So, I'm reading Matthew Collings and remembering that I think poncy writing covers up bullshit, yet always find myself drawn to poncy writing.
Perhaps its the yet that doesn't belong.
"So the parody Minimalism was supposed to be critical in some way. Critical of art or life or society. Whatever. You went around frowning and saying Hmm, yes, that's very interesting, it's critical."Anyway, craft seems about as far from bullshit as you can get, and these boys have got it. Painstakingly mutating little airfix war figures into scenes of carnage from Goya's disasters of war, they've got the attention to detail that makes any concept unnecessary. So, I was thinking, what if I rewrote my McLuhan/ Rokeby essay without the ponce? McLuhan said that media that have less going on require the viewer/ reader/ whatever to fill in the gaps. He calls this "cool." Rokeby says that interactive art can make the viewer sort of like the artist, because only when they actually do things with the art does the art actually do anything. And some people say that art can't really be called interactive unless both the art and the viewer cnage because of the interaction. One part of the IconIcon project does what Rokeby is talking about, because its just a blank screen that the viewer has to "paint" to see whats below. Of course, they're resally just glorified paint-scraper and not really doing anything at all. Its just a confusing door to open, really, so thats a stupid example. Another piece I did that tries to make the viewer into the artist is my Iterative Art Project. Basically, viewers move little dials about and this causes pretty things to happen on screen. So, in a way, I just made the tools that the viewer uses to make the art. Of course, every flash kiddie has done something similar, with or without the added McLuhan and Rokeby references, so whats the big deal? In the Information Ecosystem, the viewer plays a bigger role, because if they don't add stuff into the system, then the whole thing stops functioning. So it really is dependent on the viewer. The problem is, as we demand more from the viewers, we make it harder for them to use it. Pretty soon, we end up making something nobody can use, and thats not good now, is it? Frankly, I'd rather make something simple and cool than deep and boring, because the intellectuals have enough crap to get poncy about already. But it is nice to make things deep that many people can enjoy. So, we just do what Norman White did with his Helpless Robot: we get our interactive art to act like people, and since everybody already understands lots of body language and subtle bits of human interactions, we can get pretty advanced without alienating people. I'm not talking AI here, just using metaphors because they already make sense to people, not because they're deep. To illustrate this I end this essay with two photos, one of a Jiri Cernicky piece called Panasonic Emotions in which emotion-machines look like tears, and another by Rebecca Horn called The Unconsciousness of Feelings which looks sort of like a face.
Jiri Cernicky, Panasonic Emotions
Rebecca Horn, The Unconsciousness of Feelings So, I guess it makes sense and means the same thing when you remove the pomp; its just that I realise I didn't really go all that deeply into what exactly mimicking human interpesonal behaviour with interactive art actually entails. But then, I'd fortunately reached the end of five pages by that point... Maybe I can cut out some fluff and have a really specific conclusion.