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Crazy/Nerdy Computer Art Installations
Gernot Ziegler writes "After having read a report on the fusion of Art and Technology, I somehow ended up on Perry Hoberman's page. I don't know this guy, but I've always been fascinated by techno art, and these ones are clearly intriguing.
There is the Workaholic, a pendulum with a bar code scanner over a carpet with bar codes and an attached projector that overlays images on the carpet, or the ZOMBIAC (Zone Of Monitor-Based Inter-Amnesiac Contact) that lures the visitors into thinking that the machines react to them directly. You might also want to have a look at this weird auction (that's where I got this link from) ! :)"
In the old days, art copied things - but as photography came about, the necessity of that dropped away, and art began to *comment* on things.
One thing that art looooves to do is to comment on art itself. (basically one generation of art comments on the previous generation: e.g. post-modernism art being mostly comments on the modernism, etc (for the nit-pickers - i really forgot which "ism" comments on modern-ism, so if the fact is a little off, don't flame, ja?))
What it really boils down to is that for many years now, art has been very seclusive stuff - stuff commenting on previous stuff which were themselves comments on ever earlier stuff. For the non artist, besides the above as a background, one very, very important word of caution - unless you intend to keep track of what is the current subject of comment, and understand all the crap that came before that, I'd seriously recommend against spending money on the stuff. Besides very few items that eventually ends up famous for famous' sake (Mona-Lisa, for example, is viewed to be "famous because of it's fame" - that's another thing I got out of the class, btw), all you will be receiving in the end is a comment without any context to go with it, kinda like spending money for a single comment of slashdot, without knowledge of all its beowulf cluster of running jokes, previous stories with evil bits set, and you bought it just because it was moderated highly.
anyway, for decoration purposes, there are many decorating art you get at even malls these days. let me repeat: don't ever spend money on what *real* artist produces, unless you are very sure of what you are doing. (this in response to the auction site)
not to mention, most of the real art nowadays are crap anyways...
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Bah. So hate that guy, don't generalize about the people working and educating those in the field. My girlfriend is a recently-graduated Art History major, with a secondary focus in studio art, specifically sculpture. She worked HARD for her degree, at a state school, in the art department...and got a good education under professors making a pittance and working in one of the most underfunded departments in the US. (Colorado state school art depts.)
I've seen her put more hours toward a sculpture piece than I ever put toward a program in the CS curriculum at the same school, one that is reasonably well-respected. I had the same disdain, until I found that most CS students were rock-stupid slackers, and most art students were rock-stupid slackers...
You'll find lazy people everywhere. Keep that in mind.