>" This divorce of art from technology is completely unnatural. It's just >that it's gone on so long you have to be an archeologist to find out where >the two separated. Rotisserie assembly is actually a long-lost branch of >sculpture, >so divorced from its roots by centuries of intellectual wrong turns that >just to associate the two sounds ludicrous." >ZAMM, chapter 14. > >Seen in the light of MOQ, why are art and technology divorced? What is >their >role today? Is this divorce definitive? Hi Squad, I like this months topic, but my only problem is that I don't think the answer lies particularly within the MOQ. I think this is a ZAMM question. Let's not forget that you can divide dynamic quality up however you like and I think the classic/romantic split explains this dilema much better than the Lila split does. Art and technology don't just form themselves and I think the question could be more accurately phrased as, 'why are the people who make art and technology divorced'? And as Pirsig says, it's because we have scientists who have no understanding of art, and artists who have no understanding of science. I'm only 22, so it's pure conjecture, but I believe this problem was far worse in the 1960's when technology really was ugly. Now we have nice technology that looks nice and a lot fewer people are scared by it. The divorcc between scientific and artistic people seems to run very deep though and it's hard to explain. I'll just do my best and hope that you sort of know what I mean. A 'scientist' seems to have a presumption that his technology differs from mere art because it has a function. A 'function' is a logical purpose and it fits nicely with a sort of overall presumption that the universe is governed by logic and reason. Romantic Quality doesn't fit into this theory and scientists (or purely classically minded people) subconciously or conciously viciously try to ignore artistic value as though it would somehow prostitute the functional value of their machine. Pirsig does a much better job of describing the romantic mind in ZAMM. It's the living in the 'groovy dimension' whereby they don't want to be bothered with the actuality of life and just want to ignore anything that requires square logic or reason and just live on groovy emotions alone. This doesn't work either but romantic people tend to ignore classical quality (or a dripping phaucet) just as viciously. Pirsig wanted to unite the two mindsets of classic and romantic under the one banner of quality but I don't really think that will work. A modernday concept called 'cool' is making technology and art both okay at the same time but I'm not sure at what cost. I would answer that the divorce is not definitive but it's very difficult reconsiliation - one that will take a long time. Thanks, Phil. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
