P3D Re: Alternative content - and more

["Xal razutis" <razutis@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

This response is long, since there were many comments that need further 
comment.  A glib, humorous aside won't do.

This topic has produced some passionate responses, among which,
Brian Phillips states the following prescription:

>The list is about the medium not the message.

Is that so? Technology separated from content? That would be apalling.
How about making smart bombs and being fascinated with the technique of 
'navigation' as separate from 'where it's going'? (Like the early days at 
Negroponte's MIT lab with stereoscopic 3D graphics geniuses working on 
cruise missle guidance...'wow that's a neat imaging technique!')

and Phillips adds:

>Art doesn't have to deconstruct the aesthetics of the masses to be
>successful.  Pretty pictures of flowers in vases can also be art.
>

May I interject that 'pretty pictures' (those which are highly valued today, 
such as the works of Impressionists) were once upon thought to be 
'disgusting' and 'content-less' (by the Salon of a hundred years ago) since 
they dealt with subjects of 'landscape' or 'women of low morals' 
(prostitutes).  We remember the Impressionists, have forgotten the Salon, 
and reprints of those pretty pictures hang everywhere as a reminder of 'the 
new' emerging from the stodgy and conservative old.

Dr. T writes of activist 3d photography:

How many
>of us would like to go back and record Woodstock (the original) in 3D?
>Or the assassination of President Kennedy?  I have seen video pictures
>of army tanks entering through the gates of the University in Athens
>in 1974 to stop the student revolution against the military rulers at
>the time.  Now I wish I had been around with a stereo camera!


I was involved in the west-coast (Berkeley-Oakland) anti-war movement of the 
60's and documented the street riots (and was arrested).  This proved to be 
a foundation for my beginnings in 'underground film' (making, exhibition, 
distribution) for the next decades.  Yes, going out to something that is 
'dangerous' and participating in that documentation (there were no 3D video 
cameras then), being called a 'commie', risking black-lists and FBI 
intrusions, definitely was PART OF the process.  And it changed my 
perspective on how 'counter culture' works.  You don't get it by reading 
LIFE magazine.


Dr. T adds:

>What Harold does with his web page and is discussed in this list are
>two different matters.  No one has stopped anyone to discuss the
>content of stereo photography, as long as it is about stereo.
and,
>I don't think stereo clubs should be places where "art"
>is exhibited.  I just go to see pretty pictures. :-)

Is this a call to not discuss certain 'content' on this list?  Or is this 
just a description of what 'stereo clubs' and competitions arising from them 
'SHOULD' be?

More Dr. T:

>And then Boris comes and talks about HIS alternative content images!
>Ha, ha, ha!!!  Give me a break! :-)

Dr. T's demeaning remarks about Boris' nudes (the fact that he received some 
AWARDS! -- how 'un-bohemian?') I take as a personal expression of his views 
that 'alternative' art can never be acceptable, otherwise it is not 
'alternative' art.  Maybe those giving Boris an award are not limited by the 
romantic idea that 'art' should reside in a ghetto, far from the suburbias 
of club meetings!

Phillips noted:

>Some people like to call what they do "alternative" or "avant garde"
>just to make it sound revolutionary or distuptive or in-your-face.
>Others do the same activities and just call it "fun."

The notion that 'avant-garde' is something of a posture (or recreational 
activity) I find demeaning.  It happens to be a confrontational form of art 
(one of many forms) that spans centuries, cultures, nations.  If the reader 
doesn't understand that term (mistaking it for fashion), then they've missed 
much of the boat in the 60's, the Beat movement, and all counter-culture 
including the now. (They can either read books about it, attend present 
events here and in Europe, or ignore it, but ignorance is not bliss).

For those of us who practice avant-garde activities, in one form or another, 
we don't expect to be rewarded in 'recording contract deals' or 
'commercials'; we don't expect our work to be in easy distribution. (In the 
US, the term 'avant-garde' is typically used as a formal (technique) game, 
which is a complete misrepresentation of its historical origins.)

Some of us on this list are artists by profession, We make a living at it, 
and rather than being a 'hobby', the circumstances of that living are 
affected by a public response to our work.  Certainly, when I was a 
university professor in Canada (80's) I could write and say and do anything 
I wished without it jeapordizing my standard of living or my tenured 
position.  Someone could critize my work and I could say 'so what'.  Having 
resigned that comfortable niche in '87, I see my activities within 3D and 
other arts differently.

These issues are not about 'SEX' in 3D (although SEXual subjects have had a 
prominent history of being censored).  They are also about politics, 
innovative ideas, social criticism, and THE LAW.  My own experiences in 
censorship in Canada (organizers of a screening of my work arrested) in the 
80's (and resulting in a Supreme Court Decision effectively DISMANTLING the 
Ontario Censor Board!) are a direct experience which means that I still do 
NOT tollerate any censorship of ideas, expression, or art in any form.  Keep 
your toddlers away from the tube if you don't want them to see something.  
Don't censor the medium.

Howard's photos were like a litmus test.  Some people (like Phillips) thinks 
them too 'tame'.  I think the event and 3D photos reveal one thing: you have 
to be a PARTICIPANT in such an event to be able to interpret it(!). Those 
are the unwritten rules of the event (ever since it's origins), tyet the 
event is becoming more and more 'fashionable' and perhaps the gawkers now 
are a multitude, Harold could comment, since I didn't attend.)

The safest place to 'observe' is the BUS: (to use an example from the 60's) 
If you don't want to interact, like  a TOURIST on a bus-tour in 
'Haigh-Ashbury', you  take snaps of all those 'hippies' and come home to the 
suburgs being smug about it.  (Remember those days?  LIFE magazine 'rules'.)

I look forward to seeing what Dr. Phillips and others can suggest as being 
more provocative. Sometimes complacency in culture needs jolts.

And as for Dr. T's:

 > > OK.  I would still like to know why those under 26 would be more
> > likely attracted to "alternative content 3D" rather than more
> > traditional 3D.
>

WHY?  Because they're curious, developing, anxious, puzzled, interested, 
inspired, and looking towards a future, not a past.

Al Razutis




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