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Xkcd's Long-running "Time" Comic: Work of Art Or Nerd Sniping?
Fortran IV writes "Randall Munroe's xkcd webcomic has done some odd things before, but #1190, 'Time,' is something special. It's a time-lapse movie of two people building a sandcastle that's been updating just once an hour (twice an hour in the beginning) for well over a month (since March 25th), and after over a thousand frames shows no sign of ending; in a few days the number of frames will surpass the total number of xkcd comics. It's been mentioned in The Economist. Some of its readers have called it the One True Comic; others have called it a MMONS (Massively Multiplayer Online Nerd Sniping). It's sparked its own wiki, its own jargon (Timewaiters, newpix, Blitzgirling), and a thread on the xkcd user forum that runs to over 20,000 posts from 1100 distinct posters. Is 'Time' a fascinating work of art, a deep sociological experiment — or the longest-running shaggy-dog joke in history? Randall Munroe's not saying."
I looked at it. Big black flat space with two stick figures. The Economist cares about this why?
I don't really care? I even like xkcd
Sure, the author of XKCD might have a sarcastic streak, but even if part of the reason is a shaggy-dog joke, I'm sure part of the reason is also art.
I mean, it's not an either-or situation, and setting it up as a false dichotomy isn't going to generate meaningful discussion.
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
Most animation plays at about 24fps. Going at one frame per hour, this is it would take 86,400 times as long. So how is this any more impressive than the first two minutes of Fantasia, say? Is it really creative to make a cartoon and play it very slowly?
If anything, it shows how bored we are with the internet and that ANY new content sparks interest, however trivial.
Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
he's on holidays
Either the site's slashdotted already (after twelve minutes, on a Sunday afternoon?), or it's The Most Boring Movie Ever Made.
He's reminding us all that we have too much time on our hands. (And I was sure that I had posted a longer post before this one, but it appears not to be showing. In it, I also mentioned a forum that is also a long running joke on it's participants...)
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
http://xkcd.com/1190/
Are the frames worth any money? Is there any way I mine my own and sell them?
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Explained xkcd has a gif that combines most of the individual 'time' comics: http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1190:_Time
Every now and then, a graph or a chart or some insight appears in the xkcd lineup that seems somehow very different from what has gone before. I remember the day I brought up Time and was initially puzzled. I didn't get it. I moused over it and saw "Wait for it." and started staring at it intently. My mind started playing tricks on me and I thought I saw a pixel or two change, but after awhile I realized they hadn't. I checked back an hour later and the castle had changed a little, and I laughed at the notion that my experience with and interpretation of the comic had already changed with the passage of Time. I decided that that was one of the primary points. I like it.
No, just down the mouths of liberal arts *majors*.
There is a difference, you know.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
The form of story is unusual, in that one must use additional technology to follow it. Which the reading community developed very quickly. I use xkcd.aubronwood.com/.
Is "Unknown Lamer" RM by any chance?
Finally some use for my LCD picture frame.
It's been over a month and it's still going. Hell, it seems like it's just getting started, if it really is trying to tell a story.
I would not be exceptionally surprised if this lasted a full year. Or at least a significant portion of one.
No, "the field of liberal arts" is a division of study in university environments. "Art" is a fundamental part of the way in which humans express themselves. The difference is subtle, just like hurricanes and clown make-up.
And that, sir, ain't no joke.
and the author of XKCD takes a gigantic shit down the mouth of liberal arts on his main page?
It's a major part of art to question itself. XKCDs "gigantic shit" is a tame in joke compared with what Magritte and Duchamp did.
WTF is nerd sniping, let alone massively multiplayer online nerd sniping?
We are all RM. Also, we are all Satoshi Nakamoto, Anonymous, Spartacus, screwed, out to get you, living in a yellow submarine, entities in a simulated reality, and Captain.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
You mean that there are people that don't consider most of xkcd a piece of art?
Anyway, of all the amazing, insightful, and informative things things that are in xkcd, probably the one that impressed me more recently was one in What-if, explaining whats the worst that could happen missusing pressure cookers, few days before Boston bombing. That it remains there is a big message.
Is 'Time' a fascinating work of art, a deep sociological experiment â" or the longest-running shaggy-dog joke in history?
or simple all of the above ?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
the punch line had better be unexpected, clever, thought-provoking and off-the-fucking-charts funny, all in one.
Are you a liberal art's major by any chance. A normal person would have interpreted that in the sense it was intended, a joke at the expense of liberal arts majors, it's nothing to get offended about, you should recognise it for what it is, and not as " tak[ing] a gigantic shit down the mouth of liberal arts".
Art is both a process and the product of an attempt to encapsulate and transfer a human experience through a medium.
Without audience, it's just masturbation.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Xkcd's Long-running "Time" Comic: Work of Art Or Nerd Sniping?
Who says nerd sniping can't be art?
Not sure I needed to see Cue Ball take a dump though.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
And there was nothing there.
False dichotomy. Something can be simultaneously both a "Work of Art" (tm) and snipe nerds.
No, "the field of liberal arts" is a division of study in university environments. "Art" is a fundamental part of the way in which humans express themselves. The difference is subtle, just like hurricanes and clown make-up.
Absolutely heroic comment. Mod parent up.
I see something different in the story being told. The characters spend a bit of time building something amazing, and then worry that it's going to be taken away from them. They set out to figure out the reason for that.
Maybe because I've read his blog, or just because of http://xkcd.com/931/ that I see something darker in the story he's telling. Maybe it's just a metaphor, all good stories are. But that, as of now, the characters are almost visually back to where they started seems . . . poignant.
I prefer something less frantic, like: http://smp.uq.edu.au/content/pitch-drop-experiment.
and I feed bad for possibly slashdotting the guy, especially since it's been a bit of an insisider thing. He's been animating since quite early, and it's a long strange trip. Give him money. http://xkcd.aubronwood.com/
Javascript's turned on. Firefox/Iceweasel on Debian wheezy. Refreshed, now I see two miniscule stick figures on a black shoreline looking out over water(?) under a white sky. Zzzzz ...
Wait for it...
And is equally hard on Children and Adults. So, I can't imagine it's too harsh a comment.
The other significant link is to those 20,000++ posts. http://echochamber.me/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=101043 is the start of over 540 pages of discussion about this comic. (With many off topic comments.) It's where you will find more details, but it will take some reading...
Art escapes all attempts to define it. enjoy being wrong.
...your onus is showing.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The backlash is from nerds who have had to confront the fact they are easily entertained...comic is *awesome* and is obviously 'art'
He probably made a full frame 5 minute animated short movie using high-level animation software then saved it as a .gif
With a few tweaks he could write a program to update the comic page with the new frame
Thank you Dave Raggett
You want transcript? Have transcript. You're welcome.
When I first saw "time," I read the caption, "wait for it."
"Wait for what," I thought to myself.
I then spent a brief moment pondering, and then decided that whatever it was I was supposed to wait for was not worth my time, and moved on with my life.
Since then, I've cleaned my garage, put my TV up on my wall, and planted some grass seed, all of which probably would not have been accomplished had I allowed myself that nerdy sense of self-importance that comes with being a self-righteous elitist who misplaces value on "art" projects like this.
or it might just end...
... in decay: http://thecodelesscode.com/case/68
Can a person program a new solution to a problem? Why should anyone be able to stop such a thing? -Richard Stallman
I was puzzled by the image, the first time I saw the regular XKCD page -- I didn't see the point. So I looked at Explain XKCD, and found out it that the image was being updated periodically. I checked in again later, and saw that it was basically an animated movie, which is easily missed if you look at just one static image. The thing is, there's no point to watching an animation going up, one frame at a time, over months. You're not going to get any special insights that way that you can't get when it's completed, by watching the whole thing. You could presumably go back over individual frames at that point if you want to do a close analysis of it. But there's not enough to go on yet to make sense of it.
From what I've seen of this series so far, I'm guessing it will turn out to have some meaning that can be fully explained in a sentence or two.
There's a trend in entertainment of measuring out some serial narrative, one tiny fragment at a time, and encouraging the development of a fanbase that will analyze each succeeding fragment. This happens with Webcomics, and augmented reality games, as well as with series of computer games, series of novels, and television series. While there's no shortage of bunk that appears in the fanbase's theorizing, you'll inevitably see theories emerge that are far more interesting than what the writer originally had in mind. Inevitably, the fanbase will end up burned out and disappointed.
At some point, people need to learn to develop the self-respect to just stop hitting refresh to find out what the answer is to the enigma. Just check in again in a few months, when it's all over. It'll probably seem quite clever or interesting for the minute or two it takes to watch the whole thing.
It's not funny and I certainly don't find it insightful in any way.
And yet others, including myself, do.
That's the funny thing about insight, is that something can trigger it differently in different people.
The fact that even one person finds it insightful nullifies any attempts to claim it is not.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Wait for it...
wow somebody disney and miyazaki studios, the ripping off lion king who is ripping of Kimba the white supremacist lion, the animators are deluxe, pure awe
That's funny, because your wife loves to watch it while we're fucking. She says it reminds her of your style in bed.
Then I told her she has better tits than Megan, and she blew me.
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Thanks, Tips!
I'm not!
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
Many people probably found out from the forums, just like with Click & Drag. XKCD has comics where the full content is not immediately obvious, so people assume there is something more.
null
[Both of course]
I made the mistake of watching Fantasia again recently; it was disappointing. I remember it as impressive and exciting - but now it appears ordinary to the point of dull. At the time it was amazingly innovative, but it's sadly obsolete now, which is a striking reflection of how things develop in culture and film especially. The same applies to the 'speed' with which things happen in films; by modern standards, the films of 20-30 years ago are painfully slow; I guess one could say that the 'language of culture' has developed, in the same way as language itself changes.
I'm surprised that nobody has noticed that this comic is a commentary on how civilization builds over time, but is unaware of how sea-level change affects it. That's all it is, other than a well executed comic. *sigh*
65.0% slashdot pure
Comic sans comic. Yet still I return.
We are also The Exception.
Carol vs. Ghost
If you are watching it unfold as it goes, your imagination can get involved.
It's like reading a book and speculating about what is going to happen. Sure you can do a little of that in a movie running at 24 fps, but not for long before the next bit of info comes along.
There is merit for those watching it in real time.
http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/magazine/articles/2012/john_cage_organ_project_halberstadt
We can see why the new XKCD comics have been lacking any humor or quality....
and a waste of time.
If one really has an interest in understanding human beings, why wouldn't one focus on biology and genetics? Philosophy is interesting as a ~history~ of how people tried to understand humans before the advent of the physical sciences.
what in my comment (you just quoted the whole thing...be more specific if you expect a response) woud indicate otherwise?
Thank you Dave Raggett
I mean, seriously?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
i don't have time to go into art history with you... but i can assure you that all attempts to define art once and for all have failed.
see impressionism, fauvism, in fact any ism that was disruptive to previous isms. they've all been condemned as "not art". can i call upon the principle of induction to say that all further attempts will have the same result?
One, I was not talking about what ISN'T art. The "definition" above does not discard ANY form of art, in fact it includes EVERY form of human expression.
Two, it works because it is not designed to be a tool for recognizing or creating "art" or for determining its "value".
It just explains what art IS, not how to create it. A VERY broad definition - not a map or tutorial.
It essentially describes EVERYTHING that the man does or thinks about in order to express himself as art.
From acting to Zen Buddhism.
Including masturbation.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens