23.10.08
Hackjam 10.22.08
Discussion topics: puzzles, communication, form/content interrelationships, the livescribe pulse, Steven Wright, logic puzzles, cellular automata.
We had a lengthy conversation on how art and communication can work together, and how they can work against each other. We came to no conclusions, but I thought it might be interesting to talk a little about how I think about the form/content interrelationship, and why it's so important to me in art critique and analysis. I'll do it a bit jesuitically, because I think art criticism is too often left too open to opinion --- let's all share the same language, shall we?
For the sake of brevity and generality, I will refer to a work of art as an artifact. The artifact is the actual painting, sculpture, poem, novel... even performance art leaves behind a temporal artifact, which is the primary means of the audience experiencing the piece.
The audience is anyone who comes in contact with the artifact. Note that this is distinguished from the intended audience, which are the people the artist expects or desires to come in contact with the artifact.
The content is the change in the audience caused by contact with the artifact. That is a trickier definition than is often put forward. This definition does not discriminate based on what the content is --- only where it comes from. What is worth taking away from this definition is that content can with a single thought be cleaved from intended content, just as audience and intended audience are distinct. As critics we are as much, if not much more, concerned with the content as with the intended content.
Finally, the hardest one. Form is the thingness of a thing. The form of a painting is the color, line, texture, surface, and technique used to paint it. The form of a poem is the prosody, the rhyme, the aural, temporal, and visual texture of the artifact. The context of the work (where, when, and how the audience comes in contact with it) is also a formal aspect. When we say "That's well made" we're discussing the form.
The relationship between from and content is of the utmost importance to the creation of a successful artifact. To understand why, we need to look even closer at what content is --- and more importantly where content is. "[...] content is the change in the audience caused by contact with the artifact." Content only exists when the artifact comes in contact with the audience. Without an audience, content cannot exist. How does the audience know what to do? How do they know how they are supposed to change in order to create the proper content? There is no "audience instruction manual," is there? How can the artist tell the audience what to do when they don't even know who the audience is?
There is only one way for the artist to communicate with the audience --- through the artifact itself; through it's form.
Guernica communicates the anguish of the bombing through line, shape, color, size, and context. Without performing a complete critique of the work (which you could find by doing this), we can see why the form is so important by performing a heavy-handed thought experiment. Can you imagine a photorealistic color image of an unhappy horse, that was, say, 8" by 10"? Compare that to the screaming animal in the center of Guernica (keeping in mind that the whole painting is more than 25 feet long). Would the content be the same? Or does the rough and broken line of the mother and child, the broken and offset curve of the bull's horns, the impossible jagged edge of the fallen sword, do they accomplish something that a different form could not, despite having the same intended content?
The relationship between form and content is impossible difficult, almost invisible, and it is what makes art art.
On calling my shots:
Last week I did get a post for makerfaire, I did not complete my post on drawing, but I did get some work on it done. It will go up this week. Score: 1/2.
This week I call:
We had a lengthy conversation on how art and communication can work together, and how they can work against each other. We came to no conclusions, but I thought it might be interesting to talk a little about how I think about the form/content interrelationship, and why it's so important to me in art critique and analysis. I'll do it a bit jesuitically, because I think art criticism is too often left too open to opinion --- let's all share the same language, shall we?
For the sake of brevity and generality, I will refer to a work of art as an artifact. The artifact is the actual painting, sculpture, poem, novel... even performance art leaves behind a temporal artifact, which is the primary means of the audience experiencing the piece.
The audience is anyone who comes in contact with the artifact. Note that this is distinguished from the intended audience, which are the people the artist expects or desires to come in contact with the artifact.
The content is the change in the audience caused by contact with the artifact. That is a trickier definition than is often put forward. This definition does not discriminate based on what the content is --- only where it comes from. What is worth taking away from this definition is that content can with a single thought be cleaved from intended content, just as audience and intended audience are distinct. As critics we are as much, if not much more, concerned with the content as with the intended content.
Finally, the hardest one. Form is the thingness of a thing. The form of a painting is the color, line, texture, surface, and technique used to paint it. The form of a poem is the prosody, the rhyme, the aural, temporal, and visual texture of the artifact. The context of the work (where, when, and how the audience comes in contact with it) is also a formal aspect. When we say "That's well made" we're discussing the form.
The relationship between from and content is of the utmost importance to the creation of a successful artifact. To understand why, we need to look even closer at what content is --- and more importantly where content is. "[...] content is the change in the audience caused by contact with the artifact." Content only exists when the artifact comes in contact with the audience. Without an audience, content cannot exist. How does the audience know what to do? How do they know how they are supposed to change in order to create the proper content? There is no "audience instruction manual," is there? How can the artist tell the audience what to do when they don't even know who the audience is?
There is only one way for the artist to communicate with the audience --- through the artifact itself; through it's form.
Guernica communicates the anguish of the bombing through line, shape, color, size, and context. Without performing a complete critique of the work (which you could find by doing this), we can see why the form is so important by performing a heavy-handed thought experiment. Can you imagine a photorealistic color image of an unhappy horse, that was, say, 8" by 10"? Compare that to the screaming animal in the center of Guernica (keeping in mind that the whole painting is more than 25 feet long). Would the content be the same? Or does the rough and broken line of the mother and child, the broken and offset curve of the bull's horns, the impossible jagged edge of the fallen sword, do they accomplish something that a different form could not, despite having the same intended content?
The relationship between form and content is impossible difficult, almost invisible, and it is what makes art art.
On calling my shots:
Last week I did get a post for makerfaire, I did not complete my post on drawing, but I did get some work on it done. It will go up this week. Score: 1/2.
This week I call:
- Successfully programming the livescribe pulse with my own program
- Completing my rough nanowrimo outline
- Completing last weeks drawing post and adding another
posted by Sam Bleckley # 12:29 
