ARTBASE (3)
PORTFOLIO (2)
BIO
Rob Myers is an artist and hacker based in the UK.
I have been creating images of the contemporary social and cultural environment through programming, design software and visual remixing since the early 1990s. My work is influenced by popular culture and high art in equal measures. My interest in remixing and sampling has led to my involvement in the Free Culture movement. I have been involved in the public consultation regarding the Creative Commons 2.0 and CC-UK licenses. All my visual art is available under a Creative Commons license.
My interest in programming has led to my involvement with the Free Software movement. I developed the Macintosh version of the Gwydion Dylan programming language compiler. All my software is available under the GNU GPL.
I have been creating images of the contemporary social and cultural environment through programming, design software and visual remixing since the early 1990s. My work is influenced by popular culture and high art in equal measures. My interest in remixing and sampling has led to my involvement in the Free Culture movement. I have been involved in the public consultation regarding the Creative Commons 2.0 and CC-UK licenses. All my visual art is available under a Creative Commons license.
My interest in programming has led to my involvement with the Free Software movement. I developed the Macintosh version of the Gwydion Dylan programming language compiler. All my software is available under the GNU GPL.
Re: Thinking of art, transparency and social technology
On 6 Oct 2004, at 08:23, bensyverson wrote:
> All "important" work is about ideas; even the works of
> abstractExpressionists and 1970s minimalists made their own
> provocative arguments.
This is untrue in one very important way: art that is about ideas tends
to the illustrative or unartistic. Art that generates or is steeped in
ideas (aesthetics) is quite a different proposition. As you say it can
make provocative arguments. These may remain provocative decades or
centuries after they are first shown.
Pollock's work isn't about paint any more than Kruger's is about
feminist semiotics or Cezanne's is about apples and crockery. Imagine
looking at Digital Art with this knowledge.
- Rob.
> All "important" work is about ideas; even the works of
> abstractExpressionists and 1970s minimalists made their own
> provocative arguments.
This is untrue in one very important way: art that is about ideas tends
to the illustrative or unartistic. Art that generates or is steeped in
ideas (aesthetics) is quite a different proposition. As you say it can
make provocative arguments. These may remain provocative decades or
centuries after they are first shown.
Pollock's work isn't about paint any more than Kruger's is about
feminist semiotics or Cezanne's is about apples and crockery. Imagine
looking at Digital Art with this knowledge.
- Rob.
Re: Thinking of art, transparency and social technology
On Wednesday, October 06, 2004, at 02:08AM, bensyverson <rhizome@bensyverson.com> wrote:
>I wasn't making the case that abstract art == psychedelia, but I will
>make the case that abstract art is impotent in today's art context. If
>anyone disagrees, then enlighten me: what does pure abstraction have to
>say? Is it a comment on our fragmented, post-modern times? If so, it's
>a half-century-old sentiment. Great art makes the people of its time
>uncomfortable -- I don't think abstraction has made anyone
>uncomfortable for decades. I'd go further and say that formalism hasn't
>made anyone uncomfortable in quite some either; representational or
>abstract, if all you have going for you is aesthetics, you're not
>really saying anything.
Pure abstraction is resistant to the dominant mode of criticism (the dreary romanticism of the expanded text), and a semiotised (grammatical, algorithmic, kitsch) culture. It certainly seems to make some people uncomfortable, and not just the plebs who still don't grok it.
In a society where aesthetics has long since triumphed over ethics, aesthetic engagement is social engagement with or without Adorno. Pure aesthetics may find a new space, or at least a new point or angle. The contempt that mediatised govenrments express for Media Studies is telling, it is mirrored in the contempt aestheticised critical regimes hold for aesthetics.
One of the damn things is indeed enough. Break-out is needed to get back in.
- Rob.
>I wasn't making the case that abstract art == psychedelia, but I will
>make the case that abstract art is impotent in today's art context. If
>anyone disagrees, then enlighten me: what does pure abstraction have to
>say? Is it a comment on our fragmented, post-modern times? If so, it's
>a half-century-old sentiment. Great art makes the people of its time
>uncomfortable -- I don't think abstraction has made anyone
>uncomfortable for decades. I'd go further and say that formalism hasn't
>made anyone uncomfortable in quite some either; representational or
>abstract, if all you have going for you is aesthetics, you're not
>really saying anything.
Pure abstraction is resistant to the dominant mode of criticism (the dreary romanticism of the expanded text), and a semiotised (grammatical, algorithmic, kitsch) culture. It certainly seems to make some people uncomfortable, and not just the plebs who still don't grok it.
In a society where aesthetics has long since triumphed over ethics, aesthetic engagement is social engagement with or without Adorno. Pure aesthetics may find a new space, or at least a new point or angle. The contempt that mediatised govenrments express for Media Studies is telling, it is mirrored in the contempt aestheticised critical regimes hold for aesthetics.
One of the damn things is indeed enough. Break-out is needed to get back in.
- Rob.
Re: Thinking of art, transparency and social technology
On Wednesday, October 06, 2004, at 08:37AM, bensyverson <rhizome@bensyverson.com> wrote:
>The problem I see is that the newmedia discussion is at risk of
>becoming less-than-engaging. If FlashFormalism continues to be received
>with excitement and a deafening silence of critical discussion,
>newmedia will be stillborn; irrelevant before it ever reaches critical
>mass. To avoid becoming such a footnote, we need to inject the
>criticality that's missing by not having a wider recognition &&
>discussion in the hyper-critical art world. In fact, who better to
>critique this work than us, the combination [audience/creators]? I just
>don't see that critical discourse happening. I see a lot of wrangling
>over the terminology and technology, but not much attention paid to the
>ideas.
Illustrating fashionable art discourse *will* lead to footnotes. net.art's would-be-social-engagement was trivial, getting some critical *distance* and autonomy is a good next step. R&D rather than R&R.
>All of this is the long way of saying that newmedia disregards the
>threads which weave it at its own peril.
It becomes just the gilt on them at its own peril as well.
>So rather than watch this
>FlashFormalism float by and let myself become complicit in my silence,
>I solemnly vow to do my part to be a curmudgeon in my own way by
>contributing criticism and artwork to the discussion.
Yes. But regarding the art, silence can be a statement, fantasy can be realistic and formalism can have social content and meaning.
- Rob.
>The problem I see is that the newmedia discussion is at risk of
>becoming less-than-engaging. If FlashFormalism continues to be received
>with excitement and a deafening silence of critical discussion,
>newmedia will be stillborn; irrelevant before it ever reaches critical
>mass. To avoid becoming such a footnote, we need to inject the
>criticality that's missing by not having a wider recognition &&
>discussion in the hyper-critical art world. In fact, who better to
>critique this work than us, the combination [audience/creators]? I just
>don't see that critical discourse happening. I see a lot of wrangling
>over the terminology and technology, but not much attention paid to the
>ideas.
Illustrating fashionable art discourse *will* lead to footnotes. net.art's would-be-social-engagement was trivial, getting some critical *distance* and autonomy is a good next step. R&D rather than R&R.
>All of this is the long way of saying that newmedia disregards the
>threads which weave it at its own peril.
It becomes just the gilt on them at its own peril as well.
>So rather than watch this
>FlashFormalism float by and let myself become complicit in my silence,
>I solemnly vow to do my part to be a curmudgeon in my own way by
>contributing criticism and artwork to the discussion.
Yes. But regarding the art, silence can be a statement, fantasy can be realistic and formalism can have social content and meaning.
- Rob.
Re: XP service pack 2
On Tuesday, October 05, 2004, at 03:31PM, Jack Stenner <jack@jigglingwhisker.com> wrote:
>I'm sure you'd probably agree - Mac/PC/Linux, it's all 1's and 0's and
>what you do with them that matters :-)
And so yet another debate conspicuously ignores trinary computers.
;-)
- Rob.
>I'm sure you'd probably agree - Mac/PC/Linux, it's all 1's and 0's and
>what you do with them that matters :-)
And so yet another debate conspicuously ignores trinary computers.
;-)
- Rob.
Re: XP service pack 2
On Monday, October 04, 2004, at 03:47PM, Jim Andrews <jim@vispo.com> wrote:
>Now I find Dreamweaver is launching my IE fullscreen no browser chrome, even
>though I have sp2. Hmmmmmmmmm. I like that. I wonder how it's doing it?
Well, don't break the DMCA by trying to reverse engineer it. ;-)
- Rob.
>Now I find Dreamweaver is launching my IE fullscreen no browser chrome, even
>though I have sp2. Hmmmmmmmmm. I like that. I wonder how it's doing it?
Well, don't break the DMCA by trying to reverse engineer it. ;-)
- Rob.