Touche, Kenny. But when I said that very same thing (well, close) to conservative undergraduates, I saw heads explode. Who's more afraid of Duchamp's failure to be tasteless, than the lyricist?

Contrary to my own claims, I'm always banging my head against the realization that no matter how hard you try, you can never remove the individual from art. I have made arguments for ego-less art, found art, art driven by chance operations and many other strains, but in fact there's always someone behind the curtain, manning the machines.

What about anonymous art? This doesn't remove the "person behind the curtain," but it further distances the product from the producer.

I use a penname in order to seperate who I am with who I want to become through my art, but imagine a step further - an editor compiling works sent to him from entirely anonymous artists doing the sort of techniques you champion? The editor could take it a step further and allow the art selected for the final piece to fall to random selection, not the pieces that greatly interest her or him.

It can't be art without someone involved, of course, but there could be further and further ways to cut down on the potential interference with the artist's personality. Imagine a final product where the audience has no way to contact the artists who contributed, and the editor herself is unaware of who is who.

Just ramblings, there. Personally, I'm not as avant-garde, but from time to time the ideas you put forth seem necessary for art to reinvent itself.

Also, you might enjoy this site: http://www.drawball.com/

Though I'm not quite sure the rules (the site is a bit poorly designed) the idea is quite interesting - an online canvas where anyone can draw.

Bryan,

One of the problems of the anonymous system you mention is that, when everything is open and sorting is left to chance, it becomes simply a chaotic free-for-all. Witness the uncurated situation on archive.org or any number of vanity sites. There needs to be someone with great TASTE minding these machines, otherwise it's a huge -- and uninteresting -- mess, very much like to online canvas thing you sent where anyone can draw. Great fun, socially. Great art? I'd say not.

Kenneth

Hmm... I can see your point with regard to curation as a necessary agent for the culling of great art. But would you kindly speak for a moment to the VALUE of chaos? Your juxtaposition of choas with mess (something I don't disagree with on observing my granddaughter's room) may unfairly burden disorder and fail to recognize where and when it is valuable to the emergence of art. Though stress inducing, and often befuddling, it is where opportunity thrives most greatly. It also allows for greater democracy of curation as each individual strives to make meaning, and henceforth art. Anyone? Care to defend chaos as a necessary agent of art?

Kenny,

Would you mind terribly if I had my shoes back for a moment? I have to walk across the room to turn on a lamp.

Love,
W