The following exchange was between Jon and Doyle. My comments then follow.

JJ:
> Shifting to another, totally different case, off-set by several hundred
> years, and look at Vermeer (not everything, but some) and again you get
> the interactive feedback: here the richness given is of a completely
> other kind, but it does the same thing - it gives you something, prompts
> you to ponder/digest, and gives you something new when you go back for
> another, and then another, and then another look.
>
> DS:
> David Hockney's recent book on the hidden history of using optical devices
> in European painting history is much more revealing of Vermeer than your
> comment.  I don't mean this in a put-down, but rather that we want to
break
> ground.  Hockney clearly defines a difference between purely hand made
> images and optic aided images.  He finds a historical line, and he uses
> research and citation to good effect.  His view is controversial.
> Objections have been made and the debate will continue.  But that is my
> point.  We are not concerned with re-hashing conventions in filmosophical
> thinking.  We are trying to understand deeper than before.

Doyle--
I'm sorry, but the condescending tone of your response to Jon Jost is just
too, too much. Who is this Royal ``We'' you are referring to? A certain,
special elite of ``filmosophes''? I think there is much in what Jon brought
up that is interesting to consider. I certainly pondered his posting for
awhile, thinking back on my own responses and memories of looking and
re-looking at the Uccello. You used this as a means for another put-down,
and then to turn his thoughts into an example of Euro-centric thinking! One
had nothing to do with the other. Why does citing that work as an example in
earlier, pre-21st interactivity function as a Euro-centric argument? And the
notion that ``We'' are intending to go ``deeper'' presumes a great deal, and
amounts to a strange kind of lecturing to another poster. C'mon
Doyle--you're not really going to go down the road of measuring who is
``deeper'' than whom, are you? You complain that Jon is ``rehashing'' ideas,
something that is ``beneath'' the Royal ``We.'' Ironic, since the Hockney
investigation you praise is itself a ``rehashing'' of a long-running
investigation in art historical circles regarding the use or non-use of
optical devices, an investigation that hardly begins with Hockney.

JJ (continued):
> The mechanical nature of "interactivity" largely gives away the game,
> and is basically an abdication on the (alleged) artist's part to do
> their job - i.e., to dig in and make something genuinely rich,
> multi-layered, challenging, and capable of being experienced again and
> again to better and richer consequences.
>
> DS (continued):
> I think you are out of touch technically.  I don't want to hurt your
> feelings here.  You obviously hold strong opinions.  However, this seems
> highly superficial way of grasping what one might be doing with
> interactivity.  If you want I can provide you a reading list to get you up
> to speed.

 Doyle! My man! The condescension is oozing out of my computer! I've had to
run to my kitchen to clean up the mess! You really sound like you're writing
to a child, when you're actually responding to one of the more interesting
and creative indie filmmakers of the past 20 years. I don't mean that that
gives Jon some additional mantle to stand upon, but my goodness, you need to
back away for a moment and consider how this comes off. You want to give him
a reading list so Jon may be ``enlightened''? This is really too much, and
actually pretty unintentionally funny. To put it mildly, you do not advance
the cause of ``filmosophy.'' Besides which, what was it in Jon's statement
that was so ``out of touch''? There are many, many different views on
interactivity; it must be clear, surely, that Jon prefers the interactive
practice of the solitary viewer exploring the art work over the digitized,
computerized forms of interactivity, which, many have argued, have become fe
tishized and bequeathed a special, unearned cultural place. His argument is
quite clear to these eyes. Your response is so off-putting that it does no
service to your greater argument.

> JJ (continued):
>   Perhaps, once the interface is
> made invisible, there might be some interactive work capable of
> something genuinely artful, though that presumes a spectator up to the
> job as well, which in these days is a very high roll of the dice.
> Meantime it appears it is a carnival item, which, in point of fact is
> fitting for the times since most art biennales, festivals, etc. are
> little more than dressed out carnivals anyway, just aimed at a slightly
> more upscale and jaded market with more money in their pockets.  Are you
> going to Venice??  Oh, no, I thought I'd go to Dokumenta, and then zip
> over to Basel for the....
>
> DS:
> The video game market is aimed at adolescent males.  They don't have any
> sense of what you are talking about.  What they concentrate on is buying
> computer components to obtain the best performance.  They drive the
> development of a technology which is extremely serious.  Obviously you
have
> no sense of the U.S. military development of these tools.  How special
> forces troups in Afghanistan use the technology to kill their enemies.
You
> don't have a sense of the Information Technology business, or why the
> telecoms spent themselves into a financial crisis on broad band
technology.
> On and on and totally irrelevant to your absurd comment on carnivals.
> Thanks,
> Doyle Saylor

Doyle--
Wow! Quite the leap. Here poor Jon was merely discussing the present-day
limits of new interactive ``toys,'' which you then transform into his
supposed ignorance of the bad, bad, bad, bad US warmaking machine. I'm
rather amazed that Jon hasn't responded to all this--could I be more
astounded at it than he is? And, to top it off, he doesn't ``have a sense of
the IT business.'' How do you know that, Doyle? Where, precisely, do you get
off on these comments, which are superficially couched in a terribly elitist
atmosphere, but which then decline into condescension and making assumptions
about another poster's ignorance.
    Actually, cut the crap away, and both sides have good arguments. Analog
interactivity has always been with us, and will not go away. Digital
interactivity is richly fascinating, absolutely incalculable in its
applications. (And no, Doyle, I am not talking about its uses in combat. No
combat. Art. Movies. Storytelling. OK?)
    And to think that what really got me upset at first wasn't Doyle's
response to Jon, but Jon's unbelievable attack on Peter Greenaway! My god,
that was something. I must say that I'm a bit disappointed that a filmmaker
I've enjoyed like Jon so utterly loathes Greenaway, but, I guess, there it
is. To my view, Greenaway provides a completely unique and personal passage
into a new kind of image-making and storytelling, one which easily slides
from cinema over to curating over to opera over to the Internet and back
again. The man these days seems to have no boundaries, and it does seem a
shame that he is so disliked by some--for reasons that I find consistently
inchoate. Nudity seems to be a particular bugaboo, which raises all sorts of
questions about a Puritanical reaction to Greenaway's work. His rejection of
traditional storytelling also seems to drive his critics batty, which
strikes me as an especially antique reaction in the year 2002. There is a
very rich reservoir of the contemplations of the meaning of death, the
durability of human activity, the purposes and ends of Evolution, among many
other themes, that run through PG"s work all the way from ``A Walk Through
H'' to his recent exhibit on medieval art and his ongoing ``Tulse Luper''
project. There's also a lot of comedy and absurdist irony that runs through
it as well. I'm sorry Jon doesn't go with it, but that's the way it is. The
comments were awfully harsh: Harsher by far, by the way, than anything
that's been written about George Lucas lately!
Robert Koehler