[-empyre-] authorship

["Nemo Nox" <lists@nemonox.com>]

Adrian Miles wrote:
>a) no because the elephant is a naif whereas pollock 
>is clearly part of a specific high culture tradition
>b) the question presupposes an anthropomorphic validation 
>of art, intentionality, and identity. your question only 
>works if we assume it makes sense *for* the elephant. it 
>probably doesn't.

Picasso was a great artist because of his uniqueness,
all the things he were and other people were not. Now
imagine that instead of doing his work all by himself
he would allow the audience to participate, unknown
men and women to add a line here or to change a color
there. The experience itself could be interesting, but 
the result would certainly be much less gripping. For
what makes Picasso's work so compelling is exactly its
personality, that would be diluted and changed if more
people could interfere. If you add enough "authors" in
the process, you dilute personality so much that it
ends up losing even its human characteristic - hence
my elephant art example.

I believe this is also the reason wikis will never be
as popular or as entertaining or as useful as weblogs.


Nemo Nox
http://www.ploft.com/index.shtml