Here's another set from November 20, 1999. These two texts ended up in
MILLENNIAL SPURN as well. T.S.
THE NEW MEDIA ARE THE FRIED CHICKEN OF THE INFORMATION AGE
People say things are moving so fast that it's a waste of time to write up
proposals, because other people will just move on things, and you'll be
left behind in the dust. This seems to be a very good argument for doing
nothing or everything immediately. We seem to be witnessing the
"maturation" of a volatile, half-baked culture. If everything is so
rushed, it'll add up to something like a fast-food culture. Industrial
strength dim-witted gestures will prevail. The junk will pile up. This
junk culture is mounting at an accelerating pace right now, day after day
after day.
Everything seems to be in translation. Nobody seems satisfied with
original material. Everything is a twisted version of something else.
Content, like chicken, is being transformed into new media, the fried
chicken of the information age. Information is being processed and served
on assembly lines. Industrial centres for new media production and
distribution have been miniaturized to desktops and even laptops.
Individuals are organizations, solo incorporations.
If you are reluctant to invest in such a culture, well, invest in
something else, like flowering trees or canola oil.
—–
QUICK AND DIRTY PERFECTION
Ideas are ten a penny. Actually the reverse is true. There are damn few
ideas that'll hold any water. But being light as a feather has its
advantages. Economies and markets are like anchors. Conceptual art never
had any real economy, and look how it took off. Network art has the same
up-side. Nobody gives a shit, but it is spreading like wildfire. It
makes you think twice before you make something heavy to carry and
difficult to store.
In this light, let's examine the drawing versus painting debate. If you
ask people what's more important, they'll pick painting because colour is
hard, painting techniques are more difficult to master, mistakes are
permanent, and so on. But let's face it, craft time is overrated, and
material persistence and permanence are outdated concepts. In other
words, why move beyond the sketch? If people have so little time to
digest their culture, then why spend a lot time making things that last?
So much of what artists create is the result of taking the time
necessary to see or recognize something as it is, and taking the time to
represent this something elegantly, or taking the time to tweak it until
this something sings–the time spent on the work is somehow saved
or "banked" in the work and presented as the basis of the work's value.
We learn to appreciate things over time as our experience builds or
accrues in layers. With information refreshment, there will naturally be
layering through multiple points of view.
It is one thing to make art in materials that last, creating the illusion
of permanence. It is another thing to plan ongoing maintenance for a work
of art, so that art will be taken care of and maintained in the future.
This conjures up images of works of art that come complete with custodians
or maintenance workers contracted to take care of them.
Much conceptual work is a documentation of ongoing obsessions, taking time
and compressing it to create value through documented procedures and
processes.
Time-based art, improvised in real time, features the artists making the
work in the same time it takes to experience the work. In a culture of
convenience, 24X7 culture, it makes sense to produce information in the
exact amount of time it takes to consume it.
When business-oriented people talk about demos, pilots and sketches, they
say that everything is fair game when you're putting together a pitch.
If you need a soundtrack, use a track off your favourite CD. Steal what
you need. Cut and paste. Move as fast as you can to make your point.
The question I have to ask is why move beyond the sketch?
Tom Sherman
—–
There will be a book signing for Tom Sherman's
Before and After the I-Bomb: An Artist in the Information Environment
at Printed Matter, Inc., New York, NY
Saturday, October 19, 2002, 5 to 7 PM
Printed Matter is very pleased to announce a book signing for Tom
Sherman's book _Before and After the I-Bomb: An Artist in the Information
Environment_, to take place at Printed Matter, Inc., on Saturday,
October 19, 2002, from 5 to 7 PM. Printed Matter, Inc. is located at
535 West 22nd Street, between 10th and 11th Avenue (New York, NY).
The issue, albeit not quite as urgent I don't feel of such "form" has much in
common with increasingly short stories, short-short stories (in literature I
mean), and in theater "short plays" (Louisville has a ten minute play
competition internationally known) well known along with conceptual is
performance art; both possible in short spans of time or as longevity or
duration pieces and of course the net.art and it's sketch yes, sometimes I
feel as though the mere expression of the idea has already filled in a sort
of "story of" it's execution…..as in in the pitch lies the execution, but
that is not ALWAYS the case and as absurd as these mortuaries of art such as
museums and libraries seem to some; people do value permanence, especially
as meeting places and backdrops…rather than looking at the exhibits looking
back at them.
Joshua Reynolds often painted the same woman with the big greek columns in
the background and dressed as a cookwife with no background but an earthen
clot of mud. Fatuous? Hmm I wonder.
Now Spielberg's latest movie (based on Philip K Dick, "The Minority Report")
had a correspondant "Wired" interview where it was understood he gathered
what HE believed were the most forward thinking and pop-cultural attuned
personas as well as scientists and those from many fields to brainstorm what
the FUTURE with Precogs might BE and consist of.
I believe we have precogs but do not call them that in the present and since
before the oracle at delphi actually.
Then he scrapped what was said in this "privacy" of a neverending sketch of
language which emerged between the men for the pieces he found "agreeable" or
"pertinent" puzzle pieces for "The Minority Report" almost assuredly cutting
up the living theater of these persons of allegedly "high mind" and "high
concepts" instead of just, as perhaps Von Trier of Dogma would have– placing
a webcam, or several webcams, lots and lots of angles on various issues and
then placed THAT pastiche documentary on the market or presenting it at a
festival (and if I were him, I would have stepped far far into the background
and resisted all fiddling attempts since he does not live with hands tied
behind his back and does not visit limitation much) to people who would
likely have considered his NONINTERFERENCE (in this case) and these alleged
geniuses of our time's teatime discussion in itself quite interesting. The
"mindplay" in effect of a group brainstorm would have made the better
archival footage for the current moment (I think).
It would have been interesting for him to have THEN edited THAT. Nothing
wrong with shaping but when it comes to an organic interplay it is rare for
an artist to just prune the hedges without LITERALLY changing the shape
(cutting out triangles, squares, poodles) rather than letting them grow small
and bonsai like cut in ways that are doing justice to (one hopes) human
"shaper" (cold lonely exposure) and "naked empirical tree."
No, we have the auteur who is defending film as "living" and "molecular" as
though anything even "digital film" (also molecular) in the Universe could be
really living or dead. And we have "The Minority Report" which some famous
actor who shopped the script to him (shopped being an elemental action word
here). I think he failed, on being given his actual circumstances. Others
can argue what they want but I think he really failed given the
circumstances; he only succeeded in helping the "courtesan actor" (Poor
Theater, Grotowski) and himself….
Expression has definately become defined increasingly by what equipment one
owns or uses (demos) rather than what COULD be done, so a sketch would help
MOST (I think) when one LACKS the software, hardware, or engineering skills
to create a full blown execution (or the backing, energy, health, time I
could go on). There are people of better ideas and lesser means.
Others are more renaissance in exploits if not edible and legible
transactions of this scope.
Futurism had plays that consisted of one stage direction like "Empty stage; a
gun shot" and we all see where such futurism led: differently named
movements morphing into what some would see as more realized pieces and
others; as debased futurism.
I'll give this a few minutes today while rushing through an overbooked
day…many book are written to be "fortune cookies" and they colour our day,
but do not enhance or change our lives– like people who make a small
contribution to this clink.
"thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season"
t.s. eliot
a bit rushed,
elixirbeth
PS: HTTP://WWW.WIRED-PARIS-REVIEW.COM (From CELIA, who persists in this
alleged "cutting edge" and now "hypertext" if you visit the site "curative"
poetry that is "mystic" and apparently heals without any "irony" errrr)
No, there is NO subsidiary of the REAL Paris Review (as I figured) called
"Wired" and no subset including Wired and Paris Review. I guess a new Spam
Site of Poetry with a lot of buzzwords. Go read her "autobiography" tho,
those of you that have read her slash/backslash poetry incidentally in
opening your mail. It may prove, as to her own character, more than
enlightening or perhaps no surprise at all.
Ciao.
Quoting Elixirbirchin@aol.com:
> clot of mud. Fatuous? Hmm I wonder.
What do you wonder? Don't play hide and seek games. And stop mumbling.
Joseph
On Tue, 15 Oct 2002 joseph@electrichands.com wrote:
> What do you wonder? Don't play hide and seek games. And stop mumbling.
What Joseph dearest. Going to try and feed on another?
I suppose it must have felt 'anti-climatic' to fail.
The real reason why you stopped is cause you lack energy
any real ability to do anything, and any power.
`, . ` `k a r e i' ? ' D42