Re: <nettime> Digital Decay and traceless art

[Tjebbe van Tijen <t.tijen@cable.A2000.nl>]

Is it for the pleasure of the moment itself or for posterity that we act?

We can not and need not keep track of everything..forgetting is a necessary
basis for knowing... What if all the artifacts, all things judged
worthwhile, for some reason at some moment in time, would have been still
with us...

It is not so that we willfuly have to burn palaces and temples, to destroy
museums and libraries, to create a new order, a new culture... as so many
hot headed leaders have tried and dictatorial artists have proclaimed (but
were afraid of doing, likethe futurists). But the other extreme also holds
a danger... Too much preservation is suffocating, does not leave enough
space for new creation.. Nice  real time experiences should not all be made
into objects of adoration, be commodified, be given 'eternal value'.

So to narrow my argument down again to the posting on the Nettime list of
Till Baumgarten, one could ask if a lot of what is by some classified as
'Net Art' should not be seen as a broadcast, a life event... something that
maybe is not happening in one moment but in many short moments during a
quiet limited period of time... art for just for the moment itself...


I have the feeling that the pleasure is just that... that it fits in the
long tradition of what I like to call 'traceless art', the singing of a
song, looking at the funny shapes of drifting clouds, making traces in the
sand...

Temporal silicon traces washed away by the digital tide...

See its function as the  ceremonial sand drawings of the Navajo, only meant
to exist during the ceremony, to be blown away by the northern winds
afterwards.


Tjebbe van Tijen

Imaginary Museum Projects (IMP), Amsterdam

Background information on:
http://www.iisg.nl/~tvt/index.html

Do check the upcoming Next 5 Minutes conference on:
http://www.n5m.org/index.html
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