/20060210/200
> 60210.html
>
> and well finally -"one" can already now walk around an object
> as an avatar in virtual 3D space (e.g. on the internet).
>


The fact that it uses afterlight (our mental, cognitive process of making
sense of stimuli _after_ they have happened) as a means of visualisation is
imho a vital part in figuring out *what* we'll actually be walking around.
It seems it's in the interfering part ( a continuous actualisation of waves
collapsing to fact, after the fact) that this technology truly gets
revolutionary.

dv

In other words, if u want:

"The mind, whether expressed in history or in the individual life, has a
precise movement, which can be quickened or slackened but cannot be
fundamentally altered, and this movement can be expressed by a mathematical
form."

WB Yeats (cfr http://socialfiction.org/gettags.php?tagski=Yeats&submit=send)

In dealing with abstraction (searching within, building on…)you're always
dealing with the human:

when it's "bad" digital abstraction is a further _mechanising_ of the
human, the kind of observing acts that, as an interference, is inescapably a
humanisation of the virtual, the abstract observing the abstracting if you
want. The result is contraction, general collaps, reduction of the reduced,
tagging the tagged. A general arrest of consciousness. (sh)It matters,
naturally.

when it's "good" digital abstraction could be offering sideway glances of
the a-human. Imho that can only be achieved by a _machinisation_ of the
poetic (we're too silly to get there ourselves -our consciousness doesn't
allow too much exposure etc). The result would be an opening, an explosion
of the captivated, a freeing of energies, a general leakage of the Real.
(sh)It happens, accidently.

The good and the bad are performing a continuous dance, exchanging vip-cards
on the net so to speak, but it seems, eventually, there's a rather annoying
lack of good around.

But then, ofcourse, there will always be the ugly.

dv

> —–Oorspronkelijk bericht—–
> Van: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
> Namens Dirk Vekemans
> Verzonden: vrijdag 21 april 2006 11:25
> Aan: 'curt cloninger'; [email protected]
> Onderwerp: RE: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Re: considering abstraction
> in digital art?
>
>
> aka measurement is interference (procedure of quantum
> mechanics) aka abstract is a bad question (posing as an
> answer, so people question it) aka distinction is no really
> is (all i see is pixels on a screen)
>
> +
>
> chair is a word. How does one ever get to sit on a word? I
> think of fr flesh while i ait that (untsoweiter)
>
> Hence: correlating (atom-eating) through cycles of
> differentiating>interrupting>differenciating picking up cycles of…
>
> Net-art (or nAart or whatever) as the flux defined by the
> rhytmical construct grid>absence>grid
>
> my 2bit or what you make of it,
> dv
>
>
> > —–Oorspronkelijk bericht—–
> > Van: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Namens
> > curt cloninger
> > Verzonden: vrijdag 21 april 2006 10:15
> > Aan: [email protected]
> > Onderwerp: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Re: considering abstraction in digital
> > art?
> >
> > Hi Nad,
> >
> > I don't think he's speaking philosophically. He's speaking
> in terms
> > of abstract forms vs. figurative forms. If you zoom in on a human
> > form, eventually you get to a scale that makes that form
> abstract. If
> > you zoom out from a human form, the same thing happens.
> Think of the
> > Eames powers of 10 movie.
> >
> > http://www.powersof10.com/
> >
> > http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/
> >
> > curt
> >
> > +++++
> >
> > @Curt
> >
> > >I've been fascinated by the idea that there is really no
> > distinction –
> > >>it's just a question of scale. (matthew ritchie)
> >
> > ??????? this makes no sense to me. What do you think how he meant
> > that?
> > How do you apply that for example if you do the abstraction from
> > "chair" (meaning the actual thing*) to "chair" (meaning the
> > abstraction as a "thing which can be used for sitting")??
> >
> > (*like chair as in a chinese restaurant for eating hot and
> sour soup
> > :-))
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>
>
>
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Why does one have to reveal it in a web browser? It is not "web art," it is
net.art, and the Internet and the Web are very different entities, even if
people like to play very fast and loose with the two terms. And this
observation doesn't even touch on the fact that "browsers" are not a natural
law of viewing items on the web. Computer science, and, following, the web, the
internet, browsers, and net.art, are inherently subject to change by their very
nature. They are evolving disciplines, and defining a frame for their use is an
excercise in futility. No tangent. Just the nature of code. Off the top of my
head, I can imagine several scenarios where a person could create a net.art
object which could be walked around and seen from all sides. The INTERNET and
its underlying CODE are the only required framework, and those can take many
physical and ethereal forms.
-Alexis


On Thu, 20 Apr 2006, Eric Dymond wrote:

::Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 21:04:48 -0700
::From: Eric Dymond <[email protected]>
::To: [email protected]
::Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Re: considering abstraction in digital art?
::
::Hi Ryan,
::These are great points, but I am trying to zero in on web art vs traditional art framing.
::I understand traditional contexts, they have such a great history, and a great expectation.
::The current disourse doesn't address the fact that my computer is expected to reveal art in the context of a web browser (with back buttons, history, lnks etc..) or software that always has an escape key.
::This is a pretty significant difference between older static works and the new works that address the issue of the computed frame.
::When I look at a Barnett Newman, in person or online, I am framed by the substances that created the work. He meant for things to be seen in person, in situu. He also was very particular about insisting that the existence that created the work be remembered.
::Thats not true of online work. Often I spend very little time worrying about the programming/imaging/author that created the work.
::The significance that the 'making' brings is so important in older art.
::Don't we now tend to ignore the drag of a brush(which Newman felt was all important) and deal with the social/technological/mediated event as it presents itself to us? Its event driven, not individually expressed.
::In other words when we take up the digital, we bring with it some baggage that never entered into the discourse of the older abstract and conceptual artists? The new baggage could be CNN, Yahoo, Google, Rhizome, The Thing, NetTime, and on and on.
::I think most older abstraction was insulated from these issues
::Could the old world of abstraction even be possible in the electronic digest?
::Eric
::
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Thank you for the responses. It is going take this newb a while to crunch
through all that but am going to try. This thread has already been more than I
had anticipated, very stimulating and as discourse in a sense quite uplifting.
I will aim to be somewhat more committal (and 'contributional'!) in future
posts :)

Andre SC


Quoting [email protected]:

> Hello List
>
> Just wondering, do you think Abstraction is?
>
> a.necessarily reductive in nature
> b.actually inherently transcendental
> c.both a and b above
> d.depends, if we are talking performative, generative, iterative or
> retronascent
> e.none of the above , but?
>
> because?

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Hi Geert,
I'm pretty sure that the 'institutional' setting has been
sufficiently challenged and those bonds broken in many ways. If the
'institution' is always there, then it's not necessarily a physical
thing and it's defined by the work itself. So in a way, we could say
that taking a piece of Net-Art and making it only viewable in a
gallery or museum defies the institutional properties of that work.
The Internet _is_ the institution.

But I also want to get back to the issue of abstraction because
there's something I've been thinking about lately that I didn't
mention in previous posts. That is that if a digital piece is based
on programming that essentially produces the artwork itself, I feel
that, regardless of the subject matter shown, the piece becomes
inherently abstract because the 'entity' producing it isn't conscious
of its content. And I feel that this relates in a way to Jackson
Pollock's method of handing some control over to the medium itself,
allowing the properties of paint to control certain aspects of the
'image' to heighten the sense of abstraction. Paint isn't capable of
conscious representation but humans have to truly fight to escape it
(that is, assuming that they even can - look at some of the work of
Andre Masson and Kandinsky). In the same way, computers aren't
capable of conscious representation so even if the image they produce
looks like a tree, it's still abstract because a computer can't
consciously know what a tree is.

I did a little experiment recently where I decided to teach my
computer, in its own terms, how to draw a circle. So instead of
simply using something like 'g.drawEllipse(10, 10, 100, 100);', I
wrote out an algorithm to make it plot each point of a circle. Then I
turned it into an animated applet and let it run. As I sat and
watched the computer trace this circle over and over again, I asked
myself, "OK, does my computer now know what a circle is?" Well, it
must because I'm watching it draw it. I could've made the algorithm
into a function called draw_a_circle and then I could just tell the
computer to draw_a_circle and it would. But is the computer conscious
of what a circle is? If I show a child how to draw a circle, chances
are that if I then show that child an image of a circle, the child
will recognize it. So, after teaching my computer to draw a circle,
will I be able to present the computer with an image of a circle and
have it recognize it? No. Of course not. I know, this isn't ground-
breaking stuff. When presented, it's blatantly obvious. But from an
artistic standpoint it's definitely something to think about.

Pall

On 21.4.2006, at 03:58, Geert Dekkers wrote:

>
> On 20-apr-2006, at 22:45, Pall Thayer wrote:
>
>> Hi Geert,
>> Good point. I hadn't really considered that. When considering Net-
>> Art as a mass-media type phenomenon, I guess what concerns me as
>> far as the location of the experience goes, is the fact that
>> people not generally interested enough in art to go out and seek
>> it in a gallery or museum or even those who feel intimidated by
>> formal art settings (the "I don't know how to talk about art. I'll
>> just feel out of place." types) can experience the art in solitude
>> without it being a compromise such as looking at pictures of
>> paintings or sculptures in a magazine. They get the real thing.
>> And the way things are now, that doesn't necessarily have to be at
>> home, it can be at a coffee-shop, the library, school, even a park.
>>
>> But as far as walking around and examining work in three
>> dimensions, I'm not sure that I would call that unique to screen-
>> based art as painting exhibitions usually don't invite you to
>> examine the paintings from behind.
>
> Right. But what I mean is that in the case of screen-based work,
> like digital work, like video work, the space of the work is
> removed from the physical space where the box (computer, video set,
> projection system) is presented. Which means that there is a
> conflict between the art work universe (what goes on inside the
> box) and the design universe (the outside of the box). More often
> than not, this conflict stays unresolved. Of course, in painting
> (or any other form where the image carrier is fixed to the image)
> this conflict is present. But the conflict doesn't present itself
> as strongly as in screen-based art, because of the simple
> possibility of switching of the set (you then end up with just
> another tv)
>
> Much of the appreciation of art comes with setting the context. As
> in other art forms – for example: going to the pictures (to a
> movie theatre) sets te context for the experience of a movie.
> Watching the same on the telly is just not the same – as everyone
> knows. To pin down a traditional form of art appreciation – lets
> say that would be in a gallery, museum, or someones home, you'd
> really also have to speak of the context of the art object, to some
> extent, the context would be personal, other context would be
> collective, and yes, I can imagine context that would be very
> unique to the person doing the appreciating, so much so, that it
> would not be able to be articulated.
>
> So – getting "the real thing" might just be somewhat different
> than you think it is, Pall. Art needs its institutions – but art
> needs to break its bonds now and again, too.
>
> Geert
> http://nznl.com
>
>>
>> Pall
>>
>>
>> On 20.4.2006, at 16:09, Geert Dekkers wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On 20/04/2006, at 9:24 PM, Pall Thayer wrote:
>>>
>>>> I've been doing some research on related stuff recently and it's
>>>> beginning to lead into a kind of strange direction. What I'm
>>>> going to say is not about digital art in general but about Net-
>>>> Art in general. For a long time I've been touting the merits of
>>>> the abstract and do in fact feel that it's one of *the* most
>>>> important moves in recent art. So important that to simply
>>>> abandon it as old fashioned would be a shame. It's definitely
>>>> important stuff. But as far as Net-Art is concerned, it's hard
>>>> to ignore the Pop-Artness of it. It uses elements of mass
>>>> culture and due it's (most often) screen-based nature, it tends
>>>> to have a graphic-design quality to it. On top of that, it has
>>>> one more very significant feature that Pop-Art didn't have.
>>>> Almost anyone can experience it in an environment of their own
>>>> choosing.
>>>
>>>
>>> Experiencing art within the domain of your choosing is important
>>> – but this has always been possible. A buyer/collector of an art
>>> object may choose to experience the object anywhere he/she
>>> wishes. But a viewer – now, a viewer is restricted to the medium
>>> where a 3d piece can be experienced without buying it – you
>>> know, an art gallery, a museum, someone's home. The enviroment
>>> wherein net.art can be experienced is definitely not of ones own
>>> choosing. net.art can only be experienced within the confines of
>>> – well, the internet. It will always take a machine to
>>> experience net.art. You will never be able to walk around it,
>>> look at it from the back. It simply does no exist in our
>>> dimension. Now THAT makes net.art (and before that, video art, ie
>>> everything that needs a machine) very different from anything
>>> produces before. Except perhaps fluxus, happenings.
>>>
>>> Geert
>>> http://nznl.com
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Here's a good description of net art, it's: "popular, transient,
>>>> expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy,
>>>> gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business"
>>>>
>>>> Only, this list wasn't devised as a description of net art. It's
>>>> Richard Hamilton describing Pop-Art in the late 50's. Eery, eh?
>>>> So, wow! If we consider the primary proponents of these two
>>>> "schools", we're looking to try to find a balance between
>>>> Clement Greenberg and Arthur Danto. That's pretty intense. I
>>>> came across a true gem of a find just yesterday. In the October,
>>>> 2004 issue of ArtForum, they published a previously unpublished
>>>> lecture given by Greenberg on… Pop-Art. Very interesting read
>>>> but not surprising that he didn't care for it all. Here's a
>>>> great quote from the lecture: "But Pop art has not yet produced
>>>> anything that has given me, for one, pause; moved me deeply;
>>>> that has challenged my taste or capacities and forced me to
>>>> expand them."
>>>>
>>>> Danto on the other hand says that art's flight from Abstract
>>>> Expressionism (Greenberg's forte) is a turning point where art
>>>> becomes philosophy which sounds to me like something very
>>>> challenging and deeply moving.
>>>>
>>>> Of course, one of the interesting things to consider, is the
>>>> audience. Who were Abstract Expressionism's audience? Who were
>>>> Pop-Art's audience? Who are Net-Art's audience?
>>>>
>>>> I'm not going to supply any answers. This is just stuff to think
>>>> about. But I do feel that Net-Art has the potential to create a
>>>> meaningful bridge between Greenberg and Danto and that it's
>>>> truly worth pursuing.
>>>>
>>>> Pall
>>>>
>>>> On 20.4.2006, at 13:26, curt cloninger wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi Andre,
>>>>>
>>>>> I've been reading Paul Klee a lot lately, and I like his take
>>>>> on abstraction. His answer might be "something like both a and
>>>>> b, with certain caveats." If there is a spiritual or a
>>>>> transcendental, we are not going to re-present it simply by
>>>>> drawing the surface of objects with illusionary renaissance
>>>>> perspective. So to get at the life/history/essence of an
>>>>> object, we have to try to represent that object over time,
>>>>> which is hard to do in a single, static, 2D picture plane.
>>>>>
>>>>> So Klee developed a system of representation to try to get at
>>>>> the source of what something is. And of course his paintings
>>>>> don't look exactly like the surface of a thing. But they
>>>>> always have some relationship to the surface of a thing,
>>>>> because the surface of a thing has at least something to do
>>>>> with the essence of the thing. And since existence is very
>>>>> complex and the language of painting is necessarily more simple
>>>>> and reductive, then the painting will necessarily be an
>>>>> "abstraction," since it can't be a simulation. But the goal is
>>>>> not abstraction for its own sake. The goal is to get at the
>>>>> essence of a thing, and in order to do this using the limited
>>>>> vocabulary of (in Klee's case) painting, it's going to be
>>>>> abstracted.
>>>>>
>>>>> Interesting that Klee's systematic approach to representation
>>>>> influenced Armin Hofmann who influenced Casey Reas whose
>>>>> Processing software is currently influencing the aesthetic of
>>>>> the generative art scene. All via a Bauhaus modernist graphic
>>>>> design door, which is a funny door for it to come through,
>>>>> considering it winds up in the midst of the late modern, often
>>>>> anti-formalist net art scene.
>>>>>
>>>>> Some quotations that seem relevant:
>>>>>
>>>>> There's this sort of ridiculous idea left over from the 20th
>>>>> century that abstraction and figuration are legitimate poles.
>>>>> And I from the very start have incorporated the two things
>>>>> together. I've been fascinated by the idea that there is
>>>>> really no distinction – it's just a question of scale.
>>>>> (matthew ritchie)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Forms react on us both through their essence and their
>>>>> appearance, those kindred organs of the spirit. The line of
>>>>> demarcation between essence and appearance is faint. There is
>>>>> no clash, just a specific something which demands that the
>>>>> essentials be grasped. (paul klee)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> It is not easy to orient yourself in a whole that is made up of
>>>>> parts belonging to different dimensions. And nature is such a
>>>>> whole…
>>>>>
>>>>> The answer lies in methods of handling spatial representation
>>>>> which lead to an image that is plastically clear. The
>>>>> difficulty lies in the temporal deficiencies of language. For
>>>>> language there is no way of seeing many dimensions at once.
>>>>> (paul klee)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> There should be no separation between spontaneous work with an
>>>>> emotional tone and work directed by the intellect. Both are
>>>>> supplementary to each other and must be regarded as intimately
>>>>> connected. Discipline and freedom are thus to be seen as
>>>>> elements of equal weight, each partaking of the other. (armin
>>>>> hofmann)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> In the face of the mystery, analysis stops perplexed. But the
>>>>> mystery is to share in the creation of form by pressing forward
>>>>> to the seal of mystery. (paul klee)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> The chosen artists are those who dig down close to the secret
>>>>> source where the primal law feeds the forces of development.
>>>>> (paul klee)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> To overcome an obstacle or an enemy
>>>>> To dominate the impossible in your life
>>>>> Reach in the darkness
>>>>> (paul simon)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Art plays in the dark with ultimate things and yet it reaches
>>>>> them. (paul klee)
>>>>>
>>>>> +++++++++++
>>>>>
>>>>> Andre SC wrote:
>>>>> Hello List
>>>>>
>>>>> Just wondering, do you think Abstraction is?
>>>>>
>>>>> a. necessarily reductive in nature
>>>>> b. actually inherently transcendental
>>>>> c. both a and b above
>>>>> d. depends, if we are talking performative, generative,
>>>>> iterative or
>>>>> retronascent
>>>>> e. none of the above , but?
>>>>>
>>>>> because?
>>>>>
>>>>> Andre SC
>>>>> +
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>>>>> info/29.php
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> –
>>>> Pall Thayer
>>>> [email protected]
>>>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> +
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>>
>>
>>
>> –
>> Pall Thayer
>> [email protected]
>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>>
>>
>>
>>
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–
Pall Thayer
[email protected]
http://www.this.is/pallit

Hi Curt

>There's this sort of ridiculous idea left over from the 20th century >that
>abstraction and figuration are legitimate poles. And I from the very >start have incorporated the two things together. I've been fascinated >by
>the idea that there is really no distinction – it's just a question of >scale. (matthew ritchie)

>Curt:
>I don't think he's speaking philosophically. He's speaking in terms of >abstract forms vs. figurative forms. If you zoom in on a human form, >eventually you get to a scale that makes that form abstract. If you >zoom
>out from a human form, the same thing happens.

yes I was fearing that he meant that. but this seems to me an extremely
strange and rather narrow view of abstract art. But may be I am just badly informed. ?

For me the image of an atom is figurative. And if I see
a helium atom than i wouldnt guess that it is the abstraction
of lets say - Curt.


The fsu applets are nice. I knew the film, but
thanks anyways, its a great movie and good
enough to repeat the link forever and ever :-)

here is something for you,
if you havent seen this link before too:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060315_dna_nebula.html



Hi Dirk


>It seems it's in the interfering part ( a continuous actualisation of >waves
>collapsing to fact, after the fact) that this technology truly gets
>revolutionary.

I am not sure wether i understand what you mean - waves
are always interfering in some way.

they write that they focus (pulsed) laser light.
the laser light is infrared, i.e. you
cant see it. They focus in order to generate a punctual
plasma (which is ionized gas (ions=atoms with missing electrons)).
If you want: they burn the air at these points with the
laser (although to use the word "burn" in this context is not really correct…).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_%28physics%29

The plasma emitts viewable light. This effect is per se very old…
a lightning works in this way. The physics in the experiment actually
doesnt look so new to me either (but I am not a plasma physicist),
but may be the mechanical-optical part is difficult, that is
may be why i couldnt find another link to a similar
setup. I couldnt find a link to scientific references on
the site and the links on it. This
is what I really do not like about that article.

Hi Pall,

I keep reintroducing this snippet in different contexts, but it seems related to what you're talking about below, particularly regarding Pollock:
http://lab404.com/ghost/defense.html

We can understand Pollock as an improvisational dancer. The paint showed evidence of his collaborative dance with chance. With generative software art, the human coder is the choreographer of instructions for a chance dance. The software as it runs is now the improvisational dancer, and the abstract visual art that results shows evidence of the software's collaborative dance with chance. With Pollock, the "action" of the art lay at the intersection between Pollock and the canvas (an intersection that the paint itself bridged). With generative software art, the "action" of the art lies at the intersection between the coder and the sofware's "run/performance" of the dance. The abstract visuals that result are less central to the "art" of it all. http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/codedoc/ focuses on the code and the performative run of the code. You're free to take a screen shot of the abstract visuals that result, but that's not where the "action" of the exhibit is. Pollock removed the focal point of the art from the object to the performative action. Generative art removes the focal point of the art one step further, from the performative action to the coded choreography (literally "script writing") of the performative action. Pollock sold his paintings. Casey Reas sells CD-ROMs of his code (and archival ink prints of screencaptures of select performative software runs to "patrons" who still don't get it).

Regarding the circle drawing program, I think if you wrote a circle-drawing program that used the vaule of Pi, and the output was drawn on a plotter printer where the arm literally transcribed the vector arc, then the computer would "remember/know" the nature of a circle more than if you simply told it to plot a series of discrete x,y coordinates in bitmapped screen space. A strange thing for me to say since I've no faith in "AI," but maybe you know what I mean.

best,
curt

++++++++++++++


Pall wrote:

But I also want to get back to the issue of abstraction because
there's something I've been thinking about lately that I didn't
mention in previous posts. That is that if a digital piece is based
on programming that essentially produces the artwork itself, I feel
that, regardless of the subject matter shown, the piece becomes
inherently abstract because the 'entity' producing it isn't conscious
of its content. And I feel that this relates in a way to Jackson
Pollock's method of handing some control over to the medium itself,
allowing the properties of paint to control certain aspects of the
'image' to heighten the sense of abstraction. Paint isn't capable of
conscious representation but humans have to truly fight to escape it
(that is, assuming that they even can - look at some of the work of
Andre Masson and Kandinsky). In the same way, computers aren't
capable of conscious representation so even if the image they produce
looks like a tree, it's still abstract because a computer can't
consciously know what a tree is.

I did a little experiment recently where I decided to teach my
computer, in its own terms, how to draw a circle. So instead of
simply using something like 'g.drawEllipse(10, 10, 100, 100);', I
wrote out an algorithm to make it plot each point of a circle. Then I
turned it into an animated applet and let it run. As I sat and
watched the computer trace this circle over and over again, I asked
myself, "OK, does my computer now know what a circle is?" Well, it
must because I'm watching it draw it. I could've made the algorithm
into a function called draw_a_circle and then I could just tell the
computer to draw_a_circle and it would. But is the computer conscious
of what a circle is? If I show a child how to draw a circle, chances
are that if I then show that child an image of a circle, the child
will recognize it. So, after teaching my computer to draw a circle,
will I be able to present the computer with an image of a circle and
have it recognize it? No. Of course not. I know, this isn't ground-
breaking stuff. When presented, it's blatantly obvious. But from an
artistic standpoint it's definitely something to think about.

Pall

Hi Nad,

I'm no Ritchie expert, so I may be wrong. Maybe he's not talking sub-atomically and galactically. Maybe he's just talking about how changing your perspective on a recognizable, figurative human form can tweak it into something that reads as abstract.

best,
curt

Nad Wrote:

Yes I was fearing that he meant that. but this seems to me an extremely
strange and rather narrow view of abstract art. But may be I am just badly informed. ?

For me the image of an atom is figurative. And if I see
a helium atom than i wouldnt guess that it is the abstraction
of lets say - Curt.

Hi Curt & Pall

Great 'snippet' Pall.

This makes a lot of sense to me. I imagine there is also an argument that
the art is not just where the art happens, and that the visuals or produced
artefacts, though they are less central, are still a very important element
of the mix that makes up the art. Especially in terms of their relationship
to other aspects of the mix (e.g. art & historic, technological, and
personal culture and contextualities) , be it only as entry, departure or
'informative' aspects.

I don't think one can look into generative art, especially 'pure' generative
art without seeing something like the essence of art being drawn away from
submittal too constraints of scope, criteria of actualisation and dependence
on external authorship.

Pall: I think the 'conscious' you refer to is an important point, as long as
consciousness is understood and benchmarked purely in terms of the generic
human consciousness 'model' everything else will seem second best. But
here's a question (relating to Vernor Vinge's 'Technological Singularity'
scenarios):
If a constructed consciousness was to surpass the limitations of human
consciousness, would human consciousness be capable of recognizing this?

[Generative (art as the) missing link (in AI) theory;
what computational intelligence needs is system level autopoeitic aesthetic
what generative art wants is sensory computational intelligence
- but that is another picture]

Regards


Andre SC
—– Original Message —–
From: "curt cloninger" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2006 2:24 AM
Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Re: Re: considering abstraction in digital art?


> Hi Pall,
>
> I keep reintroducing this snippet in different contexts, but it seems
> related to what you're talking about below, particularly regarding
> Pollock:
> http://lab404.com/ghost/defense.html
>
> We can understand Pollock as an improvisational dancer. The paint showed
> evidence of his collaborative dance with chance. With generative software
> art, the human coder is the choreographer of instructions for a chance
> dance. The software as it runs is now the improvisational dancer, and the
> abstract visual art that results shows evidence of the software's
> collaborative dance with chance. With Pollock, the "action" of the art
> lay at the intersection between Pollock and the canvas (an intersection
> that the paint itself bridged). With generative software art, the
> "action" of the art lies at the intersection between the coder and the
> sofware's "run/performance" of the dance. The abstract visuals that
> result are less central to the "art" of it all.
> http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/codedoc/ focuses on the code and
> the performative run of the code. You're free to take a screen shot of
> the abstract visuals that result, but that's not where the "action" of the
> exhibit!
> is. Pollock removed the focal point of the art from the object to the
> performative action. Generative art removes the focal point of the art
> one step further, from the performative action to the coded choreography
> (literally "script writing") of the performative action. Pollock sold his
> paintings. Casey Reas sells CD-ROMs of his code (and archival ink prints
> of screencaptures of select performative software runs to "patrons" who
> still don't get it).
>
> Regarding the circle drawing program, I think if you wrote a
> circle-drawing program that used the vaule of Pi, and the output was drawn
> on a plotter printer where the arm literally transcribed the vector arc,
> then the computer would "remember/know" the nature of a circle more than
> if you simply told it to plot a series of discrete x,y coordinates in
> bitmapped screen space. A strange thing for me to say since I've no faith
> in "AI," but maybe you know what I mean.
>
> best,
> curt
>
> ++++++++++++++
>
>
> Pall wrote:
>
> But I also want to get back to the issue of abstraction because
> there's something I've been thinking about lately that I didn't
> mention in previous posts. That is that if a digital piece is based
> on programming that essentially produces the artwork itself, I feel
> that, regardless of the subject matter shown, the piece becomes
> inherently abstract because the 'entity' producing it isn't conscious
> of its content. And I feel that this relates in a way to Jackson
> Pollock's method of handing some control over to the medium itself,
> allowing the properties of paint to control certain aspects of the
> 'image' to heighten the sense of abstraction. Paint isn't capable of
> conscious representation but humans have to truly fight to escape it
> (that is, assuming that they even can - look at some of the work of
> Andre Masson and Kandinsky). In the same way, computers aren't
> capable of conscious representation so even if the image they produce
> looks like a tree, it's still abstract because a computer can't
> consciously know what a tree is.
>
> I did a little experiment recently where I decided to teach my
> computer, in its own terms, how to draw a circle. So instead of
> simply using something like 'g.drawEllipse(10, 10, 100, 100);', I
> wrote out an algorithm to make it plot each point of a circle. Then I
> turned it into an animated applet and let it run. As I sat and
> watched the computer trace this circle over and over again, I asked
> myself, "OK, does my computer now know what a circle is?" Well, it
> must because I'm watching it draw it. I could've made the algorithm
> into a function called draw_a_circle and then I could just tell the
> computer to draw_a_circle and it would. But is the computer conscious
> of what a circle is? If I show a child how to draw a circle, chances
> are that if I then show that child an image of a circle, the child
> will recognize it. So, after teaching my computer to draw a circle,
> will I be able to present the computer with an image of a circle and
> have it recognize it? No. Of course not. I know, this isn't ground-
> breaking stuff. When presented, it's blatantly obvious. But from an
> artistic standpoint it's definitely something to think about.
>
> Pall

On 21/04/2006, at 8:29 PM, Pall Thayer wrote:

> Hi Geert,
> I'm pretty sure that the 'institutional' setting has been
> sufficiently challenged and those bonds broken in many ways. If the
> 'institution' is always there, then it's not necessarily a physical
> thing and it's defined by the work itself. So in a way, we could
> say that taking a piece of Net-Art and making it only viewable in a
> gallery or museum defies the institutional properties of that work.
> The Internet _is_ the institution.

First of all I'd like to correct myself in the use of the word
"institution". The word might indeed connotate more of a physical
thing than I mean it to be. Perhaps I should go looking for another
metaphor. I should probably just use "system" – very vague, but a
least no obvious bricks-and-mortar links. So then I could reread your
"If the 'institution' is always there, then it's not necessarily a
physical thing and it's defined by the work itself" as "If the
'system' is always there, then it's not necessarily a physical thing
and it's defined by the work itself" – then this "defined" is
obviously untrue, as the child nodes of the art system are not only
the art works, but also art galleries, gallery owners, art lovers art
haters buyers and so on. A definition of "system" always includes
reciprocracy. The system is grows by and spawns child nodes.

Furthermore, I'd say that there is an instrinsic linkage between the
production of abstract art and the knowledge and use of the art
system as system, by artists, and by other "child nodes" of the art
system. Artists operating in the 50s and 60s like Vito Acconci, and
others, clashed with the system as it stood at that moment, but of
course knew the system well. They knew its soft spots. They used it
as an artistic medium, as it should be. Also Joseph Beuys, whose
greatest accomplishment is the expansion of the art work into the
social system. Then on to the 80s, where people like Alan Charlton
their "dummy nodes" in the sytem and let them revolve. The "names"
are artists names, but they could not function within the system
without the active participation of the other nodes of the sytem.


>
> But I also want to get back to the issue of abstraction because
> there's something I've been thinking about lately that I didn't
> mention in previous posts. That is that if a digital piece is based
> on programming that essentially produces the artwork itself, I feel
> that, regardless of the subject matter shown, the piece becomes
> inherently abstract because the 'entity' producing it isn't
> conscious of its content. And I feel that this relates in a way to
> Jackson Pollock's method of handing some control over to the medium
> itself, allowing the properties of paint to control certain aspects
> of the 'image' to heighten the sense of abstraction. Paint isn't
> capable of conscious representation but humans have to truly fight
> to escape it (that is, assuming that they even can - look at some
> of the work of Andre Masson and Kandinsky). In the same way,
> computers aren't capable of conscious representation so even if the
> image they produce looks like a tree, it's still abstract because a
> computer can't consciously know what a tree is.
>
> I did a little experiment recently where I decided to teach my
> computer, in its own terms, how to draw a circle. So instead of
> simply using something like 'g.drawEllipse(10, 10, 100, 100);', I
> wrote out an algorithm to make it plot each point of a circle. Then
> I turned it into an animated applet and let it run. As I sat and
> watched the computer trace this circle over and over again, I asked
> myself, "OK, does my computer now know what a circle is?" Well, it
> must because I'm watching it draw it. I could've made the algorithm
> into a function called draw_a_circle and then I could just tell the
> computer to draw_a_circle and it would. But is the computer
> conscious of what a circle is? If I show a child how to draw a
> circle, chances are that if I then show that child an image of a
> circle, the child will recognize it. So, after teaching my computer
> to draw a circle, will I be able to present the computer with an
> image of a circle and have it recognize it? No. Of course not. I
> know, this isn't ground-breaking stuff. When presented, it's
> blatantly obvious. But from an artistic standpoint it's definitely
> something to think about.
>
> Pall
>
> On 21.4.2006, at 03:58, Geert Dekkers wrote:
>
>>
>> On 20-apr-2006, at 22:45, Pall Thayer wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Geert,
>>> Good point. I hadn't really considered that. When considering Net-
>>> Art as a mass-media type phenomenon, I guess what concerns me as
>>> far as the location of the experience goes, is the fact that
>>> people not generally interested enough in art to go out and seek
>>> it in a gallery or museum or even those who feel intimidated by
>>> formal art settings (the "I don't know how to talk about art.
>>> I'll just feel out of place." types) can experience the art in
>>> solitude without it being a compromise such as looking at
>>> pictures of paintings or sculptures in a magazine. They get the
>>> real thing. And the way things are now, that doesn't necessarily
>>> have to be at home, it can be at a coffee-shop, the library,
>>> school, even a park.
>>>
>>> But as far as walking around and examining work in three
>>> dimensions, I'm not sure that I would call that unique to screen-
>>> based art as painting exhibitions usually don't invite you to
>>> examine the paintings from behind.
>>
>> Right. But what I mean is that in the case of screen-based work,
>> like digital work, like video work, the space of the work is
>> removed from the physical space where the box (computer, video
>> set, projection system) is presented. Which means that there is a
>> conflict between the art work universe (what goes on inside the
>> box) and the design universe (the outside of the box). More often
>> than not, this conflict stays unresolved. Of course, in painting
>> (or any other form where the image carrier is fixed to the image)
>> this conflict is present. But the conflict doesn't present itself
>> as strongly as in screen-based art, because of the simple
>> possibility of switching of the set (you then end up with just
>> another tv)
>>
>> Much of the appreciation of art comes with setting the context. As
>> in other art forms – for example: going to the pictures (to a
>> movie theatre) sets te context for the experience of a movie.
>> Watching the same on the telly is just not the same – as everyone
>> knows. To pin down a traditional form of art appreciation – lets
>> say that would be in a gallery, museum, or someones home, you'd
>> really also have to speak of the context of the art object, to
>> some extent, the context would be personal, other context would be
>> collective, and yes, I can imagine context that would be very
>> unique to the person doing the appreciating, so much so, that it
>> would not be able to be articulated.
>>
>> So – getting "the real thing" might just be somewhat different
>> than you think it is, Pall. Art needs its institutions – but art
>> needs to break its bonds now and again, too.
>>
>> Geert
>> http://nznl.com
>>
>>>
>>> Pall
>>>
>>>
>>> On 20.4.2006, at 16:09, Geert Dekkers wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 20/04/2006, at 9:24 PM, Pall Thayer wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I've been doing some research on related stuff recently and
>>>>> it's beginning to lead into a kind of strange direction. What
>>>>> I'm going to say is not about digital art in general but about
>>>>> Net-Art in general. For a long time I've been touting the
>>>>> merits of the abstract and do in fact feel that it's one of
>>>>> *the* most important moves in recent art. So important that to
>>>>> simply abandon it as old fashioned would be a shame. It's
>>>>> definitely important stuff. But as far as Net-Art is concerned,
>>>>> it's hard to ignore the Pop-Artness of it. It uses elements of
>>>>> mass culture and due it's (most often) screen-based nature, it
>>>>> tends to have a graphic-design quality to it. On top of that,
>>>>> it has one more very significant feature that Pop-Art didn't
>>>>> have. Almost anyone can experience it in an environment of
>>>>> their own choosing.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Experiencing art within the domain of your choosing is important
>>>> – but this has always been possible. A buyer/collector of an
>>>> art object may choose to experience the object anywhere he/she
>>>> wishes. But a viewer – now, a viewer is restricted to the
>>>> medium where a 3d piece can be experienced without buying it –
>>>> you know, an art gallery, a museum, someone's home. The
>>>> enviroment wherein net.art can be experienced is definitely not
>>>> of ones own choosing. net.art can only be experienced within the
>>>> confines of – well, the internet. It will always take a machine
>>>> to experience net.art. You will never be able to walk around it,
>>>> look at it from the back. It simply does no exist in our
>>>> dimension. Now THAT makes net.art (and before that, video art,
>>>> ie everything that needs a machine) very different from anything
>>>> produces before. Except perhaps fluxus, happenings.
>>>>
>>>> Geert
>>>> http://nznl.com
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Here's a good description of net art, it's: "popular,
>>>>> transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty,
>>>>> sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business"
>>>>>
>>>>> Only, this list wasn't devised as a description of net art.
>>>>> It's Richard Hamilton describing Pop-Art in the late 50's.
>>>>> Eery, eh? So, wow! If we consider the primary proponents of
>>>>> these two "schools", we're looking to try to find a balance
>>>>> between Clement Greenberg and Arthur Danto. That's pretty
>>>>> intense. I came across a true gem of a find just yesterday. In
>>>>> the October, 2004 issue of ArtForum, they published a
>>>>> previously unpublished lecture given by Greenberg on… Pop-
>>>>> Art. Very interesting read but not surprising that he didn't
>>>>> care for it all. Here's a great quote from the lecture: "But
>>>>> Pop art has not yet produced anything that has given me, for
>>>>> one, pause; moved me deeply; that has challenged my taste or
>>>>> capacities and forced me to expand them."
>>>>>
>>>>> Danto on the other hand says that art's flight from Abstract
>>>>> Expressionism (Greenberg's forte) is a turning point where art
>>>>> becomes philosophy which sounds to me like something very
>>>>> challenging and deeply moving.
>>>>>
>>>>> Of course, one of the interesting things to consider, is the
>>>>> audience. Who were Abstract Expressionism's audience? Who were
>>>>> Pop-Art's audience? Who are Net-Art's audience?
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm not going to supply any answers. This is just stuff to
>>>>> think about. But I do feel that Net-Art has the potential to
>>>>> create a meaningful bridge between Greenberg and Danto and that
>>>>> it's truly worth pursuing.
>>>>>
>>>>> Pall
>>>>>
>>>>> On 20.4.2006, at 13:26, curt cloninger wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Andre,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've been reading Paul Klee a lot lately, and I like his take
>>>>>> on abstraction. His answer might be "something like both a
>>>>>> and b, with certain caveats." If there is a spiritual or a
>>>>>> transcendental, we are not going to re-present it simply by
>>>>>> drawing the surface of objects with illusionary renaissance
>>>>>> perspective. So to get at the life/history/essence of an
>>>>>> object, we have to try to represent that object over time,
>>>>>> which is hard to do in a single, static, 2D picture plane.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So Klee developed a system of representation to try to get at
>>>>>> the source of what something is. And of course his paintings
>>>>>> don't look exactly like the surface of a thing. But they
>>>>>> always have some relationship to the surface of a thing,
>>>>>> because the surface of a thing has at least something to do
>>>>>> with the essence of the thing. And since existence is very
>>>>>> complex and the language of painting is necessarily more
>>>>>> simple and reductive, then the painting will necessarily be an
>>>>>> "abstraction," since it can't be a simulation. But the goal
>>>>>> is not abstraction for its own sake. The goal is to get at
>>>>>> the essence of a thing, and in order to do this using the
>>>>>> limited vocabulary of (in Klee's case) painting, it's going to
>>>>>> be abstracted.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Interesting that Klee's systematic approach to representation
>>>>>> influenced Armin Hofmann who influenced Casey Reas whose
>>>>>> Processing software is currently influencing the aesthetic of
>>>>>> the generative art scene. All via a Bauhaus modernist graphic
>>>>>> design door, which is a funny door for it to come through,
>>>>>> considering it winds up in the midst of the late modern, often
>>>>>> anti-formalist net art scene.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Some quotations that seem relevant:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There's this sort of ridiculous idea left over from the 20th
>>>>>> century that abstraction and figuration are legitimate poles.
>>>>>> And I from the very start have incorporated the two things
>>>>>> together. I've been fascinated by the idea that there is
>>>>>> really no distinction – it's just a question of scale.
>>>>>> (matthew ritchie)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Forms react on us both through their essence and their
>>>>>> appearance, those kindred organs of the spirit. The line of
>>>>>> demarcation between essence and appearance is faint. There is
>>>>>> no clash, just a specific something which demands that the
>>>>>> essentials be grasped. (paul klee)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It is not easy to orient yourself in a whole that is made up
>>>>>> of parts belonging to different dimensions. And nature is such
>>>>>> a whole…
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The answer lies in methods of handling spatial representation
>>>>>> which lead to an image that is plastically clear. The
>>>>>> difficulty lies in the temporal deficiencies of language. For
>>>>>> language there is no way of seeing many dimensions at once.
>>>>>> (paul klee)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There should be no separation between spontaneous work with an
>>>>>> emotional tone and work directed by the intellect. Both are
>>>>>> supplementary to each other and must be regarded as intimately
>>>>>> connected. Discipline and freedom are thus to be seen as
>>>>>> elements of equal weight, each partaking of the other. (armin
>>>>>> hofmann)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In the face of the mystery, analysis stops perplexed. But the
>>>>>> mystery is to share in the creation of form by pressing
>>>>>> forward to the seal of mystery. (paul klee)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The chosen artists are those who dig down close to the secret
>>>>>> source where the primal law feeds the forces of development.
>>>>>> (paul klee)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> To overcome an obstacle or an enemy
>>>>>> To dominate the impossible in your life
>>>>>> Reach in the darkness
>>>>>> (paul simon)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Art plays in the dark with ultimate things and yet it reaches
>>>>>> them. (paul klee)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> +++++++++++
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Andre SC wrote:
>>>>>> Hello List
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Just wondering, do you think Abstraction is?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> a. necessarily reductive in nature
>>>>>> b. actually inherently transcendental
>>>>>> c. both a and b above
>>>>>> d. depends, if we are talking performative, generative,
>>>>>> iterative or
>>>>>> retronascent
>>>>>> e. none of the above , but?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> because?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Andre SC
>>>>>> +
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>>>>>> -> questions: [email protected]
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>>>>>> +
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>>>>>> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/
>>>>>> info/29.php
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> –
>>>>> Pall Thayer
>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> +
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>>>>> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>>>>> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/
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>>>>
>>>> +
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> –
>>> Pall Thayer
>>> [email protected]
>>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> +
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>
>
>
> –
> Pall Thayer
> [email protected]
> http://www.this.is/pallit
>
>
>
>
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Hi Pall

>So, after teaching my computer to draw a circle,
>will I be able to present the computer with an image of a circle and
>have it recognize it? No.

If you want to teach your computer how to recognize a circle
you may be interested in having a a look into "artificial neural networks" and "pattern recognition".


Last not least it may be o.k. to note again (i had that
already in an earlier post) that a circle is a
mathematical abstraction. There is no such thing
observable in nature. And any circle you draw on a
digital computer is no mathematical circle, but
just a kind of approximation.

>I feel
>that, regardless of the subject matter shown, the piece becomes
>inherently abstract because the 'entity' producing it isn't conscious
>of its content.


I would rather see it in the opposite way: abstraction is
very much connected to consciousness- but I feel unable
to be more precise about this (at least at the moment).

Hi Curt,

>I'm no Ritchie expert, so I may be wrong. Maybe he's not talking >sub-atomically and galactically. Maybe he's just talking about how >changing your perspective on a recognizable, figurative human form can >tweak it into something that reads as abstract.

so it is an interesting question wether one should agree
to call something "abstract art" if it just looks as one.


>The paint showed evidence of his collaborative dance with chance.

I like that sentence :-). It is very true.

>With >generative software art, the human coder is the choreographer of >instructions for a chance dance. The software as it runs is now the >improvisational dancer, and the abstract visual art that results shows >evidence of the software's collaborative dance with chance.

No -I think not allways. I would agree only if you use
an element of randomness in your software. A lot of generative
art pieces are deterministic. In that case there is no dance with
chance.



>The abstract visuals that result are less central to the "art" of it >all. http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/codedoc/ focuses on the >code >and the performative run of the code. You're free to take a >screen shot >of the abstract visuals that result, but that's not where >the "action" of >the exhibit is.>

Yes Christiane Paul put an emphasis on that and I think she
is very right to put a stress on that aspect in the arts
world. However last not least I think the visuals were
very important too (also if this is kept rather hidden).
In order to do the above pieces, you need to know BOTH:
the programming and the visuals. And some other things too actually,
like interactivity paradigms etc…
It is this interdisciplinarity which is important for the art pieces.

Or in short: I could imagine that some of the code on that
page (hoo I dont know!!) looks actually
very UGLY to a professional programmer and that some
of the visuals look terrible to a graphic designer (hooo
I dont know either…:-))….the great part of the
art is how the things a brought together.

Or even shorter: Why would Casey Reas study Armin Hofmann?

Hi Nad,
But I don't *really* want to teach my computer to recognize a circle.
That would destroy my argument :-)

Whether or not circle's exist in nature I think is besides the point.
We could replace it with a leaf. I could teach my computer to
recognize a picture of a leaf but does that mean that it's going to
recognize all leafs equally? A maple leaf as opposed to an oak leaf?
A dead leaf? A torn leaf?

Pall

On 22.4.2006, at 07:01, Nad wrote:

> Hi Pall
>
>> So, after teaching my computer to draw a circle,
>> will I be able to present the computer with an image of a circle and
>> have it recognize it? No.
>
> If you want to teach your computer how to recognize a circle
> you may be interested in having a a look into "artificial neural
> networks" and "pattern recognition".
>
>
> Last not least it may be o.k. to note again (i had that
> already in an earlier post) that a circle is a
> mathematical abstraction. There is no such thing
> observable in nature. And any circle you draw on a
> digital computer is no mathematical circle, but
> just a kind of approximation.
>
>> I feel
>> that, regardless of the subject matter shown, the piece becomes
>> inherently abstract because the 'entity' producing it isn't conscious
>> of its content.
>
>
> I would rather see it in the opposite way: abstraction is
> very much connected to consciousness- but I feel unable
> to be more precise about this (at least at the moment).
> +
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> 29.php
>



–
Pall Thayer
[email protected]
http://www.this.is/pallit

Maybe I didn't word that correctly. OK, the art work doesn't 'define'
the 'institution'. I'll have to find a better way to word it. Maybe
something along the lines of the nature of the work determining the
'institution'. I see nothing wrong with using the term 'institution'
as long as we agree that it's not a physical thing. 'System' feels
too big to me. I don't think we can say that 'system' = 'non-physical
institution'.

Pall

On 22.4.2006, at 04:59, Geert Dekkers wrote:

>
> On 21/04/2006, at 8:29 PM, Pall Thayer wrote:
>
>> Hi Geert,
>> I'm pretty sure that the 'institutional' setting has been
>> sufficiently challenged and those bonds broken in many ways. If
>> the 'institution' is always there, then it's not necessarily a
>> physical thing and it's defined by the work itself. So in a way,
>> we could say that taking a piece of Net-Art and making it only
>> viewable in a gallery or museum defies the institutional
>> properties of that work. The Internet _is_ the institution.
>
> First of all I'd like to correct myself in the use of the word
> "institution". The word might indeed connotate more of a physical
> thing than I mean it to be. Perhaps I should go looking for another
> metaphor. I should probably just use "system" – very vague, but a
> least no obvious bricks-and-mortar links. So then I could reread
> your "If the 'institution' is always there, then it's not
> necessarily a physical thing and it's defined by the work itself"
> as "If the 'system' is always there, then it's not necessarily a
> physical thing and it's defined by the work itself" – then this
> "defined" is obviously untrue, as the child nodes of the art system
> are not only the art works, but also art galleries, gallery owners,
> art lovers art haters buyers and so on. A definition of "system"
> always includes reciprocracy. The system is grows by and spawns
> child nodes.
>
> Furthermore, I'd say that there is an instrinsic linkage between
> the production of abstract art and the knowledge and use of the art
> system as system, by artists, and by other "child nodes" of the art
> system. Artists operating in the 50s and 60s like Vito Acconci, and
> others, clashed with the system as it stood at that moment, but of
> course knew the system well. They knew its soft spots. They used it
> as an artistic medium, as it should be. Also Joseph Beuys, whose
> greatest accomplishment is the expansion of the art work into the
> social system. Then on to the 80s, where people like Alan Charlton
> their "dummy nodes" in the sytem and let them revolve. The "names"
> are artists names, but they could not function within the system
> without the active participation of the other nodes of the sytem.
>
>
>>
>> But I also want to get back to the issue of abstraction because
>> there's something I've been thinking about lately that I didn't
>> mention in previous posts. That is that if a digital piece is
>> based on programming that essentially produces the artwork itself,
>> I feel that, regardless of the subject matter shown, the piece
>> becomes inherently abstract because the 'entity' producing it
>> isn't conscious of its content. And I feel that this relates in a
>> way to Jackson Pollock's method of handing some control over to
>> the medium itself, allowing the properties of paint to control
>> certain aspects of the 'image' to heighten the sense of
>> abstraction. Paint isn't capable of conscious representation but
>> humans have to truly fight to escape it (that is, assuming that
>> they even can - look at some of the work of Andre Masson and
>> Kandinsky). In the same way, computers aren't capable of conscious
>> representation so even if the image they produce looks like a
>> tree, it's still abstract because a computer can't consciously
>> know what a tree is.
>>
>> I did a little experiment recently where I decided to teach my
>> computer, in its own terms, how to draw a circle. So instead of
>> simply using something like 'g.drawEllipse(10, 10, 100, 100);', I
>> wrote out an algorithm to make it plot each point of a circle.
>> Then I turned it into an animated applet and let it run. As I sat
>> and watched the computer trace this circle over and over again, I
>> asked myself, "OK, does my computer now know what a circle is?"
>> Well, it must because I'm watching it draw it. I could've made the
>> algorithm into a function called draw_a_circle and then I could
>> just tell the computer to draw_a_circle and it would. But is the
>> computer conscious of what a circle is? If I show a child how to
>> draw a circle, chances are that if I then show that child an image
>> of a circle, the child will recognize it. So, after teaching my
>> computer to draw a circle, will I be able to present the computer
>> with an image of a circle and have it recognize it? No. Of course
>> not. I know, this isn't ground-breaking stuff. When presented,
>> it's blatantly obvious. But from an artistic standpoint it's
>> definitely something to think about.
>>
>> Pall
>>
>> On 21.4.2006, at 03:58, Geert Dekkers wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On 20-apr-2006, at 22:45, Pall Thayer wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Geert,
>>>> Good point. I hadn't really considered that. When considering
>>>> Net-Art as a mass-media type phenomenon, I guess what concerns
>>>> me as far as the location of the experience goes, is the fact
>>>> that people not generally interested enough in art to go out and
>>>> seek it in a gallery or museum or even those who feel
>>>> intimidated by formal art settings (the "I don't know how to
>>>> talk about art. I'll just feel out of place." types) can
>>>> experience the art in solitude without it being a compromise
>>>> such as looking at pictures of paintings or sculptures in a
>>>> magazine. They get the real thing. And the way things are now,
>>>> that doesn't necessarily have to be at home, it can be at a
>>>> coffee-shop, the library, school, even a park.
>>>>
>>>> But as far as walking around and examining work in three
>>>> dimensions, I'm not sure that I would call that unique to screen-
>>>> based art as painting exhibitions usually don't invite you to
>>>> examine the paintings from behind.
>>>
>>> Right. But what I mean is that in the case of screen-based work,
>>> like digital work, like video work, the space of the work is
>>> removed from the physical space where the box (computer, video
>>> set, projection system) is presented. Which means that there is a
>>> conflict between the art work universe (what goes on inside the
>>> box) and the design universe (the outside of the box). More often
>>> than not, this conflict stays unresolved. Of course, in painting
>>> (or any other form where the image carrier is fixed to the image)
>>> this conflict is present. But the conflict doesn't present itself
>>> as strongly as in screen-based art, because of the simple
>>> possibility of switching of the set (you then end up with just
>>> another tv)
>>>
>>> Much of the appreciation of art comes with setting the context.
>>> As in other art forms – for example: going to the pictures (to a
>>> movie theatre) sets te context for the experience of a movie.
>>> Watching the same on the telly is just not the same – as
>>> everyone knows. To pin down a traditional form of art
>>> appreciation – lets say that would be in a gallery, museum, or
>>> someones home, you'd really also have to speak of the context of
>>> the art object, to some extent, the context would be personal,
>>> other context would be collective, and yes, I can imagine context
>>> that would be very unique to the person doing the appreciating,
>>> so much so, that it would not be able to be articulated.
>>>
>>> So – getting "the real thing" might just be somewhat different
>>> than you think it is, Pall. Art needs its institutions – but art
>>> needs to break its bonds now and again, too.
>>>
>>> Geert
>>> http://nznl.com
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Pall
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 20.4.2006, at 16:09, Geert Dekkers wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 20/04/2006, at 9:24 PM, Pall Thayer wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I've been doing some research on related stuff recently and
>>>>>> it's beginning to lead into a kind of strange direction. What
>>>>>> I'm going to say is not about digital art in general but about
>>>>>> Net-Art in general. For a long time I've been touting the
>>>>>> merits of the abstract and do in fact feel that it's one of
>>>>>> *the* most important moves in recent art. So important that to
>>>>>> simply abandon it as old fashioned would be a shame. It's
>>>>>> definitely important stuff. But as far as Net-Art is
>>>>>> concerned, it's hard to ignore the Pop-Artness of it. It uses
>>>>>> elements of mass culture and due it's (most often) screen-
>>>>>> based nature, it tends to have a graphic-design quality to it.
>>>>>> On top of that, it has one more very significant feature that
>>>>>> Pop-Art didn't have. Almost anyone can experience it in an
>>>>>> environment of their own choosing.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Experiencing art within the domain of your choosing is
>>>>> important – but this has always been possible. A buyer/
>>>>> collector of an art object may choose to experience the object
>>>>> anywhere he/she wishes. But a viewer – now, a viewer is
>>>>> restricted to the medium where a 3d piece can be experienced
>>>>> without buying it – you know, an art gallery, a museum,
>>>>> someone's home. The enviroment wherein net.art can be
>>>>> experienced is definitely not of ones own choosing. net.art can
>>>>> only be experienced within the confines of – well, the
>>>>> internet. It will always take a machine to experience net.art.
>>>>> You will never be able to walk around it, look at it from the
>>>>> back. It simply does no exist in our dimension. Now THAT makes
>>>>> net.art (and before that, video art, ie everything that needs a
>>>>> machine) very different from anything produces before. Except
>>>>> perhaps fluxus, happenings.
>>>>>
>>>>> Geert
>>>>> http://nznl.com
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Here's a good description of net art, it's: "popular,
>>>>>> transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty,
>>>>>> sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Only, this list wasn't devised as a description of net art.
>>>>>> It's Richard Hamilton describing Pop-Art in the late 50's.
>>>>>> Eery, eh? So, wow! If we consider the primary proponents of
>>>>>> these two "schools", we're looking to try to find a balance
>>>>>> between Clement Greenberg and Arthur Danto. That's pretty
>>>>>> intense. I came across a true gem of a find just yesterday. In
>>>>>> the October, 2004 issue of ArtForum, they published a
>>>>>> previously unpublished lecture given by Greenberg on… Pop-
>>>>>> Art. Very interesting read but not surprising that he didn't
>>>>>> care for it all. Here's a great quote from the lecture: "But
>>>>>> Pop art has not yet produced anything that has given me, for
>>>>>> one, pause; moved me deeply; that has challenged my taste or
>>>>>> capacities and forced me to expand them."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Danto on the other hand says that art's flight from Abstract
>>>>>> Expressionism (Greenberg's forte) is a turning point where art
>>>>>> becomes philosophy which sounds to me like something very
>>>>>> challenging and deeply moving.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Of course, one of the interesting things to consider, is the
>>>>>> audience. Who were Abstract Expressionism's audience? Who were
>>>>>> Pop-Art's audience? Who are Net-Art's audience?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm not going to supply any answers. This is just stuff to
>>>>>> think about. But I do feel that Net-Art has the potential to
>>>>>> create a meaningful bridge between Greenberg and Danto and
>>>>>> that it's truly worth pursuing.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Pall
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 20.4.2006, at 13:26, curt cloninger wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi Andre,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I've been reading Paul Klee a lot lately, and I like his take
>>>>>>> on abstraction. His answer might be "something like both a
>>>>>>> and b, with certain caveats." If there is a spiritual or a
>>>>>>> transcendental, we are not going to re-present it simply by
>>>>>>> drawing the surface of objects with illusionary renaissance
>>>>>>> perspective. So to get at the life/history/essence of an
>>>>>>> object, we have to try to represent that object over time,
>>>>>>> which is hard to do in a single, static, 2D picture plane.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So Klee developed a system of representation to try to get at
>>>>>>> the source of what something is. And of course his paintings
>>>>>>> don't look exactly like the surface of a thing. But they
>>>>>>> always have some relationship to the surface of a thing,
>>>>>>> because the surface of a thing has at least something to do
>>>>>>> with the essence of the thing. And since existence is very
>>>>>>> complex and the language of painting is necessarily more
>>>>>>> simple and reductive, then the painting will necessarily be
>>>>>>> an "abstraction," since it can't be a simulation. But the
>>>>>>> goal is not abstraction for its own sake. The goal is to get
>>>>>>> at the essence of a thing, and in order to do this using the
>>>>>>> limited vocabulary of (in Klee's case) painting, it's going
>>>>>>> to be abstracted.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Interesting that Klee's systematic approach to representation
>>>>>>> influenced Armin Hofmann who influenced Casey Reas whose
>>>>>>> Processing software is currently influencing the aesthetic of
>>>>>>> the generative art scene. All via a Bauhaus modernist
>>>>>>> graphic design door, which is a funny door for it to come
>>>>>>> through, considering it winds up in the midst of the late
>>>>>>> modern, often anti-formalist net art scene.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Some quotations that seem relevant:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> There's this sort of ridiculous idea left over from the 20th
>>>>>>> century that abstraction and figuration are legitimate
>>>>>>> poles. And I from the very start have incorporated the two
>>>>>>> things together. I've been fascinated by the idea that there
>>>>>>> is really no distinction – it's just a question of scale.
>>>>>>> (matthew ritchie)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Forms react on us both through their essence and their
>>>>>>> appearance, those kindred organs of the spirit. The line of
>>>>>>> demarcation between essence and appearance is faint. There
>>>>>>> is no clash, just a specific something which demands that the
>>>>>>> essentials be grasped. (paul klee)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It is not easy to orient yourself in a whole that is made up
>>>>>>> of parts belonging to different dimensions. And nature is
>>>>>>> such a whole…
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The answer lies in methods of handling spatial representation
>>>>>>> which lead to an image that is plastically clear. The
>>>>>>> difficulty lies in the temporal deficiencies of language. For
>>>>>>> language there is no way of seeing many dimensions at once.
>>>>>>> (paul klee)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> There should be no separation between spontaneous work with
>>>>>>> an emotional tone and work directed by the intellect. Both
>>>>>>> are supplementary to each other and must be regarded as
>>>>>>> intimately connected. Discipline and freedom are thus to be
>>>>>>> seen as elements of equal weight, each partaking of the
>>>>>>> other. (armin hofmann)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In the face of the mystery, analysis stops perplexed. But the
>>>>>>> mystery is to share in the creation of form by pressing
>>>>>>> forward to the seal of mystery. (paul klee)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The chosen artists are those who dig down close to the secret
>>>>>>> source where the primal law feeds the forces of development.
>>>>>>> (paul klee)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> To overcome an obstacle or an enemy
>>>>>>> To dominate the impossible in your life
>>>>>>> Reach in the darkness
>>>>>>> (paul simon)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Art plays in the dark with ultimate things and yet it reaches
>>>>>>> them. (paul klee)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> +++++++++++
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Andre SC wrote:
>>>>>>> Hello List
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Just wondering, do you think Abstraction is?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> a. necessarily reductive in nature
>>>>>>> b. actually inherently transcendental
>>>>>>> c. both a and b above
>>>>>>> d. depends, if we are talking performative, generative,
>>>>>>> iterative or
>>>>>>> retronascent
>>>>>>> e. none of the above , but?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> because?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Andre SC
>>>>>>> +
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>>>>>>> -> questions: [email protected]
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>>>>>>> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
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>>>>>>> info/29.php
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> –
>>>>>> Pall Thayer
>>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> +
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>>>>>> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
>>>>>> +
>>>>>> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
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>>>>>> info/29.php
>>>>>
>>>>> +
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>>>>> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>>>>> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/
>>>>> info/29.php
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> –
>>>> Pall Thayer
>>>> [email protected]
>>>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> +
>>>> -> post: [email protected]
>>>> -> questions: [email protected]
>>>> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/
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>>>> -> 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
>>>
>>> +
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>>> +
>>> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>>> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/
>>> 29.php
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> –
>> Pall Thayer
>> [email protected]
>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> +
>> -> post: [email protected]
>> -> questions: [email protected]
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>> +
>> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/
>> 29.php
>
> +
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> 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
>



–
Pall Thayer
[email protected]
http://www.this.is/pallit

Perhaps "system" seems too closed, but I don't think it is too big.
The art system is a subset of the cultural system, there are also
subsets of the art system, and so on. But we need a word that
denotes the inter-relatedness of – well, the nodes. I like the word
"node" in this context, but it can't be an XML sort of "child node"
because an XML document has a top-down hierarchal structure. There is
of course the internet node – the idea of a packet on its way
through the internet; any one node may fail, the packet will then
choose an alternative route.

This may seem like mincing words but I think it is actually very
important to add to the metaphor using computer/internet related
terms. As our understanding of and dependence on the digital realm
grows we should rethink old systems (or institutions :)) in these new
words.


Geert
http://nznl.com



On 22/04/2006, at 5:50 PM, Pall Thayer wrote:

> Maybe I didn't word that correctly. OK, the art work doesn't
> 'define' the 'institution'. I'll have to find a better way to word
> it. Maybe something along the lines of the nature of the work
> determining the 'institution'. I see nothing wrong with using the
> term 'institution' as long as we agree that it's not a physical
> thing. 'System' feels too big to me. I don't think we can say that
> 'system' = 'non-physical institution'.
>
> Pall
>
> On 22.4.2006, at 04:59, Geert Dekkers wrote:
>
>>
>> On 21/04/2006, at 8:29 PM, Pall Thayer wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Geert,
>>> I'm pretty sure that the 'institutional' setting has been
>>> sufficiently challenged and those bonds broken in many ways. If
>>> the 'institution' is always there, then it's not necessarily a
>>> physical thing and it's defined by the work itself. So in a way,
>>> we could say that taking a piece of Net-Art and making it only
>>> viewable in a gallery or museum defies the institutional
>>> properties of that work. The Internet _is_ the institution.
>>
>> First of all I'd like to correct myself in the use of the word
>> "institution". The word might indeed connotate more of a physical
>> thing than I mean it to be. Perhaps I should go looking for
>> another metaphor. I should probably just use "system" – very
>> vague, but a least no obvious bricks-and-mortar links. So then I
>> could reread your "If the 'institution' is always there, then it's
>> not necessarily a physical thing and it's defined by the work
>> itself" as "If the 'system' is always there, then it's not
>> necessarily a physical thing and it's defined by the work itself"
>> – then this "defined" is obviously untrue, as the child nodes of
>> the art system are not only the art works, but also art galleries,
>> gallery owners, art lovers art haters buyers and so on. A
>> definition of "system" always includes reciprocracy. The system is
>> grows by and spawns child nodes.
>>
>> Furthermore, I'd say that there is an instrinsic linkage between
>> the production of abstract art and the knowledge and use of the
>> art system as system, by artists, and by other "child nodes" of
>> the art system. Artists operating in the 50s and 60s like Vito
>> Acconci, and others, clashed with the system as it stood at that
>> moment, but of course knew the system well. They knew its soft
>> spots. They used it as an artistic medium, as it should be. Also
>> Joseph Beuys, whose greatest accomplishment is the expansion of
>> the art work into the social system. Then on to the 80s, where
>> people like Alan Charlton their "dummy nodes" in the sytem and let
>> them revolve. The "names" are artists names, but they could not
>> function within the system without the active participation of the
>> other nodes of the sytem.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> But I also want to get back to the issue of abstraction because
>>> there's something I've been thinking about lately that I didn't
>>> mention in previous posts. That is that if a digital piece is
>>> based on programming that essentially produces the artwork
>>> itself, I feel that, regardless of the subject matter shown, the
>>> piece becomes inherently abstract because the 'entity' producing
>>> it isn't conscious of its content. And I feel that this relates
>>> in a way to Jackson Pollock's method of handing some control over
>>> to the medium itself, allowing the properties of paint to control
>>> certain aspects of the 'image' to heighten the sense of
>>> abstraction. Paint isn't capable of conscious representation but
>>> humans have to truly fight to escape it (that is, assuming that
>>> they even can - look at some of the work of Andre Masson and
>>> Kandinsky). In the same way, computers aren't capable of
>>> conscious representation so even if the image they produce looks
>>> like a tree, it's still abstract because a computer can't
>>> consciously know what a tree is.
>>>
>>> I did a little experiment recently where I decided to teach my
>>> computer, in its own terms, how to draw a circle. So instead of
>>> simply using something like 'g.drawEllipse(10, 10, 100, 100);', I
>>> wrote out an algorithm to make it plot each point of a circle.
>>> Then I turned it into an animated applet and let it run. As I sat
>>> and watched the computer trace this circle over and over again, I
>>> asked myself, "OK, does my computer now know what a circle is?"
>>> Well, it must because I'm watching it draw it. I could've made
>>> the algorithm into a function called draw_a_circle and then I
>>> could just tell the computer to draw_a_circle and it would. But
>>> is the computer conscious of what a circle is? If I show a child
>>> how to draw a circle, chances are that if I then show that child
>>> an image of a circle, the child will recognize it. So, after
>>> teaching my computer to draw a circle, will I be able to present
>>> the computer with an image of a circle and have it recognize it?
>>> No. Of course not. I know, this isn't ground-breaking stuff. When
>>> presented, it's blatantly obvious. But from an artistic
>>> standpoint it's definitely something to think about.
>>>
>>> Pall
>>>
>>> On 21.4.2006, at 03:58, Geert Dekkers wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 20-apr-2006, at 22:45, Pall Thayer wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi Geert,
>>>>> Good point. I hadn't really considered that. When considering
>>>>> Net-Art as a mass-media type phenomenon, I guess what concerns
>>>>> me as far as the location of the experience goes, is the fact
>>>>> that people not generally interested enough in art to go out
>>>>> and seek it in a gallery or museum or even those who feel
>>>>> intimidated by formal art settings (the "I don't know how to
>>>>> talk about art. I'll just feel out of place." types) can
>>>>> experience the art in solitude without it being a compromise
>>>>> such as looking at pictures of paintings or sculptures in a
>>>>> magazine. They get the real thing. And the way things are now,
>>>>> that doesn't necessarily have to be at home, it can be at a
>>>>> coffee-shop, the library, school, even a park.
>>>>>
>>>>> But as far as walking around and examining work in three
>>>>> dimensions, I'm not sure that I would call that unique to
>>>>> screen-based art as painting exhibitions usually don't invite
>>>>> you to examine the paintings from behind.
>>>>
>>>> Right. But what I mean is that in the case of screen-based work,
>>>> like digital work, like video work, the space of the work is
>>>> removed from the physical space where the box (computer, video
>>>> set, projection system) is presented. Which means that there is
>>>> a conflict between the art work universe (what goes on inside
>>>> the box) and the design universe (the outside of the box). More
>>>> often than not, this conflict stays unresolved. Of course, in
>>>> painting (or any other form where the image carrier is fixed to
>>>> the image) this conflict is present. But the conflict doesn't
>>>> present itself as strongly as in screen-based art, because of
>>>> the simple possibility of switching of the set (you then end up
>>>> with just another tv)
>>>>
>>>> Much of the appreciation of art comes with setting the context.
>>>> As in other art forms – for example: going to the pictures (to
>>>> a movie theatre) sets te context for the experience of a movie.
>>>> Watching the same on the telly is just not the same – as
>>>> everyone knows. To pin down a traditional form of art
>>>> appreciation – lets say that would be in a gallery, museum, or
>>>> someones home, you'd really also have to speak of the context of
>>>> the art object, to some extent, the context would be personal,
>>>> other context would be collective, and yes, I can imagine
>>>> context that would be very unique to the person doing the
>>>> appreciating, so much so, that it would not be able to be
>>>> articulated.
>>>>
>>>> So – getting "the real thing" might just be somewhat different
>>>> than you think it is, Pall. Art needs its institutions – but
>>>> art needs to break its bonds now and again, too.
>>>>
>>>> Geert
>>>> http://nznl.com
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Pall
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 20.4.2006, at 16:09, Geert Dekkers wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 20/04/2006, at 9:24 PM, Pall Thayer wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I've been doing some research on related stuff recently and
>>>>>>> it's beginning to lead into a kind of strange direction. What
>>>>>>> I'm going to say is not about digital art in general but
>>>>>>> about Net-Art in general. For a long time I've been touting
>>>>>>> the merits of the abstract and do in fact feel that it's one
>>>>>>> of *the* most important moves in recent art. So important
>>>>>>> that to simply abandon it as old fashioned would be a shame.
>>>>>>> It's definitely important stuff. But as far as Net-Art is
>>>>>>> concerned, it's hard to ignore the Pop-Artness of it. It uses
>>>>>>> elements of mass culture and due it's (most often) screen-
>>>>>>> based nature, it tends to have a graphic-design quality to
>>>>>>> it. On top of that, it has one more very significant feature
>>>>>>> that Pop-Art didn't have. Almost anyone can experience it in
>>>>>>> an environment of their own choosing.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Experiencing art within the domain of your choosing is
>>>>>> important – but this has always been possible. A buyer/
>>>>>> collector of an art object may choose to experience the
>>>>>> object anywhere he/she wishes. But a viewer – now, a viewer
>>>>>> is restricted to the medium where a 3d piece can be
>>>>>> experienced without buying it – you know, an art gallery, a
>>>>>> museum, someone's home. The enviroment wherein net.art can be
>>>>>> experienced is definitely not of ones own choosing. net.art
>>>>>> can only be experienced within the confines of – well, the
>>>>>> internet. It will always take a machine to experience net.art.
>>>>>> You will never be able to walk around it, look at it from the
>>>>>> back. It simply does no exist in our dimension. Now THAT makes
>>>>>> net.art (and before that, video art, ie everything that needs
>>>>>> a machine) very different from anything produces before.
>>>>>> Except perhaps fluxus, happenings.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Geert
>>>>>> http://nznl.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Here's a good description of net art, it's: "popular,
>>>>>>> transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty,
>>>>>>> sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business"
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Only, this list wasn't devised as a description of net art.
>>>>>>> It's Richard Hamilton describing Pop-Art in the late 50's.
>>>>>>> Eery, eh? So, wow! If we consider the primary proponents of
>>>>>>> these two "schools", we're looking to try to find a balance
>>>>>>> between Clement Greenberg and Arthur Danto. That's pretty
>>>>>>> intense. I came across a true gem of a find just yesterday.
>>>>>>> In the October, 2004 issue of ArtForum, they published a
>>>>>>> previously unpublished lecture given by Greenberg on… Pop-
>>>>>>> Art. Very interesting read but not surprising that he didn't
>>>>>>> care for it all. Here's a great quote from the lecture: "But
>>>>>>> Pop art has not yet produced anything that has given me, for
>>>>>>> one, pause; moved me deeply; that has challenged my taste or
>>>>>>> capacities and forced me to expand them."
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Danto on the other hand says that art's flight from Abstract
>>>>>>> Expressionism (Greenberg's forte) is a turning point where
>>>>>>> art becomes philosophy which sounds to me like something very
>>>>>>> challenging and deeply moving.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Of course, one of the interesting things to consider, is the
>>>>>>> audience. Who were Abstract Expressionism's audience? Who
>>>>>>> were Pop-Art's audience? Who are Net-Art's audience?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm not going to supply any answers. This is just stuff to
>>>>>>> think about. But I do feel that Net-Art has the potential to
>>>>>>> create a meaningful bridge between Greenberg and Danto and
>>>>>>> that it's truly worth pursuing.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Pall
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 20.4.2006, at 13:26, curt cloninger wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hi Andre,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I've been reading Paul Klee a lot lately, and I like his
>>>>>>>> take on abstraction. His answer might be "something like
>>>>>>>> both a and b, with certain caveats." If there is a
>>>>>>>> spiritual or a transcendental, we are not going to re-
>>>>>>>> present it simply by drawing the surface of objects with
>>>>>>>> illusionary renaissance perspective. So to get at the life/
>>>>>>>> history/essence of an object, we have to try to represent
>>>>>>>> that object over time, which is hard to do in a single,
>>>>>>>> static, 2D picture plane.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> So Klee developed a system of representation to try to get
>>>>>>>> at the source of what something is. And of course his
>>>>>>>> paintings don't look exactly like the surface of a thing.
>>>>>>>> But they always have some relationship to the surface of a
>>>>>>>> thing, because the surface of a thing has at least something
>>>>>>>> to do with the essence of the thing. And since existence is
>>>>>>>> very complex and the language of painting is necessarily
>>>>>>>> more simple and reductive, then the painting will
>>>>>>>> necessarily be an "abstraction," since it can't be a
>>>>>>>> simulation. But the goal is not abstraction for its own
>>>>>>>> sake. The goal is to get at the essence of a thing, and in
>>>>>>>> order to do this using the limited vocabulary of (in Klee's
>>>>>>>> case) painting, it's going to be abstracted.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Interesting that Klee's systematic approach to
>>>>>>>> representation influenced Armin Hofmann who influenced Casey
>>>>>>>> Reas whose Processing software is currently influencing the
>>>>>>>> aesthetic of the generative art scene. All via a Bauhaus
>>>>>>>> modernist graphic design door, which is a funny door for it
>>>>>>>> to come through, considering it winds up in the midst of the
>>>>>>>> late modern, often anti-formalist net art scene.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Some quotations that seem relevant:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> There's this sort of ridiculous idea left over from the 20th
>>>>>>>> century that abstraction and figuration are legitimate
>>>>>>>> poles. And I from the very start have incorporated the two
>>>>>>>> things together. I've been fascinated by the idea that
>>>>>>>> there is really no distinction – it's just a question of
>>>>>>>> scale. (matthew ritchie)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Forms react on us both through their essence and their
>>>>>>>> appearance, those kindred organs of the spirit. The line of
>>>>>>>> demarcation between essence and appearance is faint. There
>>>>>>>> is no clash, just a specific something which demands that
>>>>>>>> the essentials be grasped. (paul klee)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It is not easy to orient yourself in a whole that is made up
>>>>>>>> of parts belonging to different dimensions. And nature is
>>>>>>>> such a whole…
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The answer lies in methods of handling spatial
>>>>>>>> representation which lead to an image that is plastically
>>>>>>>> clear. The difficulty lies in the temporal deficiencies of
>>>>>>>> language. For language there is no way of seeing many
>>>>>>>> dimensions at once. (paul klee)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> There should be no separation between spontaneous work with
>>>>>>>> an emotional tone and work directed by the intellect. Both
>>>>>>>> are supplementary to each other and must be regarded as
>>>>>>>> intimately connected. Discipline and freedom are thus to be
>>>>>>>> seen as elements of equal weight, each partaking of the
>>>>>>>> other. (armin hofmann)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In the face of the mystery, analysis stops perplexed. But
>>>>>>>> the mystery is to share in the creation of form by pressing
>>>>>>>> forward to the seal of mystery. (paul klee)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The chosen artists are those who dig down close to the
>>>>>>>> secret source where the primal law feeds the forces of
>>>>>>>> development. (paul klee)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> To overcome an obstacle or an enemy
>>>>>>>> To dominate the impossible in your life
>>>>>>>> Reach in the darkness
>>>>>>>> (paul simon)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Art plays in the dark with ultimate things and yet it
>>>>>>>> reaches them. (paul klee)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> +++++++++++
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Andre SC wrote:
>>>>>>>> Hello List
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Just wondering, do you think Abstraction is?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> a. necessarily reductive in nature
>>>>>>>> b. actually inherently transcendental
>>>>>>>> c. both a and b above
>>>>>>>> d. depends, if we are talking performative, generative,
>>>>>>>> iterative or
>>>>>>>> retronascent
>>>>>>>> e. none of the above , but?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> because?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Andre SC
>>>>>>>> +
>>>>>>>> -> post: [email protected]
>>>>>>>> -> questions: [email protected]
>>>>>>>> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/
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>>>>>>>> -> 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
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> –
>>>>>>> Pall Thayer
>>>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>>>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> +
>>>>>>> -> post: [email protected]
>>>>>>> -> questions: [email protected]
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>>>>>>> +
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>>>>>>> info/29.php
>>>>>>
>>>>>> +
>>>>>> -> 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
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> –
>>>>> Pall Thayer
>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> +
>>>>> -> 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
>>>>
>>>> +
>>>> -> 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
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> –
>>> Pall Thayer
>>> [email protected]
>>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> +
>>> -> 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
>>
>> +
>> -> 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
>>
>
>
>
> –
> Pall Thayer
> [email protected]
> http://www.this.is/pallit
>
>
>
>

curt:
>With >generative software art, the human coder is the choreographer of >instructions for a chance dance. The software as it runs is now the >improvisational dancer, and the abstract visual art that results shows >evidence of the software's collaborative dance with chance.

nad:
No -I think not allways. I would agree only if you use
an element of randomness in your software. A lot of generative
art pieces are deterministic. In that case there is no dance with
chance.

curt:
Sorry about that. It's semantics. When I say "generative" I mean "auto-generative." Generative art to me means there is a chance element programmed in. I use the term "reactive" art to mean that the "random" element enters in via user "interaction" (a term so vague it should really disappear from the dialogue, but there you are).

curt:
>The abstract visuals that result are less central to the "art" of it >all. http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/codedoc/ focuses on the >code >and the performative run of the code. You're free to take a >screen shot >of the abstract visuals that result, but that's not where >the "action" of >the exhibit is.>

nad:
Yes Christiane Paul put an emphasis on that and I think she
is very right to put a stress on that aspect in the arts
world. However last not least I think the visuals were
very important too (also if this is kept rather hidden).
In order to do the above pieces, you need to know BOTH:
the programming and the visuals. And some other things too actually,
like interactivity paradigms etc…
It is this interdisciplinarity which is important for the art pieces.

Or in short: I could imagine that some of the code on that
page (hoo I dont know!!) looks actually
very UGLY to a professional programmer and that some
of the visuals look terrible to a graphic designer (hooo
I dont know either…:-))….the great part of the
art is how the things a brought together.

Or even shorter: Why would Casey Reas study Armin Hofmann?

curt:
I see your point. There is a segment of the generative art community (represented in the above exhibition) that is very concerned with the aesthetics of the output (and the relationship between output aesthetics and code aesthetics). cf:

http://www.generative.net/papers/aesthetics/

http://www.afsnitp.dk/onoff/Texts/napiertheaesthet.html


But there is another thread of generative art, in the Tristan Tzara/John Cage/Sol Lewitt/Brion Gysin tradition, that doesn't care about the aesthetics of the output at all (at least ostensibly, conceptually) cf:

http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin/permutations/index.cgi

http://www.mteww.com/RAM/

http://www.mccoyspace.com/201/

Which kind of returns to Pall's original question – from whence the abstraction? If randomness plays *the* major role in generating something that the user/patron reads as abstract, but the artist is not intending to "abstract" anything at all, can this really be called abstraction, or is it just some sort of accidental rorschach test for the user? At its most cynical, randomly generated art that intentionally disregards output aesthetics can act as a conceptual critique of anyone claiming to have found truth and beauty in art and reality. "You found meaning in the output of my art, but it actually has no intrinsic meaning. Just like everything else." But this kind of conceptual rhetoric is faulty. Building a car that looks like it will move but actually fails to move doesn't prove that it's impossible to build a car that moves.

This is why I started with Klee. He built a car that moves. Abstraction rightly understood isn't about non-figuration or work that "appears" abstract (whatever that means). It's about some sort of intentional process of ab-stracting stuff into other stuff. The best generative art intentionally engages in this process. Abstraction is different than representation or even simulation. Abstraction intentionally injects something subjective into the translation between existence and art.

Geert

Couldn't agree more. Have you heard of 'Holarchy'?-

" Each Holon could be regarded as either a whole or as a part depending on
how one looks at it.":http://www.worldtrans.org/essay/holarchies.html
"A holarchy, in the terminology of Arthur Koestler, is a hierarchy of
holons - where a holon is simply a part of a hierarchy which itself is a
complex system. The term was coined in Koestler's 1967 book The Ghost in the
Machine.

The "nested" nature of holons, where one holon can be considered as part of
another, is similar to the term Panarchy as used by Adaptive Management
theorists Lance Gunderson and C.S. Holling.

The universe as a whole is an example of a holarchy, or holarchical system,
and every other holarchy we are aware of is a part of this larger
holarchy.": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holarchy



Andre SC



—– Original Message —–
From: "Geert Dekkers" <[email protected]>
To: "Pall Thayer" <[email protected]>
Cc: "Rhizome" <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2006 6:44 PM
Subject: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: considering abstraction in digital art?


> Perhaps "system" seems too closed, but I don't think it is too big. The
> art system is a subset of the cultural system, there are also subsets of
> the art system, and so on. But we need a word that denotes the
> inter-relatedness of – well, the nodes. I like the word "node" in this
> context, but it can't be an XML sort of "child node" because an XML
> document has a top-down hierarchal structure. There is of course the
> internet node – the idea of a packet on its way through the internet;
> any one node may fail, the packet will then choose an alternative route.
>
> This may seem like mincing words but I think it is actually very
> important to add to the metaphor using computer/internet related terms.
> As our understanding of and dependence on the digital realm grows we
> should rethink old systems (or institutions :)) in these new words.
>
>
> Geert
> http://nznl.com
>
>
>
> On 22/04/2006, at 5:50 PM, Pall Thayer wrote:
>
>> Maybe I didn't word that correctly. OK, the art work doesn't 'define'
>> the 'institution'. I'll have to find a better way to word it. Maybe
>> something along the lines of the nature of the work determining the
>> 'institution'. I see nothing wrong with using the term 'institution' as
>> long as we agree that it's not a physical thing. 'System' feels too big
>> to me. I don't think we can say that 'system' = 'non-physical
>> institution'.
>>
>> Pall
>>
>> On 22.4.2006, at 04:59, Geert Dekkers wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On 21/04/2006, at 8:29 PM, Pall Thayer wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Geert,
>>>> I'm pretty sure that the 'institutional' setting has been sufficiently
>>>> challenged and those bonds broken in many ways. If the 'institution'
>>>> is always there, then it's not necessarily a physical thing and it's
>>>> defined by the work itself. So in a way, we could say that taking a
>>>> piece of Net-Art and making it only viewable in a gallery or museum
>>>> defies the institutional properties of that work. The Internet _is_
>>>> the institution.
>>>
>>> First of all I'd like to correct myself in the use of the word
>>> "institution". The word might indeed connotate more of a physical thing
>>> than I mean it to be. Perhaps I should go looking for another metaphor.
>>> I should probably just use "system" – very vague, but a least no
>>> obvious bricks-and-mortar links. So then I could reread your "If the
>>> 'institution' is always there, then it's not necessarily a physical
>>> thing and it's defined by the work itself" as "If the 'system' is
>>> always there, then it's not necessarily a physical thing and it's
>>> defined by the work itself" – then this "defined" is obviously untrue,
>>> as the child nodes of the art system are not only the art works, but
>>> also art galleries, gallery owners, art lovers art haters buyers and so
>>> on. A definition of "system" always includes reciprocracy. The system
>>> is grows by and spawns child nodes.
>>>
>>> Furthermore, I'd say that there is an instrinsic linkage between the
>>> production of abstract art and the knowledge and use of the art system
>>> as system, by artists, and by other "child nodes" of the art system.
>>> Artists operating in the 50s and 60s like Vito Acconci, and others,
>>> clashed with the system as it stood at that moment, but of course knew
>>> the system well. They knew its soft spots. They used it as an artistic
>>> medium, as it should be. Also Joseph Beuys, whose greatest
>>> accomplishment is the expansion of the art work into the social system.
>>> Then on to the 80s, where people like Alan Charlton their "dummy nodes"
>>> in the sytem and let them revolve. The "names" are artists names, but
>>> they could not function within the system without the active
>>> participation of the other nodes of the sytem.
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> But I also want to get back to the issue of abstraction because
>>>> there's something I've been thinking about lately that I didn't
>>>> mention in previous posts. That is that if a digital piece is based on
>>>> programming that essentially produces the artwork itself, I feel that,
>>>> regardless of the subject matter shown, the piece becomes inherently
>>>> abstract because the 'entity' producing it isn't conscious of its
>>>> content. And I feel that this relates in a way to Jackson Pollock's
>>>> method of handing some control over to the medium itself, allowing the
>>>> properties of paint to control certain aspects of the 'image' to
>>>> heighten the sense of abstraction. Paint isn't capable of conscious
>>>> representation but humans have to truly fight to escape it (that is,
>>>> assuming that they even can - look at some of the work of Andre Masson
>>>> and Kandinsky). In the same way, computers aren't capable of
>>>> conscious representation so even if the image they produce looks like
>>>> a tree, it's still abstract because a computer can't consciously know
>>>> what a tree is.
>>>>
>>>> I did a little experiment recently where I decided to teach my
>>>> computer, in its own terms, how to draw a circle. So instead of simply
>>>> using something like 'g.drawEllipse(10, 10, 100, 100);', I wrote out
>>>> an algorithm to make it plot each point of a circle. Then I turned it
>>>> into an animated applet and let it run. As I sat and watched the
>>>> computer trace this circle over and over again, I asked myself, "OK,
>>>> does my computer now know what a circle is?" Well, it must because I'm
>>>> watching it draw it. I could've made the algorithm into a function
>>>> called draw_a_circle and then I could just tell the computer to
>>>> draw_a_circle and it would. But is the computer conscious of what a
>>>> circle is? If I show a child how to draw a circle, chances are that if
>>>> I then show that child an image of a circle, the child will recognize
>>>> it. So, after teaching my computer to draw a circle, will I be able to
>>>> present the computer with an image of a circle and have it recognize
>>>> it? No. Of course not. I know, this isn't ground-breaking stuff. When
>>>> presented, it's blatantly obvious. But from an artistic standpoint
>>>> it's definitely something to think about.
>>>>
>>>> Pall
>>>>
>>>> On 21.4.2006, at 03:58, Geert Dekkers wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 20-apr-2006, at 22:45, Pall Thayer wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Geert,
>>>>>> Good point. I hadn't really considered that. When considering
>>>>>> Net-Art as a mass-media type phenomenon, I guess what concerns me as
>>>>>> far as the location of the experience goes, is the fact that people
>>>>>> not generally interested enough in art to go out and seek it in a
>>>>>> gallery or museum or even those who feel intimidated by formal art
>>>>>> settings (the "I don't know how to talk about art. I'll just feel
>>>>>> out of place." types) can experience the art in solitude without it
>>>>>> being a compromise such as looking at pictures of paintings or
>>>>>> sculptures in a magazine. They get the real thing. And the way
>>>>>> things are now, that doesn't necessarily have to be at home, it can
>>>>>> be at a coffee-shop, the library, school, even a park.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But as far as walking around and examining work in three dimensions,
>>>>>> I'm not sure that I would call that unique to screen-based art as
>>>>>> painting exhibitions usually don't invite you to examine the
>>>>>> paintings from behind.
>>>>>
>>>>> Right. But what I mean is that in the case of screen-based work, like
>>>>> digital work, like video work, the space of the work is removed from
>>>>> the physical space where the box (computer, video set, projection
>>>>> system) is presented. Which means that there is a conflict between
>>>>> the art work universe (what goes on inside the box) and the design
>>>>> universe (the outside of the box). More often than not, this conflict
>>>>> stays unresolved. Of course, in painting (or any other form where
>>>>> the image carrier is fixed to the image) this conflict is present.
>>>>> But the conflict doesn't present itself as strongly as in
>>>>> screen-based art, because of the simple possibility of switching of
>>>>> the set (you then end up with just another tv)
>>>>>
>>>>> Much of the appreciation of art comes with setting the context. As in
>>>>> other art forms – for example: going to the pictures (to a movie
>>>>> theatre) sets te context for the experience of a movie. Watching the
>>>>> same on the telly is just not the same – as everyone knows. To pin
>>>>> down a traditional form of art appreciation – lets say that would be
>>>>> in a gallery, museum, or someones home, you'd really also have to
>>>>> speak of the context of the art object, to some extent, the context
>>>>> would be personal, other context would be collective, and yes, I can
>>>>> imagine context that would be very unique to the person doing the
>>>>> appreciating, so much so, that it would not be able to be
>>>>> articulated.
>>>>>
>>>>> So – getting "the real thing" might just be somewhat different than
>>>>> you think it is, Pall. Art needs its institutions – but art needs to
>>>>> break its bonds now and again, too.
>>>>>
>>>>> Geert
>>>>> http://nznl.com
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Pall
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 20.4.2006, at 16:09, Geert Dekkers wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 20/04/2006, at 9:24 PM, Pall Thayer wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I've been doing some research on related stuff recently and it's
>>>>>>>> beginning to lead into a kind of strange direction. What I'm going
>>>>>>>> to say is not about digital art in general but about Net-Art in
>>>>>>>> general. For a long time I've been touting the merits of the
>>>>>>>> abstract and do in fact feel that it's one of *the* most important
>>>>>>>> moves in recent art. So important that to simply abandon it as old
>>>>>>>> fashioned would be a shame. It's definitely important stuff. But
>>>>>>>> as far as Net-Art is concerned, it's hard to ignore the
>>>>>>>> Pop-Artness of it. It uses elements of mass culture and due it's
>>>>>>>> (most often) screen- based nature, it tends to have a
>>>>>>>> graphic-design quality to it. On top of that, it has one more very
>>>>>>>> significant feature that Pop-Art didn't have. Almost anyone can
>>>>>>>> experience it in an environment of their own choosing.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Experiencing art within the domain of your choosing is important –
>>>>>>> but this has always been possible. A buyer/ collector of an art
>>>>>>> object may choose to experience the object anywhere he/she wishes.
>>>>>>> But a viewer – now, a viewer is restricted to the medium where a
>>>>>>> 3d piece can be experienced without buying it – you know, an art
>>>>>>> gallery, a museum, someone's home. The enviroment wherein net.art
>>>>>>> can be experienced is definitely not of ones own choosing. net.art
>>>>>>> can only be experienced within the confines of – well, the
>>>>>>> internet. It will always take a machine to experience net.art. You
>>>>>>> will never be able to walk around it, look at it from the back. It
>>>>>>> simply does no exist in our dimension. Now THAT makes net.art (and
>>>>>>> before that, video art, ie everything that needs a machine) very
>>>>>>> different from anything produces before. Except perhaps fluxus,
>>>>>>> happenings.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Geert
>>>>>>> http://nznl.com
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Here's a good description of net art, it's: "popular, transient,
>>>>>>>> expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky,
>>>>>>>> glamorous, and Big Business"
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Only, this list wasn't devised as a description of net art. It's
>>>>>>>> Richard Hamilton describing Pop-Art in the late 50's. Eery, eh?
>>>>>>>> So, wow! If we consider the primary proponents of these two
>>>>>>>> "schools", we're looking to try to find a balance between Clement
>>>>>>>> Greenberg and Arthur Danto. That's pretty intense. I came across a
>>>>>>>> true gem of a find just yesterday. In the October, 2004 issue of
>>>>>>>> ArtForum, they published a previously unpublished lecture given by
>>>>>>>> Greenberg on… Pop- Art. Very interesting read but not surprising
>>>>>>>> that he didn't care for it all. Here's a great quote from the
>>>>>>>> lecture: "But Pop art has not yet produced anything that has given
>>>>>>>> me, for one, pause; moved me deeply; that has challenged my taste
>>>>>>>> or capacities and forced me to expand them."
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Danto on the other hand says that art's flight from Abstract
>>>>>>>> Expressionism (Greenberg's forte) is a turning point where art
>>>>>>>> becomes philosophy which sounds to me like something very
>>>>>>>> challenging and deeply moving.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Of course, one of the interesting things to consider, is the
>>>>>>>> audience. Who were Abstract Expressionism's audience? Who were
>>>>>>>> Pop-Art's audience? Who are Net-Art's audience?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I'm not going to supply any answers. This is just stuff to think
>>>>>>>> about. But I do feel that Net-Art has the potential to create a
>>>>>>>> meaningful bridge between Greenberg and Danto and that it's truly
>>>>>>>> worth pursuing.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Pall
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On 20.4.2006, at 13:26, curt cloninger wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Hi Andre,
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I've been reading Paul Klee a lot lately, and I like his take on
>>>>>>>>> abstraction. His answer might be "something like both a and b,
>>>>>>>>> with certain caveats." If there is a spiritual or a
>>>>>>>>> transcendental, we are not going to re- present it simply by
>>>>>>>>> drawing the surface of objects with illusionary renaissance
>>>>>>>>> perspective. So to get at the life/ history/essence of an object,
>>>>>>>>> we have to try to represent that object over time, which is hard
>>>>>>>>> to do in a single, static, 2D picture plane.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> So Klee developed a system of representation to try to get at the
>>>>>>>>> source of what something is. And of course his paintings don't
>>>>>>>>> look exactly like the surface of a thing. But they always have
>>>>>>>>> some relationship to the surface of a thing, because the surface
>>>>>>>>> of a thing has at least something to do with the essence of the
>>>>>>>>> thing. And since existence is very complex and the language of
>>>>>>>>> painting is necessarily more simple and reductive, then the
>>>>>>>>> painting will necessarily be an "abstraction," since it can't be
>>>>>>>>> a simulation. But the goal is not abstraction for its own sake.
>>>>>>>>> The goal is to get at the essence of a thing, and in order to do
>>>>>>>>> this using the limited vocabulary of (in Klee's case) painting,
>>>>>>>>> it's going to be abstracted.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Interesting that Klee's systematic approach to representation
>>>>>>>>> influenced Armin Hofmann who influenced Casey Reas whose
>>>>>>>>> Processing software is currently influencing the aesthetic of the
>>>>>>>>> generative art scene. All via a Bauhaus modernist graphic design
>>>>>>>>> door, which is a funny door for it to come through, considering
>>>>>>>>> it winds up in the midst of the late modern, often anti-formalist
>>>>>>>>> net art scene.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Some quotations that seem relevant:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> There's this sort of ridiculous idea left over from the 20th
>>>>>>>>> century that abstraction and figuration are legitimate poles.
>>>>>>>>> And I from the very start have incorporated the two things
>>>>>>>>> together. I've been fascinated by the idea that there is really
>>>>>>>>> no distinction – it's just a question of scale. (matthew
>>>>>>>>> ritchie)
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Forms react on us both through their essence and their
>>>>>>>>> appearance, those kindred organs of the spirit. The line of
>>>>>>>>> demarcation between essence and appearance is faint. There is no
>>>>>>>>> clash, just a specific something which demands that the
>>>>>>>>> essentials be grasped. (paul klee)
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> It is not easy to orient yourself in a whole that is made up of
>>>>>>>>> parts belonging to different dimensions. And nature is such a
>>>>>>>>> whole…
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The answer lies in methods of handling spatial representation
>>>>>>>>> which lead to an image that is plastically clear. The difficulty
>>>>>>>>> lies in the temporal deficiencies of language. For language there
>>>>>>>>> is no way of seeing many dimensions at once. (paul klee)
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> There should be no separation between spontaneous work with an
>>>>>>>>> emotional tone and work directed by the intellect. Both are
>>>>>>>>> supplementary to each other and must be regarded as intimately
>>>>>>>>> connected. Discipline and freedom are thus to be seen as elements
>>>>>>>>> of equal weight, each partaking of the other. (armin hofmann)
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> In the face of the mystery, analysis stops perplexed. But the
>>>>>>>>> mystery is to share in the creation of form by pressing forward
>>>>>>>>> to the seal of mystery. (paul klee)
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The chosen artists are those who dig down close to the secret
>>>>>>>>> source where the primal law feeds the forces of development.
>>>>>>>>> (paul klee)
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> To overcome an obstacle or an enemy
>>>>>>>>> To dominate the impossible in your life
>>>>>>>>> Reach in the darkness
>>>>>>>>> (paul simon)
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Art plays in the dark with ultimate things and yet it reaches
>>>>>>>>> them. (paul klee)
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> +++++++++++
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Andre SC wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Hello List
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Just wondering, do you think Abstraction is?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> a. necessarily reductive in nature
>>>>>>>>> b. actually inherently transcendental
>>>>>>>>> c. both a and b above
>>>>>>>>> d. depends, if we are talking performative, generative, iterative
>>>>>>>>> or
>>>>>>>>> retronascent
>>>>>>>>> e. none of the above , but?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> because?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Andre SC
>>>>>>>>> +
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>>>>>>>>> info/29.php
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> –
>>>>>>>> Pall Thayer
>>>>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>>>>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> +
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>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> –
>>>>>> Pall Thayer
>>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> +
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>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> –
>>>> Pall Thayer
>>>> [email protected]
>>>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> +
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>>
>>
>>
>> –
>> Pall Thayer
>> [email protected]
>> http://www.this.is/pallit
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> +
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>

Of course I'm aware of Christiane Paul's CodeDoc exhibit and I think
it's one of the most important exhibits of computer based art that
has been. But I think putting too much emphasis on the 'action' is a
bit questionable. If the end product isn't interesting then the
'action' isn't going to save it. But if the end product is good, the
'action', if relevant, will serve to give the work more meaning.

Here's a nutshell version of my take on computers and the abstract:

Who am I to decide what is beautiful and meaningful? Who am I to
decide what is worth looking at for the sake of looking at it? Little
me. One of a kagillion entities capable of creating something that
appeals to the human aesthetic senses. I'm not out to show what I
think is beautiful and meaningful. I'm searching for beauty and
meaning. If the computer and the Internet can help the artist to
transcend his or her own subjectivity in the process of creating art,
I can't understand why anyone would _not_ take that path. But then
again, that's my own, subjective opinion.

Pall

On 21.4.2006, at 20:24, curt cloninger wrote:

> Hi Pall,
>
> I keep reintroducing this snippet in different contexts, but it
> seems related to what you're talking about below, particularly
> regarding Pollock:
> http://lab404.com/ghost/defense.html
>
> We can understand Pollock as an improvisational dancer. The paint
> showed evidence of his collaborative dance with chance. With
> generative software art, the human coder is the choreographer of
> instructions for a chance dance. The software as it runs is now
> the improvisational dancer, and the abstract visual art that
> results shows evidence of the software's collaborative dance with
> chance. With Pollock, the "action" of the art lay at the
> intersection between Pollock and the canvas (an intersection that
> the paint itself bridged). With generative software art, the
> "action" of the art lies at the intersection between the coder and
> the sofware's "run/performance" of the dance. The abstract visuals
> that result are less central to the "art" of it all. http://
> artport.whitney.org/commissions/codedoc/ focuses on the code and
> the performative run of the code. You're free to take a screen
> shot of the abstract visuals that result, but that's not where the
> "action" of the exhibit!
> is. Pollock removed the focal point of the art from the object
> to the performative action. Generative art removes the focal point
> of the art one step further, from the performative action to the
> coded choreography (literally "script writing") of the performative
> action. Pollock sold his paintings. Casey Reas sells CD-ROMs of
> his code (and archival ink prints of screencaptures of select
> performative software runs to "patrons" who still don't get it).
>
> Regarding the circle drawing program, I think if you wrote a circle-
> drawing program that used the vaule of Pi, and the output was drawn
> on a plotter printer where the arm literally transcribed the vector
> arc, then the computer would "remember/know" the nature of a circle
> more than if you simply told it to plot a series of discrete x,y
> coordinates in bitmapped screen space. A strange thing for me to
> say since I've no faith in "AI," but maybe you know what I mean.
>
> best,
> curt
>
> ++++++++++++++
>
>
> Pall wrote:
>
> But I also want to get back to the issue of abstraction because
> there's something I've been thinking about lately that I didn't
> mention in previous posts. That is that if a digital piece is based
> on programming that essentially produces the artwork itself, I feel
> that, regardless of the subject matter shown, the piece becomes
> inherently abstract because the 'entity' producing it isn't conscious
> of its content. And I feel that this relates in a way to Jackson
> Pollock's method of handing some control over to the medium itself,
> allowing the properties of paint to control certain aspects of the
> 'image' to heighten the sense of abstraction. Paint isn't capable of
> conscious representation but humans have to truly fight to escape it
> (that is, assuming that they even can - look at some of the work of
> Andre Masson and Kandinsky). In the same way, computers aren't
> capable of conscious representation so even if the image they produce
> looks like a tree, it's still abstract because a computer can't
> consciously know what a tree is.
>
> I did a little experiment recently where I decided to teach my
> computer, in its own terms, how to draw a circle. So instead of
> simply using something like 'g.drawEllipse(10, 10, 100, 100);', I
> wrote out an algorithm to make it plot each point of a circle. Then I
> turned it into an animated applet and let it run. As I sat and
> watched the computer trace this circle over and over again, I asked
> myself, "OK, does my computer now know what a circle is?" Well, it
> must because I'm watching it draw it. I could've made the algorithm
> into a function called draw_a_circle and then I could just tell the
> computer to draw_a_circle and it would. But is the computer conscious
> of what a circle is? If I show a child how to draw a circle, chances
> are that if I then show that child an image of a circle, the child
> will recognize it. So, after teaching my computer to draw a circle,
> will I be able to present the computer with an image of a circle and
> have it recognize it? No. Of course not. I know, this isn't ground-
> breaking stuff. When presented, it's blatantly obvious. But from an
> artistic standpoint it's definitely something to think about.
>
> Pall
> +
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> 29.php
>



–
Pall Thayer
[email protected]
http://www.this.is/pallit

I agree with you Pall. There is much to abstraction, maybe even the most interesting to me, that isn't about action or interaction or chance.
I think these qualities were more important at an earlier time, when everyone was fleshing out a territory to explore.
Smithson,de Maria, Oppenheim,Serra et al are very abstract to me, but they are also very calculated in a truly engaging way.
Abstraction needn't be so 'accidental'.

Eric

Hi Pall,

What you are saying makes sense. Except I wouldn't say "little me."
I'm me, which is no small thing. But then I don't think we're
drifting billions of years from the beginning of existence and
billions of years from the end of it, and I don't think we're here by
accident. Not that any of that makes my take on beauty "right." But
it emboldens me to to explore with passion and purpose.

For the record, I don't think Cage and Pollock were cynical at all in
their dance with chance. It was a celebration of existence and an
opportunity to collaborate with the sublime.

peace,
curt


At 10:11 PM -0400 4/22/06, Pall Thayer wrote:

>Who am I to decide what is beautiful and meaningful? Who am I to
>decide what is worth looking at for the sake of looking at it?
>Little me. One of a kagillion entities capable of creating something
>that appeals to the human aesthetic senses. I'm not out to show what
>I think is beautiful and meaningful. I'm searching for beauty and
>meaning. If the computer and the Internet can help the artist to
>transcend his or her own subjectivity in the process of creating
>art, I can't understand why anyone would _not_ take that path. But
>then again, that's my own, subjective opinion.
>
>Pall

>For the record, I don't think Cage and Pollock were cynical at all in
>their dance with chance. It was a celebration of existence and an
>opportunity to collaborate with the sublime

But that's a very general attribute, and one that can be assigned to many artists, abstract and figurative.
We all celebrate our existence (I hope!)
But the sublime isn't so narrowly defined.It exists in conscious insight as well as the invocations of chance.

Eric

I am going to add this (and then sign off on the discussion)
Pollock and Cage represent the end game of surrealism to me.
Smithson and Reich point to a new abstraction, one that was the product of conscious, determined action on the part of the artist.
They make built abstractions, lucid and alive. They weren't the only ones.
Eric

> But then I don't think we're
> drifting billions of years from the beginning of existence and
> billions of years from the end of it, and I don't think we're here by
> accident.

Interesting. So when did it all begin and when is it all going to end?

ja?

I don't know.

jim wrote:
Interesting. So when did it all begin and when is it all going to end?

ja?

Hi Pall

>But I don't *really* want to teach my computer to recognize a circle.
>That would destroy my argument :-)

:-) :-) thats an argument!

>Whether or not circle's exist in nature I think is besides the point.

why? For me its a very interesting thing actually.
I am not kidding.

>We could replace it with a leaf. I could teach my computer to
>recognize a picture of a leaf but does that mean that it's going to
>recognize all leafs equally? A maple leaf as opposed to an oak leaf?
>A dead leaf? A torn leaf?

visual pattern regocnition got frightenly good in the
last years. One can defintely tell the difference between
a maple and an oak leave. I would even say between a dead
and a fresh leaf from the same kind. however sound is not so easy
as it seems. may be we should switch to rustle. :-)

Hi Curt

>Which kind of returns to Pall's original question – from whence the >abstraction? If randomness plays *the* major role in generating >something that the user/patron reads as abstract, but the artist is not >intending to "abstract" anything at all, can this really be called >abstraction, or is it just some sort of accidental rorschach test for >the user?


I think randomness should play only a minor role in the
creation of abstraction. I said this already, but
I feel real (?!?!) abstraction is rather heavily
linked to our consciousness, which i do not perceive as
so super random… which brings us back to
Palls original question actually :-)

So yes may be I would like to see abstract art rather linked to the "philosophical" understanding of abstraction.
which finally leads to the important question:

How much abstraction (in the "philosophical" or
mathematical sense) can you actually put into an image,
a film -an artwork?



About the Tristan Tzara/John Cage/Sol Lewitt/Brion Gysin/Florian
Cramer etc.
concept branch:

Mathematicians are spending lifetimes on finding
"beautiful" proofs, also if there already exists
"ugly" (i.e. long and cumbersome) versions of the proof
for a given problem, so I can understand the
conceptional artists point.
see e.g.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3540636986/103-3523278-0710254?v=glance&n(3155

But just
as for mathematics - you are climbing up the
ivory tower if you do that..
plus i have to say that some of the software poetry
looks just NICE :-O

I am NOT a subscriber. I've never HEARD of you people. WHY are you emailing
me? Please remove me from your list. I've asked you about 10 times now. I
run a business from this email address. You are clogging up the gears with
your listserv emails!!!!

Susan.



>From: curt cloninger <[email protected]>
>Reply-To: curt cloninger <[email protected]>
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: considering abstraction in
>digital art?
>Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 11:39:09 -0700
>
>I don't know.
>
>jim wrote:
>Interesting. So when did it all begin and when is it all going to end?
>
>ja?
>+
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