Ivan Pope
Since the beginning
Works in Brighton United States of America

BIO
In the place where analogue and digital overlap, that's why you will find me in the kitchen at parties.
Everything is at my site, http://blog.ivanpope.com
Discussions (225) Opportunities (0) Events (0) Jobs (0)
DISCUSSION

Re: Re: best work with Flash? [ following curt ]


> curt writes:
> Let's just take Beuys and
> compare him to Hirst. Beuys was definitely conceptual, but many of
> his installations/sculptures/objects still embody craft and sensory
> aesthetics which (surprise, surprise) substantiate and embody his
> concepts. Fast forward to Hirst, and he's not even building his own
> objects. The crafting of his objects has become much more
> incidental.

I note that, while you say of Beuys that 'his installations ... still embody
craft and sensory aesthetics' you say of Hirst 'he's not even building his
own objects'. This is not comparing like with like.
Apart from that, I very much doubt that Beuys built his own objects. I
remember seeing a piece (called something like Rock Plug) which consisted of
a large number of huge slabs of rock with plugs drilled into then and plugs
set into them. I very much doubt that Beuys quarried the rock or transported
it without help. Further, I doubt that he manually built his large felt room
pieces without assistants. Etc. I just think your distinction is cheap and
inaccurate. I am sure that youd find Beuys and Hirst had about the same
amount of input into getting their work sorted out.
That is not to say that the work is equal in value, I will not go there.

But then you dont go on to say what I thought you would say: that hands on
crafting of network art is more valid than getting third parties to
construct it.

Cheers,
Ivan

> Now fast forward to the net in 2003. You have all these media
> converging, and all these different artists from all these different
> perspectives and backgrounds converging. But it's all happening at
> low res. So the visual artist (read "realistic landscape painter")
> must now necessarily be more conceptual (or at least more iconic and
> symbolic). On the other end of the spectrum, now that sensory
> aesthetic impact is possible via the web (thanks to advancements in
> bandwidth, tools, and developmental practices since 1996), the
> concept-centric artist at least has the option (if not exactly the
> onus) to ramp his work up visually. Which is not to say that
> Mouchette now becomes praystation. It's just a chance/challenge for
> the "object-incidental conceptual artist" to begin to re-integrate
> sensory aesthetics into the vocabulary of his work.
>
> Why would a "visual artist" select the web as his medium of choice in
> the first place? A million reasons. He doesn't live in a big city
> with a bunch of galleries, but the net gives him a worldwide
> audience. He wants to hybridize his visuals with other media
> strengths that the web offers -- non-linearity, multi-user
> environments, "unfinished-ness," randomness, auto-generativeness,
> many-to-many network-ness. The list goes on and on.
>
> It is always interesting and instructive TO ME when we get into
> discussions on raw about how specifically the design and visuals and
> pacing of a particular net art piece advance its impact and meaning.
> David Crawford's "Stop Motion Studies" is ripe for just such a
> discussion. Boring to me is merely talking denotatively about "what
> a piece of art means" (like the artist is some kind of riddler and
> it's our job to guess the right answer). Boring to me is allusive,
> decoder-ring art that leads to such "guess-the-righ-answer" dialogue.
>
> _
> _
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DISCUSSION

Re: Re: Re: is google god?


> From: Nick Barker <rhizome@nickbarker.org>

> Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Re: is google god?
>
> Ivan Pope wrote:

>>> Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: is google god?
>
> While wrestling with this question and weighing up the similarities between
> God, who created heaven and earth (or so I am told) and Google who catalogued
> a lot of it...

Misreading your question, I thought I also should ask Google if Google is
good.
Google thought long and hard about this (1.4 seconds), and, after two
responses that tried to throw me, gave me:

The Register
... out. Or as Seth Finkelstein reminds us,"Google is good, but not God."

I think that neatly closes the circle. Apart from that Dog ...

Cheers,
Ivan

DISCUSSION

Re: is google god?


> Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: is google god?
>

>
> overblown hyperbole?
>
Depends whether you think god is omnipotent or merely omnipresent. Google is
in some sense omnipresent, but it is hardly omnipotent ... which in my view
makes it another god among many. Ta, Ivan

DISCUSSION

Re: Fwd: FW: Radical Software


The archive of the magazine, Radical Software, documents a short period in
time when video art emerged alongside the technology of video itself, almost
simultaneously.
There are many parallels with our own recent times, substituting the network
and network art for video.
What is scary is, I think, how the possibility of a publication like Radical
Software has totally disappeared. To be replaced, perhaps, by a mailing list
like Rhizome. Will Rhizome be loving catalogued and republished in thirty
years time? I doubt it somehow.
Cheers,
Ivan
>

>> Subject: Radical Software
>>
>> Two years ago, Ira Schneider and I began planning to put all the
>> issues of Radical Software on the Internet. We are very happy to
>> announce that, with help from the Daniel Langlois Foundation of
>> Montreal, our project has been realized.
>>
>> There were eleven issues of Radical Software from 1970 to 1974, and
>> during that period it was the only periodical devoted to the subject
>> of video and video art. Founded by Beryl Korot, Phyllis Gershuny
>> (Segura), and Ira Schneider in 1970, it became an important voice of
>> the video community nationwide and internationally.
>>
>> Read the Introduction

DISCUSSION

Re: The Upgrade tonight at Eyebeam's main exhibition space


> Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: The Upgrade tonight at Eyebeam's main exhibition space
>
> Dear all,
>
> Current temperature in New York City: 96 degrees.
> We're setting up Zhang Ga's talk in the main AIR-CONDITIONED exhibition
> space.
>
> See you later,
> Yael

Dear Yael,
Yes, the world is so parochial that all subscribers to Rhizome are a)in New
York b)know what you are talking about c)give a flying fuck.
Yours,
Ivan Pope
Brighton, UK (Temperature unknown)