[-empyre-] re the promise

[Christina McPhee <christina112@earthlink.net>]

Hi
Helen T wrote
> 
> Why am I surprised at this conversation -- perhaps because I thought we all
> understood that we are working at the beginning of something --in a medium
> (or system?) whose purposes, function, and promise has yet to be clarified.
the whole excitement as well as the free fall of this moment is that 'at the
beginning' quality
> (Artists like that, don't they?)

an opening movement, an overture.

> because definition sets boundaries and this seems to me to be more about
> process 

re process,  really the different media are in the mix,  interrelated
tools..i want to make something,   content-- when i work in  painting,
drawing and digital print, electronic   sound too...I don't see any reason
not to flow from one set of tools or are they toys! --  to the next.   the
desire to  want technology to put out, is  for what: ,  freedom?  That is
the 'promise'?  If freedom is presumed to connect to power and control on
some level (the latent content of advertising)  -- control of production and
marketing, privilege, fashion, etc etc--well, i don't know.  .  a desire for
power. a desire to control outcomes:  technologies fail to satisfy the
craving. There was a great title in art criticism a couple of years ago:
"Uncontrollable Beauty" ..

 You can only get down to work as best you can or better, get down to
play...

> So, now that we've finally seen the light, it is time to do something
> ourselves. Stop complaining and create (that code, that criticism, that
> art, that world, that promise, that hope) !
> (josephine)

   There is a video of Isaac Stern in China, shortly after the end of the
cultural revolution.  He worked with lots of children and young adult
students studying western music and instruments...he commented that many
were trying so hard to master the technology.  And yet something was eluding
them. It escaped their control.   Beyond virtuosity.  He told them,
"Learn violin to play  music, don't learn music in order to play the
violin." 


   and yet there is more freedom now because of the net than we had before,
for communicating directly and succinctly...this list for example :)
> I say keep on chugging and don't throw anything away until you're absolutely
> sure you don't want it -- then leave it around for the next creative person
> to play with..  

and as for politics, Hamlet had an idea

" the play's the thing /in which to catch the conscience of the king...  "


great conversation

cm