--empyre- soft-skinned space--Signing off as well, thanks to Murat & Sally & Christopher & responders
Posted a final piece of poetry yesterday; drop me a line to stay in touch.
Bruce
On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 11:30 PM, Sally Silvers
wrote:
> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> Ok, signing off on our week of empyre at 11:30 pm.
> Thanks Murat for inviting me and thanks to all for the exchanges.
>
> Sally
>
> On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 12:39 AM, Murat Nemet-Nejat
> wrote:
>
>> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
>> Hi Sally,
>>
>> "... Maybe that's where the money is but they are most interested in
>> creating 'empathy' experiences so that users will actually feel for
>> instance, the plight of say Syrian refugees as if 'in the flesh'. It made
>> me wonder if this would eventually inure people even more to human or
>> planet disasters."
>>
>> Yes, it seems to be exactly where the danger is: confusing the images (or
>> languages) in the web with the reality behind them.
>>
>> "Mining the web" that Flarf practiced also was pregnant with the same
>> danger.
>>
>>
>> "... The Red Shoes, which has some of the best dance sequences on film
>> (even though I'm not a fan of ballet particularly)"
>>
>> That's why I asked you what you thought of The Red Shoes. That film seems
>> to be the exception. A vision of what film may do.
>>
>> Ciao,
>> Murat
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 5:26 PM, Sally Silvers
>> wrote:
>>
>>> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
>>> Also, Chris, I looked at the video attachments of you playing guitar &
>>> reading with the animated letters/words and the other one with live music
>>> and films of underlined words and a second screen of more abstract
>>> visuals. I am very curious about both and wondered how my attention would
>>> go if I saw it live. (It was hard to hear your words in the 1st one).
>>>
>>> Bruce Andrews did a collaboration with the graphic design artist, Dirk
>>> Rowntree in which Dirk so abstracted the typeface that the words were no
>>> longer legible. I also think of type designer & surfer, David Carson (*The
>>> End of Type*) here too or visual artist, Bruce Pierson whose
>>> abstractions are also built from words. For me when the words become pure
>>> abstract visuals it is somehow more satisfying than when I can read the
>>> words and have to care about the meaning. Maybe that is the difference
>>> between visual art (in which I generally prefer abstraction) and words (in
>>> which I find I want to discover something more social). Not sure.
>>>
>>> I am used to seeing films with laptop music as a relatively new genre.
>>> It always seemed like the film was compensating somewhat for the lack of
>>> the expected visual of seeing a musician with a more traditional
>>> instrument. Because otherwise why go to live laptop music when the sound
>>> is the same as playing it on your own computer? Audience will go to hear
>>> live acoustic or plugged in usual instruments; there's a long tradition for
>>> that. But when it's live musicians 'playing' their laptops, they want
>>> something visual to go along with it and thus a genre was born.
>>>
>>> Whereas it seems that Chris is adding layers and complicating the basic
>>> situation of live music. I wonder, Chris, if feedback has been that's it's
>>> 'too much' to hear words and watch them at the same time?
>>>
>>> I just saw a dance performance with animated word/letter visuals by
>>> Kay Rosen on the backdrop and on the floor. Letters turned into words and
>>> words went sideways and up and down, all done very subtly, wittily, and
>>> with slow changes. (The dance lacked the humor that the words provided) I
>>> didn't mind being distracted from the dance by my fascination with the
>>> design, but the critics complained about it. I was reminded of
>>> Cage/Cunningham's parallel universes of dance and sound which they compared
>>> to things vying for our attention as we walk down the street. Comparing
>>> this to offering a 'complete or unified" work (in the Wagnerian sense) and
>>> what the political implications are for those 2 approaches. Which one
>>> gives more freedom for the viewer? I guess Brecht would say the former but
>>> so many seem to like to be absorbed into a work and forgetting the self. I
>>> remember Cage saying he disliked the work of Phillip Glass and Steve Reich
>>> because it didn't give him any choices (not his exact words; my takeaway).
>>>
>>> Is forgetting the self like volunteering for brainwashing? Is it like
>>> volunteering for your social position in the power hierarchy in the
>>> Foucaultian sense?
>>>
>>> Sally
>>>
>>> On Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 4:41 PM, Sally Silvers
>>> wrote:
>>>
I am pleased to get the links on movement-based work that Craig and
Chris sent. I also looked at some Ted Talks presentations on Virtual
Reality. I discovered that most of the univ
