13 years is not such a long time really

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/05/margaret-atwood-new-work-unseen-century-future-library

I like that idea, but what makes her think there will be enough of civilization left over, that people will publish books and read them?

  On 9/6/2014 at 12:13 AM, Verdant Hickies said:

I like that idea, but what makes her think there will be enough of civilization left over, that people will publish books and read them?

I guess she isn't hopelessly depressed about humanity

An awful lot of this artist's output seems like gross conceptual wank to me...

http://www.katiepaterson.org/insidethisdesert/

A grain of sand collected from the Sahara Desert was chiselled to 0.00005mm, using special techniques in nanotechnology. This new minute grain of sand was then taken back to the Sahara and buried deep within its vast desert sands.

http://www.katiepaterson.org/starletters/

Upon hearing the news that a star has died, the artist writes and posts a letter, announcing its death.

http://www.katiepaterson.org/moonlight/

Produced with the lighting company OSRAM in series of 'lifetimes', each set contains a sufficient quantity of light bulbs to provide a person with a lifetime supply of moonlight, based on the current average life-span for a human being alive in 2008. (Each bulb burns for 2000 hours, a lifetime contains 289 bulbs).

Reminds me a bit fo the Wu-Tang making an album of which there is only single copy that they plan to sell for $$$ - still looking, last I heard: http://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2014/05/06/unlocking-the-wu-tang-clans-secret-album-in-morocco/

I'm not too keen on postmodernism, and think future generations will write this off as shallow egotism. Call me old-fashioned but I feel that if people need to read an artists statement in order to be able to appreciate the piece then it's 'art as advertising campaign', just without a commercial product behind it - although the light bulb piece linked above is pretty much an overt marketing exercise. To me that's like saying that people who encounter art can't be trusted to form their own opinions or have their own aesthetic exsperiences so they need to have it defined for them.

/grumpy_old_man

I agree anigbrowl. It annoys me that these people get funded for shit such as this. It's not art

  On 9/6/2014 at 4:12 AM, anigbrowl said:

http://www.katiepaterson.org/insidethisdesert/

A grain of sand collected from the Sahara Desert was chiselled to 0.00005mm, using special techniques in nanotechnology. This new minute grain of sand was then taken back to the Sahara and buried deep within its vast desert sands.

what does this even mean?

this does not mean anything ??

It's supposed to make you re-evaluate your pre-conceptions about scale by creating a situation where grains of sand are monstrously huge in comarison to the tiny thing the author has created. I sympathize with the creative intent but the approach reminds me of the sort of person who corners you at a party and lectures you on their favorite topic - if you're not excited enough they assume that you don't really understand rather than that you might simply have a different opinion about how important it is. Maybe it's art that's meant to please art critics, who make their living out of talking about art anyway. I personally feel that art is better without text, for the same reason I prefer instrumental music, and prefer that the lyrics I do listen to be more ambiguous/absract - language is a very powerful cultural filter and it can exclude as much as it can clarify. It seems to me that the value of art is that it bypasses the verbal clutter in your mind to provide you with a direct sensory experience, so you can project yourself into the artist's mood or viewpoint in some more direct fashion than merely talking about it. That nonverbal directness is what can give a work of art such a powerful impact.

Like this art from Francis Bacon is very ugly and like a lot of his work it makes me very uncomfortable to look at it, but he's achieving that effect by the art itself and challenging me to engage with it. I've learned a little but about him and his art by studying stuff people have written about it, but the reason I got interested in the first place was because his his art transfixed me in the first place despite being sort of repulsive. I didn't need to read any statement or have an intermediary tell me what sort of feelings I should expect to experience.

Likewise this artist (Istvan Sandorfi, now dead sadly) made a very immediate impact on me, I was walking down the street ~10 years ago when I saw a bunch of his paintings in a gallery and they grabbed my attention so strongly I nearly feel over. The gallery was closed but the owner was inside and saw my reaction, and he was kind enough to invite me in and show me a whole collection of the guy's work and give me a catalog as a gift. I can't afford any of his art but I ended up spending quite a bit of cash on a book of his work later on.

To me the important thing about art is not that it has to be beautiful or understandable or even technically good, but that it can evoke an emotional response simply by being there at the time you run into it. A piece of techno music I overheard by chance in my mid-20s changed the whole direction of my life because it I heard and loved the acid workout and over the following years ended up learning all about synths and then becoming a professional sound engineer (I'm sure most people on WATMM have had similarly important musical experiences). Not that there's anything wrong with being introduced to art by a curator or in some other context, but if the art can't function without that textual or critical intermediary, then what good is it?

  On 9/6/2014 at 11:42 AM, anigbrowl said:

It's supposed to make you re-evaluate your pre-conceptions about scale by creating a situation where grains of sand are monstrously huge in comarison to the tiny thing the author has created. I sympathize with the creative intent but the approach reminds me of the sort of person who corners you at a party and lectures you on their favorite topic - if you're not excited enough they assume that you don't really understand rather than that you might simply have a different opinion about how important it is. Maybe it's art that's meant to please art critics, who make their living out of talking about art anyway. I personally feel that art is better without text, for the same reason I prefer instrumental music, and prefer that the lyrics I do listen to be more ambiguous/absract - language is a very powerful cultural filter and it can exclude as much as it can clarify. It seems to me that the value of art is that it bypasses the verbal clutter in your mind to provide you with a direct sensory experience, so you can project yourself into the artist's mood or viewpoint in some more direct fashion than merely talking about it. That nonverbal directness is what can give a work of art such a powerful impact.

 

 

Like this art from Francis Bacon is very ugly and like a lot of his work it makes me very uncomfortable to look at it, but he's achieving that effect by the art itself and challenging me to engage with it. I've learned a little but about him and his art by studying stuff people have written about it, but the reason I got interested in the first place was because his his art transfixed me in the first place despite being sort of repulsive. I didn't need to read any statement or have an intermediary tell me what sort of feelings I should expect to experience.

nice analogy to electronic music/lyrics. I think I can agree with this :)

This is ridiculous boring and unimportant. I´m just thinking about the whole organisation and money. oh lord

oh and is there not something similiar (saw it in the movie Knowing with Nicolas Page) where kids hide their drawings or thougts in the "schoolgarden" and open it after 10 years ??

In 100 years time in our post apocalyptic Mad Max style world, some dude will discover this and think what a load of shit. Why were they chiseling grains of sand instead of curing cancer or stopping carbon emissions. Fuck this.

Today I learned: I won't live until 2114.

2deep4me

P.s.: I actually like Margaret Atwood a lot, so I hope her contribution is secretly just some unsalable bullshit she wrote at 19.

  On 9/6/2014 at 11:42 AM, anigbrowl said:

I personally feel that art is better without text, for the same reason I prefer instrumental music, and prefer that the lyrics I do listen to be more ambiguous/absract - language is a very powerful cultural filter and it can exclude as much as it can clarify. It seems to me that the value of art is that it bypasses the verbal clutter in your mind to provide you with a direct sensory experience, so you can project yourself into the artist's mood or viewpoint in some more direct fashion than merely talking about it. That nonverbal directness is what can give a work of art such a powerful impact.

I have never seen anybody echo my sentiments on this subject with such accuracy and eloquence - kudos!

Better late than never

Lovely post anigbrowl.

Thanks for the kind words folks. I've been lurking a long time but I really enjoy this community.

  On 9/6/2014 at 11:42 AM, anigbrowl said:

I sympathize with the creative intent but the approach reminds me of the sort of person who corners you at a party and lectures you on their favorite topic - if you're not excited enough they assume that you don't really understand rather than that you might simply have a different opinion about how important it is.

Spot on.

I didn't understand this thread.

edit: because I read it at 2am

Time stated is incorrect