A String Of Lights

This is, “Untitled (Last Light), 1993″ by Felix Gonzalez-Torres.

From the plaque:

Throughout his career, Felix Gonzalez-Torres made more than 20 light string works. Apart from the number of bulbs in each piece, and their vaguely referential, parenthetical titles, the only variations from work to work result from installation, the specifics of which the artist insisted on leaving to the discretion of the respective owners. Over the course of any given installation, some of the bulbs burn out; thus the ephemeral nature of the materials imbues the work with a certain sense of melancholy.

This is why I don’t like much “modern ‘art’”. It is entirely in the mind of the viewer, and requires zero skill (or, in some cases, a serious – sometimes intentional – lack of skill) on the part of the “artist.” There is far more art in the plaque describing this piece than there is in the piece itself.

I met too many of this kind of “artist” in college to take any of them seriously. (I realize I’m closing myself off to some potentially worthwhile work this way, but when the alternative is to play the fool, attempting to sense the meaning in a strand of lights lying where they fell, I’m OK with the choice.) What separates this particular piece of “art” from the Christmas lights in your basement? (Yeah, yeah, I know … “you didn’t see fit to mention the lights in your basement, but this work is provoking existential thoughts on the nature of art and artistry itself. It’s forcing you to question your pre-conceived notions of what ‘art’ really is, and expanding your horizons.” Of course.)

It turns out that Mr. Gonzalez-Torres is also behind the pile of candy in the corner that I mentioned on the previous post. The candy pile is on the other side of the wall from these lights. Scroll to the right here for a photo of that.

(Did my use of the phrase behind the pile of candy in the corner make you think – just for a moment – that the artist himself was hiding in the pile? He isn’t. It’s just candy. Are you re-evaluating your prejudiced and jaded notions of the written word? …of the very act of communication?)

So Brian Goes to Chicago… (the Art version)

I of course took an afternoon away to visit the Art Institute and Millenium Park (which I hadn’t seen in person before). The Art Institute has a travelling exhibition of drawings, which was awfully inspiring to look at. They have a couple sketches by Matisse and Monet – guys I associate with painting. And the best part was – their sketches weren’t all that good! Just like mine!

And I took a fun stroll through the “modern ‘art’” wing. (both sets of quotes are critical, there, I believe). I laugh (mostly to myself, but an occasional chuckle escapes my throat) at the stuff they’ll put in there. Two favorites:

1 – A strand of white christmas lights. Plugged in. In a heap on the floor. I have a picture of this one, and of the explanitory plaque on the wall. I will post.

2 – About 20 pounds of colorfully wrapped hard candies piled in the corner. There was a class there looking at this, with an enthusiastic young woman explaining it to everyone. “It’s like how when you’re on the subway and you don’t want to touch anyone because you think they all might have some strage subway disease and you don’t want to get it on you.” (I agree that you don’t want to go grabbing people on the L, but that’s not the reason that leaps to my mind.) She went on to imply that you were permitted to eat the candies, while further implying that should you do so, you were to reflect on the nature of cleanliness and strangers. Or something. Pile of candy in the corner.

#1 I laughed out loud at.

#2 I kept it in. I was outnumbered.

(Disclaimer; I have a Bachelors in Fine Arts. I make fun of this stuff in full knowledge of what it’s “supposed” to mean.)

I later had a chance to enjoy a $5 mint chocolate chip ice cream cone in the shadow of the Great Silver Bean. There is nothing quite like a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone, eaten outdoors. Even if it’s $5. And even if there’s an enormous silver bean looming over you.

I have a few photos, but not as many as I recall taking, so we’ll see what I have and I’ll post a few.

So Brian Goes To Chicago… (the Perl version)

And when he gets back, can’t remember the password for his blog.

But I have it now!

I was away last week, in Chicago for YAPC::NA 2006. (That’s “Yet Another Perl Conference – North America”). Perl is, in many ways, the language that powers the Internet, and if you don’t believe me, you might want to keep that to yourself. (Kidding.)

Anyhow, it was three days of random short classes, followed by two days of one focused long class, taught by Randal Schwartz; author and hard-working, well-known member of the Perl community. I got a lot out of Randal’s class, in particular, and quite a bit out of a few of the other classes, too.

One was a talk on testing websites, given by one of the guys who does such things for Yahoo, and who has written and published code to make it very easy. His code and approach will do me some good, I think.

Another talk was given by Mark Jason Dominus, author of the intimidatingly-titled book, “Higher Order Perl.” I’ve started reading that book a couple of times, but quickly felt in over my head. After his talk, though, it really sounds pretty simple. (In the sense that “E=mc²” is simple … once someone much smarter has figured it out and found a way to explain it in short words.) I will be diving into that book again, here, soon.

Anyhow – I could have posted during the week from the conference, but we only had wireless access, and a conference of hackers is not the best place to be sending out plaintext passwords, so I made a point of not doing that. (And I mean “hackers” in the most affectionate sense – I’m sure nobody’d have done anything awful, but I wasn’t itching to be an object lesson, either).