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: Re: Re: Re: citizen king-mystery of truth


> My dad's wooden bowls:
> http://lab404.com/bowls/

Thanks for that, Curt. I particularly liked the photo of the one with the
quote from the Bible and the flaw. I like what he's done with the flaw.
There is no attempt to hide the flaw. Instead, it is addressed.

ja

DISCUSSION

Re: Re: citizen king-mystery of truth


> > what do you mean 'calling for non-specificity', Ryan?
>
> 10. Non-imperial art is necessarily abstract art, in this sense: it
> abstracts itself from all particularity, and formalizes this gesture of
> abstraction.
>
> maybe the "non-particular" is different from the "non-specific"?

I wasn't sure what Badiou meant by this in the first place. I was just
wondering if that's what you were referring to. I don't know how we'd tell
the difference between the 'non-particular' and the 'non-specific'. If there
is any difference. Badiou is fairly vague at this point and other points.
Maybe some book he wrote offers a bit of clarification.

> > i agree that the badiou seemed fairly platonic. platonism might as
> > well be a
> > religion in certain ways.
>
> yes, but without acknowledging itself as practicing "faith." i don't
> mean to bring up the post-structuralist critique of reason/rational
> thought, only some of which is either practically or conceptually
> interesting to me. But "searches for truth" in that Platonic vein,
> especially those that attempt to critique religion as false
> consciousness seem absurd IMHO, especially when it comes to "Art." What
> kind of "truth" can be found that is "abstracted from all
> particularity" that is not based on faith?

Examine any argument closely enough and one will eventually either uncover
assumptions or circular reasoning (if for no other reason than a dictionary
must either be circular or leave some words undefined). So I agree that
something like 'faith' or 'belief' or 'assumption', each of which seems
inflected with different levels of conviction or emotional committment, are
unavoidable. The idea that 'God is love' seems a relatively bite-sized
assumption. The idea that God wrote the Bible or Koran seems a tad larger.

> i had a philosophy prof that spent his time (and ours unfortunately)
> trying to define the "value of Art." Not the symbolic-, exchange-, or
> economic value, which would have been useful, but "Art Value." He had
> this Platonic notion that "Art" has an ideal form that we only have
> access to in particularities (concrete form). oh how he hated modernism
> and postmoderism, and anything that dealt with anything tangible or
> rooted in historical analysis. Actually he liked arguing against pomo
> theory because it was easy for him to lead its student defenders into
> the relativist trap, denouncing their own values until they were
> totally confused. And he loved that power trip.
>
> > one would expect general statements about art often to share a certain
> > amount of applicability with religion, wouldn't one? they're both
> > concerned
> > with spirituality and goodness, aren't they?
>
> i don't know about that... maybe one could say the intentions behind
> each overlap sometimes. but i don't think art is based in any kind of
> spirituality. but then again, what art are we talking about. Art(forum)
> Art(news) Art(papers) Art(& Language) Art(text) Art(& Design)...
> i don't mean this cynically, but i think it's important to separate
> creation from the industrial mechanisms that allow for the existence of
> a field called "Art." i.e if one wants to argue the "creative impulse,"
> OK, but an innate impulse is different than an economic and political
> superstructure. and those superstructures are certainly not based on
> "goodness." that would be like looking for "spirituality" and
> "goodness" in the concerns of "Fashion" or "Furniture Design." i think
> it's difficult, if not an outright mistake, to attach concerns to "Art"
> or anything else, as if it's a natural thing. these are constructs,
> vehicles IMO, that represent the interests of those driving them.

I agree with what you say, for the most part. But even in something like
woodwork, when somebody makes a bowl, say, they can have a sense of
offering, a hope that in creating the thing (whatever it may be), it will
help somebody in some way, that it is toward the greater good and lessening
human suffering. A gesture of service to others. This is the sort of thing I
mean by 'spirituality'. Not necessarily a conventionally religious thing but
a desire to act in accordance with the greater good.

My dad liked to make things out of wood. He wasn't a master craftsman, in
fact much of his work consisted of simple bowls. But I got this vibe from
them. They were embodiments of his kindness and generosity and desire to act
in accordance with the greater good. They were offerings to other people and
also to the world.

ja
http://vispo.com

DISCUSSION

music


Douglas Coupland, when asked what new band he's listening to that he can't
stop listening to, recently said:

"I think the day of discovering a brand new band is largely over.
Everybody's a musical curator now, young and old. What's interesting is that
people over 30, who throughout the 20th cenury more or less stopped engaging
with music, are back in the trenches experiencing music they never would
have found sans Internet. For me right now it's 1960's feel-good bands like
the New Seekers as well as 1970's dinosaur rock like Emerson Lake and
Palmer, which I didn't like when it first came out."

I don't know. Sounds a bit myopic to me.

The last day or so I've been listening to/watching the music videos
available through the media library of winamp 5. I don't know whether I
should be disappointed in the media library or music more generally or
myself, but there just wasn't much that really got me. I got the strange
feeling I'd heard it all before. Mind you all this stuff is from AOL, ie, it
all hits a certain pro level. yet by dad there's an awful lot of sameness in
that media library.

My own suspicion is that there *is* music out there that is really new, but
for all our communications devices it's still hard as hell to hear it, to
find it. It is inaudible as far as empire is concerned. Like that Vicki
Bennett/People Like Us music I put a link in to a while ago. That's
interesting contemporary music, not an endless repeat loop--though it uses
other peoples' music from the 20's through the 90's as its only material.

dazed & confused,
ja
http://vispo.com

DISCUSSION

DISCUSSION

Re: citizen king-mystery of truth


3. Art is the process of a truth, and this truth is always the truth=
of the sensible or sensual, the sensible qua sensible. This means†=
: the transformation of the sensible into an happening of the Idea.
MANIK:"Belief is the process of a truth, and this truth is al=
ways the truth of the sensible or sensual, the sensible qua sensible. This =
means†: the transformation of the sensible into an happening of the=
Idea of Good.

ja: I would have thought that the fundamental truths of many =
religions are primarily not sensible in that they require faith concerning =
the existence of the non-sensible.

5. Every art develops from an impure form, and the progressiv=
e purification of this impurity shapes the history both of a particular art=
istic truth and of its exhaustion.

MANIK:"Every religion develops from an impure form, and the p=
rogressive purification of this impurity shapes the history both of a parti=
cular theological truth and of its exhaustion."

ja: Interesting. Will humanity eventually abandon Christianit=
y or Islam or Judaism etc because they are exhausted? It doesn't appear to=
be on the horizon.

PS: Strange ; we can change main words and still keep sense?!?
MANIK

ja: If that were the case, then Badiou's philosophy might as well be theo=
logy, wouldn't it? Which would be an owie for the philosophy.