[Sigia-l] Pay close attention; this is not important

[Derek R]

I'm With Stupid wrote:

>To claim that HTML (because it is a standard)
>has hampered creativity is not seeing the forest
>for the trees.


First of all, 'standardization' happens due to mass production, and it
is this standardization which discourages further experimentation. [i.e.
Why bother with a better product if you can sell what is already in
production? -- Think of the internal-combustion engine, or the
'Hollywood film' (just above the 'sitcom') -- all lovely standards.]

Why experiment ? Indeed. "What has made money will make money," is an
Hollywood axiom.

Anything new is a gamble. Inventiveness, to use B. F. Skinner's phrase,
is not something viewed favorable by commercial design studios.

In the Middle Ages, people living on the seacoast probably knew the
world was round, but they said that they believed the world was flat. To
be so creative or scientific as to suggest the earth was round at would
have resulted in the most drastic penalties, due to the ruling
'standard' (the Church). At early exhibitions of abstract art, the
viewers would sometimes attack the canvases with umbrellas. They were so
annoyed at having abstract paintings presented as art when they were
used to pictures of cows in the grass. 

It is precisely the function of art (aka. 'creativity'), to jar the
audience into awareness of what they are already aware of on some level,
no matter how uncomfortable (i.e. upsetting to 'the standard') the
revelation may be.

It is an evolutionary function. Its purpose being *to objectify* some
implicit process of perception (in the form of a Web site, book,
brochure, etc..) so that we see something that we have always been
seeing without knowing it; that is, when it's put in front of us, we
realize, 'Well, I have been seeing this without knowing it.'

Science acts in concert with art here, since the function of both is to
make people more aware of their own perceptions.

Because of mass-produced 'standards,' the surface has barely been
scratched with regard to experimentation (creativity).