Last Day of August

So its the last day of August. Can you believe how quickly the summer has escaped, much less the year 2009? Time just marches along quickly when you're not looking. There was so much I wanted to do this year, and now there's hardly any year left.

The AGO was lovely yesterday. I personally would have preferred a larger contemporary artwork area, but that would be my preference for art created by the living. Something about spending my time with the thoughts and ideas of predominantly dead people gets to be a little unnerving after a while. But the displays are great; I'm sure that's just me.

Was perusing and catching up on TED.com just recently (I really like this site/blog) about this 'engineer/artist' that was lamenting rather loudly that his efforts were not being recognized by ArtForum and other established art circles, and he felt truly irrated by this 'oversight'. He couldn't fathom a recourse to sound reasoning on the part of the artworld, other than perhaps their ignorance of electronic media. (Oh, I should note that he created a program that allows people to record the positive and negatives shapes produced as their bodies moved.)

Wandering around the art gallery, it is obvious that an art museum/institution is focussed on people and their inate reactions - in this case, within the artistic community - on the culture and community they live within, just as a tradition museum is focussed on the the history of man and culture itself. This is where the difference lies between the two. The historic museum is more the math, the unconscious reaction of man on his environment: this happened when, this is the tangible evidence, here is the record. The other, the art institution, is the conscious reaction of man on his environment: this is what people thought about what was happening at this point in time, this is what they created and then attempt to understand why.

Its a major difference, and probably the most obvious answer to this poor sod. What he has created is a marvellous piece of ingenuity, a tool to facilitate interaction between man and machine. The reason he's not being recognized in major art institutions would lean more towards the fact that he has no particular purpose, no thoughts or ambition towards artistic merits of this tool. What he needs is an artist to show him what it could be used for.

This, of course, by no means lessens the interest in this lovely little piece of code he's written. Perhaps I should comment directly on the site, but decided not too. But I do think artists could do much with the harnessing of engineers sometimes.

Anyway, it crossed my mind whilst wandering through the AGO. My favourite piece? "Dancing Peasants" by Adriaen Pietersz Van de Verme. Done in the 1635, believe it or not. Its simply a marvel to behold. Have never heard of him before, but this piece just sang out from the wall.