 Dave Jenkins
(K=1350) - Comment Date 2/11/1999
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 Gary Watson
(K=1665) - Comment Date 2/11/1999
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The ugly paleolithic environment selected for individuals plucky enough to escape disaster--perhaps the real artists got eaten, leaving us to marvel at the work of third-raters.There's an embarrassing howler in the second paragraph that recalls the inanities of early evolutionary theories(e.g., giraffes' necks got longer by stretching to reach high branches...).
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 Howard Creech
(K=3161) - Comment Date 2/11/1999
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I am inclined to agree with Dave. Cave art proves that man has a need to express himself in a representative form...but cave art is more a mystical/religious relationship with the animals man hunted than it is a wishful/practical shopping list. In addition, what I have seen in terms of cave art depicts only animals...no human forms (although the carved stone and ivory "Madonnas" found with many of the cave paintings does express a profound mystical/religious respect for female fertility) and no landscape elements. I think the cave art example proves more the opposite, that man has a driving need to express, in representative form, his mystical/religious view of the environment in which he lives. I believe this makes a better case for the "art for arts sake" argument than it does for any practical adaptation to environment argument.
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 pgm
(K=60) - Comment Date 2/11/1999
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The big problem in this line of reasoning, it seems to me, is trying to map some sort of correspondence between the conditions most individuals find themselves living in today with the conditions under which the cerebral capacity of our ancestors underwent such explosive increase. Whether you frame your arguments in a LaMarckian sense (the innate "need" to adapt, inheritance of acquired characteristics, etc.) or a more current Darwinian interpretation, I don't think that anyone would argue that the peculiarities of the human brain and its suite of "skills" and capacities were selected for some specific adaptive functions back on the African savannah. E.O. Wilson has put forth the idea of an innate "habitat template" in humans based on extensive grasslands, scattered trees, bodies of water, etc. that may be related to the sorts of condition many people seem to seek in choosing a living environment. Or, on the other hand, maybe its all cultural or learned. When you try to push these evolutionary arguments about brain wiring and function to the level of aesthetics, I think it becomes so tenuous that anybody's bullshit ideas are as valid as the next person's. Not that I'm trying to dissuade anyone from pursuing this thread - could get real interesting.
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 John MacPherson
(K=1342) - Comment Date 2/11/1999
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Gary - do you mean that the taller cave painters had more free space to express themselves :-) Could get interesting right enough Peter! JOH
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/11/1999
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This sounds too darwinistic to me: all aesthetic phenomena being reduced to some 'useful', biologic, lower need. Aesthetics is opposed to utilitarian stuff. Development and evolution has come from the possibility of NOT-necessary activities. Even: highly useful computer-programs were developed because nerds were just playing, without thinking about some useful purpose. This 'sub- or unconscious level' is always used as an excuse to reduce a phenomenon (like enjoying landscape or the human form) to a more basic thing. Why can't these phenomenons have a right in its own?
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 james mickelson
(K=7344) - Comment Date 2/12/1999
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No one has proven beyond a shadow that all cave paintings, pictographs, petroglyphs ect were religeous and sacred. They could very well have been chalkboards for teaching or maps about what was there to hunt at some certain season. "hey yaba, tomorrow you take yag and phtt over to that sqiggle big horned circle and put three spears in it." And there were never to my knowlege any landscapes. Just as written language has evolved and it can be read today doesn't mean that a sqiggle meant anything more than "what the hell was that?" It's only been cave "art" since we rediscovered it. James
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 John MacPherson
(K=1342) - Comment Date 2/12/1999
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James - you said "And there were never to my knowlege any landscapes". The book "The Bushman Art of Southern Africa" (B.Woodhouse) reports "North of the Limpopo there are rather more (landscape paintings on rock walls, shallow caves, etc) ....they show rivers, stretches of marshy ground and trees". Accompanied by a B&W picture showing trees, rocks, animals, people, and described as being "the environment (surrounding) the rock paintings in southern Zimbabwe Rhodesia as seen by a bushman artist. The scene is approx. 4.5 meters long". I like the teaching analogy. That DOES strike me as a usful way to "use" a cave painting. JOHN
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 Darron Spohn
(K=781) - Comment Date 2/12/1999
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If we believe aesthetic taste evolved from some need to discern an optimal habitat, then why do we so often disagree on what constitutes a good photograph? I see far more consensus on human beauty among my acquaintances than the concensus I see on art of any form. Our ideals of beauty have changed over the centuries too. Remember all the plump ladies in Medieval paintings. Those models could not get jobs (at least not as models) today.
Nope. This stuff is learned, not hard wired before birth. Besides, I prefer mountains and streams to grassy savannas and lakes. But I live in an asphalt jungle.
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/13/1999
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John, James: "Isn't all art a form of teaching?" Lot Wouda, 1999.
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 John MacPherson
(K=1342) - Comment Date 2/13/1999
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Lot - in so far as there is a message contained therein? You are probably right. My initial thought was NO, not ALL art; but then I thought - well any failure of mine to understand/learn from the 'art' is MY fault and no fault of the artist. But I'll need to think around this one a bit more! JOHN
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/13/1999
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JOHN, something like that yes, in the sense of: here's another way to look at the world. It can be a message yes. Message implies something morally (many medieval paintings contain a moral message); much modern photojournalistic work contains a political message; but it can be an aesthetical message too in the above sense (Van Gogh?). I've got another remark though - concerning the question on top. How about music? Can this be reduced to biological 'functions'? HOWARD/JAMES: I think music is the youngest art (except photography - but that belongs to the visual arts). Maybe it is possible to use music as a model for the position/function/content of art in (prehistoric) society. That would be nice because we know more about music because it's so young. Isn't it so that in the beginning 'high-level', artistic music was religious music and that there was no other such music than religious music? So, that in the beginning all forms of art were religious - kind of worship for being in love with the world/gods?
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 Howard Creech
(K=3161) - Comment Date 2/14/1999
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Lot, I agree...music (and art) are representational and probably from earliest times had more communal/tribal/religious signifgance than any practical application. Primitive societies always had both music and art (music and art often define cultures) and there is no reason to believe that the first men had art, but not music...if you can talk..then you can sing...and just as easily, if you can think you can create a representational view of your environment.
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 John MacPherson
(K=1342) - Comment Date 2/14/1999
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Lot - "How about music? Can this be reduced to biological 'functions'?" I dont know about "reduced" but can I try "informed by" ? I am thinking about the effect of playing sounds based on naturally occurring rythms. eg the heartbeat. A slow 50-60 bpm beat can be restful and a faster 120+ bpm can really fire people up. "Hey Glog how about you beat the drum REALLY fast and we go out afterwards and club some bison" Howard - "music (and art).........had more communal/tribal/religious signifgance than any practical application" - I take your point. Do you think however that trying to assuage the world/gods might have been a practical application (at least as far as the pepetrators of the art/music were concerned)? Lot said "........kind of worship for being in love with the world/gods?" ? I'd agree that that could have been SOME of the motivation, but that also there may have existed a great degree of FEAR of the "world/gods"......their "behaviour" would certainly have been unpredictable: storms/volcanoes/ earthquakes etc. SO - Along the lines of "Glog - paint those mountains on the cave wall really nicely, and put some fine looking bison in, and maybe the big hill wont throw hot rocks and ash at us, and the bison will let us kill it next time instead of injuring us". A primitive desire to be able to exert some control over the environment by controlling the representations of it. As opposed to the painting having a purely decorative function. Are we then back to Lot's previous comment about "Isn't all art a form of teaching?" because the message on the cave wall as read by others passing later says "Look out - there are big hills that are dangerous here, BUT also lots of bison you can eat" ? And the native australians had their "songlines". Surely a use of art (music) for practical purposes, and related closely to, and informed by, their landscape.
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/14/1999
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John - I'll think about this - interesting. Modern life has become diversified. Every aspect of life has an own concept now and a separate profession. Homo universalis like Goethe and da Vinci may have less chance in the future. In prehistoric times art/religion/utility was one big lump. I just don't think that you can say: "Art? What do you mean art - they just wanted to eat!" That's reducing life to one aspect of the lump.
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 John MacPherson
(K=1342) - Comment Date 2/14/1999
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Lot - I agree wholeheartedly re it not simply being...... "Art? What do you mean art - they just wanted to eat!" There has to have been a variety of influences at work, not the least of which was some impulse to simply leave ones mark. I think we're heading towards the point where some of the other discussion threads get heated - the point where the reasons WHY we paint/photograph get debated, (the "motivation" v the "message"). Primitive man could "create" for any number of reasons but the message (if any) gleaned from that "creation" was entirely in the mind of the beholder, especially if they were not privvy to the reasons for, or process of, its creation. So although Glog MAY have painted to pacify the gods, honour the food, and ensure his safety, there may have come a point when he pushed his luck too far and the bison got him. Next cave occupants move in and its "Hey nice mural, love the mountain, hate the horns, pity they couldn't do bison properly". And immediately the work becomes (interpreted as) something else. And critics began to evolve :-) JOHN
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/14/1999
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Nice myth - although a bit American. Was it the bison that got him or European colonists? (just a joke). I agree upon the fear aspect you mention in relation to religion. In the Dutch translation of the Bible "they feared God" is the same as "they strongly believed in God". But that as a side-step. What would you think of the first statues of Venus: is it porn, erotic art, worship (to the God of human fertility), mascotte (if you wear this all day and now and then touch it very softly, your wife will have a child within 9 months), or all of them? I think it's all of them, but I also think that my primary feelings of the statue aren't essentially different from the feelings of the people who lived in the time when they were made. The ideology of the beholders will differ, but in primary feelings they will be the same. Just as an example: I think people who see nudity as an offense, and who want to be protected against obscenity and nudity have a certain ideology on it, but they do not have different primary feelings about it than people who do not feel offended by it. And so I think that aesthetic evaluation is rather invariant over time/history. There are fashions/waves/vogues yes, but that is merely a matter of getting used again to an aesthetic principle which we were almost forgotten.
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/14/1999
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P.S. I already turned in my motivation recently and as for the messages thread: I like it the most when people tell me what my message was and that I can recognize it: "damn you're right, I didn't know that!". Just as it is one of the most exciting things wakening up and finding yourself loving your wife.
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 John MacPherson
(K=1342) - Comment Date 2/14/1999
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Lot - mmm? HAVE you been wearing and softly touching that statue of Venus.... :-) "Nice myth"... and I'm not even an American - European, and more closely related to one of the colonists! Do you think my genes are showing? Re Venus - yes, I would agree that it could be seen to represent all you mention (porn, erotic art, worship...etc). Sometimes though it can be very hard to separate your "primary" feelings from your appreciation of 'whatever it is' in an aesthetic sense. Too much 'gut reaction' and not enough consideration. I find myself doing that (too often), then get annoyed with myself when I realise what I've done (again!). I posted the original question for this thread after hearing a variant of it offered on a radio discussion last week. I thought about it over a few days and was intrigued by it. The original context wasn't specifically photography or arts related - much more general. But I thought it might be interesting to see what the posters here would make of it. "Just as it is one of the most exciting things wakening up and finding yourself loving your wife". P I'm not married - so..... "damn you're (PROBABLY) right, I didn't know that!" :-) Best wishes J
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/15/1999
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Ok, agree on your remark on primary reaction and consideration. I have considered my remark on aesthetical invariance. I'm in doubt now if this is a workable concept. But I agree on your evolution of the brain. They say that every new generation nowadays has 20 points more IQ. Hard to believe that this is not paralleled with more "RAM" in the brains.
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 John MacPherson
(K=1342) - Comment Date 2/15/1999
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Lot - I thought interesting the premise put forward by the proposer of the original question (on radio) that aesthetics might not necessarily be a "useless" function (as in "yes its nice - but so what"). To consider that possibly appreciative skills evolved as practical abilities, informed and shaped by the environment. And at some point down the line the abilities shifted from being solely representational to include aspirational elements. I thought in particular of one marvellous "cave painting" I find really enjoyable. The London Underground Map. It is functional but it is also beautiful, elegant in its simplicity, yet containing all the information one would need to find ones way around London. The creator had the inspiration to realise that it did NOT have to be exactly representational of the actual geographic positions of locations that were to be visited. The "circle line" didn't have to be a circle, so long as it was represented as a circle on the map and the train came back to the same place physically. And throw in a few colours to make the different lines obvious. Follow the art and forget about reality! I LOVE that - and millions of people follow it every week without a care. Now consider what someone in a million years would make of it when they excavate the subway. "Yes Nanoth it is certainly primitive cave art of the type they called "map" - and they could have used it to find their way around". And of course their utter confusion when they finally excavate the whole tunnel system and find that it does NOT match the strange pattern on the wall. Ha Ha! Things don't have to be as they seem - only to be as we need! "Hard to believe that this is not paralleled with more "RAM" in the brains". Take your computer analogy one step further and consider that maybe the file compression software just got better too - so more info in the same amount of space. File compression works (I think) by throwing away repetitive/unnecessary code so the info package is smaller. Nowadays most folk just "accept" and dont really want (or need) to know how eg the Hubble Telescope works - so forget about understanding the technology, and trying to grasp the distances - just enjoy the whirly coloured pictures. Takes less effort, leaves more space for - MTV? (another whirly coloured picture). Or were concepts way back then "bigger" and used more brainspace, whereas today most of the really GIANT leaps have been made (Relativity, quantum mechanics, chaos, The Beatles, etc etc). If man evolved from the apes - why do we still
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 John MacPherson
(K=1342) - Comment Date 2/15/1999
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missed the end of the last sentence sorry: P? If man evolved from the apes - why do we still have apes? JOHN
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 pgm
(K=60) - Comment Date 2/15/1999
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John,
We didn't evolve from apes. We shared a common ancestor with apes, that was neither like us nor like modern apes. These are very different statements. Both Homo (in all its various forms) and apes have changed since that point of divergence. We also evolved from Rhipidistian fish, from Labyrinthodont amphibians, from synapsid reptiles, and lots of other bizarre creatures that are no longer around, but which gave rise to many other forms of current organisms as well as the lineage that led to us. Its a common misconception about human phylogeny.
Peter
p.s. What this has to do with photography I haven't a clue, but I had to post this message when I read your last question.
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/15/1999
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Peter, I didn't read/study all posts carefully enough yet, but just let's hang on here for a while. You wrote: what has this to do with photography? Give us a little latitude to return to this question. In "search of wisdom" you may sometimes need to wander around a bit.
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 John MacPherson
(K=1342) - Comment Date 2/15/1999
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Peter - if you are referring to the very last sentence - then you are quite correct - it has/had absolutely nothing to do with photography. Nor anything to do with the discussion. I have problems with my browser which clips off bits of text near the end of posts. There SHOULD have been a :-) at the end to signify that it was a throwaway line, and not intended to be a "real" question. The fact that it is unrelated to the previous remarks should have been an indicator. But obviously not. I shall be more careful in future! It is really hard to participate in these discussions I find - harder than actually speaking. If you were to have physically seen me utter the previous post you would have seen me smile as I said the last sentence, and probably realised I was not 100% serious. Thank you just the same for the concise info. about human phylogeny. I have to admit I did subscribe to the common misconception :-) That is what I enjoy about this discussion forum - there's all sorts of knowledge lurking out there! Lot - you and I are NOT alone here with this thread :-) JOHN
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 pgm
(K=60) - Comment Date 2/15/1999
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John and Lot,
In my postscript, I was referring only to my specific answer to the human evolution question having nothing to do with photography. I certainly didn't intend it as a dig against any of the other posts - this thread has wandered a bit, but has been quite fascinating, and the connection to the original question has always been at least tenuously present. No offense intended.
Peter
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 John MacPherson
(K=1342) - Comment Date 2/15/1999
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Peter - Thank you. No offence taken. JOHN
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/15/1999
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OK, Peter, thought so. John as to your first post of the 15th. Your perceptions in the subway show you're a great beholder - sincere compliments. But, if you mean to draw a comparison to cave paintings of bisons, I respectfully think that this is crap. Inspiring crap though, but still. You're coming back again with some kind of darwinistic thinking through the back-door, but I don't buy it - as you know. But I admit that it's hard for me to come up with arguments why your metaphor with the London subwaymap is wrong. Try this one: today I read something (on 'coincidence' - in a completely different context) about science and art. It was something like science develops, art circulates. Could it be said in some way or another that cave paintings develop? No (Picasso did something comparable). Do maps develop?
File compression is about ROM, I think. I'm not good at PC-talk, but I thought it was already proven that our cortex is growing ('we' in terms of mankind). RAM is about more combinations being possible at the same time in deductive reasoning (?). Some people say that we cannot grasp the 4th dimension until we have evolved our cortex a lot more. I mean we can deduce it mathematically (not me, by the way), but imagination is still very hard for us here. So, now I've got definitely the feeling we've lost track, we've got to go back before Alan gets us. Have you got a marvellous idea? It was your question, after all? Maybe Peter can help us out? Or Howard, he can be so geniously simple sometimes...
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 John MacPherson
(K=1342) - Comment Date 2/15/1999
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Lot - well I'm running out of steam on this one too! Considering I hijacked (most of) the original question from the radio I dont think we've done too bad actually. Nope I wasn't trying to "draw a comparison to cave paintings of bisons" in any kind of back-door Darwinistic sense - that door was slammed in my face a while back :-) ....simply to point out that something could be exactly as YOU eloquently pointed out earlier: "Isn't all art a form of teaching?" (Lot Wouda, 1999). That something with incredible design and colour, and very much to be appreciated, might have its origins in practicality. But that later when the "message" is lost that it becomes something else, or at least something to be guessed at. Exactly what WE are doing. "Science develops, art circulates" - MM? I'll need to ponder on that one. Yes I think maps have developed, and still do. Old maps showed inspired guesswork, political divisions, and anything the cartographer/explorer wished - technology today allows a high degree of physical accuracy. However in response to political pressure the names of places in many countries are changing out of a respect for the aboriginal culture (Ayers Rock - now Uluru (sp?) etc), and those newly defined locations may hold incredible significance for people who are part of that culture but for us are totally meaningless. That is interesting. I'm not sure how much of what I've contributed here I actually buy into myself, but I really enjoy bouncing these things around. We should call a halt on this one and pop over to "Art vs Pornography" or Doug's "....ignore the female figure" thread. They look set to run for a good while. And I am WAY out of my depth in this thread! And I think Alan is probably having a good chuckle at our expense :-
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 Howard Creech
(K=3161) - Comment Date 2/16/1999
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Lot, come on guy...don't you feel just the smallest (artistic) connection to the hairy dude painting the magnificent bison by the light of a torch (to earn his supper...and the accolades of his hirshute fellows) high on the wall of that Spanish or French cave? Were not talking about Darwin or Douglas here...we are discussing the fact that art (the need to depict ourselves and our environment in a representational fashion) is an intrinsic part of the human character. BTW, I am assuming that "simple" comment was a compliment (until I hear otherwise) Don't trust any thread that remains too closely focused on the topic...we are not scientists, we are photographers.
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 Trib
(K=2701) - Comment Date 2/16/1999
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I feel a little connection to the "heidelberg" man in this instance you know the weird fella in the cave next door with the heavier brow and the quick temper.
WARNING... WARNING... DEVIANT PERIPHERAL ISOLATE.
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/16/1999
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Howard, I totally agree. Did I suggest otherwise? I do feel connected to the "primitive" painter you describe, that was the drive behind my contributions here.
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/16/1999
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OK John I give up, we've made our points and are repeating things now. But you earn a price for the thread with the most reactions!
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 John MacPherson
(K=1342) - Comment Date 2/16/1999
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Thank you Lot, and we even managed to (eventually) attract the inimitable Tribby! Thanks folks :-) JOHN
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/16/1999
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Sorry John, I can't stop this. Is what Marcel Duchamp did a bit what you mean in your last post of the 15th? I mean for instance his 'Fountain' and the 'Bicycle Wheel'?
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 John MacPherson
(K=1342) - Comment Date 2/17/1999
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AAARGh Lot, no dont do it, no no no, you'll be fine - take two apsirin and sleep on it. Trust me! Oh alright! I'll go and see what I said on the 15th............ After your quote "Isn't all art a form of teaching?" (Lot Wouda, 1999), I said "That something with incredible design and colour, and very much to be appreciated, might have its origins in practicality. But that later when the "message" is lost that it becomes something else, or at least something to be guessed at. Exactly what WE are doing." Well not exactly like Duchamp. As far as I know of Duchamp's 'Bicycle Wheel' and 'Fountain' there's not so much 'losing' the message as deliberately DISCARDING the 'message' (for 'message' read 'usage' of the object). Deliberately taking the object out of its normal context, at a time when it is STILL employed in that context and we will encounter it daily. In so doing forcing us into some sort of paradox (or do I mean a dilemma?) - do we discount the "art" because it is ordinary or do we revere the "ordinary" because it IS art? The point is that both the wheel and the urinal are objects of which we are well aware, and which are in everyday usage. The work forces us to reappraise our everday surroundings, and in so doing reappraise the validity of the "art". Although I seem to recall that I've seen it stated that Duchamp's motivation was to ridicule the concept of art. (Art historians out there please feel free to assist here!) P Following your comment about our cerebral cortex "growing" as we evolve, I was proposing the delightful post apocalyptic scenario in a few thousand years time when some large cortexed archaeologist digs up a bit of the underground, finds the colourful squiggles on the wall, thinks "Ah I wonder is this a map!" so keeps digging thinking that the "map" shows the tunnel layout. Finds that the few remaining bits of tunnel they can find DONT match the map (because their directions and layout dont match in real life) and is utterly confused. Comes to the conclusion that the colourful squiggles must "simply" be decorative art of some sort. Although the names of the destinations the underground served may be on the map they have found, unless the actual stations are uncovered with their names on the wall, nothing will match. And the map is NO guide to which direction to actually go and look for the tunnels. So it is useless to the archaeologists. It only really worked when it was part of the whole connected original entity. So do they then conclude that it must be "art" ? Or what. So I meant that we can sit here proposing idea after idea for the inspiration for bisons on walls, and all we are offering is inspired guesswork. As James said on Feb 12th. "hey yaba, tomorrow you take yag and phtt over to that sqiggle big horned circle and put three spears in it." Kind of ties in with your comment on "Isn't all art a form of teaching?" I think yes it can be, an
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 John MacPherson
(K=1342) - Comment Date 2/17/1999
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Damn - I keep losing the end of posts! Clipped off was... P I think yes it can be, and sometimes we need to consider it in other contexts to decipher exactly what the lesson was/is. J.
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/17/1999
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Yeah, I see what you mean, I already did. I'm more interested in the question what your future archeologist would think when he digs out one of the untitled photograms of Moholy-Nagy or Mondriaan's Victory Boogie Woogie. My suggestion: Enjoy the work, don't try to understand. I need a break - didn't Tribby say something like that?
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 james mickelson
(K=7344) - Comment Date 2/19/1999
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Just a question. Why did a primitive(?) man crawl waaaaaaayyyyyyyy back into a cave in France, of all places, and paint upon the wall? I mean wwwwwaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy back. I doubt he was just exploring and found this wonderful wall and just had to stop and make his mark. So was it magic, worship or what. James
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 John MacPherson
(K=1342) - Comment Date 2/19/1999
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James - I have absolutely NO idea! And I think your best guess is as good as my best guess. Worth bearing in mind though that the physical geography may have changed considerably over the eons, and what is now "wwwwwwaaaaayyy baaaaaack" was actually nearer the surface back then. OR maybe not! It could of course have simply been along the lines of "Ug ug, ok Pffthot how about we scribble and paint on this wall, wwwwaaaayyyy back here, and in a long time they will wonder what the hell we were doing down here ho ho ho". Humour has to have been around for a long time too! OR Pffthot painted the pictures on the wall, and made all the other 'primitives' give him a bunch of nuts or berries so they could all come in and look at them. It would be dark and Pffthot would say "Ug UG watch when I hold up the burning stick and you will see all the animals move on the wall" flicker flicker flicker flicker. And the "magic" of cinema was born. JOHN
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/19/1999
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Our caveman was a weird fellow, painting on the wall was his only way to survive in the tribe.
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/23/1999
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But a very talented man also, maybe with very well-developed right hemisphere of the brain. Which brings us back to the question of this thread: "has the brain evolved?" Yes it has, but not symmetrical; in modern Western culture the left hemisphere has become dominant. Yes so much, that we even think that bjeeeewtifull cave-paintings of 35.000 thousand years ago, served some kind of 'practicality'. Otherwise we can't UNDERSTAND (control?) it?
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 John MacPherson
(K=1342) - Comment Date 2/23/1999
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Lot - I LIKE that answer! I think you have cracked this one! JOHN
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/23/1999
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I found it a good one myself too, :-). So we can archive this thread and the talent thread now! They're finished and perfect.
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 John MacPherson
(K=1342) - Comment Date 2/24/1999
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Lot - my left hemisphere tells me that you have rounded this thread off in a simply bjeeeewtiful manner......JOHN :-)
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/24/1999
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Yes :-), it just rattled out of my keyboard last night. Your project on social integration was a great inspiration for our highstanding debate. Until next time!
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/24/1999
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On second thoughts: it's as though you ask in your last post: Baron von Munchhausen, pull yourself on your head out of the swamp!
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