Processing 1.0 - Processing Discourse

We closed this forum 18 June 2010. It has served us well since 2005 as the ALPHA forum did before it from 2002 to 2005. New discussions are ongoing at the new URL http://forum.processing.org. You'll need to sign up and get a new user account. We're sorry about that inconvenience, but we think it's better in the long run. The content on this forum will remain online.

Index › Discussion › General Discussion, Status › purposes and stuff

‹ Previous Topic | Next Topic ›

Pages: 1 2

purposes and stuff (Read 5884 times)

uoou

Re: purposes and stuff
Reply #15 - Feb 14^th, 2006, 10:07pm

I think the Duchamp thing got a bit misunderstood. Like the Nietzsche thing. If people applied the Wittgenstein thing to the Vertov thing we'd all be ok.

Anyway, I think Duchamp was trying to start a discussion, partly about 'what is art?' but also 'is the role of the artist defined right?'. But instead it got embedded into art history as a sort of axiomatic statement and has been endlessly repeated since. I think of Dada as being a bit like Deconstruction - they're both about pointing out faults in our understanding/way of doing things rather than trying to offer new ways. They allow us to clear away some of the shit ready for those new ways, but they don't provide them as such. Seeing (as I do) his act in that context, I feel that it's been misused subsequently.

Anyway, the point is that if we're talking about art then the language the thing is operating in is mainly going to be art. Just because it's made of urinals or paint or code doesn't mean it particularly operates in those languages. It *can*, of course, but it's not intrinsic. If the point of the piece depends on the code being robust then the code must be robust, otherwise it's not necessary.

uoou YaBB Newbies Offline Posts: 43	Re: purposes and stuff Reply #16 - Feb 14^th, 2006, 10:08pm I'll say anyway once more: Anyway,

mark hill

Re: purposes and stuff
Reply #17 - Feb 15^th, 2006, 11:33pm

A bit like a sausserian semiotics favoured by the french post-structuralists that totally ignores the infinitely more sophisticated Piercian mode.

Those buggers are pretty good at telling us we've all been hoodwinked, but then fail to realise that they're missing the point.

P.S

I mention this in relation to the 2nd to last and last paragraph and not the anyway post.

uoou YaBB Newbies Offline Posts: 43	Re: purposes and stuff Reply #18 - Feb 16^th, 2006, 12:15am I had to go and do some reading to understand that one, but I think I do now. I can never keep semiotics stuff in my head for long. It seems we're good at producing a shitload of work from a good idea, misunderstood. I'm good at misunderstanding, so all I need now is a good idea.

mark hill

Re: purposes and stuff
Reply #19 - Feb 16^th, 2006, 7:47am

I guess the keeping it in your head problem pretty much describes the situation of a sign system based purely upon convention. The iconic and the indexical not getting a look in, yet they provide the backdrop, which the like of Derrida totally ignore. It enables them to tell us we are all being conned, yet in the context of Peircian semiotics the symbolic does an admirable and essential job.

That's why I am skeptical as to whether a lot of the discourse that has grown up in this climate is really telling us anything at all!

But then I would say that, not having read much of it!

uoou

Re: purposes and stuff
Reply #20 - Feb 16^th, 2006, 9:04am

I've always blamed that on Nietzsche and his lot for encouraging the idea (albeit through misunderstanding) that objective knowledge and meaning are impossible. There's no need to look beyond conventional signs then.

I think the discourse is demonstrating the absurdity of the position. And also throwing up the odd useful tool, mainly in areas where conventionality really is a heavy influence on meaning and that influence is open to abuse (Baudrillard on the media and also Social Constructivist/normaitivity stuff).

But it's tools rather than solutions or alternatives.

st33d

Re: purposes and stuff
Reply #21 - Feb 16^th, 2006, 2:01pm

uoou wrote on Feb 14^th, 2006, 5:53pm:

As someone on this board said (I've forgotten who, sorry) in reference to some neural net stuff they were doing, it's very much about playing about.

tsk tsk

I think the arguments presented here are still fairly valid in terms of machine art. You don't get any extra meaning by feeding something through a machine.

uoou

Re: purposes and stuff
Reply #22 - Feb 17^th, 2006, 8:20am

Aha! it was you. I enjoyed that post.

It's an interesting read, that. I remember looking at his AARON stuff a while back.

There's a big difference between a computer learning how to make aesthetically valid images and one learning how to make art. But he covers that so that's cool.

I dunno, asking whether computers can make art seems a bit like asking whether dogs can make art. Maybe they can, maybe they can't, we wouldn't recognise it if we saw it so it's hard to say.

Asking if we can train them to make our art is a different question, and seems to be what he's asking (and similarly, AARON seems to be a machine which makes something close to his aesthetic decisions). And that question relies on whether the necessary decisions can be codified/expressed as a system including all the indexicality and all that. If that can be done then I guess it's a question of complexity. But either way, I'm not sure of the value in it.

What you reckon?

Pages: 1 2

‹ Previous Topic | Next Topic ›