Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 12:21:21 -0500 (EST)
From: malgosia askanas <ma-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re:  Art in the gutter.


I guess my own gutter-tiedness comes from the fact that I always think of art
in terms of _action_, and in some sense for me the quintessential art-action
is, stubbornly, Vautier's sitting on a chair in the street, with the sign
"Look at me.  This suffices.  I am art".  I do software for a living, so
it's not a lack of knowledge of programming languages that's my gutter, 
it's this fixation on the quality of _staking a claim_, of asserting place.  
Contrary to what you describe, Joseph, to me the internet seems empoverished 
precisely in this area of action, or inter-action.  The only satisfying 
inter-actions I find on the net are e-mail lists, but that's because I 
think of them in very gutter-like terms, as living interactions with _people_.  
I get bored with everything on the net that doesn't have this quality, and 
that feels like just interacting with text or images or "virtual 
enviroments".  If I want those things, I would rather read a book or go 
to the movies or to a gallery, because there I can turn the pages, be with 
people, walk around things, and so on.  I guess it boils down to something 
Saul said, that ultimately when one is on the net one is just sitting, mostly
alone, looking at a screen. 


-m 



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