In Which Young Intersperses His Comments Amidst Marc Garret's Comments And The Discussion Begins To Appear Philosophical

> Hi Daniel,
>
>
> > I pose this question: As a general standard for judging artwork on the
> web, can we give a higher value to work that says something WITH or THROUGH
> the medium than work that says something ABOUT the medium? Stated in terms
> of Mr. Salvaggio's comparison of the internet to a phone service, can we
> give a higher value to work that says something WITH or THROUGH the phone
> service than work that says something ABOUT the phone service? Substitute
> radio, television, cinema,or printing machine for phone service, if you
> like.
>
> This is a very interesting question - these days I would find it hard to
> answer this as clearly as I would of a while back. For I am now discovering
> that much relational behavior can be viewed as art function even though it
> would not be accepted as art due to it not being a 'conscious act' of art.
> This is because there are many links that networked creativity is aligned
> with, that just by being there creates the circumstance of creativity as an
> activity, rather than deliberate and focused. August Highland is not
> necessarily the right dude or machine to hit upon, for behind the work there
> is a mind or minds acting acting, making decisions even though they are
> generic; it comes from an art place. Yet with regard to whether one calls a
> phone line art or not? Well, why not? For art does not necessarily have to
> be kept in the realms of human physicality as a starting point or
> conception. Intention creates art traditionally, yet movement and function
> can do also. Also pure manipulation is reasonable, just because it is, not
> because one wants it to be. For instance, if one looks at nature one could
> consider a tree an amazing work of art, but we did not create the biological
> blueprint for that tree.

Young: But if unpremeditated (phone line-type or Google type) activity can be art, in order for it to be recognized as art don't we have to have someone pointing to it or framing it or doing something to distinguish it from the mass of things that are going on at the same time? So that's like Duchamp taking a manufactured urinal out of its original context. But if Duchamp had said "The whole urinal business is art." where would that leave us if we wanted to make a meaningful distinction between art and other human activity?


> So in a sense, we are now experiencing generative works that do not adhere
> to human needs or desire in respect of formal/culturalized 'language' based
> communication; yet offering new ways of experiencing the haze, as a
> networked activity, and one does not have to know who did it.

Young: There's a contradiction in this sentence. If something is pointing to a new way of "experiencing the haze" it is addressing "human needs." The haze must be the eternal human uncertainty about life and reality, now made hazier by the computer and the internet. But I don't think we should give the haze itself credit for offering new ways of experiencing itself or being art any more than nature should get credit for being artistic because it is being what it cannot help being. Nature and the haze are initial conditions or givens. Art is one of the ways of coping with initial conditions. There must be a conscious mind making the "offer" of the new way of experience and that conscious mind is the artistic mind. Phew! I must rest my conscious mind at this point.


I see much of
> the generative art movement as still very young and I feel that there is
> much to learn from it, for all who are concerned and not concerned or merely
> interested.
>
> Personally, I find it exhilarating because it does not desire recognition in
> the same way as most artists do.

Young: Here I belong to the majority. I definitely want recognition - not for money or fame - but to know that my message is getting through. Communication is what exhilirates me most. It is impossible for me to like the idea of falling in the forest without anyone hearing (even if the falling is fun.) If I thought that self-expression was the be-all and end-all of art I guess I would be satisfied with just working in my dark cave. But I believe the role of the artist, at least the highest role, is to bring light for others, to enhance the experience of living etc. etc.

It defies that 'sucky' thing that we all
> mostly fall for to some degree. In that, there is a quality that I can
> admire, for that demands a no compromise situation. Hence, frustrations will
> occur at a regular basis for those who wish to experience communication or
> the illusion of it, one must not forget that there is such a thing as the
> 'user illusion'.
>
> 'Consciousness is at once the most immediately present and the most
> inscrutably intangible entity in human existence. Consciousness lags what we
> call reality'.
>
> 'Consciousness is riddled with deceit and self-deception. The conscious I is
> happy to lie up hill and down dale to achieve a rational explanation for
> what the body is up to; sensual perception is the result of a devious
> relocation of sensory input in time; when the consciousness thinks it
> determines to act, the brain is already working on it; there appears to be
> more than one version of consciousness present in the brain; our conscious
> awareness contains almost no information but is perceived as if it were
> vastly rich in information'. The User Illusion, Cutting Consciousness Down
> to Size, by Tor Norretranders, published 1991 in Danish, English translation
> 1998.

Young: Mama Mia! Are you messing with the reliability of my consciousness? Now I really need to rest my brain. I'll have to look at the Norretranders book. On these matters I know that everything can be reduced to illusion. But, along with Dr. Samuel Johnson, I have to insist on demonstrating reality by KICKING THE ROCK - even though I know that the rock is not really there and the pain of stubbing my toe is illusory. Really. Marc, I love this stuff. The sages said it was better not to be born, BUT, having been born, we have to make the most of it.

> The deliberate act can be seen as an illusion so therefore accepting that we
> are influenced by many factors that transcend singular notion, I would
> advocate that we recognize that we are all right now experiencing many
> different things that at present cannot be realistically define. The growth
> of systems cannot yet be proven as non emotional. Critical distinction is an
> emotional action…and there is nothing wrong with that as long as it is
> acknowledged as such.
>
> marc
>
Young: Nevertheless, I believe that critical distinctions can be made that are based on logic and also appeal to our deepest natures (the buddhist, daoist, Godelian, etc.)- and that somehow developing these standards helps the world. We can't prove them in a mathematical sense but Hey! If beautiful artists like us are going to withdraw from the reflection of reality and from the making of critical distinctions then won't the world go to hell even faster than it is presently? I'm exhausted. Keep up the good work.

Danny

In Which The Conversation Between Garrett and Young Continues And New Depths Are reached

There is so much in your writing that I have to limit myself to those things that really pushed my button - not in the sense of angered me - just in the sense of generating a clear response that I can type in my slow two-finger method without devoting the whole night to it. So I've interspersed again with Young2 in front of my latest reactions.



> ~Your twisting my sobrieties~
>
> Hi Daniel,
>
> I really want to have a lot of fun here - but I feel that, at least for a
> while now, there has not been much space for any reasonable or productive
> mutual debate. So hopefully, this one of them….
>
> Young: But if unpremeditated (phone line-type or Google type) activity can
> be art, in order for it to be recognized as art don't we have to have
> someone pointing to it or framing it or doing something to distinguish it
> from the mass of things that are going on at the same time?
>
> marc: Yes, we do. We do have someone pointing at it, but not in the same
> terms as paintings in a space, or an installation in a space. It is about
> realizing, seeing what is artistic, it does not have to be measured by the
> same terms. It can be seen as a metaphor, that could be art. Once we get to
> that point who knows? It's also about complexity, once we have a language to
> understand something, it becomes clearer.
>
> Currently we can only see something like (phone line-type or Google type) as
> tools for communication, yet at the same time we are using these tools for
> art activity. There will become a time when the tools themselves (if still
> relational) start to have meaning. We will create the meaning for it, it is
> a human thing. For instance man has creative the universe - not physically,
> but we have placed/pinned, our own mythologies and presumptions and dreams
> on such a wonder. But as far as humanity is concerned - we invented it. For
> we give it meaning all the time. In much the same way we will give (phone
> line-type or Google type). We shine a light on it.
>
> Young: So that's like Duchamp taking a manufactured urinal out of its
> original context. But if Duchamp had said "The whole urinal business is
> art." where would that leave us if we wanted to make a meaningful
> distinction between art and other human activity?
>
> marc: Personally, I have been a bit of post-duchamp type of individual for a
> while now. One thing I really admire Duchamp for, is not the urinal, but for
> giving up art, at least being straight forward like below:-
>
> "I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art – and much
> more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its
> social position." Marcel Duchamp

Young2: He was talking before the days of Fisher and Spassky. Cannot be commercialized? Perhaps not fully, because it can't be copyrighted or patented. But I guarantee that if some popular action movie actor was to take up chess or if it were to be featured as James Bond's hobby we could see a very nice chess industry develop - perhaps Chess Lite with a smaller board and less pieces.
>
> Now this is kool - for he knew that art was not the be all and end all. He
> knew that there was something else worth living for out there. Meaning other
> things related to him that had the poetic experience or at least was more
> valuable than art. Of course many people would agree with this, but it had
> to be said.

Young2: Nevertheless, notwithstanding the importance of other things besides art, art has a special role to play in life and society. The kind of art I have in mind cannot be dropped by decision. It is in the nature of a compulsion. At best,it is a compulsion with benefits for the society at large. Without it the artist feels something missing. There is a need to create, to react, to play deeply with the chosen material.

> > So in a sense, we are now experiencing generative works that do not adhere
> > to human needs or desire in respect of formal/culturalized 'language'
> based
> > communication; yet offering new ways of experiencing the haze, as a
> > networked activity, and one does not have to know who did it.
>
> Young: There's a contradiction in this sentence. If something is pointing to
> a new way of "experiencing the haze" it is addressing "human needs." The
> haze must be the eternal human uncertainty about life and reality, now made
> hazier by the computer and the internet. But I don't think we should give
> the haze itself credit for offering new ways of experiencing itself or being
> art any more than nature should get credit for being artistic because it is
> being what it cannot help being. Nature and the haze are initial conditions
> or givens. Art is one of the ways of coping with initial conditions. There
> must be a conscious mind making the "offer" of the new way of experience and
> that conscious mind is the artistic mind. Phew! I must rest my conscious
> mind at this point.
>
> marc: Yep, I agree again, yes there does need to be -
>
> 'a conscious mind making the "offer" of the new way of experience and that
> conscious mind is the artistic mind'.
>
> But not in the same way as I feel you are inferring. What I kind of
> envisage, is a more amalgamated non-singular decision source. Meaning that
> it will not necessarily be art-critics who decide what art is good, and not
> the artists themselves to some degree. But, people who wish to explore
> creativity (whatever it is) as a way of life, as part of their lives, not a
> life=style but a decision of imagination.

Young2: Here I feel you are engaging in utopian dreaming. If you leave decisions on art up to some sort of inclusive democratic process (even by those who believe thay are dedicating themselves to the pursuit and nurturing of creativity) you will get choices that are the artistic equivalent of our current president. The vast majority of humanity are out of this picture entirely. They never give a thought to art and are content with food, shelter, and the entertainment and the material possesssions ordained by corporations. The art I am thinking about is the product of genius, the rare and unruly upswelling from the collective unconscious emerging through the art work of a few individuals who may be as much the instrument of the upswelling as the director of it. I guess I see the greatest artists as individual dictators. And the recognizing critics are as rare as the artists. Sure, everybody thinks they want to be creative but that is a fashionable notion of doing something that will fall within a superficial use of the term. I'm talking about creativity that is dangerous and turbulent and closely connected to destructiveness and uncontrollable forces in nature. The creativity of the kind found in Hexagram 11 of the I Ching.


> The process of information as just functional motion is, yes, a dead thing,
> an entropy thing. Yet, if you play with it, give it life by filling it up
> with the right ingredients, you have art. You realize it, bring it life.

'Active Imagination Should Be Used For Breaking Free Of The Literalism Of
> Our Daily Lives'. James Hillman.

Young2: Yes. This is Jungian stuff, with which I am in great sympathy. Realization is a key step. But the work is not complete until the realization is communicated. That is when it begins to live in the world.

>
> > I see much of the generative art movement as still very young and I feel
> >that there is much to learn from it, for all who are concerned and not
> >concerned or merely interested. Personally, I find it exhilarating because
> >it does not desire recognition in the same way as most artists do.
>
> Young: Here I belong to the majority. I definitely want recognition - not
> for money or fame - but to know that my message is getting through.
> Communication is what exhilarates me most. It is impossible for me to like
> the idea of falling in the forest without anyone hearing (even if the
> falling is fun.) If I thought that self-expression was the be-all and
> end-all of art I guess I would be satisfied with just working in my dark
> cave. But I believe the role of the artist, at least the highest role, is to
> bring light for others, to enhance the experience of living etc. etc.
>
> marc: We all want respect for what we do, but on who's terms? Your own of
> course. But I bet you've things like, oh you should not put this in because
> people might find it offensive.?

Young2 : Absolutely. One must exercise craftiness and self-censorship when working in, and hoping to influence, a large and powerful society. Otherwise, like Lenny Bruce, one's limited energy can be sapped just by the wear and tear of coping with the societal restraints and repressions. And look at the stupidity of the counterfeit Dow site, which not only gave the opposition all it needed to suppress the site but also seems to have destroyed the Thing network.
Even in this conversation I leave out things that I think might hurt others or might make me look bad.

> If you have not - well I have, many a time. It was only a couple of weeks
> ago that I was told by someone who recently was generous enough to feature
> one of 'Ruth catlow's' web-piece on their site, saying that it was not
> welcome because of the sexual content
> http://www.furtherfield.org/rcatlow/domestic_idols/index.htm.

Young2: Shame on them. An organization that does not recognize the genuineness of such mature and witty work should not be in possession of funding money. Fortunately the net has many mansions, (for hiding if not for funding.)
>
> This was all about funding. There are people who do not understand about
> freedom of content & declaration of imagination as one of the most important
> things that we have left in life. And they will gladly strike something off
> the list, just because they found it a bit uncomfortable. All the more
> reason it should stay there (we all thought). These dudes stood their ground
> against the decision, and in the end the funders backed down, which does not
> always happen. So one in the eye of censorship.

Young2: A happy ending.
>
> Young:I guess I would be satisfied with just working in my dark cave. But I
> believe the role of the artist, at least the highest role, is to bring light
> for others, to enhance the experience of living etc. etc.
>
> marc:I agree, an honorable thing. But don't you think that it is a bit of an
> outmoded concept that we have something really special to offer others? What
> makes us so special? Who says that we have something to offer the world that
> is worth while that has not been said already. (I'm sure that Eryk said this
> to me once, but it is a reasonable question).

Young2: I say it - that's who, - I say it! I, a supremely special and specialized example of the species homo sapien. I, who realize what most others do not see, who present it in ways that most others do not have the cleverness, or determination to achieve. I, who am more familiar than most others with the history of what has gone before and therefore more qualified to make evaluations. I, who can by reason and logic prove the value, inventiveness and importance of what I am doing. I hope this does not sound immodest but this is my authority as an artist - an irrational self-coronation - plus the confirmation I get back when my communication has been made with an audience. See, http://newzoid.com/nzproclamation.html

> Who's asking you to work in a dark cave? I'm not. I'm asking you to turn
> that bloody light on in that cave.

Young2: Do you know what it costs to light a medium size cave these days?

Look around you and see that art is not
> just a remit of culturalized terms, It is bigger and better than that. Like
> we are as humans, although having a grunt like Bush ruling America must be
> hard to swallow. Our poodle in the UK seems more keen to hide away from the
> public at the moment, to comb his hair (Blair). No rhyme pun intended. It is
> part of our brain, our neurons, our genes.
>
> Young: Nevertheless, I believe that critical distinctions can be made that
> are based on logic and also appeal to our deepest natures (the buddhist,
> daoist, Godelian, etc.)- and that somehow developing these standards helps
> the world. We can't prove them in a mathematical sense but Hey! If beautiful
> artists like us are going to withdraw from the reflection of reality and
> from the making of critical distinctions then won't the world go to hell
> even faster than it is presently? I'm exhausted. Keep up the good work.
>
> marc:
>
> >From vacances, Victor Hugo wired his publisher about the success of Les
> Miserables, "?" His publisher replied "!" The important part is what was
> explicitly discarded, the "exformation." A message has depth if it contains
> a large quantity of exformation.

Young2: I applaud your use of an anecdote but I may disagree with you interpretation of it. This exchange had everything that was needed completely contained within the exchange of punctuation symbols. So there was no discarded. information. In this context more words would have been superfluous. Understanding came from realizing that punctuation had perfectly expressed what the communicants intended to say. If the full meaning clearly indicated by the symbols is what you mean by "exformation" then I agree with you.
Incidentally, two points, my dictionary does not have the word "Exformation." But I am happy to say that I found the anecdote in on of my most treasured books, The Little Brown Book of Anecdotes, edited by Clifton Fadiman. '


> The least interesting aspect of good conversation is what is actually said.
> What is more interesting is all the deliberations and emotions that take
> place simultaneously during conversation in the heads and bodies of the
> conversers. Tor Norretranders.
>
> We are all so hung up on saying things in the right way, in the right terms.
> When really, there is an awful lot that is not said and used, put aside that
> we tend to ignore because of mannerist reasons. A good example is 'Jackson
> Pollock'. He was not painting he was performing. He was inscribing his scale
> and relational experience onto the canvas. Maybe what we all look at, is
> only a very small part of what the art is really about. May be a picture
> does not tell a thousand stories literally, but it is a link to a person
> that placed the stuff on the canvas, but there is much more behind that
> person which informed her/him about it.

Young2: Yes. And that self-revelation by the artist reveals parts of the self of others and parts of the reality of the world that were previously unseen. But for every artist who brings up material that is also revelatory to others there are countless who bring up material that has no value, that is imitative, inauthentic, superficial or mechanical.;
>
> Logic - huh! 'The fact is that there is too little information in the
> so-called Information Age may be responsible for the malaise of modern
> society, that nagging feeling that there must be more to life.

Young2: This is a target of my NewZoid

There is -
> but we have to get outside and live life with all our sense to experience it
> more fully'. Tor Norretranders.
>
> Sorry quoting this guy, but he seems pretty important in relation to the
> discussion.

Young2: I will read this guy. But I tell you in advance I am prejudiced against someone who is pessimistic about the possibility of real communication between individuals. He sounds like a good match for this other guy I read about today, http://www.newhumanist.org.uk/issues/0209/hargreaves.htm, an English don named John Gray who sees no hope for humanity.

I suppose what I am saying it's not what is in the frame that is
> important, it what's outside. And that cannot always be captured by single
> methods alone it has to be part everything else to some degree, it ain't
> easy to package, but it is a great place to start exploring…
>
> marc

Young:2 We cannot resolve this in a day.You know the joke about the man who complained to the tailor, after a month of waiting, that it had taken the tailor too long to finish making his suit. The customer said, "After all, it took God only six days to make the whole world." Yes, said the tailor, but look what a mess God made and look what a fine piece of work I did.!"

This is my normal bedtime, concludes Young. Good Night.


> http://www.furtherfield.org
> http://www.furthernoise.org
> http://www.dido.uk.net
> We Can Make Our Own World.