[Air-l] Why Am I Only Communicating with Text?

[Suzana Sukovic]

At 12:15 AM 27/05/2007, you wrote:
>Steve E writes:
>Can you really find or create an image that you might send us that would
>tell us "We saw everything we needed to see."
>
>Bet you can't do it.
>
>----
>Charlie B replies:
>Beyond the obvious that I can't send images to this list to meet your
>challenge, could it be that most every piece of artwork is incomplete as the
>artist failed to do their work in text?

Saying "everything" is most likely impossible goal, especially that "what 
we need to know" changes. Empty spaces contribute to the aesthetic and 
message of a creative work. Japanese aesthetic is an obvious example. 
Another example of a different sort are films based on books. Unless films 
do something completely different, most of the time I prefer that they 
didn't show what novels left to imagination. If the medium is the message, 
the question is how we can learn and teach to communicate with existing media.

>It is interesting that creators of text are often called authors while
>creators of other media are called artists. I'd like to be both author and
>artist. Only authors are allowed at AOIR...

Are they? If authors are people who write text, we can ask what sort of 
text. Can academics be artists? Is it possible or acceptable to produce 
academic/creative work?

>At the risk of distracting from my points above, this is the American list
>of Internet Researchers. How come all of our text is in US English? The USA
>is not the only country in America.

I thought AoIR is an international organisation.
Best,
Suzana