Day: June 4, 2008
Net Aesthetics Trial Balloons
Afterthought to afterthought re: Marcin Ramocki's surf club analysis:
Some 20th Century writers complained that reality (in a hypercharged mediated environment) was outstripping their ability to spin fiction.
Artists, too, have to compete with real world content far more captivating than anything they could come up with, which the Internet effectively gathers all in one place (sneezing Pandas, etc). Two possible responses are (1) to continually rise above it through aesthetic and conceptual framing and posturing or (2) to disappear into it and trust the viewer to ultimately sort out what's going on. The Web is a consumer's medium, not a producer's, so the artist is inexorably led to consumption as a "practice." The degree of criticality can only be inferred, not implied.
Related, twitter-like statement:
"Vvork proves the futility of originality; it is the artistic equivalent of waterboarding"
Some discussion of the above and another Vvork quip at Paddy's.