Is the Blogs Stupid (re: Community)

I came to Rhizome late - in 2003. I was a little disappointed then
with the reality vs promise that this represented. Still, I have met
a lot of cool people that have helped my art career along.

I expressed a concern then that the emergence of the blog could
potentially kill a community like Rhizome unless people made a
concerted effort to continue to participate in the board. Before
individual blogs became easy and popular, people had no choice but to
participate in a message board if they wanted to share their opinions
with others. The format of the message board forced people to deal
with a community if they wanted to be listened to - which ensured
lively interaction and fresh content as an emergent behavior. Perhaps
the motivation for Rhizome Raw is diminished now that on the internet
nobody knows your dog has a blog. Or something.

Jason Van Anden
www.smileproject.com

On Oct 6, 2006, at 6:28 AM, Lee Wells wrote:

> It definitely isn't the same thing it use to be.
> My biggest disappointment lately was that they didn't let the
> community know
> about the 10 year festival until it was already curated. I'm sure
> many of
> the members would have liked to be included in some part of it
> outside of
> the Keylines discussion on the choices that were made.
> Isn't that what Rhizome is anyway????
>
> Where was the open call to the members?
> Was it something we all missed.
>
> Did the New Museum of Contemporary Art make an executive decision?
> Is the
> fact that Rhizome's a membership org only a conduit for grants? I
> know its
> not easy to run a non profit but what used to be an open network
> has to a
> certain degree become a bit privileged and elitist.
>
> Perhaps Marisa can explain to everyone her curatorial decisions.
> The main
> mistake was that there wasn't even the illusion that the real
> community on
> Rhizome would be asked to be a part of something. For as much as
> the staff
> is accountable to the Board of Directors they should also be
> accountable to
> the members of the community as well.
>
> I'm sure there could have been some sort of collaborative project
> created
> that could have included everyone if they so desired.
>
> I've been hanging around the RAW servers since 1998 and have been
> surprised
> by some of the directions that the org has taken over the years.
> On certain levels the site is better, like the New York Times of
> New Media
> and an amazing resource for calls for work and exhibition
> opportunities. But
> the great conversations and real community participation of the
> past now
> only happen once in a great while and the users have been turned into
> passive viewers. As long as there are only a couple people questioning
> nothing will change.
>
> Full community participation is needed to create a positive change
> in any
> society.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Lee
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 10/5/06 6:03 PM, "Steve OR Steven Read"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Uh oh, it's turning into a rhizome bashing party!
>>
>> I have only been around here for about 2 years. I have watched the
>> 'community'
>> feeling dwindle. I can't bitch too much because I'm sort of a
>> loner and not
>> usually one to jump into communities in general. But what has
>> caused this
>> reduction besides the commission stuff, and is disappointing, is
>> the end of
>> the 'art base'. I don't know if the reason is because of manpower
>> funding or
>> because of regime change strategy decisions, but about a year ago
>> they stopped
>> accepting things into the art base. The rhizome front page used to
>> be mostly
>> MEMBER art projects that were newly added into the art base. It
>> was member
>> content. And it was exciting to see all the new member art coming
>> in and to
>> see it discussed here. That is gone. Decisions were made to change
>> to a reblog
>> system of mostly external NON-MEMBER content. I voiced my opinion
>> about that
>> decision when it was made. I was slapped down, and for one reason
>> or another
>> was asked to resign as a 'superuser' helper. (Apparently I wasn't p!
>> osting often enough to be useful as a FREE volunteer resource)
>> Now the site
>> its mostly digested information from other blogs and sources. I
>> don't need
>> that, I have a free bloglines account already thank you.
>>
>> The art base claims to still be in operation. But how many pieces
>> have been
>> added to it this year? About 5. It used to be at least 10-20
>> pieces per week.
>> Now it's pretty much gone. And there has been little to no
>> explanation. And I
>> am quite sure the members were submitting hundreds and hundreds of
>> pieces to
>> the art base this year. They appear to have been completely ignored.
>>
>> Then they do an anniversary festival, all in NYC it seemed.
>> Suffice to say I
>> didn't feel at all any sense of 'community' involvement with this
>> festival. I
>> could have missed something with that, but it seemed to me to be
>> conceived and
>> implemented in a vacuum.
>>
>> I would like to renew my membership when the time comes, but the
>> reasons are
>> disappearing. I feel my money is not going to help any
>> 'community', but
>> instead to help a select few NYC insiders, which I am not 'lucky'
>> enough to be
>> one of. They don't seem to want our community, or they simply
>> can't afford it
>> anymore.
>> +
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>>