[PD] [PD-announce] Piksel video report: Sonification of IT censorship technologies

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Thu, 23 Dec 2010, Derek Holzer wrote:

> This is a classic example of the ongoing (mis)communication(s) between 
> artists and scientists. In this case, I think Mathieu is confusing the 
> purpose of art with the purpose of a scientific paper.

That's right, the purpose of art is to have no purpose. Thus spake Captain 
Haddock, as he explained why he had bought a large plexiglas sculpture of 
the letter H, in Tintin's (unfinished) opus 24 : 
http://www.decitre.fr/gi/16/9782203017016FS.gif

;)

> One's aim is to establish and demonstrate facts, the other to explore 
> possibilities and inspire imaginative (and often non-linear) 
> connections.

That's a typical Romantic conception of it. Before that time, art and 
technique were largely interchangeable words (they still can be, depending 
on context), and a lot more people knew that the word «technique» comes 
from classical greek «τέχνη», which has several meanings including «art» 
and «craftsmanship». In Romantic times, an anti-scientific strand of 
artists took over, who were really obsessed by their emotions. We are 
still under that influence, but the reason we're having this discussion is 
in part because there is a partial reconvergence of art and science 
happening these years. Some may call it a confusion.

I think that it's pretty clear that to establish and demonstrate facts, 
one needs to explore possibilities and inspire imaginative (and often 
non-linear) connections. It's so intertwined, that it's necessary.

Nevertheless, in the scientific culture, much of the «artsy» part of the 
job has been swept under the carpet although the job's greatest successes 
depends on it. (I guess that this would be why Einstein appears in that 
book about creativity that was mentioned some days ago)

> For me, far too much of this art-science stuff errs on the side of 
> technical demonstration.

If technical demonstration can be one of the many purposes of art, ... 
Gallery contents of the last century is one long argument that art can be 
anything at all and always escapes any definition.

I too think that art errs a lot : someone needs to pee in Duchamp's 
urinal, imho. We just don't quite agree on which art is erring.

Yet at once, I don't wish that Marco's work had been a technical 
demonstration ; it's not what I said. My wish is about valuing the 
possibility to sense the input through the output. That does happen to be 
a necessary feature of scientific visualisation and/or sonification, but 
it doesn't mean art can't have this feature.

> The flip side of that coin is that poetry is often unquantifiable 
> ("program me something sad" says the media artist to their trusty 
> technician) and causes segfaults in engineer-type brains ;-)

It's more like "program me something interesting" and then the 
engineer-type brain suspects he's being asked to be the artist, and that 
the nominal artist is in fact some kind of curator except he gets the 
credit for the whole thing.

But that's the worst case : usually it's a lot more pleasant than that, 
and the artists' requirements are usually very graspable.

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| Mathieu Bouchard ---- tél: +1.514.383.3801 ---- Villeray, Montréal, QC