Re: [-empyre-] shared canvas annoyance, wikis, blogs.

[Jill Walker <jill.walker@uib.no>]

I wrote:
>  >As someone who's sat and watched shared canvas performances in a
> net.art cafe with projections on all the walls, I can say that this
> stuff can be incredibly boring to watch. Wallpaper. Perhaps it can
> also be fascinating. But I suspect the fascination is in the
> participation and that perhaps performance is not the right word

Damien answered:
> Hmmm, well perhaps art is as good as the artists "channeling" it... 
> this is like going to a jazz improv performance, its easy for 
> "players" to be self indulgent and selfish, it requires greater 
> skill not to let ones ego get in the way of "serving" good art. A 
> lot of my friends do the V(ideo)J(ockey) thing and some of it is 
> very very good, some of it very very pointless / boring...
>
> Also unless one has been exposed to and developed some form of 
> appreciation for the particular mode of expression it can seem very 
> selfsimilar/boring... distinguishing the subtle expressive nuances 
> can be difficult , especially if they dont really exist ;)

Ah, yes. And you're right, it can take some familiarity to appreciate 
a form of expression, and perhaps that takes time? I haven't written 
off shared canvases as an audience experience yet, though I think 
it'd be much more fun to participate in creating it than in

> kinda like the polarity of immersive games vs sitting back and 
> watching a good movie.

Yes, and I think Quake and the like are starting to become almost 
spectator sports, aren't they? At least they have championships and 
so on and display the game on a big screen. I think Quake works much 
better as a game that you play than as a performance though.

But could you please explain the difference between shared canvas 
system like you're building and VJ'ing? Is there a difference?

Jill