From: Kris Erickson (kerickso@ryerson.ca)
Date: 08/13/02-02:38:51 PM Z
Oh, but if it were that easy to reduce an artist, a person, anyone, to the
link s/he may include on their site... Perhaps I wouldn't get such a queasy
feeling everytime a bomb were dropped on Afghan 'terrorists'...
Carl's comment about "one of the continuing subjects in the artist's work"
brings up another interesting issue, one that I am continually concerned
about. How can we claim to know anything about an artist's work without
careful and endless scrutiny into that artist's life and work? At best we're
scratching at a surface, below which is at best a mass of
incomprehensibility, at worst a void....
I find it really difficult to communicate face to face, with oral and
gestural means of communication. I am continually surprised at how difficult
it is to communicate with someone when that someone is directly before me.
As I aged, I genuinely assumed such communication would become easier.
Although I feel I am now able to communicate more fundamentally with a wider
variety of people, I still find that what I can say and hear is fumbling and
ultimately, lacking in some respect.
That said, I find communication over the internet utterly unfathomable! How
people can make sense of each other over such an electronic void is
completely beyond my comprehension. (Perhaps that is why so-called 'flames'
are such a common occurrence.)
Not only that but, like many of us who have online portfolios, how can I be
sure my work is conveying its intent when a 2 inch square of CRT phosphors
is to represent a 16" print, matted & framed, etc.?
I have enough trouble being convinced that people understand what I'm
saying/showing when they see my work in person.
Perhaps in the end, then, the only thing Mr. Morish can be accused of is
lack of clarity.
kris
-----Original Message-----
From: Katharine Thayer [mailto:kthayer@pacifier.com]
Sent: August 13, 2002 2:25 AM
To: alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca
Subject: Re: Sicko humor as art?
LAShively@aol.com wrote:
>
> Carl,
>
> Thank you for that observation, but I would have to say it sums up the
intent
> of the artist. If he did not include this link then I would have a wholly
> different feeling...response to his work, but altogether I suspect he IS
into
> process and that his process includes more that just putting found objects
> together for his photography...
>
> Is that device depicted part of the taxidermy process?
>
There are dozens of links on that site, including People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals. I don't know David Morish, but his links
to the Onion, the Skeptic, the igNobel Awards, and several other
intelligent and witty groups and publications, show that he appreciates
intelligent thought and intelligent humor with a bit of a bite to it. If
you're going to suggest that one link on the site expresses the artist's
intent, then to be logically consistent you have to say that every link
on the site expresses the artist's intent, and good luck with that.
I didn't have time to look at but a couple of the links; I got
captivated by the dancing cats at the Museum of Non Primate Art and
didn't get any further. They are delightful, just pictures that people
have sent in of their cats dancing.
Carl gave the site as a reference about photogravure. Are we expected
now to vet every site we reference, to make sure that there's nothing
anywhere on the site, including links to other sites, that might offend
someone? I didn't laugh out loud at the cat holder, but I don't get the
outrage about it either. It's just a cartoon, really. The humor is
perhaps immature (like most of the humor in movies and on TV) but I
wouldn't call it sick. I would be very surprised to hear that the artist
considered it part of his artistic process or intent, because it doesn't
look to me to be connected in any way to the art on the site.
Katharine Thayer
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