Scallywag

KEYWORDS:

• Synthesis
• Create
• Vision
• Connect
• Patience
• Passion

Is this art? I’m not completely sure. I think it is. It’s certainly what might be called, according to Ellen Dissanayake, “postmodern expression”.

In her piece from our week 3 lesson, Ms. Dissanayake suggests that “postmodernists point out that any “truth” or “reality” is only a point of view…”. This, she suggests, is in opposition to art as something that “reflects a unique and privileged kind of knowledge” about art. (p. 5)

If one views my work as an expression of psychological or emotional effect – that one feels and needs to feel and/or gives pause to understand it in a metaphorical sense – then certainly it would qualify as art according to her thoughts on “art for life’s sake” or what she calls, “palaeoanthropsychobiological” – especially with regards to her third thought on that definition.

This piece has a “species-centered” nature in that it metaphorically speaks across cultures to the appreciation of “the continuity of ourselves and our art making with nature”. (p. 10)

While all this may be true, certainly I have taken the art of another several persons (without consent) and added these elements together to create my own unique statement or communication. This is the essential idea behind “RW culture” that we learned about in this week’s lessons and the L. Lessig reading. This “re-mix” or “mash-up” of another’s work without consent may be – and I believe is – art, but it becomes so after an act of theft. So the question isn’t really if it is art – so much as does it belong to me?

In our assigned reading, (Lessig, L. (2008). Comparing Cultures. Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy (pp. 84-116). New York: Penguin Press HC, The.), I was willing to simply disagree with the author, until I reached page 99. On page 99 he lied to support a point. He began with a nasty half-truth that colors the entirety of his piece and undermines (in my opinion) his argument. I kept waiting to see if he’d address it. But when he got to page 99, the outright lie lead me to nearly reject his entire premise and thesis.

There was much I agreed with. And I agree that the “RW culture” produces much good. I agreed that the process itself creates good. And, I understood his point that RO culture need not be limited – but that RW culture needs to be expanded. But his lie leaves so many caveats in his piece that it’s hard to know where to start.

The essence of his lie was that copyright law (as currently construed) is unjustifiably restrictive. That the value of re-creations or re-interperative creations, or new creations that use previous creations (how ever one might define the essence of “RW culture”), outweighs the importance of copyright holders strict control. That notion is patently false and un-American.

The outright lie on page 99 was when he said, “Because every use triggers the law of copyright, I say that the copyright law supports the technologies used to implement an RO culture. For if DRM says you can read an e-book only twice, all that the technology is doing is implementing a right that the copyright law gives the copyright owner.” The lie is his misunderstanding of rights.

It is a uniquely American notion that our rights are not granted by law, they are not granted by lawmakers, and they are not granted by the constitution. Importantly, our rights are granted by our creator. (However one understands their creator.) Laws are instituted to protect those rights.

Rights are inalienable. We are born with them and they are and should be as little limited as possible. Importantly, they are not (in current law) assumed to be limited, they are assumed to be absolute until justifiably limited by law. When the advancement of technology “allows” for a new right (as he references with the idea of “copying” becoming a “new” right) the notion of rights is such that they are assumed to belong to the right holder, until or unless limited by law and appropriate due process. Copyrights are a form of property rights and are critical to our way of life in this country.

He began his piece with a partial lie – a half-truth. He states categorically (about the rights involved in “commercial return”) that, “This is the proper function of copyright law, and it’s only good justification.” Clearly, not all interests of a copyright holder are about “commercial return”. The author leaves out a host of other considerations. Maybe the artist or holder of the copyright has other reasons for not wanting their right infringed in any way.

In the movie, “Saving Mr. Banks”, we learn about the difficulty and the years of effort Walt Disney went through to secure the rights to produce the movie, “Mary Poppins”. It didn’t take years because they were arguing about how much money to pay for the rights. The author asserted (and was entitled to) a right of control over how the characters in her novel were “treated” in the movie version. Her right stemmed from the love of her father and the respect she wanted shown him and the nanny that helped her family – real people on whom she based the story. Isn’t the right to control like this an eminently just right? If so – I believe it puts the lie to some of the author’s assertions throughout his piece.

Beverly Jones thesis is clearly stated in the abstract, found on the first page of the assigned reading. “New forms of art and technology are frequently cast in the mode of old forms, just as other aspects of material and symbolic culture have been.” “The effects of origins and prior practices in both technology and art on form, content, material, technique, meaning and purpose of computer graphics are explored.” If one finished that sentence by saying “…and purpose of computer graphics are evident”, one sees the thesis. In other words, the present is littered with derivative elements of the past.

One of Jones examples of the old assumptions and familiarities present in the new creation of art of technology was her description of the science fiction works, Aldus Huxley’s “Brave new world” and William Gibson’s “Count Zero” and “Mona Lisa Overdrive”. Jones discusses the new experiences like Huxley’s “Feelies” in “Brave new world” and people plugged into simulated stimulus decks of multisensory simulators (like headphones plugged into a TV). These are experiences of entertainment, like movies and TV, only in advanced format of the future that enhances the experience with more senses involved. But interestingly, they are described and understood as “movie or tv like” experiences. Using the past form for the future experience.

My assignment 8 post example of a modern day computer keyboard is a good example of her thesis. To design a computer is to imagine an entirely new way to deal with word processing. Input forms could be chosen by efficiency and speed. But, what was chosen was what many were already used to. The typewriter keyboard is still today, the most common form of computer information entry.

To chose a keyboard as input method for such an advanced technology device, surely there was a reason for the keyboard lay-out and letter arrangement that made it perfectly suited for use in the new technology computer. Though compelling as an idea, this would be an incorrect assumption. The “Qwerty keyboard”[1] (as described in “History of the computer keyboard.”) was the invention of a fella named Christian Latham Scholes. Interestingly, the letter placement was designed to keep the old style typewriter from frequently jamming, by placing the most frequently used keys separated the furthest distance apart.

The computer manufacturer uses this method not based on utility, but on our familiarity.

BIBIOGRAPHY

1. http://www.computer-hardware-explained.com/history-of-computer-keyboards.html

[1] http://www.computer-hardware-explained.com/history-of-computer-keyboards.html

I have only just in the last few months begun to use Siri on my phone to search the Internet. I know I’m a little behind. At the same time, I started using the built-in microphone for texting. Speaking into the phone, reading the translation, correcting errors, and then sending the text, is a whole lot easier than typing on that tiny little keypad with my big fat fingers.

Reading the assignment and watching and listening to the others, I had this overwhelming question; why do we enter information into a computer with a keypad that looks like it does? It certainly isn’t the most efficient way to do so.

It happens that I know the answer. I’m old enough to have used a manual typewriter for schoolwork. Real typewriter. On paper and everything. I took typing class in high school. We got to use the “brand new technology” IBM Selectric. Pretty high tech stuff.

Obviously the technology has changed and the form has changed. But the input method stayed exactly the same.

In the abstract, at the beginning of her article, Beverly Jones said, “New forms of art and technology are frequently cast in the mode of old forms…” I think the modern day computer keyboard is the perfect example of that.

1. I define spirituality as the experience of a thing or a place or a person at a level of intuition. But that’s not really all of it. Spirituality is a place in me. It’s a location and an address where the essence of me genuinely lives. It’s the authentic place in me. It’s the unbridled, unconstrained truth in me. Spirituality is the connection to the deepest place in us all. The place where you know with utter certainty – without necessarily knowing why or how or when. Spirituality (as Grey called it in the assigned reading on p. 37) is “God’s transcendence.”
2. For me, religion is about salvation. It’s about restoration. It’s the reconnecting of the somehow disconnected. It’s the means to an end. Spirituality is a place and a state and an experience. A spiritual person intentionally lives experientially. A religious person lives with purpose.       Spiritual is a state.       Religious is a practice.       Spirituality is sponge that soaks up and synthesizes all the senses take in, all the mind imagines, and all the heart knows. Religion prescribes the road of right action and belief to the place of utopia.
3. Creativity is release. Creativity is a journey with no particular destination. Creativity is the unbound, unconstrained roller coaster ride through the perfectly present moment. It is the essence of honesty.       Creativity is the flow of a river that cannot be damned and can barely be contained. It’s the river’s ability to re-shape it’s own banks with the force of it’s own flow. Creativity is to “see” honestly, spiritually, and often to freely lose the distinction between oneself and the creation.
4. The source of creativity is the spirit of the artist. Perhaps it truly is God in us all. It is the capacity to connect (as written on page 35 of the reading) to the place where one can effectively transmit “symbolic density”. The source is the headwaters – the well – the fountain of clear vision of the spiritual in ourselves and in us all. It is a very Eastern religious thing to imagine that God is all the atoms of the universe together – at once. Perhaps creativity comes from our ability to see the parts of this truth and the whole at the same time.

The reading came into clarity for me on p. 35. In his work there, (Grey, A. (2001). Art as Spiritual Practice. The Mission of Art (1st ed., pp. 205-233). Boston & London: Shambhala.) the author said, “Meaning in art is the transmission and reception of symbolic density.” I understood that as “art at several levels”, or “art in multiple layers”. But importantly – it is the distinction of the fusion and relativity of the parts that matter. His description of the capacity to see the whole as the sum of the parts and to be able to see the parts individually made sense to me in a way I had not experienced it until that point in the reading. It was for me the first time I had thought of art at all in this way.

The layers and levels of the Psychic Energy System and the chakras discussions helped me see different flavors of the whole. And on p. 3, I got a better sense of viewing a thing – by seeing that when one observe a thing – they do so on different levels – the shape of the thing, the meaning of a thing, and the connection to a thing. The St. Bonaventure “3 eyes of knowing” helped clarify the process of relative experience to an observed thing. The eye of flesh, the eye of reason, and the eye of mystic. And I’d say the that I flashed on inspiration of the grander lesson idea at St. Thomas Aquinas definitional beauty need – of wholeness, harmony, and radiance.

But the whole – the fuller understanding of the appreciation – what the author referred to on page 6 as “the soul’s depth perception” – came clear for me on p. 35.

“The transmission and reception of symbolic density.” For me, this was the capacity of the artist to experience and to make their art – fully engaged – at multiple levels – to do so separately and simultaneously. And it was the capacity of I the viewer to experience all of that – beyond merely seeing. To unpack that density and to have it wash over me all at once on multiple levels. This for me was the essence of creative spirituality.

I had a strong and instinctive response to the title and initial question for this week. “Is food art?” All of the reading from this week and both of the video presentations could not dissuade me one bit from my initial instinct. They did, however, give me a wealth of thought reference and analysis for why I believe that yes, absolutely, food is art.

Elizabeth Telfer’s article, “Food As Art”, was in-depth. But, I was never able to put a finger on how best she thought the question should be approached. There was a good deal of what Dissanayake called the “disinterested” look at many aspects. But, there seemed to me a running theme that the personal appreciation of food was of an assumed superior method of discerning the answer to the initial question.

Telfer didn’t really address the value of food as art for it’s utilitarian components. My daughter and I baking turnovers in the morning is experienced art between us. It’s art as an experience and art that is created when she and I cobble together unmatched ingredients to an artistic end. Finding that we can use Pilsbury Grand biscuits and some left over apple pie filling with our own home made icing to produce apple turnovers was an art of creative use beyond the simple smell, taste and look of the meal.

Food is also an artistic way for me to connect with my children. We don’t ever really enjoy fast food. We grow many, many things in the back yard and make nearly everything we eat from scratch. We work together and we spend that time together and we grow together. In this way, it could be said that the “art of family” or the “art of parenting” is enhanced in our kitchen.

These are points that extend beyond the considerations in either the reading or the videos and certainly there are more. The author refers to food as perhaps a “minor art”. For me, the criteria for whether food is art is whether it allows for the expression of and the enhancement of a cherished value. And, in the case of whether food is art, the simple Dutton test – that it is something “done well” applies as well.

Denis Dutton’s central point and general theme in his TED talk video, “A Darwinian theory of beauty”, that “we find beauty in something done well” was similar to Ellen Dissanayake’s central view of “art for life’s sake”. The thing she called “palaeoanthropsychobioligical” as an idea that “art must be viewed as an inherent universal (or biological) trait of the human species.” Both of these views attempt to place art appreciation in a place of universality while Dissanayake is really shooting for something that splits the hair between modern and post-modern art appreciation.

Innate, cross-cultural and spanning time; the idea that each suggests is that the appreciation of art is essentially universally human and a thing we all are born with and always have been – even as pre-Homo Sapiens.

But if art and our appreciation for beauty are all truly universally human, that implies a very democratic capacity that DOES NOT respect anyone’s particular “disinterested” training in the field of art study. If everyone appreciates art naturally, how can it be something done better by those more studied and why? How can knowledge affect the same joy in something beautiful that would be similarly enjoyed by all?

I also thought Dutton’s point about art as a survival trait was an interesting aside – dissimilar to the shared central points in the reading and the video. Art – or appreciation of beauty – seen in his example of the peahen’s relative appreciation of mail peacock tail plumage influenced mate selection. It’s easy enough to accept at face value our view of beauty as it effects attraction. But the idea that appreciation of beauty effecting our appraisal of another’s inherent worth was sketchy. The possessor of more stone axes – more expertly crafted as a measurement of skill or wealth assessment was kind of a reach.