Blogart

My tendency is to think of everything as art, just some of it bad. Talking, walking, interacting, working—all of these are types of art to my mind. (Maybe lesser arts, but that’s a different issue.)

Given this as evidence, it is easy to understand why I think of blogging as an art—and an art in many different ways. The creation (or revelation) of a persona is part of the art, and probably the most essential part of this art. That construct that is the blogger is important, because every story needs a protagonist. Blogging is also sometimes merely the presentation of pieces of art—the posting of photographs or poems or collages—which is the simplest way a blog can be about art. The manner of presenting information can be part of the art. Some blogs always present data in paragraphs, some break text into lines (poetry), others present a mix of poetry and images and video and sound. Blogs define their meaningscapes and make differing demands upon their readers.

Certainly and finally, the content of blogs is essential to their art and artfulness. Even a blog that consists of nothing but reviews can be a work of art. The style of writing, the flights of fancy, the presentation of facts, the Shandian digressions, all stand as evidence of the art.

A blog sits in a space that is little well enough understood, waiting to be ported to a computer screen, where someone sees and hears it and appreciates it or not. This is essentially how art works, how life work, how we work.

Or maybe I am just saying all of this because I’ve put quite a bit of work into this blog over the past few years, and I need to justify my time. Maybe I need to justify what I haven’t done while I’ve spent time doing this.

Don’t worry about any of these thoughts, though. Instead, poke around Anny Ballardini’s final project for a University of New Orleans cyberliterature project. Blogging as the sharing of knowledge: Poetry. There are a few interesting ideas tucked in there about the social and artistic methods and values of blogging.

ecr. l’inf.