Page 206 - World of Art Contemporary Art magazine: The 2023 Guggenheim issue

So if you read a book on Kant and you have only a people who have sufficient access, sufficient capabilities,
bibliography from the nineteen-nineties then this is to be able to put stuff out there. And that’s a problem
suspect. The author is working from secondary sources. as well in itself. Because the people who choose to put
If you are reading a book on hypertext and you find an information out there, those people choose the content
old bibliography then this is suspect, because every day of reading for the rest, do they not?”
there is something new about this particular field. So Eco is silent for a moment.
there may be some first, elementary rules you can use in Yes, I saw you had many questions in the papers you
order to isolate certain things immediately. gave me the other day about all this new technology.
If you are reading an American book on a certain subject I feel obliged to make a formal statement here: I am
and you find only an English or American bibliography, enormously interested in what is happening.
then it is suspect. The author should have a larger... I am trying to establish all possible services on Internet
“... overview?” here at my institute, and to push young people to work
... yes, overview. But if it is a book on analytical in this direction. I think it is enormously important for
philosophy and there is only an English bibliography, it is the future, even for politics. I want to introduce into our
probably unnecessary to also have a Polish bibliography, curriculum for communication studies some special
even though there is a great school of logicians and seminars in this area. Personally, I do not use those
analytical philosophers in Poland. So it all depends on technologies. For a very simple reason. At my age, first,
the subject matter; on the state of the art. It should be let us also say, at my level of ‘visibility’, my problem is to
avoid the message.
“Yes..?”
Otherwise I will be destroyed by the number of
messages. My problem is not to answer the telephone;
my problem is to destroy the fax; the unrequested fax
as soon as it arrives. Even if, or rather, when in the near
future, I finally get an e-mail account, my problem will
be how not to receive anything. Because if there is
something that has to reach me at any cost, it will. There
will be some way by which I will be informed.
There are few persons in the world that can reach me
and tell me: look you should pay attention to this or that.
Now, this is a personal problem of mine.
“Because of your position?”
UMBERTO ECO, SEMIOTICIAN AND PHILOSOPHER IN CONVERSATION WITH Yes, even corresponding to, let’s say, my ideology. Once,
PETRU RUSSU, FINE ARTIST. PICTURE CREDIT: © MARTA DIMITRESCU
when I was younger, I said that after 50 a critic or a
scholar mustn’t be concerned any longer with avant-
absolutely urgent for us to invent rules for decimation; garde movements, but to write only about
probably flexible rules, that change from domain to Elizabethan poets.
domain. Otherwise the future will be worse than the “...writing about the past?”
present, and we can reach a level at which over- Yes, now why? Because novelty is coming so quickly
information and censure will identify each other. these days that only a younger person is able to swallow
“OK?” and digest it, while an older person is slower in doing
You see, you can cancel by abundance. You can cancel by that. Why? An older person has a lot of experience,
subtraction, and you can cancel by increase or addition. knows a lot of things and can very well work on more
“By addition, yes. But you know, this business of knowing established problems than the young people who do not
what is relevant... I mean - and this is something that I know enough to do that.
am quite concerned about - the quality of the stuff you “Well, no, they don’t have enough insight of course...”
get via the Net. You know, in Cyberspace, or whatever This is a general rule; it’s not by chance that my last
you want to call it; the Information Superhighway... It’s scholarly book was on the search for a perfect language
my opinion - I don’t know what you think - but certainly and not on the last trends in informatics and semantics.
at the moment there are only a very limited number of Because younger people are very fresh and able to see

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