Re: [-empyre-] Territory/workvs.labor

["Patrick Lichty" <voyd@voyd.com>]

Methinks that wither the individual should be able to find a less complex
> > method of expressing the same concept or understand that they are doing
it
> > for personal satisfaction, and not feel entitled for the art world to
> > support it.
> >
> > John, I know that you might snack me for this, but we'll talk about this
in
> > person, I'm sure. I know where you're coming from.

> i wouldn't smack you for that! i think yer right. i don't feel that the
> world owes me anything and i do indeed do it all for personal
> satisfaction ... liza napier would smack you, but thats cause she has two
little mouths to
> feed.

Of course, I have no problem with this; I have a serious art jones to feed.
And people doing work that is communicating aptly _deserve_ (but are not
entitled) to to get what they need.  My point is pragmatic (as I frequently
am) in considering what is the balance between investiture in time, thought,
and technique to sufficiently articulate a concept, get it to the public,
and get compensated for it.  In hearing Mark's ideas on the translation of
flag data into vectors being the bulk of the time, I would think that this
could have been farmed out, as it's grunt work.  For some odd reason, I feel
like if Mark would have gotten Corel or Illustrator, imported the flags from
clipart, and then output them as vectors he coudl parse (or even print them
on graph paper for the data entry gnomes to use), he could have saved a lot
of time.

And I'm sorry; when you start getting into art as capitalism, Taylorism
becomes an issue. Time/production.

That's why a lot of my work is a little more basic than I would want.

the talk such as it is on the subject, is about adequate or fair
> compensation, and the problem as i see it, is that the perception of the
> general public is that net art doesn't take much time.

Well yes - that's the consumer mindset about computer use.  The idea that a
program can facilitate or substitute vision or that the computer somehow
makes your life quick, cheap and easy are two of the most vicious myths of
the computer industry.

Take, for example, the recent HP "Coffee Table Book" campaign - a guy has an
HP computer, scanner, digital camera and printer (preferrably the $3000 full
duplex color laser), and a coffee table.

He goes out with his coffee table all over the region, photographing it in
various locales, coming back, quickly and effortlessly popping them into a
layout, then pringint the wonderfully designed and crisply printed pages in
a fantastically-crafted bindign that would make MIT Press weep.

All this, without telling the potential customer that to do a really
top-notch professional job would require about $5-6000 in outlay for
equipment, another grand for Quark and Photoshop, the time to learn the
programs, and a proficiency in graphic design and imaging skills.

Then you can produce the book.  Oh yes, by the way, you need to get the
cover stock and probably have a very good mat cutter cut the hole in the
cover for each book.

Not very realistic.

Next note has to do with two stories relating to facilitation of talent.
I hope you will find them humorous.