'An example of ['virtual'] would be the meaning, or sense, of a proposition, which is not a material aspect of that proposition (whether it be written or spoken) but is nonetheless an attribute of that proposition.'
propositions are a cheap way to enact or re-enact certain scenarios via metaphor. i still do not understand why the 'real' is preferred in culture today. why is the physical 'enactment' of a francis allys / felix gonzales torres / marina abromavic narrative better than the depiction of that narrative? is it just the aesthetics of reportage? why is it still more exciting to hear about something that 'actually happened' even if that event is completely abstract to you? is it just the 'authenticity effect' of photography or the 'news item'? i understand the hierarchy of real over virtual in terms of food, rent, etc, but why does this extend into the virtual worlds of digital and print culture? is reality simply a better narrator?
why is there an expectation to commit resources to constructing an 'art piece' when those resources could be used for something 'useful' instead?
why actually transport a dead tree from the amazon to seattle? why not just not and say we did? why not say that part of the art piece is no one is allowed to see any evidence of the tree's relocation? why not use a hundredth of a tree and print the narrative on paper instead?
Obviously, I view comics as a space of the virtual / the proposition. A space to propose any of those artistic things that cost a ton of resources - plays, films, 'acts', installations, sculpture, architecture, etc.
2 contemporary art trends in the last decade: newspaper aesthetics, re-enactments / reconstructions,
1 popular tv show: the office
35 comments:
Fake reality or no reality is stupid I played second life and it was dumb, reality for most people is something that happens to you, if you can do art then maybe you that gives you some control of it. However, the artist should not be in total control, you are in control as an artist over the world you are creating, but I believe you are also responsible to actual reality. Otherwise, without that responsibility, what you are doing is meaningless. Some people think meaningless is cool and cutting edge but I played second life and it was stupid. I like the idea of the artist as having an unmeasurable debt to pay off to the actual world at the same time as she creates an imagined one
But yeah if you want to totally divorce yourself from reality then I think it's a cop out to stop with asking whether you should use trees, like if you're divorcing yourself from reality why would you even make something at all instead of just playing second life which like akk forms of advanced media consumption is a kind of simulated creativity that actually produces nothing. If you produce something actual I can't see how you can get around it being part of actuality, so that's why I'm saying that's it's B.S. to ask these questions as long as you are still talking about art, as long as you are still calling yourself artist, you are part of reality, no way around it
i played first life and it was meaningless
@molech i think there's degrees of virtuality
paper is a soft screen
the computer monitor is a dynamic screen
thought processes are even more virtual
2nd life and 1st life - there are lots of inbetweens - magic circles
if you try to destroy this world to create your new one then you are going to just end up recreating the old one with all its shittiness, because that's called assuming the god position and assuming the god position reproduces unconscious bias. the only way you can do something radical is to stay within this reality while you are creating the new one then you can create something that's actually different. computers are cool though
someone making an architectural plan is not destroying the reality of existing architecture
someone writing a novel isn't destroying 'real' events
idk
This is the problem with traditional western metaphysics and the top->down perspective it presents of reality. When the question that you pose seems legitimate to your mind your perception of reality is completely alienated. Start over and develop a bottom->up perspective then see what you think of this question.
yeah not destroying sorry just oblivious to
you can also think of it as words (abstractions) vs concrete reality
think of space as words (streets, cities, etc) or physical but probably you think of both at the same time
i don't think there's a hierarchy of relevance or value - virtual and concrete are omnipresent and have always been!
if it seems like i am valuing virtual more than concrete it is perhaps because i see a bias against virtual
'why is there an expectation to commit resources to constructing an 'art piece' when those resources could be used for something 'useful' instead?'
because resources are always used on the most horrible things. art is a good neutral use of resources...instead of attaching widgets to gizmos the rest of my life for someone elses benefit, id like to make some drawings and bind them in a book. maybe someday the entire world will do this too.
if we all stopped attaching widgets, and instead focused on recording the strange patterns/stories in our brains and focused on distributing that recording...that would be nice.
Abstractions are a by-product of psychology where as the concrete is a by-product of cosmology. Cosmology causally supersedes psychology, one has been around for almost infinitely longer. You're presenting a false equivalency.
The thing about realness vs. virtualness is that "real," physical things are comprised of more unexpected data than virtual things. Think: the dust on a Donald Judd sculpture or rendered Sol LeWitt plans. These are simplistic, schematic examples, but they speak to how in physical things form and content can't be extricated in the same way that they can in virtual things. I guess it's a matter of degree. I feel like the more "extraneous" data in there the better - it deepens the work, makes it richer by virtue of being less unpackable, less controlled by the creator.
aka what C. Bren said
Or the same BS I always say: maps of reality (language) aren't the same thing as reality. The videogame still you posted bears so little relation to the day Kennedy was shot. It's just some elements that the designers decided were important to signify that day. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's easy to get the two confused. Maybe that's worrisome.
I'd rather make new virtual things instead of going for verisimilitude. Again, though, it's degree.
@Ian
I think you just confused cosmology with the cosmos.* The latter is indeed concrete (more or less), while the former is an abstraction that relies on abstractions to communicate observed phenomena. I have little to no access to the cosmos at all except through a number of concepts such as 'universe,' 'multiverse,' 'black hole,' 'supernova' and so on. The thought images and various personal associations I develop from these ideas are all virtual and while having a relationship with the concrete, are not themselves concrete.
As long as humanity has been conscious** we have engaged with the virtual as a means to make metaphors of the concrete and the concrete as a means to recreate the metaphors of the virtual.
I posted a link on the last post to a free track from David Byrne's Bicycle Diaries audiobook where he talked about city life as the direct manifestation or mapping of the human mind. (My comment disappeared, but: DavidByrne.com etc. easy to find)
The popular kitsch film Koyaanisqatsi illustrates this idea quite subtly and with tongue firmly in cheek.
@c.bren Re:
"I like the idea of the artist as having an unmeasurable debt to pay off to the actual world at the same time as she creates an imagined one"
I actually agree with that. It's hard for me not to see that as the only beings with the capabilities we have, at least in our neck of the woods, why there is not some grand role for us to play in terms of expressing what it means to be the only thing able to express this awareness. It's a lonely hole, it needs to be filled with a song.
@blaise
I'm not sure if there's such a bias against the virtual anymore. The relative ubiquity of internet usage along with the reality of popular entertainment (based on illusion, magic, and myth) means that most people engage willingly with the virtual all the time, perhaps at times to their detriment. I think if there's a bias now it's in the way the virtual bleeds into the concrete.
We fear that conspiracy theorists, hackers and trolls will bring their immense bad feeling offline and produce chaos or, based on clear mental illness, shoot a bunch of people. In some cases, the worry is legitimate. But the anxiety underlying this mixing of the two, is I think the deeper, more ambiguous anxiety. The idea that concrete phenomena like common objects, scenes, environments, and interactions can be revealed as no more than virtual is a territory worth really investigating.
The 00s saw an increasing deteriorating of the sanctity of the art object as virtual reproducibility persuaded us of the smallness of our creations (and consequently I think, ourselves--a regrettable progression imo). Art objects had to remind us that they were mere objects, unmonumental carriers of information and essentially unimpressive shells with little lasting value.
I'd like to see the magic of the virtual rescued from the mess of the internet and reintegrated with the concrete. A return to suspension of disbelief, of multiplied possibilities and opportunities, and an invigoration of the virtual within the concrete would, I hope, will rescue us from "Interior Semiotics" performances and the excess of bad trash art that seems to have helped define the last decade.
*You also seem to have confused psychology, a highly imperfect and very recent study of the mind, with the mind itself
**I'm reading a book currently that suggests this only came about 3,000 years ago
[additional note @Ian: if you were saying that the cosmos has been around longer than consciousness...probably true. maybe not though..]
Also, Pam Beasley
h t t p : / / i 5 5 . t i n y p i c . c o m / 2 e 1 6 7 b 4 . j p g
Conversely, metaphors of the concrete already exist online. See the rise of internet galleries as recreating the professional aura of the commercial and nonprofit institution.
I think of Comets Comets as a real place, like a corner pub that I stop by regularly to unwind and air my thoughts, get buzzed on info, and tell some joe-ks.
I might try out a trendy martini bar (dump.fm) every now and again or open a place of my own on a whim, but for now, I like the corner pub best of all.
"[additional note @Ian: if you were saying that the cosmos has been around longer than consciousness...probably true. maybe not though..]"
I thought he had solved the question once and for all.
@David, i'm using the terms cosmological and psychological to evoke the natural processes themselves, not necessarily the study of those processes. Also, i think your statement about your perceived distance from the cosmos is a perfect example of the kind of dualism that I'm criticizing vis-a-vis traditional western metaphysics. Dualism itself being a kind of bias towards the virtual. You aren't distanced from the cosmos at all, you are smack dab in the middle of it. All psychology is biology, all biology is micro-geology, all geology is micro-cosmology.
Ian, at the risk of encouraging a boring semantic argument, the words you used were 'cosmology' and 'psychology'
which are not the same as 'the cosmological' and 'the psychological' which might be vague enough to include the concrete objects of study (cosmos) as well as the study (cosmology)
evoke what you like (really, plz do) but -logy means a field of study, not its concrete object
i never said anything about being distanced from the cosmos. i agree completely with the popular saganism about the cosmos within and being made of stars. there is no evidence that the stars are aware of this fact though. that's the difference. i think the duality between so-called western metaphysics and eastern ideas about a flowing, continuous cosmos is the truly false duality. humanity is part of and specially removed from "the vast emptiness of space" (carl sagan again).
the great joy is that our brains allow us --perhaps 'incorrectly'-- to attribute being, character, personality, life and vitality to matter that we can find no interior consciousness within...a constant process of attributing meaning and discovering its absence, each aspect being just as important as the other
our self-deception is our story and all the richer because it is our eternal condition
[stephen hawking has said his experiences in zero gravity were some of the most profound of his entire life. perhaps this is because the vast majority of known matter exists in a similar state: infinitely oriented and totally undirected]
Ian, I agree with your last two sentences 100%.
I'm just trying to draw a distinction between the top/down hierarchical thinking of traditional metaphysics (and the lineage of methodologies that developed along that tradition, which, sorry guys, includes Post-Modernism) and the bottom/up thinking of scientific naturalism. One of these days I'm going to launch into a tirade about how every other area of the humanities has abandoned traditional meta-physics and that the fact that the world of fine art (in particular) still embraces it is all the evidence one needs of it's irrelevancy.
@JO
i really like that link you posted. virtual abstract objects .. fragment as expanse .. close to thought.
great video interview about that issue here
"It's a lonely hole, it needs to be filled with a song."
Sometimes I like to think that we are the world's way of perceiving and expressing itself.
"The idea that concrete phenomena like common objects, scenes, environments, and interactions can be revealed as no more than virtual is a territory worth really investigating."
That is an awesome statement
@jason re dust: yeah
also @c.bren it seems impossible to be 'totally virtual'
the 'lack of dust' in virtual environments will always be present - it will never be 'normal'
it's always about language
which is why @ian i think your argument can't be made ... i remember being very anxious and texting jason something like 'why is everything binary' and him saying it's built into the language
'I like the idea of the artist as having an unmeasurable debt to pay off to the actual world at the same time as she creates an imagined one'
that is a great statement
@david i'm glad you enjoy this pub
i feel in myself even, however, a bias toward the actual. i guess actually now it makes sense ... like there is a hierarchy ... maybe ... idk
i think when i'm healthy irl my thoughts are completely virtual
and when i'm addicted to the internet i'm (ironically?) searching for the concrete
has anyone seen that cartoon of a man on the internet thinking about sex, then him having sex thinking about the internet?
I'm not sure that I agree that it's always about language. Is mathematics a language? I don't think so, not by my definition of language at least. Mathematics is how we understand the concrete world. We express that understanding via language, but we understand the data itself via the pure logic of mathematics which is itself a reflection of physical causality. In other words there is something before language.
mathematics is a map. It's not "real," only virtual.
Just because there are patterns, doesn't mean they have to have been designed as an inherent property of reality.
Jason, I think you missed my point by a degree. The expression of mathematics is language, but the perception of mathematics (observed from nature) is not language. It isn't necessary to express mathematical concepts to another person in order to take action. Just the same it isn't necessary for a physicist to express a concept in language or in mathematical notation in order for him/her to understand it. A rat doesn't need to explain to itself whether or not the cage door is open, whether the binary representing the cage door is 1 or 0. language was developed, mathematics was discovered.
@blaise
my favorite times irl are often a scene that i feel able to enjoy and layer vr over / can involve very minimal participation / just open the scene to a loose story and run in it but remain calm irl
..
online, i want to participate more because i miss the tactile, i miss molding
excited for vr objects to finally get here (option 3)
Yes - the patterns/principles "exist," but mathematics doesn't exist.
In the same way that grass ( or french toast, my car, Gary Busey), not just the word or the symbol, but the thing itself, exists but doesn't exist. We perceive this recurring pattern and call it grass, but non-human perceivers might see things on a smaller or larger or unknown scale and not conflate whatever their senses detect when they look at what we call grass with grass.
Frdpiyr yhr despite the intensity of his gaze, derspit4e its directness, Subject did not see Object; not as he and others would see it, coming upon it thus for the first time; that his mind and his eyes did nto focus fully upon the objects they regarded - were too relstless, evasive,. there was possessivenewss, appetite in his eyes, but no concentration, no tranquliity. Subject looked ad things, receieved an impression of desiarability and, obeying his primitive instincts, snatched without consideartion, without sentient appreciation of context, as a child snatc ches at loveoly wayside flowers, loks, smells, and idly drops, when drawn to the next gay attraction.
thanks for the info rrryan, that was really interesting stuff..i yeah, i
i likt it
Milton was a multi-millionaire in the monopoly game. Milton was deaf and mailed his ear to Beethoven. He was born inside of a log cabin, with animals around looking at him. Until a cherry tree fell on it. Then he grew to 150 years old and threw apple cores everywhere. He commited suicide by growing really long fingernails.
Danger drew a direct dialectic between the relevant revolving memories and belittled Blaise. Blaise bellowed melodiously, mocking the literal laudanum he was 'bout to imbibe. The bane, mistook Burroughs for what once he misused.
For most people under
twenty in Europe and North America, the lack of alternatives to
capitalism is no longer even an issue. Capitalism seamlessly
occupies the horizons of the thinkable.
But the high existential angst of Nirvana
and Cobain belongs to an older moment; what succeeded them
was a pastiche-rock which reproduced the forms of the past
without anxiety.
super-identification with capital
The role of capitalist ideology is not to make an
explicit case for something in the way that propaganda does, but
to conceal the fact that the operations of capital do not depend on
any sort of subjectively assumed belief. It is impossible to
conceive of fascism or Stalinism without propaganda - but
capitalism can proceed perfectly well, in some ways better,
without anyone making a case for it.
Capitalist realism as I understand it cannot be confined to art or
to the quasi-propagandistic way in which advertising functions.
It is more like a pervasive atmosphere, conditioning not only the
production of culture but also the regulation of work and
education, and acting as a kind of invisible barrier constraining
thought and action.
If capitalist realism is so seamless, and if current forms of
resistance are so hopeless and impotent, where can an effective
challenge come from? A moral critique of capitalism, emphasizing
the ways in which it leads to suffering, only reinforces
capitalist realism. Poverty, famine and war can be presented as an
inevitable part of reality, while the hope that these forms of
suffering could be eliminated easily painted as naive utopianism.
Capitalist realism can only be threatened if it is shown to be in
some way inconsistent or untenable; if, that is to say, capitalism's
ostensible 'realism' turns out to be nothing of the sort.
The 'mental health plague' in capitalist
societies would suggest that, instead of being the only social
system that works, capitalism is inherently dysfunctional, and
that the cost of it appearing to work is very high.
Depression is
Usually characterized as a state of anhedonia, but the condition
I'm referring to is constituted not by an inability to get pleasure
so much as it by an inability to do anything else except pursue
pleasure. There is a sense that 'something is missing' - but no
appreciation that this mysterious, missing enjoyment can only be
accessed beyond the pleasure principle.
since the development of serious anti-capitalist critique about 150 years ago, capitalism has accelerated wildly.
criticism as the primary tool is clearly worthless.
developing a positive, realistic, and attractive alternate model or actually defining goals based on shared values (rather than highlighting oppressed margins and niche politics) could be a way out of the feedback loop.
real people don't want to feel guilty about their sweatshop socks and frozen pizzas. duh
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