ARTBASE (1)
BIO
Christopher Fahey has been making computer games and graphics since childhood, and he continues to experiment with new ideas in computer art and design. He is the creative force behind the online laboratories http://www.graphpaper.com and http://www.askrom.com. Christopher is a founding partner of Behavior, a New York-based interaction design firm, where he serves as the Information Architecture practice lead. He has led many interactive productions as an art director, game designer, interface designer, and information architect. Christopher graduated from the Cooper Union School of Art in 1993 with a focus on interactive sculptures and installations, and has worked in the new media business ever since.
Re: 4 of 4
Judson wrote:
> Well, actually tacking on verbiage/explanation/ideas/info is
> just a new trend in the last 100+ years.
You got that 100% backwards. Only in the last 100+ years have artists
and art audiences become conceptually equipped to even attempt
(futilely, I argue) to deal with a work of art without also dealing with
verbiage/ideas/info. So much of art history is representational -
stories and historical events. More recently, art became expressive and
political. Very little art throughout history has been purely about
visual form or visceral animal reaction.
One exception to this is the decorative arts, which have an undeserved
bad rap. Yes, I suppose I'm suggesting that the urge to make
non-conceptual (formal, visceral, whatever you call it) artwork is
identical to the urge to decorate.
Anyway, if you think it's so foolish or unnatural to talk about works of
art, then why bother talking about art? You're pretty good at art-talk
for someone who thinks ill of it.
-Cf
[christopher eli fahey]
art: http://www.graphpaper.com
sci: http://www.askrom.com
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com
> Well, actually tacking on verbiage/explanation/ideas/info is
> just a new trend in the last 100+ years.
You got that 100% backwards. Only in the last 100+ years have artists
and art audiences become conceptually equipped to even attempt
(futilely, I argue) to deal with a work of art without also dealing with
verbiage/ideas/info. So much of art history is representational -
stories and historical events. More recently, art became expressive and
political. Very little art throughout history has been purely about
visual form or visceral animal reaction.
One exception to this is the decorative arts, which have an undeserved
bad rap. Yes, I suppose I'm suggesting that the urge to make
non-conceptual (formal, visceral, whatever you call it) artwork is
identical to the urge to decorate.
Anyway, if you think it's so foolish or unnatural to talk about works of
art, then why bother talking about art? You're pretty good at art-talk
for someone who thinks ill of it.
-Cf
[christopher eli fahey]
art: http://www.graphpaper.com
sci: http://www.askrom.com
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com
RE: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: The Artist speaking of his Brushes
> No apologies/explanaitions/intros is wonderful but
> not as wonderful as beautiful work that needs no explanation. The
> statue of David. Nothing there to think about, no words (unless you
> happen to be one of those people who can't quite manager to get one's
> head out of one's ass), wether you like it or not, just look at it.
Unless you're a martian or a philistine (!), there are LOTS of things
that you are probably thinking about when you see David.
It seems to me that it would greatly help one's appreciation of David to
know who the heck that "David" guy is. It's not just Michaelangelo's
"Naked Man" - it's "David"! It's got to add *something* to your
experience to understand what that sling and rock he's holding are used
for, who Goliath was, who the Jews are, and how important David is to
the Old Testament and to Jewish history. Is this before or after he
slays Goliath? Is he showing pride in what he has accomplished (if so,
where's the head of Goliath that so many other sculptors include with
David?) or cockiness in what he is about to do?
The Israelites were not known for fighting buck naked. Why, then, did
Michealangelo make David naked? You may already know enough about
Michaelangelo to know how deeply he appreciated the male nude. Does this
knowledge not affect your understanding and appreciation of the work?
Ever wonder why this Jewish prince has a foreskin?
There are other historical things that make the appreciation of it so
much richer, at least to me: To understand how the sculpture was meant
to be placed on a tower and viewed from 50 feet below, explaining why
his head, neck, and hands are disproportionally large. To understand
that Michaelangelo carved it from a single legendarily huge block of the
most expensive marble around - and the economics and politics
surrounding that kind of expenditure. To understand how difficult,
time-consuming, and dangerous carving and polishing marble really is (I
mean, he didn't make it out of clay). To understand that so many other
great sculptors had made great sculptures of David before, and that by
making a David, Michaelangelo knew he would be compared to Donatello and
others.
Having any knowledge at all about an artwork is, to me, like opening a
Pandora's box: it's folly to pretend I have no knowledge, to pretend
that I have a "virgin eye". And once I have some knowledge, I always
want more.
> "Rules" is a dumn word anyway.
Yeah!
-Cf
[christopher eli fahey]
art: http://www.graphpaper.com
sci: http://www.askrom.com
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com
> not as wonderful as beautiful work that needs no explanation. The
> statue of David. Nothing there to think about, no words (unless you
> happen to be one of those people who can't quite manager to get one's
> head out of one's ass), wether you like it or not, just look at it.
Unless you're a martian or a philistine (!), there are LOTS of things
that you are probably thinking about when you see David.
It seems to me that it would greatly help one's appreciation of David to
know who the heck that "David" guy is. It's not just Michaelangelo's
"Naked Man" - it's "David"! It's got to add *something* to your
experience to understand what that sling and rock he's holding are used
for, who Goliath was, who the Jews are, and how important David is to
the Old Testament and to Jewish history. Is this before or after he
slays Goliath? Is he showing pride in what he has accomplished (if so,
where's the head of Goliath that so many other sculptors include with
David?) or cockiness in what he is about to do?
The Israelites were not known for fighting buck naked. Why, then, did
Michealangelo make David naked? You may already know enough about
Michaelangelo to know how deeply he appreciated the male nude. Does this
knowledge not affect your understanding and appreciation of the work?
Ever wonder why this Jewish prince has a foreskin?
There are other historical things that make the appreciation of it so
much richer, at least to me: To understand how the sculpture was meant
to be placed on a tower and viewed from 50 feet below, explaining why
his head, neck, and hands are disproportionally large. To understand
that Michaelangelo carved it from a single legendarily huge block of the
most expensive marble around - and the economics and politics
surrounding that kind of expenditure. To understand how difficult,
time-consuming, and dangerous carving and polishing marble really is (I
mean, he didn't make it out of clay). To understand that so many other
great sculptors had made great sculptures of David before, and that by
making a David, Michaelangelo knew he would be compared to Donatello and
others.
Having any knowledge at all about an artwork is, to me, like opening a
Pandora's box: it's folly to pretend I have no knowledge, to pretend
that I have a "virgin eye". And once I have some knowledge, I always
want more.
> "Rules" is a dumn word anyway.
Yeah!
-Cf
[christopher eli fahey]
art: http://www.graphpaper.com
sci: http://www.askrom.com
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com
Re: The Artist speaking of his Brushes
> i agree with chris. for example, the piece with 2
> cyborgs making love seems to me to be about
> tech, no?
>
> from the article:
> One of the pieces in the man and machine group
> is Cyborg Sex Manual, from WRO (Poland), where
> the spectator becomes a voyeur watching two
> cyborgs.
>
> it's hook is the tech (ie cyborg).
Wow! Wired... inaccurate? Practicing hyperbole? I'm shocked?
> at eyebeam a while back was exhibited one of the
> most successful new media works using tech
> transparently. a video installation which consisted of
> a projection on the floor of figures walking about in
> urban settings created using motion capture and 3D
> modeling and animation.
<snip>
> it was riveting. but i can't find the name of the piece or the artists
with a quick search.. sorry.
It's by Shelley Eshkar (an old chum of mine) and Paul Kaiser:
http://www.artproductionfund.org/pedestrian/pedestrian_pres.html
-Cf
[christopher eli fahey]
art: http://www.graphpaper.com
sci: http://www.askrom.com
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com
> cyborgs making love seems to me to be about
> tech, no?
>
> from the article:
> One of the pieces in the man and machine group
> is Cyborg Sex Manual, from WRO (Poland), where
> the spectator becomes a voyeur watching two
> cyborgs.
>
> it's hook is the tech (ie cyborg).
Wow! Wired... inaccurate? Practicing hyperbole? I'm shocked?
> at eyebeam a while back was exhibited one of the
> most successful new media works using tech
> transparently. a video installation which consisted of
> a projection on the floor of figures walking about in
> urban settings created using motion capture and 3D
> modeling and animation.
<snip>
> it was riveting. but i can't find the name of the piece or the artists
with a quick search.. sorry.
It's by Shelley Eshkar (an old chum of mine) and Paul Kaiser:
http://www.artproductionfund.org/pedestrian/pedestrian_pres.html
-Cf
[christopher eli fahey]
art: http://www.graphpaper.com
sci: http://www.askrom.com
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com
Re: The Artist speaking of his Brushes
> "Imagine a celebration of digital art that bans works focusing
> on anything related to computers and technology."
> http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54346,00.html
I read the rest of the article, and it seems to me that ALL of the work
is focused very much on being "about technology". None of them would
pass Eryk's rule#5 (which, by the way, is my favorite rule, even though
I break it a lot because I love science fiction too much).
-Cf
[christopher eli fahey]
art: http://www.graphpaper.com
sci: http://www.askrom.com
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com
> on anything related to computers and technology."
> http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54346,00.html
I read the rest of the article, and it seems to me that ALL of the work
is focused very much on being "about technology". None of them would
pass Eryk's rule#5 (which, by the way, is my favorite rule, even though
I break it a lot because I love science fiction too much).
-Cf
[christopher eli fahey]
art: http://www.graphpaper.com
sci: http://www.askrom.com
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com
Re: dem bones
> "Because they have the function of collecting and preserving the
> artworks, the art museums today often looks like historical
> collections of media technologies of the previous decades. Thus one
> may mistake a contemporary art museum for a museum of obsolete
> technology. Today, while outside one finds LCD and PDA, data
> projectors and DV cameras, inside a museum we may expect to find
> slide projectors, 16 mm film equipment, 3/4-inch video decks."
> - lev manovich
Mark Dion once pointed out that they should put a gigantic glass case
around New York's Museum of Natural History with a little tag next to it
reading "19th Century Natural History Museum". A great deal of the
exhibits are scientifically flawed or socially backwards (i.e., why are
native americans treated as wild animals?), but the quality of the
craftsmanship is amazing and the insight it provides into the history of
science is invaluable.
Until they recently decided to renovate and hopefully begin featuring
contemporary art again, a similar argument could have been made for the
MoMA - put a glass case around it and label it "Modernism".
> "we are living in a material world, and i am a material girl."
> - cyndi lauper
I believe you are thinking of Huey Lewis.
-Cf
[christopher eli fahey]
art: http://www.graphpaper.com
sci: http://www.askrom.com
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com
> artworks, the art museums today often looks like historical
> collections of media technologies of the previous decades. Thus one
> may mistake a contemporary art museum for a museum of obsolete
> technology. Today, while outside one finds LCD and PDA, data
> projectors and DV cameras, inside a museum we may expect to find
> slide projectors, 16 mm film equipment, 3/4-inch video decks."
> - lev manovich
Mark Dion once pointed out that they should put a gigantic glass case
around New York's Museum of Natural History with a little tag next to it
reading "19th Century Natural History Museum". A great deal of the
exhibits are scientifically flawed or socially backwards (i.e., why are
native americans treated as wild animals?), but the quality of the
craftsmanship is amazing and the insight it provides into the history of
science is invaluable.
Until they recently decided to renovate and hopefully begin featuring
contemporary art again, a similar argument could have been made for the
MoMA - put a glass case around it and label it "Modernism".
> "we are living in a material world, and i am a material girl."
> - cyndi lauper
I believe you are thinking of Huey Lewis.
-Cf
[christopher eli fahey]
art: http://www.graphpaper.com
sci: http://www.askrom.com
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com