> What Jim does is ok--I knew Ms. Uribe years ago--and for preserving and
> publishing her work alone he gets a million gold good guy stars.  My
> opinion as far as the programming part of Jim's work is that Disney and
> all the other corporations--could do it quicker and better--and have
> done it in computer games and other variations which will be cranked out
> in future.  In short, Jim's already old and out-dated almost as soon as
> he begins.  My advice for Jim is that he hook up with Apple, Microsoft,
> Google, or the other companies on the cutting edge of things.  He needs
> a team and big bucks in order to create something worthwhile, otherwise
> he's already an antique on the highway to the corporate future.

I'm glad to hear you knew Ana Maria Uribe. I didn't know that.

I see: I should "hook up" with Disney, Apple, Microsoft, or Google. Ha ha
dada. And I cannot do anything "worthwhile" without them. How corporatical
can you get? Are you a corporadical or possibly a corpor(e)a(t)dical, Jesse?

As you might imagine, I do try to keep up with interesting multimedia on the
net. And related net art. In fact I maintain a page of links at
http://vispo.com/misc/ia.htm which are to the most outstanding  online works
of interactive audio. The page also links to offline projects of interactive
audio documented on youtube. And includes links to writings about
interactive audio.

How many of those links, would you say, have anything whatsoever to do with
any of those companies? Almost none. And that is not by exclusion. They
simply have done almost nothing that deserves to be on that page. Perhaps
times are changing--that would be nice--but I rather doubt it. The thing to
note about the authorship of the works linked to on that page of interactive
audio is that most of the works are either by individuals or by very small
groups working not in corporate tandem but on personal projects that may
have no business component associated with them at all. Also, those links
rarely break; the artists have, in some cases, dedicated presentation of
these works to a web audience for many years already, and clearly intend to
keep them available for as long as possible. This is quite distinct from
what typically happens with corporate art on the net: it appears relatively
briefly and then disappears.

Surprise, surpise: innovative and outstanding art that is before its time is
often done not in corporate headquarters but in personal projects. No, not
surprising in the least. Why? Simply because corporations such as those are
not in the business of art. I am in a or the life of it, but hardly at all
in the business of it. We are talking about works that often subordinate
entertainment to art. And subordinate education far below even entertainment
to art. These works inspire contemplation of their form and content in
diverse ways. I find them fascinating. Worthwhile. Often very impressive as
art. And as audio. And their interaction is sometimes unique.

Some of my interactive audio is in there also. Some of it was funded. By
turbulence.org in NYC and by the Canada Council. But much of it is work I
would have done anyway, cuz that sort of thing is my work in this life.

As for "otherwise he's already an antique on the highway to the corporate
future," well, I don't see the future of art as a particularly "corporate
future". Sure there will be noise. They excel at noise. When they say they
are doing something concerning art, that makes a big noise. But they
generally don't bother to even make that noise. If it isn't fundamentally a
business proposition, art is just mainly off of corporate radar.

There is a significant difference between "being on the cutting edge" of
technology and being at the forefront in associated art. Software Engineers
typically think of tools and technologies, many of which may indeed possess
artistic poetential--even as tools and technologies, as well as as tools and
technologies used by artists to make art. So they may have an interest in
what is done with their tools and technologies. But it is mainly art as
noisemaker for the corporation.

I am moving my work to JavaScript. This is an open source language. It is
understood by all browsers without a plugin being required. Work in open
source languages cannot so easily be consumed in the death throws of the
corporation itself that makes and maintains the plugin. Cuz there is no
plugin concerning JavaScript. Everything about it is open source.

> Although Jim doesn't want to be an English major--I would suggest that
> he give "poetry"--the real stuff, a chance.  It doesn't get old, it
> engages the deepest levels of who we are, and it does and will endure.

I have a degree in English, actually. That was my degree. Plus some math.
And later on more math and some computer science. I've been involved in
poetry since I was a kid. That has been my life, mainly. Where she calls
hither I. That hasn't changed.

> Yes, of course Dirac the "poet" and Heisenberg the "poet" and anybody
> you want to call a poet a "poet"--but give the real stuff a real
> chance, Jim.  You don't have to be an English major--you just have to
> have patience and be literate.

I surmise I have read at least as much poetry as you. Even accounting for my
having mistakenly thought you were younger than you are; the condition is
permanent, apparently.

I'm thinking of a few people including Gregory Whitehead when I said that
some of my favorite poets aren't even known as poets. He is known as an
audio artist ( http://ubu.com/sound/whitehead.html ,
http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Whitehead.php ,
http://gregorywhitehead.com . I also like quite a bit of Jenny Holzer's
work. These are artists who are not known, per se, as poets, but their
engagement with language and the art of language is intense and highly
poetic. And, Jesse, if this is not 'the real thing', then the notion is
worthless to me.

Also, the notion of people such as Kurt Godel and Alan Turing as poets is
not so different from the notion of Jacques Derrida as poet. Godel's work
was revolutionary not only philosophically but also in its method, not only
in its content but its form, and perhaps more importantly, concerning
poetry, Godel's work is fundamentally a study of language; he was the
birther of meta-mathematics as a field that explores the language of logic
and mathematics in both a mathematical and linguistic manner; he
mathematized language and logic toward proving deep philosophical theorems;
he united logic and philosophy very tightly. And his work was precursor to
that of Alan Turing. Turing invented the abstract machine known now as the
Turing machine. Not to usher in, as he did, the computer age, but to prove
that there are some things that no machine will ever do. His work is thus
not simply as a bringer of technology or even mathematics, but as visionary
not only of the possibilities of machines but of their limitations. He
invented the abstract machine to have an idea of a machine that could do
anything any conceivable machine could do. So that he could then show that
there are some things that this machine can never do. And he used the work
of Godel, who showed the deep structural incompleteness inherant in formal
systems of mathematics and logic.

Jesse, their work is philosophically profound and its music is of the
deepest sort. If you can't conceive of them as poets, that is your loss.
Also, their impact on thought, logic, language, and the world at large has
been immense.

ja