Re: Is IF art? (was Re: Gareth's competition comments)


20 Oct 1995 15:00:47 GMT

dmb@ai.mit.edu writes:
>>Scrabble doesn't seem literary. So the mere involvement of text isn't, in
>>my opinion, enough to suggest that the medium has the potential for
>>literariness.
>I wouldn't call Scrabble a medium, simply because a Scrabble board offers
>nothing that a piece of paper with ink on it can't. So why call
>Scrabble-board-text a separate medium?

Sorry to interrupt this thread, but the Scrabble board is
separate medium. (IMHO)

A Scrabble board can be used to send a message. It does
place very strong restrictions on the message sent, but that
does not prevent it from being a medium.

Just the presence of a Scrabble board somewhere will send a
message. Not much of one, but something. If you further put
tiles on the board, then it becomes a substrate for another
medium and another message.

Elijah
------
currently reading _Understanding Media_ by Marshall McLuhan