tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-899946063697780510.post1588483492054874123..comments2024-03-09T04:06:47.712-05:00Comments on Abstract Comics: The Blog: "Abstract Comics and Systems Theory," talk given at the San Diego Comic Arts Conference, 2011Andrei Molotiuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17400106944822618816noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-899946063697780510.post-71612886399950530122012-12-30T12:12:59.023-05:002012-12-30T12:12:59.023-05:00I don't see any obvious flaws in your theory. ...I don't see any obvious flaws in your theory. It seems to me that you worked it out with great care and yet made an effortless presentation. I really admire this.<br /><br />I have a habit of always trying to push ideas in the direction of the ultimate, and it's because of this habit that I came away with questions. I can't judge if the questions have general interest or not. <br /><br />1. Is aesthetic achievement in comics an end in itself? The other behaviors, such as the planting of fields for cultivation, the development of urban or suburban subdivisions, the carving of canyons that rivers do, even the development of a fetus, don't strike me as ends in themselves. So in this sense, perhaps comics are of a different kind or category than these examples. Or perhaps aesthetic achievement is also a means to an end. I am on the fence about this, as well as the value of one over the other. Plus I say "perhaps" because the ends/means differentiation may not possess decisive impact for you in the way it does for me.<br /><br />2. Would your observations be true if there were no airplanes? I am amazed at how our technological advances reveal the world to us. The observatory which made Hubble's notes possible is forgotten when we consider the epic impact of his findings, but without its eyes on the sky, Hubble would not have seen what he saw. The subsequent pace of invention, the way we are able to extend our lousy vision to see and learn, is dizzying to be sure, but all so very, very recent. I doubt that we understand our role in learning about the cosmos, and I think we'll need centuries yet before we do. If you were limited to ground level observations, would there be a truth about systems that would lie hidden and unknown, awaiting discovery? Or do our observations from the sky create the sense of symmetry-breaking and differentiation? The question is probably academic, I know.<br /><br />3. I wonder if you haven't laid the foundation for a claim that making comics is a necessary undertaking for humans. Perhaps we could lay aside the vain belief that we are somehow in, but not of, nature (and perhaps you and I have). As we embrace the thought that we are most definitely *in and of* nature, then we understand ourselves as necessarily symmetry-breakers and differentiators, just like birds in flight or chemicals in wombs. So the things we do on land, such as cultivate and build, are the same things we will inevitably do with our tools, such as paper and stories. If we are but a natural phenomenon, then we have no choice but to make abstract comics. Abstract comics are inevitable. That sounds a bit nutty, even to me. But I am not inclined to deny it. Chaos math made Toy Story, so why not abstract comics? :-D<br /><br />Thank you for a fulfilling read!<br /><br />Betheirweneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17597044148890649069noreply@blogger.com