

DevArt: your code belongs in an art gallery - kinlan
http://googledevelopers.blogspot.com/2014/02/devart-your-code-belongs-in-art-gallery.html

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diydsp
"competition" "art" "must use google technologies"

wtf is going on here?

This sounds like a huge advertisement for google under the premise that "if we
put your stuff in a gallery, you will be an artist." One that the public in
another country will pay (the gallery) to see.

> "Sometimes we just need some inspiration and an outlet."

Folks, your outlet for your art is the entire world around you. It is your
friends and family and co-workers and meetups. Art isn't a competition
requiring $company's products. It's a way of communicating, not a class that
you enter by adhering to corporate rules. I'm not saying, "don't do this," but
I am saying, understand the power imbalance you're entering into, how they're
benefiting and how they're feeding your ego to pull it off.

It may be just some of bitterness from my grad school years, but I showed
stuff around the world for a few years, and like my advisor used to say about
most of the projects in the world of "fill-a-gallery with computers and LCD
screens and sensors" which faddish curators have been building the last
decade, "Oh look, it's geeks!"

Producing art is a lot like a startup - you won't get any traction by
impressing customers with your skills. You have to deliver. In business, you
have to make your customers look good to others and in the art world, you have
to communicate an insight and perspective and you have to make yourself
vulnerable. Even if you just write code, you will probably get dirty.

Very few of you who do this will be compensated for your work. Most of your
work will be shown and used to attract people, benefit the gallery owners
financially and co-produce some kind of message about "google supports the
arts." The works will be selected not on the basis of improving the world, but
for supporting the message of the event's organizers.

Your contribution of free labor to the established wealthy may make some
visistors laugh and cry, but it won't amount to anything except a diversion.
They won't remember you and the world will be just a little bit more out of
your control because you relied on someone else's validation and permission to
communicate your message. Look, it's not about art, because they've already
filtered out works which don't meet their corporation's criteria.

If you don't want to just be a freakshow participant for the benefit of a
company's and gallery's bottom line, begin with an idea, not with a code
editor. All of that "make a pretty pattern stuff" and "hook up a sensor to a
pattern generator" stuff was actually done waaaaay back in the 1960s. The only
people you impress will be those who don't know any better and you won't be
communicating anything, but mollifying them with shiny objects. And for God's
sake, don't limit yourself to showing your work in this one gallery or to
using google technologies.

They're using celebrity to impress you. They're presenting a group of people
as celebrity artists drawing pretty patterns on the screen and with blinking
LEDs and implying that people get something out of it. But those are patron
artists who benefit those for whom they are employed, not folks who
communicate ideas through art that benefit the species.

It's as Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, "Too much art is like candy and not
bread."

~~~
_huffy
Curmudgeonly naysaying.

It's one thing if Google was being dishonest about the opportunity on offer.
That it _sounds_ like a premise you particularly dread hardly makes it
actually operate under said premise.

In the face of a profession that worships craft-as-opposed-to-art, Google
sounds an encouraging note: that code can be/can produce art and that it wants
to promote that idea, and show off those who avail themselves of that idea.

Are you under the impression that artists in this sphere are in it for the
money?--and that Google is therefore somehow swindling aspiring participants?
We could do worse than have an online art hack month. The modest constraint of
using a single Google product in exchange for participating a well-supported
competition seems reasonable for most. And that will hardly, "for God's sake",
"limit [them] to showing [their] work in this one gallery." Like game jams,
this is about kickstarting creativity.

You decry mercenary motives and then evaluate this opportunity purely in terms
of profit. You can't have your urinal cake and eat it too.

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pnewman2
Seems like a good time to mention the Demoscene, which feels like a similar
concept but a bit more grassroots.

I'm not a participant in the Demoscene, but I admire both the technical and
artistic creativity of what sceners produce.

Here are a couple sites for anyone who might be interested:

[http://www.pouet.net/](http://www.pouet.net/)
[http://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?order=release](http://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?order=release)
[https://www.scene.org/](https://www.scene.org/)

~~~
wtracy
And there's an event in San Jose coming this March!

[http://nv.scene.org/2014/](http://nv.scene.org/2014/)

~~~
pnewman2
Yes! I forgot to include that!

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jmnicolas
IMHO being a developer is about delivering production quality code that does
what the user asked.

But feel free to craft haiku / one-liners / whatever while the rest of us ship
actual useful products ;-)

Oh and is it really art if you have to be a dev to understand and "appreciate"
it ?

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falcolas
I don't think my code could ever be considered art; it spends too much time
being correct to be beautiful.

~~~
merry-year
Good excuse ;)

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pjmlp
> Languages: Go or Dart. > Platforms: Chrome Apps, Android, Google Compute
> Engine or App Engine.

So since when do Go and Dart target Chrome or Android?!

Last time I checked, the status was still _pending_.

~~~
kinlan
As some of the other comments explained it is one of any in the entire list.
It was pretty hard to phrase it correctly and keep it concise (sorry on my
part)

~~~
pjmlp
Ah ok, sorry for the harsh comment.

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binarymax
Damn. As a life long generative artist this is right up my alley. But I don't
have the time. Need to find the time. This looks awesome.

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outside1234
so only code using Google platforms is worthy of being art? wtf.

~~~
crazypyro
Its not an art competition, its an advertisement competition.

