Re: Until the End of the World
Catherine Nash (cmn4u@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU)
Thu, 20 Feb 1997 23:11:00 -0500 (EST)
In response to the question posed by Carter about technology/art, look at
the art of today.
We do not only use technology, we try to make it into art. People
look to their environment for inspiration. So when I visited the modern
art gallery in DC a few weeks ago, much of the recent works were homage to
technology. There was a wall of TV screens making up an American flag
with ever-changing psychedelic images. I saw paintings of product
wrapping as people experiment with making the functional into the
poetic. Art is no longer an escape (HAS it ever been? I don't know.) it
is a way to try to make ourselves comfortable with the reality that we can
no longer live without technology. We make art out of dots and dashes
(smileys and all that stuff *:) ) - we adapt to the technology rather than
the other way round - and that IS scary.
Just to add to the dependency theme, I'm here as an exchange student for a
year, and I would be SO lost without my e-mail and my talk programs to be
in contact with home - I guess most people use e-mail as a major way of
keeping in contact now. A year and a half ago I didn't even know what
e-mail was.
Cath.