Re: [Fwd: LIFESCIENCE: Re: LIFESCIENCE]

[melinda rackham <melinda@subtle.net>]

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ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL 99
LIFESCIENCE
Linz, Austria, September 04 - 09
http://www.aec.at/lifescience
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>However, I would also like to see artists who understood that the code
>is not (simply) a "tool".
>
>Because (strangely enough) there seems to be a whole generation of "media
>artists" and "media experts" who seem to believe that the computer is an
>extension to "video art" -that it is an informal tool for "manipulating
>images"

i was always sus of video art.. and in fact the net [if thats what we are
speaking about] is a medium for text..which is why image and sound are such
dogs to work with on it.. and most of the artistry comes into it in getting
anything other than text (which will be a different size and probably font
on pc to mac anyway ) to work cross platform/cross browser and browser
version,  on crappy 72 dpi resolution, with gamma that varies, on a safe
216 color pallette, screen sizes that vary from 400 pixels to 1000,
delivered thru outdated telephone lines, with little control over the
viewer.. a totally flexible medium, where nothing wil be the same on two
machines, a thing which people who dont actually work in the medium, just
view it from a theoretical standpoint, have very little comprehension of.

perhaps i put my code comment  badly.. if one is too acknowledge all the
code then one has to acknowledge software packages like  photoshop,
director, flash , cosmoworlds,  html authoring packages,  the browser,the
pluggins, the operating system machine code the interface, star trek for
giving us ideas, ada lovelace, babbage,  electricity , thomas edison, the
first person to rub two sticks together.. blah blah  etc etc etc,  i think
using a language that is common, is differnet from writing something
specific in that language for a specific oneoff purpose, eg  writting a
java applet  already utilises common preexisting elements.so nothing is
really original in code except the way you put it together, like no
painting is really original except the way the common elements are
rearranged by the "artist".
 im sure there is a big market for paint by numbers oils and one will win
prizes somewhere for the original thought of making a prepackaged art work
a discret object worthy of hanging on a gallery wall, al la ducampian
urinals.
melinda


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