In a message dated 5/29/2002 1:56:48 PM Central Daylight Time,
manovich@ucsd.edu writes:


> Among different oppositions that have structured the culture of the
> twentieth century that we have inherited has been the opposition between an
> art gallery and a movie theatre. One was high culture; another was low
> culture. One was a white cube; another was a black box.
>

Hey this relates to personal cinema. But it's funny how it's the low culture
that saves the nation (and thence the high culture). You can hear on end
about how NBC helped save the world by helping us remember how to laugh, for
example, since they started in 1927. And at the same time, conservatives
often say "it was lucky we had the can-do spirit of low culture–the energy,
the entertainment, the industrial professionalism–to save us from nattering
bullshit high culture." Enlisting Hollywood in the Cold War was conscious
and major; Saul Bellow supported a brand of pro-Americanism (maybe he's high
art though).

All those depression-era musicals for example: were they propaganda that
rendered the workers illiterate, as maybe Brecht would say, or simple
vitamins for the soul in a world of shit? I don't know Bollywood but I'll
wager it's full of clean shirts, clean hair, and cleanly uttered phrases just
like regular Hollywood.

I'm not sure if or how Augmented Reality and Intelligent Spaces relate to
Genius 2000. I know I've painted myself into a korner but hey.

Part of my rationale behind throwing tickets
(http://www.geocities.com/genius-2000/SFMOMA82700.html) is the idea that I'm
augmenting the reality and intelligizing the architecture. Sure one could
object "there's not enough craft or code in the execution, so it is not
hype-end art." I recognize that objection and my answer would be that the
physical space hit or mapped by each ticket is a reference to hype-end art.
Maybe a good dis of SFMOMA82700 is that it is anti-, cynical–I think David
Ross called me cynical and frustrated vis-a-vis 82700–barren, whatever,
turning my nose up at good art for personal gain (that's a separate can of
dog food). I just wanted it to be basic enough to show the parameters.

It's my children's-book way to ask if X likes Y, for example, I don't think
Prada likes Genius 2000. Would a bunch of tickets at say a Prada collection
premiere ruin it, leave it unchanged, or make it better? Throwing tickets
can be sort of like an accusation, or taken as such–"You decadent
Pradites!"; an interruptive distraction like "hey turn off your cell phone";
or just a mess for the cleaners. (I often wonder if the heavier paper
tickets like http://www.geocities.com/genius-2000/tics.JPG could ever give
someone a paper cut or so on the eye.)

On the whole I like reading Lev's comparing Prada to AI and VR, AR, etc.
It's evocative. For example, I would like to one day have t-shirts that say
"Genius 2000" maybe in the old coke-calligraphy style with the looping
cursive. I'm just not that comfortable or acquainted with the kind of people
who own 30 items from Prada, and I'm sure they would not like me very much.
The person who might go to Prada once a year, spend $250 or $300, that I can
see more. So what if someone in jeans and a G2K shirt, happy and replete,
went into Prada, bought a nice robe or gloves, and then threw a bunch of
tickets? Answer is, no one knows for sure I don't think.

I know there's a word from mall-building called "threading" or "theming," I
forget, but it's how they move your brain and feet along through mallspace.
I think it's sorta condescending. I guess if you can't pay your way keep out
of Pradaspace is the deal. OK then.

In eighteenth c. England, "the World" meant society, the polite class.
Didn't they use AR and Intelligent Architecture too? All those crazy
outfits, promenades, Arcades, special idiom. One thing is for sure however,
I've been noticing it lately in US tv, is that enhanced fitness is the look
everyone's after. Maybe it's the price of individuality?

All they eat is millet!

Max Herman

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