What?

What the hell happened to Rhizome

Why isn't it more like 4chan

Comments

, Eric Dymond

time

, John McArdle

Grasshopper! Pay Attention: ! ( BOWS HUMBLY towards ALL who would possess any semblance of kindness and humilty and humor) wink wink nod nod! (chan zen athiesm) CHAN The mind/no mind, I do not mind if you do not care. I have accepted my impermanence and the "unknowable" proceed grasshopper!

, John McArdle

I,m grateful for RHIZOME a central database mainly in the NEW YORK city crowd Area. An art / music sort of web collective. Did I say crowd? YES what I,m hoping for at my music and art shows, a crowd! So if anyone has any input comments or whatever Feel Free to Post a thread. I had an unknown person from michigan contact me about my thread posts. He called me by telephone,it was a rewardingintellectual humorous conversation. John McArdle(phone #) 607 863 4005 You never know where it,s going to go. Hey Don,t you wanna know about my music and art?

, Vijay Pattisapu

no cp

, Lee Wells

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/fbGkxcY7YFU&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fbGkxcY7YFU&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

, Eric Dymond

and of course, the purpose of web based art moved from discovery to presentation.
once that happened, the medium folded in on itself and became just another screen.
who has read a hypertext novel in the past 5 years?

, M. River

Heya E, Good to hear your voice again,

E. S. - "What the hell happened to Rhizome? Why isn't it more like 4chan?

Once internet art headed away from structure and context as a primary subject towards a field of found object gamesmanship, discourse collapsed. Some signs of life have shown up as of late around the practice of group surfing, but a solid case as to why they are not just 4chan is yet to show. The one good attempt to define it against the something awful world seems boils down to “intent”.

And it’s not that I don’t love a good found gif, you tube vid, or manipulated QT loop - but as an art form, it is like eating cotton candy all day. At the end of that day, you don’t have much to say expect you’re happy and your stomach feels weird.

, eryk

I was over at MIT for ROFLCON a few weeks ago, and it dawned on me that the internet memes we see today - Chuck Norris Facts, for example; One Red Paperclip, etc - are essentially net.art gone mainstream. I really couldn't tell myself why something like Vuk Cosic's "Art for the Blind," JODI anything, or stuff like Superbad wasn't, at its core, the same thing as Tron Guy videos.

We can always just hope Web 3.0 is an easier movement to wrap art around.

I'll tell you what killed net.art and net.art discourse, and it's the reason why internet "memes" are around: the memes are significantly more authentic. The net can't handle the pretense of art, or anything that seems manufactured, because it has a keen bullshit mechanism. Social webs grew up for the same reason; at least on myspace the posturing is human posturing.

David Weinberger, in his keynote at ROFLCON, summed it up with "Perfection is the enemy of credibility,"

I don't mean to indict net.art here, or say this is a good thing. But it seems to be what has happened, from a cursory glance, is that art that someone makes is no longer as important as the social mechanisms that bring us that art. I think we all emphasized the "art" in net.art and failed to anticipate the changes that would come out of the "net" part.

Flickr, for example, is not about photography; and youtube isn't a repository of dramatic independent film, it's a vlog destination. If people want to keep making net.art - and they should, and can - they would have to tap into this, and few seem willing to do so? Or has no one figured out how? Or are people doing it and I am not paying attention?

"No One," By Eryk Salvaggio 2008, however, is actually sort of an attempt to ask that question. I probably could have articulated it better. :)

What net.art still works? I propose that learningtoloveyoumore works; and that is because it is inherently social media; but what else? And why?

, eryk

LonelyGirl15: NetArt? Discuss.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonelygirl15

, Pall Thayer

Could someone please tell me what 4chan is?

, Vijay Pattisapu

4chan is an imageboard. http://www.4chan.org/ If I'm not mistaken, it started as an American anime fanboy version of the Japanese 2ch, at least in name.

Many people, maybe more people these days, hang out on 7chan. http://www.7chan.org/

There were other #chans that got banned for child porn (4 and 7 chan now ban people that post that stuff, sticking to cartoon and 3D versions thereof). Each time one of the chans gets banned, the pedophiles make a new chan. They're on 12 now. There are other chans, like fapchan, which specializes in various porns; bookchan, where people share e-books; etc.

Chan people are fond of "Rule 34," which states "There is porn of it." This involves people Photoshopping various things into porn in funny ways.

Chan culture is just the latest iteration of 1337 culture, with all the same celebration of libertarianism, hacking, porn, anime, guns, drugs, cats, filesharing, sci-fi, comics, gadgets, and everything else nerds are into. It's chockfull of "weaboos," kids that worship everything Japanese. Channers tend to worship the Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. 7channers orchestrate some funny spams on Gerald Jay Sussman from time to time. Lolcatz started on 4chan.

There's a fair amount of art on the chans, usually Photoshop stuff, but some hand-drawn manga originals pop up here and there too. There's also an oekaki bbs … Americans are catching on to a Japanese art/cartoon site practice that's been around for nearly a decade now. Most of the art is railed pretty tightly into memes like Shoop Da Whoop, Lolcatz, Motivator posters, etc. Such structure can force some real creativity, but just as often it results in a torrent of repetitive bullshit. The vast majority of the art, as M. River eloquently put it, is "found object gamemanship."

Posters can remain anonymous, and very nearly everyone chooses to remain so. This allows for a lot of racist, homophobic, and pedophilic stuff to accumulate. Sometimes the anecdotes can be a little unnerving. The anonymity is really what gives the chans an interesting edge, though, since anyone can pose as any number of people and say or do whatever they want with no consequences whatsoever.

The chans are good when you want to go off to a dark corner of the Internet and let your mind take a long shit.

, Tom Moody

After too many years of structure and context as a primary subject, discourse collapsed.
Attempts by a new, post-collapse generation to define a web-specific art that isn't just talking about art (or doesn't just look back to the tropes of '60s conceptualism and '80s post-structuralist jargon for a net art model) is dismissed as "cotton candy" by the Web 1.0 conspiracy, as M.River called it.
I think more next-generation net artists would speak up in the face of these attacks from the conspiracy, but unfortunately they're all applying for Rhizome commissions.
Also, the conspiracy fights foul-mouthed, personal, and mean.
In defense of the 4Channing of Rhizome, Ceci Moss has a pretty good eye for "cotton candy," I think.

, M. River

Conspiracy, please Tom. If you disagree with my read on this, please speak up. It’s an open list.

Marisa, one of core of this gene, is part of Rhizome. Rhizome helped packaged the Nasty Nets disk for the New Museum and showed a selection of liked minded artist at the museum. If this is Rhizome’s conspiracy against digital ready made and assisted ready made work - I want in.

BTW part 1. (before I go with this sad rant) I’m into Marisa work. Interested enough to ask her to show it at my studio at OTO. And hopefully the same will go with Loshadka. Obviously, my crit is not against the work but only the stance around it.

BTW part 2, I was making this kind of work in 2000. You know, back in the day as they say. So, please, don’t start that you don’t understand “us” hooey.

Anyways, spiritsurfers intro text and Olina’s notes on the vernacular web aside, the scene seems to be in some sort of critical fog. The only rational I hear makes it all sound like formalism and I don’t think that is what going on here.

But hey, we use to think about the web being a controlled space that needed disruption in order not to become tv. We use to think about it as a verb not a noun. I failed and now you all get to show in galleries. So, be gentle with me when I want to know why (and why this is all more than the sum of 4chan)

, eryk

> But hey, we use to think about the web being a controlled space that needed disruption in order not to become tv.

Has it crossed your mind (not that it should have, your comment just made me realize this) that the Web is already one giant disruption; which is why it is not TV? I think this fits in nicely with the memes/authenticity autopsy. The net is so unstable, so democratic, that art isn't necessary to break it down or liberalize it; if it asks a question, there is an answer already, somewhere…

Net.Art used to be about the whole Fluxus / We Are All Artists Now thing, now that's… obvious. (Again, I'd like to reference "No One," Eryk Salvaggio 2008).

12 people singing along to "No One" on YouTube killed Net.Art 1.0. Now we have to step back and say: Everyone Is An Artist Now; the rest of the art, from today forward, is about how to recontextualize the result into new forms.

Plunderphonics and Artmaking are likely to become indistinguishable in net.art 2.0.1.

I like to think about how Jon Ippolito told us all to get day jobs back in 1999; I think he's right. There's no reason why net.artists are anything special, per se, when Everyone is an Artist Now.

, eryk

> Obviously, my crit is not against the work but only the stance around it.

What is the stance that you speak of? (Forgive me if I am bringing up old discussions. I haven't been here in about three years; I just wanted to show everyone my new work, "No One," Eryk Salvaggio 2008, which was then ignored).

, marc garrett

Hi,

>But hey, we use to think about the web being a controlled space that needed disruption in order not to become tv.

I think that you've got a point here, although I really advocate people spreading their wings a bit outside of the comfort zones of relying on certain avenues to support creative needs - expand and mix it up a bit. We've been here for a while also www.furtherfield.org - trying to make it work somehow, but we need some of you to help out there. It does go both ways…

marc

, Paddy Johnson

>Anyways, spiritsurfers intro text and Olina’s notes on the vernacular web aside, the scene seems to be in some sort of critical fog. The only rational I hear makes it all sound like formalism and I don’t think that is what going on here.

Curious on your thoughts of what is going on here.

, Tom Moody

M.River,
By conspiracy I was referring ironically to your earlier, ironic comment (http://rhizome.org/editorial/fp/blog.php/689): "my ideas have to do with a vast conspiracies by the CIA, The International Art Mob (IAM) and MTAA to control Net Art 2.0’s critical discourse on Rhizome in order to squash freedoms, lower common denominators, and ruin economic evolutions of net art, in general, and the Net Art Next Generation (NANG) specifically."

Olia Lialina's text is about the "early" vernacular web, not the current scene.

Someone thought I was dissing Ceci Moss here. Saying she could discriminate work the conspiracy thought was cotton candy was a compliment!

Thanks to Vijay Pattisapu for the excellent 4Chan history. I don't think M.River was referring to it when he complained about "found object gamesmanship," though.

, Vijay Pattisapu

Thanks, Tom!

"I don't think M.River was referring to it when he complained about "found object gamesmanship," though."

Oops. I guess I just committed some found object gamemanship. :P

, Tom Moody

Vijay,
Allow me to compliment you some more on the post about the Chans, you really caught the vibe well and communicated what was interesting (but also f-ed up) about the site. I knew about oekaki–some beautiful little drawings have been done in that medium–but the term "weaboo" was new to me (although I knew about Japan obsessives) and I will have to look up Shoop Da Woop and motivator posters (or maybe not). I have been lazily accessing Chan material secondhand mostly through the journalpics GIF scraper, so I could only guess at the running gags (no pr0n pun intended). I think an earlier (as in, late '90s) template for this activity was the Church of the Subgenius website. Basically any crazy, sick idea could be done as long as the subject was JR "Bob" Dobbs, "Connie," or some other church icon. At some point one has to give props for the activity even if the practitioners don't intend it as "art." Measuring the distance between the chans and the surf clubs is a fascinating topic, not the end of discourse as some would have it.
Best, Tom

, Vijay Pattisapu

The trajectory from yesterday's various “shrines” on the early net (e.g., Bob, Wedge Antilles, (cough cough) Chuck Norris) to today's memes of the #chans, to my mind, directly instantiates the structural critique of Olia Lialina regd. home pages –> Facebook.

Certainly the shrines were pilgrimage sites rather than a way of life like some of today's sites (cough cough Rhizome). Maybe that's because I actually had to pay for each hour of 14K connection I wasted on the Church of the Subgenius!

Oekaki bulletin boards are one of the purer pleasures of the Internet. The genre's aesthetics call to mind those of 15th & 16th century Mughal miniatures: fineness of detail, order, steadiness of line, microcosm, compartmentalization, …

Vijay

, Vijay Pattisapu

Correction: 16th & 17th century Mughal miniatures.

, Vijay Pattisapu

Correction: My admiration was directed to oekaki bbses on some Japanese sites… I forgot to mention that the #chans' oekakis are always just porn and dicks…

, M. River

Short answers now for Tom now, then a pause while I try to deal with my day. A longer, but not necessarily more thought out, answer for Paddy tonight.

Tom: “By conspiracy I was referring ironically to your earlier…”

Yeah, I understand that Tom but sometimes I get the feeling that you think Rhizome or people on it are out to get you. This is an open room. Speak up if you have something to say and don’t get weird if people disagree with your ideas. It’s a conversation.

Tom: “Olia Lialina's text is about the "early" vernacular web, not the current scene.”

Yeah, I did read it Tom. I sited it as a useful text for understanding the genre for the groundwork it sets out for why we look at, and what might be interesting about, corporate and vernacular web.

Tom: “Someone thought I was dissing Ceci Moss here. Saying she could discriminate work the conspiracy thought was cotton candy was a compliment!”

Tim said that I should have use popcorn as the simile. I think he might be right.

Tom: Thanks to Vijay Pattisapu for the excellent 4Chan history. I don't think M. River was referring to it when he complained about "found object gamesmanship," though
.
True, I would not use that phrase when talking about 4chan. I do think it is relevant when the practice is migrated to an art context.

, Tom Moody

Afterthought, from my blog: "Vijay Pattisapu has an informative rundown in the Rhizome.org discussion forum on Chan, 7Chan, etc.–collective sites of posts by mostly anonymous users that serve as breeding grounds for animated GIFs and other "meme" art. Some have furrowed their brows wondering how that kind of anarchic creative energy, native to the world wide web, can be translated into capital A art. But they have not furrowed their brows enough for some other people, as can be seen on the same Rhizome thread."

, Tom Moody

I misquoted myself–it was "4chan, 7chan, etc" not "Chan, 7Chan, etc…" (I changed the c to lower case after the fact.)

, ed halter

Tom – I think M.River is referring to Liania's 2.0 update of that text:

http://www.contemporary-home-computing.org/vernacular-web-2/

Best,
Ed

[img]http://img379.imageshack.us/img379/1017/picture6di5.png[/img]

, Tom Moody

M.River, re: "sometimes I get the feeling that you think Rhizome or people on it are out to get you"

Uh, you mean like referring to my comments as "silly trolling," as an out of control T.Whid did? Ed Halter also indulged in the T-word. I never did that to commenters I respected on my blog, when it had comments. Not sure I would call it being "out to get me." Being impolite, yes.

, T.Whid

I'm sometimes out of control, but not here on Rhizome.

And listen here Tom: if you bait me, don't be surprised when I respond harshly. Stop whining about me calling you a troll and typing *gasp* the shit word. You were trolling, and you are now. You keep tossing little comments my way looking for an argument. Don't be surprised when you find one.

, Tom Moody

See what I mean, M.River?

, eryk

So it IS like 4chan! We just need the anonymous feature. Didn't we have that once?

SCIENTOLOGY IS A SHAM = CEILING CAT ATE MY BALLS

, Vijay Pattisapu

[img]http://anondelivers.com/anondelivers.jpg[/img]

#chans' anonymity is what I'd call “bathroom wall anonymity,” whereas Rhizome's anonymity is what I'd call “masquerade anonymity.”

In a masquerade, I can be someone else.

On a bathroom wall, I can be nobody.

We can look at these as Internet anonymity's two poles of a spectrum indexed to power, proportional to responsibility. The more like a masquerade an Internet experience is, the more discursive power yet responsibility the author has. Likewise, on a bathroom wall there is next to zero speaking power available to the author (leaving him to diversions, memes), yet there is no responsibility. Cotton candy. Olia Lialina located this in historical-ethical terms: the social networking site phenomenon of Web 2.0 took away the power of the Internet user by appealing to his incentives to get less for less, by dumping his efforts to learn HTML and make something / explore stuff on the World Wild Web (yeehaw!) and instead fill out a Rolodex card like everyone else (barbed wire made territorial claims clearer and hence herding easier).

, Vijay Pattisapu

An Example of Masquerade vs. Bathroom Wall Anonymities:

Consider the art of "Pedobear," a meme on #channish imageboards, vs. Mouchette. Both pieces deal with the dark side of the Internet, the a medium of pedophilia, child pornography, and predation. But they deal with these taboo topics in different ways, and I think part of the difference is the instrument of anonymity used in each.

[img]http://www.funnyforumpics.com/forums/bear/1/pedobear.jpg[/img]

The art of Pedobear uses the bathroom wall style anonymity of imageboards to make a series of one-shot funnies that neutralize nervousness with laughter, deadening emotion a la Bergson.

[img]http://www.geocities.com/vijaypattisapu/img/mouchette.jpg[/img]

The artist(s?) behind Mouchette, on the other hand, constructs an online persona that moves about the Internet like we do, writing web sites, writing us personal emails (creepy!), and so on: s/he is an entity on par with us in the Internet masquerade. Mouchette always provokes nervousness.

Now, I'm not sure if the power to create emotional response comes with being more of a person (i.e., if you stay anonymous, staying at least at the masquerade degree of anonymity), whereas the power to deaden emotion comes with being less of a person, or at least less of a need to be a person (i.e., scrawling funnies on a bathroom wall), but it's a thought…

It would be interesting to see more critical exercises in delineating types or kinds of anonymity, and their various powers and weaknesses in different contexts.

Vijay

, Vijay Pattisapu


[img]http://theshoegame.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/nike2.jpg[/img]

Within the constraints of masquerade anonymity, a genre of corporate epigram has come to define certain strata of Rhizome. In the art of MANIK, D42Kandinskij, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, et al., we find (at least supposed) collectives emitting wit, brio, and angst in the form of epigram, a form which, folk wit notwithstanding, had often been associated with the concentrated, pyrotechnic effusions from individuals of genius: the Martials, Callimachi, Nietzsches, Jouberts, Bodhidharmas, Tzus, Holmeses, Berras …. Bon mots condensed a life well lived.

With the rise of modern mass-marketing, the genre of epigram has really been taken over by the corporate slogan, which enters everyone's lives along comparably diffuse trajectories. For example, I am as accustomed to encountering “Just Do It” in a conversation in a Dallas bar as on a knockoff T-shirt on a Mumbai street.

These slogans are carefully engineered not by individuals as much as by groups: art and marketing departments and firms.

Memes can be seen as a variation on this theme. Many, if not all of the more successful memes have a bit of text, some kind of jingle or textual handle on a defining image, like “I can has cheezburger?” or “Shoop Da Whoop.” These are corporate manufacture, too, in the sense of a group of people crafting the mantra.

What the groups MANIK, D42Kandinskij, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, et al. do, on the other hand, is to bring it full circle, to make the epigram personal again. The unity of these collectives brings a piquant irony to the table when they eviscerate foolish consistencies of corporation-style corporate slogans (the power of the logo is that it never changes), bringing jingles back to something like epigram, a talent prized in 5th century (B.C.E.) Greece, 18th century England, etc.

Historically, maybe the evolution looks something like:

proverb(folk) –> epigram(individual) –> jingle(corporate person(=folk&individual)) –> corporate epigram((corporate person(=folk&individual))


Vijay

, Vijay Pattisapu

The masquerade differs from the bathroom wall not only formally but also dynamically, following, respectively, Michel de Certeau’s differentiation between “strategy” and “tactics”:

“I call a ‘strategy’ the calculus of force-relationships which becomes possible when a subject of will and power (a proprietor, an enterprise, a city, a scientific institution) can be isolated from an ‘environment.’ A strategy assumes a place that can be circumscribed as proper (propre) and thereby distinct from it (competitors, adversaries, ‘clienteles,’ ‘targets,’ or ‘objects’ of research). Political, economic, and scientific rationality has been constructed on this strategic model.

“I call a ‘tactic,’ on the other hand, a calculus which cannot but count on a ‘proper’ (a spatial or institutional localization), nor thus on a borderline distinguishing the other as a visible totality. The place of the tactic belongs to the other. A tactic insinuates itself into the other’s place, fragmentarily, without taking it over in its entirety, without being able to keep it at a distance. It has at its disposal no base where it can capitalize on its advantages, prepare its expansions, and secure independence with respect to circumstances. On the contrary, because it does not have a place, a tactic depends on time—it is always on the watch for opportunities that must be seized ‘on the wing.’ Whatever it wins, it does not keep. It must constantly manipulate events in order to turn them into ‘opportunities.’ The weak must continually turn to their own ends forces alien to them. This is achieved in the propitious moments when they are able to combine heterogeneous elements (thus, in the supermarket, the housewife confronts heterogeneous and mobile data—what she has in the refrigerator, the tastes, appetites, and moods of her guests, the best buys and possible combinations with what she already has on hand at home, etc.); the intellectual synthesis of these given elements takes the form, however, not of a discourse, but of the decision itself, the act and manner in which the opportunity is ‘seized.’

“Many everyday practices (talking, reading, moving about, shopping, cooking, etc.) are tactical in character. And so are, more generally, many ‘ways of operating’: victories of the ‘weak’ over the ‘strong’ (whether the strength be that of powerful people or the violence of things or an imposed order, etc.), clever tricks, knowing how to get away with things, ‘hunter’s cunning,’ maneuvers, polymorphic situations, joyful discoveries, poetic as well as warlike. The Greeks called these ‘ways of operating’ metis. But they go much further back, to the immemorial intelligence displayed in the tricks and imitations of plants and fishes. From the depths of the ocean to the streets of modern megalopolises, there is a continuity and permanence to these tactics.

“In our societies, as local stabilities break down, it is as if, no longer fixed by a circumscribed continuity, tactics wander out of orbit, making consumers into immigrants in a system too vast to be their own, too tightly woven for them to escape from it. But these tactics introduce a Brownian movement into the system. They also show the extent to which intelligence is inseparable from the everyday struggles and pleasures that it articulates. Strategies, in contrast, conceal beneath objective calculations their connection with the power that sustains them from within the stronghold of its own ‘proper’ place or institution.”

(The Practice of Everyday Life, xix-xx)


1.
Strategy requires own-ership (propre) of space in addition to time—it is webspace that the masquerade artist employs, in a variously linked relationship with its contextual circuit of other web sites, entities, feeds, posts, links, etc.

The bathroom wall artist, on the other hand, has no space other than what she comes across on the fly, nor any materials save what she scavenges up.


2.
Strategy orchestrates a mode of production, “writing.” Strong position. Producers.

Tactics represent a mode of (albeit productive) “reading.” Weak position. Consumers.



Imageboard art is forged of the raw material of pop culture symbols (Chuck Norris, cats, anime, Jean-Luc Picard, etc.). The artist on these imageboards follows much of the same impulses as the “smart shopper”:

“…in the supermarket, the $housewife (ARTIST) confronts heterogeneous and mobile @data (.GIF, .SWF, .PSD, etc.)—what she has in the $refrigerator (HARD DRIVE), the @tastes, @appetites, and @moods of her @guests (CHOICE OF THE BOARD, TONE OF THE THREAD, THE LOCAL BALANCE OF GIFT ECONOMY INCENTIVES, etc.), the best @buys and possible @combinations with what she already has on hand at home (PHOTOSHOP BRICOLAGE)…”

3.
The distinction between strategic and tactical action prima facie suggests itself to that venerable distinction between bourgeois and proletariat. The bourgeoisie owns proper-ty with which to produce, whereas the proletariat can use only time, not the richly productive free time citizens would have in Plato’s unicorns-and-rainbows-Polis, but a fugitive time Dedekind-cutting its way into work (for all the world art is little more than the footprint of a worker’s failure of nerve). As I think Gramsci put it, the free time of some is bought at the expense of the lifetime of others.

Yet I do not want to read historical-materialist categories into the distinction, since webspace is free, and so, crucially, one’s “class” as a net artist is really a free choice. That is to say, historical momentum, at least formally, figures into that decision very little. That evaporates much of the social, philosophical, and/or material weight we associate with class dynamics, and so those categories may not be worth much here.


Vijay

, Vijay Pattisapu

Bump back to Eryk's thread … cos a) shit is epic with a bumpin' soundtrack b) l'esprit de l'escalier consummate:

Another thought about anonymities:

I don't think either to masquerade or bathroom-wall anonymity has anything to do with "crowdsourcing," a popular idea now and a tendency in some insipid Web 2.0 enterprises. Dave Winer of scriptingnews / rss / etc. fame sums it up well:

“Don't use the term crowdsourcing – it betrays a perspective that's arrogant and wrong. I am not part of a crowd, I am a creative important person. Most Silicon Valley companies have this attitude. It's a good vector for competing. Our users are sentient human beings, individuals. Important not just as a collection of people.”

So maybe there's a spectrum of anonymities, with crowdsourcing on one end, masquerade on the other, and bathroom/graffiti wall somewhere in between …?

, T.Whid

Tom, you insulted me in this thread before I responded. Calling me "out-of-control" and "foul-mouthed" and "mean" (the last two obliquely but I assume those comments were directed at me as did everyone else that is familiar with our little skirmishes here). Is there any reason I should be polite to you?

, Tracky

Rhizome is a dancer,
it's a soul's companion,
you can feel it everywhere

Lift your hands and voices
free your mind and join us
you can feel it in the air

Ooh, it's a passion
Ooh, you can feel it in the air
Ooh, it's a passion
Ooh, ooh, ooh, oh

, abre

inspirant lyric
lol

, Tom Moody

I made fun of you on the earlier thread for egging Ed on in his "smackdown" of a poor artist, after you indignantly defended a "smackee" on my blog. You chose to be grievously insulted and have been harping on me harping ever since. No one can follow any of this at this point, so we just seem like two empty paper bags berating each other (to quote Noel Coward). I think we should avoid all contact in the future. When we do the panel next month we should sit at opposite sides of the table.

, Tom Moody

That comment was addressed to T.Whid, not Tracky.

, Joel

I'd take this thread more serious if it where on yahoo answers. Paddy, by saying that this group of artists and curators is operating in a critical fog acknowledges the Deleuzian nature already implied by the organizations name. I think everyone's frustration can be pinpointed to the confusion that happens between techno-socializing and a post-studio practice. Some of the best moments of the past 2 years can be credited to this confusion. Art websites can never be 4chan because as Michael Asher says, something cannot be both entertainment and art. Then again, what does that mean anymore and who wants to try and explain 4chan to Michael Asher. Lets get the level of criticism a little higher guys. Right now it is here ____ lets bring it up to at least here - - - !

, Jeff Sisson

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/C9c5otT-RUA&hl=en&autoplay=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/C9c5otT-RUA&hl=en&autoplay=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

tracky, your comment was heartfelt

, Tom Moody

Jeff,
I propose we have cognitive surplus credits.
You can trade comments you have posted elsewhere in English for three of these YouTubes.
High-fiving Tracky results in a loss of one YouTube credit.

Not really, but Clay Shirky has convinced me we need to start taking our surplus more seriously.

, Tom Moody

Joel,
It's hard work. A critic would take Vijay's description of 4chan, Olia's description of Vernacular 2.0, blog commentary on Paddy's and my blogs and whatever else is on table, including the surf clubs themselves, and break down the work described in those sources according to whether it is studio practice, post-studio practice, or techno-socializing. Personally I think the level of criticism is higher than ______, you just have to look at a lot of sources.

, eryk

The 7-11 Mailing List was actually profoundly 4chan-like.

, M. River

Joel: “I'd take this thread more serious if it where on yahoo answers.”

Yeah, I know. Right?

Joel: “,,, by saying that this group of artists and curators is operating in a critical fog acknowledges the Deleuzian nature already implied by the organizations name.”

theory and research that allows for multiple, non-hierarchical entry and exit points in data representation and interpretation. Hell, I thought that was what I said. My bad.

Joel: “Lets get the level of criticism a little higher guys. Right now it is here \_\_\_\_ lets bring it up to at least here - - - ! “

No, let’s play this one rhizome old school and bring it down to
\_
\_
\_
\_
\_
\_
\_

here.

PJ - “Curious on your thoughts of what is going on here.”

Best start with the disclaimer. It’s not my work and I am not an art critic. It’s not my job to shoe horn the work into a context. Whatever I say will in the end be wrong. Dead wrong.

I am an artist in the same field and I'm interested in the genre. I try to think about what the genre is and how it being talked about. I don't like thinking about it as cotton candy. I feel it's more than that…but, like I said, it’s not my job to state it. I’ll try to boil my question down as far I as I can.

In the past we (or maybe it was just I) argued on this list that the internet allowed art to be made in new manner. This interconnected, open source, un-solid critical stance was part of the core meaning of the work. We (or again, maybe it was just I) defined it against the flat (not in the pejorative sense) structures of painting, photography and film. But we lost. Or at least that's the word on the street.

Now, the best internet art seems to have defaulted back to painting, photography and film. The web is only the delivery method. I feel, and hope, something else is working underneath the surface. I read long augments about “is this found image of an over sized cell phone crashing into a car is good or bad art” but I feel the argument overlooks the heart of the practice. Searching, archiving, sharing, manipulating, gaming, disruption, leveling (and on and on) - AND the internet as the field that makes it all act. This is what I'm waiting to hear about. Then again, 4chan does the same work. Whatever.

A few more stray thoughts….

+++

http://www.contemporary-home-computing.org/vernacular-web-2/
http://art.teleportacia.org/observation/vernacular/

Actually I think they are both Olina text are interesting in relation to the field. Here is a nice little block quote from the 2005 version that looks back to the design of the 90’s

“Creating collections and archives of all the midi files and animated gifs will preserve them for the future but it is no less important to ask questions. What did these visual, acoustic and navigation elements stand for? For which cultures and media did these serve as a bridge to the web? What ambitions were they serving? What problems did they solve and what problems did they create? “

+++

Although Nasty Nets and TRIPTYCH.TV use the same structure they function differently. This is not placing a hierarchy on the two works, just a note that one size does not fit all when thinking about the genre. (RIP Nasty Nets - miss ya)

+++

I think in Austria, they call it “candy floss”

[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2137/2488386850\_8f4bddee49\_o.jpg[/img]

+++

All right, That’s all I got for now. As we use to say, start throwing rocks.

, Paddy Johnson

First, apologies for taking so long to reply to this – I keep getting stumped here:

Searching, archiving, sharing, manipulating, gaming, disruption, leveling (and on and on) - AND the internet as the field that makes it all act.

I don't mean to be obtuse, but I guess there's no avoiding it – can you tell me the difference between the on and on list, and the Internet as the field that makes it all act? Are we talking about the difference between an action and the medium itself, a comparable example being say the difference between a brush stroke and the paint?

, M. River

Somewhat. A difficult part in talking about this type work is that it runs on two levels. One being “autonomous and portable 'bounded media object ““, and the other being the collection, modification and distribution of “autonomous and portable 'bounded media objects'”’ by individual and collectives. An awareness of the net or computer culture as an underlying subject both in the single digital object and the distribution can push an “awesome” embedded you tube video of bad 80’s techno from being just another “awesome” embedded you tube video of bad 80’s techno.

Speaking of “AWESOME”

"How come that piece by John-Michael or Oliver rocks so much without being loyal to its genre? How come it feels like THIS is the genre instead of what everyone agreed on? Where are the dogmas, this is getting ordinary!" one could say.”

Yeah, I agree, they rock. I can say they rock and leave it at that but I’m interested in art and like to kick things around and see how they work. Not saying you or John-Michael or Oliver needs to do this. At some point we all need to just make some work and get it out. But, you know “an unexamined life” and what not.

“And even though it's clear by now that net.art doesn't equal today's net art and the rules are that there are no rules and uncool is the new cool and all that”

Yeah, I think that is where I kinda stated with all this in my mind. They don’t equal but then again they are not that different. I’m just trying to figure some of the “ifs” and “thens”.

And hey, we all have rules, just look at how everyone tags each other’s work on del.icio.us

, Tracky

Here's why that embeddded youtube video makes sense: It's from the 90s (not 80s!) and as you can see it has the same euphoria about technology as the net art of that time. The reason why it looks "bad" today is the same reason why 90s net.art looks "bad" today (even though you're right that "bad" turned into awesome)

, M. River

Ohhhhhhh, Right. The 90’s. I try to forget the low points. "Euphoria about technology?" Some had that. Others just wanted to make work. Just like today. So, I think I’m out of here for awhile. It’s been fun but… I think I’ll stop my mush now. Tracky, if you are still in town and heading to the Rhiz benefit tonight, please say “Hi” (I’ll be the bald confused looking guy standing in a corner). I owe you a beer.

, Tracky

Did someone say beer? I'll definetely be there.

, T.Whid

Children (in unison): Mush!

Old Cap: Hey, waiter! Wha-what is this?

Waiter: Mush. All the children have mush.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4AV21RoV1I

(at the end)

, Tom Moody

I misquoted the Noel Coward line (he speaks it but it was written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur in The Scoundrel, 1935 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026970/quotes):

"She's the only woman I've ever met who seems shallower and more superficial than I am. It'll be a perfect match: two empty paper bags, belaboring each other."

M.River: "Searching, archiving, sharing, manipulating, gaming, disruption, leveling (and on and on) - AND the internet as the field that makes it all act."

…is a much nicer way of saying "found object gamesmanship" and sounds much more compelling than "structure and context as a primary subject."

My comments about the blog as delivery system for finished artwork were made pre-YouTube and pre-surf clubs. Things are potentially much more communal now. Though I've never been comfortable with YouTube's 450 pixel scrunch, and now that the Kitchen is doing "gallery artists who use YouTube" (this from Rachel Greene, who seems to have fled her net.art years as fast as her Segway can carry her) I really want to flee, too. 544x378 (WebTV) was about finding things on Google with those dimensions (among other things), not shoehorning things into them. Now I am off topic.

, Lee Wells

No worries. Barbara Kruger said "don't worry about copyright until you are famous."
[img]http://bp2.blogger.com/_y9JCP1wazVo/RiFB0vkZXUI/AAAAAAAAEeg/dhyyhh201HI/s1600/K2.jpg[/img]

, eryk

Mark:
"Now, the best internet art seems to have defaulted back to painting, photography and film. The web is only the delivery method. I feel, and hope, something else is working underneath the surface."

I think social media is a crucial component of what makes these paintings, photos and films on the Web different. Remember, YouTube as a destination for consumers is very different than YouTube as a destination for producers. Producers are making 2-minute videos about their cats. Consumers are watching bootlegged Colbert Reports. Still, the producers are watching the producers, commenting on the haters, and all that. (All of the ideas in this paragraph are stolen).

I've been thinking about my own comments, because I am a navel-gazer, and I am trying to find something that fits into a truly Net.Art 2.0 Model. Here's the short list:

1. "You're Not My Father," Paul Slocum 2007
http://transition.turbulence.org/Works/notmyfather/
"You're Not My Father" uses two very 2.0 vocabularies: 1, it appropriates YouTube detritus, 2, it is a social media project. Not only that, but it is brilliantly executed in a way that projected itself into its own meme. But, here's the thing: people re-enacting a TV show is a kind of socially network detritus-sharing. Web 2.0 is defined by everyone eventually showing up on YouTube or getting a new pic for their MySpace out of the deal.

2. "No One," Eryk Salvaggio 2008
http://crashpop.blogspot.com/2008/05/no-one-eryk-salvaggio-2008.html
Self-serving, but I always am. Here's what it is: 1, YouTube Curation. Curation of available, freely-produced media = Web 2.0 Art. Re-appropriation achieved solely through context.

3. "You Have to Burn The Rope," Kian 2008
http://www.mazapan.se/games/BurnTheRope.php
GameMaker Pro is the new Flash, except that none of the Game Artists are dumb enough to all try to look the same. I think this is the missing link between Cory Archangel and actual net.art (Cory never did Net.Art, did he? That's not a dis, I love his stuff, but none of it was Net.Art).

4. Second Life
Haha, just kidding! Second Life is nothing. Second Life, and everything like it, distracted a slew of artists and critics by pretending it was going to be something. Now it is just furries having sex: fine and good, but to "subvert and arrest" an area dominated by furries is a fool's errand. But it's important to note Second Life because it is one of the major distractions of Web Artists. It was a lot easier to make art there than on MySpace, at first, but now neither "Space" is actually looking for subversion, because subversion is the norm in both. Also, very much NOT Web Art 2.0: Blogs. Seriously, someone convince me.

5. "Is It Possible to Make a Photograph of New Jersey Regardless of Where You Are In The World?" Laurel Ptak 2008
http://www.aphotographofnewjersey.com/
Curatorship and the organization of the vast sea of art is not just an approach, it is the art, now. (Learningtoloveyoumore is in this vein, I think, but I already mentioned it). This is simple: There's a sea of artists, wanting their work shown; they are giving it away on Flickr already. Why not give them an assignment and harvest the results? Curatorship = Art. Everyone Is A Curator Now.

6. "Twistori," Amy Hoy and Thomas Fuchs 2008
http://twistori.com/
Harvests Twitter Feeds for specific keywords: Love, Hate, Think, Believe, Feel, Wish. Harvesting, it's all about harvesting and taking the information that is already out there and doing something with it, rather than merely creating additional information, or art.

, T.Whid

"I think social media is a crucial component of what makes these paintings, photos and films on the Web different."

Eryk makes a very good point.

Posting images to a web gallery isn't all that interesting from a new media perspective. It's nice that anyone with the proper equipment can see them, but the real value resides in each individual photo. Add an RSS feed with photo enclosures and it becomes a bit more interesting. Add multiple contributers and it becomes even more interesting. Once you reach a certain critical mass, the individual value of each photo isn't that important, the combined value of the stream is what is interesting, valuable and important.

Part of what's different in the new net art climate is that the structure of the web itself has changed pretty dramatically. In the mid-90s/early aughts the technical bars to a real collaboration were pretty high. Now with Wordpress, Flickr, YouTube, RSS, etc, etc it's the default method of working. These sites and technologies provide better mechanisms for cross-pollination, mash-ups, mixes and things like Eryk's "No One."

I wouldn't go so far as to say everyone's an artist. Everyone's a media producer, for certain. But the real thrill of this stuff isn't an individual video of some fat, lonely kid singing a techno-pop song (well… it could be for a minute). It's the fact that it seems like everybody's doing it. There's so damn much of it. It truly is the visualization of the collective hallucination that is contemporary (networked) culture. Artwork that can someone capture that gestalt I find very interesting.

, Tracky

I love fights. That's the only time when all these artists, critics and interested /-ing people stop being nice and smalltalky, and finally start risking a statement. When I came to New York I was excited to finally talk to people rather than writing, I was hoping to sit in bars and talk until my mouth gets fuzzy. That's why I was surprised that everyone was very well-behaved in person, and that people don't talk about their stuff so much. Maybe I am too ambitious, but where I come from we are not afraid to drop our pants!

I often regret things I say during an argument, but while I believe what I said was dumb the other people might at least be inspired. As long as a couple of braincells play billard it's all good! So stop making clear who was saying what or defending yourselves, and allow each other the shot.

What I find about all these general discussions about internet art is that there seems to be a conflict bewteen the perspectives net art once promised, how and especially the fact THAT it defined its key points on one side, and on the other side how the best works of today's internet art don't even need such an ideology. "How come that piece by John-Michael or Oliver rocks so much without being loyal to its genre? How come it feels like THIS is the genre instead of what everyone agreed on? Where are the dogmas, this is getting ordinary!" one could say.

And even though it's clear by now that net.art doesn't equal today's net art and the rules are that there are no rules and uncool is the new cool and all that, it still feels strange, for instance, to try to turn immaterial works into objects (in order to sell them). As strange as buying mp3s.
But its not that some of those dogmas are still around, maybe its just sanity that tells us websites don't belong on DVDs, or it's only right that internet art is art on the internet (not inside galleries or museums) and doesn't cost anything! But who cares about sanity?

Anyways, talking is much more fun than writing and can carmouflage my pointless arguments much better. Before I go back to Germany on friday, I hope to get into a fight about something like this, because that's what I came here for.

, Tracky again

I was so eager to mention the term sell-out somewhere in my comment (just to cause more attention and stuff to talk about), but I must have forgotten…

, Tom Moody

eryk,
The projects you listed are not like 4chan at all. They are "high concept," requiring explanation–not punchy or lowbrow. They are what I would call "typical Rhizome-type projects." To be more like 4chan would be to be spontaneous, irrational, ugly, risking offense and censorship. And most of all, risking being accused of not being sufficiently intellectually rigorous. I think its possible to have an art like that and still be critical of an art like that. Some of the surf club members I talked to have balked at having "theory on their own pages" but I believe it's possible to work in your theory with finding "the porn of it."

, eryk

Oh I don't think Web 2.0 Art (Web 2.Art?) is really gonna look like 4Chan. I just think the generativity of 4Chan is interesting. The criteria for art and the criteria for a solid LOLCat will always be distinct. The 4Chan part is just that everyone is making stuff now, everyone is a producer, everyone has mastered the templates and everyone is giving it away for free, so - why isn't net.art still in the mix? I dissected some reasons. But I didn't mean that 4chan is the new net.art. I meant that the new net.art must acknowledge the reality of the 4chan world.

, Tom Moody

Vijay,
Addressing some of your comments above,
My blog circa 2004 or so was not the Lialina fixed home page of 1997 but neither was it the Facebook fill out the index card of 2008.
It was a very dynamic social environment running on independent software (Digital Media Tree and its small but dedicated community of users), which gradually built up its own community from the broader web.
It was possible to drop all kinds of art into that context.
Comments and my energy to moderate them were a critical part of it.
Since 2007 I've taken a break from the awesome and draining responsibility of comments and have moved into the relative anonymity of the Word Press/Dreamhost environment for my own personal soapbox. RSS and all the search bots keep my thoughts and "memes," such as they are, circulating within the larger web melee.
I have been dabbling with Twitter for a smaller community of random art weirdness.
Just vomiting up some alternatives to the 2.0 "alternatives" here.

, Vijay Pattisapu

True, I hadn't thought about the other possibilities for web content then and now, esp. the non-browser options. Will put these questions on the ol' cooker for a while…

That said, many #channers don't actually go to the website but use popular tools like rape.sh and 4cget for mass image dumping and pumping. I never understood why such 1337 snobs write their tools in bash and .NET.

_
| |
_ __ __ _ _ __ ___ ___| |_
| '_ / _´ | '_ \/ _ \ / __| , `.
| | | (_| | |_) __/_\__ \ || |
|_| \__,_| ,__/\___(_)___/_||_| art
|_|

, Vijay Pattisapu

Tom,

What you point out here reveals how each element of the age of #chans and social networking sites has been part of the Internet before people started declaring the onset of "Web 2.0" …

Another example (from the Rhizome Artbase) that well prefigured the #chan modus operandi is Kollabor8.

Vijay

, marc garrett
, Tom Moody

I think the test should be something like the old Hustler "peter meter" for rating pr0n (or its female equivalent–need some help here). The higher the biological rating the more like 4chan it is. You are playing with bandwidth fire when you cross over to that industry (as you apparently found out). I've spent several years avoiding links from those sites while trying to be as "free as I want to be."

, marc garrett

Of course you are right, but one should push things to see what happens…

, Damon Zucconi

"How come it feels like THIS is the genre instead of what everyone agreed on?"

in my mind a shift occurs when there is a move from highly 'fragile' and [technologically] complex situations to things composed of much more autonomous and portable 'bounded media objects' (youtube embeds, etc…).

, eryk

It can also relate to the idea of art as presenting a new way of seeing. Now that code has been demystified - even useless - to (what we elitists wouldn't call, but everyone involved calls) production, code no longer prods us along toward that new way of seeing. Simply put, an art Web page is less interesting to the general audience because Web sites are less interesting to the general audience. "Cool, this art guy did this thing, now I will go spend an hour looking at what my friends are doing over at facebook."

Which I am literally just about to do, btw.

, Tom Moody

Damon, sorry, you lost me.
What are some highly 'fragile' and [technologically] complex situations?
And why are they different from more autonomous and portable 'bounded media objects' (youtube embeds, etc…)?
This sounds interesting but examples would help us visualizationally challenged folks.

, Suze Rotolo

"we all had something to say, not something to sell."

, Tom Moody

Damon,
"fragile," as in, many dead links?

It's funny/sad to see what happened to some of those (e.g., netomat).

Looking back at my own blog posts about "net art" ca. 2001 bounded media objects were what grabbed me. See, e.g., a post on Michael Ensdorf's piece "Momentary Distractions" http://www.digitalmediatree.com/artifax/?4140
It has vanished so I'll try to describe it:

Grids of quicktimes fill the screen. Each QT is a shot of an individual in a crowd or street scene (or an unknown official at a public podium) at the moment that person notices he or she is being filmed (hence their momentary distraction from whatever they are doing). There were about ten people caught this way, one person per page. The grid on each page was multiple repetitions of the same shot of the person noticing the camera but with slightly different start times so there was a kind of ripple down the page. It would have fit right in with your second group, minus the cheeky humor of most of those. The only thing connecting it to your first group was that it was hosted on a university site rather than linked to by a blog. The vids loaded quickly. As I recall they could play on different video formats.

It seems to me everything was from media sources so it was arranged found footage.

, Eric Dymond

so I am trying to get a grasp of whats going on here, something that started with Eryk's post re Rhizome and 4chan but I have the feeling it was appropriated by a guy named Tom Moody, who I don't know from Adam and has a grief with Whid/River who can be a pain in the ass, but I always come around and think they are at least in time, and well anyways as this rambles forward can I appropriate the post, focus it on my own work and walk away without being accused of trolling.
Then I go, "hey this ain't C-Theory" but…, if Badiou, Virillio and Zizek died tomorrow would it affect my life style, and I have to say "NO" because this is a runon sentence (but it isn't set theory or Being and Essence, or dromophobic) and it doesn't require any affirmation from new to be dead theorists, but I stll wonder, can anyone tell me who Tom Moody is and why does it matter that Rhizome has changed over the years, because god knows TWhid is is still as vernucular as he always was and Rachel Greene is still missing in action.
Remember>>>>?

, Tom Moody

Several people in this thread will be participating in a Rhizome panel next month on Net Aesthetics 2.0, including at least one person Eric Dymond has never heard of. I learned a lot and appreciate hearing others' thoughts.

, eryk

Forgive my inability to search for things on the internet, but when and where is the Net Aesthetics 2.0 conference gonna be? I may be in NYC to look at the Whitney Bienniel's explanations of Artwork, which I hear is really funny this year, and if I can make the two coincide I will make it so.

, MTAA

June 6th, it would be great if you were there Eryk!

M.River and I are already working on Net Aesthetics 2.2 so you should really wait until we release that to upgrade BTW.

, Tracky

Sucks I'm missing the panel
[img]http://wrestlinguniverse.htmlplanet.com/images/fivestar.gif[/img]

, Tom Moody

Tracky and M.River above:

Tracky quote: “And even though it's clear by now that net.art doesn't equal today's net art and the rules are that there are no rules and uncool is the new cool and all that”

M.River reply: Yeah, I think that is where I kinda sta[r]ted with all this in my mind. They don’t equal but then again they are not that different. I’m just trying to figure some of the “ifs” and “thens”.


What? To the extent this exchange can be parsed, it seems like a descent into mushy relativism.
(1990s) net.art and today's net art are completely different. There are rules for both. It's not just about "cool" and "uncool." Why don't you address Damon's lists?
He put some thought into that dichotomy and you're just meandering around in mush-land.

, M. River

Tom: "What? To the extent this exchange can be parsed, it seems like a descent into mushy relativism.
(1990s) net.art and today's net art are completely different. There are rules for both. It's not just about "cool" and "uncool." Why don't you address Damon's lists? He put some thought into that dichotomy and you're just meandering around in mush-land."


Tom…(sigh)… the anger Tom. I’m going to put you back on ignore if you keep tossing things like “mush-land” and “Why don’t you…” my way.

So, if I say, in my mush land way (hey, it’s the way I write. get over it) that 90’s net art 00 net art have some things in common as well as some differences, I think we can all make a short compare/ contrast list. I think mine would include "guthrie <3 jodi's surf". If you say “ today's net art are completely different ”, I would like to see some concrete examples. For instance, is one or the other an alien? I hate absolutes.

Domon’s list? What do you want me to say Tom? It’s a good list. I like the art on both. I’ve always been sad that although MTAA made work in the time frame we never got on Bookchin’s list. Oh well. We suck. One thing about the Bookchin’s list that was pointed out is the dead links. Some dead links come from the ephemeral nature of the work, other from the rot of time. Don’t think it won’t happen to 00 net art as well.

Which brings me to another thing we’ve failed to note. The work we seem to be talking about, surf clubs, “autonomous and portable 'bounded media objects'” (APBMOs?) and the like are not the only net art work made in 00. I don’t want to equate the two.

, Tracky

Damon's list came after my comment. But yeah, my pleasure. I don't know if it has anything to do with fragile and complicated things vs. mainstream internet culture things (pardon my limited english skills).
It seems that we (3rd generation net artists how Olia calls us) were trashed with all that cultural content by the media and finally grew up to communicate in a way which is all about quoting or remixing that garbage (even if it concerns new phenomena); where as 1990s net.art was more trying to come up with a intentional concept and seemed to have an answer prepared for even the un-asked questions. To me it really seems like the newer net art is more about processing cultural input than it is about the dimensions and the possibilities of the web. Frames and hypertext, code and generative art, Mille Plateau and Rhizomes; that's all very interesting things concerning the concepts of mediated perception. But to me the stuff which is going on today is more about presets and terms of mainstream perception. I might not be sober at this moment, but I hope this still makes sense tomorrow. Call it reactionary, but I feel like anything you do (appropriate, remix, or just getting inspired) is some sort of reaction since we have been so exposed to media (old and new). Wether it's cheesy marquee tags or fancy iChat effects or (whatevs) it's all about the cultural competence and less about a new frontier.

Da da da ich lieb dich nicht du liebst mich nicht…

, eryk


I think the shift to Web Art from Net Art is finally useful, because the new art is using the "Web" metaphor in ways that Net Art rarely did (or could). Web Art encompasses the social Web, whereas Net Art was a tech web - the literal networking of computers to computers. The next wave is about the relationships those connections facilitate. (I don't mean this in the rather limited scope of "social networking Web sites," as if Facebook was the only new medium, at all. I mean it in the cultural understanding of people-to-people communication.)

To me it really seems like the newer net art is more about processing cultural input than it is about the dimensions and the possibilities of the web.

This is what I am talking about when I say "curation." The Web in its current state is an enormous landscape with almost no degree of complexity; it still needs to be sorted through; but this landscape has been designed for sorting through and for distributing. The work made from that is the "new" art form.

RSS Curators are Web Artists. The people who make the data that can be collected are Net Artists.

In terms of architecture, the Web has moved from space to place. The Web is now more of a social-interaction-facilitator than a library. Work that deals with these social interactions - or radically alters our perception or the facilitation of these social interactions - is going to be more compelling.

Work that people make for groups of users is Web Art. Work that people make for one monitor, one mouse, is Net Art.

This is a useful vocabulary shift for me. I'm not so sure it is one of those old-wave, post-wave things, either. The new guys should be thrilled to have avoided such clunky technowonk as Net.Art 1.0. (Except my work, which was and remains revolutionary).

, guthrie

would like to point out that JODI (1.0) are suddenly my new favorite web surfers (2.0): http://del.icio.us/j_o_d_i

, Tracky

seriously dude, they post quicker than i can look!

, michael Connor

hell yes

, abe

net artists have ALWAYS been the best surfers around, making that surfing "public" is slightly net, but hardly art.

, Tom Moody

Thanks, Tracky, that is very clear. I would like to amend your statement…

the newer net art is more about processing cultural input than it is about the dimensions and the possibilities of the web

…to say that it's not just something your generation of artists is doing. Damon's list bugs me for being so generation-specific. Some of us have been practicing and preaching the presets gospel for years. The difference is it's done with an element of conscious opposition to old-guard net art practice, much (not all) of which is over-intellectualized and looking back to '60s (text-centric, gallery-centric) conceptual art for models. I prefer my Fluxus on the fly (hence the interest in 4chan) not through stating a proposition of what a piece is going to be and then "proving" (ie, illustrating) it.

, Damon Zucconi

"Damon's list bugs me for being so generation-specific."

I, by no means, consider that to be some sort of comprehensive list or anything. I don't particularly want to get into the business of canonization ;)

, Damon Zucconi

"processing cultural input" is a nice way of putting it… content with a lowercase -c; a substance that fills things…?

, guthrie

Yes, the newer net art treats the Internet as the present/past rather than as the future. It's too skeptical of the technology to use it in some fancy innovative way…

, Tom Moody

It would be good if these threads were linear, so people had to deal with what's on the table instead of picking and choosing who to respond to by going up-thread. It's very rhizomatic but it's also a mess to read.

, Vijay Pattisapu

Rhizome is always a mess to read, but if it were more linear and we had to deal with what was on the table then I'd have to give up my day job and lie in wait like a snake for a hot topic to come my way.

, Erika Lincoln

Tracky,
"To me it really seems like the newer net art is more about processing cultural input than it is about the dimensions and the possibilities of the web. Frames and hypertext, code and generative art, Mille Plateau and Rhizomes; that's all very interesting things concerning the concepts of mediated perception. But to me the stuff which is going on today is more about presets and terms of mainstream perception."

I am happy to read your take on this, and I think it applies to media art in general, not only net art. I think you have hit the major shift, rather than a utopic fields of 'possibiliy' works are dealing with actualites. I would go as far as to say that 1000 plateaux et al. really needs a holiday.

, Tracky

Erika: Certainly. (See "It's very rhizomatic but it's also a mess to read"…)
There's a very interesting discussion about wether media art even exists, but it's in German :(
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg02075.html

Tom can you give an example for such "element of conscious opposition to old-guard net art practice"? I agree that a lot of the good new shit is "looking back to '60s (text-centric, gallery-centric) conceptual art for models", I often wonder why. Artist websites seem to imitate aesthetics of a gallery, white, clean and neat. This is something I will never understand, since in my eyes the web is about everything BUT that form of presentation. It even clashes with a post-post modern attitude where everything is equally meaningful. Looks like everyone's trying to hide behind the eminent authenticity of conceptual and minimal art, since clearly nobody knows where net.art should go.

I have to admit however, that I love all the new stuff (such as my own hehe) and it's level of communication. But it's easy to like it: it's like riddles and the key to the answer is your own cultural competence. Everytime you "get" such a piece of art, it's a feeling of success. And that's always positive (only if the difficulty level is not too low and "everybody" could get it). And if it even appears waterproof concerning authenticity (due to a conceptual aspect) whattaya know; it's art!

, Damon Zucconi

"Artist websites seem to imitate aesthetics of a gallery, white, clean and neat."

In dealing with the design of my site I tend to focus on the ways that I function with it as a tool, which in turn effects the design in broad ways without concern for its "style". For instance I use a piece of wiki software as a content management system which allows me to rapidly modify works and note how they change over time using a history function. I think net artists tend to overlook the ways in which they can shorten the circuit of interaction between the "studio" and the "web" which for me can lead to new ways of working.

This is obviously something that has happened with blogs and I think that blogs as a CMS for artists (surf clubs, et al) could be responsible for work's form more than most would give credit.

, Tracky

That's true. But even a myspace page can look like this
http://www.myspace.com/roglok

Many tools also have presets:
http://www.dennisknopf.net

there's multiple ways of "not designing" something if you think about it. It's always a decision, no?

, T.Whid

If Moody is trying to communicate that the current "2.0" net art practice is in conscious opposition to what came before, I don't see it. He may be in opposition, but generally that's not the case.

After all, the simple net art diagram is even more relevant today :-)


[img]http://mteww.com/images/netartdiagram.gif[/img]

+++

meta-notes while I'm here….

Can we not autostart videos in discussion threads? Not to say that you shouldn't do it in the Discuss section of Rhiz, but refrain in a thread that is majority discussion. It's really annoying. Just start a new thread if you want to post autostart videos.

Patrick May, preview please? please, a preview function.

, T.Whid

(I tried to figure out what Moody meant in with this "The difference is it's done with an element of conscious opposition to old-guard net art practice" but it's unclear. He may mean the older stuff was done in opposition or the newer stuff is in opposition.)

To expand…

There were lots of arguments back in the day about what net art should mean. Some folks, including MTAA, argued that the web is a procedural medium – the process of communication, collaboration and interaction with the net as the mechanism was what net art should be about. Some argued that it was mostly visual (Curt Cloninger being a good example) – that the experience a viewer had on their computer screen was what counted and the net (or web specifically) was usually just used as a delivery vehicle (but a pretty cool vehicle in itself we'd all agree).

I preferred to call the latter web art or browser art as it usually occurred in the browser and used web technologies. Lots of folks interested in procedural net art went on to investigate other networks, not just the Internet.

The funny thing is IMHO, is that the "2.0" world has proved both camps correct. The proceduralists can look at the web 2.0 and point to how everything is networked and mashed-up, every web site worth it's salt has an API, everything is about collaboration, communication, user-gen content, etc. Whereas the visualists can look at Flickr, YouTube, etc and point to how it's all just used as a delivery mechanism for different visual & aural media.

We're both right now. Funny.

, curt cloninger

It is a bit scary that any advocacy I had for semi-visceral, not-simply-text/conceptual work is memorialized as resulting in youTube. Such dichotomies have a way of perpetuating themselves. It's either neo-fluxus conceptual or pop art cotton candy. It's either tech-net-centric or social network-centric. It's either reBlogging mashups or automous singular net.art.works.

Can something be simultaneously visceral and conceptual? I would hope so. Material (even pixels and code) has its own agency. If meaning is embodied, then these materials all already "mean" something. Anyone dealing intelligently and intrinsically with them is already making "conceptual" work. Do memes have a kind of materiality? Is the noosphere material? If you think they are (in a social sculpture sense), then as an artist (and even as a curator), you better be doing something more clever than simply propogating memes. You better be modulating them or inflecting them or pushing them toward hypertropy or whatever. Otherwise, as has been pointed out here, I can just surf youTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbRom1Rz8OA

, Vijay Pattisapu

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbRom1Rz8OA

Gotta shout out to Austin artists! What!

, Patrick May

Preview is forthcoming.

This week and next we are busy with the Benefit and Commissions. We should be able to get the comment preview function done in the last week of May.

, Tracky

It was a pleasure guys, I will go offline for a couple of weeks. Email [email protected] if you're in Germany! Sorry I didn't get to meet some of you at the Rhiz benefit, when I asked about you they said you just took off.

Up it up!

, Vijay Pattisapu

Eryk,

To address your initial question a different way, the ethics of social interaction are a bit different.

For example, when I was hunting for jobs, I asked this list if anyone could proofread it for me, and Pall Thayer edited, proofed, and commented on it thoroughly – to some extent I have him to thank for landing a job at Microsoft! (I left later, but you get the point.) The list doesn't stop there (no pun intended). Pretty much every major contributor to this list has helped me out in some way by taking time out of their day to critique on my art or ideas, on and off list.

I'm sure you've noticed how, on the other hand, whenever on the #chans someone asks for anything but minor programming help, "NOT YOUR PERSONAL ARMY!" gets invoked without exceptions. Yet altruism exists on the #chans: kids spend hours scanning comic books, translating animes, rapidsharing their hard drive, etc., for what? For the horde, only for the horde to deliver back.

The community spirit on imageboards, YouTube, P2P, etc., is a bit like Zamyatin's WE, whereas there are more discernibly individual human personalities here. Consider the difference between the one-shot vs. multiple-shot Prisoner's Dilemma game.


Vijay

, John McArdle

I have to appologize to Vijay Pattisapu, he made a comment once to me that was simple "suck my balls" ( his words) I took offence. Now that I see the intellectual content of his posts I feel humbled. The next time an "enlightened intellectual being" such as Vijay Pattisapu makes any comment whatsoever whether deragotory negative or insulting. I will Take it as a Supernatural sign from Krishna himself that I should humble myself in silent worship and humilty to such a said "enlightened being" Tonite in celebration for the upcoming holiday of christmas,I will get naked slather myself in used motor oil (S.A.E. 30W) Ashes from the Fire of burnt plastic from china and mexico where they burned computer mother boards for gold. I will celebrate the wonder of this marvelous universe and the stupidity of mankind in general (collectively speaking.) To appreciate a once clean and beautiful non- polluted, non- carcinogenic, non-toxic,non radio-active pristene planet called EARTH. MERRY solstice kwanza YULE! BY ALL means! TRAMPLE someone to death at a Walmart on long Island To get that Fuzzy elmo doll for your grandchild in manhattan. One final comment JEEPERS FECKEN CHRISTMAS? wheres YODA when you need Him? Hip HIP HOORAY! VIJAY!

, John McArdle

Vijay did you want to be friends now? "babylon john john mcardle" my world is very different than yours …… you may find something interesting you can use……I,m in New york , It,s freezing arse cold, I,m bored….what could you lose? Your reputation and No, I will not suck your balls I,m hetrosexual. LMAO! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

, Tom Moody

With the Net Aesthetics 2.0 panel in mind I went back and looked at a series of posts I did on "the blog as delivery system for art" vs "stationary sites that critique the web."

I reposted some of those arguments from 2004, as well as some discussion from around the time of the last Net Aesthetics 2.0 panel in 2006, here: http://www.tommoody.us/archives/2008/05/23/web-art-20-discussion-afterthoughts-3/


Vijay,
I have been thinking about your 4chan vs Mouchette distinction–it's a good one–and hope to have something up on it eventually.

Kids, get off my lawn and turn off those embeds!

, Tom Moody

Abe: does JODI consider their delicious links to be art? I bet they do.

, abe

may be. or a game, or a performance.

, jacob

this is really long.

, Ian Aleksander Adams

tl;dr, Jacob?

, jacob

yeah i tried though

, John McArdle

I have to appologize to Vijay Pattisapu, he made a comment once to me that was simple "suck my balls" ( his words) I took offence. Now that I see the intellectual content of his posts I feel humbled. The next time an "enlightened intellectual being" such as Vijay Pattisapu makes any comment whatsoever whether deragotory negative or insulting. I will Take it as a Supernatural sign from Krishna himself that I should humble myself in silent worship and humilty to such a said "enlightened being" Tonite in celebration for the upcoming holiday of christmas,I will get naked slather myself in used motor oil (S.A.E. 30W) Ashes from the Fire of burnt plastic from china and mexico where they burned computer mother boards for gold. I will celebrate the wonder of this marvelous universe and the stupidity of mankind in general (collectively speaking.) To appreciate a once clean and beautiful non- polluted, non- carcinogenic, non-toxic,non radio-active pristene planet called EARTH. MERRY solstice kwanza YULE! BY ALL means! TRAMPLE someone to death at a Walmart on long Island To get that Fuzzy elmo doll for your grandchild in manhattan. One final comment JEEPERS FECKEN CHRISTMAS? wheres YODA when you need Him? Hip HIP HOORAY! VIJAY!

, John McArdle

Grasshopper! Pay Attention: ! ( BOWS HUMBLY towards ALL who would possess any semblance of kindness and humilty and humor) wink wink nod nod! (chan zen athiesm) CHAN The mind/no mind, I do not mind if you do not care. I have accepted my impermanence and the "unknowable" proceed grasshopper!

, tracky

the rhizome website should be just this page

, Internet Archaeology

yup