>" This divorce of art from technology is completely unnatural. It's just
>that it's gone on so long you have to be an archeologist to find out where
>the two separated. Rotisserie assembly is actually a long-lost branch of
>sculpture,
>so divorced from its roots by centuries of intellectual wrong turns that
>just to associate the two sounds ludicrous."
>ZAMM, chapter 14.
>
>Seen in the light of MOQ, why are art and technology divorced? What is
>their
>role today? Is this divorce definitive?
Hi Squad,
I like this months topic, but my only problem is that I don't think the
answer lies particularly within the MOQ. I think this is a ZAMM question.
Let's not forget that you can divide dynamic quality up however you like and
I think the classic/romantic split explains this dilema much better than the
Lila split does.
Art and technology don't just form themselves and I think the question could
be more accurately phrased as, 'why are the people who make art and
technology divorced'? And as Pirsig says, it's because we have scientists
who have no understanding of art, and artists who have no understanding of
science. I'm only 22, so it's pure conjecture, but I believe this problem
was far worse in the 1960's when technology really was ugly. Now we have
nice technology that looks nice and a lot fewer people are scared by it.
The divorcc between scientific and artistic people seems to run very deep
though and it's hard to explain. I'll just do my best and hope that you sort
of know what I mean.
A 'scientist' seems to have a presumption that his technology differs from
mere art because it has a function. A 'function' is a logical purpose and it
fits nicely with a sort of overall presumption that the universe is governed
by logic and reason. Romantic Quality doesn't fit into this theory and
scientists (or purely classically minded people) subconciously or conciously
viciously try to ignore artistic value as though it would somehow prostitute
the functional value of their machine.
Pirsig does a much better job of describing the romantic mind in ZAMM. It's
the living in the 'groovy dimension' whereby they don't want to be bothered
with the actuality of life and just want to ignore anything that requires
square logic or reason and just live on groovy emotions alone. This doesn't
work either but romantic people tend to ignore classical quality (or a
dripping phaucet) just as viciously.
Pirsig wanted to unite the two mindsets of classic and romantic under the
one banner of quality but I don't really think that will work. A modernday
concept called 'cool' is making technology and art both okay at the same
time but I'm not sure at what cost. I would answer that the divorce is not
definitive but it's very difficult reconsiliation - one that will take a
long time.
Thanks,
Phil.
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:18 BST