by saying the most powerful and compelling I was talking on a couple of
different fronts- as a cultural force VR is in the same realm as TV and
film- technologically sophiisticated and deliverable at a personal level on
a global scale. While I agree with your point about the power of
'traditional' mediums (in fact you picked some of my favorites :)!) those
pieces are singular, they xist in one space at one time. while
reproductions are possible they are not the 'genuine article' and noticably
so. that doesn't exist in the virtual world. That is part of the wonder of
the digital dimension- infinite replication without degradation. I would
even argue that this is the primary difference in virtual art and what
truly puts it into it's own dimension (like 2D, 3D or 4D art)
>For me a close second would be the various monolithic totems one sees
>in various cultures around the world. Chalk it up to my Anthropology
>background. Hey, the Cubists thought these things were pretty
>compelling too. :-)
and for a very good reason- becasue they are.
>But who knows, maybe in 10 years' time I'll be doing exactly that on
>giant CRT screens.... Or maybe I'll be using VR to manufacture
>20-story high _paintings_?
actually there are artists now who are using computers to paint paintings.
the original intention of the technology was to make it easier to produce
advertising billboards. (ah, commerce)
> and define the artistic language that is developing in this medium.
>
>I'm not so sure if I agree here... it depends on how stringently you
>want things "defined."
you're reading 'define' more literally than what I meant. As artists we are
constantly 'defining' a visual language- after all the core of art is
communication and expression (order out of chaos and all that). I,
personally, as an artist never leave a definition alone. Indeed there has
to be several definitons in a piece before I'm satisfied (as creator or
viewer)
> I also like the fact that you haven't read the 'VR classics'- i just
> finished reading Snow Crash and while I found it to be amusing, the vision
> of the 'metaverse' seemed stiff. Now I don't feel so alone cause i've not
> read it all.
>
>I've read "Neuromancer" and "The Difference Engine." I'm a terribly
>illiterate person. :-) The latter books really wasn't about VR at
>all, but about what would happen if steam-powered computers had been
>invented a few hundred years ago. It's not at all improbable.
>Mechanical computers existed back then but were very slow. If you
>hooked them up to a steam engine, they would compute faster. This was
>actually tried in the 1990's on Charles Babbage's "Difference Engine"
>by some students at either Oxford or Cambridge, and it actually
>worked! We really could have had mechanical rather than electrical
>computers back then....
fascinating- where would further info on that be available?
>As for "Neuromancer" - big whoop.
thou shalt burn in analog hell for all eternity!
blasphemer of the holy st gibson! ;-)
(read *beaucoup sarcasm*- I'm good at it verbally but with a keyboard....?)
-smp