history/herstory

i once wrote an essay called 'the impossibility of the mere existence of the
great works of the late twentieth century.' not that 'great' works are not
being created, but it won't happen again that which ones they are appears to
be so clear. it was never very clear, if you looked closely, given the
exclusions–look at the way that womens' writing was excluded from much of
'literature', but some has been brought to light recently (herstory). the
notion of trust in authoritative canons of art, authoritative versions of
history, is now itself historical in the history of ideas and, instead, one
seeks the principles of inclusion and exclusion operative in historical
narratives.

there is actually something called 'the principle of inclusion/exclusion' in
mathematics. it's for counting the number of elements that have (or don't
have) certain properties when the elements are among arbitrarily many
intersecting sets of elements. the situation is quite simple for up to 3
sets, but when the number of sets increases, the logic becomes more
complexly combinatorial.

in a similar way, the types of art, or poetry, etc, are proliferating quite
beautifully, out of the easily demarcated and categorized, judged and filed,
out into, let us hope, fresh experience and the usefully contemporary.

and, yes, new histories…

it's great to see the posts that have proliferated on this. mcluhan would be
delighted, i presume.

ja
http://vispo.com