Re: [-empyre-] superficiality and immersion

["Ollivier Dyens" <odyens@hotmail.com>]

> but back to your initial post - i was wondering in why you said
> "We have tried repeatedly with Metal and Flesh (the website) but with
> limited success. We have tried by integrating text to visual and musical
> environments but our "pages" are still mainly text-oriented and
text-based.
> The main problem is our perspective"
>
> is what you can design mostly limited (with a few exceptions) by what
tools
> are availabe to you in
> terms of software and hardware..and delivery routes.?
> or is it the artist job really to have a vision that then is created at
soem
> later point insome other context because of commercial intent.
> also i was wondering if you could talk about the content of the metal
/flesh
> site as well, seing it features a lot of flash and vrml net.art. i must
> admitt  too that i tend to look and listen to "art" rather than read the
> texts online..
> melinda
>
> ps
> nice valera quote
>


The main problem I find with metal and flesh is not the software (even
though my non-programmer backgrounds limits me quite a bit). As you say, the
software is made to be "perverted". Further, I don't really feel limited
(theorically I don't, pratically I do) by the software possibilities (what
flash can or can't do) because there is (to get back to the perversion
thing) always a way to get it to do what you want. On the contrary, I find
software usually quite interactive, quite participatory in what they
produce. When using a software, you're never quite sure what to expect,
you're never quite sure what is going to come out. I found this quite
pleasant, quite playful.

The main problem is not with the software, but with my own way of seeing and
doing things. Having been educated in a classical type environment (where
words are all powerful), working at the university (where the printed word
is as valued as a religious artifact), I have great problems in thinking
differently, in trying to create spaces which are not word (or page)- based,
which are not dependant on language. I have tried with metal and flesh to
rethink the relationship of words to spaces but I sometimes feel, doing
that, that I'm trying to go beyond myself (in a painful kind of way). The
software, the hardware are not the problems (they are limitations to play
with, to overcome). My own brain structure is.

And that is why, Metal and Flesh is as visual and musical as it is. It is a
way to try to get beyond the printed word, the bi-dimensional word.  But, as
you said so well, if the visual are too strong, the texts tend to get lost
in all of it. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but texts are
still written to be read carefully. Using visuals when texts were not
produced with that in mind, is more distracting than anything else.

That is why I really like using vrml. This navigational space is so
different from regular printed texts  (and remember that even great
software, such as Flash, are code (text)-based, which does influence the way
we think) that one must try to reframe his way of thinking.

A little anecdote to illustrate what I'm trying to say. My father is a
holographer. But he was educated in France and went to the Ecole des
Beaux-Arts where he was awarded the Prix de Rome in sculpture. After coming
to Canada, my father had a few nom-productive years (for many personal and
professional reasons). When he started producing artwork again, he fell in
love with holography. Today, he produces what he call holosculptures. One
day I asked him :"what don't you just do holograms? What do you always have
to integrate a sculpture in it". His answer was: "It's stronger than me
(c'est plus fort que moi) . I am a sculptor at heart. I cannot let go of
it".

This is how I often feel with words.