I have been reading some interesting post-iPad observations on the ‘t’internet as Peter Kay’s mum would call it and it all pointing to a happier bunch of mums and a way sadder and less happy bunch of ‘geeks’ or whatever you want to call us bloggers, case internet users etc etc
Basically this means that ‘tethered applications’ and a kind of ‘ring-fencing’ of creativity and open-ness has started to creep into the web. This may mean that Peter Kay’s mum can simply book a expensive ryanair flight or swim around facebook but for the rest of us the long arms of capitalism seem to have finally found a way to literally ‘tether’ freedom.
Jonathan Zittrain’s book ‘The future of the internet and how to stop it’ seems even more prophetic than when first published in 2008 and all the debate flying around about the iPad and its meaning seem connected with his concepts of tethered applications.
http://futureoftheinternet.org/
from Kevin Wallace
http://www.networkedblogs.com/blog/exemplar_art_kevin_wallace/
The point regarding context (if you hear a song on vinyl or download does it change perception?) was put forth in ‘A conversation with Claude Levi Strauss and Georges Charbonier’ about 1961 or ’69 depending on translation. Levi-Strauss posits the idea of an apple corer on the mantle piece. In the kitchen it’s a functional object in the living room it’s object d’art. You can get the idea because it’s part of the general artist philosophy now eh?
I’d seen dozens of reproductions of Picasso’s ‘Weeping Woman’ but when I saw the ‘real thing’ in the Tate Liverpool, I literally wept.
I got in trouble the last time I banged on a table to emphasize a point!… See more
And finally, whether you can continue to make art – other than creativity being the driving force, you might decide whether to make art for the here and now or art that you think will last the test of time .. that’s the real dilemma. Haha?
You mention sitting in your chair eternally connected to the ‘outside world’ almost matrix-style as a dystopian potential. Interestingly, you as a lecturer, and others who can do their job by video and email and blog etc are prime candidates for this type of ‘intern(et)ment’.
There is a very interesting short story on that subject, written about 1909 by E M Forster – usually known for his pastorals but annoyed by what he saw as a promotion of technology as saviour in works by the likes of H G Wells, he delves into a kind of science fiction mode with his short piece called The Machine Stops. A society wherein everyone stays in his or her room on their all purpose couch, interacting on the Internet: “the further one is removed from experience the more one can understand and analyse it,” suggests the attempt to continually write and rewrite history. You can read the entire story here for free:
http://www.emforster.de/hypertext/template.php3?t=tms…
Shaun, you were discussing postmodernism recently, as this debate is a major player amongst some of the same issues. Endless revision is a symptom of a present in which all history is replaced by opinion – whose version of the truth is the factual version and all that goes with that debate.
We might ask whether that sense of immediacy and the … See morespontaneity of change is moving faster and driving us toward a constant present – the existential nightmare, a here and now with no reference to a static and believable past and no vision of the future due to its constantly evolving and fragmenting nature. And the increasing inability to act and counteract from our armchairs as we battle wits with politics and throw barbs at celebrity while consuming every morsel of gossip and downloading tid-bits of data to amuse, educate and entertain ourselves in the rush of information.
Hmm .. upside down and backward .. start at bottom – or, saying that it doesn’t really matter does it?,
I replied
It like being in a constantly expanding hall of mirrors. We are connected but to what extent does this have any bearing on what we actually create? I am listening to an album by Jon Boden called ‘Songs from the floodplain’. It is good. I once hosted a folk club he and Spiers played so I had some connection. How much I enjoy the album is coloured not only by that but by knowledge I have gleaned in seconds from the internet. I bought the album rather than download as it had a booklet which intrigued me. The actual content is accessible the cardboard isn’t. I could make him a friend on here but ‘know’ him no more than i ‘know’ you.
I am ‘expected’ to do ‘research’ as an academic and part of the posting to blog and here part of that. I am interested on how much ‘dialogue’ is provoked by this. It is not the perfect format and facebook has issues (see privacy link above is important) but it does engender discussions that I suspect would not work anywhere else? Almost like writing an old fashioned diary but with other voices commenting……. See more
p.s. the Boden package also available as a vinyl set and frankly it would make more sense like that shelved next to old folk vinyl as he referencing a whole archival feel. It is a actor’s record through and through and stagey like a Rada student’s bedroom but despite that there something ..call it craft..which cannot be accessed digitally. Barthes called it ‘timbre’ in The Grain of the Voice. Authenticity is bandied about but we struggle to catch that grain..that terroir (as in French earth meaning)..I think…then again I not sure..Boden mentions church and preacher many times and assumes a crucifix position….maybe that one route he exploring..not mine particularly…but he trying that for sure…
re:make art for the here and now or art that you think will last the test of time….
I’m not sure this the question exactly that although aspects of quality inflect everything I do and say. I have raised hackles here in nottingham by not perceiving the ‘quality’ proffered in the same way as many would like 🙂 It got to point I mostly say nothing but it does play a part.
No the point is that the pervasiveness of ‘distraction’ actually creating a point of stasis and do nothing. I think teaching ‘multimedia’ a major part of problem it a constant stream of ‘novelty’ and a constant strain to ‘keep up’ which does not occur in teaching History say…or Fine Art (until recently):-)… See more
How does one regain a sense of purpose….in this shower of information or does one simply say it is like this – this is how it is – reflect it and nothing more with some misappropriated objects (altermodernism) and abandon any pretence at achieving something solid? I refuxe to abandon principles and go down that route…..Mr Appleton said it dadaesque…quite rightly I expect and I am not….