Daniel Young welcomes comments about his claims for NewZoid as great art as well as inquiries from critics and curators.
About NewZoid (non-fictional)
"It is often best to introduce a great truth in the form of art." - Daniel Young
"I have no idea what you're trying to accomplish here." * -Matthew Mirapaul
a. The Nature of NewZoid
NewZoid is a work of art created by Daniel Young, an artist and inventor who lives and works in New York City.
NewZoid is a web site whose computer-generated core-content consists of false news headlines. The false headlines are continuously and automatically created by fragmentation and re-assembly of real news headlines.
NewZoid also allows viewers to write their own headlines and see how they affect the NewZoid results. In addition, visitors may vote for favorites. On a given day all headlines for which viewers have voted can be seen. Subsequently, the twenty most popular headlines of that day are featured as "Best of Yesterday" and then stored in an archive.
NewZoid is presented in an ambiguous way, most seriously as a work of generative art and therapy for the problems caused by living in a world innundated with generally useless information. Less seriously, but still with an idea of opening minds to new possibilities, it is presented as a breakthrough in communication with the innumerable parallel worlds theorized by some physicists. NewZoid has a general tone of playfulness, even with respect to its most serious intentions, in accordance with the artist's belief that purely serious communication will not work well in today's world.
b. The Standards of Greatness in Art
The standards applied here for judging a work of art to be great are as follows: There must be "greatness" in the underlying theme or subject, "greatness" in the artist’s designs and intentions with respect to the subject and "greatness" in the artist’s execution of those designs and intentions.
"Greatness of theme" means importance of the theme to the audience, particularly with respect to enlarging consciousness and helping people lead wiser and happier lives. "Greatness of designs and intentions" means that the treatment of the subject is as deep and potent as can be expected from an artist. "Greatness of execution" means that the designs and intentions have been expressed with a mastery of the available means and forms. If these criteria are met then it can reasonably be said that the art has the attribute of "greatness" and is deserving of serious attention from those interested in art.
c. Applying the Standards to NewZoid
NewZoid’s underlying theme, and the reality it is reflecting in an artistic way, is the pathological addiction of the modern world to information in general and news in particular – an addiction that leads to heightened anxiety, loss of the power of independent judgment and the end of real understanding and real communication. The theme of information and its discontents is a fundamental and important one in the contemporary world. It is closely connected to the problem of maintaining freedom and human dignity. In short, the effect of information on humanity is a "great" theme.
The greatness of the artist’s intention lies in designing a potent way to present the theme. This is done by taking the information overload to a revealing, entertaining and thought-provoking extreme, an inflatio ad absurdum and ad infinitum, thereby emphasizing the problem and encouraging a more balanced and detached attitude towards it at the same time. The work shows a multi-faceted, warped reflection of reality which can be read as humor, commentary, or subversion. In all cases, it strengthens the independent spirit of the audience and provides reassurance that the dominance and importance of "information" is, for the most part, illusory and within their control. It is the "Emperor's Information." Laughter opens the eyes and leads to understanding.
Greatness of execution is achieved by innovative and creative utilization of the computer and its unprecedented ability to perform operations on digitized data, specifically, news headlines published on the Internet. NewZoid's techniques of coherent manipulation of constantly changing material are believed to be among the most advanced on the Net. Using these techniques, Newzoid lays claim to being the most accomplished computer-generated literary artwork of its time. [back to top]
* "I have no idea what you're trying to accomplish here. I looked at your work earlier in the year, or last year, but have not written about it. I cannot tell from your message if it has been modified in such a way that I need to revisit it. If so, please explain. Otherwise, try, try again." (response from Mirapaul on 10/10/02 to Young's statement that NewZoid was more advanced than other work Mirapaul had written about in the New York Times.)
In the relatively short time since it was launched in April of 2001 NewZoid has automatically produced more imaginative and creative literary text than the thousand greatest works of world literature combined.
If we make a conservative estimate of NewZoid's daily production of fictional news headlines as 10,000, we arrive at an annual production of 3,650,000 lines or approximately 5,650.000 to date (October 18, 2002).
This dwarfs the size of such works as the Mahabharata (100,000 verses) previously considered to be among the largest ever produced.
Accordingly, by the standard of size which is considered so important in the contemporary world, NewZoid is the greatest work of its kind in human history.
It should also be noted that the epic scope of NewZoid's subject matter is commensurate with its size in that it reflects all the events considered newsworthy by the news media of the world. As a limitation, of course, it must be acknowledged that NewZoid writes only in the English language. [back to top]
Daniel Young
(revised Dec. 13, 2002)
Copyright 2001 Daniel Young.