Yes, you are quite correct.
> >For instance, I have occasionally played a game of "free association"
> >with people at a local coffee house. Each person says a word, one
> >person after the other. There are no particular rules for what word
> >will be said. I find that when you get a random mix of personalities
> >together to play this game, you tend to get a "least common
> >denominator" string of word associations. People invariably get stuck
> >on talking about sex. In the limited time they are alotted to come up
> >with a word, they most often cannot come up with anything else.
>
> Perhaps a similar approach could be adopted when the user selects their
> plot devices - this has an air of "automatic writing or painting?"
>
> Your phrase is very illuminating as to the fundamental problem at work
> here. It is one of audience labor. Many audiences do not take the
> time, or do not know how, to "select" thematic information and make it
> interesting. That is often what we need artists and artistic intent
> for. If you allow anyone to select anything, without any
> environmental conditioning, you will get the Art of the least common
> denominator. Some people revel in this, but I find that it has a
> predictable form, mainly sex.
I guess that is to be expected, as sex is probably the most suppressed
subject within most of us. Given the chance to express what is
'really' on our minds through association, it seems, as you suggest,
that it would quite naturally lead to sex.
If we had two buttons to experience two VR worlds, one being Dali's
"Young Virgin Autosodimised by her own Chastity" and the other,
Magritte's "Loving Perspective", I think the Young Virgin button
would be worn out before the other button was even smudged by thumb
prints.
Lee.
lee@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au