Don't know how many of you are Sunday NY Times fans, but I wanted to post this article:
It's a profile of a poet/philosopher named Lewis Hyde (also a prof. at Kenyon with whom I did not study but did have the pleasure of meeting). He's a big fan of the idea that artists need to "tinker in a collective shop," and that there is no such thing as unique creative genius, but that all creative genius is informed by the work of those who came before them or by those who surround them.
I love this idea, obviously as it applies to us as a collective ensemble. Interesting enough, the author of the article also touches upon the relation between the internet as an intended "creative commons," and how a market culture tends to try and place market value on the creative, which is a misuse of the "gifts" of creative works. So this is also interesting to me as a conflict which our piece may reflect, the utopian idea of the internet (a place for virtual community) vs. the co-opting of the internet (a place for corporations to market to us further and a place where we conceive of ourself as products.)
Anyway, I found it fascinating. Worth a read if you have a chance.
It seems to me that representing that conflict in our show is already well on its way to happening. Many of our brainstorms have consisted of exploring the environment and the population of the virtual world--so much of the content, and so many of the people behind it, are commerce-motivated, that it would be difficult to AVOID that conflict.
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