Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 19:19:24 -0800
Subject: Re: News: WebArt Manifesto experiment duchimp % duchimp 



although there is much that is rich here with html
try reading the codes at this site:  http://get.topica.com/
email  for  barry:  http://jwietor.home.mindspring.com/bashob.html
email  for  skylab:  http://jwietor.home.mindspring.com/eve.html
email  for  jeff:  http://jwietor.home.mindspring.com/duchimp.html

EMAIL for TOPICA.COM:  digidez-AT-icx.net
PUT add me to a random discussion list 
in the Subject line.  

and return.

it's as simple as that.

ask to participate in a new 
venture.   suggest and show pages 
you've designed to sell magazines.

dynamic, attractive 21st century 
may or may not have anything to 
do with it.


send you entries to 
EXPERIMENT WITH NEW EZINE


CALLED TOPICA.COM



REMEMBER TO STATE IT'S AN EXPERIMENT 
.   THEN SELL YOUR DESIGN.


 BEST OF LUCK

all-AT-topica.com
ask to speak to jules about natasha:  
katiez-AT-get.topica.com

managers will answer all your 
calls for any technical needs:



ask to get on the jeff & barry talk list.


watch online artists fight it out 
over the internet


or join a discussion 
of your choice:

here's the whole terrain:  

rotating our favorite URLS:  painter-list-AT-majordomo.netcom.com 

there's a hot and interesting talk going around about Painter 5.5 and 
all the new web tools.  they're looking for web designers.




file this page.



At 00:56 10/31/98 +0000, you wrote:
>In message <Pine.3.89.9810301759.A652-0100000-AT-bloor>, George Free
><aw570-AT-freenet.toronto.on.ca> writes
>>On Fri, 30 Oct 1998, Gerald O'Connell wrote:
>>
>>> by the comment 'it's just art made using a particular medium'. You
>>> appear to be unaware that classification by medium is a universally
>>> accepted means of distinguishing and defining different forms of art. So
>>> we do not need terms like 'painting' or 'etching' or 'watercolour' any
>>> more because 'it's just art made using a particular medium' ?
>>> 
>>> That is why I made the ironic comments about RailArt and BoatArt - the
>>> viewres mode of access access to the work just does not stand up as a
>>> defining characteristic or criterion for a typology of art. Thus,
>>> artists who have become excited about 'the intrinsic nature of the web'
>>> as a communications medium, have become excited about the wrong thing if
>>> they think that the communications medium is essential to the content of
>>> the art itself. What they are really excited about is the fact that they
>>> now have a new and unprecedentedly powerful way of communicating their
>>> art to others. That is an extremely exciting and important thing, but it
>>> has more to do with democratising the social construction of artistic
>>> taste than it has to do with the content of art itself.
>>> 
>>       I think its the process not the content that can be quite 
>>interesting. 
>
>You are completely right. The impact of the Internet is potentially
>quite shattering: it gives a direct contact between the audience and the
>artist that probably has not existed since Cave Painting !  
>We are completely conditioned into thinking in terms of a top-down
>hierarchical model when it comes to the social construction of artistic
>taste: museums, key galleries and critics, the academic art
>establishment, all of these sit at the top of a 'pyramid' of opinion
>formation, informally constructing league tables of 'greatness' and
>'genius', which in turn governs what is seen and read about by the
>public. But the Internet is capable of turning all that upside down by
>eroding the role of these intermediaries. That in itself is enough to
>make it genuinely revolutionary in the history of art.
>
>I am much more sceptical about interactive net.art - I cannot help
>comparing the experience of my own interaction with a number of 'leading
>edge' soi-disant 'experimental' examples with my son's daily experience
>on the Sony Playstation. I am sorry to disappoint the net.artists who
>pin their credentials on Internet-based interactivity, but they are
>light years behind the games community in exploring the processes of
>interactivity and building a new cultural structure around them. Sorry
>guys, but the game was over (in the arcade, mainly) before you even
>started playing...
>
>
>>engaging people in an on-line activity for instance. this 
>>cannot be put into a file on your HD.
>
>Yes, but I have seen a series of museum installations, particularly at
>the ICC in Tokyo, where the interacivity of 'on-line' was simulated off
>a hard-drive without changing the artistic impact or significance. 
>
>At present I suspect that many artists are seduced by the enhanced
>connectivity of the Internet into believing that the new art that the
>Internet stimulates will have to be somehow 'about' or 'addressing' that
>connectivity. I think they are dangerously deluded. I think they are
>like rock stars who end up going stale with nothing to write about
>except being on the road or in the recording studio: it is a strange
>paradox whereby coming to terms with a new freedom actually results in a
>narrowing of vision.
>I think that the Internet's interactivity will lead to new types of art
>and artistic ideas; but I think this will happen organically out of
>interactivity in a slower, more iterative way. Strange new slants on
>traditional artistic practices will emerge (An example: I am, at
>present, exploring 'virtual modelling' where the model for paintings and
>drawings sends me photographic images that are a response to my
>suggestions, and I then work in traditional media from these images -
>what is surprising about this is the way that the model starts to get an
>interpretive and editorial role that just doesn't exist in the
>liferoom...).
>
>>       Also, I find classifying art by medium to be very problematic. I
>>think what's crucial is the intention of the artist.
>
>It is always important, but difficult to encompass descriptively. Ex-
>post it can lead to the horrors of psychoanaytic criticism etc.
>
>> I find that your
>>ecclectic approach tends to lump everything together,
>
>And then others say that that the WebArt definition is too narrow -
>feels like getting caught in crossfire !
>
>> when what is at
>>issue is the differences between the different 'schools' or tendencies.
>
>Ah !  I am with you there: the WebArt Manifesto is an attempt to draw
>attention to the special characteristics of an emergent artform, and to
>define it in terms of its medium. I agree that within that definition
>there is the possibility for an infinite variety of different approaches
>and results. I also think it is valuable for the differences to be
>discussed, and for the adherents of different approaches to hurl abuse
>at each other in the traditionally passionate manner of artists who MUST
>believe that what they are doing is more 'important' than the other
>guy's feeble approach - that is why I liked Andy's intemperate note so
>much. For people, artists, to feel so deeply about these issues there
>just has to be something worthwhile at stake. To me, it just shows that
>the ground is worth fighting for... 
>> 
>>
>>       Thanks for raising these issues!
>>
>>George
>>
>>
>>
>>     --- from list avant-garde-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
>
>Gerald O'Connell
>
>http://www.gacoc.demon.co.uk/
>
>
>     --- from list avant-garde-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 

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