cambu-Reading03

Question 1A.

I believe much of Andreas Gursky’s photography exhibits effective complexity, especially his work involving mass-arrangements and macro-level overviews. They capture the confusion and overwhelming force of the modern world resultant from a confluence of both individualism/differentiation and consistency/smoothness. With regard to the ‘scale of order’ (order to chaos), I think Andreas’ work exhibits two types of placements. On the one hand, some of his work shows how uniformity and calmness can result from many specialized and unique items, but, in contrast, it also shows how erratic and nervous emotion can be the result of a mass of sameness.

Question 1B. — The Problem of Locality, Code, and Malleability; The Problem of Creativity

I find the debate present in this problem of Generative Art one of a confusion between principle and practice. I fall on the side of saying that the eased copy-ability of digital/rule-based/generative art does not fundamentally change the nature of the art. I also believe the nature of object truth exists in the analogue experience available to/experienced by viewers, beholders, and consumers; and not in the system that creates those truths. Though it’s true that some viewers may now become remixers by looking at the source code, I view this similarly to the fact that some museum goers enjoy copying the paintings into their sketchbooks. On the whole, the ‘nature of the real’ has not changed meaningfully to shift principles, only enough to change practice, but this is ever changing.