Re: [-empyre-] "Surpassing the function of the device"

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

> >But then again, artists surpassing the function of the device...
>
> Are you really surpassing the function of the device?

How about repurposing the device outside the originally intended set of
puropses?

You may have perhaps redefined its use but the device itself
> functions only to its technical capacity.

This is blatantly obvious.

> And with regard to the case of "Is it not the purpose of Art to trancend
> the medium in which it is based?"
> I would argue that no art transcends the medium. Only the artist
transcends
> the medium as the artist can transcend anything, spiritually or mentally.
> But the physical world remains as it is, unchanged unless other forces
> change it, notwithstanding natural forces which are by definition a force.

I would disagree.  There is a point where the communicative property of a
work becomes such that the importance fo the medium recedes.  Picasso's
Guernica is such a work, and definitely the "Washington Crossing the
Delaware" painting, as it has such iconic status that relatively little
critical work has been done on it as a painting.

I would believe this of the recent work "Wooden Mirror" which is an imaging
display that reflects the video signal presented to it by tilting blocks of
wood to represent different grayscales.  To me, the technology vanished, but
to others it was all technolust.

> Ultimately, does choice not come into it?

Sure.

 I have found through my own
> experiences that the online medium lacks what I need for a certain kind of
> experience.

Then you should probably not be working in online media to
communicate/create that experience.

I thought there was
> choice in the matter and FREEWILL. Or do we now embark on the argument for
> determinism?

Technological or Calvinist?

> which brings me back to the PROMISE. Has it not failed you? Have you not
> had to remap your expectations according to your experience of the device
> and not the PROMISE of what it could have been?

My experience usually has litle to do with promise.  It is usually from
finding the technology and if it interests me enough to see if it can be
used to a point of virtuosity,  Perhaps the potential for virtuosity is part
of what we're looking for.

 He has refused to resign. Has the man no shame? Our PM is
> a f@@kwit, American toadying (I cite the Kyoto Accord, and his performance
> at US Congress in the first days after Sept 11), right wing moralising
> immoral politically manipulative all on his own Axis of Evil.

Yes, we are at the mercy of idiots at the wheel, especially that the US has
declared covert war on the 'axis', plus anyone else who threatens our
commerce.  You don't see the US pillorying China, right?  Too much market
potential there, and cheap labor.

I woun't begin as it's too off topic, but I am currently ashamed to be an
American nowadays, and I offer what little apology I can for my country's
arrogance.