2 20 pm est   [ an encounter with art ]

I love the internet. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I consider myself blessed to have seen the dawn of its invention and I envelope myself in the wonder of experiencing the profound effect it has on my lifestyle. The very nature of the world wide web suits my obsessive need to document and my packrat tendencies.

But I cannot take full credit, for I had an encounter with art that forever shaped how I interact with digital media.

In the fall of 1997 I took an art class based on creating web-based art. It was the only multimedia class offered at Berkeley. I would enjoy the class so much that I would go on to TA the course and to manage the redesign of the Art Department's site.

I wrote a rant and started this diary an immersed myself in exploring the possibilities the web offered to anyone interested in publishing. But in a room full of art students, ideas would be dreamed up that I could not have predicted.

He I could side-step and explore my views of performance art, and art-student art, and so on, but really I must just dive in to the single project the grabbed me and has stayed wrapped in the recesses of my mind ever since. A woman -- who's name I no longer remember -- did her own performance piece, and she did it without any witnesses. Her project site contained dozens and dozens of high resolution scanned images. On the occasion of our project presentations, she arrived with a large clump of melted plastic and ashes.

This unnamed woman cleaned out her public storage space. She made digital images of her possessions, and then she burned them all, leaving only the visual simulacra.

I was struck.

Perhaps a digital copy would suffice. Perhaps I could finally let go of my irrational believe that text needed to be printed to be preserved. And so I preserve stories and ideas. I leave scraps and fragments here. I fill byte after megabyte with content that only exists in cyberspace...

Matthew likes the word faber,
which means "skilled, ingenious"
or "craftsman, artisan" in Latin.

"Why would anyone eat a mushroom? Don't they know that frogs go to the bathroom on those things?"

Talking in his sleep one night, Matthew said, "It's not a mechanical roadway," and then "It seems like there's less variation in getting the whole."

On the night I met Darren, some guy approached me to comment on my dress while Darren was refilling his libation. When Darren returned, I told this man that Darren was my cousin. I have no idea why I lied, but the statement struck my whimsy at the time. In the course of the conversation, we established that the young man (who's name I never caught), like Darren and I, had attended Berkeley. He did not notice the fact that I didn't know some important details about my cousin; at one point the young man declared that he could tell Darren and I were family. Anyway, he said he went to Haas business school, so I said, "You probably know my best friend, Aurora..." because everyone knows Aurora. He indeed did know her, though he looked at my quizzically and asked, "Aurora is your best friend?" I have no idea why that was so hard for him to believe. I have no idea why I want to record that incident.

But I will go on, day after day, sharing my stories...

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This entry is part of a truly collaborative effort by many members of the On Display webring. Each entry in inspired by the one before, and I would highly recommend checking out all the entries.

* * *

two years ago today: "We woke up too late and our yummy dinner interfered with hitting the late night lull. But the day was perfect. We cuddled and lazed around and watched Dukes of Hazard and other such nonsense."

one year ago today: "It was a one hour show of men talking about and showing their penises."

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