Slashdot Mirror
Part One: Information Arts
The fusion of culture and technology into sophisticated art forms seems obvious when you think about it. But until now, few people have. Most of society is too busy clucking about how new technologies are stealing credit cards, transmitting smut and rotting young brains.
This fusion, Wilson says, is a signal that views of art and research are evolving, broadening, integrating. As he points out, the arts and the sciences are any culture's two greatest engines: "sources of creativity, places of aspiration, and markers of aggregate identity." Before the Renaissance, they were considered the same thing -- science was called natural philosophy.
In the l960s, philosopher C.P. Snow developed his "Two Cultures" theory -- Snow asserted that those in the humanities and arts and those in the sciences have developed sufficiently different languages and worldviews that they no longer understood one another. Wilson believes that art and science/technology are no longer segregated from one another, and that the Net, the Web and pioneering work by artists and scientists are re-connecting the two, creating a new sphere of culture he calls "Information Arts."
From programming to telecom design, Wilson has brought together the work great artists and thinkers in culture and technology and shown us how they are moving closer together, even in fields like bionics, parapsychology and bioelectricity. Coders are artists, not just scientists. So are Web designers and people who paint genetic portraits.The book takes this fusion and looks at its groundbreaking influence on life, thought, cultural theory and artistic activity.
"Leonardo da Vince is well-known was history's greatest integrator of art and science, " writes Wilson, but he was by no means unique in having interests that spanned art and science. Educated people of his time were expected to. But, says Wilson, by the 20th century, science and art had already become distinct and separate fields.
New inventions have stimulated artistic experimentation in fields such as photography, cinema, sound recording, electrical machines and lights -- think of Brian Wilson, Brian Eno, U2. Wilson writes about how Xerox's PARC initiated an artist-in-residence program called PAIR, an open-ended approach in which artists and scientists and researchers jointly defined a program on culture and/or technology, with the definition of the problem becoming part of the collaboration. The book chronicles scores of other experiments in business, Academe and science labs.
So who cares about the re-connection between culture and technology? Anyone interested in either, really. The most interesting and revolutionary parts of the Net and Web -- coding, gaming, role-playing -- have always drawn on artistic as well as technological sensibilities. And many of us have had the sense that we are witnessing a re-definition of what culture is. That's of equal appeal to people like me, drawn to the culture of technology but not the machinery, and technologists, who love technology but want it to embrace culture and artistry. In subsequent columns, we'll draw from the book to talk about the "information arts," and some of the amazing work occurring now at the intersection of culture and technology.
Next: Research agendas in biology and medicine, especially biology and genetic research.
I don't believe that it is simply technology and the arts fuseing, but rather that the arts are finding a new medium. For example, the grand art deco buildings from the 20's were "fused" with the technology of the time, but were artistic in the way they were structured.
I don't believe this is an evolution toward "information arts", but rather looking at things through the lens of techno-deity at the same thing done for years.
What about M.C. Escher who used math/math concepts extensivly in his artwork.
or Movies, a purely technological entertainment/artform only been around since the early 1900's
And we should probally gloss right over the printing press, ignoring the hundreds of thousands of stories/ideas it allowed writers to create.
*sigh*
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
Computers now are generating more and more "pure" art. From the use of software like Paint Shop Pro, more and more people can produce artowrk of relatively high quality. I speak from experience, being one who got sympathy high marks in my art classes in high school.
Even more dependent on technology is fractal design, which is facilitated by the high processing power of modern computers.
In this way, technology is providing a fresh, new canvas for many who couldn't or afraid to use earlier kinds of canvas.
I'm not afraid of falling, it's the sudden stop at the end that frightens me.
That's exactly what Donald Knuth has been saying since 1974. He even goes on to tell us that the word "tech" has its roots in a greek word for "art".
We are only 28 years late.
Here's a thought: What would happen if every time John Katz posted an article, NOONE responded to it?
"Silence gives assent". In other words, by not challenging the nonsense that he writes it appears to the silent masses that he is correct.
But this article was hopeless, both from a writing viepoint and a content viewpoint. What is it? Is it a book review? The part 1 would seem to suggest not.
The clue is normally in the first paragraph - let's reread it and see. Apparently it's the first part of a series that deals with "the new intersection of art, science, and technology". What new intersection. Art has being "intersecting" with science and technology always.
Bronze is invented - before you know it some bleedin' artisan has knocked together a few brooches and statues with it. High technology hard stone chisels - some la-de-day arty farty type is carving designs with them. Someone invents plaster walls - some painter sticks a fresco on them. I'd defy him to find *any* time in recorded history that there has not been an interplay between science and art.
So the central thesis behind this (probably interminable) series of articles is moot. The event - the sundering and reconciliation - he is postulating just didn't take place.
The C.P. Snow "two culture's" bit could have been interesting (although the remarks were originally made in 1959, not "in the 1960s") but was only mentioned in passing. Sort of a commentry comparing the viewpoint of C.P. Snow (whose views did not represent a consensus even at the time) with the reality of the world today. A recent example of the interplay between the Arts and Science would be "Beagle II" where artist Damien Hurst and pop group Blur contributed material for the probe to be used on the surface of mars (one is a colour calibration chart and the other is music for telemetry purposes).
But instead we got a retread of what appears to be a not very original book.
When I think of the combination of technology and art, I think of the Canadian wood block printer Walter J. Phillips. He worked in a medium that requried study and experimentation to master the available tools (inks, and wood). Only his mastery of the technical side allowed him to express his artistic vision. This used to be called "craftsmanship". I don't see the same level of craftsmanship in other combinations of technology/art suggested by some. People experimenting with robotics (for example) seem to always push the technology component to the limits, instead of getting to a point of understanding every aspect of a subset of robotics, and using that to create some vision.
The seperation of Art and Science was a creation of the "Arts and Crafts" movement in the Victorian era. Basically the Brits saw the educated French plebs doing better than their uneducated British counterparts and set out to match them. Unfortunately they asked a complete and utter berk called William Morris who argued that arts and science were different and arts should be held above.
Jon's article is wrong for many reasons, but the above is true. What Jon totally and utterly neglects is the fact that in most European countries except the UK there isn't this seperation. Engineers and Scientists are revered in France and Germany and when you say "I've got an Engineering Degree" people are impressed as they know its hard, if you say "I've got a degree in Marketing" they know you are a fool.
So Jon missed out the historical background (nice one) and presented an English speaking only view.
So much for the searching and inclusive nature of the internet.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Living in a technological society isn't a reflection of the level of advancement of that society, it's a reflection of the stances inherent in everyday life. Heidegger's "The Question Concern Technology" addresses this - that we approach the world as a set of problems to be addresed technologically, and this in turn structures our perception of society and nature. Technologies themselves will also transform how we percieve of the world.
Insofar as some (not all) artists see themselves as having the task of documenting the unconscious of a society, they may immerse themselves in technologies in order to retrieve insights about their effects on our culture.
We are, say some people who study such things, at a critical place in history..."
And exactly why is this more 'critical' then any other moment in history?
Please, only use phrases like this, or 'the world will never be the same..', or 'this will change our lives forever', etc, etc, only if you really mean it, not just because you think it makes your article sound more important.
I hate those Katz articles, but I love the discussions it generates. Especially the way all of his points get torpedoed one-by-one.
I think Katz may have a point, but this
Culture is being re-defined right before our eyes. For centuries, art and technology have been considered separate parts of culture.
just doesn't hold true for most Eastern civilization, specially India.
Not for centuries, but for several millenia have Indian artists and scientists shared the same ground of research.
For example, the amazingly rich Hindustani (northern) system of music interpretaion and performance owes a lot to some 10th century scientists, such as Amir Kusro, who was a musician, a poet, an astronomer, a painter, a mathematician and an all-round researcher.
Actually, some treaties on instrument building and research dates back to the early Vedic times (roughly 5000 years ago). In fact the Vedic scriptures talk about devotion to God, but also about medicine, logic, math, astronomy, and lots more. But I digress.
So Mr. Katz... a little more research wouln't be out of the question, don't you think?
Txurlo
A lot of you guys are making great points, noting da Vinci and Michaelangelo as great counter-examples to blow apart Jon's latest tripe, but if you really want to destroy his credibility, one need only note the Egyptians.
The Egyptians were the first known culture to record language in writing, in the form of hieroglypics. The characters were a leap forward in technology (that of written language), while being artistic at the same time.
But don't tell Jon ...
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Sorry to dispell this illusion, and I'm sure it's been said better elsewhere, but code is not art. Coding is not an art. Take your favorite piece of code, hang it on the wall next to your favorite painting - does your code inspire you the way the painting does? I'm always amused at how coders like to convince themselves and others that they're actually rock stars, beatnic writers or avant guard painters - people don't get it but they just use a different medium. Let's get something straight - code is a means to produce a tool (which makes it a tool itself of sorts). The tool may fall into the hands of an artist, and thus become an implement of artistic creation. This does not make the code itself art, and does not make the coder an artist. To reiterate - coders are tool makers, artists are tool users. Therein lies the magic intersection of technology and art. Sometimes people may perform both as tool makers and tool users and therefore be both coder and artist. They may even perform in their role as coder to create a tool for use in their role as artist. However, though the person is the same, the roles are different. But for some reason people like Katz tend to enjoy obscuring that dichotomy. You may say, but what about screen savers, digitally produced images, computer generated music....? Someone had to come up with the images, someone had to direct the sequencing of the notes - that person is the artist. The person who figured out how to translate 0's and 1's into pixels or soundwaves, make the translation functions available through a GUI, write the hardware drivers to carry out the data transfer - that person is the coder. Get the difference? Coding as art? Let me know when the source code for Linux is the featured display in the Louvre. Then maybe we'll have something to talk about. And on the flip side, let me know when Eddie Van Halen is a physics guest lecturer at MIT. Then we'll really have something to talk about.