Re: [-empyre-] we-blog introduction

Liza Sabater <blogdiva@culturekitchen.com> · Fri, 3 Jun 2005 22:11:15 -0400

On Jun 02 2005, at 04:10, rich white wrote:

*What is the art work? The HTML markup? The image that
the browser makes? The way the image is delivered and
made by the browser?

CSSZenGarden
http://www.csszengarden.com
*Is the image temporary, something always being
completely remade, or is it something static? HTML is instructions to
the browser; does the image exist without the browser?

Google Butler
http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2005-03-15-n77.html

*The image is made by the browser- is it a
reproduction, an endless, infinite reproducible?
*Which image is original- the one on my monitor or
yours?  The one in Dreamweaver, pre-browser? Or, is an
original even possible?  Does it matter?

art and process
http://www.culturekitchen.com/archives/000024.html
LS : What bothers me about the word "completing"; about a piece being  
incomplete is that I don't think that it is incomplete; in the sense  
that it is not net.art if it is not in process.
MN : Right, the natural state of the work is for it to be incomplete;  
so, in a sense, it is complete.
LS :But it is about process. It is not even about it being complete or  
incomplete. I like to think of the idea of "artware"; of these pieces  
being art machines. They're not art unless they are in the process of  
creating; of being an art machine.
MN: The word isn't "complete", it's "done" and the process does not  
necessarily ever have to be done; it's ongoing by it's nature.
LS : And if there is no process, there is no art. There is a difference  
between the idea of the artwork being complete/incomplete and there not  
being any art unless there is a process. The artwork is the process;  
that is what creates the artistic experience. With your work, it makes  
so much sense. You are more interested how creativity evolves by  
putting together different software elements in order to make things  
happen in a creative process. You are more excited when you have  
endless possibilities within a creative process than when you create a  
static "thing in itself". That's what has made me refer to your work as  
artware Ã¦as art machines that only exist within the process of art.
MN : I like the idea of a creative machine. Then the user is not  
completing the piece but they are activating the piece.
LS : Exactly! Maurice Blanchot said that a book that has not been read  
is a book that has never been written. Same concept, different  
technology. It is not words anymore. It is not paint anymore. It goes  
beyond them. It's these mini-machines that you can put together. Boom!  
You have the The Shredder. Boom! You have Riot.
MN : Hmm.
LS : Riot and The Shredder don't exist unless people are activating it.  
Same with p-Soup, same with Feed. The Digital Landfill would have not  
existed unless people had not started dumping stuff into it.
MN : Yeah, where I used the word "complete", I think "activate" is a  
better word. I'm thinking about a term in painting. Back when I was in  
art school, they spoke of the idea of closure; of a painting being  
"open" or "closed". "Open" meaning that an image is more likely to have  
a multitude of interpretations; not only of the subject matter but, of  
how the execution of the image; it's abstraction. There are different  
ways you can complete an abstraction. In the case of net.art the word  
is not so much closure but "opening." The piece opens and starts to  
unfold and evolve based on people's interaction with it. The user  
activates the work and ideally, the work activates the user.
*The network as a distribution model- is it art
trucking, and the browser is the loading dock?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_browser
*Who owns the work?  Once on the web I really have no
control over it.  Google and archive.org capture
everything- do I own my own work when I can't control
it, and does that matter?  Does Creative Commons
actually mean anything?

http://weblog.burningbird.net/archives/2005/05/20/the-copyright-theme/

http://www.corante.com/betweenlawyers/archives/2005/05/24/ 
dennis_re_the_sincerest_form_of_birdery.php

http://weblog.burningbird.net/archives/2005/05/25/creative-commons- 
followup/
*When others take the work as a screenshot and make a
GIF or JPEG- is that still the work?

http://www.painterskeys.com/auth_search.asp?name=Friedrich%20Nietzsche

One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times  
while one is still alive.

(Friedrich Nietzsche)
*Is the code the artifact, or is the image the
artifact?

http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/taoism/ttcstan3.htm#11
11. THE UTILITY OF NON-EXISTENCE
Though thirty spokes may form the wheel,
it is the hole within the hub
which gives the wheel utility.
It is not the clay the potter throws,
which gives the pot its usefulness,
but the space within the shape,
from which the pot is made.
Without a door, the room cannot be entered,
and without windows it is dark.
Such is the utility of non-existence.
*Who would buy this? Is it for sale?  How would one
sell a coded image?

http://www.uo.com/ageofshadows/viscent.html

Really, UO is whatever you make it to be. Decide you want to try  
something different? In Ultima Online, you're never locked into a class  
or trade. Just start practicing something new, and your character will  
grow in whatever direction you choose!
*Currently in weblog culture, like much of the web,
content is free.  What is the value of free? Is it
simply a random act of kindness ;-)  Is free art
really art?  What is the economy of the web?
Reputation?  Reliablity?  Consistency?  Generosity?
How is this related to and different from the art
world(s)?

Daily Kos homepage
© 2005. Steal what you want.
http://www.dailykos.com/
*There are a number of ways the drawings are framed.
There is often framing in the image. There is a kind
of technologically contextual framing: table; page;
browser; monitor; OS; network; etc.  There is the chronological,
performative framing of the weblog.
And there is the weblog as a cultural, medium-specific
frame (in the sense of George Lakoff's ideas about how
language frames an issue).  Another way of referring
to all of this is a kind of layering, but I like the
term "framing" because for me it fits the use of
images better.  I'm interested in all of these
different kinds of frames, and what they mean to a
weblog practice.

http://www.themodernword.com/borges/borges_quotes.html

A book is more than a verbal structure or series of verbal structures;  
it is the dialogue it establishes with its reader and the intonation it  
imposes upon his voice and the changing and durable images it leaves in  
his memory. A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an  
axis of innumerable relationships.

-- Essay: "A Note on (toward) Bernard Shaw"

Liza Sabater
Blog Publisher
www.culturekitchen.com
AIM - cultkitdiva
SKYPE - lizasabater