[rumori] new thread

Steev [rumori] new thread
Fri, 14 Aug 1998 10:24:42 -0700 (PDT) (00903144282, Pine.LNX.4.02.9808140959120.13407-100000ATflotsam.detritus.net)


On Thu, 13 Aug 1998, Boster, Bob wrote:


>Yet another faux-binary opposition, but what I mean is that currently,
>most people who are making an art are focusing their practice on the
>history that comes before it. If you're a painter, you think about what
>other painters have done, how painting works, the act of getting a
>canvas, and a brush, etc. Even for the likes of us, we think about the
[..snip..]

>frequency of the florescent lights for maximum shoppage...etc. Focus
>the practice on the concept implied in the question, and let the medium
>sort itself out in the wash...

basically what you're talking about is form vs. content, do you think
about the medium/method first or the meaning/theme/message first. This is
interesting but it's an age-old dichotomy and i don't think you can say
"most people" for one way or the other.
Well, actually, maybe you can, maybe you're right, most artists are first
and formost artists OF a certain MEDIA. But the other way is not that
novel or new. There's lots of conceptual and multi-media (not CDROM etc
multimedia!) artists who are first and foremost concerned with saying
something and not with how to say it. In fact there are many who i would
dub "issue artists" i.e. their entire body of work is centered around saying a particular sort of thing about a particular subject, spanning
many media and techniques. Guillermo Gomez-Pena springs to mind as an
example, maybe because a poster for one of his shows, "Mexterminator" is hanging in my hallway a few feet away. (And he appropriates too!) Some
friends of mine known as South to the Future would be a more obscure and
local (SF) example. They write, do installations, videos, web sites, but
it all has to do with specific criticisms of technology. I imagine they
think of an idea they want to convey, and THEN decide what form will best
convey it.

So, to get back to the source of this thread, is Bruce Sterling saying
that if we live twice as long, most artists are going to be doing
that kind of work? That would be cool. But I don't know if I believe it.

I think I'm going to go find that book....

thanx Bob!

smh

Steev Hise, Technical Thug
steevAThise.org http://www.cyborganic.com/people/steev recycled art site: http://www.detritus.net -----------------------------------------------------------------
"Now it's over, I'm dead and I still haven't done anything that I want, or I'm still alive and there's nothing I want to do." -They Might Be Giants, "Dead" -----------------------------------------------------------------

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