Where is the Rhizome?

Hi Pall,

Just like video killed the radio star, ReBlog RSS technology killed Rhizome RAW. So now the rhizome front page is like an aggregate blog – like http://www.eyebeam.org/reblog/ , with RAW being just one of dozens of potential RSS feeds from which to choose. Which leverages the collective power of the interweb blogosphere, but de-promotes and ghetto-izes community dialogue on RAW. I've had the strange experience of posting work on RAW, having it picked up by http://dvblog.org via Michael or Doron, and only then having it appear on the rhizome front page reBlogged from dvblog rather than from RAW.

Having said that, the current Rhizome front page is better curated and more representative of the new media scene at large than it was (and how could it not be, culling from such great, original content blogs as http://we-make-money-not-art.com and so many others), but less representative of the bizarre, almost manhattan-agnostic, ass-backwards net.art scene that was rhizome RAW.

But whatever. I've always approached RAW as a small mailing list of about 20 participants whom I already know anyway and maybe 20 more lurkers. I'm probably deluded, but it works for me to think of it that way.

Why less dialogue on RAW? Some other guesses:
1. We've already argued about all there is to argue about, and we're tired of arguing about the same things.
2. We're all in graduate school swamped with an all too steady diet of Heidegger, Graham Harman, Brian Massumi, Bracha Ettinger, and anthropological field studies on Papua New Guinean bird songs and their relationship to human memory and loss (at least I am).
3. We're all too mesmerized re-shuffling our mySpace friends list (at least I'm not).
4. kandinski42 and nn have left the building.
5. We're all trying to become real-world artists and increase our cachet, and quibbling about the aesthetics of actionScript vs. javaScript on an unmoderated, uncurated, unfiltered, undistributed, un-peer-reviewed, old school online mailing list just ain't cool anymore.
6. Information no longer wants to be free. It now wants to be $25.
7. Doughnuts!
8. Ceramics!
9. The White Stripes!
10. Ubiquitous Computing!

I am now going on a 30 minute run. Then I will accompany my wife and children to Sears to shop for a new washer and dryer. Once I am out of graduate school (summer 2008), I may return to RAW in a more chatty capacity to bore and amaze everyone with these and other banal pieces of information amidst everyone else's announcements of new positions available in Robotic Culture Theory and the latest Bill Viola retrospective. Or I may be writing travel grants to Transmediale and composing generative poetry for the next issue of Cabinet Magazine. One never knows.

Rock & Roll Ain't No Pollution,
Curt

Pall,

As always, we appreciate your feedback.

It's true that discussion on Raw has simmered. –Though this is not
true of Rare, as it's still alive and Patrick will look into whether
this is a bug in the RSS feed. Needless to say, posts are regularly
reblogged.

The status of discussion on Rhizome is of high priority to the staff,
but I think it's fair to say that what's happening on Raw is
indicative of what's happening in listservs across the board. In the
list's 10+ years, people have changed the way that they seek to
exchange information. We have hundreds of thousands of RSS subscribers
and only a few hundred list subscribers. There's been a shift in the
push- and pull- models of editorial content, online. Rhizome still
wants to support "old school" discussion (I say this tongue-in-cheek
because I think we share in the sentiment that this is important and
it's sad to see it languor on the internet), but we're also trying to
keep up with the new models, in order to provide better visibility to
artists engaging with technology in significant ways.

I think Patrick's efforts, this year, to respond to member feedback
about the commissions process in order to ensure more proposal views
and livelier discussion are (to me) a really exciting effort of the
ways that Rhizome strives to facilitate conversation. Nonetheless, all
we can do are provide the tools for people. We can't have all the
conversations for them.

Now, to be frank, this comment bewilders me:

> it used to be informative and exciting to visit the
> Rhizome website. Its content would change on
> a daily basis, often with new material appearing
> on the front page several times over the course
> of the day.

This is still the case. With the exception of weekends, which we
attempt to take off, we publish content daily and we are on the brink
of ramping this up even more.

All I can say for now is stay-tuned to the front page. We are
currently working very hard on upgrading our site content (not only on
the front page) and will soon announce new features developed in
response to community feedback. But these things take time.

It's always funny to me when people use phrases like "Rhizome's
directors and other employees" because there are only three of us:
Lauren, Patrick, and myself. We do employ freelance writers (the
people who help ensure that our front page always has new material, as
you say), and we do have one unpaid Curatorial Fellow, an incredibly
overqualified and overburdened intern. Together he and I manage the
Artbase and this, frankly, is a job in itself. We stay on top of it as
best we can, but given the huge number of submissions and
correspondence that comes in, sometimes weekly or semi-weekly spurts
are just the best way to handle it all. Nonetheless, we're excited by
our recent policy change to allow all artists to add work to their
profiles, and making the Artbase admin a secondary process, thus
giving the artists more exposure and increasing the number of works
for you to peruse, Pall.

Now this comment is admittedly a bit trickier to address:

>Rhizome's directors and other employees have busied
> themselves with organizing physical events. I wonder
> if these really do serve the community. It feels to me
> like they serve the New York based members
> of Rhizome but do very little for others.

I think there are several ways to look at this, and they are
influenced by the facts that we have a limited staff, limited budget,
and the exciting fact that "the community" of people interested in new
media has now blossomed into *multiple* thriving, diverse communities.

We can't be all things to all people, but we believe strongly in the
importance of live events. The artists we serve and our audience are
always asking for them, and we've seen a lot of good come out of them,
in terms of new conversations, new relationships, and new contexts for
the interpretation of work that don't get to germinate in quite the
same way through online conversation. (This is not a prioritization of
RL vs online, but just a way of complementing our programs which are
primarily online.) We also believe that what the field needs, right
now, is to be put into deeper conversation with the contemporary art
world, and our events and exhibitions have been an effort to do so.

We have no desire to be NY-centric–quite the contrary. We'd love to
be able to do events like this all over the world or even in other
parts of the US. When we were planning our 10th Anniversary Festival,
we tried to do that. We reached out to other festivals and venues, and
started many great conversations. But the fact is that we just do not
have the budget to pull these off. And we live in a country where arts
funding is not comparable to the funding in other countries that have
thriving new media organizations. But those organizations support
those communities well. We respect them for their work and try to stay
in dialogue with them.

Meanwhile, we do what we can, and we are doing a lot. We're all
working overtime to support the field. We do listen to your feedback,
in this process, and appreciate it very much.

Best regards,
Marisa

By no means am I jumping into any fray here… I appreciate rhizome and
all of Marisa, Lauren and Patrick's efforts to the extreme. But I do
want to point out that in fact there *are* still lists that do manage to
support robust, (or as Marisa says with tongue-in-cheek respect: "old
school") email discussions. The empyre and iDC lists, for example. Both
are actively moderated and in the case of empyre thoughtfully organized
into regular monthly topics with invited guests/respondents who help
carry the conversation forward. Personally, I find these kinds of lists
to be much more useful *for discussion* than the "newer models" (blog,
reblog, rss) which frankly owe more to an older producer/consumer
(author/reader, active/passive) models of knowledge production, and thus
are much less conducive to the kind of productive conversation that
email lists can, under the right circumstances, excel at.

To be honest, the rhizome raw list (which I have been a member of since,
oh, 1996…) rapidly became more of a project and opportunity
announcement list after 2000 or so. (Right about the time that the
remains of what was once called net art underwent the unfortunate
transformation into online video and multimedia… Again, this is imho,
but I think Rachel Greene's book makes the pre-2000 and post-2000
zeitgeists fairly apparent.) Having said that, the kind of list that
rhizome became plays an important role. It is in fact the route through
which much of the new art I see comes to me. But, rhizome has not been a
significant discussion list for a long, long time. That is not a
criticism at all. Rhizome is what it is, a useful new project and
opportunity announcement list that occasionally emerges some good, often
passionate, discussions.

Cheers all,
proud rhizomer,
Brett

Marisa Olson wrote:
> Pall,
>
> As always, we appreciate your feedback.

<!- clip ->

>

–
Brett Stalbaum, Lecturer, LSOE
Coordinator, Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts Major (ICAM)
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
Department of Visual Arts
9500 GILMAN DR. # 0084
La Jolla CA 92093-0084
http://www.c5corp.com
http://www.paintersflat.net

The nature of discussion lists have gone through the same process as the rest of the web I guess.

It seems that a public list isn't nearly as attractive a private list.
Just as the communications in any public forum go through evolutions, and retrenchments, the point now is keep it private. The success of facebook (where users average 22 minutes a day) points to that part of human nature that is wary of putting it out there. Facebook is private, no need to worry about the boss seeing your personal details, just let the people you trust in.

The fact that people aren't as willing to make fools of themselves, or promote ideas that may catch a lot of flack, says much of the current zeitgeist.

Maybe it's a lack of confidence, or it could just be that apathy and the subsequent dumbing down of the media is easier to live with than personal engagement.

But these trends come and go. During the 80's and early 90's newsgroups thrived, only to be lost in a sea of spam and frankly creative exhaustion.

I don't think the Rachel Greene (re. the change in 2000) observation properly addressed the cause,. The cause was probably much simpler, New Media artists with jobs at start ups and web companies lost their jobs following the dot com bomb, and weren't online trying to make it, they were just trying to survive. Economics killed net 1.0 , I don't believe it had anything to do with possibilities provided by the medium.
But Pall has a point here. Would it be so hard for Rhizome to hook up with artist run centres outside of New York to co-produce, or somehow work with the physical resources in the out lying regions to grow and become physically worldly. I don't see any big expenses there, in fact I would imagine the financial cost would be small. Pall is also pointing to an aimlessness that’s not just a Rhizome thing, it's pretty general and widespread.
That doesn't mean we should succumb to it however.
Lee Wells posted an interesting link earlier:
http://rhizome.org/thread.rhiz?thread&960&page=1#49586
Artist communities are definitely different.
As a complete aside, s the front page going to return to the way it was? or is my browser not supporting the new layout. All I see are announcements, pretty dull stuff without the links on the side navigation bars.
Ultimately the quality of a public dialogue is the responsibility of the moderator and the participants. Both need to be engaged.
Eric

I too have been surprised over the past few years how what was once a
thriving community built out of the newness of the medium has more or less
grown into an under funded, under staffed institution working in good faith
but unfortunately cannot afford the time or the resources to address the
true needs of the community members that they are being paid to serve.

Overall I am happy being able to throw my 2 cents in whenever I please but
miss the dialogue that there use to be.

100,000 onlookers and RSS content scrapers have little to do with the
membership of this organization yet have everything to do with the direction
it is heading. As I write this there are 176 online and 175 are anonymous
users.

For all of the good things that the organization has brought to the world of
new media the users of Rhizome are now primarily just passive viewers.
They are not even members.

Outside of looking to Lauren, Marisa and Patrick to save the day how can the
members help to stimulate the conversation, take an active roll and perhaps
bring some of the discussions that are on the other lists back to Raw.

Maybe its time for the community to properly address some of these critical
issues to the board of directors at Rhizome and the New Museum, if
necessary. It is a non-profit membership based 501c3.

Oh…. by the way besides Mark, who are they anyway?






> From: Eric Dymond <[email protected]>
> Reply-To: Eric Dymond <[email protected]>
> Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2007 22:07:37 -0400
> To: <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Where is the Rhizome?
>
> The nature of discussion lists have gone through the same process as the rest
> of the web I guess.
>
> It seems that a public list isn't nearly as attractive a private list.
> Just as the communications in any public forum go through evolutions, and
> retrenchments, the point now is keep it private. The success of facebook
> (where users average 22 minutes a day) points to that part of human nature
> that is wary of putting it out there. Facebook is private, no need to worry
> about the boss seeing your personal details, just let the people you trust in.
>
> The fact that people aren't as willing to make fools of themselves, or promote
> ideas that may catch a lot of flack, says much of the current zeitgeist.
>
> Maybe it's a lack of confidence, or it could just be that apathy and the
> subsequent dumbing down of the media is easier to live with than personal
> engagement.
>
> But these trends come and go. During the 80's and early 90's newsgroups
> thrived, only to be lost in a sea of spam and frankly creative exhaustion.
>
> I don't think the Rachel Greene (re. the change in 2000) observation properly
> addressed the cause,. The cause was probably much simpler, New Media artists
> with jobs at start ups and web companies lost their jobs following the dot com
> bomb, and weren't online trying to make it, they were just trying to survive.
> Economics killed net 1.0 , I don't believe it had anything to do with
> possibilities provided by the medium.
> But Pall has a point here. Would it be so hard for Rhizome to hook up with
> artist run centres outside of New York to co-produce, or somehow work with the
> physical resources in the out lying regions to grow and become physically
> worldly. I don't see any big expenses there, in fact I would imagine the
> financial cost would be small. Pall is also pointing to an aimlessness that

As one person that mailed me about this post said, Rhizome has become
an "aggregate-blog" and the sense of it being mostly that isn't that
interesting. Community provided content makes up for a very small
portion of Rhizome's most prominent content. Is it then any wonder
that the community isn't producing interesting content? A lot of the
"reblogged" articles are coming from the same websites, can't we just
stop or reduce the reblogging and have links to those websites?
Perhaps the site would benefit from having more editors that are
allowed to post to the front page. If I recall correctly there used to
be a lot more and they did it on a volunteer basis. Maybe we could
have comment sections for items that get published on the front page
and have the comments also get sent to Raw. Look at sites like Reddit,
Digg, YouTube, etc. that provide a framework for discussing material
in direct relation to that material. Rhizome News should also be
posted to Raw. That could bring about some discussion. I'm refuse to
believe that Rhizome's members are too busy trying to survive to
participate in meaningful discussion. I feel that Rhizome, in its
current form, does too little to motivate members to discuss issues. I
disagree with Brett on when Rhizome became "what it is". I remember a
number of meaningful discussions on Raw beyond 2000 and in fact I feel
that such discussion seriously declined when reblogging content from
other websites became the primary content model for Rhizome's front
page.

I know that Rhizome's staff isn't large and when I made my comment I
didn't envision an office of 10-20 employees. But you also have a huge
community of potential content providers. You know, re-invoke the
rhizome.

Pall

On 9/2/07, Eric Dymond <[email protected]> wrote:
> The nature of discussion lists have gone through the same process as the rest of the web I guess.
>
> It seems that a public list isn't nearly as attractive a private list.
> Just as the communications in any public forum go through evolutions, and retrenchments, the point now is keep it private. The success of facebook (where users average 22 minutes a day) points to that part of human nature that is wary of putting it out there. Facebook is private, no need to worry about the boss seeing your personal details, just let the people you trust in.
>
> The fact that people aren't as willing to make fools of themselves, or promote ideas that may catch a lot of flack, says much of the current zeitgeist.
>
> Maybe it's a lack of confidence, or it could just be that apathy and the subsequent dumbing down of the media is easier to live with than personal engagement.
>
> But these trends come and go. During the 80's and early 90's newsgroups thrived, only to be lost in a sea of spam and frankly creative exhaustion.
>
> I don't think the Rachel Greene (re. the change in 2000) observation properly addressed the cause,. The cause was probably much simpler, New Media artists with jobs at start ups and web companies lost their jobs following the dot com bomb, and weren't online trying to make it, they were just trying to survive. Economics killed net 1.0 , I don't believe it had anything to do with possibilities provided by the medium.
> But Pall has a point here. Would it be so hard for Rhizome to hook up with artist run centres outside of New York to co-produce, or somehow work with the physical resources in the out lying regions to grow and become physically worldly. I don't see any big expenses there, in fact I would imagine the financial cost would be small. Pall is also pointing to an aimlessness that's not just a Rhizome thing, it's pretty general and widespread.
> That doesn't mean we should succumb to it however.
> Lee Wells posted an interesting link earlier:
> http://rhizome.org/thread.rhiz?thread&960&page=1#49586
> Artist communities are definitely different.
> As a complete aside, s the front page going to return to the way it was? or is my browser not supporting the new layout. All I see are announcements, pretty dull stuff without the links on the side navigation bars.
> Ultimately the quality of a public dialogue is the responsibility of the moderator and the participants. Both need to be engaged.
> Eric
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>


–
*****************************
Pall Thayer
artist
http://www.this.is/pallit
*****************************

Paraphrasing Frank Zappa on the record industry:

In the 60s, the record executives were a bunch of cigar-chomping old guys saying, "Who knows what'll sell? Jimi Hendrix? Sure, let's give him a try." Then psychedelic music and hard rock got popular and suddenly those executives were replaced by young hip record executives saying, "We can't take a chance on this new music because the kids won't like it… and I know." We were better off with the cigar-chomping old guys.

-

Having said that, it was funny which content some former "superuser" members used to post on the front page. It became a kooky mix of very parochial/low (RAW users basically flaming each other) and very curated/high (new media work in the Whitney Biennial). My general feeling is that such a mix made rhizome less safe and more dangerous (in a good way). The front page of rhizome now is much more well-behaved. It wants to be "a hit," and it "knows" what a hit is.

+++++++++

pall wrote:

As one person that mailed me about this post said, Rhizome has become
an "aggregate-blog" and the sense of it being mostly that isn't that
interesting. Community provided content makes up for a very small
portion of Rhizome's most prominent content. Is it then any wonder
that the community isn't producing interesting content? A lot of the
"reblogged" articles are coming from the same websites, can't we just
stop or reduce the reblogging and have links to those websites?
Perhaps the site would benefit from having more editors that are
allowed to post to the front page. If I recall correctly there used to
be a lot more and they did it on a volunteer basis.

rhizome is old tech and historical artifact, it is not needed in any
other capacity. Example, roll you own now, http://rhizomeraw.ning.com/

joseph

Rhizome is Rhizome; and I am okay.

http://rhizome.org/object.php?oG072

That's a great analogy. I definitely think people should look into
making Rhizome "dangerous" again.

On 9/2/07, curt cloninger <[email protected]> wrote:
> Paraphrasing Frank Zappa on the record industry:
>
> In the 60s, the record executives were a bunch of cigar-chomping old guys saying, "Who knows what'll sell? Jimi Hendrix? Sure, let's give him a try." Then psychedelic music and hard rock got popular and suddenly those executives were replaced by young hip record executives saying, "We can't take a chance on this new music because the kids won't like it… and I know." We were better off with the cigar-chomping old guys.
>
> -
>
> Having said that, it was funny which content some former "superuser" members used to post on the front page. It became a kooky mix of very parochial/low (RAW users basically flaming each other) and very curated/high (new media work in the Whitney Biennial). My general feeling is that such a mix made rhizome less safe and more dangerous (in a good way). The front page of rhizome now is much more well-behaved. It wants to be "a hit," and it "knows" what a hit is.
>
> +++++++++
>
> pall wrote:
>
> As one person that mailed me about this post said, Rhizome has become
> an "aggregate-blog" and the sense of it being mostly that isn't that
> interesting. Community provided content makes up for a very small
> portion of Rhizome's most prominent content. Is it then any wonder
> that the community isn't producing interesting content? A lot of the
> "reblogged" articles are coming from the same websites, can't we just
> stop or reduce the reblogging and have links to those websites?
> Perhaps the site would benefit from having more editors that are
> allowed to post to the front page. If I recall correctly there used to
> be a lot more and they did it on a volunteer basis.
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>


–
*****************************
Pall Thayer
artist
http://www.this.is/pallit
*****************************

As always MANIK goes far ahead with ideas and observations. Considered Rhiz=
ome front page: its look like many other Organizations front page. And cont=
ent's same as everywhere.Which mean no trace of something creative. Art-in =
one word.

But "first blood" was Pall's lucid analysis considered Raw.

We wonder how came so many well educated people could observe Raw as separa=
te phenomenon with its own rules, like something which existed in world far=
from any social and ethic /aesthetic fermentation(?!?)Global situation in =
World is very different sense day 'Berlin wall' fall ('89). Other words-thi=
s event mark day when fascism officially win after 44 years! Of course lead=
ing role was USA.Disintegrate of former USSR and bloody war in former Yugos=
lavia were only few consequences of this catastrophy.USA felt so strong to=
take obvious step against civilization and low norm with bombing Serbia '9=
9.NATO and filthy propaganda 'about Serbs ethnical cleaning'(it's just oppo=
site, about 200.000 Serbs was throw out from Kosovo that time and they stil=
l live in Serbia like 'internal displaced persons')was poor excuse for main=
ly USA interest in this area (Kosovo)where America install largest military=
base on the world,Bondsteel.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/camp-bondsteel.htm

Lowly?

But, meanwhile Russia with president Putin find out what's in The Bush.Suro=
unded with republic from former USSR(Georgija,Ukraine,Moldavia.etc)where U=
SA influence became very hard,Rusian decided to make 'bipolar' world. In fe=
w words: Amerika can't make bullshit all over the world anymore. For exampl=
e-USA need Kosovo for strategic control over south Euro-Asia, but now they =
are faced with serious threat.Russia have huge nuclear potential, and also =
they're pissed on American sense they humiliate them in '99 bombing Kosovo.=
President Gorbachov was blackmailed idiot, Jelcin was drunk full, but now =
with Putin American have big problem. War in Iraq goes bad for America-to m=
any dead people. In America slowly but surely grow unpleasant comprehension=
about limitations and serious dangerous for they own safety. In few days w=
e could refresh our memories (9/11) and ask ourselves is there any positive=
change in the world sense this date and this happening (?)We doubt.

New constellation in world strategic (count also on China and India growing=
economic power) and possible Iran atomic bomb.That look like bad dream for=
USA? And it is. In next few month America must make a mowe.USA administrat=
ion promise independent to Shiptars from Kosovo but it won't be easy like =
in '99.Why?Because,one tiny example which is main point. We think (MANIK) t=
o endure possible new NATO bombing more than 79 days as it was last time. T=
hat mean we don't care for our life's anymore. After 17 years of isolation,=
sanction, all kind of humiliation we understand it's better to die than to=
live like slave of American anti-human rule. That also mean we have nothin=
g to loose and we (following) Baudrillard's words could be very dangerous i=
n any sense of this word. America live in overrate Myth of value of life, o=
n the other side this "life "mean American life, not other people life, whi=
ch mean it's all pure rascism.Baudrillard said (paraphrase):"Live in desac=
ralised country(USA)mean that their idea of life have no support in any ot=
her area of spiritual sphere. Idea of sacrifice in Muslim religion show all=
vulnerable of American tiny "ideology"."



What are you going to doo with your precious lifes? Intercontinental missil=
e doesn't care for distance.We believe it's time to live your unconscious a=
nd start to prepare for new big war.Or to change your ideology.That'l be ha=
rd? And that's why you should think about war.

Now, when we became conscience about this unhappy and ugly world, about inj=
ustice which goes far over possibility to call mercy for people who commit =
them (no mercy) about what we could talk on Raw.

That's The Reason Rhizome_Raw's empty, pathetic, and full of nonsense calls=
for submissions.

It could be some tiny chance to talk about dangerous which came so fast and=
inexorability.

First you must forget art and ephemeral thing. In time of dangerous Muses a=
re quiet.

MANIK

I think one way to make a listserv dangerous is by using it to make actual art rather than as a para-art promotional platform. This is why posts by NN, kandinsky42, mez, Dirk Vekemans, Max Herman, manik, and others have been poet[h]ically appealing to me. They presume that something is happening on the list itself right now, rather than using the list to dialogue about something happening somewhere else.

Here is a perspicacious essay on conceptual software art by Thomas Dreher, translated from German:
http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/links/NAKSe.html

Here are the accompanying illustrations in pdf form:
http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/links/NAKSe.pdf (11 Mb)

There amongst examples by Cage, George Brecht, Lewitt, and Debord is a piece I posted to RAW in 2005. Dreher's online essay links to my actual rhizome post, which now takes you to a page saying that the post is archived and you can no longer view it unless you pay to become a member.

http://lyricwiki.org/The_White_Stripes:Little_Cream_Soda ,
Curt

+++++++

pall wrote:

That's a great analogy. I definitely think people should look into
making Rhizome "dangerous" again.

I might have argued this several years ago, but the specific characteristics associated with Rhizome RAW are the results of its technological architecture and its policies, which is basically anarchy. Being open to everything and anything does not create or foster diverse and open discussions. Anarchy is simply one of many organizational structures we can have, with its own specific results.

In anarchistic email lists, we often see the pattern of power law where something like the top 5% of members do over 90% of all the talking. And, as you would expect of any anarchistic organizations, what you see on the surface does not represent the majority views. In most anarchistic email lists, those who are most vocal dominate the list and set the course of discussions. Even if their opinions are a small minority, that’s what everyone sees, and naturally everyone comes to associate those opinions with the organization itself.

What is more influential than views and opinions is attitude or tone. Most of us are not capable of seeing arguments solely for their truth values. Emotional content in fact plays a bigger role in deciding to agree or disagree with someone. The small minority of vocal members not only sets the content of the list, but also sets the attitude and tone. This has a snowballing effect of attracting others who share similar attitudes and tones. Eventually, those who cannot relate to the attitudes and tones of the list would leave. The list becomes increasingly homogeneous in this manner, and eventually the remaining members get sick of each other since they are essentially looking at themselves in a mirror. This is expressed in Curt’s list of why’s:

“1. We've already argued about all there is to argue about, and we're tired of arguing about the same things.”

I personally do not like anarchistic structure for an online community. Since the Internet itself has the anarchistic structure, it seems natural to have one, but it can become useless for the same reason. Imagine in a big department store like Macys, a section where it sells everything and anything. Since having a variety of products is the idea of the department store itself, having a section with the same idea is useless. Each online community, I believe, should be more structured. Marisa said: “We can't be all things to all people.” True; trying to be all things to all people ends up serving no one.

A good interviewer would make the interviewee believe that, after a great interview with lots of interesting opinions and stories, he did it all by himself. Free flow of great ideas is usually not so “free”; it only has the facade of freedom. It is actually the invisible structure and control mechanism that lets the ideas flow in a useful and productive manner, which is what a great interviewer does. And this can be controlled with simple technical and/or presentational devices.

As New York Magazine noted once, the online discussion boards at UrbanBaby.com does not display user names. This can cause a lot of confusions because you have no idea who is saying what. But because of the total anonymity, people feel free to say whatever they have on their minds. Some mothers, for instance, started confessing their regrets for having kids. In this way, a simple thing, like the lack of user name, has a big effect on the content and the tone of an online community.

It would be interesting, for instance, to see what happens to Rhizome RAW if there was a simple and easy voting system for each comment posted. Suppose the system automatically kicks out members who get more than 10 lowest votes in a month. Or, it would automatically give more presentational significance to those members who are consistently voted high. I am not saying Rhizome should implement these ideas; I’m only curious as to what would happen if they did. How would it influence the attitudes, tones, and content of the discussion on RAW? It would be interesting to see because it would reflect better what the majority of Rhizome members are thinking and feeling.

People who are not vocal on RAW are not necessarily quiet because they are shy. I believe the number of people who are actually shy is as small as the number of people who are very vocal on the list. The vast majority of the people are more than capable of joining discussions, and offering interesting opinions and insights. What determines their participation is probably more about attitudes and tones than it is about the content.

In email lists where lively discussions still go on, it is usually because the lists are carefully moderated in some way. Discussions on blogs, for instance, are usually moderated and organized by the owners of the blogs. The topic of discussion is set with each post on a blog. This forces everyone to stay on topic, and has the effect of automatically categorizing all the comments. If the topic is interesting, the discussion could go on forever without digressing too far. Or, on popular blogs, discussions are often closed after a certain number of posts, so people do not start arguing about the same thing over and over. In this sense, discussions on blogs are more useful and interesting.

So, in my opinion, the reason why not much is going on within RAW is because its structure is too general and wide open. As the Internet grows in size, each site or community needs to become more specific. Again, the analogy to a department store would be helpful here. The bigger the department store gets, the more specific each section should be. Rhizome RAW simply hasn’t adjusted to that reality.

-Dyske

I completely disagree with you, I find the emotional context to be
irritating, and I think you should be voted off the island.

A. joseph

A stands for Anonymous not Anarchist or A**hole


Dyske Suematsu wrote:
> I might have argued this several years ago, but the specific characteristics associated with Rhizome RAW are the results of its technological architecture and its policies, which is basically anarchy. Being open to everything and anything does not create or foster diverse and open discussions. Anarchy is simply one of many organizational structures we can have, with its own specific results.
>
> In anarchistic email lists, we often see the pattern of power law where something like the top 5% of members do over 90% of all the talking. And, as you would expect of any anarchistic organizations, what you see on the surface does not represent the majority views. In most anarchistic email lists, those who are most vocal dominate the list and set the course of discussions. Even if their opinions are a small minority, that’s what everyone sees, and naturally everyone comes to associate those opinions with the organization itself.
>
> What is more influential than views and opinions is attitude or tone. Most of us are not capable of seeing arguments solely for their truth values. Emotional content in fact plays a bigger role in deciding to agree or disagree with someone. The small minority of vocal members not only sets the content of the list, but also sets the attitude and tone. This has a snowballing effect of attracting others who share similar attitudes and tones. Eventually, those who cannot relate to the attitudes and tones of the list would leave. The list becomes increasingly homogeneous in this manner, and eventually the remaining members get sick of each other since they are essentially looking at themselves in a mirror. This is expressed in Curt’s list of why’s:
>
> “1. We've already argued about all there is to argue about, and we're tired of arguing about the same things.”
>
> I personally do not like anarchistic structure for an online community. Since the Internet itself has the anarchistic structure, it seems natural to have one, but it can become useless for the same reason. Imagine in a big department store like Macys, a section where it sells everything and anything. Since having a variety of products is the idea of the department store itself, having a section with the same idea is useless. Each online community, I believe, should be more structured. Marisa said: “We can't be all things to all people.” True; trying to be all things to all people ends up serving no one.
>
> A good interviewer would make the interviewee believe that, after a great interview with lots of interesting opinions and stories, he did it all by himself. Free flow of great ideas is usually not so “free”; it only has the facade of freedom. It is actually the invisible structure and control mechanism that lets the ideas flow in a useful and productive manner, which is what a great interviewer does. And this can be controlled with simple technical and/or presentational devices.
>
> As New York Magazine noted once, the online discussion boards at UrbanBaby.com does not display user names. This can cause a lot of confusions because you have no idea who is saying what. But because of the total anonymity, people feel free to say whatever they have on their minds. Some mothers, for instance, started confessing their regrets for having kids. In this way, a simple thing, like the lack of user name, has a big effect on the content and the tone of an online community.
>
> It would be interesting, for instance, to see what happens to Rhizome RAW if there was a simple and easy voting system for each comment posted. Suppose the system automatically kicks out members who get more than 10 lowest votes in a month. Or, it would automatically give more presentational significance to those members who are consistently voted high. I am not saying Rhizome should implement these ideas; I’m only curious as to what would happen if they did. How would it influence the attitudes, tones, and content of the discussion on RAW? It would be interesting to see because it would reflect better what the majority of Rhizome members are thinking and feeling.
>
> People who are not vocal on RAW are not necessarily quiet because they are shy. I believe the number of people who are actually shy is as small as the number of people who are very vocal on the list. The vast majority of the people are more than capable of joining discussions, and offering interesting opinions and insights. What determines their participation is probably more about attitudes and tones than it is about the content.
>
> In email lists where lively discussions still go on, it is usually because the lists are carefully moderated in some way. Discussions on blogs, for instance, are usually moderated and organized by the owners of the blogs. The topic of discussion is set with each post on a blog. This forces everyone to stay on topic, and has the effect of automatically categorizing all the comments. If the topic is interesting, the discussion could go on forever without digressing too far. Or, on popular blogs, discussions are often closed after a certain number of posts, so people do not start arguing about the same thing over and over. In this sense, discussions on blogs are more useful and interesting.
>
> So, in my opinion, the reason why not much is going on within RAW is because its structure is too general and wide open. As the Internet grows in size, each site or community needs to become more specific. Again, the analogy to a department store would be helpful here. The bigger the department store gets, the more specific each section should be. Rhizome RAW simply hasn’t adjusted to that reality.
>
> -Dyske
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>
>
>

A. joseph

A stands for Anonymous not Anarchist or A**hole


BAH, BACK TO MUMMY, YOU PARASOPHISTICATED
MEDIA THEORY VAMPYRE

THIS IST SSHOLE MCGUFFIN,

AND SS STANDS FOR RHISSOME



LIFE GAMES

Is it because it's been a pay thing? I remember more
non-Americans/Europeans on RAW when it was free.

On 01/09/07, Pall Thayer <[email protected]> wrote:
> Sorry people, but Rhizome no longer exists as the dynamic,
> international community boiling pot it once was. It hasn't for quite
> some time, about 2 or 3 years. Something has gone wrong and it should
> be fixed.
>
> Apart from subscribing to Rhizome's mailing lists it used to be
> informative and exciting to visit the Rhizome website. Its content
> would change on a daily basis, often with new material appearing on
> the front page several times over the course of the day. Posts to
> Rhizome-Raw would generate lively discussion and debate that would
> involve several members of the community from all corners of the art
> world and beyond. Posts of particular interest would appear on the
> front page, giving them added exposure and prompting even more lively
> discussion on the mailing lists.
>
> Additions to the artbase used to seep in, perhaps a couple of projects
> a week instead of nothing over several weeks and then all of the
> sudden a single heep of additions. Also, these additions used to
> always appear on the front page. I used to look at most of these
> pieces but when I get ten announcements in a single day, I don't have
> time to go through them.
>
> Rhizome's directors and other employees have busied themselves with
> organizing physical events. I wonder if these really do serve the
> community. It feels to me like they serve the New York based members
> of Rhizome but do very little for others. Again, Rhizome used to cater
> to the needs and desires of an international community.
>
> What is perhaps most devastating though is the appearant disappearance
> of Rhizome Rare. Those who subscribed to Rare were the semi-dormant
> sideline viewers who would perk up each time something interesting
> came by. I looked at the RSS feed for Rare the other day and noticed
> that the most recent post was from October 24, 2006?!? I don't
> remember seeing anything about the discontinuation of Rare. It's no
> wonder that mailing list discussions have fizzled out if those who
> used to subscribe to Rare are no longer receiving anything.
>
> I urge the Rhizome staff to take measures to attempt to restore
> Rhizome to the diverse and dynamic community and information outlet
> that it once was. In its current state it's becoming more and more
> useless to a large number of its members.
>
> Pall Thayer
>
> –
> *****************************
> Pall Thayer
> artist
> http://www.this.is/pallit
> *****************************
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>


–
Cell: (469)877-9166

Hi Dyske,

I agree with part of what you state below and disagree with part. I agree
that freedom can require some level of structure so that friction, say, does
not smother all movement. Yet that may not be the cause of changes here or
the only cause.

On Artforum Talkback for example, they enforce strong topic-adherence and
eject both posts and users for infractions. Yet the board is very, very
inactive.

One explanation may be that there are general environmental considerations
in world events (not list protocols) that have changed Rhizome Raw. I think
there have definitely been some big changes in the world since 1998.
Perhaps we are in a time now comparable to the "Red Scare" of the early
fifties, when the new Cold War was getting started. Now we are in a Second
Cold War so to speak, the foundations of which are newer and a little more
frightening than those of the First Cold War were in 1998, if you get my
analogy. This fear is not all bad either I don't think. There are some
very serious concerns and stake and heck some degree of fear in life is
healthy.

Talking about art, politics, religion, and humanity with no censorship can
definitely be a bad and dangerous thing which decent people avoid. Many
societies in history strictly prohibited such discussions by law. Making
the list "dangerous" again makes me think, "dangerous to the users?
Dangerous to Rhizome itself? Dangerous to the world?" What if Rhizome just
got "canceled" and everything was removed from the database and gone for
good? Or if bad tendencies on Rhizome contaminated the rest of society and
threw it into the abyss?

Dangerous to members' careers or peace of mind (well-being) doesn't sound so
fun either. Dangerous to the established art world? Well the New Museum is
established and they govern Rhizome so that would be self-endangerment.
Dangerous politically? There's already a big heaping helping of that to go
around. Dangeorus to the economy? The economy is semi-global and global
depressions often worsen life's problems astronomically for everyone.

If taking more risks or better risk, creative bold risk-management and
investment in risk, if that is the idea then it might be comprehensible.
Quality risk is neither destructive nor counter-mission for art, the
art-world, Rhizome, political progress, or the global economy. But
sometimes investor caution or bearishness is better still.

Perhaps there was a Rhizome danger-bubble that popped on say 911, the start
of the Second Cold War. As Richard Armitage said, "History started over on
911" and that counts for a lot.

Personally as to my own growing older, I am working now to get enough money
so as not to have to retire on welfare. I'm definitely older and need to
conduct myself more professionally so as to gain financial security. To
this end I am studying new skills and learning to live more carefully. But
the main reason I don't post here like I used to is the new war environment
and how this has affected aesthetic evolution and my own thinking about
same. I'm less infatuated with danger and dramatics and also need more time
to think and be by myself.

Definitely niche-topics can be more free-wheeling, because everyone knows
there's only so much you can allude to.

But frankly I think the best topic is whether we are in a new art-historical
period. I think that could be a big new topic people could discuss without
yelling fire in a crowded theater. But again, your point is very true that
many people don't want a new art-historical period because they've invested
a ton in the previous one. And if a new art-historical period would be a
good thing, why aren't the really strong experts ("grandmasters" of art so
to speak) like Harvard, the Sorbonne, and MGU formulating it and getting the
word out? It could be either that they are against having a new period,
unable to set one up, or sending the indirect message not to discuss one
yet. It could also be that they are not best suited to come up with one
because of many reasons. The uncertainty on all of this might indicate the
path of caution.

On the other hand, moderate efforts for innovation could be justified if
done with risk management, co-opetition, win-win negotitions, etc. Outsider
innovation is often called for in economic, technological, and
art-historical transitions. The New Museum people might like it if Rhizome
Raw invented a new art-historical period where other lists like Talkback
could not. On the other hand they might hate it and pull our plug. Who can
say?

All in all I think that excessive fear is not beneficial as we see in the
sub-prime lender credit crunch and other locations. Not that psychotic
self-destructiveness is good, that's not what I mean. Just good
constructive entrepreneurship and intelligent risk for aesthetic investment
gains.

As to Curt's post, I confine myself almost completely to classical music
these days, like Beethoven's Violin Sonata #9. I also got some new
Stravinsky. I'm trying to get a better ability to hear the meter in plain
word-poems and prose. So I listen to rock etc. pretty much only at the
laundromat. But I like the lyrics of the song Curt posted just as lyrics.
Then again I see so much vitiation in everything now, myself exponentially
included, so I can't say for sure if "like" is the right word. Perhaps I
mean I see a glimmer of truth to it.

It reminds me of a poem I definitely like, which I think is from the First
Cold War times:


The Emperor of Ice Cream

Call in the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such clothes
As they are used to wear; let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream.

Take from the dresser of deal
Lacking the three glass knobs that sheet
On which she embroided fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream.


Best regards and happy Labor Day,


Max Herman
The Genius 2000 Network
New General Archive Online Now
www.geocities.com/genius-2000


+++




>From: Dyske Suematsu <[email protected]>
>Reply-To: Dyske Suematsu <[email protected]>
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Where is the Rhizome?
>Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 10:39:46 -0400
>
>I might have argued this several years ago, but the specific
>characteristics associated with Rhizome RAW are the results of its
>technological architecture and its policies, which is basically anarchy.
>Being open to everything and anything does not create or foster diverse and
>open discussions. Anarchy is simply one of many organizational structures
>we can have, with its own specific results.
>
>In anarchistic email lists, we often see the pattern of power law where
>something like the top 5% of members do over 90% of all the talking. And,
>as you would expect of any anarchistic organizations, what you see on the
>surface does not represent the majority views. In most anarchistic email
>lists, those who are most vocal dominate the list and set the course of
>discussions. Even if their opinions are a small minority, that’s what
>everyone sees, and naturally everyone comes to associate those opinions
>with the organization itself.
>
>What is more influential than views and opinions is attitude or tone. Most
>of us are not capable of seeing arguments solely for their truth values.
>Emotional content in fact plays a bigger role in deciding to agree or
>disagree with someone. The small minority of vocal members not only sets
>the content of the list, but also sets the attitude and tone. This has a
>snowballing effect of attracting others who share similar attitudes and
>tones. Eventually, those who cannot relate to the attitudes and tones of
>the list would leave. The list becomes increasingly homogeneous in this
>manner, and eventually the remaining members get sick of each other since
>they are essentially looking at themselves in a mirror. This is expressed
>in Curt’s list of why’s:
>
>“1. We've already argued about all there is to argue about, and we're
>tired of arguing about the same things.”
>
>I personally do not like anarchistic structure for an online community.
>Since the Internet itself has the anarchistic structure, it seems natural
>to have one, but it can become useless for the same reason. Imagine in a
>big department store like Macys, a section where it sells everything and
>anything. Since having a variety of products is the idea of the department
>store itself, having a section with the same idea is useless. Each online
>community, I believe, should be more structured. Marisa said: “We can't
>be all things to all people.” True; trying to be all things to all people
>ends up serving no one.
>
>A good interviewer would make the interviewee believe that, after a great
>interview with lots of interesting opinions and stories, he did it all by
>himself. Free flow of great ideas is usually not so “free”; it only has
>the facade of freedom. It is actually the invisible structure and control
>mechanism that lets the ideas flow in a useful and productive manner, which
>is what a great interviewer does. And this can be controlled with simple
>technical and/or presentational devices.
>
>As New York Magazine noted once, the online discussion boards at
>UrbanBaby.com does not display user names. This can cause a lot of
>confusions because you have no idea who is saying what. But because of the
>total anonymity, people feel free to say whatever they have on their minds.
>Some mothers, for instance, started confessing their regrets for having
>kids. In this way, a simple thing, like the lack of user name, has a big
>effect on the content and the tone of an online community.
>
>It would be interesting, for instance, to see what happens to Rhizome RAW
>if there was a simple and easy voting system for each comment posted.
>Suppose the system automatically kicks out members who get more than 10
>lowest votes in a month. Or, it would automatically give more
>presentational significance to those members who are consistently voted
>high. I am not saying Rhizome should implement these ideas; I’m only
>curious as to what would happen if they did. How would it influence the
>attitudes, tones, and content of the discussion on RAW? It would be
>interesting to see because it would reflect better what the majority of
>Rhizome members are thinking and feeling.
>
>People who are not vocal on RAW are not necessarily quiet because they are
>shy. I believe the number of people who are actually shy is as small as the
>number of people who are very vocal on the list. The vast majority of the
>people are more than capable of joining discussions, and offering
>interesting opinions and insights. What determines their participation is
>probably more about attitudes and tones than it is about the content.
>
>In email lists where lively discussions still go on, it is usually because
>the lists are carefully moderated in some way. Discussions on blogs, for
>instance, are usually moderated and organized by the owners of the blogs.
>The topic of discussion is set with each post on a blog. This forces
>everyone to stay on topic, and has the effect of automatically categorizing
>all the comments. If the topic is interesting, the discussion could go on
>forever without digressing too far. Or, on popular blogs, discussions are
>often closed after a certain number of posts, so people do not start
>arguing about the same thing over and over. In this sense, discussions on
>blogs are more useful and interesting.
>
>So, in my opinion, the reason why not much is going on within RAW is
>because its structure is too general and wide open. As the Internet grows
>in size, each site or community needs to become more specific. Again, the
>analogy to a department store would be helpful here. The bigger the
>department store gets, the more specific each section should be. Rhizome
>RAW simply hasn’t adjusted to that reality.
>
>-Dyske
>+
>-> post: [email protected]
>-> questions: [email protected]
>-> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
>-> give: http://rhizome.org/support
>+
>Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php

DREAM MY DREAM wrote:
>
> A. joseph
>
> A stands for Anonymous not Anarchist or A**hole
>
>
> BAH, BACK TO MUMMY, YOU PARASOPHISTICATED
> MEDIA THEORY VAMPYRE
>
> THIS IST SSHOLE MCGUFFIN,
>
> AND SS STANDS FOR RHISSOME

Histrionic personal abuse used to be so much better on Rhizome in the
old days.

- Rob.

Part of the joy of an anarchic list is that somebody might write
something funny and irreverent. I think Joseph is getting at the heart
of the axiom about not fixing what is not broken. Raw is a fine list for
the somewhat narrow band of media practice that it has become associated
with, about which Curt's claim that "We've already argued about all
there is to argue about" (including the organizational structure of
rhizome itself), rings true in an emotionally exhausted sense. (Of
course there is more to discuss… it is just that any system of
production - including knowledge production - can reach a point of
diminishing returns…) As I wrote in my earlier post, good discussions
do pop up from time to time (an occasional nugget in a mostly played out
vein), even if raw's main value is as a (very) useful project and
opportunity announcement list. List life is good here. Now, I'm off to
catch up with the largely post-pixel "Critical Spatial Practice"
discussion on empyre.

Take care all,
Brett

Joseph Franklyn McElroy wrote:
> I completely disagree with you, I find the emotional context to be
> irritating, and I think you should be voted off the island.
>
> A. joseph
>
> A stands for Anonymous not Anarchist or A**hole
>
>
> Dyske Suematsu wrote:
>> I might have argued this several years ago, but the specific
>> characteristics associated with Rhizome RAW are the results of its
>> technological architecture and its policies, which is basically
>> anarchy. Being open to everything and anything does not create or
>> foster diverse and open discussions. Anarchy is simply one of many
>> organizational structures we can have, with its own specific results.
>> In anarchistic email lists, we often see the pattern of power law
>> where something like the top 5% of members do over 90% of all the
>> talking. And, as you would expect of any anarchistic organizations,
>> what you see on the surface does not represent the majority views. In
>> most anarchistic email lists, those who are most vocal dominate the
>> list and set the course of discussions. Even if their opinions are a
>> small minority, that’s what everyone sees, and naturally everyone
>> comes to associate those opinions with the organization itself.
>> What is more influential than views and opinions is attitude or tone.
>> Most of us are not capable of seeing arguments solely for their truth
>> values. Emotional content in fact plays a bigger role in deciding to
>> agree or disagree with someone. The small minority of vocal members
>> not only sets the content of the list, but also sets the attitude and
>> tone. This has a snowballing effect of attracting others who share
>> similar attitudes and tones. Eventually, those who cannot relate to
>> the attitudes and tones of the list would leave. The list becomes
>> increasingly homogeneous in this manner, and eventually the remaining
>> members get sick of each other since they are essentially looking at
>> themselves in a mirror. This is expressed in Curt’s list of why’s:
>>
>> “1. We've already argued about all there is to argue about, and we're
>> tired of arguing about the same things.”
>>
>> I personally do not like anarchistic structure for an online
>> community. Since the Internet itself has the anarchistic structure, it
>> seems natural to have one, but it can become useless for the same
>> reason. Imagine in a big department store like Macys, a section where
>> it sells everything and anything. Since having a variety of products
>> is the idea of the department store itself, having a section with the
>> same idea is useless. Each online community, I believe, should be more
>> structured. Marisa said: “We can't be all things to all people.” True;
>> trying to be all things to all people ends up serving no one.
>>
>> A good interviewer would make the interviewee believe that, after a
>> great interview with lots of interesting opinions and stories, he did
>> it all by himself. Free flow of great ideas is usually not so “free”;
>> it only has the facade of freedom. It is actually the invisible
>> structure and control mechanism that lets the ideas flow in a useful
>> and productive manner, which is what a great interviewer does. And
>> this can be controlled with simple technical and/or presentational
>> devices.
>>
>> As New York Magazine noted once, the online discussion boards at
>> UrbanBaby.com does not display user names. This can cause a lot of
>> confusions because you have no idea who is saying what. But because of
>> the total anonymity, people feel free to say whatever they have on
>> their minds. Some mothers, for instance, started confessing their
>> regrets for having kids. In this way, a simple thing, like the lack of
>> user name, has a big effect on the content and the tone of an online
>> community.
>>
>> It would be interesting, for instance, to see what happens to Rhizome
>> RAW if there was a simple and easy voting system for each comment
>> posted. Suppose the system automatically kicks out members who get
>> more than 10 lowest votes in a month. Or, it would automatically give
>> more presentational significance to those members who are consistently
>> voted high. I am not saying Rhizome should implement these ideas; I’m
>> only curious as to what would happen if they did. How would it
>> influence the attitudes, tones, and content of the discussion on RAW?
>> It would be interesting to see because it would reflect better what
>> the majority of Rhizome members are thinking and feeling.
>>
>> People who are not vocal on RAW are not necessarily quiet because they
>> are shy. I believe the number of people who are actually shy is as
>> small as the number of people who are very vocal on the list. The vast
>> majority of the people are more than capable of joining discussions,
>> and offering interesting opinions and insights. What determines their
>> participation is probably more about attitudes and tones than it is
>> about the content.
>>
>> In email lists where lively discussions still go on, it is usually
>> because the lists are carefully moderated in some way. Discussions on
>> blogs, for instance, are usually moderated and organized by the owners
>> of the blogs. The topic of discussion is set with each post on a blog.
>> This forces everyone to stay on topic, and has the effect of
>> automatically categorizing all the comments. If the topic is
>> interesting, the discussion could go on forever without digressing too
>> far. Or, on popular blogs, discussions are often closed after a
>> certain number of posts, so people do not start arguing about the same
>> thing over and over. In this sense, discussions on blogs are more
>> useful and interesting.
>>
>> So, in my opinion, the reason why not much is going on within RAW is
>> because its structure is too general and wide open. As the Internet
>> grows in size, each site or community needs to become more specific.
>> Again, the analogy to a department store would be helpful here. The
>> bigger the department store gets, the more specific each section
>> should be. Rhizome RAW simply hasn’t adjusted to that reality.
>>
>> -Dyske
>> +
>> -> post: [email protected]
>> -> questions: [email protected]
>> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
>> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
>> +
>> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>>
>>
>>
>
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>

–
Brett Stalbaum, Lecturer, LSOE
Coordinator, Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts Major (ICAM)
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
Department of Visual Arts
9500 GILMAN DR. # 0084
La Jolla CA 92093-0084
http://www.c5corp.com
http://www.paintersflat.net

About the Dreher essay, it makes me wish I had more time to study and absorb
such concepts. I am not really up to date on DeBord and so on. But I
definitely think there is something to be found by studying 20th c. art and
then how it leads into computer art, network art, and so on.

And not just for art-history specialists either. For example, that writer
Kurzweil talked about "the age of spiritual machines." How can that connect
to art, aesthetic genius, technology, history, and war? History is affected
a lot by war and conflicts.

As to Dyske's point, I definitely need to keep rules on my e-mailing. I
used to post too much to Raw I think and lost my perspective sometimes. So,
I am going to post for a while during the G2K conference which is the next
two weeks, but then go off-list again.

Curt, regarding your post, I should read that essay again by Dreher. But is
there an implication that software art is sort of an outgrowth or
developmental progression from 20th c. art? I'll have to read that again.

But I do agree that the new art-historical period would have to a) take 20th
c. art into account as its fodder or humus and b) take computers and
computer networks into account.

There is also a lot else it will have to take into account!

But that is what would make it a period, lasting say 100 years, and not a
"factoid."

Lee, as to your recent post about wanting a new period after postmodernism:
I don't know much about Hakim Bey but I don't know if he is politically
responsible enough. My impression is that he and others who advocate
anarchism, undermining the establishment, and all that are not really
literally serious but more metaphorical or figurative so to speak. But then
maybe that is not so far from what you were referring to either so I don't
mean that negatively.

Then as to Manik's recent post about nuclear war. It does seem that the
"nuclear clock" is inching back closer to "midnight" again, so it's sort of
back to the dark times of the 80's again. That definitely takes away some
of the 90's euphoria that had a big impact on Rhizome Raw for so long.
So I would have to reiterate that these factors have a much greater impact
now than the Rhizome membership fee, etc.

But managing around these factors is part of the challenge facing art today
too. It seems to me however that a lot of this challenge has to be worked
on internally, in your own mind, rather than in a public forum where the
negative dangers are so terrifying and traumatic. The potential to make
things worse is very frightening because it is also very real I think.

That's definitely how it is for me anyway. That's the topic of my essay too
for the conference this year, going into yourself.

Not to be harsh or negative, but maybe the whole idea of the "rhizome" or
decentralized aesthetic phenomenon is under a new context? Is there a
recessive or dialectical susceptibility in the model that today's atmosphere
is highlighting? That would go along with Dyske's point but in a different
sense.

I think this would be a reasonable topic either for discussion or for
personal reflection and research. Not to be harsh against Rhizome, but what
if the aesthetic pattern of the "rhizome" (as expressed by Guattari was it?)
is encountering let's say a historical reality that is illustrating a
historical balancing or counter-pressure?

Suppose that the "rhizome" as an art-historical or aesthetic form is not as
prevalent when the dangers and hostilities facing society reach a certain
intensity. Perhaps there is a counter-pressure which is now in the
ascendancy, such as a danger of complete structural collapse (global
military chaos or nuclear disaster) which requires a shift away from
rhizomatic behavior to more centralized hierarchical behavior, just to adapt
to realities? This was in effect during the First Cold War, for sure.

Another theory might say that you can't have freedom without a structure
powerful enough to preserve it, and whereas during the late 20th c.
exploring rhizomatic freedom was the focus now the focus has gone back to
global power structures finding some degree of stability to make rhizomatic
freedom possible at some level and to preserve it as a possible hope for the
future.

My thought would be that the rhizomatic element of culture probably has to
adapt into a new and specific form to adapt to the challenges. But that is
a very difficult adaptation which might take many decades. So far be it
from me to imply it can be fixed within 2 weeks. I bet that Guattari and
whoever else proposed the rhizomatic idea also viewed it as a form that got
shaped and re-shaped over historical eras, functioning and appearing
differently through time. Does anyone know if that's the case?




>From: curt cloninger <[email protected]>
>Reply-To: curt cloninger <[email protected]>
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: Re: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Where is the Rhizome?
>Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2007 23:41:31 -0400
>
>I think one way to make a listserv dangerous is by using it to make actual
>art rather than as a para-art promotional platform. This is why posts by
>NN, kandinsky42, mez, Dirk Vekemans, Max Herman, manik, and others have
>been poet[h]ically appealing to me. They presume that something is
>happening on the list itself right now, rather than using the list to
>dialogue about something happening somewhere else.
>
>Here is a perspicacious essay on conceptual software art by Thomas Dreher,
>translated from German:
>http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/links/NAKSe.html
>
>Here are the accompanying illustrations in pdf form:
>http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/links/NAKSe.pdf (11 Mb)
>
>There amongst examples by Cage, George Brecht, Lewitt, and Debord is a
>piece I posted to RAW in 2005. Dreher's online essay links to my actual
>rhizome post, which now takes you to a page saying that the post is
>archived and you can no longer view it unless you pay to become a member.
>
>http://lyricwiki.org/The_White_Stripes:Little_Cream_Soda ,
>Curt
>
>+++++++
>
>pall wrote:
>
>That's a great analogy. I definitely think people should look into
>making Rhizome "dangerous" again.
>+
>-> post: [email protected]
>-> questions: [email protected]
>-> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
>-> give: http://rhizome.org/support
>+
>Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php

Hi Curt,

I noticed in this text by Dreher I didn't think he talked about Guattari.
Did he?

In any case, I looked up Guattari and found out some interesting things.

First off, his main book was called "1000 Plateaus" where each section was
dated to represent a time. This reminded me frightfully of my own
composition of "Genius 2000: a New Network." You may find it impossible to
believe but I never read 1000 Plateaus and only found out about its format
today. Oh well. I also never knew that Pascal said "ineffable union" as
the main idea of life either. But that's also not believable to hear me say
that.

Anyhow, I noticed that Guattari wanted to counter the "rhizome" composition
or form to the "arborescent" i.e. tree-like I would guess.

I've also used the image of the tree in my ideas for a while, such as
"Political Aesthetics." I think the tree aspect of aesthetics is pretty
good and important however so I'm curious why Guattari didn't like it.

Moreover, Guattari's final Plateau is the "noosphere," which is Teilhard de
Chardin, who P.B. Medawar is very against, and I cited Medawar in Political
Aesthetics also.

Maybe it's relevant that computers use a tree structure more so than a
rhizome structure? Or, sometimes they do? Maybe history goes back and
forth, favoring a tree sometimes or a rhizome at other times but neither one
is evil per se.



>From: curt cloninger <[email protected]>
>Reply-To: curt cloninger <[email protected]>
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: Re: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Where is the Rhizome?
>Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2007 23:41:31 -0400
>
>I think one way to make a listserv dangerous is by using it to make actual
>art rather than as a para-art promotional platform. This is why posts by
>NN, kandinsky42, mez, Dirk Vekemans, Max Herman, manik, and others have
>been poet[h]ically appealing to me. They presume that something is
>happening on the list itself right now, rather than using the list to
>dialogue about something happening somewhere else.
>
>Here is a perspicacious essay on conceptual software art by Thomas Dreher,
>translated from German:
>http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/links/NAKSe.html
>
>Here are the accompanying illustrations in pdf form:
>http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/links/NAKSe.pdf (11 Mb)
>
>There amongst examples by Cage, George Brecht, Lewitt, and Debord is a
>piece I posted to RAW in 2005. Dreher's online essay links to my actual
>rhizome post, which now takes you to a page saying that the post is
>archived and you can no longer view it unless you pay to become a member.
>
>http://lyricwiki.org/The_White_Stripes:Little_Cream_Soda ,
>Curt
>
>+++++++
>
>pall wrote:
>
>That's a great analogy. I definitely think people should look into
>making Rhizome "dangerous" again.
>+
>-> post: [email protected]
>-> questions: [email protected]
>-> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
>-> give: http://rhizome.org/support
>+
>Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php

Hi Max,

(IDEA OF)Tree in [post]structural way of imagination follow spatial type of
visualizing mind(thinking)which could be explained as 'hyerarhical'.That
mean tree couldn't be 'rhizomatic' because in structure its repeat vertical,
or "pyramid "type of imagination(it's not wrong or right, it's just
fact).Vertical imagination mean, in short,base,or root(people) and
administration, leader(treetop).parallels in social structure is
dictatorship and vertical distribution of power(faschism,comunism or
neoliberal/corporative capitalism("West democracy").

Other way supposes dispersion from one point (imagined root) and endless
number of germinate. This is rhizomatic way. You couldn't direct when, how
much, on which place and with how strong intensity grown of some idea is
going to erupt as brand new and equal (with other) worst or better.

That could be anarchy as last level of democracy ('Society of 'Anonymous
strangers') or 'retro distributions of power'-or, horizontal distribution of
power (prehistory tribe with their distribution of social income and
classification of social influence).

That's why we could see image of some swamp plant on (for example) front
page of Rhizome org.We doubt that any of recent Rhizome org. stuff have
knowledge about that. We wish we are wrong.

MANIK hope that, at least, with his observation could help to recognize
problem of 'rhizomatic' on more complex way.

MANIK

PS:We are sure Curt don't mind we answer on your mail.At least all of us try
to understand what's going on here.

—– Original Message —–
From: "Max Herman" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, September 03, 2007 10:40 PM
Subject: Re: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Where is the Rhizome?


>
> Hi Curt,
>
> I noticed in this text by Dreher I didn't think he talked about Guattari.
> Did he?
>
> In any case, I looked up Guattari and found out some interesting things.
>
> First off, his main book was called "1000 Plateaus" where each section was
> dated to represent a time. This reminded me frightfully of my own
> composition of "Genius 2000: a New Network." You may find it impossible
> to believe but I never read 1000 Plateaus and only found out about its
> format today. Oh well. I also never knew that Pascal said "ineffable
> union" as the main idea of life either. But that's also not believable to
> hear me say that.
>
> Anyhow, I noticed that Guattari wanted to counter the "rhizome"
> composition or form to the "arborescent" i.e. tree-like I would guess.
>
> I've also used the image of the tree in my ideas for a while, such as
> "Political Aesthetics." I think the tree aspect of aesthetics is pretty
> good and important however so I'm curious why Guattari didn't like it.
>
> Moreover, Guattari's final Plateau is the "noosphere," which is Teilhard
> de Chardin, who P.B. Medawar is very against, and I cited Medawar in
> Political Aesthetics also.
>
> Maybe it's relevant that computers use a tree structure more so than a
> rhizome structure? Or, sometimes they do? Maybe history goes back and
> forth, favoring a tree sometimes or a rhizome at other times but neither
> one is evil per se.
>
>
>
>>From: curt cloninger <[email protected]>
>>Reply-To: curt cloninger <[email protected]>
>>To: [email protected]
>>Subject: Re: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Where is the Rhizome?
>>Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2007 23:41:31 -0400
>>
>>I think one way to make a listserv dangerous is by using it to make actual
>>art rather than as a para-art promotional platform. This is why posts by
>>NN, kandinsky42, mez, Dirk Vekemans, Max Herman, manik, and others have
>>been poet[h]ically appealing to me. They presume that something is
>>happening on the list itself right now, rather than using the list to
>>dialogue about something happening somewhere else.
>>
>>Here is a perspicacious essay on conceptual software art by Thomas Dreher,
>>translated from German:
>>http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/links/NAKSe.html
>>
>>Here are the accompanying illustrations in pdf form:
>>http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/links/NAKSe.pdf (11 Mb)
>>
>>There amongst examples by Cage, George Brecht, Lewitt, and Debord is a
>>piece I posted to RAW in 2005. Dreher's online essay links to my actual
>>rhizome post, which now takes you to a page saying that the post is
>>archived and you can no longer view it unless you pay to become a member.
>>
>>http://lyricwiki.org/The_White_Stripes:Little_Cream_Soda ,
>>Curt
>>
>>+++++++
>>
>>pall wrote:
>>
>>That's a great analogy. I definitely think people should look into
>>making Rhizome "dangerous" again.
>>+
>>-> post: [email protected]
>>-> questions: [email protected]
>>-> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
>>-> give: http://rhizome.org/support
>>+
>>Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>>Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>
>
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>
> __________ NOD32 2501 (20070903) Information __________
>
> This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system.
> http://www.eset.com
>
>

Hello Rhizome Raw,

First off, I'd like to counter Curt's claim that the Rhizome staff are like
hip, young record executives instead of cigar-smoking old guys. How do you
know we don't smoke cigars in the office? All our interns get free cigars
upon arrival. And the median age in the office is 30, which many consider to
be old! :)

Secondly, I'd like to differentiate Rhizome Raw from Rhizome. They are not
the same thing and yet, in this thread, they have been collapsed. Rhizome is
an organization with programs, distributed on and offline, a website, an
archive, newsletters, etc. Rhizome as an organization, while New York-based,
endeavors to make our editorial scope and programs international and diverse
to reflect the sprawling and diverse new media art communities around the
world. Rhizome Raw is one of our email lists. Raw has a particular
significance because Rhizome (the organization) started as Raw, which was
then and still is an open, uncensored email list, meant to encourage
non-hierarchical, free-form exchange. It was the practical translation of
the Rhizome metaphor.

This distinction is important because Rhizome (the organization) is
thriving: attention to our website and participation in our programs have
increased over the past few years. And, as it is our mission to promote an
art form that is still marginal within the larger field of contemporary art,
I see broader exposure for new media art and artists to be positive.

Discussion on Rhizome Raw, on the other hand, has waned. This is a fact, one
that has been expressed on and off this list previously and one that Rhizome
staff has been addressing, whilst cigar-smoking, in recent months. The
reasons for this decline are numerous and its been interesting to read
different explanations in this thread. I would agree largely with Patrick
and Dyske: it has to do with a change in the overall structure of the web
and the shifting nature of the new media community. It also has to do with
the fact that Raw has become a very good list for opportunities and
announcements, which have simultaneously over-run discussion.

Rhizome staff has been working on several key projects to enhance
discussion, in the face of Raw's lack of growth. These entail upgrading Raw,
keeping its core principles and migrating it to a new form.

1) Adding online discussion forums that are blog-like in structure and allow
for multiple, smaller conversations instead of one large, central
discussion. We will pre-announce this in more detail soon, but a goal here
is to allow a diversity of voices to emerge around multiple topics. We
would split discussion and announcements into two separate sections, and
people could participate in either or both.
2) Re-designing our website, so that it is easier to use and emphasizes art
of Rhizome participants and our programs. Currently, the front page
over-emphasizes our reblog, and under-emphasizes everything else we do,
especially the art work we work so hard to support. The new design will seek
to correct this.
3) Publishing more original editorial content on our front page and allowing
for comments, therefore opening up another area of discussion.

Another fact is that Rhizome has become a hybrid organization: one that is
curated, edited and managed by staff and also aims to be open, experimental
and community-generated. These two components are equally important to who
we are, and create a productive and dynamic tension across the organization.

Lastly, I'd like to note that, while conversation on Raw has not been as
active lately, Rhizome as an organization has been home to a community of
artists on the edge of a new art form for eleven years. This is no small
feat. Websites come and go, comments turn on and off, but building and
sustaining a heated, active, thoughtful community for over a decade is an
accomplishment that everyone

Discussion about a lack of discussion yields a discussion. I have nothing to contribute to this discussion but to say that its a good discussion. OUch, I bit my tail. I think the discussers are all right on. But now I'm craving a big fucking cigar, either that or an instantaneous WEB 4.0. I'm truly sorry if I have nothing to contribute but an affirmation of information received.
Stephe Reed.

Hi Lauren,

No offense, but you and Marisa have to be on the short list of hip young people working in your particular area code (and that's saying something). There is another short list of total freaks freaking in your area code, and, no offense, but y'all probably aren't on that list. I think of Daniel Johnston's infamous visit to NYC where Sonic Youth ultimately winds up pooling all their resources just to get him back out of town. They were hip and he was a freak. There have been some world-class freaks on RAW.

Mr. Tribe, schooled by Mr. Kaprow and Mr. Beuys, saw RAW as social sculpture. I dare say RAW was THE main Rhizome project. The network was new enough then to think that the phenomenon of communication on a world-wide mailing list in and of itself was worthy of curatorial stewardship (water and sunlight – to continue the botanical metaphor). For years, weekly, digest contained at least one circuitous, ridiculous, vitriolic, polemical thread from RAW. And of course, the only content on the front page was – 1. announcements from RAW of work, and 2. links to long argumentative threads from RAW (often the latter outnumbering the former). And I'm guessing Mark reveled in this anarchy for a season. He could've had a button made – "Rhizome, the only list that hasn't moderated NN."

When was the last time an argumentative thread from RAW was included in Digest or linked from the front page? I merely pose the question. These are editorial decisions. Indubitably they *reflect* the changing nature of the medium, art world, technology, etc. But they aren't directly caused by those changes. Y'all are making conscious editorial/curatorial decisions to fashion Rhizome as an organization in ways that no longer give as much exposure [sunlight] to the dialogue that happens on RAW. And you're probably absolutely correct in chosing to do so (since you can only give exposure to so many things). Of course, there are all sorts of other factors involved in why dialogue on RAW has flagged (existence is complicated).

Having said that, I'm always amazed at the professional tact of the Rhizome staff. If I were y'all, I would eventually lose it and tell everybody to shut the f**k up and stop whining like a bunch of babies. "If you want to dialogue, start dialoguing. If not, whatever. You're not paying us enough to spread the infectious disease that is your collective, rankling mind."

——–

Conceptual Art Instruction:
Make and distribute two sets of buttons:

1.
Black text on Green background. Text reads: "Rhizome 1999: The Only List That Hasn't Moderated NN."

2.
White text on Red background. Text reads: "Rhizome 2007: You're Not Paying Us Enough to Spread the Infectious Disease That Is Your Collective, Rankling Mind."

——–

I now owe you a Guiness and a cigar.

Curt



++++++++++

Lauren wrote:

Hello Rhizome Raw,

First off, I'd like to counter Curt's claim that the Rhizome staff are like
hip, young record executives instead of cigar-smoking old guys. How do you
know we don't smoke cigars in the office? All our interns get free cigars
upon arrival. And the median age in the office is 30, which many consider to
be old! :)

Secondly, I'd like to differentiate Rhizome Raw from Rhizome. They are not
the same thing and yet, in this thread, they have been collapsed. Rhizome is
an organization with programs, distributed on and offline, a website, an
archive, newsletters, etc. Rhizome as an organization, while New York-based,
endeavors to make our editorial scope and programs international and diverse
to reflect the sprawling and diverse new media art communities around the
world. Rhizome Raw is one of our email lists. Raw has a particular
significance because Rhizome (the organization) started as Raw, which was
then and still is an open, uncensored email list, meant to encourage
non-hierarchical, free-form exchange. It was the practical translation of
the Rhizome metaphor.

This distinction is important because Rhizome (the organization) is
thriving: attention to our website and participation in our programs have
increased over the past few years. And, as it is our mission to promote an
art form that is still marginal within the larger field of contemporary art,
I see broader exposure for new media art and artists to be positive.

Discussion on Rhizome Raw, on the other hand, has waned. This is a fact, one
that has been expressed on and off this list previously and one that Rhizome
staff has been addressing, whilst cigar-smoking, in recent months. The
reasons for this decline are numerous and its been interesting to read
different explanations in this thread. I would agree largely with Patrick
and Dyske: it has to do with a change in the overall structure of the web
and the shifting nature of the new media community. It also has to do with
the fact that Raw has become a very good list for opportunities and
announcements, which have simultaneously over-run discussion.

Rhizome staff has been working on several key projects to enhance
discussion, in the face of Raw's lack of growth. These entail upgrading Raw,
keeping its core principles and migrating it to a new form.

1) Adding online discussion forums that are blog-like in structure and allow
for multiple, smaller conversations instead of one large, central
discussion. We will pre-announce this in more detail soon, but a goal here
is to allow a diversity of voices to emerge around multiple topics. We
would split discussion and announcements into two separate sections, and
people could participate in either or both.
2) Re-designing our website, so that it is easier to use and emphasizes art
of Rhizome participants and our programs. Currently, the front page
over-emphasizes our reblog, and under-emphasizes everything else we do,
especially the art work we work so hard to support. The new design will seek
to correct this.
3) Publishing more original editorial content on our front page and allowing
for comments, therefore opening up another area of discussion.

Another fact is that Rhizome has become a hybrid organization: one that is
curated, edited and managed by staff and also aims to be open, experimental
and community-generated. These two components are equally important to who
we are, and create a productive and dynamic tension across the organization.

Lastly, I'd like to note that, while conversation on Raw has not been as
active lately, Rhizome as an organization has been home to a community of
artists on the edge of a new art form for eleven years. This is no small
feat. Websites come and go, comments turn on and off, but building and
sustaining a heated, active, thoughtful community for over a decade is an
accomplishment that everyone

did you really receive some information?

joseph


Steve OR Steven Read wrote:
> Discussion about a lack of discussion yields a discussion. I have nothing to contribute to this discussion but to say that its a good discussion. OUch, I bit my tail. I think the discussers are all right on. But now I'm craving a big fucking cigar, either that or an instantaneous WEB 4.0. I'm truly sorry if I have nothing to contribute but an affirmation of information received.
> Stephe Reed.
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>
>
>

a "fucking cigar" – now that's a whole different ball of wax.

On 9/4/07, Joseph Franklyn McElroy <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> did you really receive some information?
>
> joseph
>
>
> Steve OR Steven Read wrote:
> > Discussion about a lack of discussion yields a discussion. I have
> nothing to contribute to this discussion but to say that its a good
> discussion. OUch, I bit my tail. I think the discussers are all right on.
> But now I'm craving a big fucking cigar, either that or an instantaneous WEB
> 4.0. I'm truly sorry if I have nothing to contribute but an affirmation of
> information received.
> > Stephe Reed.
> > +
> > -> post: [email protected]
> > -> questions: [email protected]
> > -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> > -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> > +
> > Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> > Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
> >
> >
> >
>
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
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> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>



–
nomadic…
http://joygarnett.com

This may or may not be on or off topic, but its safe to say that Dubya Bush is (still) in office partly because of 'fucking cigars'. And the current state of art in the US of A has therefore been affected by fucking cigars. Like you say, that's a whole different ball of wax!
Steven Reid

On 9/4/07, Steve OR Steven Read <[email protected]> wrote:
> This may or may not be on or off topic, but its safe to say that Dubya Bush is (still) in office partly because of 'fucking cigars'.

Would that be because he still won't allow "Cuban cigars"?


And the current state of art in the US of A has therefore been
affected by fucking cigars. Like you say, that's a whole different
ball of wax!
> Steven Reid
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>


–
*****************************
Pall Thayer
artist
http://www.this.is/pallit
*****************************

Its actually all of our faults. Its easy to blame GW.


> From: Steve OR Steven Read <[email protected]>
> Reply-To: Steve OR Steven Read <[email protected]>
> Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 18:29:57 -0400
> To: <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Where is the Rhizome?
>
> This may or may not be on or off topic, but its safe to say that Dubya Bush is
> (still) in office partly because of 'fucking cigars'. And the current state of
> art in the US of A has therefore been affected by fucking cigars. Like you
> say, that's a whole different ball of wax!
> Steven Reid
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php

EVERY KOUNTRY GETST DA PRESIDENTE CORRELATED TO ITS STATE OF MEDIA ARTST



Am 05.09.2007 um 00:29 schrieb Steve OR Steven Read:

This may or may not be on or off topic, but its safe to say that Dubya
Bush is (still) in office partly because of 'fucking cigars'. And the
current state of art in the US of A has therefore been affected by
fucking cigars. Like you say, that's a whole different ball of wax!
Steven Reid
+
-> post: [email protected]
-> questions: [email protected]
-> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
-> give: http://rhizome.org/support
+
Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php

Hi Lauren,
I like your three points. I think they could make a world of a
difference and help to turn Rhizome and Raw back into something unique
and interesting.

And to everyone else that's been posting, I'm glad to see you all. I
thought some of you were gone for good.

I understand many of the points that people have brought up however,
as the reblogging shows, there are plenty of sites around that are
focussing on new media art. What Rhizome has that they don't have is
the huge community and I think that, rather than succumb to a
perceived changing nature of the Internet, Rhizome really should focus
on maintaining the vitality of that community and making it visible.
That's what made Rhizome in the first place and that's what sets it
apart from all of the other new media sites.

Pall


On 9/4/07, Lauren Cornell <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello Rhizome Raw,
>
> First off, I'd like to counter Curt's claim that the Rhizome staff are like
> hip, young record executives instead of cigar-smoking old guys. How do you
> know we don't smoke cigars in the office? All our interns get free cigars
> upon arrival. And the median age in the office is 30, which many consider to
> be old! :)
>
> Secondly, I'd like to differentiate Rhizome Raw from Rhizome. They are not
> the same thing and yet, in this thread, they have been collapsed. Rhizome is
> an organization with programs, distributed on and offline, a website, an
> archive, newsletters, etc. Rhizome as an organization, while New York-based,
> endeavors to make our editorial scope and programs international and diverse
> to reflect the sprawling and diverse new media art communities around the
> world. Rhizome Raw is one of our email lists. Raw has a particular
> significance because Rhizome (the organization) started as Raw, which was
> then and still is an open, uncensored email list, meant to encourage
> non-hierarchical, free-form exchange. It was the practical translation of
> the Rhizome metaphor.
>
> This distinction is important because Rhizome (the organization) is
> thriving: attention to our website and participation in our programs have
> increased over the past few years. And, as it is our mission to promote an
> art form that is still marginal within the larger field of contemporary art,
> I see broader exposure for new media art and artists to be positive.
>
> Discussion on Rhizome Raw, on the other hand, has waned. This is a fact, one
> that has been expressed on and off this list previously and one that Rhizome
> staff has been addressing, whilst cigar-smoking, in recent months. The
> reasons for this decline are numerous and its been interesting to read
> different explanations in this thread. I would agree largely with Patrick
> and Dyske: it has to do with a change in the overall structure of the web
> and the shifting nature of the new media community. It also has to do with
> the fact that Raw has become a very good list for opportunities and
> announcements, which have simultaneously over-run discussion.
>
> Rhizome staff has been working on several key projects to enhance
> discussion, in the face of Raw's lack of growth. These entail upgrading Raw,
> keeping its core principles and migrating it to a new form.
>
> 1) Adding online discussion forums that are blog-like in structure and
> allow for multiple, smaller conversations instead of one large, central
> discussion. We will pre-announce this in more detail soon, but a goal here
> is to allow a diversity of voices to emerge around multiple topics. We
> would split discussion and announcements into two separate sections, and
> people could participate in either or both.
> 2) Re-designing our website, so that it is easier to use and emphasizes art
> of Rhizome participants and our programs. Currently, the front page
> over-emphasizes our reblog, and under-emphasizes everything else we do,
> especially the art work we work so hard to support. The new design will seek
> to correct this.
> 3) Publishing more original editorial content on our front page and allowing
> for comments, therefore opening up another area of discussion.
>
> Another fact is that Rhizome has become a hybrid organization: one that is
> curated, edited and managed by staff and also aims to be open, experimental
> and community-generated. These two components are equally important to who
> we are, and create a productive and dynamic tension across the organization.
>
> Lastly, I'd like to note that, while conversation on Raw has not been as
> active lately, Rhizome as an organization has been home to a community of
> artists on the edge of a new art form for eleven years. This is no small
> feat. Websites come and go, comments turn on and off, but building and
> sustaining a heated, active, thoughtful community for over a decade is an
> accomplishment that everyone

And it is easy to blame ourselves - guilt is passive.

joseph

Lee Wells wrote:
> Its actually all of our faults. Its easy to blame GW.
>
>
>
>> From: Steve OR Steven Read <[email protected]>
>> Reply-To: Steve OR Steven Read <[email protected]>
>> Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 18:29:57 -0400
>> To: <[email protected]>
>> Subject: Re: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Where is the Rhizome?
>>
>> This may or may not be on or off topic, but its safe to say that Dubya Bush is
>> (still) in office partly because of 'fucking cigars'. And the current state of
>> art in the US of A has therefore been affected by fucking cigars. Like you
>> say, that's a whole different ball of wax!
>> Steven Reid
>> +
>> -> post: [email protected]
>> -> questions: [email protected]
>> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
>> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
>> +
>> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>>
>
>
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>
>
>

Where is the praxis?



From: Joseph Franklyn McElroy <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2007 20:37:29 -0400
To: Lee Wells <[email protected]>
Cc: Steve OR Steven Read <[email protected]>, Rhizome
<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Where is the Rhizome?

And it is easy to blame ourselves - guilt is passive.

joseph

Lee Wells wrote:
>
> Its actually all of our faults. Its easy to blame GW.
>
>
>
>
>>
>> From: Steve OR Steven Read <[email protected]>
>> <mailto:[email protected]>
>> Reply-To: Steve OR Steven Read <[email protected]>
>> <mailto:[email protected]>
>> Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 18:29:57 -0400
>> To: <[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected]>
>> Subject: Re: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Where is the Rhizome?
>>
>> This may or may not be on or off topic, but its safe to say that Dubya Bush
>> is
>> (still) in office partly because of 'fucking cigars'. And the current state
>> of
>> art in the US of A has therefore been affected by fucking cigars. Like you
>> say, that's a whole different ball of wax!
>> Steven Reid
>> +
>> -> post: [email protected]
>> -> questions: [email protected]
>> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
>> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
>> +
>> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>>
>>
>
>
>
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>
>
>

I joined the Rotary Club

joseph

Lee Wells wrote:
> Where is the praxis?
>
>
> ————————————————————————
> *From: *Joseph Franklyn McElroy <[email protected]>
> *Date: *Tue, 04 Sep 2007 20:37:29 -0400
> *To: *Lee Wells <[email protected]>
> *Cc: *Steve OR Steven Read <[email protected]>, Rhizome
> <[email protected]>
> *Subject: *Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Where is the Rhizome?
>
> And it is easy to blame ourselves - guilt is passive.
>
> joseph
>
> Lee Wells wrote:
>
>
> Its actually all of our faults. Its easy to blame GW.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: Steve OR Steven Read <[email protected]>
> <mailto:[email protected]>
> Reply-To: Steve OR Steven Read <[email protected]>
> <mailto:[email protected]>
> Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 18:29:57 -0400
> To: <[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: Where is the Rhizome?
>
> This may or may not be on or off topic, but its safe to say
> that Dubya Bush is
> (still) in office partly because of 'fucking cigars'. And the
> current state of
> art in the US of A has therefore been affected by fucking
> cigars. Like you
> say, that's a whole different ball of wax!
> Steven Reid
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe:
> http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at
> http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>
>
>
>
>
>
> +
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe:
> http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at
> http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>
>
>
>
>
>

fucking cigars = clinton lewinsky = gee dubya = fucked country = rhizome discussion = fucking cigars

Its all because cigars. I think. I must admit I haven't adequately tested the equation…

I'd like to see a video of those cigars.

WE ate rhizome. All fleish ist grass.
Greeeen revolution. Revisit Herr's rallies.

`, . ` `k a r e i' ? ' D42