Re: [-empyre-] empyre - what is it all good for?

[John Klima <klima@echonyc.com>]

hi roya +,

thanks for speaking up, i often need reminding that not everyone in the
universe cares about the differences in mine and simon's world views
(though i do think alot of people enjoy watching us slug it out :).

to answer your specific question, you also have to answer: what is art
good for in the first place. if the medium of 3d engenders questions of
world view, point of view, models and modes of being, then i think its
good for an awful lot.

something i frequently find when presenting work to a broader audience
is the reaction that its "all about the tech." if that were truly so, we
would be here engaged in a discussion about how to better render water
droplets, and techniques to get more angels dancing on the heads of
pins, hehe (though a pragmatist, i truly love that debate simon).

what we all love about this medium is precisely that it *does* raise
many many questions that have little to do with its implementation. that
is what all good art does, from cave paintings to CAVE environments.
what is great about this particular discussion format is that we are
all, more or less, equally familiar with the tech and do not need to
explain a vector or a matrix or an equation prior to discussing what
results from their usage.  most lay audiences don't understand the
fundamental difference between an image constructed in photoshop and an
image constructed in a 3d package. the fundamental difference between
the two is precisely why i don't work in photoshop. if you were hoping
more for a discussion along those lines, i'd gladly relate what i see as
the fundamental difference. lemme know, i love waxing poetic on that
topic.

as far as self promotion, there is actually very little of that going on
here, 'cause to whom are we promoting to? do you think that anyone on
this list, participant or lurker, is in any position of real power?
kathy huffman, curator of web3d and the cornerhouse show, is about as
high power as anyone can be in this medium at this point in time, and
she already knows all this work or you and i wouldn't be having this
discussion in the first place. oh, and hats off to kathy, without whom i
would have no career at all - she was the first person to ever notice
me. so its not at all a question of self promotion, its a way to remind
each other of our respective URLs, conveniently accessible from within
the conversation.

so, what do you think? what is art good for? what is this medium good
for? or do you want to know how to render more angels? we can talk about
that too.

to address your very valid complaint regarding tech overhead, thats why
i've switched to java for all my web3d needs. hell, it even runs on a
mac OS 9 on a good day. and not everyone makes big RAM landscapes. 

not to self promote, merely to inform:
http://www.rhizome.org/Context_Breeder is about as far from a big ram
landscape as you can get, and i've seen it run on a mac os9. slightly
lower bandwidth is a little gesture i did called "american cinema"
http://www.cityarts.com/DandF/

whats yer url?

welcome aboard and with warmest regards,

j


"roya.jakoby" wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I'm part of the Web3DArt show and have been invited (like everybody else who
> is participating in the show) to take part in the empyre mailing list and
> it's discussions. I must admit that I'm having a bit of a hard time to
> understand empyre and it's aims. I see a lot of self-promotion (no specific
> problem with that, just somewhat boring) and not a lot of discussion
> subjects I feel invited to join. It's all very specific, and in many ways
> way to specific for me.
> 
> I was hoping to see some more interested subject matters, maybe also stuff
> that is related to the Web3DArt show itself (beyond the self-promotion) and
> what it might mean to people outside this small community. I'm part of the
> show but I can't view most of the works of my fellow participants because I
> neither have a PC, not mentioning the resources and all those exotic
> plug-ins I'm required to install (if I would have a PC). I personally find
> all these requirements for viewing very irritating and annoying, I
> personally prefer work that is accessible for the broader public and simple
> in it's technical and ideological requirements. Where would all those 3D
> sculptures and landscapes take me if I could visit them all? What do my
> fellow artists say?
> 
> truly, /roya.
> 
> PS: I wasn't aware that my own digital art work has elements of 3D until a
> friend told me so. Ironic to find myself being part of a Web3DArt show, when
> I'm personally so not a friend of big RAM landscapes and that particular
> genre of digital arts. I feel like the fly on the wall here.
> 
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