Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/08/07/the-artist-who-spent-his-caree.html
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Ah, the glories of being a privileged white male artist who can afford to spend his entire career on something utterly useless.
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Wow, they have pools like that in Warsaw?
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Somebody said he could afford it?
Oh, now I get it!
Art is supposed to DO something.
That explains so much.
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David St. Hubbins: Well, I don’t really think that the end can be assessed as of itself as being the end because what does the end feel like? It’s like saying when you try to extrapolate the end of the universe, you say, if the universe is indeed infinite, then how - what does that mean? How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what’s stopping it, and what’s behind what’s stopping it? So, what’s the end, you know, is my question to you. 
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Or a privileged sort with internet access and time to casually and snidely presume about someone else’s life. Ain’t it great?
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that was the cover of my calculus book when i took it in college.
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My Math textbooks weren’t nearly as interesting. Textbook covers are generally sorry lot, but I thought this was cool.
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Hmm. It strikes me that it would be useful to have a complete list of life-pursuits that are useless (or are not useless, if it’d be easier just to list the acceptably useful ones).
The advantage of being the compiler of that useful list is that by definition you’re doing something useful. I congratulate you on your usefulness. Let me know when you’re done–I’m really curious if what I’m doing with my life makes the cut.
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I kinda feel like art is supposed to do something for other people. It should express… something. Probably something that’s hard to express in a verbal way (or, in the case of poetry and the like, hard to express in terms of literal meaning). Not that you can’t make stuff that carries no meaning to anyone else. You do you. But I’d argue that, artistically, it’s not very good.
That being said, this is aesthetically pleasing, which I’d count as expressing something, and there’s all sorts of deeper meanings you could read into it so… yep, I’d say this does something. Way the hell more than that “Meals for Thieves” guy anyway.
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On a long enough timeline, everything is useless.
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I used to do this as a kid—just write numbers in sequence to see how far I could get. Also, stare at a clock, keeping track of every second, minute and hour that I observed.
So yeah, I was really exciting to be around.
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Thank god someone brought up gender, race and privilege. I was afaraid for a moment we’d have a thread without them.
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We have a “Count to 10,000” thread. That’s sorta the same thing.
shrug
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Except for Dyson’s Eternal Intelligence or something comparable, perhaps.
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Didn’t know that… followed the link to the original paper, and now I’m slowly working my way through it. Fascinating stuff, so thanks for the tip!
If he wasn’t white and male, would that change any thing in your world ?
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