Hi Sarah,
Regarding art/design dichotomy, I think a collective like
http://spurse.org problematizes and entangles that dichotomy in a
very productive way. Along the lines of Bruce Mau, "style" can
actually be very practice/process (and even ethics) oriented. Indeed,
it always already is and can't help not be. "Style" is never merely
surface sheen, becauuse we have never been modern, so things never
really separated out that neatly (form/content, surface/essence).
There is real-time stock market trading software which is mapped to
audio tones, so that pattern recognition is possible via a more
haptic, embodied, intuitive interface (rather than just looking at
numbers or even charts). The New Aesthetics blog seems related. If I
can recognize patters based on "mere" visual and aesthetic criteria,
then I am probably using my intuitive human "visual" faculties to
unearth/ontologize/curate patterns and behaviors that are a lot more
deeply entrenched. Like William Gibson characters cyber-dowsing
future human events based on simply gazing at abstract data patterns.
I begin to feel the connection phenomenologically before I am ever
able to unpack it historically, philosophically, sociologically, etc.
+++++++
Regarding the generation gap, I think there is a kind of
ill-considered fetishism that the "younger" generation has for
certain forms of digital sheen. There is nothing wrong with this
phenomenon, but I wonder where it leads. If I am a young,
anti-theoretical hipster, it leads to my next group show. But ten
years later, what was that all about? Pure Tron Sheen Fetishism. Such
fetishism has more to do with fashion than Bruce Mau's idea of
design. "We are the good squad and we're coming to town." Yet even
such forms of fashion fetishism "mean" something.
+++++++
Some surf club writing is aggregated here (but not much):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfing_club
Having a surf club reader would be kind of like having a philosophy
of Andy Warhol (which of course exists):
http://www.amazon.com/The-Philosophy-Andy-Warhol-Again/dp/0156717204/
Best,
Curt
At 9:43 AM +0000 4/17/12, Sarah Cook wrote:
>Is it an art and design division or a generational one? cultural
>one? in what way did Eyebeam's Re:group show (which Beryl and I were
>nominally involved in as Eyebeam's research partners at the time)
>address this and is it the only show to have done so? We've talked
>about exhibitions on this list where media art on view was at the
>service of other than aesthetic experience -- changing the world,
>addressing issues such as financial regulation or climate change --
>but not in terms of how information about these works circulates,
>how the history of art and design is being written through them.
>What are the criteria for evaluating these works beyond those we've
>used so far (how the work behaves, how the audience participates,
>how the work questions or exhibits its own production and
>distribution)?
>P.S. I would love to hear of other writing about surf clubs -- is
>there (or should there be) a reader on it?
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