[NetBehaviour] New Article/Review - Data-Driven Artists And Their Critics

[Alan Sondheim]

Absolutely agree with you here; however in music, there are all sorts of 
issues ranging from digital / analog reproduction technologies through the 
connotations of musical composition in relation to jazz or other 
improvisations. One interesting thing that emerges in the phenomenology of 
improvisation - is that most of it can't be notated (for a lot of reasons 
not germane here); it's not codifiable but exists as ikonic (I think) 
within the realm of the uncanny. On the other hand, composition is also a 
form of programming, in an odd way maybe related to cat or echo commands 
(maybe not).

People do attempt reproductions by the way, for better or worse - I've 
heard ancient musical notations revived through what might be dubious 
archeological processes...

I agree about the frailty btw, and found years and years ago that my vrml 
creations no longer worked!

- Alan

On Thu, 21 Nov 2013, Pall Thayer wrote:

> Alan, I don't think you're contradicting yourself. I think you're displacing
> the hand of the artist in coded work. The presented work doesn't truly
> present the artist's "fingerprint" as would be the case in a painting or
> moulded sculpture. Computer programmed work is inherently frail because of
> changes in technology. Look through Rhizome's archive of work. Much of it is
> non-functional because the technology has changed. If the original source
> code is available, the work can be "re-interpreted" in the same way that
> music is re-interpreted based on the notation. In code-based work, art has
> entered into the same realm as music where instructions exist but their
> reproduction is dependent on the interpretation of the person who
> re-interprets the work for contemporary hardware. If the original
> instructions don't exist, the likelyhood that anyone would attempt a
> reproduction are slim. No?
> 
> 
> On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 9:38 PM, Alan Sondheim <sondheim at panix.com> wrote:
> 
>
>       Not necessarily better - the porousness of media work ensures
>       its
>       dissemination and occlusion of traditional notions of authorship
>       -
>
>       On Thu, 21 Nov 2013, Pall Thayer wrote:
> 
> > Oops... I just noticed that I suggested but didn't make my point.
> The point
> > is.... release your code. Tag a GPL license on to it and let it go.
> Don't
> > worry about someone "stealing" your ideas... if they do, you're
> documented
> > as being there first (the inspiration). If someone uses your code
> and
> > produces amazing work that elevates them to a superstardom that you
> never
> > had... be proud... not jealous. The fact is that they did it better.
> C'est
> > la vie.
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 7:49 PM, Pall Thayer <pallthay at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >       I agree that the physicality of art is necessary. Not
> >       necessarily for its physical properties (depends on the media)
> >       but rather for its conservation, its continued affect on
> future
> >       generations of art. Art that has no physical property, be it
> >       through the work itself or documentation, will most likely be
> >       forgotten. No matter how important it was in its time. The
> >       physicality of code based art lies in the code. It is the only
> >       embodiment of such pieces that can potentially live beyond the
> >       technology they were created for.
> > Pall
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 7:29 PM, Alan Sondheim <sondheim at panix.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >       For me the physicality of much of the artworld is good and
> >       necessary; it
> >       reminds us we're flesh and blood, however prosthetic, that
> >       the world is
> >       physical and fragile and so much is close to extinction.
> >       It creates
> >       situations of face to face sociality which otherwise might
> >       not exist. When
> >       I've taught at art-schools I always looked towards the
> >       painters and
> >       ceramicists - not for the 'art' necessarily, but for their
> >       immersion in
> >       the substance of the planet, which seemed at times eerily
> >       more real than
> >       the hyperbolism of the media players, including myself.
> >       I'm tired of this
> >       ignoring of flesh and blood, the rare earths in our
> >       goodies that are
> >       killing people on other continents, the violent and
> >       virtual umbrella of
> >       structures like Google, Apple, Facebook, etc., as if our
> >       world was
> >       constituted by benign ghosts whose greatest sin might be
> >       spying on us for
> >       commercial gain.
> >
> >       End of rant -
> >       _______________________________________________
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> >       http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > *****************************
> > Pall Thayer
> > artist
> > http://pallthayer.dyndns.org
> > *****************************
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > *****************************
> > Pall Thayer
> > artist
> > http://pallthayer.dyndns.org
> > *****************************
> >
> >
> 
> ==
> email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
> web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 347-383-8552
> music: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/
> current text http://www.alansondheim.org/sf.txt
> ==
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> 
> 
> 
> --
> *****************************
> Pall Thayer
> artist
> http://pallthayer.dyndns.org
> *****************************
> 
>

==
email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
web http://www.alansondheim.org / cell 347-383-8552
music: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/
current text http://www.alansondheim.org/sf.txt
==