Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:

> We have a current IRTC topic.
>
ooh. I haven't been povving recently, so I hadn't looked. I may have to get
in on this one ;)

> > 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.
>
I would agree, with the caveat that text can be reductive ONLY if you manage
to force past the previous meaning of the words FIRST, then bring the
viewer back to what it says. Dada writings often made text meaningless;
you'd have to then return the meaning afterword - that would be a true
trick, and an excellent piece of art.


> "mimetic" as in copying?  Isn't the usual problem that the assumed
> meaning is arbitrary and local instead of universal?
>
Niether is the problem. The problem is that the format of your work
*itself*, that's the format, mind you, already has multiple, deep-seated
associations attached to it in everyone's mind. Whether or not they are the
same doesn't really matter; you are "thinking of a finger pointing at the
moon," not the moon itself.

> 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?
>
Oh, absolutely. That's actually rather brilliant. You'll be doing bookstore
coffeeshop poetry readings in no time ;).  But the symbolism itself was
truely minimal. 0. 1. Black. White. Something. Nothing. Very Tao, and very
difficult to represent in a beautiful, minimized way. (OT: Is the yin-yang
minimalist?). The computer had not associations, no meaning was put behind
0 and 1. It was much more austere than building a machine whose assembler
was english.

>
> 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.
>
OK, I confess. Worst definition ever. Go back to the whack from a Zen
master. That is more like what I mean, I just wish I could say it
concisely.

> 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.

Now where did I say that? I said this painting was an excellent EXAMPLE.
Anything can be minimalist - but you have to agree that Abraham passes well
outside your mental representation of an 'oil painting.' All art is
contrived; All art hopes to pass beyond it's own creation. Minimalism is
one way to attempt to do that. (And a rubber chicken is. More contrived, I
mean.)

-s
5TF!

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