January 15, 2008
re: anything necessary (pt ii)
what is not, is
a(nother) response to "anything necessary"
1] what is technology and what isn't it?
2] what is the necessity of multimedia approaches? why the multi?
one:
technology encompasses all that is created to have function, all that serves a purpose. be the purpose efficiency or aesthetics or efficiency of aesthetics, technology is an aid.
is an apple technology? no, maybe, i don't know. can one eat an apple without technology? sure. can one eat an apple with technology? sure. (i'd like an apple with a side of technology, please.) a faucet to cleanse. a peeler to remove. a knife to cut. a plate to hold. a napkin to wipe. is any of that really necessary to eat an apple? of course not. then why bother? what has branched from such apple-eating technologies?
see apple on tree. take apple. eat apple. fin. --> simply food, a means of survival. the lowest level on the hierarchy of needs.
circa the time of prehistoric men (the dudes who work for geico now).
cut apple. place apple on plate. share apple with family and/or friends (and/or the guy next door who keeps 'borrowing' the virgin mary lawn ornament as a joke because maybe, just maybe, there's a kind soul to find within him). --> a conversational piece, a means of belongingness and/or love. a middle level on the hierarchy of needs.
circa the good old days, when our foreforeforefathers didn't have these whatchamacallits with all the bells and whistles and pictures didn't move.
apples grown organically under the finest conditions. exactly seventeen (no more! no less!) are shipped to a man in portugal within eleven hours of them being picked. they are hand washed by fernando, the best hand washer of apples this side of the mediterranean. they are peeled (don't ask me why they were washed), also by fernando, who has won awards with his ability to peel. they are cut with the sharpest knives under the best lighting conditions. i'm pretty sure michael bublé is playing on fernando's ipod as he works. the apples are chopped and diced and whittled and carved and sculpted. the final result? three cubes. three inches by three inches by three inches each. with a hole in the tops to hold the stem of a petunia. they are centerpieces for the dinner party in three hours. oh, don't worry. they are coated with glossyspray 5000 (not available in the states yet... probably why you haven't heard of it) to make sure they don't rot during the party. oh, that's right... the apples will not be eaten. --> art (?), a means of aesthetics. a higher level on the hierarchy of needs.
circa today... or was that yesterday?
WHAT? now i'm hungry.
two:
it is beautiful that what is not, still is. if a poem is not read, not appreciated, nothing is ever taken from it... is it still a poem? does it still serve its purpose? or without it being read, is it just used space on a computer, a scrap sheet of paper, an extra page to turn in a book? for me, i believe the fallen tree in the forest still makes sound despite there being no ears through which the sound can resonate. the poem is still a poem even if it's not read. the chicken came first. no, wait, the egg. no... the chicken? how many more tries do i get? is this a multiple choice test? will i be graded or is this pass/fail? okay! 'd) all of the above' is my final answer, regis. it's just the mere fact that what exists, exists at all...
the mind of man is capable of anything--because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future.
-joseph conrad
extensions. simultaneous senses. no single medium will ever be able to express perfectly the mind of man, neither do i believe that using multiple media will express perfectly the mind of man. even if there was a way to perfectly convey the mind of man, a man, it would be ignorant to assume that one man's mind functions the same as another's, thus leading to the likelihood that all the time and energy spent on creating this perfect conveyance isn't going to be interpreted the way it was intended anyway. what multimedia does, however, is aid in the representation of what "is not" to make it what "is." multimedia is necessary to create the movement of ideas that span across time & space. the more ways we have to represent our ideas, the more precise the conveyance of such ideas can be.
anyway, i'm pretty sure this is how i feel today:
apparat - "fractales pt i"
thanks, apparat, for making my mood auditory.
Posted by colleeny at 06:19 PM | Comments (2)