[-empyre-] Re: trends in airport novels

["Melinda Rackham" <melinda@unsw.edu.au>]

-weny wrote:
 > snow crash - wow
>    ... it was the first airport novel i bought for

its interresting when an airport novel shapes our realities.. :) i guess
neal stephenson deserved that ars electronica net.art award.

john wrote:
> along way to putting it in the hands of the general public. its like
> "net art by numbers"

and snowcrash also talked about the distain for popularised and general
access to tools, going hand in hand with the promotion of singular
artist/hacker as genius...

It all fits neatly into the very 70's and 80's retro aesthetic that pervades
everything now.. , just as the aesthetics of the 80 ands and 90s harked back
to the 50s and 60s as a time of simplicity and honesty and stability,
everyone knew thier place in socitey .. now we hark back to the 80s .. so we
like media art that is hardedged, eg the sort of java.art just commissioned
by the guggenheim.. electronic art that is obviously made by a computer, a
friendly non threatening computer that simply manipulates shapes.. a
computer which we grew up with playing pacman and tarrrus, nothing too
complicted, nothing that is too demanding of the viewer.

i was reminded of this a few nights  ago when i happened to see "Electric
Dreams" from 1984, produced by richrad branson, staring 3d video graphics, a
Fairlight, and dedicated to univac1.  the computer becomes an fully fledgd
AI within a few hours of being activated and takes
over the main characters love life,theres big frizzy curly hair, bad
frocks.... anyway the story isnt important ,
but really interrestingly the hard edged, low res, 3d strobing video
(computer) graphics arent that dissimilar from what i see reproduced now as
net.art.. seems like nothings changed in the last 20 years at all.

i keep throwing out teh "why do we go back to simplicity" line.. our
computers are capable of much muchmuchmore than we are demanding of them..
and i think its undervaluing the general public to think that all they want
from net.art or 3d.art is a one liner.

maybe as a society we are still very technophbic.. and the idea of multiple
levels of intellectual and emotional interaction with our machines is a bit
scary.  wonder what happens when the playstayion generation take over..