RE: [-empyre-] ~~NMR

["Jim Andrews" <jim@vispo.com>]

Hi Nick and Noah,

I imagine this could well be a touchy issue, for some, like we saw earlier,
but I thought I'd ask the question anyway. Feel free to take it up or not,
as you please, of course.

How do you conceive of the role of technological innovation in
computing-based new media? There's art that uses tools written by others.
There's art that uses tools written by the artist. There's art that is
basically a tool for the audience. There's art that uses computation not so
much toward the making of a tool for anyone at all but uses the computation
toward, oh, visual algorithms for a particular piece, rather than as a
general tool. And so on. Perhaps the distinction is between innovating in
the 'form' of communication and innovating in 'content'? Although, in the
former case, the 'content' can have to do with the investigation and
statement about the form of communication, as it can in the latter.

Does 'new media' as you and Noah conceive it involve a different relation
between technological innovation and art? Or is the relation between
technological innovation and art in computing-based new media the same as
the relation between technical innovation and art in more traditional art?

I believe it was the possum who said that 'art doesn't progress but the
materials change'. Is it simply that the 'materials' of computing-based new
media, being software, hardware, and communication protocols put
technological innovation in the same position as technical innovation in,
say, architecture?

ja
http://vispo.com