Arizona Treks

Recently I have been rather quiet on this site.  Not due to a lack of creativity or effort but due to the type of work.  The software products I offer are showing their age and need to be updated.  I am rewriting them using native OSX tools.  There are many who claim to be Computer Scientists and practice software development as a scientific discipline.  When it comes right down to it, I have never seen anyone successfully practice software development as a science or engineering discipline.  Of course, I have not been in the mainstream for several years and can not speak to the current state but it is an art.  Like paining or writing it is something which requires skill, talent, and dedication to do well.  I am not speaking just about writing the code but the architecture and design as well.  

When it comes top producing art, I see almost any result from a creative endeavor as art.  There are many very good artists who work in ephemeral mediums.  Like chalk drawings on sidewalks, sand painting, etc.  But they have in common with other forms of art the vision, desire to create, and effort applied to instantiate the vision.  But I think of different attributes of different types of art.  Some attributes are concerning the medium, some the effort, some the result.

Medium related attributes include concrete medium, stone for carving, wood for building furniture, etc.  Another type of medium is manufactured, paints must be manufactured, although it may be the artist who manufactures the paint and that may be part of the art.. The last one is abstract, like writing or telling stories, writing software fits this mold as well.

Effort can be categorized as labor intensive, thought work, skilled, or inspirational.  I consider sculpture to be a very labor intensive art.  Thought work is along the lines of composing, writing, painting, not a huge physical effort and as the work is created it can take on a life of it’s own.  Inspirational is where I put photography and some painting, mostly abstract.

Results are varied I categorize them as physical,  utilitarian, temporal, abstract.  these are less clear than the medium or effort.  A piece of furniture is physical but it is usually also utilitarian.  But although it lasts possibly centuries, it is not fundamentally temporal in nature.  Movies, and music are temporal, but are stories?  CD’s are physical but the music is not, so I find it fits in the abstract category.  Actually most forms that require some sort of technology I consider to have an abstract form.  Computer software is one of the most abstract forms of creative work.  It is all abstract form concept to realization, but it can and should also be utilitarian.

So I have 2 forms of art that I produce, photography and computer software.  They are very different in their very nature.

Photography uses manufactured or abstract mediums.  It is mostly inspirational but can also be thought work but after a long session in the darkroom standing for several hours   I begin to think it is labor intensive even though it is not.  The results are physical or abstract.  Prints are physical things, images on a computer screen is abstract.  

Software uses an abstract medium although an argument could be made for an manufactured medium, I disagree.  It is very much thought work, the application or end product can take on a life of it’s own and become something very different than originally conceived.  The result is abstract.  

On long drives I often ponder different forms of art and discover things about the arts, artists, and myself.  It is an interesting exercise and can help you under stand yourself a little better.

I hope to get out to photograph this weekend and can then settle down and quit thinking all the time.  I am driving myself crazy with it!