Chapter One: ART IS AN ACT OF LOVE
Once upon a time human beings were considered a unique species,
with special god-given talents that made us superior
to other forms of life.
Now the line between ourselves and other creatures is eroding as you read this.
Living matter is being grown on inert substrates. Silicon machines are starting to ask
questions of their human programmers.
Surgeons are transplanting pigs' livers, simian hearts,and baboon bone marrow. The creatures of
tomorrow may be neither carbon nor silicon based. They may not even recognize
us as their progenitors. And if they do, they may not like us very much.
What sets us apart - what cannot as yet be manufactured, hardwired or softwired - is the capacity
to feel, to care. and to love.
Art...is an act of love.
Chapter Two: THE TAO OF NEVER ENOUGH
To think is to be alive, or so said Descartes.
Is the universe dead?
Are earthquakes alive?
Are we the only thinking creatures? When animals protect their young are they thinking,
or merely responding instinctively? Do computers think, or merely respond to instructions?
For that matter, do we ourselves merely respond to genetic instructions?
I presume that Hitler, the Boston bombers, Adam Lanza were once trusting infants and loveable
babies. What virulent instructions were mixed with their daily formula? And how do we accept
that they, like us, are human beings, offspring of male and female coupling, born of mothers' wombs?
Somehow love was not enough, or perhaps there was not enough love.
Perhaps there is never enough love.
There is never enough art.
For art is an act of love.
Chapter Three: ART IS AN ENDLESS LOVE SONG
Petal by petal, like e.e.cummings, we unwrap the mysterious world of bytes and RAM, of SCSI's
and ROM.
Drop by drop, like W. H. Auden, we unfold the digital ocean and hang it out to dry.
And on the way, on the bumpy binary way, we learn a bit more about ourselves.
We redesign our perception of truth.
And we learn that love is a delicate art, and art is an act of love.
c. Corinne Whitaker 1997-2013
