Walking In The City; Line Drawing Notes
"WWW" and "Labyrinths"; Notes
Drawing Associations Between The Readings
After reading the works “WWW” by Tim Berners-Lee and “The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges and reviewed my notes on both of the pieces, it became increasingly apparent to me that many associations could be drawn between the two, though seemingly very different at first glance. For example, The piece by Tim Berners-Lee focused on the internet and explaining the different ways in which it works. He talks about the different languages and programs that are used in order for the World Wide Web to function properly, in the way it does. On the surface this has no connection to Jorge Luis Borges’ piece, which is a beautifully written analogy for the world and it’s knowledge. He compares the world to a never ending library, where the people of the world are the librarians, and the books represent all of the knowledge there is to be gained in the world. Upon closer inspection of these texts however, I realized that it is here where many associations can be made. For example, Berners-Lee writes quite a bit about how the World Wide Web was “developed to be a pool of human knowledge” with “boundless information” which is very similar to how Borges described “The Library” or the world. This makes sense due to the fact that the internet is called the World Wide Web for a reason, and that reason is because it was created to encompass all of the information of the world, much like “The Library”. However, Borges felt as though all of the information in the world couldn’t truly ever be captured and even imagined that if it were to be captured it would be in a circular, never ending book, symbolizing God, whereas Berners-Lee was highlighting the fact that maybe with the help of the internet it can. Though true as Borges states, no one person could ever obtain all of the knowledge in the world, but maybe the World Wide Web is the one all encompassing book that he refers to, that many humans go searching for, and it is now right at our fingertips.
"The Last Newspaper Artists in Conversation" Notes
Whitney's Programmed Response
According to Whitney curators Christiane Paul, Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, Melva Bucksbaum, and Clémence White, the Programmed Exhibit was created in hopes to establish “connections between works of art based on instructions, spanning over fifty years of conceptual, video, and computational art.” It accomplished this extremely well. Combining artwork from artists like Sol Lewitt, and Tamiko Thiel, this exhibit showcases the multifaceted world of using algorithms to create art in many different ways. For example, Sol Lewitt’s “Wall drawing #289, 4th Wall: 24 lines from the center, 12 lines from the midpoint of each of the sides, 12 lines from each corner”. This piece occupies the entirety of a wall. It is black with white straight white lines starting at different points and intersecting at various other ones. The description next to it states, “Sol Lewitt’s wall drawings are actually sets of instructions that others execute when the work is to be exhibited.” The fact that he only came up with the instructions, rather than actually creating the pieces himself really draws attention to the idea of using rules and algorithms to create art, because if there are a certain set of exact rules to follow, then anyone can do it. This is a very different sentiment than what most people think of when they think of artwork, yet combined with the rest of the artists in this exhibit it made sense and worked perfectly to establish connection between this and other works of art based on instruction. For instance, when you compare this piece to Tamiko Thiel’s “Unexpected Growth” piece they seem stark in contrast. Thiel uses the cameras on ipads and other devices and combines the actual image the camera sees with animations of rising sea levels and vibrant corals that begin to die as you watch and then return to their vibrant colors after a long “rest”. According to its description, “ The algorithm used to create the forms of the coral is based on an L-system (or Lindenmayer system), a type of grammar developed in 1968 by the hungarian biologist and botanist Aristid Lindenmayer to model the growth processes of plant development.” This is a very different type of artwork than Sol Lewitt’s, however, it still combines algorithm and art in order to make a statement. Though these pieces are very different they work in tandem to show the importance of rules in art, and prove that the curators accomplished their goal of connecting works of art based on sets of code in all genres of art.