Dyske Suematsu
Since the beginning
dyske@dyske.com
Works in United States of America

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BIO
I think, theorize, and write about highly irrelevant matters.
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DISCUSSION

A Posteriori Art


A Posteriori Art

The majority of what we call art are a priori art. That is, they are art
even before the artists pick up any tools of their trade, because they are
products of self-acknowledged "artists". For something to be art, we look
for and expect meaning appropriate for the term "art". This meaning is a
prerequisite for any products of art to be made. If it doesn't exist prior
to production, their identity as "artists" is questioned.

This is a problem for some forms of artistic endeavor. It discourages
experimentation. It forces artists to plan everything in advance, leaving
very little room for the meaning to evolve in the process. It is
particularly a problem for a new breed of art that is highly interactive and
iterative. Since many interactive works, especially community-based works,
are highly unpredictable in their behavior and evolution, many ideas for
these works cannot be declared "art" in advance. They could be art after the
fact, not before they were actually built and deployed to the environment
they were intended for. This also means that they could turn out not to be
art, if nothing meaningful emerges out of it.

It seems apparent to me that the institutions and the communities of art now
need to foster this type of art--the activities and the products that are
not art until they turn into art in the process of interaction and
evolution--a posteriori art, if you will, so that certain projects that
possess the possibility of becoming a posteriori art can be funded or
supported. All too often certain projects are shot down, self-censored, or
criticized, because they do not possess any meaning in advance. Rather than
rationalizing the legitimacy of art in advance by using cultural, political,
or metaphysical theories, which breeds conservatism, we could do better by
judging the potential by our gut instincts.

Like having a wedding after 50 years of happy marriage, you declare your
work to be art only after it attains something meaningful for you. Until
then it is not art--perhaps we can call it "interim art"--and you are not an
artist, at least with regard to this particular work.

Dyske

http://www.dyske.com

DISCUSSION

Re: The Unfortunate Consequence of the Anti-War Strategy


Hi Neil,

Thanks for the response.

I'd like to respond to the overall sentiment you expressed:

I'm with you. I share the same sentiments, but I was not speaking of my
sentiments nor of your sentiments. I was speaking of the general consensus;
what's in the air, at least in the US. I do not believe that it is only in
the US that the majority consensus about the war has shifted. Some poll in
France recently showed that the majority of the French people now feel
isolated from the world. I read somewhere that at the last congress,
Rumsfeld received a standing ovation. Unfortunately the world is now seeing
the pro-war people to be right, and the anti-war people to be wrong. I'm not
questioning the legitimacy of these perspectives. As you pointed out, there
are so many facts and circumstances that contradict these simplistic views.
To reduce everyone's arguments by stating pro-war = right and anti-war =
wrong is ludicrous, but remember, the anti-war camp used the power of unity
before and during the war in order to get the maximum impact. That is, we
chose to blur the distinctions in our arguments by uniting. In effect, we
told the world a simplistic view of anti-war = right and pro-war = wrong.
So, now that the US has won the war with a minimum amount of civilian
casualties (at least as far as the majority of the people are concerned),
they are reversing the simplistic view that we have created by uniting.

The Slate article that Vijay posted is a good example of trying to break
down each individual argument of the anti-war camp, now that they have been
lumped up together into a simplistic category of "anti-war". Now the unity
of various arguments are working against us.

How I see the events of the war is an entirely different issue from how the
world sees it. Unfortunately, whatever the world sees it, in the end,
becomes the history. Whether there is any truth to it or not is besides the
point.

The way I see it personally is very much like the way you are seeing it. I
have no objections.

-Dyske

DISCUSSION

The Unfortunate Consequence of the Anti-War Strategy


Wrong by Association: The Unfortunate Consequence of the Anti-War Strategy

My new essay on how the power of unity works as a double-edged sword:

http://www.dyske.com/default.asp?view_idu0

-Dyske

DISCUSSION

Re: Chalking Outside Rhizome...


> No probz - for those who are unhappy about the date of 25th regarding
> chalking and would rather sit down for a chat over a coffee and cream bun
> instead - I should mention that we are in NY from the 20th - 27th
> of April.
>
> We are keen in making constructive contacts to 'fill' the chasm between
> creative types...

Marc,

Keep me posted. I'm not a big fan of doing anything physical, but I like
coffee and cream bun and such.

Dyske

DISCUSSION

al-Sahafism


I suggested a word to pseudodictionary.com

al-Sahafism
noun
The speech delivery method and mannerism of Iraqi Information Minister
Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf where he states a lie so defiantly that the listener
begins to question whether it is himself or the speaker who is crazy.

Also

verb
al-Sahaf, al-Sahafed, al-Sahafing
To lie with the utmost defiance.

noun
al-Sahaf
A lie that is so unbelievable that it becomes a piece of fictional art.

Usage example:
Michael Jackson said in an interview that he had only one plastic surgery.
That was a good bit of al-Sahafism.

-Dyske
http://www.dyske.com