// i am x-posting this msg in hopes of (re)connecting these conversations. // this month developers of criticalartware // http://www.criticalartware.net // are the guests [of/on] the empyre listserv // i hope you can join us by subscribing to the // empyre listserv. to subscribe to empyre goto: // http://www.subtle.net/empyre/ // + enter the info they request. // jonCates // ---> criticalartware coreDeveloper // http://www.criticalartware.net
Date: Thu, 6 May 2004 17:16:18 -0500 To: soft_skinned_space empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au From: jonCates joncates@criticalartware.net Subject: [-empyre-] (n) formative states
in a recent post to the generative art listserv "eu-gene", which was the result of [cross-posting/pollinating w/] conversations happening on the .micrcosound + PureData "PD-List" listservs, Saul Albert participated in a discussion of the term "software-art". responding to a post from Philip Galanter, Saul Albert proposed introducing greater ambiguity + confusion into taxonomical [structures/constructions].
"Philip Galanter wrote:
We do need to be more careful about how we define and categorise our work. It's hard to do when there are few precedents and doing so may even feel counterintuitive.
Saul Albert wrote:
No! Be less careful, define and categorise a thousand times a day, and keep on doing it until nobody >believes in the stability of those categories as meaningful *in themselves* anymore. It's so easy when >there are few precedents!"
...
"I also suggest a new slew of categories for software art, derived from Borges' observations about the >problems of John Wilkins' taxonomic language system:
"These ambiguities, redundancies and deficiencies remind us of those which doctor Franz Kuhn attributes >to a certain Chinese encyclopedia entitled 'Celestial Empire of benevolent Knowledge'. In its remote pages >it is written that the animals are divided into:
(a) belonging to the emperor (b) embalmed (c) tame (d) sucking pigs (e) sirens (f) fabulous (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied (j) innumerable (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush (l) et cetera (m) having just broken the water pitcher (n) that from a long way off look like flies."
from 'The Analytical Language of John Wilkins', by Jorge Luis Borges http://www.alamut.com/subj/artiface/language/johnWilkins.html -----------------"
data.src: Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 23:45:50 +0000 From: Saul Albert saul@twenteenthcentury.com To: generative art eu-gene@generative.net Subject: Re: [eu-gene] [Fwd: [microsound] 'Code as Art' Digest [from the PD-List]]
i was particularly taken w/this exchange for mini reasons, among them the crossing of [wires/threads] between the 3 listservs, the questions of opaqueness + transparency in the linguistic/{il|l}ogical] constructions + the [stability/impermanence] of such [structures/definitions]. i was also drawn into this conversation b/c i greatly respect the work of both Philip Galanter + Saul Albert. specifically, Philip Galanter's Generative Analog Videos (1993 - 1998) provide a link between video art + artware in that they are feature "video feedback as a chaotic generative system" + function as [executables/systems/applications/programs], connecting to Jack Burnham's "systems aesthetic". Saul Albert's 'Artware - Art, Software and conceptualism' http://twenteenthcentury.com/saul/artware.htm [article/essay] [is/was] deeply [inspirational/informative] to the development of criticalartware. when i first read the text i was elated by the word 'artware' (this was i think the 1rst time i read 'artware' as a term applied to the conflux of [concepts/constructs] that were of such great interest to me. later, the group of people that would become the coreDevelopers of criticalartware began discussing the connections between conceptual art, minimalism, performance, expanded cinema, video art, hacking, Radical Software, systems aesthetics, the internet, network cultures, genealogies, software, current version systems, instructions sets, art as executable code, etc, etc, etc... -- //jonCates ---> criticalartware coreDeveloper http://www.criticalartware.net _______________________________________________ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre