stm31415 wrote:
> These really are very interesting. 

We have a current IRTC topic.  I think the topic affords participants 
something a bit unique from the other topics.  A kind of licence, so to 
speak, to ignore many of the requisites that usually accompany making 
and irtc entry.  This is an attempt to illustrate that.

I hope to see more; don't get me wrong --

Don't worry, I won't get you wrong.

> but can anything involving text truely be minimal? 

You can certainly go to more reductive extremes.  But text can be a 
vehicle for reductive strategies too I would think.

Isn't it using much MORE
> to call upon a symbol, something that has been given a huge amount of
> (memetic) meaning? 
"mimetic" as in copying?  Isn't the usual problem that the assumed 
meaning is arbitrary and local instead of universal?

Anyway, the whole story of how computers came to produce meanings is 
certainly an interesting one.  Haven't some argued that the breakthrough 
came with the realization that symbolism would be necessary?


When I think of minimalism, I tend to think of things
> that are almost like a whack from a zen master- somethign for which we have
> NO programmed response. Text is not elemental enough to invoke that almost
> animal experience, of energy, or calm, or black, or division, that a
> minimalist painting does so incredibly. I don't know if Barnett Newman
> would have called himsef minimalist, but his Stations of the Cross are
> possibly the best example I can think of. He takes something so incredibly
> symbolized, with so much information attached to it, and strips all that
> away.

see bottom
> 
> 
> least expenditure for an huge impact. 

  this criteria is as arbitrary as any btw, and is really just the 
result of trying to sift some significance from the label, "minimalism."
ie. 'How can something be "minimal?"' Must be a leverage sort of thing.

Imagine
> waking into a room with that painting in it, full size. It seizes the mind,
> holds it where nothing but the energy of that central zip moves, in all of
> space and time. It is steadfast, and fast, all at the same time. No symbol
> could coherently hold all the meaning that painting does, despite the
> symbol's inherent complexity.

So are you saying that painting is the only valid medium for a 
minimalist enterprise?  I don't really believe you are but it seems we 
should agree at this point that a more artificial and contrived thing 
than oil paint on stretched canvas is hard to imagine.

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