2014 – Year of Reinvention

4 thoughts on “2014 – Year of Reinvention”

1. Thanks for stopping by JOT! I think the biggest distinction between “art” in our century and the previous one is that in the 20th century the people doing the most compelling “art” called themselves “artists” and in our century the people doing the most compelling “art” very often don’t take that label. So: your trajectory seems great. If you talk to more AI / CS peeps and less Art / AH types, whatever. But the direction seems “relevant” wherever it is that it takes you.

   For myself, after 4 years and 50 Virtual Performance Art works, I’ve ended that trail walk. My new path is Virtual Public Art, or if you like User Generated Public Art. Actually I was just thinking about AI this week. In my Future of Storytelling MOOC from Christina Maria Schollerer / University of Applied Sciences Potsdam / iversity, Mark Butler talked about AIs / NPCs that can pass the Turing Test, and that brought all sorts of ideas to my mind, including:

   What’s the difference between a Human with a Personal Digital Assistant… and an MMORPG where the NPC’s can pass the Turing Test and it’s the Humans that stand around and give Quests to the Bots?

   I think sometimes peeps go to grad school “just to get the piece of paper” or “just so they can teach” or “just to finish a project” or something. But if you’re really going for it, then everything’s on the table. I don’t think it’s that the faculty “wants” you to leave pointed in some totally different direction that the one you arrived with, but that the flow of a real investigation can’t be known a priori. I wouldn’t be surprised if your current investigation eventually loops around to some work we might “recognize” as “art,” but even more importantly, it doesn’t matter. If you’re asking questions that have an urgency in our moment, then I’d call that a successful career.

   It’s great to hear your annual “State of the Career” or “State of My Brain” message.

   See you in 2015!

   Reply

   1. Thanks for hosting this blogging opportunity and taking the time to read and comment, Vane(s)ssa 🙂

      I agree with you about the 21st century paradigm for art-making…While procrastinating from writing that blog-post, I was reading about how the ’14s were really the beginning of a century…So, just as 1914 was the beginning of the 20th century where self-professed “artists” became a dime-a-dozen (certainly with Dada after a lot of the skilled artists had been killed off during the Great War); 2014 might indeed be the beginning of those-formerly-known-as-artists 😉

      Maybe you will eventually create and curate “virtual public stuff” or “virtual public events” rather than “virtual public art”? 😉

      Yes, my goal is to engage the AI/CS peeps and I know this will be an uphill challenge since that community can often be cold or even hostile to “artist” charlatans 😉 I welcome the challenge though and know that it will take hard work on my part to speak their language and make them feel like I am a worthwhile peer in their community and discipline.

      Oh wow, is that Mark Butler video on youtube? I think I need to research his talk about the shifting NPC/PC dynamic in story-telling 😀

      Yeah, we might all loop back to “art” – especially if more exotic disciplines lead to a creative dead-end 😉 I think there is still lots of pioneering ground to cover with AI though…I am not bored of it yet! 😉

      Thanks for reading and understanding my state of the career message…

      Talk soon,
      Jer

      Reply

      1. You know, I was at a BarCamp unconference once, and this guy asked me what I did and I told him I was an artist and he replied, “What’s an artist doing at a developer conference?”

         I was surprised by his surprise. It’s true that a lot of developer types used to show up to BarCamps back in the heyday, but I always perceived it with a wider scope.

         If you think about our culture, there are a lot of people tasked with “answers.” They go by many diverse job titles, like “Nurse,” or “Public Policy Analyst” or “Social Worker,” or “Politician,” or many others. But if you think about it, there are not so many people in our culture who are tasked with “questions.” Two job titles that come to my mind are “Artist” and “Scientist.” For sure Artists and Scientists often have different perspectives and approaches, still, I think their job is to question assumptions in ways that others often don’t.

         (I’ll resist going down the interesting tangential idea that “Engineers” often believe in God, whereas “Scientists” are often Atheists.)

         In many respects the job of “answers” is harder and has more responsibility and risk. The thing is, if you work really hard on “answers” without having asked enough “questions,” you can spend a lot of time and money, a lot of blood and sweat and tears, going down a road that ultimately wasn’t even such a helpful road.

         So again, I hear you that moving from “Art” to “AI” feels like a big change. And yes, a lot of AI is a lot of Engineering. But I also think that you’re moving from a “job” where you should be asking a lot of questions, to a “job” where you should be asking a lot of questions.

         I’ve never really studied AI per se, but I did audit a few Consciousness and Vision Science courses at a tech university. Some of the grad students there were quite friendly. But some, as you suggest, were probably too career-focused and over-achieving to distract themselves with what some artist was doing there. Interestingly though, I found the faculty to be quite welcoming. Obviously they’re driven, over-achievers too, but perhaps their position afforded them a wider purview. You’re not trying to be the “auditing artist” but the “real AI researcher,” so that is different, but in a sense I wouldn’t have any “shame” about that art background. You just come from another branch of that great family tree of question askers.

         Reply

      2. In many ways I like “Virtual Public Stuff” or “VIrtual Public Events” BETTER than “Virtual Public Art.” And yet VPA does feel somehow right. Is it remediation? Or a helping peeps understand what you’re doing without having to introduce too many new terms? I do like “User Generated” or “Participatory” in there somewhere.

         Damn, “Public Stuff,” is pretty good. I really have to think about that. Maybe shedding “Art” is good at this point. Liberating. Empowering. I’m not Mark DiSuvero, I’m not Damien Hirst. I won’t be at Art Basel, I don’t want to be featured on Art.sy. Fuck art! Maybe it’s time for a Tony Shafrazi moment! PUBLIC STUFF!

         Mark Butler:
         The whole “Chapter 5” “Storytelling in Digital Games” in the “Future of Storytelling” MOOC is guest hosted by Mark Butler. IDK if the videos are on YouTube, but I think you can still “enroll” in the course and then just watch the Chapter 5 videos:
         https://iversity.org/my/courses/the-future-of-storytelling/lesson_units/4814

         The specific item I mentioned was from Chapter 5, Unit 6: “Talk: Dr. Mark Butler and Prof. Winfried Gerling.”

         Reply

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