It seems to me that art, as well as pretty much most other things, works in a way where we buildup and then breakdown. Its the concept behind modernism vs. post modernism, and its pretty much what David Carson was talking about when he stated how mad everyone got at him for his work. Even in music we see the same thing- buildup and breakdown. Songs begins with one or two musical concepts, and then add more and more gradually until we reach a point of stasis. Once that point is reached, the song starts to mess with you a bit, either changing up the
pre-
established patterns or taking them away one by one, much like they were added. I think
that's kind of what Carson was talking about when he said that the people he angered as spent so much time trying to define the standards of typography, only for him to come along and destroy them. Not only has he destroyed them, he's created something
that's genuinely cool and interesting, and that people like (...well, that I like at least. But it's easy to assume that other people agree.)
The wall of random words really got me to think a bit more than I'm comfortable with. Words don't mean anything unless we give them meaning. It's like in math, with variables. Words and letters are essentially variables. You can write down the word "explosion" and tell someone whose illiterate what the word says, but nothing says "explosion" more than if someone were standing next to one when it happened. Because words are so flexible, it really makes using the for art pretty easy. To me, art means I'm always right, so something that I can make mean whatever I want is pretty danged convenient.
