Tuesday, February 11, 2003

What's so Special? OK, the last couple of days we took a general look at things people consider special. We saw on ebay how similar types of things can have vastly different degrees of specialness associated with them. We saw how there are different kinds of specialness (E.G. sentimental Vs expensive (another ebay example) and sacred Vs profane.) Given that there are so many different understandings of special, and we looked at only a few, we might not understand when looking at an object weather someone considers it special. However, I would like to make the case that there is meta-information that does tell us that something is special. This meta-information is used a number of people, including artists, to show that their object is special. This meta information is a way to tell others of the object's specialness and also a way of celebration or veneration of the object. This meta information can be of a physical nature and has been used by visual artists since the beginning... 10:14:54 PM