Thanks to everyone who came out last night to see me talk. It was gratifying to see such a positive response.
We’ll explore some of the topics and themes in the coming weeks, but for now here are the links I promised:
2003 How Much Information? Study
2008 How Much Information? Study (results pending)
Top Ten Awesome Bush Shoe-Toss Animated GIFS
No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July
Enjoy the links and check back soon for more moreness.
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Tags: culture, internet, technology
Thanks so much for doing the presentation – I really enjoyed it, and it’s given me a helpful perspective in my own work!
Thought of some follow-up questions/comments:
1. Is it possible to create thoughtful, meaningful work extremely quickly? What percentage of all that new art is clutter? As technology removes traditional barriers to entry and the quantity of art rises sharply, doesn’t overall quality decline?
2. Do creators of macros, animated gifs and other Internet ephemera consider themselves artists? Or are they participating in an artlike hobby, like scrapbooking?
3. Are new technologies causing the deep weirdness of lolruses and manbabies? Or are they revealing a weirdness that has always been with us but never shared on a global scale?
Not looking for answers, just wanted to add these thoughts to the pile.
Thanks, Dennis!
I enjoyed the talk. Among other things, it called to mind an article, ‘Digital Immigrants, Digital Natives’, that I recently read as part of a teacher training and licensure program. The article and our reflections explored the notion that those of us who grew up before the PC, cell phones, texting, sophisticated computer games, etc. and those who have grown up with these influences are cognitively different.
During the talk and the Q & A that followed, I thought about the concept of digital immigrants and digital natives and how human perceptions, expectations, learning, memory and cognition are changing as well.
Also on the forefront of our mind is how much of perception and creation is also “cultural” and how the quest for originality mentioned as a thread in the talk is also culturally based. As is a “drive for progress” and a belief in the value of material creation/technology. Not to mention a preference for novelty and sensory stimulation through “artificial” means. (I am mixed ethnically and draw from both European-American and Dakota heritages, which are sometimes extremely different and, even, diametrically opposed. In reflecting on themes of diversity, also part of my teacher training, I also was glad to see that this site acknowledges the slide to be ‘The History of (Primarily) Western Art.’
The talk, and my orientation toward recognizing culture as a base of understanding and culture as a creation, left me wondering what others felt about the cultural bases of the talk and the material presented.
Where are we going as a culture? Is this where we want to go?
In my reflections in my teaching courses on Digital Immigrants, Digital Natives and themes of the exponentially changing culture (which were also touched on in this talk/presentation), I shared a quote by Luther Standing Bear (Dakota), which I will share here:
(In speaking of the traditional Dakota elders….)
“He knew that man’s heart away from nature becomes hard, he knew the lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to the lack of respect for humans too.”
The questions I would ask about the way we are “evolving” as a culture, have to do with how we are living apart from nature and that by turning to technology and volumes of information, have we also gotten away from respect for nature and our fellow beings?
Here’s another one:
Civilization has been thrust upon me… and it has not added one whit to my love for truth, honesty, and generosity.
It makes me wonder about the most important things in life, writing and art. How do the new possibilities and the new technologies relate to truth, honesty, generosity, respect and meaning?
Most importantly, perhaps, Dennis’ talk/presentation reminded me of the importance of humor in education.
@Lars: one of your questions reminded me of a blog post I saw recently (sorry, no attribution) that pointed to the circular logic around art.
What is an artist? Someone who makes art. What is art? Something made by an artist. And around and around we go.
Right. So… Can there be art without intent? If the only goal of macro creators is participation, and they do not consider themselves artists, is the end result art?
Lars: We can’t know anything at all about the intentions of the cave painters of Lascaux.
Are those paintings “art”?
If not, then I guess the answer to your question is no. If they are art, though, then it must be that “art” is a quality which inheres in some human artifact, probably some quality which maps somehow onto the human psyche — (a)symmetry, say, or resting pulse rate for music.
Re: what is or isn’t art
If we were doctors and we couldn’t agree what the liver was and we were expected to perform liver surgery in two hours, then I’d be worrying about definitions.
But we’re not. So keep talking about it if you like, but I feel like we have much bigger fish to fry.