[NetBehaviour] Fwd: The New Sublime, opening party, this Friday

[Joel Weishaus]

Thanks Rob;

Your definition/is/ subtle.

The sublime aside, the show's introduction is very interesting to me, as 
I've given a lot of thought as to how to engage readers in the digital 
medium, given the short attention span many people are cultivating.
The brain is changing. Probably shrinking, as entertainment is subsuming 
imagination.

One thing I've done is not to use hyperlinks within texts anymore, as 
they take readers on a trip from which they may never return, or return 
overstuffed with sugary information---not wisdom!--like an Xmas dinner 
at Grandma's house. In an age of Warholism, of kitsch, more than ever I 
think that work of significant depth is worthwhile pursuing; that 
postmodernism is another failed god.

I'm not sure for how much longer any of the arts will move people "in a 
sustained way." Sustainability is what neo-liberalism is working against 
in the popular media, and in schools, where the next generation is 
unwittingly being programmed to be corporate cogs and exploited 
consumers. But I believe that the mission of the arts is radically 
sublime enough (or must be) to strongly work against this.

Enough for now.

-Joel

On 9/2/2014 11:22 AM, Rob Myers wrote:
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> On 02/09/14 11:08 AM, Joel Weishaus wrote:
>> My wife giving a paper on Lacan and the sublime, at Cambridge U.
>> next week, so it seems the word is "in." The dictionary says
>> sublime means "impressing the mind with a sense of grandeur or
>> power; inspiring awe, veneration, etc"
> Yes that sounds like a good definition. It's the cognition of being
> faced with a phenomenon much larger than oneself.
>
> (In the case of Facecoin that phenomenon is the Internet-scale
> activity of cryptocurrencies -
>
> http://thenewsublime.com/?p=122 )
>
>> So what is new about the New Sublime?
> It's digital, which is still new on an art historical timescale. :-)
>
> To quote the show organizers -
>
> http://thenewsublime.com/?page_id=4
>
> "he New Sublime is an exhibition and series of discussions exploring
> the new ways in which artists who use digital technology are engaging
> with the viewer’s attention. This is a thorny subject because
> technology catches our attention in a particular way. When viewing
> this kind of work we may be initially fascinated and involved, but
> eventually slightly bored. This may describe our relationship to
> technology in general.
>
> The question we are asking is: ‘Can art which uses digital technology
> move us in the same sustained way as other forms of contemporary art?’
> Based on our previous experience of curating digital art exhibitions
> and making our own work, the answer is a tentative “yes”."
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