Re: [-empyre-] (no subject)

Simon Taylor <swht@clear.net.nz> · Sun, 19 Sep 2004 21:17:44 +1200

Dear empyreans,
in the hagiography of our best-known painter, Colin McCahon, there is a
story that one of his students approached him after too much wine one night
and put to the great man the oedipal question - he hoped - stating first,
"paintings dead. The cinema's the future. Painting doesn't move. How can you
carry on painting when everything inside it is still?" McCahon answered,
"Painting has relevance and will continue because it doesn't move, because
it is still."

The aesthetic mode's all - and there is no mode of style proper to a
particular mode of content, nor obversely is any particular mode of content
content with just the one mastery of a mode of style (or form (I like
'style' more because of its pretension)).

A threefold argument seems to be here taking place with only one party
stating what it is desirous of: "I really just want to make a pretty
picture."
yours
simon taylor

> Well, first of all, I'm talking about my own approach which I explained
> in a previous post.
>
>
> > I don't understand. He hasn't really articulated an approach. Jeremy
> > is
> > asking if given a space to work with, what would interest you. Its
> > examination by humans that generates data. One could look at the
> > desert
> > and generate an absurd amount of data based on studies of insects,
> > geology, archeaology, petrolium exploration and so on.
>
> This isn't very different than what I was saying. It's not just
> examination by humans, it's also how humans or animals or whatever
> interact with the location and that is what interests me personally.
> What kind of narrative can be extracted from the way people interact
> with a location? But, to tell the truth, the narrative doesn't really
> matter to me at first. All I want is to make an audio/visual
> representation of that interaction. The narrative is more of a
> side-effect. You start to wonder what that person could possibly be
> doing in that place at that time of day and then, in an attempt to make
> some sense of it all, you start to fill in the blanks and make up
> stories about what might be going on. But as I say, this is all a
> side-effect.
>
> On lau, 2004-09-18 at 13:22, knowlton@34n118w.net wrote:
> > > I would have to say that this approach doesn't really work. The
location
> > > doesn't generate data itself. It's static.
> >
> > I don't understand. He hasn't really articulated an approach. Jeremy is
> > asking if given a space to work with, what would interest you. Its
> > examination by humans that generates data. One could look at the desert
> > and generate an absurd amount of data based on studies of insects,
> > geology, archeaology, petrolium exploration and so on.
> >
> > In the city one could look at a specific street address (lat, long
> > coordinates) and examine zoning, power and water consumption, wifi data
> > packets buzzing past, telephone usage and much more.
> >
> > > Although, there are stations
> > > here in Iceland where they have stationary, high-precision GPS
receivers
> > > that measure the movement of the tectonic plates, but that's not the
> > > same thing. Dropping a GPS device in a vacant lot isn't going to give
> > > you any data unless someone picks it up and steals it. I would have to
> > > visit the location and see what's going on. Are there any people or
> > > anything mobile that have some specific relation to the location?
> >
> > One of our interests is time. It often gets lost because people think of
> > location aware as mobility, movement in some sort of curent now. Yes
this
> > sort of work is tied to location, but we can also examine that location
in
> > time.
> >
> > In London Naomi, Jeremy and I stood outside a modern glass and steel
store
> > front bar, a few feet away stood an ancient Roman wall.
> >
> > I could use my location aware goodies to stand in that court yard and
> > drill down past the glass and steel building and reconstruct the brick
and
> > mortar building that used to occupy that location. Further back in time
I
> > can reconstruct the Roman stone building that stood here.
> >
> > If American's weren't so afraid of Terrorism and we had access to blue
> > prints and maps of city infrastructure. We could expose the varius
layers
> > of water, sewer, electical, telecommunication, transportation and so on
> > that under the streets of New York.
> >
> > One could just as easily reverse the process and write a fictive space
> > across the desert. Perhaps Borges Cartographers only made the map, never
> > the  city.
> >
> > jeff
> >
> >
> > > Perhaps a street cleaner or bike courier in the newly built city
center
> > > or some animal in the stretch of desert. If the desert area is in fact
> > > the same length and width as the autobahn, maybe it would be
interesting
> > > to use an animal in the desert and a truck driver on the autobahn and
> > > see how they harmonize.
> > >
> > > Pall
> > >
> > >
> > > On fÃÂs, 2004-09-17 at 17:24, hight@34n118w.net wrote:
> > >> If you see a city and you see data, how do you see the two in
> > >> juxtaposition or integration?  If you were presented with either a
> > >> vacant
> > >> lot where a historical theater once stood, a stretch of nondescript
> > >> desert
> > >> in the same length and width as the autobahn, or a city center newly
> > >> built, which would you choose to work with?
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> empyre forum
> > >> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > >> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> > > --
> > > _________________________________
> > > Pall Thayer
> > > artist/teacher
> > > http://www.this.is/pallit
> > > http://130.208.220.190
> > > http://130.208.220.190/nuharm
> > > http://130.208.220.190/panse
> > > -----------------------------
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > empyre forum
> > > empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> > >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> --
> _________________________________
> Pall Thayer
> artist/teacher
> http://www.this.is/pallit
> http://130.208.220.190
> http://130.208.220.190/nuharm
> http://130.208.220.190/panse
> -----------------------------
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
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>