Archives for May 2000

to be made between genomics and genetics, incidentally, that I neglected to make yesterday when I linked to the Wired piece. It was pretty sloppy of me to have done so, because several years ago I made that mistake out of ignorance and studied it enough to learn the distinction. Which I’m not going to get into here. But that sloppiness on my part doesn’t mitigate against the fact that artists are, or can be, probes dealing with issues that are forthcoming. This doesn’t happen in a specific way but in terms of general principles. Which I’m sure galls many scientists to no end. But the ethics and philosophical principles underlying science are as important as the scientific work itself. And that’s what artists are about, in their often quirky, confrontational way.

was this perfect Montreal early summer night. A little chilly, but people were roaming the Main with a purpose. And as I sat at my regular watering hole – the Copacabana bar on St. Laurent just below Duluth, my mind turned to biodiversity. Extending the idea though – I’m not much of an ecology specialist.

What I was thinking about was the diversity of artistic technique. It was prompted by a chat I was having with this friend of mine who’s making a film now, a 10 minute dance film. I’m really interested in it cause when he made his proposal I made a CD-ROM for him showing off his work – all these little QuickTime clips using a browser interface. So he’s underwritten by the Canada Council for the Arts (Canuck NEA) and with the assistance of the National Film Board – it’s big stuff. And he was talking about this effect he wants to do – the standard rate to get this thing done is $2.40 a frame. Which, at 24 frames a second, means quite a bit of money.

Anyhow – he uses film, not video, and so he’s pretty retro just on that basis. And he knows how to do the effect optically – he’s well trained, and a good artist. But he went to the NFB and talked to them about it – and they said, “nah, we won’t do that optically – gotta go digital on that one.” Not “we can’t” do it, “we won’t” do it optically. And it occurred to me – what happens if people cease to be taught the optical techniques any more? It’s OK in this case, cause however they do this effect in the end, the filmmaker knows the alternative method and could do that if needed.

What if all we’re left with is people who know but one toolkit – not the other ways of doing things?