If art makes you laugh

PB102114, originally uploaded by Ian Tindale.

When I first went to art college, it was more out of a notion that art made me laugh, rather than one of art making me think. Of course, decades later, art makes me think constantly, yet there's not much laughing going on. It's deep, it's analytical, it's meaningful, but it's not really funny any more. However, the transactional reward is far higher. Perhaps in the beginning I got it wrong and I thought there was funniness in there where there wasn't. Maybe what I should have done is gone to amusing college instead of art college, if there was such a thing. The trouble is, I think that this is a mistaken entry point that a lot of people make - I'm not alone in thinking that "this modern art stuff" was hilarious and quite funny and a bit of a laugh and therefore we feel free and safe to get involved with it.

I think that having a line that goes between "I don't get it" to "I get it" isn't sufficiently explanatory of what the actual shape involved is - it's not a straight line. It doesn't go from "I don't get it" at one end, which translates to "I don't like it, it's not an old-looking painting of someone famous, in an ornate frame, etc, like normal art is - I don't know how to process this - what am I expected to do with it?". To the other end, the "I get it" of which would translate as "It makes me laugh, it stimulates me, I giggled, it reached in and touched me, I became a part of the process, I like it", which is equally missing the point in many cases. These aren't ends of a continuum. Are we mistaking art for comedy?

Our acceptance or non-acceptance of art is probably irrelevant, based on the premise that our starting point as consumers is uncontrollable and variable and quite likely wrong in most cases. What if, why not just go straight to the comedy part, if that's what the acceptable component of art consumption is seeking? Art should become comedy, and it should present the challenges that art does, but with an obvious punchline. Maybe this is what advertising is? That way we have a commoditised and consumable form of provocative art, which channels the end-result into an easily predictable format of a surprise package that makes you think it is making you think while it is in fact only making you laugh. You can tell art isn't comedy isn't advertising all the time. Otherwise there'd be adverts that shock and distress as their leverage that affects you and shifts your perception in connection with the thing the advert is selling. The amount of adverts that actually come close to shock and distress is minimal, and when they do, it doesn't go far at all. It's probably preferable to make the audience laugh if you want to sell stuff, than be traumatised, although both establish associations.

Of course, normal comedy already is comedy. How should art comedy differentiate itself? Perhaps art comedy will have a higher level of "I don't get it" in the same way that normal comedy sometimes does, and that art does when people were expecting something differently established. But in that case, perhaps I don't care whether you get it or not. In the case of normal comedy, of course, the quality criteria is whether enough people get it - if nobody ever gets it, then it's perhaps comedy with a quality problem. In the case of art comedy that nobody gets, I'd say there's an opportunity to position it as that being the fault of the audience for not positioning themselves appropriately. Maybe they're too aligned to consume in a certain established pattern. Maybe they're expecting reception of what wasn't delivered. Maybe they don't get it because they haven't done the work involved. It's not a cheap laugh. It might involve significant transposition of positioning to make it function.

Art that attacks comedy on it's own ground. It's not funny. At least, not on the surface. It doesn't have the same end-product, even though it follows the same structure. For example, an example of art attacking comedy in the form of a stand-up routine might be one of the established form of comedian, mic, stage, executing many consecutive instances of the 'joke' unit. The joke unit might be one of a verbal set-up, followed by a 'punchline'. The verbal setup might consist of straightforward selective narrative, or sometimes it might involve dynamically exaggerated narrative for extra comedic effect. The joke terminates in a violation or surprise against the trajectory of the premise of the set-up. These all assume that the audience understands the setup, the premise, and also understands why the punchline violates it.

But this assumes that the audience has a level of quality that they bring with them in their ability to process modern language. What if, as artists, we took control of that aspect of the process also? What if I the artist presented a self-consistent setup and premise that you the audience simply didn't "get" or relate to or understand or engage with? What if I then violated this setup with a functional punchline that you equally didn't "get" or understand? But in all case, the consistency and validity of the process was intact. It just didn't rely on the audience to "laugh" at it to validate it. And yet, the truth of the structure is valid - it would be a joke, and it would be a highly funny one, if the premise and setup were transformed from where they describe within language to another position. One way of doing this would be to shift the meaning of all surrounding language around the premise and setup. Once all peripheral language surrounding it is shifted in meaning, then this setup and premise now means something different to what the words merely said on their surface level. And hence, with this shifted surrounding meaning, the punchline works. But if you don't go through that process, it's not funny - in fact, it's meaningless. But did the art go away just because you didn't laugh?

I don't need to explain

P1010028, originally uploaded by Ian Tindale.

The internet seems to force the explanation of things - motives, decisions, opinions. Everyone wants to know why such outcomes were arrived at, in an audited sense.

I don't have to explain why I've done certain things, why I like certain things, why I've made certain decisions. I don't think you need to either. It's not the requirement that people inevitably treat it as - I simply don't have to respond to demands for explanation. I don't even have to appear logical or externally consistent if I don't wish to. If you want to know something, figure it out yourself. If you ask me, I might be able to help, or I might just as easily mislead you because our experiences and requirements are mismatched. What if I like something for an entirely irrational, unquantifiable and illogical reason. The amount of work involved in dredging through any possible reasoning (or even just making it up) in order to relate it to someone else is frankly not worth it - what do I get out of it?

Obviously there is a requirement for 'warning' or 'recommending' others regarding purchases, configurations, etc. The whole world of the review is heading in the direction of satisfying that need, although embryonically at the present. Right now, the review is only hinting at the value that it could offer as a literary form, but suffers from undeveloped structure as well as amateur standards of content quality. But is it right that someone should feel they can absolve all responsibility for making a decision simply by acquiring a thin thread of recommendation from other people with other purposes, other scopes and other objectives? The consumer of an opinion or reason must equally share a load of the responsibility of fitness for purpose of the information, and this is simply not being formalised in a recognised manner at all.

Where word processors went wrong

NikonF4_100TMX_Tmax_009, originally uploaded by Ian Tindale.

A long time ago, there were programs for the early computers which were known as ‘text editors’. These allowed a person to create a text file, and perhaps later edit it. The text file might be for consumption by another person, or it might contain a sequence of instructions or settings, even constituting an entire computer program, which a (not necessarily the same) computer would run.

Ignoring the ‘consumption by machine’ cases, the early text editors were in effect an extension of the more sophisticated typewriters of the day. By then, typewriters were not just dumb appliances that if you struck a key, the corresponding letter would appear on the paper. They could do far more. They attained a feature set that allowed a degree of automation in the office, and productivity for writers. And yet, the final output of those typewriters was nevertheless in terms of sheets of paper.

As text editors on computers mutated into more fully featured word processors, the advantages of working with screens and mass storage were utilised. Mail-merge programs, using a boilerplate template and a database or tabulated list of names or data were now easier to manage than the same task ever was on a sophisticated office typewriter (however - it certainly was possible on the higher-end models of typewriter). Hundreds of tailor-made individually addressed letters could be printed out with ease, and edited with ease, and the files could be managed and the output could be adjusted.

The transition from dot-matrix or daisywheel to the first generation of laser printers such as the Apple Laserwriter, and the corresponding transition from character-based screens to WIMP GUIs such as the Apple Lisa or Apple Macintosh meant that more flexibility or time could be applied to the specific styling of the output. Typographic presentation was now a very flexible capability of the system, and the people producing such output would spend considerable time in that part of the process.

Where it went wrong was not, as I often thought, at the point where word processors effectively couldn’t decide whether they should become fully-fledged typesetting systems and hence, desktop publishing applications, or whether they should still claim to be word processors, yet all the time adding this feature, that feature and bolting on other capabilities that are outside the strict realm of word processing. For example, the typewriter can tabulate, but the word processor can also range copy to the left, to the right, centred, or even justified (with appropriate algorithms) in a similar way to the more sophisticated phototypesetting systems of the day.

Soon, to add to tabulation, justification, a range of typefaces and fonts in various sizes, demand for actual tables was catered for (in perhaps a not very interoperable manner). Tables could be drawn up using a different action than simply setting tabs and drawing rules. Tables required a whole new interface built into the program, and as this was the wysiwyg age, the table construction had to happen right there in the middle of your page, as you worked.

After tables, the addition of graphics. This was perhaps an odd decision - a word processor program that can actually embed graphics into the page - and show you them as it does it! Is this now a DTP program? If you took this word processor document and used it as the copy for an article that were being set in a DTP application, you might find that the tabs didn’t match what the author saw on their screen (as authors rarely understand tabbing), the table was interpreted in a variety of ways by the DTP program, and perhaps even that the graphics and other non textual content were stripped out by the time you saw the copy flow into the galleys on the DTP program.

If you were lucky, the WP program and the DTP program understood each other in terms of fonts and typography, and if you were even luckier you could set up matching style names on each and they would be respected throughout the workflow. Soon, the perceived demand for not only tables, but tables that behaved (or in fact were) just like a small chunk of spreadsheet was satisfied. You could set up a small table in the document which linked some of its cells to live data or external data, and some of the other cells might contain formulae that operated on the content other cells, producing results. Is this what word processors should be doing?

So, word processors have always had the temptation to bloat in various unmanageable and uninteroperable ways, continually striving to be a more accessible or immediately usable alternative to a DTP program, and increasingly adding features the relevance of which to the act of processing words is mystifyingly remote.

No, none of this is where it went wrong for the word processor (and by extension, the ‘office suite’). Where it went wrong was more subtle and less obvious. Where it went wrong was when we slipped unknowing and unaware into the age where the intended surface for consumption was not a sheet of paper any more, but the actual data file! The word processor file is now vital, whereas previously in history it would and should be of no interest outside the office or organisation that produced it. Now, everybody thinks they have to be able to read other people’s word processor files, which is a frankly ridiculous situation, and one that nobody has clearly spotted that we’ve got ourselves into.

There is not a tangible or appreciated boundary between creation and consumption. By sending or accepting a word processor file, where are you? Still producing - or worse, finishing the unfinished production initiated by someone else; or are convincing yourself that you are in the act of consuming? There needs to be a clear boundary between production and rendering, and there needs to be education that the intended consumer only having access to the rendered output is a good situation. After all, in the days of the electronic typewriter, there wasn’t a ‘typewriter file’ that you gave to someone else to somehow read as the default finished output. No, the paper output was the final rendered product. It involved decision making at the editing phase, and a clear demarcation between that production stage and the finished output stage ready for others to see. This isn’t there any more, and it is this precise problem that word processors have led us into.

The Science of Belief

, originally uploaded by Ian Tindale.

I'm not anti-science. Science as a (relatively young) activity is never going to go away, is never going to diminish, and is never going to cease to have support by the correct-thinking person. My stance is just that it is merely one activity of the typical human, and that it acts as a counterpoint to the irrational to the level that it is afforded almost 100% credibility without even thinking about it or putting it to the test by the average person. If it's scientific, then it's so. If it's not scientific, then it's just your belief or my belief that it's probably so. My stance is that there's a lot in science that is incomplete and of 'placeholder' level, more so than the average person might realise, so it's not always an absolute arbiter of what the concrete reality is out there that we're perceiving (although it's easily the best one we've got).

In no way will I knock science - it's the way I think, after all. Right now, we live in absolutely fascinating times where vast developments are being made as we sleep in so many different areas of research, many of which will reach the average person in our lifetimes in some positive way or another. Times are absolutely great right now, this is a really good time to be involved in the direction and progress of the human race. Understanding and comprehension of the real world and the universe is proceeding at a healthy and encouraging rate, and hopefully will continue to do so.

What I do tend to perceive is an unspoken war between science and religion. There really is no reason or logic or model for religion to exist - there's no proof, no testable evidence of any of the main ingredients of those ridiculous fairy stories such as an afterlife (especially one with a level of variance that pivots on our behaviour and choices during our lifetimes), an invisible god somewhere (I mean, that's just absurd, and what economic or ecologic reason would there be for a god or many gods to exist? What's the stimulus that makes it necessary? Don't forget, monotheism is a relatively new twist anyway), and a set of behavioural values that are extra to our existence as human beings.

None of these actually exist at all, other than in the heads of those that think it does. And those people are clearly mad. Obviously. It's ridiculous that there are people wandering around that believe in a god, or gods, to the degree that their lives are profoundly affected by it, and it becomes a problem because they then try to normalise the situation by spreading this condition. It's ridiculous that people like that aren't locked up, or healed somehow. When you live your life according to superstition such as what the horoscope says, or what a bible says, then there's an obvious social problem and it needs to be attended to with great urgency. "When you believe in things that you don't understand you will suffer. Superstition ain't the way!"

On the other hand, there's clearly a lot of events, patterns, phenomena that science is yet to express a viable model for (it can't do everything at once), which leaves great big holes in our understanding - presently filled with wonder and awe at how wonderful nature is. When science can explain these things we'll be filled with wonder and awe at how wonderful science is, because we'll be experiencing it as a science artefact then. Among the many things that I don't derive a satisfactory explanation from science are a lot of questions that I could rope into a 'how did it come to be that way, against all odds' grouping.

For example, the way that a caterpillar changes into a butterfly. This is distinctly complicated. Never mind about the actual process of the weeks spent as a chrysalis, but merely the part where the caterpillar (in some species, notably the nymphalidae, and others which hang down as chrysalids) sheds the skin at the final instar, revealing a soft chrysalis casing, no legs, no limbs, no eyes, and the first thing it does is to unhook itself by the tail from inside the shed skin, 'crawl' across the wrinkled bundle of dried shed skin by its tail hooks (during which time it is attached firmly to - nothing), and through a series of wiggling manoeuvres, re-hook itself to the silk pad previously attached at the point of suspension of the caterpillar. Without falling off. I know it's evolution in a reductive sense (ie, the chrysalids that weren't all that good at that were eliminated long ago), and I know it's all mechanically possible and explainable, and I know it's not really related to irreducible complexity (an argument that seems clever but fails each time it's put to the test by real scientists), but, you know, it's pretty bloody amazing how this can even happen at all. Wasn't there an easier, simpler and more systematic way that appeals to our risk-management driven conveyor-belt neat and tidy mentality models?

Another example would be the one I alluded to above, where small parasite organisms (ranging from highly complex and advanced wasps (which are themselves among the more highly complex and advanced insects, prior to bees and ants) to fairly simpler organisms such as a vast range of parasitic worms) have the effect of distinctly altering the behaviour of their host victim. Such repeatable behaviour changes are a phenomenally high level effect - although admittedly a kind of 'macro' action of leverage by a smaller and less sophisticated systemic alteration elsewhere. The whole science of parasite study is only now demonstrating that there's a complete other perception of how life is arranged on this world - that there isn't just a 'hierarchy' of lower life forms, then more complex ones, then even more complex ones, then us. There's a matrix arrangement, or a network arrangement of interrelationships between life forms at so many different levels of purpose and behaviour, such that a quite highly developed kind of life form might play host to an altogether 'lower' kind, all its life. And in many cases, the rate of parasite infection can reach nearly 100% in localised populations, such that the entire species might exist as nothing but a vehicle (sometimes quite literally) for a completely different but opportunistic species. This is a new arrangement, away from the Darwinian christmas-tree of life. It doesn't explain the archeology of dna progress (like evolution does), but it can show a 'phase-space' view of why things are why they are now, if you like, regarding economic niches and their value.

Science is as far away from explaining anything of real impact (to the average person) regarding dreams, as it ever was. Most people have other models to explain dreams (ranging from dismissal to attempted interpretation), but not scientifically-derived ones, because there aren't any useful ones yet. But this isn't because dreaming is not scientific, but rather more because the scientific method is a poor fit to observation and inference regarding dreams, partly because of the subjective barrier of the only access to the subject being through asking a person "about" their dreams. It's an effect that's not easily measured or tested directly.

On the other hand, much as I look down on the religious (am I right in thinking that the only type of person interested in proactively engaging in war these days are religious types?) as deluded fools, there is a considerable utility in this sort of misguided faith or belief. Let's assume that there is no god, which of course, as far as I'm concerned, there isn't. Let's say that it can never be proven or disproven - ever. Then as long as belief in your god or gods bring a beneficial behavioural effect, or social code of conduct, then it's useful to believe in it as much as you like - believe away - and the outcome is always going to trend towards a positive outcome for people in general. Another form of faith utility: let's say you're worried about the safety of a person, in a situation. There's almost nothing you can do about it, because you're not there with them right now. Yet you pace up and down, worrying, distracted and otherwise consumed as far as your attention is concerned. The non-religious person assumes all of the responsibility in this situation - they wouldn't necessarily consider that outside help is going to allow them to forget about the situation and relax. The religious person prays, and performs other similar rituals, and has a significant belief that it's "god" (or whichever brand of imaginary friend they place their faith in) that will help them, help the subject of their worrying, and will play an active part in protecting (somehow - unspecified - probably in mysterious ways) or otherwise acting as a beneficiary agent in the matter. This has a significant advantage. The religious person isn't "doing it all by themselves" - they have assistance (even though it's only placebo assistance) and are able to position themselves further in progress in dealing with the situation, because the responsibility is out of their hands (which it is anyway, in both cases). In such situations, this assistance acts as a useful tool or lever or walking stick with I would say a measurable effect.

I still think the notion of belief in something like a god or gods when there's absolutely no indication of the existence of such things, no reason whatsoever that there should be one or more in the universe, and all indications that there might be one or more are entirely fabricated from the stuff of human storytelling and nowhere else, is plain ridiculous. But if it helps on a personal level, then go ahead - believe in it, and you'll gain advantageous utility more often than not. On the other hand, this doesn't take into account the devastating effect that religious idiots historically and currently are responsible for. On a global societal level, I would say that the benefit is actually negative. The damage is great, despite any personal-level advantage gained by belief in something that doesn't exist. I consider that the world at large would be significantly improved if the religious believers were removed (or their beliefs removed at least). I think that it's in everybody's interest to quickly, definitely, once and for all demonstrate that there really isn't a god or gods, and that it's antisocial and harmful to allow belief in such, beyond a village-sized scale. We live in the world (even the americans do, much as they'd pretend otherwise) and religion is a poison or a cancer, when taken at this scale of the organism.

Whatever happened to the “World” Wide Web?

iS500_Delta100EI200DD-X-007, originally uploaded by Ian Tindale.

The observation:

Increasingly, one encounters a certain phenomenon in online publishing: a tendency to communicate assuming that the author's entire audience is in the same sort of vicinity as their own local neighbourhood. That is, an underlying assumption that they are all familiar with the same products and trade marks as the author, speak the same colloquialisms, know the same people in the news, share the same formative memories of popular culture, use exactly the same currency and even share the same values. This irrational behaviour, I find, peaks with the most audacious assumption - that it is simply not necessary to even mention which country the author is writing from - at all. Sometimes, of course, it is simply not necessary. In many cases, however, it is utterly necessary in order to contextualise much of the 'furniture' of the message that the author is attempting to convey.

The typical case seems to be one in which the reader starts to consume the article and increasingly finds themselves at best unconsciously irritated or discomforted, and at worst, alienated, by what they read. As the consumption progresses, it dawns on the reader that they are reading something written not for a world audience, but for a quite local region - a select boundary - and with no indication that this was the case. References are broken, disconnected and lacking in context, experiences that were probably intended to be shared, are not formed in that way.

The result is likened to one of encountering someone with no manners, no grace, and no particular care for the comfort of their reader. A brash, unaccommodating and small-minded person - perhaps unaware of the world at large. Surely this isn't the case, but that's what it seems like to the audience. This is the feeling that one is left with, and I would propose, largely unconsciously - no matter how much conscious adaptation, adjustment and rationalisation occurs.

The problem:

The problem is that authors are increasingly subjecting widely-situated audiences to an unconsciously uncomfortable experience (perhaps unwittingly, but nevertheless, the alienation is not attractive, it is repellant, even if only to a minor degree). Objectively, this is pretty much the opposite of what good communication should be about, and it might be noticed to be an increasingly prevalent trend. It's a bad experience on behalf of the reader, and in turn it's a problem for the author if they're inadvertently installing alienating feelings in their readers. So what is the solution?

Solution specification:

Obviously one can't simply fight back each time, pointing out the error of the ways of the author for not remembering that they are publishing on the World Wide Web. Obviously one can't successfully impose a set of rules or etiquette - what if someone ignores it, or doesn't like being told what to do. Such measures would always be too overt, too conscious, and too total in intent. It might result in politeness, but might instead result in even greater rudeness.

There needs to be a way of inducing people to communicate for an audience that consists of the world (even if only the English-speaking world for those that are writing in the languages that English-speaking people understand). There needs to be a means to remind people that they are authors in the act of publishing - an action that 20 years ago was relatively expensive, intentional and laborious, with nowhere near the wide reach and immediacy offered by today's publishing channels - and that responsibility for what is freely published rests on the author's shoulders.

I haven't got a solution - all I've done is identify a fairly concrete phenomena. If there were a solution, it'd be along the lines of a 'global manners' ethos, I'd hazard a guess, whereupon it becomes a bit socially un-cool to speak from a local, regional, boundary-evident stance when one is knowingly addressing the entire world but not accommodating this aspect. I don't know. I don't know if it can be done, how it can be done, and even if it should be done this way. I don't know.

There are no such things as trees

Shadow tide, originally uploaded by Ian Tindale.

I suggest that there really aren't such things as trees. They don't exist. Never have done, certainly don't now, and never will, either. They're an illusion. A figment. It seems as though they should exist, and the model certainly has assisted the transition into the age of reason and enlightenment tremendously. The mania to shoehorn everything into a taxonomy makes even evolution seem logical and undeniably true. The classification into hierarchies emphasises differences. It is not a good model for viewing similarities as relationships. The canonical layout of religious thinking falls into a similar trap - that of logic appealing to the progressive mind, and hierarchies and taxonomies and classifications appear to come handily to the aid when in fact they are mere illusions.

Looking for a song name generator

Nik20mm_Delta400+1_DD-X-006, originally uploaded by Ian Tindale.

Song name generation: Can anybody help? I want to generate a list of 'song names' for music compositions I've done in the past but have not named.

It occurs to me that I could generate them from a tag cloud, perhaps a combination of my flickr tag cloud, as it's big, and my delicious tag cloud, for the same reason.

But what I'd also like is a (computerised?) way of assembling one, two or three-word phrases that sound like plausible phrases, according to parts of speech, so that I can play my creative part and sit back and choose from the infinite variety of the possible.

Any ideas, anyone? (I know nobody ever reads my blogger posts, or at least, nobody ever comments on them, so the chances of a response to this are minimal, but I'll ask anyway just in case someone sees it on friendfeed).