[-empyre-] Re: how do I get the archives for this month's discussion

Christina McPhee <christina112@earthlink.net> · Fri, 26 Jan 2007 23:12:10 -0800

hi Stephanie and -empyre- list,
On Jan 26, 2007, at 4:41 PM, Stephanie Strickland wrote:

Hi Christina,
I'm wanting to read Ollivier's original post for this month's  
discussion,

which I thought I had but can't find.  Can you point me to it, and/ 
or to a

general url for the archives?
Or are the archives not continuously maintained, being a couple  
months

behind actual discussions?
thanks,
Stephanie
--

I've been remiss not to post this link periodically:   https:// 
mail.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/2007-January/
Indeed the archives are updated by our mailman software in real time.

here is the post from Ollivier, who began our discussion in early  
January:

[-empyre-] what is to be done?

To: empyre@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au
Subject: [-empyre-] what is to be done?
From: odyens@alcor.concordia.ca
Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 08:53:44 -0500
Cc:
Delivered-to: empyre@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au
Reply-to: soft_skinned_space <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
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What is to be done?
More than ever the question of our relationship to both art and the  
aesthetic

process must be address. In a world of shifting boundaries, of  
profound and

fundamental changes, a world where universals such as life, death,

consciousness and uniqueness are being challenged by technological  
reality,

the question of art, of our relationship to it, the question of its  
purpose

and of its objectives must be tackled.
(What is technological reality? It is the perception of the world  
through both

human *and* non-human senses. With technological reality, we now have  
access

to numerous strata of reality that were formerly impenetrable to us:  
those of

genetics and neurology, of protons and photons, of relativity and  
quantum

physics. Technological reality questions the fundamental distinctions  
between

life and death, consciousness and non-consciousness, the organic and  
the non-

organic that we once believed to be universal. In fact, the more we  
get access

to different slivers of reality, the more difficult it becomes to  
clearly

distinguish between these phenomena. On our own biological scale for  
example,

the difference between a table and a man is clear. The man is alive  
while the

table is not. But on an atomic scale of reality, to which we only  
have access

through technological reality, there are no differences between one  
and the

other).
What is to be done? What is to be understood by art today should  
probably be

our starting point. For how should we define art in the 21st century  
when

machines, technologies and software provide most of the actual artistic

process, when some ?machines? (such as Ray Kurzweil?s Cybernetic  
Poet) even

produce the entire artwork?
If art is now as specific to machine?s ontology as it is to humanity? 
s, then

the question of what is to be done must be dealt with differently. Art

embedded in machines and technologies is art embedded in the profound

transformation of our world. It?s art within video games, themselves  
within

the culture of war. It?s art spreading technological reality. It?s art

intruding into the physical reality (where special effects become  
genetic

manipulations). It?s art initiating the Inhuman Condition. Art  
embedded in

machines is art slipping away from human control, art creating  
territories of

emotions outside our realm of understanding, of sensitivity.
The question of ?what is to be done? must thus be understood as  
including the

whole concept of art. What is to be done with a process that helped  
create our

perception of the metaphysical, but whose operations, whose forms and

sometimes even content are now within the control of machines? When  
most of

what art produces today ignores humanity?s need for the transcendent,  
when

what most of what art produces today responds to machine?s  
perceptions of the

world?
?What is to be done? when humanity is confronted with research  
clearly showing

that art, as well as the aesthetic process, are nothing else but  
algorithmic

structures, structures that can be identified, defined and reproduced

mechanically (when we respond to Jackson Pollock?s paintings, we  
actually

respond to fractals in his images. When we respond to a film or a  
musical

piece, we respond to certain structures, pitch, tone, location,  
dialogue, that

are clearly algorithmic)?
On Pollock:
http://materialscience.uoregon.edu/taylor/art/scientificamerican.pdf
Music and Film:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061016fa_fact6
What is to be done when a simple computer program can decipher the  
algorithmic

structure of a work of art? When a simple computer program (Kurzweil?s

Cybernetic Poet for example) can generate an aesthetic experience?  
What is to

be done when beauty appears to be nothing else but a harmonious  
mathematical

structure? When the transcendence of art appears to be nothing else  
but a

numerical pattern? What does it mean to be human when splendor is not a

mystical experience but a mathematical configuration? When machines  
will soon

produce beautiful and moving works of art?
What is to be done when machines and technologies force us to  
confront our

inhumanity through the process of art?