Jim Andrews
Since the beginning
Works in Victoria Canada

ARTBASE (2)
BIO
Jim Andrews does http://vispo.com . He is a poet-programmer and audio guy. His work explores the new media possibilities of poetry, and seeks to synthesize the poetical with other arts and media.
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DISCUSSION

Re: jargon


of course that should have been short one "as": it means as much to say that
computers are metaphorical as that "The computer is metaphorized, not
metaphorical", ie, it doesn't mean much.

what passes for art talk is pathetic. what passes for excellent in art talk
is pathetic.

what passes for political oratory is murderous intent made appealing via
nationalistic jingoism.

language should help us think clearly and with compassion and understanding.
instead, it is often a weapon to deceive. or, in art talk, inconsequential
blather toward a phd or other educational certificate.

orwell argues that we should not accept bad or deceptive writing or
thoughtlessly cliched writing, or overly jargon-ridden writing, and that
what is at stake is, in politics, the tolerance of the culture for lies and
bad leadership. what is at stake is our ability to discern lies, deceptions,
and plain humbug from honest writing and utterance.

ja

> > jim, i think yer looking for love in all the wrong places...
> > vernacular is a well-established wrench...
>
> i didn't say anything about vernacular.
>
> > personnally, i don't think computers are metaphorical.
>
> whatever that might mean. the point is that it means about as
> much as to say
> that computers are metaphorical as that "The computer is metaphorized, not
> metaphorical," ie, not much.
>
> > the simplicity we avoid kinda explains too much.
> > hows that fer jargon?
>
> whatever. yeesh.
>
> ja

DISCUSSION

Re: jargon


> jim, i think yer looking for love in all the wrong places...
> vernacular is a well-established wrench...

i didn't say anything about vernacular.

> personnally, i don't think computers are metaphorical.

whatever that might mean. the point is that it means about as much as to say
that computers are metaphorical as that "The computer is metaphorized, not
metaphorical," ie, not much.

> the simplicity we avoid kinda explains too much.
> hows that fer jargon?

whatever. yeesh.

ja

DISCUSSION

Re: on network art


I had a quick look at it. What did you find "excellent" about it?

When he says things like "The computer is oppositional. It is binary. At the
ground level, there are ones and then there are zeros. Things aggregate from
there." I wonder why, apart perhaps from rhetorical convenience, the binary
is characterized as "oppositional". It might as well be "complimentary". Or
when he says, for instance "The computer is metaphorized, not metaphorical,"
one could as well turn it around, ie, the computer is metaphorical, not
metaphorized. For instance, there are no 1's or 0's in the computer. There
are charged transistors and uncharged transistors (RAM memory). The physical
states of the hardware are interpreted metaphorically, ie, a charged
transistor 'is' a 1.

At every turn i found myself wondering what his point was, wishing he would
get to the point rather than being forever preliminary and, as above,
uninformed and arbitrary.

So I didn't read the whole thing. What did you find excellent about it?

ja

http://art.paultulipana.net/essay/onnetwork/on_network_art.pdf

excellent essay on network art by someone you may be familiar with

DISCUSSION

Re: Re: RE: netbehaviour: Jargon-busters pick top offenders after 25 years of rewriting history


those are all useful words. they can be and have been written about without
hiding behind excessive jargon, without 'squirting ink like a cuttlefish,'
as orwell puts it. nor would i "completely discount cultural criticism". the
point, once again, is that there is something at stake concerning the
political welfare of society in writing so that people can understand what
the fuck you're saying so they can make up their own minds about whether
you're full of shit or not.

of course jargon is sometimes useful. mathematics and programming, for
instance, are full of it. any field has its jargon and, at best, it is
useful abbreviation of explicable concepts.

ja
http://vispo.com/writings

> well, i wouldn't completely discount cultural
> criticism; by supporting clear writing as a poltical
> act, you are in effect participating in it--(even
> though you did not use the words "colonialism,"
> "postmodernism," "structuralism," or the even more
> dreaded "post-humanism")--
>
> (i even feel bashful about using the word "dialectic")
>
>
> however----my god, yes: less -ism, more CONTENT...no
> more jargon as substitute for thought....

DISCUSSION

Re: Re: RE: netbehaviour: Jargon-busters pick top offenders after 25 years of rewriting history


> Jim - thanks for putting up the essay - have not read it before.
>
> mark

glad you enjoyed
http://vispo.com/guests/GeorgeOrwell/PoliticsAndTheEnglishLanguage-GeorgeOrw
ell.html , mark. reading this essay was part of a second-year composition
course in english i took in university in canada way back when. it was
considered a classic then, and presumably still is. not sure how widely
taught it is anymore. by now, many of the phrases and references are
historically dated. but the general principles are still valid. and of
course it is would be a useful exercise for students to come up with their
own contemporary examples of dying metaphors, verbal false limbs,
pretentious diction, meaningless words, etc used in contemporary political
and art writing.

the general principle that there is something at stake in clear writing that
concerns the political welfare of society is still important. We have
undergone several decades of 'theoretical' pretentious bafflegab in writing
on art and matters of 'cultural criticism'. But it is beginning to appear,
in retrospect, as fashion, as trend that is expiring. Which is hopeful.

ja