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.
Discussions (847) Opportunities (2) Events (14) Jobs (0)
DISCUSSION

Re: The Myth of Meritocracy in Fine Arts


What people want to accomplish with their art can be quite strange, Dyske.

I have puzzled occassionally over the work of Giordano Bruno, for instance
(who was burned at the stake in the Inquisition). Essentially, as a kind of
mage, Bruno desired to create work that permitted access to the (platonic)
realm of forms, the 'world beyond', permitted the mind's entry to this
'place' and, thereby, permitted change of our own world; it was thought that
the realm of forms basically controlled possible occurrences in this world,
and that if you could write a future event into the world beyond, it would
come to pass in this world.

So his aims were both, erm, idealistic and pragmatic, as aims tend to be:
idealistic in both a literal sense and in the sense that he sought to create
works that enabled himself and careful readers access to the divine realms,
to divine knowledge; pragmatic in the sense of aiming to effect change in
this world, and pragmatic in the sense that the changes might be for his own
gain as well as well as, perhaps, others; worldly, in any case.

So he was fried for magic. He was also an admirer of the Copernican theory,
which didn't help his case. He was a bizarre and somewhat wonderful mixture
of magic and science of the western occult.

Pretty weird stuff and, hopefully, refreshingly different from more
contemporary artistic aims.

Yet it is also somewhat interesting to consider the modern 'magic' of
marketing and advertising, in art, even, in this context. Again, it is a
kind of magic which is the worldly goal whereby, somewhat independent of the
relevance and intrinsic interest of the work itself, 'success' is sought via
the machinery of notoriety and opinion (not of the divine). But not
altogether independent of the relevance and intrinsic interest of the work
itself, for the work itself must carry its own weight after some time, must
offer the world something of enduring relevance and interest, whether it is
sheer beauty or intellectual relevance or a vision of who we are or central
sociological relevance or whatever.

Around and around...

There's one good line in the movie 'Christine' about the bad bad car.
Christine the car rolls into the garage and it looks like a heap of junk at
that point. The crewcut mechanic, who has a nose so flat he could bite a
wall, looks at it, chews his cigar, and says "You can't polish a turd."

Mind you, he doesn't fare very well, and Stephen King appears to have
polished many a turd almost beyond recognition.

ja

DISCUSSION

The boat!


The boat! The boat!
http://www.drunkenboat.com

ja!

DISCUSSION

Regina_Celia_Pinto_on_-empyre-_in_March


Regina Celia Pinto (Rio, Brazil) is one of four South American featured
guests in March on -empyre- ( http://www.subtle.net/empyre ). You are
invited to join us for discussion with Regina about her work and concerns on
'The Phenomenological and Fantastic in South American New Media' in March
on -empyre-.

She has a new online multimedia work called "Viewing Axalotls" (
http://arteonline.arq.br/viewing_axolotls ), which keys on a short story by
the Argentinian writer Julio Cortazar called "Axalotls" from his collection
of stories The End of the Game. As it happens, we encounter Axalotls ("the
larval stage of a species of salamander of the genus Ambystoma"), an unusual
'game' made by Regina Pinto, and portions of Cortazar's text in "Viewing
Axalotls", which is not an adaptation of Cortazar's piece for the Web but,
instead, Regina's piece builds on Cortazar's text, takes it as an informing
departure point in a wistful meditation on "reality" and the limits of
communication between human beings.

I asked Regina about the Cortazar connection in "Viewing Axalotls" and the
apparent Kafka connection.

JA: There seems to be an odd Kafka connection in Cortazar's piece in which
the speaker turns, somewhat literally, somewhat figuratively, into an
Axalotls. Do you know Kafka's 'The Metamorphosis'? In this story, the
speaker turns into a big cockroach. There is the sense in Kafka's piece that
K's life was already that of a cockroach. But I don't really get that
'moral' from either Cortazar's story or your "Viewing Axalotls".

RCP: "Of course I know Kafka and The Metamorphosis. In fact Metamorphosis
was my first idea when I thought to do a new book. But I remembered Cortazar
and I decided to work with the Axolotl. However, I think that there is a
large difference between these books. Kafka is Expressionist and Cortazar
something related to "magic realism". I think that the story of Kafka is
much more social than the Cortazar story. Cortazar's story, I think, speaks
much more about the impossibility of communication between human beings and
animals, but more than this the impossibility to be the other, in this case
I think that it can be enlarged to human beings, the impossibility to really
understand the other. However, you will discover another fundamental
difference between Kafka and Cortazar. Gregor Samsa turns into a cockroach
and disappears, only the cockroach keeps on in the story. Cortazar's "man"
or my "woman" turns into Axolotl but keeps on being human and it is just
this that I think is fantastic because it was a notable intuition of Virtual
Reality and in this case the story is deeply social: Me and my Avatar Woman.
If you think in this way you can think about Ideology or about Media
building Ideology or you."

JA: And what is the attitude of your piece to the transformation to
Axalotls? Are you saying we are turning into axolotls via the virtual? Or
something else?

RCP: "I think it shows my deep interest in Virtual Reality and Computers. I
enter into the aquariumm computer and I am there, but I am out of it too.
Out of it I am concious that I am not really myself, that I am an Avatar
built by the media. In this case I am speaking about Anthropology and
Ideology. Perhaps it shows the difficulty of communication too. In spite of
the Internet and all the modern devices for communicating, the human being
remains incommunicado, unable to understand and accept the other - you can
see this in the lists and forums you participate in or participated in."

We will also look at other of Regina's works during March on -empyre-. In
particular, we'll look at the online multimedia works in The Library of
Marvels ( http://arteonline.arq.br/library.htm ) which she has been building
since 1999. Several of the works in Regina's Library of Marvels, like
"Viewing Axalotls", have 'games' in them of Regina's device. The notion of
'game' that she develops in these pieces comments on the relation between
games and art, certainly. We'll also hear about her vision of her site The
Museum of the Essential and Beyond That http://arteonline.arq.br , which is
surely one of the main sites on the Web concerning intermedia between
literature, visual art, and programmed work--between and amongst Americas
(and beyond that). It is marvelous in its internationalism and
cross-fertilizations between cultures.

The other featured guests in March on empyre are Alexandra Venera (Brazil),
and Jorge Luiz Antonio (Brazil), with the occassional post from Ana Maria
Uribe (Argentina). It should be fun. I hope you join us.

ja
http://www.subtle.net/empyre

DISCUSSION

Alexandre Venera (Brazil) on empyre


Alexandre Venera has some fine work at http://www.eale.hpg.ig.com.br , his
site. The sound in MANTRASH
http://www.eale.hpg.ig.com.br/2002/mantrash/sw_mantrash.htm is important, as
it is in much of his work. This is an international piece. Venera is from
Brazil and worked with Clemente Padin on PAN PAZ imagine at
http://www.eale.hpg.ig.com.br/swf/sw_0abre.htm . This is another
international piece in which the sound and interface is important. This one
is far more interactive. And the piece reachable from
http://www.eale.hpg.ig.com.br called 8/80 PIXELS is interesting also.
Alexandre apparently made this one after his computer crashed; it is
something of a data or art reclamation project, though you wouldn't
necessarily know that to look at it. Highly interactive and enjoyably so.
There are other interesting works more oriented to written poetry on his
site that you may also enjoy (via clicking the aLe signature characters from
the http://www.eale.hpg.ig.com.br homepage). In fact all the urls of his
i've sited are thereby reachable, except 8/80 PIXELS, perhaps, which also is
reachable from the home page.

Keep an eye out for the literary dimensions. Concrete, in the late fifties,
became one of the first international forms of poetry in part from South
America to achieve widespread influence in English and other languages. And
its influence in Brazilian letters has been strong. This is, for the most
part, a benificent influence, though it is of course up to the artists to
move beyond it in their own ways. Venera, I feel, has done this beautifully
without renouncing concrete, but by moving in some ways parallel with its
aims and, in other ways, his work bears little resemblence to concrete. The
work has a multiplicity and complexity rarely seen in concrete. Yet the
sense of language, and the joy in playing with the material of language in
various media is fully present. Also, concrete went for a kind of simplicity
that is sometimes unremarkable (simple mimesis between the meaning and look
of the words/letters), but the underlying goals ranged from international
comprehension to political statement that all could understand and find a
range of emotions and positions in. Venera's work is explicable
internationally and it has both a strong political and poetical content to
it. Related but different is the spiritual aspect of aLe's work, which is
humourously presented in MANTRASH but is resoundingly real.

If you know concrete, you see this work has as much (perhaps more) in common
with contemporary digital art from around the world as with concrete. 8/80
PIXELS, for instance, has more relation with the rectilinearities of data
art than with concrete. But, of course, the rectilinearities of data art
share with concrete a focus on the constituents and materials of the art, or
the ability to zoom in and out of the micro and macro. I admire the sort of
culture in Brazil where visual poetry is strong in the weave. It is part of
where aLe comes from, but he has worked through it into his own work
admirably.

And, again, these are international pieces, for the most part, so the
language must be simple but rich and explicable among different tongues.

aLe is one of four featured guests on empyre in March. The others are Regina
Celia Pinto, Ana Maria Uribe, and Jorge Luiz Antonio. More about each of
them as February proceeds. The title of March on empyre is The
Phenomenological and Fantastic in South American New Media. It should be a
lot of fun. I hope you'll join us for discussion of the work of these four
exciting artists/critics.

ja
http://www.subtle.net/empyre/

DISCUSSION

thinking with Agrippa


I have been reading Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa recently at
http://www.esotericarchives.com/agrippa ; a fascinating read. Agrippa died
in 1535. I have read many things that mentioned Agrippa, but never read
Agrippa. He wrote a book rather provocatively entitled 'de occulta
philosophia'. Men such as Giordano Bruno and Agrippa were artists, of a
sort, particularly Bruno.

Looking at the work of western esoterica, we note a kind of neoplatonism in
which text headings like the following are wont to appear:

"How our Mind can Change and Bind inferior Things to the Ends which we
Desire."

"inferior Things"? What does Agrippa mean by this? Something quite different
than it appears on first inspection, for the "inferior Things" he refers to
are simply things in the quotidian, any things. As opposed to things of the
realm of forms, the Ur of the Timaeus, where truth and beauty hang out, and
justice, and all ideals, including mathematical forms.

What is the power of art?

Agrippa says

"...as by naturall vertues we collect naturall vertues, so by abstracted,
mathematicall, and celestiall, we receive celestiall vertues, as motion,
life, sense, speech, southsaying [soothsaying], and divination, even in
matter less disposed, as that which is not made by nature, but only by art."

What does this mean? What are "vertues" and so what are "naturall vertues"
or "celestial vertues"?

He had previously mentioned that humanity had "Vallies [valleys] made, and
Mountains made into a Plain, Rocks have been digged through, Promontories
have been opened in the Sea, the bowels of the Earth made hollow, Rivers
divided, Seas joyned to Seas, the Seas restrained, the bottome of the Sea
been searched, Pools exhausted, Fens dryed up, new Islands made, and again
restored to the continent..."

The knowledge by which such things are accomplished involves the application
of celestial vertues to naturall vertues. The mathematics and engineering
involved in the sorts of tasks Agrippa mentions is concerned with the
phenomenology of the celestial, the ideal, the 'imaginary' but
no-less-existent, the mind and logic of God, the will of God, the necessary,
the formal, the binding.

"...our Mind can Change and Bind inferior Things to the Ends which we
Desire" because "the superior binds that which is inferior, and converts it
to it self, and the inferior is by the same reason converted to the
superior, or is otherwise affected, and wrought upon." In outher words, art
can use the laws of the superior world (the realm of forms and truth) to
harness the engines of necessity as they apply in this world. That is part
of what is involved in western Magick: the belief that by 'entering' the
'superior world', in some sense, and invoking the powers of the superior
world through this portal, that we can effect what we desire. The portal is
often art, writing, meditation, awareness of the celestial realm.

We also note that Agrippa seems to overestimate the extent to which sheer
force of will and passion determines the ability to 'joyn Sea to Sea', ie,
he speaks of "binding" in a somewhat dark tone when he says

"There is also a certain vertue in the minds of men, of changing,
attracting, hindring, and binding to that which they desire, and all things
obey them, when they are carried into a great excess of any Passion or vertu
[vertue], so as to exceed those things which they bind." And his reasons
seem to be more from psychology than physics, ie, he accounts for celestial
affairs as though they were determined by love and affection of the soul,
essentially by a loving God entirely without enmity:

"Now the ground of such a kind of binding is the very vehement, and
boundless affection of the souls, with the concourse of the Celestiall
order. But the dissolutions, or hinderances of such a like binding, are made
by a contrary effect, and that more excellent or strong, for as the greater
excess of the mind binds, so also it looseth, and hindreth. And lastly, when
the [thou] fearest Venus, oppose Saturn. When Saturn or Mars, oppose Venus
or Jupiter: for Astrologers say, that these are most at enmity, and contrary
the one to the other (i.e.) causing contrary effects in these inferior
bodies; For in the heaven, where there is nothing wanting, and where all
things are governed with love, there can in no wise be hatred, or enmity. "

But the main point I want to make is that in the works of Giordano Bruno and
Agrippa, there's the idea that the power of art is involved in the power of
God, the power of the 'superior' world, and that art is a portal to the
superior world, and so part of the end of a work of art is to let people
know the divine, and acquire something close to knowledge of the divine, and
to apply that knowledge in effecting change in this world.

However one estimates the probability of such a state of affairs, it is
interesting to observe and understand the beliefs of these
artist/philosophers/mathematicians/astronomer/astrologists. Their thought is
in the depths of Western notions of art that involves both, say, writing and
mathematics, or fine arts and science, ie, they are quite relevant to some
new media artists in that they practiced intermedia art and their writings
are a synthesis of the artistic and mathematical/technological/'magical'.

ja
http://vispo.com