Pretending It Isn’t There

Let's talk about noticing your circumstances and then telling the truth about it.

If you’re broke, you’re broke. It’s pointless to lie about it, and it is actually debilitating to try to manufacture a story about it so as to not admit it. Yet it’s your thought about it -- “Broke is bad,” “This is horrible,” “I’m a bad person, because good people who work really hard and really try never go broke,” etc. --that rules how you experience “broke-ness.” It’s your words about it -- “I’m broke,” “I haven’t a dime,” “I don’t have any money,” -- that dictates how long you stay broke. It’s your actions surrounding it -- feeling sorry for yourself, sitting around despondent, not trying to find a way out because “What’s the use anyway?” -- that create your long-term reality.

The first thing to understand about the universe is that no condition is “good” or “bad.” It just is. So stop making value judgments.

The second thing to know is that all conditions are temporary. Nothing stays the same, nothing remains static. Which way things change depends on you.

Reference: Neal Donald Walsch, artist and author

QUOTES:

From children survivors in Haiti:

“I am sad in my heart, but I smile and play because I am smart.”

“It is important that I play.”

Links and Winks:

Fun Graffiti Art Video -- Art Basel, Miami TCP Graffiti Crew

See the DONNIE 2010 WINNERS!

“It’s All About Technology”

Media art, to a greater or lesser extent, is about technology. No object or art form (painting, sculpture, or photography) can be separated from its own materiality, and one could argue that every painting also is “about” painting with comments rendered about the medium, even though there is substantial variation from one work to another.

“Gratuitous use of technology can only produce bad art.” This critique is linked to a person’s familiarity with the medium. Technology is a medium, like paint or clay, for most media artists. Because the medium often lags behind the concepts that the artists try to communicate, they must often push the boundaries or develop technologies to express their ideas.

If a museum visitor is unfamiliar with a specific technology or interface, it automatically becomes the focus of attention -- an effect unintended by the artist. For the expert audience, in contrast, the technology is transparent which automatically moves it into the background, becoming mostly a vehicle for content. Unfortunately, such variations of focus and perception cannot easily be addressed. Art audiences and museum visitors have looked at paintings for centuries, and for many the medium of paint is neither a surprise nor an obstacle in understanding the work presented. The cultural heritage that has “trained” us in approaching certain art forms, such as painting, has not provided us with a vocabulary to understand other new mediums, including media art.

Not until media art makes regular appearances in the art world will technology be considered as background material rather than viewed as the focus of the artwork.

Reference: Taken from an editorial written by Christiane Paul, 2008

“Ask Yourself…”

What are you doing to assist with furthering the digital/media arts movement? What are the problems in the movement and what can "I/we" do to address them?

I need to hear from you.

Mary

“Making Peace”

Today, more than it was many years ago, art is hard because you have to keep after it so consistently. On so many different fronts. For so little external reward. Artists become veteran artists only by making peace not just with themselves, but with a huge range of issues. You have to find your work all over again all the time, and to do that you have to give yourself maneuvering room on many fronts -- mental, physical, temporal. Experience consists of being able to identify useful creative energy easily, instantly.

In the end it all comes down to this: you have a choice (or more accurately a rolling tangle of choices) between giving your work your best shot and risking that it will not make you happy, or not giving it your best shot - and thereby guaranteeing that it will not make you happy. It becomes a choice between certainty and uncertainty. And curiously, uncertainty is the comforting choice.

Reference: David Bayles, author

IN-BOX

Submitted by Robert Hustead (rhustead@verizon.net) on Sunday, January 31.
Comment: "Hello --Regarding Don Archer's piece dealing with statistics. Mr. Archer stated that German digital art comprises the largest segment of European digital artists within the data set. I have found that German visitors to my web site tend to stay longer than most groups. I hope you continue to build your statistical database. It is always interesting to know more about what artists are doing and what visitors are viewing. -- I have not been aware of your site for very long, but have enjoyed seeing what so many talented artists are doing today. If I had one request, it would be that the full sized version of the artists images would be a bit larger. There is so much detail in many of the works. Best regards, Robert Hustead"
Dear Robert -- Yes, the images on the MOCA website are diverse and magnificent -- herein lies so much talent! I am honored to be of support to such a dynamic collection. I agree that German culture embraces art better than many cultures, including the US. Germany encourages the development of artists and extends a true respect for the arts as a whole. Ah, if others could only learn from their model! Thanks for sharing. Best, Mary

With regard to image size a reply from Don Archer:
“Robert, Thank you for your interesting comments. As for the size of the online art, the issue of image size vs. image quality has been a dilemma for years. As bandwidth has improved across the Web, we have increased the image size accordingly, and will continue to do so. Best regards, Don" -- Don Archer, Director, MOCA

This page posted 1 Feruary 2010
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DIGITAL GLOSSARY OF TERMS