Re: [-empyre-] tech and art slippaging

christina mcphee <christina112@earthlink.net> · Tue, 14 Sep 2004 15:24:39 +0200 (GMT+02:00)

dear empyre

sorry i just cced to you all  by mistake!  talk about slippage.  Apologies to all and just ignore it.

thanks

christina

-----Original Message-----
From: christina mcphee <christina112@earthlink.net>
Sent: Sep 14, 2004 3:20 PM
To: soft_skinned_space <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: [-empyre-] tech and art slippaging

dear Henry

taking a break from the conference here at Split, 

it is pretty good although due to info overload i am skipping the keynote person right now.

to my chagrin i discovered that both the cd i burned before coming and data backup on an external drive had only recorded a dreamweaver pointing file instead of the actual autochamber v3.  

i was in such a frenzy trying to finish up the commercial project  at 3 am before leaving  at6 am saturday, that i didnt double check my backups before leaving.

so now am in a position to see if i can download from my server to a computer that can then burn to cd.

that is why u havent heard from me about v3.  however i liked v2 well enough that i am working on a final cut movie with the visual files that are developed from the java interpretation i did last year.

so hopefully i will get v3 in time and will use, if not, we shall forge ahead ot hte next gig at exploratorium with it and to of course grant proposals. possibilities in clude langlois foundation and creative capital.  both due early in 2005. 

i have your notes re auto in general.

i really hope i can get the v3,as i would love to explore the "early hot" section of the piece (hmm sounds like one of my boyfriends in high school )

i would appreciate more specific comment from you regarding elements of the cage aesthetic that particularly resonate to the spaces and absenses in autochamber, and perhaps something about the autoness of autochamber.

I am not familiar with Hillers HPSCHD, do u have any online refs to which i might aspire and refer.

my talk isnt til thursday

luckily in this group there are actually folks who are wroking both in cs and  in contemporary art praxis especially cage and fluxus.

so its a chance to really flow with thes connections.  

i want to make some decent reflective notes at least to mzself before getting up on stage...i dont think i want to do a powerpoint as the medium is loathsome,  would rather speak extempore and play outthe sounds

will present with some of jays background on the research and what is the autochamber etc 

so from you more ramblings about composition issues and meaning would be of keen interest as i synthesize all this in hopes of getting a really engaged improv response back from the group here.
thats the whole point of coming all this way, to get their feedback and ideas.

hope to hear from you and that you are feeling much better.

xxxc

-----Original Message-----
From: Henry Warwick <henry.warwick@sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Sep 13, 2004 9:33 PM
To: soft_skinned_space <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [-empyre-]flaws/dangers of art and technology

The Voices in my Head tell me that on 9/13/04 10:16 AM, hight@34n118w.net at
hight@34n118w.net wrote:

> what are the flaws and dangers of working with art and technology......?

Well, this is a bit off topic, but not too much, so please indulge me. I
figure this is another discussions, so I made a new subject header.

I recently had a very similar discussion with a friend about this a few days
ago. We came to different and occasionally opposing conclusions: mine based
more on "the better work deals with content and meaning", he simply
rejecting the argument with the notion that "the best work is being done by
computer programmers". I think he's being unnecessarily reductive, but
that's another discussion...

Firstly, all artists use technology, and while some of it is more or less
paleolithic,  that's a hair-splitting argument, and I hate those.  When my
daughter minces my words, it drives me bats, so I won't go there - suffice
to say: "I know what you're saying" -

Secondly, one of my continuing gripes about working as an artist who uses
electronic technology is that I'm always having to "explain myself" to
people as to my creative process. Look at a painting: do I grind painters
over whether or not they weave their own linen, grind their own pigment from
solid rock or use nails instead of staples to affix the canvas to the
stretcher bars? Did they chop down the tree to make the stretchers?

No.

But every time I demo my performance cinema work, or make some electronic
music or do some digital imaging, it's always

"Well, How In The Hell Did You Do That, Henry?"

I'm at the point now where half the time I simply paint a goofy smile on my
face (something I do easily) and sing something like "oo ooo ooooo IT'S
MAGIC!*"

But then sometimes I'll get dragged into a discussion like

1. "Well, several years ago I wanted audio and video projected on screen
with a tight sync and triggered by a MIDI keyboard with hand operated
crossfades, and at the time, there wasn't anything that would do that and I
wanted a few other things at the same time (insert bla bla bla) so I wrote a
20 page specification for an app, and hired a programmer to write it for me,
and (bla bla bla) bingo - what you see before you...

or

2. "Well, for an hour I drove around the city like a lunatic in the middle
of the night with my video camera duct taped to the passenger seat's head
rest, and then I brought the footage into Final Cut Pro, and processed the
living  bejeebus out of it, and then brought it into Photoshop for further
processing, and viola: the image you see."

or

3. "I recorded myself playing some early stuff by Cage, and I ran it through
this program which mulches the sound like a tree chipper mulches vegetation.
Then I gave it a ton of echo, exported it, re-imported it, then I reversed
it and dumped it into a reverb turned up to 11. done."

In each of these conversations, the CONTENT of what I was doing had been
blithely ignored. The DESIGN of the results hadn't been addressed,
basically, NOTHING OF SUBSTANCE had been discussed - and that just drives me
nutty.

I could have said:

A. "Well, when I found out that my home town was home to an anarchist colony
for a big chunk of the 20th century and since the colony disappeared just
before I was born, I thought that it would be a way to investigate issues of
social amnesia, local and collective suppression of history, and would make
for a really fascinating video performance by using myself and the history
of the colony as a lens of investigating my home town as a microcosmic
analysis of the American Empire."

or

B. "The city itself is an interesting place, and by using the automobile to
be "in it" but not really IN it, and with the resulting extremely abstracted
and processed images, I felt that was a worthwhile investigation of class
and technology. At the same time, it reduces the city to "image value" and
reifies the existence of those who call it home."

or

C. "I think Cage's early piano works were very romantic, and by assigning
different timbres to the note data in this particular piece, I'm fulfilling
a dream of making the piano be more than a piano - by taking this fissure
between the note data and timbre implied by the prepared piano into an
evocative and desolate sound scape."

But when I do that, I too often get blank stares - too many people don't
know how to discuss content or sensibility. It's a really irritating
situation. 

"heheheh - no - really - how did you do that?"

I should say "I don't discuss process" but that's really unfriendly and
harsh, so too often, as I noted, I deflect it with humour or I say what I
think really matters and then deal with the "Deer-In-The-Headlights / What?
/ Huh? / You Didn't answer My Question / You're Out of your freakin' Mind"
look and watch the conversation quickly die.

"hehe - Yyyyaaa - OKAY Henry - right, see ya...."

And I find this repeated, over and over and over and over and over. I'll go
to panel discussions, art and technology forums, dinner parties, quilting
bees - whatever - no one discusses the phenomenal work itself: it's the
technology that's of interest, it's the process that's of interest - that
which is pre or proto-phenomenal to the work. I find those points to be the
LEAST interesting things about a given work, but too often it becomes the
central point, and that's, well, really really disheartening to me.

It shows that something really crucial is missing from our public
understanding of what Art can do for us, and how we, as a society, have
almost no common language for its understanding. Too often it's:

[Picasso's Guernica == War Is Really Bad. (end of discussion)].

I have a book on the Guerrilla Art Action Group from NYC, and one chapter
describes where the GAAG had a "sit in" lecture in front of Guernica at the
MOMA (I think - I'd have to go look at the book - it's upstairs and I'm
feeling lazy today) and the local constabulary showed up post haste and
rousted people out, including a mother and child. If someone did that
demonstration today, they'd be incarcerated as a terrorist.

Guernica / Fascist / Terrorist / Anarchist / Art / Protest / Meaning /
Content /

"Yo - Pablo - how did you do that funny thing with the horse's eye there?"

Grrrrr....

Someone wrote:

>> but rich content
>> and a new artistic work in terms of methodology and metaphor is often
>> lacking.

I don't even find methodology quite as compelling, as much as I do points of
metaphor and meaning and CONTENT. SAY something!!!! It's OK - we're all
trapped on the same leaf on the vine!

Or is that too much like arguing about religion?

{Descriptions(x) [thoughts about (imaginary friends)] -> useless dissonance}

(sound and fury)

S
-
s1

> what does "new" really mean? (semantics/semiotics/etymology/slang
> derivation...)

Those aspects of new are not interesting to me.

In fact the idea of the "new" and the word "new" doesn't interest me. What I
find more compelling / distressing / inspiring / vexing is what New does.
I'd like to get into that, but I've shirked work way long enough for
today...

HW

*any technology that can be differentiated from magic is insufficiently
advanced...

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