I think it's something that I've seen a lot, where 'art people' will give a lot of praise to something being done by hand, and value gets assigned to the tedium put into a project. Like, I'm not sure I've ever seen it brought up "why didn't you automate this'', because I think if you're really in an art context, then that question has to lead to "why invest in something creative at all, what's the point?" There's something with colder-style (minimalist, often) conceptual stuff where you see that "why bother, what's this even doing" question a lot- but everyone always passes up asking that question the second the artist's hand becomes visible. Or, at least in softer crit environments. Like, it's accepted that time consuming repetition, as a concept, is an act of honor or meditation, or discipline of skill or of self to be able to do those things. And, with material quality or cleanliness- I've been saying it a lot recently that the 'fine arts' kids are never taught fabrication skills anything like design or architecture students are- there is again often praise for a visible hand, or some kind of play against 'intended/institutional use'. I might also be picking this up, though, from that thing where if someone's a painter or something 2D, you almost never tell them "I think your hand is too visible, I think you focus too much on beauty over concept." Because there's this kind of superiority felt towards people who work 2D, in figurative/ non-conceptual ways- because that's where everyone really starts at, is drawing in crayon as a kid, and then graphite still-lives as you get older- and it would be rude to tell them you only felt they worked in their style because they'd never really questioned themself. And so maybe it's that I've experienced that aura that I've picked up the 'non-questioning-of-the-hand' rule.

So, that's the background I come from, and my explanation for why it took me three years to use a format that made the data easily accessible.

Like, I would assume if you start from a side with computers, then "why not automate that '' is kind of a lot of it. I don't think I've ever seen "efficiency" as an art-concept, the closest I can think of is art that's conceptually about industry or capitalism that uses "efficiency" as a theme or a subject, but not ever "efficiency" as the sole practice of the work. If someone really did do that- a project where the only concept and technique and idea is "efficiency; the most efficient"- then the most boiled-down version is they think "I'm making an artwork about efficiency, and now it's finished." And that's the work- you can't get much quicker than thought. It doesn't even have to be that- think the word "Efficiency" in your head, right now. There, you just experienced my piece of art and now it's done. Because art is such a weird thing that that can count as a piece, and you can argue it's not efficient at all because of all the setup, and that the most efficient version would be that, out of nowhere, disconnected from everything else you were thinking about, you think the word "Efficiency", instantaneously realize it as art, and then immediately cease feeling any awe you would have felt from experiencing a work of art.

And so, I'm sure there's things like that with computers where you're pairing down something until it's impossible, and then until it's impossible and absurd, but it just seems like when you do that with computers then you're doing the Point of computers. Like, you're using them to problem-solve towards some 'best version'.  And you could say the Point of art is to question itself into impossibility and absurdity- that that's where it's best version is- but the issue is that you really only run into that once you're at some high-minded level. That's not an established rule of art. Or even that there has to be problem-solving, a lot of it is 'intuition'. I'm really not sure, at this point I might be talking myself around into saying something because 'intuition' and 'problem-solving' sound so similar. But there's definitely people who would see a much bigger difference between those. Intuition as expressive painting, problem-solving as hard math.

I'm just reconciling an unrelated tangent to myself at this point. I just thought it was interesting to hear the argument made that the artist's hand exists in a work even if it's purely digital, or code. And then I thought it was interesting that I didn't immediately agree with that, because I can see it making sense now. My guess is I disconnected the hand from digital work because the 'behind the scenes' (the code) is disconnected (visually) from the thing it outputs. Or, it's that there's more opacity to a computer than with taking a stick to clay. It's just there's that thing where I still can't fully unsee 'digital art' (like, illustration, video games, concepts concerning the web) as impersonal and/or novel. I hope I'm not calling some art lesser- I don't intend to and I don't believe that any is. I just wanted to question out some things I was thinking.

End of ramble, this was interesting to myself so I hope it was interesting to you. Bye