Michael Szpakowski
Since the beginning
Works in Harlow United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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DISCUSSION

Re: is art useless?


HI Jim
<Are you implying that the technical dimensions of
digital art can easily be
relegated to craft and design?>
yes, absolutely :) Nothing *substantive* about the
involvement of programming in art forces us to need to
rethink those particular categories & to urge
otherwise is to mistake cart & horse.
(I'm not saying, of course, that there might not be
other, aesthetic or philosophical, reasons why the
lines might be redrawn, I don't believe so myself, but
I'm open to good arguments)
michael
--- Jim Andrews <jim@vispo.com> wrote:

>
> > Hi Jim
> > sometimes when things aren't broke we shouldn't
> > attempt to mend them - there's a perfectly
> respectable
> > and relevant conceptual framework already existing
> > here of art/craft, art/design or whatever...
>
> Are you implying that the technical dimensions of
> digital art can easily be
> relegated to craft and design?
>
> I appreciate interesting programmed digital art and
> try to create some of it
> myself. The technical and artistic are so involved
> in each other, in
> interesting programmed art, that the distinction
> becomes superficial and
> even misleading. Programming is like Architecture,
> where there is more
> traditional integration between art and engineering.
>
> Also, I imagine that to Architects, the issue of
> use/useless is a bit
> different than in many another art.
>
> ja
> http://vispo.com
>
>
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DISCUSSION

Re: is art useless?


Hi Jim
sometimes when things aren't broke we shouldn't
attempt to mend them - there's a perfectly respectable
and relevant conceptual framework already existing
here of art/craft, art/design or whatever...I honestly
don't think in this post you raise anything that
William Morris, for example, would have had a problem
in understanding or sympathising with ...
That said, I think the broader discussion has been an
interesting one so far...it's the very slipperiness of
the ideas "art" & "useful" that has elicited quite
stimulating contributions..it's good to have the list
back in discussion mode & good on you for provoking it
:)
michael

--- Jim Andrews <jim@vispo.com> wrote:

> I don't have a problem with 'useless' art but with
> restrictions on what art
> can be. And, conversely, with art being absent from
> engineering.
>
> There's quite a bit of software (langwidgets or
> languagets) and other types
> of widgets being created. Mostly they don't have
> much to do with art. But
> were the programmers and engineers to have a sense
> of software and, more
> broadly, engineering as strongly related to art, and
> were engineering
> informed with the atmospheres of art, and the
> 'values' of art, then we might
> get fewer monstrosities and a discipline of
> engineering in which the
> motivations were, more often, similar to those you
> find in the art world
> rather than simply the marketplace. Software and
> other engineered entities
> to make the world better and more beautiful, more
> interesting, rather than
> to simply make dough.
>
> Conversely, were science and engineering to be in
> closer proximity to art,
> art might might be more Pythagorean in the sense
> that they were involved not
> only in mathematics but music, spirituality, and
> commerce--there wasn't much
> separation between art, science, technology, and
> spiritual matters.
>
> The schism between art and science/technology makes
> for an ineffectual art
> world and a dissassociated/schizophrenic
> science/technology world.
>
> ja
> http://vispo.com
>
>
>
> +
> -> post: list@rhizome.org
> -> questions: info@rhizome.org
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe:
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DISCUSSION

Re: is art useless?


Hi
this is possibly dull & old hat & not at all witty or
fashionably cynical but quite straightforwardly I
think that art (maybe culture would be a broader,
better term) is pretty central to what makes us human.
Of course strictly for a defining feature we're
probably talking some kind of tool use/language
combination but it is significant that those cave
paintings still speak to us ( well, they do to me..)
"Use" is difficult - I think it's the very
uselessness of art, in every sense except this central
one, that makes it so important, so defining, indeed
that allows it to be so -precisely *because* the best
art doesn't have a one dimensional "use": it can carry
the most rich & varied freight of meaning, reference,
history & prophecy..( Which is why art is *not*
culture bound; why as a card carrying atheist I can
still be shaken to the core by Piero della Francesca
or Giotto)
I'm not dogmatically opposed to the idea of usefulness
in other more limited senses but as a cautionary note
I would point out both Stalinism/Zhdanovism (tragedy)
& Blairite "cultural" policy in the UK of the last ten
years (farce).
The fact also that art continues to be made, to be
discussed, under the most appalling circumstances
-think of the Dante section of Primo Levi's Auschwitz
memoir "If This Is a Man" - suggests that is is
something with enormously deep roots in us..
I just did an arts outreach project( & *there's* an
interesting byway of this discussion!) in Tottenham,
Lnodon & I got some footage, first take, of six young
men from 13-16 years old, MCing, unprepared &
completely impromptu, with a panache & skill that
filled me with both joy & I have to say, a degree of
envy.
I'm still idealist enough to want a world where I make
myself unemployed as a specialist - where *everyone*
has the basic material necessities & so is able "to
hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear
cattle in the evening, criticise [or perhaps make
art!] after dinner"
michael

--- richard willis <m81l1ngl1sts@richtextformat.org>
wrote:

> well quite.
>
> art is useless cos it can't help me fix my boiler.
> and i'm cold.
>
> ...hey, wait a sec, i could burn the damn paintings!
>
> i take it all back.
>
> also: blah
>
> r.
>
>
>
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> >
> > +
> > -> post: list@rhizome.org
> > -> questions: info@rhizome.org
> > -> subscribe/unsubscribe:
> http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> > -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> > +
> > Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms
> set out in the
> > Membership Agreement available online at
> http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
> >
>
>
> +
> -> post: list@rhizome.org
> -> questions: info@rhizome.org
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe:
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> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
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> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set
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DISCUSSION

symposium & sudden snow


Two new movies:
'symposium' & 'sudden snow'
both have sound.
http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/vlog/ScenesOfProvincialLife.cgi
best
michael

DISCUSSION

Bruce Grove Mix in VisitorsStudio - live event - tomorrow 3pm GMT


==========================
Bruce Grove Mix in VisitorsStudio
==========================

Online real-time event : Bruce Grove Mix
When?: Fri Feb 23rd 3pm-3:30pm GMT
With : Fizzykal, Traye, Seyoum, Prince, Blazem,
Hazeldon, Kkid, Kidhypez & Yoseph.

A group of talented young people from Tottenham in
North London have
been preparing media files that explore and depict
life in their local
neighbourhood. Their mix has been prepared with the
support of two
artists, Graziano Milano and Michael Szpakowski, and
will be projected
live during the launch of the new Bruce Grove Media
Centre, London N17.
To share views of their worlds, join them tomorrow
afternoon in
VisitorsStudio as they mix their images and sounds
together for this
live performance.

To join the event please go here and click ENTER
http://blog.visitorsstudio.org/
==========================