[-empyre-] chic

christina mcphe christina at christinamcphee.net
Fri Apr 29 01:33:31 EST 2011


awesome post, Tamiko--
chic is not the same as kitsch, you affirm...
elegance and popularity sometimes go hand in hand-- the essence of  
great design---
your works are a good example of this -- your Marco Polo piece, I am  
thinking of.....




On Apr 28, 2011, at 2:59 AM, Tamiko Thiel wrote:

>
> Am 28.04.2011 11:45, schrieb xDxD.vs.xDxD:
>> Hi Tamiko
>>
>> things become widespread when they synchronize with the cultures,
>> desires and symbolic domains of people, not when they become "chic".
>
> Dear Salvatore,
>
> Then we are arguing about words, because for me what you just said  
> above is my definition of "chic" - that "they synchronize with the  
> cultures, desires and symbolic domains of people."
>
> And yes, if you think I am being purposely provocative of course I  
> am, because I know that many people are uncomfortable with  
> "chicness." But after seeing how supercomputers and PCs in the  
> 1980s, PCs and the Internet in the 1990s, cell phones in the 2000s  
> etc. have all gone through tremendous surges in their development  
> once they became "popular" and "chic" among large numbers of people  
> who had ignored them before, I believe it is only reasonable to  
> acknowledge and embrace this factor. Would you feel more comfortable  
> if I said "popular" instead of "chic?" Where are the boundaries  
> between the two?
>
> The fact that they are also useful is somewhat beside the point -  
> all the things I mentioned above were useful before, but not  
> widespread until they became chic. VRML after AGP graphic cards and  
> DSL became widespread in 1999 was suddenly useful, but since it was  
> no longer chic, it was ignored completely and a good platform  
> disappeared from the landscape for no good reason. Such is the power  
> of chic to promote or destroy.
>
> take care, Tamiko
> _______________________________________________
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> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
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