Alan:
Difficult to reply in this format to all that you've said, but I'll give it
a try.
-Of course many artists are forgotten. How many artists must have been in
Paris during the first half of the century of whom we've never heard, some
of them must have been as talented as the ones we know. But, they
contributed nonetheless. And even now sometimes another is suddenly
"discovered." And what about the anonymous artists before the signature
became identified, the tribal artists. Are they less important? What I'm
saying is that being attached to your name is valuable when you're alive,
the ego spurs one on. But after you're gone, if you're known or unknown,
what's important is that your work seeped into the culture.
-As for the Art World. Maybe in New York something interesting is happening,
but where I live I don't see it. What I do see is what's on the web.
-Science and technology are kissing cousins. Nuclear weapons, for example,
were, are, developed by physicists, chemists, and engineers. Medicine, NASA,
there are many joint projects. The line between them is scumbled.
-By not paying attention to wars I don't mean to ignore them. I mean, don't
feed them. Work instead on developing a network of human cooperation, not
competition, which is what feeds capitalism, and the hellfires of war.
Can postmodernism finally mean the end of modernism's competitive,
combative, spirit? The dark side of Picasso. The internet seems to at least
open us to this possibility. It would be nice to think that at least the
Experimental Arts--and this should be a genre in itself--can aspire to an
alternative to capitalism, and thus war.
-Joel
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan Sondheim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, July 18, 2005 10:12 AM
Subject: [webartery] Re: State of new media from strawberry fields forever -
On Mon, 18 Jul 2005, Joel Weishaus wrote:
> Alan:
>
> This must be answered, and not just by me, as it touches on so much of
what
> I, and I guess others who work almost exclusively in the digital, have
> thought and think about.
>
> Let's start at a signpost, this one being the Paleolithic caves. Did the
> people who painted these caves think their work would last forever? I
doubt
> that they even thought about it, or had a concept of longevity. They
> followed their spirit and did what they had to do. We think on a different
> time-scale, but we still follow our spirit and do what we have to do.
We also, at least I also, think radically different; the cave example
isn't that relevant to me (although it might be to others). What I'm
on about is whether net art makes any difference to others beyond net
artists; museums pay attention to it, etc., but it seems somewhat
stillborn outside of the hothouse of its webpages and creation.
> The future of the internet will have to take care of itself. I suspect it
> will go on expanding, getting faster, more prevalent in the average
person's
> life. Our work, then, will be considered pioneering. What we say and make
> will be annotated into a history of the medium.
Our work will probably be forgotten! I can already think of a number of
web artists no one knows about at this point - you can see this sort of
fast-forward activity in the newsgroups. For years I followed the Monster
Truck Neutopians; I doubt there's much reference to them at this point.
In fact most art doesn't 'come out in the wash' - look at conceptual art
and see how many artists are remembered (beyond the usual LeWitt and
Weiner). History integrates the differentiated noise of the now; in the
process, events and names are necessarily forgotten.
> I don't follow the mass media, corporate concerns, or even the Art
World--I
> have no idea anymore what's being written in Art in America or Artforum,
et
> al., because when I did I found that there's nothing happening there, that
> what's interesting is happening here.
Well of course that depends on one's viewpoint; there are a lot of
painters who would feel the opposite!
> As for contributions, who knows? At least we're not part of the political
> rabble or what these days passes for journalism--talk about entertainers!
> Our work is to tend the Promethean Fire, and I think we are doing it with
> distinction, We are honoring the artists who came before us, not by
bidding
> on their paintings, but by, as they did, biting on the Gordian Knot.
I worry we might be part of the political rabble; discussions among
artists aren't any more astute than any other group...
> Nor do I think science is more important to the future of the species than
> is our work. Like art, science is a journey with no end; while technology
is
> more often applied to war and profiteering than to anything the species
> really needs. No wonder so many people are running to churches, to another
> generation of evangelists who rip-off their pocketbooks while they're
> looking upwards to Jesus.With all the science and technology, more people
> feel disconnected, and thus are becoming neurotically attached to cell
> phones, to constant conversation, to constant entertainment, to being in
> touch with everyone but themselves.
Well, science and technology aren't the same; and I'm not sure that the
former doesn't have an end, or at least ends. It's complicated; Stent
pointed out years ago that trignometry was an exhausted science; it
depends on the domain.
War and profiteering have been with us forever; there was a study done, I
believe, in the 70s, indicating that the world usually has around 3500
small and large wars going on at any one time. (Forget the source here;
apologies.) Only now the wars are devastating as populations increase.
The kernel for me is still the fact that three to four species an hour are
disappearing on the planet, all because of one that has run amuck.
> As for wars, they should be ignored, in the sense of the old expression,
> "What if someone gave a war and nobody came?" Let the politicians deceive
> people into thinking they are serving their country by killing others,
> because we're no going to be able to stop it. All we can do is, as I said,
> tend the Promethean Fire and continue to bite on the Gordian Knot.
This reminds me, of course, of:
In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up
because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't
speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came
for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then
they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Written by Martin Niemller(1892-1984)
- and there is no answer. The implicate order implicates us all; as Pogo
said (paraphrase) 'We have seen the enemy and he is us.'
And I truly believe we _are_ the politicians.
- Alan
>
> -Joel
>
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