Commentaries on Bob Cobbing - The Argotist Online

Having said all that, especially that the visual text tends to be that which is not clean and not
rationalised, both virtues, there are some qualifications to be made. Moving away from or beyond
pencil and paper is not compulsory!
For instance, a play makes use, often, of multiple performers, of space, of props, perhaps of sound
effects and music; but a bad play remains a bad play no matter how much time effort and resource
it takes to be produced.
Generally speaking, I prefer to listen to a lyric poem that I enjoy, even though it uses nothing
beyond the voice of the poet/reader and the paper it is written on, if indeed it is written down, to a
multimedia presentation from which I derive little enjoyment.
It might be thought that it is efficient use of one’s time to use as technically uncomplicated
methods of writing as possible, given that each new piece of writing is, in manufacturing terms, a
process of research and development.
And taking that lyric poem and making a multi-media event of it may well over blow it. There is
nothing inherently productive or creative in using one medium rather than another. On the
contrary, less is probably always more.
If one has a technical interest in a medium, something that fails artistically may still be of interest.
I find some web art interesting technically, but uninteresting in terms of content and presentation;
but I am interested in the web medium as a medium and so in examples of its use even if they fail
in what is, presumably, their main purpose.
One may wish to examine a book of poetry in which one has no poetical interest because of the
binding or the papers used.
In linear poetry, I find it hard to fully distinguish between the technique and content. What is said
and the how of saying it are close together; and studying how the poet made their poem is part of
the process of reading that poem.
That is much less likely to be the case with web art, I think.
I do not favour a direct comparison between linguistic skills in natural language and linguistic skills
in programming languages. Programming languages are more limited in scope than natural
languages and they do not evolve in the same way—the “evolution of programming languages” is
likely to be a metaphorical evolution. In natural language, the oral and the literal interpenetrate;
and it carries, simultaneously, the denotational, the connotational and the emotional. A
programming language makes a computer behave and that’s it.
Let’s not confuse the quantity of dry ice or the number of lights with whether or not we wish to
listen to the guitar playing. If a piece doesn’t work, all the bells and whistles one can obtain will be
no more than diversion.