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Category: culture

Human Factors

Published December 21, 2008 by cgerrish

Someone asked, looking at the statues in the Greek and Roman section of the Met, why there were so many bodies without heads, and heads without bodies. Turns out there was a time when Christians took a fancy to knocking the heads off of statues. Power shifted, paradigms shifted– Christianity moved from the margin to the center; from a form of atheism to the primary form of theism.

There’s a particular humanity and sense of personality that is still transmitted from these faces. A connection is still possible, even across the centuries. These artifacts, even with the ravages of time, radiate meaning. Contrast that with the digital artifact, once corrupted– it becomes unreadable.

Imagine a culture that encoded all of its artifacts in digital media. Then think about a power shift where the new authority erased the digital artifacts of its predecessor. It’s difficult, if not impossible, for power to imagine its end. We assume that what exists will continue to exist. What tools will the archeologist of the future require to unearth the digital culture that we’re creating today?

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The Ephemeral and The Artifact

Published December 16, 2008 by cgerrish

Phillipe de Montebello

Curatorial expertise is the Metropolitan’s most valuable currency.

– Philipe de Montebello

After spending hours in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, your mind spins. So much taken in, so much to process, to sort through, to connect up, to start whole new trains of thought. The items kept and displayed in the Met are often exemplars of their type.

Woman Seen From The Back

But as Montebello notes, it’s the ability of the curator to find a particular item, a painting, a cultural artifact and tell a coherent story about it; to connect that story to the others floating around the culture in which the object was embedded. The value of the curator’s thought and writing ensures that the objects in the collection have value and that the value continues to grow and deepen.

Compare this to the value of the digital object. While our understanding of a digital work can grow in depth, can the artifact itself actually grow in value? The digital object’s relationship with time has been one of depreciation, its existence ephemeral. The business of the digital has been managing a downward slope toward commoditization, and ultimately a price of zero (Of course there are strategies of renewal).

Will the digital object ever have the same investment characteristcs as the items in the Metropolitan’s collection? In the Computer History Museum, the collection is comprised mostly of the physical computers– the software isn’t much to look at. While Jonathan Ive’s designs will certainly earn a place at the Cooper-Hewitt, will there be a day when we will see digital objects in a physical building like the Metropolitan Museum? If there is such a thing as a digital art object it may displace the Museum. Is there a reason to view such a work in such a place? The digital object can only be viewed in a digital venue. Unlike the artifacts in the Met, the digital object is not unique. It’s always a copy, it can always find its way to you through the Network.  And the most valuable currency in establishing a collection? Curatorial expertise.

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Holmes Vs. Moriarty

Published November 15, 2008 by cgerrish

The narrative is told from the perspective of Good in the story of Good versus Evil. Genius resides in neither one side nor the other. Matter and Anti-Matter, two energies that can’t occupy the same world. It’s the idea of Manichaeism, the world is a battle between darkness and light.

Think about the difference between that frame and the cultural value of Monopoly versus Competition. Instead of a zero-sum game, the game requires two well-matched opponents. It’s the difference between a finite game and an infinite game. In an infinite game, the rules of the game are changed to extend the game to infinity.

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Andy Goldsworthy: The Spire

Published November 10, 2008 by cgerrish

The Spire - Andy Goldsworthy

This afternoon I took a drive over to the Presidio to see Andy Goldsworthy’s sculpture called “The Spire.” Kenneth Baker of the SF Chronicle described it:

“Spire” consists of 37 steel-armatured cypress tree trunks, felled as part of the Presidio’s re-forestation program. The structure’s core sits below ground in a metal sleeve enclosed in a massive reinforced concrete base.

The project isn’t complete yet; it is still under construction, fenced off and surrounded by bulldozers and other heavy equipment. Even at this stage, it’s an impressive site. A spire generally sits atop a building as a kind of ornament. Goldsworthy’s Spire sits on the earth, among trees both young and old. Wikipedia describes spires:

Symbolically, spires have two functions. The first is to proclaim a martial power. A spire, with its reminiscence of the spear point, gives the impression of strength. The second is to reach up toward the skies. The celestial and hopeful gesture of the spire is one reason for its association with religious buildings. A spire on a church or cathedral is not just a symbol of piety, but is often seen as a symbol of the wealth and prestige of the order, or patron who commissioned the building

Goldsworthy says that he hopes he can give this single spire some company in the near future.

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