Truisms (1978)

https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~field/holzer/truisms.txt

by aratno • 6 years ago

74 43 6 years ago

cs.utexas.edu

bschne3• 6 years ago

I keep randomly returning to these, some great stuff in there. I also this quote of Jenny Holzer from another artwork:

There is a period when it is clear that you have gone wrong but you continue. Sometimes there is a luxurious amount of time before anything bad happens.

platz5• 6 years ago

what artwork?

nmcfarl• 6 years ago

Jenny Holzer is an artist who’s work contains a lot of text and this text file is lifted from some of her work in the truisms series. It might actually be the entire text of the series.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=TRUISMS+(1978-1983)+JENNY+HOLZER

bschne3• 6 years ago

Yes, it's from a work called "The Living Series", see here:

https://www.lofty.com/products/jenny-holzer-the-living-serie...

adrianmonk• 6 years ago

Maybe this is Holzer's point (or maybe it's humorous), but I've come to believe that that "luxury" is one of the most dangerous things there is.

The more indirect and the slower your feedback, the easier it is to form habits and get accustomed to believing in a "reality" which is anything but reality.

I used to feel like it was better to have this luxury because who wants consequences to be swift. Doesn't that feel harsh and uncomfortable? Yes, but now I realize it's better overall. At best delayed (or dulled) consequences are like procrastination: face it now, or face it later when it's harder. And at worst, it's a path to ruin because later might be too late.

Of course you don't want to go to the other extreme. There should be a balance.

bschne3• 6 years ago

The way I read it is as a somewhat ironic comment on how a lot of people, after doing something they shouldn't or avoiding something they should do, already know their mistake way before correcting it or suffering the consequences, and just don't act accordingly.

I'm not 100% sure on the "luxurious", but for me it reads as if saying "you know you've done wrong, you know it's going to come back to haunt you, but you're reveling in the inaction/avoidance in the meantime"

blacksqr• 6 years ago

"The new disease came."

rhezab• 6 years ago

DFW in IJ: "The clichéd directives are a lot more deep and hard to actually do. To try and live by instead of just say... So then at forty-six years or age I came here to live by clichés... One day at a time. Easy does it. First things first. Courage is fear that has said its prayers. Ask for help. Thy will not mine be done. It works if you work it. Grow or go. Keep coming back."

luspr• 6 years ago

"ANY SURPLUS IS IMMORAL" "AUTOMATION IS DEADLY"

... wait, what?

ErikAugust• 6 years ago

Second one: A machine gun comes to mind.

Of course, I am not sure these are truisms.

iron00132• 6 years ago

The title of the work (or rather the title of her entire oeuvre in this style) is “Truisms”, but I don’t think that means they’re necessarily intended to literally be truisms. There’s a lot of humor and irony involved.

platz5• 6 years ago

ANY SURPLUS IS IMMORAL

if you're operating efficiently, and generate or take only what you need, you aren't generating surplus.

surplus could be read as greed, decadence, or even waste

AUTOMATION IS DEADLY

do it yourself, retain the know-how yourself. self-sufficience. don't rely on externalities. natural processes are more, well, natural. machines tend to exploit and create imbalance.

tgv• 6 years ago

surplus could be read as greed, decadence, or even waste

Or as a buffer. E.g., who knew that overcapacity in a hospital could be beneficial? So once more, the veracity of such statements depends on the context.

dvh• 6 years ago

ALL HAIL THE DARK LORD OF THE TWIN MOONS

pdonis• 6 years ago

The contradiction I saw with "ANY SURPLUS IS IMMORAL" was:

"KEEP SOMETHING IN RESERVE FOR EMERGENCIES"

Where does the something you keep in reserve come from?

gowld2• 6 years ago

Enjoy:

www.jajlouny.com/contradictory-epigrams

shok3001• 6 years ago

truism: a statement that is obviously true and says nothing new or interesting.

Just scanning through these I wouldn't label all of them "truisms." For example,

ANY SURPLUS IS IMMORAL

and

AUTOMATION IS DEADLY

I wouldn't consider either of these "obviously true."

andreisbc• 6 years ago

It's a truism for whoever is obvious to :)

whoisjuan• 6 years ago

Just to be clear these are not really truisms. This is an art piece by Jenny Holzer and its name is "Truisms" (doesn't necessarily mean that they are all actual truisms, that's just the name she gave to this particular work).

In "Truisms" she created printed versions of an erudite reading list she compiled when she was a student. She distributed them anonymously by pasting printed versions around NYC's fences and walls. (https://www.sutori.com/story/pop-culture-and-art-jenny-holze...). She also did leaflets and other printed versions of this.

All of Holzer's art concepts are very much like this. Her goal is to use public venues as a medium to deliver thought-provoking ideas and display daring written commentary.

triangleman• 6 years ago

She also created LED signs that cycled through these phrases.

Also for a more artistic rendition on the web:

https://mfx.dasburo.com/art/truisms.html

iron00132• 6 years ago

This doesn’t include a lot of post-1983 Truisms which are just as good. My favorite might be “Someone Wants To Cut A Hole In You And Fuck You Through It, Buddy”

willchang• 6 years ago

Here's another list of them: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~field/holzer/living.txt

stronglikedan• 6 years ago

Those seem more like musings than truisms.

ak39• 6 years ago

CALM IS MORE CONDUCTIVE TO CREATIVITY THAN IS ANXIETY

Conductive or conducive?

juliend2• 6 years ago

YOU HAVE TO HURT OTHERS TO BE EXTRAORDINARY

I wonder what he meant by that.

AnimalMuppet• 6 years ago

I believe that the author is a she.

TomMckenny• 6 years ago

I presume it's an observation, not advice. That often those who are called exceptional have some skeletons in their closest. That there are more statues of Jefferson Davis than Harriet Tubman.

human_person• 6 years ago

I read it as a warning. Life is full of tradeoffs, to be extraordinary in one area requires you to neglect or ignore other aspects of life. In the end people will be hurt.

DenisM• 6 years ago

Truism is a truism is a truism.

I dare you to top this.

hbarka• 6 years ago

I love how there’s contradictions, like how for “All good things come to those who wait” meets “Early bird catches the worm”.

sixstringtheory2• 6 years ago

I guess a good response to this is

A SENSE OF TIMING IS THE MARK OF GENIUS

DavidVoid• 6 years ago

Seeing Jenny Holzer on here was a pleasant surprise!

    ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE

is probably one of my favorite of her truisms. On a similar note, her Inflammatory Essays (1979-1982) are a good read too [1].

Her more recent work Projections doesn't involve much of her own writing but it's interesting nonetheless (both the texts and the medium). She talks about it a bit in this video [2].

And I quite like her Redaction Paintings that were made from redacted military files [3].

[1] https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/holzer-inflammatory-ess...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeOOFKzQxS0

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2Cidvahl6c

segfaultbuserr• 6 years ago

What is the context/background of this artwork?

gowld2• 6 years ago

convertcase.net to the rescue.

pmiller2• 6 years ago

Noting the date and utexas.edu, I was expecting something from the EWD archive. After some mild disappointment, this did seem to actually feed my underlying desire for some curmudgeonly wisdom.

sixstringtheory2• 6 years ago

Some good couplets...

As corollaries for the hardest problem in computer science:

A NAME MEANS A LOT JUST BY ITSELF
SYMBOLS ARE MORE MEANINGFUL THAN THINGS THEMSELVES

As advice to myself because I love refactoring:

ABSTRACTION IS A TYPE OF DECADENCE
DECADENCE CAN BE AN END IN ITSELF

fineiguess• 6 years ago

http://catandgirl.com/girl-plays-games/

tingletech• 6 years ago

I used to eat at her green table sometimes when I worked in the cafeteria right next door https://stuartcollection.ucsd.edu/artist/holzer.html

Truisms (1978)

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