[eu-gene] Re: Generative or not?

[Simon Biggs]

I would argue that authorship is the issue. Art is generally concerned with
issues around what it is to be human. Ontology, in short. The reader's take
on an artwork is heavily conditioned by, even primarily defined in relation
to, how they conceive of or identify the author. The artwork is received
with an expectation of expression, of somebody having intent to communicate
something. In Freudian terms, the author and reader are involved in
something similar to a process of transference. They construct themselves
relative to one another.

To problematise this through using compositional and conceptual processes
that are not directly under the control of the apparent author (random
systems, for example) can allow the dynamics that underpin what it is to
make and intepret art to be unpacked. The reader's expectation of the work
is denied and in their confusion as to where it is coming from they face
potential desublimation and possible catharsis. Once rendered uncertain and
exposed to question the processes of making and reading can be developed
within a critical framework.

Many artists in diverse mediums have used this strategy. It can be found in,
is even a defining trope of, current post-modern practice, modernist work
and even the pre-modern (famously Da Vinci's technique of randomly applying
dirty undercoat from which he would develop a composition suggested by the
underlying textures and structures). I will not run through a list of
artists as the approach is so pervasive in practice that it would be easier
to list those (naïve artists) that have not used such processes of authorial
distantiation. What unites these artists is that they all concern themselves
with how self comes into being through the making and reading of art.

Best

Simon


On 10.05.06 16:39, Pall Thayer wrote:

> Also, regarding authorship - I don't think this is an issue at all if
> the work can be successfully conceptualized. Authorship lies in the
> concept.
> 
> Pall Thayer


Simon Biggs

simon at littlepig.org.uk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk/

Professor of Digital Art, Sheffield Hallam University

s.biggs at shu.ac.uk
http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/cs/cri/adrc/research2/