MarMarMar

boggs

I guess I’m just confused as to how Baudelaire invented originality in infinite copies- yes, he was a translator, but that is not quite the same as a copy. I think it is a little more straight forward to understand the idea of creating original works through means of multiple copies that all exist together at one time. The sociopoetic experiment really just sounds like mass production and the feigning of art as “customization”. I suppose that I took that the wrong way-(today I am reading and writing simultaneously). To re-evaluate:

“the term sociopoetic describes artworks that use social situations or social networks as a canvas…how situations function poetically (or sociopoetically…”

“how artists and poets manipulate and score situations.”

“social situations that function as part of an artwork or poem”

The thing that I find most interesting in Boggs’ project is the “artificial value” that is created. I do understand how it frightens the government, I think it is less, at least for them, less about him using the money and more about them worrying it will fall into the wrong hands. It is all good and fun and subversive for the people who participate in this network but say, someone else got a hold of the drawing. Anyhoo- that’s really not the point of the article. What I meant to address is that Boggs’ creates a whole new market. A community. A group that agrees to abide by certain rules, and crosses over from one group to the next i.e. getting actual correct change for his Bogg’s money purchases.

To be honest- I think this guy is a shmuck. It is an interesting concept and power to the person who has passion to follow their own but, really. Why mess with this. I have no moral feelings about it, whether it’s right or wrong. I just see this as more hassle than progress. I think his money becomes counterfeit as soon as he tries to pay for something and the people don’t know it’s not real. Whether, or not they choose to follow along is the point. When they do, then yes, that is the interesting part. That is where the social agreement and collaboration begins. That is the gift economy. I think I may be wrong, that he always only gives it to people who know about it. So, in that case. Then yes, I think it is quite progressive.

I like the part where the waiter brings the change back, as a drawing. That seems to be to be the most successful part of the works. But, I also just like the idea of more people being involved. It seems to make the project less sneaky when more people are in on it.

I wonder if they charged tax on the Boggs’ bill purchases. It doesn’t seem like they should- since it’s not a political transaction.

Now that we have all this straightened out- no, not real money, yes small group of people participate. I wonder how exactly the government got involved. And why, they feel the need to intervene. (I know- my opinions have changed, and all in the span of a few paragraphs. So-

“I can neither read nor write what you produce, but I receive it,”


okay- so can someone explain all these references?
“[20] Artists have often imagined the combination of Surrealism and Fordism, the combination, that is, between American efficient know-how, also known as Big Business, and European Avant-Garde absurdity. Of course, this combination is always conjured as a Kafka-esque nightmare in the style of the film Brazil”


I think I have heard of this-
“teachers” followed orders to inflict supposedly fatal shocks to “students,’” to see what the teachers would do. it was intense.


What I’m thinking is just that it is all more focused on the idea of getting together, either knowingly or giving to people an experience that changes the way they think about what it is going on, what they value and how that value, in Boggs’ case, manifests itself.

CARTO CITY...

lets talk about maps shall we…

maps work in two spaces: they create and they record. sometimes together and sometimes just one or the other. when you look at maps from the present day perspective you find that they do less creating in the sense of a city- seeing as how modern cities are pretty much packed to the brim. however, they can create new spaces or ides within the city limits. they can illuminate what already exists and give us a glimpse into a new city-sort of.

very similarly to paleontologists there is an interesting practice noted in the article, stratigraphical mapping: which disects the area into horizontal layers, peeling away information about time periods of humanity and what the society thought politically, geologically, etc. much like with the excavation in pompei, things can be discovered about a way of life…

more in the sense of what we are doing in our project is the idea of the map as actually becoming the territory. that this physical object, the map can now actually be the space we begin to associate  memories and experiences with…much like how the L map begins to actually become the city. each dot on there is a place not just a representation.

“modern city as a material and social space interacts with the map as scientific instrument and artistic representation”

“image and text, whose effective harmonizing is cartography’s singal contribution to spatial representation.” 

 i guess a few other things i think are worth mentioning from the article are that maps are created for many purposes and in many different ways. the two types that get particular mention, if only because they are the history of mapping are axial maps and checkerboard maps. the distinction between the two is that one places equal importance through-out the map. this leads to a level playing field for all involved, in terms of communities and social groups- lets not forget that there are lots of different maps and that they are not all just geographical. 

the idea of digital mapping has definitely changed the world. along with the idea of the checker-board/equalized map you find that the digital map allows for an equal playing field but an enhanced one, in which particular attributes can be selected, highlited, zoomed in on. you are working in both the macro and micro- also interestingly enough, people use to just create city maps of skylines, i imagine this to be a very touristy thing. a show-off your city’s major points map and in my head it looks pretty corny. but perhaps, in the past they were more “rational/scientific”.

so i guess, in the end. the major thing to be discussed is the role of the map as a mover and a mirror. the relationship of how much we allow a map to physically represent a plae, this is not a pipe.~ but yet, it can be. and it infact is a pipe. we see it and we say pipe. and the more technical aspect of maps as planning stages for actual development. thirdly we must consider the map as a re-evaluation of space. we can map one space in many ways, layer it, show time and transition much like william kentridge’s work or we can compile maps, to create an over-all space. and then we can deal with maps that have more to do with other aspects of life, and that goes back to the whole stratigraphical mapping=pompei and what the actual soil tells us about a place.

(once again…ramblings…any quesions?) 

desktop talk

Basically the chapter deals with two things. on the one hand, basic history, things we  have already learned. How computers got started, the switch from a text dominated visualization to today’s desktop GUI interface. It also covers a little about the politics of computers, who was involved and how basically, everyone borrowed a little from the little guys and made big money. The second part of the article, and the more interesting issue is simulation v. interactive interface. The difference to be noted is that there is a difference. The way we use a computer today, is a representation, it is not a desktop and it doesn’t literally function like one. It only catagorically resembles one. Where as simulation is more like the Bob program described, a living room you walk around in. This is seen mostly in video games and today in the Sims and Second Life. I personally don’t think that we will get very far with this simulation business. I mean to some extent when you think of flash and some websites that move like real space do, than yes, we will advance that technology. But, I don’t believe that the human race is capable of living two lives like that. It will definitely be interesting to see though.

Bush's As We May Think

i didn’t realize until i was a good half-way through this article that it was written July 1945. so at first i thought that all of this ‘futuristic’ talk was redundant; when i finally figured it out it made a lot more sense and it is really interesting how right on Bush is about where technology will go. 

quotes: 

thinking man and the sum of our knowledge

reach the few who were capable of grasping and extending it

even the modern great library is not generally consulted; it is nibbled at by a few

for mature thought there is no mechanical substitute. But creative thought and essentially repetitive thought are very different things. For the latter there are, and may be powerful mechanical aids

thee will always be plenty of things to compute in the detailed affiars of millinos fo people doing complicated things

relief must be secured from laborious detail

he is a man of intuitive judgment in the choice of the manipulative processes he employs

so much for the manipulation of ideas and their insertion into the record

there may be millions of fine thoughts, and the acount of the exprience on which they are based, all encased within stone walls of acceptable architectural form; but if the scholar can get at only one a week by diligent search, his syntheses are not likely to keep up with the current scene

our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by the artificiality of system indexing

the process of tying two items together is the important thing

what i find is most useful for me in the search of information is what i like to call networking(mapping). this follows Bush’s idea about trails of information. Using the internet as my primary tool i look something up, more than likely on delicious and follow link to link to link, however, i don’t stop just at the internet but find sources for tangeable things as well, books, music, performance etc. I think Bush is right in saying that information needs to be accessed the way it is processed in our brains, through quick tangeants. humans were not meant to be so focused on one aspect. this reminds me about the part where Bush mentions scientists specializing in certain things…which reminds me that i heard somewhere, quite possibly in image practice that the information is already researched, it’s just that who has time to read through all this information. who knows the cure for cancer could have been discovered accidently by someone who isnt even a dr. but the research is out there. it’s just a matter of finding it. it’s all about the crossing of boundaries, taking interest in things that are outside of your discipline. but no one does that because its too hard. even now, with the library system as high tech as it is. it is a big hassle to look for something if you dont have a sure title you are looking for. the databases are just too big. this brings us into interactive/cooperative/global tagging. like wikipedia and delicious which Bush mentions without knowing about it. Here is a way to archive things in a less academic fashion which allows people to tag and locate information in a way that mimics how we think. 

i think its just a matter of time before we see whats at the tip of our noses. 

INTERACTIVITY (one)