When you go surfclubbin', don't forget your hat.

hipsters != artists

Comments

, Tom Moody

You baffle me, Vijay. You write an eloquent summation of 4Chan, describing it with passion and an insider's eye for detail. Then conclude, completely contradicting all the sentences that preceded it, that spending time there is like taking a shit.
Then a long metaphor about the art you described so well as "bathroom wall" scrolling.
(T.Whid is echoing your scribbler metaphor over on another thread, comparing the surf clubbers to graffiti artists.)
And now this post from you, dismissing Loshadka, Nasty Nets, Double Happiness, Supercentral, and spiritsurfers, some of whom are defining themselves in relation to 4Chan, et al (embracing what's embraceable and chucking the rest?) as a bunch of non-artist hipsters.
Rhizome is aflame with the fires of angry reaction, these days.

, T.Whid

+++

Who's angry? I'm afraid.

I'm afraid that all my time spent working on net art in the 90s/00s is going to be ultimately meaningless, somewhat interesting but ultimately as irrelevant as mail art. So, my "mail art:net art as grafitti art:surf clubs" analogy is just a friendly heads-up to the surf clubbers. Graffiti art was fucking hot in the 80s, but ultimately a minor moment.

Obviously, I hope I'm wrong. Plus, no history revises more often than art history, so even if I'm right for while, I could be wrong eventually :-)

, T.Whid

+++

Man. I really need to give it a break. That did not come out the way I meant it at all.

Please disregard.

, Lee Wells

No worries for you …. MTAA is already in the history books and well deservingly so.
I guess it will be up to you to decide if your historical portfolio will be ultimately meaningless.

, Frederic Madre

long live hipsters!

, Vijay Pattisapu

Hey Tom,

No hard feelings. I like imageboards / surf clubs, and spend quite a bit of time producing and consuming on them, to the extent that I feel that I can write about them with both authentic love and authentic hate. Yet the paradox of surfclubs speaks to a social condition of the artist that predates the Internet:

Much of what's on surf clubs is little more than hipsterdom, obscuring artistic diamonds in the rough. What great art is to be found in these places is, in my opinion, has and does enrich my life.

But great artists manage to find themselves constantly surrounded by hordes of hipsters. I'm sure you all have seen the minor tragedy of a decent artist getting lost in a cloud of fashionable seen-it-alls and entertain-mes, who only swarm the artist because s/he's the latest flavor-of-the-week, only to move on like locusts. Balzac described this truth well in Cousin Bette.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that we shouldn't ALWAYS talk about surf clubs as an artistic entity per se. They're a platform, sufficient but not necessary to vector great art.

Maybe we should reshape how we talk about surfclubs: less like a movement with values (Max Herman's "Low Networkism"?), or a commmunity, trend, corporate person, social condition, etc., and more like what it really is a priori: a technology.

What I love about discussion on Rhizome – or at least the direction that I perceive that it's going – is that it's one of the few critical spaces where people recognize technologies as (en|dis)abling certain strategies for the artist, and not as the strategies or value-expressions themselves (like some museum critics are wont to do (e.g., "[X] uses social web technologies and therefore embodies postmodern values," etc.)).

Attention to technology qua technology is more responsible to the history of art more broadly, where people don't talk as much about the culture of the Louvre or acrylics per se but talk more about particular artists and art in those broad categories. Sure, the Louvre is interesting and should be discussed, but the highest priority should be the art itself!

I just want to be critically responsible / respectful to the great art and artists on Nasty Nets, #chan, or wherever. I want to discuss and debate with you all in a way that looks more like "[Art work X] is like so" or "[Artist] is like so" instead of "[Museum, technology, or medium that the artist chose] is like so." Let's not let the great artists out there, even if they're anonymous 13-year-olds, to get pulled down by the surrounding trash by a simple epistemic/critical consubstantiation.


Vijay

, Vijay Pattisapu

Hi Frederic,

Shot taken. My post was a bit too bitter, maybe trollish.

Let me elaborate on my old-fashioned distrust of hipsters.

Your comment calls to mind some of the values behind Pop Art's upturning of "high" and "low" art. Against the whole artists-and-museums-are-up-there-and-we're-down-here idea. Tired-hero jazz. I don't think hipsters represent a marginalized "low" at all. Quite the opposite, in fact.

In Texas, "hipster" is a pejorative used now in precisely where (occasionally along with) people once used the word "carpetbaggers": people that don't really care about what actually goes on in their community because they're such self-important busybodies (today the meaning is more cultural than economic, but the semantic overlap is telling).

"Hipsters" actually embody some of the old hated aristocratic values, or, more properly, their lack of values: lazy, idle, endowed with spare time, fashionable, uncurious, unable to get enthused, unable to get roused even to genuine hatred, and, above all, jaded. Inter alia, these personality changes happen to somebody with too much time-money. (The converse of such a posture, perhaps, is Nietzsche's Dionysian naivete / his catachresis of the Sanskrit word maya).

Often we find that it is the hipsters that are more higher-than-thou and impossible-to-please than the institutions.

( Patrick Lichty discusses the effects of "rhizomatic skipping around" on one's curiosity about the past, in, I think, consonant though undisparaging terms:

http://rhizome.org/discuss/view/37548#52314 )

Artists are especially prone to hipsterdom, e.g., examine the Kenny G meme a couple of decades back, where John Zorn, David Schaefer, and others used Kenny G samples to pronounce in no uncertain terms, "OH THIS IS SO DELICIOUSLY LOW!"

Lastly, to be clear, I don't think your art is "hipster"-ish at all, Frederic; it has little or none of that detestable winkingness.


Vijay

, Frederic Madre

Vijay, I was not talking about me but let me make this clear: I don't think of me as an artist (either)
having had to choose the lesser evil, I'm with the hipsters
(today)

, Vijay Pattisapu

.. alright … it's not like the world is divided into artists and hipsters… I'll just call you a human being and give up on the labels..:-)

, Vijay Pattisapu

I should qualify the foregoing to say that, while the Jack Burnham systems-art concept and the Marshall McLuhan the-medium-is-the-message concept can be useful critical instruments, they don't expend the possibility of individual creative genius, even within such milieux.

, Rob Myers

What's a surfclub?

Do you have to plant pampas grass on your front lawn or something?

, curt cloninger

Hi Rob. I was confused too, but now I think I get it. A surf club is a group "web log" (or "blog," for short). A "web log" is a place on the interweb where an "author" (the "owner" of the "blog") posts images and texts, and then "users" (people who read the "blog") add their own comments. A "group" "web log" is where a group of people post images and texts to the same "blog," and then comment on each other's images and texts. It's basically the same thing large groups of teenage goth nerds were doing with their liveJournal group blogs back in 2001, except now there's something forward-looking and radical about it having to do with pop culture, memes, semiotics, and the promotional skillz of Marisa Olson.

This is the evolution I would like to see on rhizome – an alternate, open-html bulletin board platform that allows full-screen css hacking/hijacking:
cf: http://rhizome.org/object.php?o=2261&m=1000739
also: http://www.sketchzilla.com (rarely safe for work)

Then the multimedia "dialogue" becomes combative, palimpsestic, structural, typographic, iteratively self-undermining, inherently unstable, and I begin to get interested (again).

, Tom Moody

Ooh, you guys are so cutting.
Hey, Vijay,
Maybe you would like to reconsider this statement:

"What I love about discussion on Rhizome – or at least the direction that I perceive that it's going – is that it's one of the few critical spaces where people recognize technologies as (en|dis)abling certain strategies for the artist, and not as the strategies or value-expressions themselves"

in light of some of these epithets/insults? (hipsters, teenage goth nerds, self promotion, graffiti/mail art, "duh what's a surf club?" etc)

It's kind of an interesting dynamic that the art Lauren, Ed, Marisa, and Ceci have been championing on the Rhizome front pages has this Greek chorus (peanut gallery?) of angry old-timers on the Rhizome back pages. Or maybe not so interesting.

, curt cloninger

Hi Tom,

I'd rather talk about the material and conceptual differences between an open-html bulletin board environment and a closed-html, off-the-shelf-configured linear blog environment. It seems the latter imposes certain restrictions on the kind of dialogue a group blog can have – restrictions inherited from text-centric, solo blogging; restrictions that preference a certain kind of linear/hierarchical procession that might be more interestingly superceded or circumvented.

You seem to think I am insulting you personally. I'm really not. I am evidently not as excited about group blogging as you, but I see instances where it could lead to something more interesting.

Peace,
Curt

, T.Whid

+++

Tom,

FWIW

My analogy of surf clubs to graffiti art wasn't meant to be an insult; my analogy of net art to mail art wasn't meant as an insult either.

I do have my doubts as to the cultural importance of surf clubs. Obviously not one of the cheerleaders, but not trying to be a particularly loud member of the peanut gallery either. I've been very ambivalent but my thoughts are starting to coalesce.

, T.Whid

No shit! I *just* got this email:

"Please join us this Friday, June 13, at 6:30pm for a very special event, "An Authentik and Historikal Panel on the Phenomenon of Mail Art." This panel discussion is a one-of-a-kind opportunity to hear how Mail Art evolved into a major artistic movement - from people who helped make it happen! Please scroll down for more information."

(emphasis added)

I"m not making it up:
http://www.centerforbookarts.org/news/2008/06/authentik-and-historikal-panel-on.shtml

, Damon Zucconi

see! nothing to worry about!

, Lee Wells

BEYOND MAIL ART

The conceptual similarity of Mail Art (MA) to aspects of Dada and Fluxus has led certain members of the MA Network to take up and develop ideas that had made appearances within the framework of these earlier movements. (1) It would be fruitless to try and make an inventory of all such historical developments, the sheer volume of material passing through the MA Network makes this an impossibility.

From Stewart Home's, THE ASSAULT ON CULTURE - CHAPTER 14
http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/neoism/preneoass.htm

[img]http://www.ccca.ca/performance_artists/k/kantor/kantor_perf18/resources/explain_rev.jpg[/img]

, Vijay Pattisapu

Tom,

I apologize if I insulted you, though I don't feel that I did, and I certainly didn't intend to. I don't think either of us feels that you are somehow representative of surf clubs here; by calling attention to the horde of mediocres there I don't feel that I'm referring to you at all. My "hipster" remarks went too far, I guess. Most of what I write here I end up regretting the next morning. So it goes.

My remark about Rhizome stands. There are personal flames, sure, but that ain't where the meat is. I'm sure you've seen as much serious discussion about structure and aesthetics on this board, if not more, than much hanky-panky. I miss the hanky-panky that we had here some years ago, but hey, I like it now too. I don't know art much, and none of my shit has ever gets accepted by galleries, critics, or anything syndicated, but I'm trying my fucking best to stay with the program here.

There's shit, sure, but there's sugar. You see it.

To reiterate my posts above, when I say "fuck surfclubs," I'm not trying to troll or insult people; I feel like I'm saying "fuck the Louvre" – I just want to reorient the emphasis of discussion. I don't hypnotize myself with Marshall McLuhan so much that I can't separate the wheat from the chaff, instead lying down in the wheat fields chanting "Dude, it's all, like, a field."

Criticism, as you know, comes from the Greek kritikos, separation (the Proto-Indo-European root of which, incidentally, also lands us with words like "discrimination," "science," "shit," which all involve various kinds of separation). There is art with worth and art that is worthless. Do you think that every last post on imageboards has the same value? Of course not. It's more interesting to look at how different people use that technology in different ways. Why look at everyone the same way because they chose acrylic paints?

I don't equate you with surf clubs, and I don't equate the occasional flames with the overall tenor and direction of Rhizome's discussion. Trees vs. forests.

My misguided blab about "hipsters" was a long-winded way of saying – there's a lot of bullshit out there, so let's get specific about artists and art pieces.

Please don't pit Lauren, Ed, Marisa, and Ceci against us. I don't know any of them. I rarely look at the front page of Rhizome.org. I've never been to New York. I don't care about the New Museum. I like Net Art, and that's why I'm here. Rhizome's listserv was called RAW for a reason: it ain't Rhizome. It's a mess, and maybe that's why we keep coming back. There should be multiple registers.

RE: your remark (epithets?) about "angry old-timers" and "Greek chorus / peanut gallery": I don't think I'm so old as to be irrelevant to this or any discussion. I'm 23, and I've been an active poster at Rhizome since I was 17.

(There go my chances of ever being read again, if there were any to begin with.)



Vijay

, Vijay Pattisapu

Also pledging allegiance to surfclubs, or anything, is exactly what gets a body /facepalmed and b&.

If there is some kind of untelevized revolution going on there, maybe it's the fact that nobody gives a fuck about their medium. Yesterday this kind of behavior was shared in IRC / DC++ / P2P chatrooms, then it was danboorus, then chans / rapidshit forums, and who knows what next. The mods gave 7chan cancer and 4chan diabetes (until some slick Web 2.0 shmuck came along and resurrected 4chan into an effete reflection of its former self). Everyone agreed. Time to move on.

, Frederic Madre

curt "I'd rather talk about the material and conceptual differences between an open-html bulletin board environment and a closed-html, off-the-shelf-configured linear blog environment."

even in the latter one can configure the template but I guess you mean to antagonize the completely customised with the completely industrialized…
anyway, made me think of the supercentral wiki "edit this page" experiment
did anyone discuss the outcome of that experiment yet ?
I really liked editing it and being edited by whoever when it was hot
then they put this password thing and it shrivelled and died
weird way to end it all, I thought

, curt cloninger

Hi Fred,

Wikis let you edit the "content" of anyone else's "text," which is a start because then the board becomes a single collaborative "piece" rather than a sequence of discrete autonomous posts.

Incidentally, last semester one of my net art students did this piece using "wiki-esque" technology:
http://www.skytyne.net/Real/
I thought it was pretty clever as conceptual net.art one-liners go.

My man Mikhail Bakhtin understands language as a series of "utterances" which end when one person stops talking and the next person starts talking. Such an understanding of language shifts the emphasis from Saussurean signifier/signified system couplings to more holistic, embodied units of utteranace – units that are highly dependent on contextual structures. From an embodied, Bakhtinian understanding of language, the radicality of a group blog will always be limited, because the back and forth utterances are still highly formalized and structured. Admittedly, they are more radically structured than reading a book. But to me they are still less radically structured than talking face to face with someone in a pub over a pint. All the focus in such structured group blog dilaogues is on the "sign" content. And if all you are doing is reblogging/retagging source content from the lowest common denominator memes on the web, then you wind up further churning the mire without attempting to modulate or inflect it (all that much). Such surfing/swimming/riffing/churning may be fun, but there are surely more provocative, agency-infused ways in which to tweak.

The problem with a wiki is still that the editable part is limited to "content" rather than the structure of the entire web page. Photoshop tennis ( http://layertennis.com ) gets more interesting to me, because the dialogue leaves the realm of mere curatorial reframing/retitling and enters the realm of formal, material, media collaboration (albeit predetermined by the constraints of Adobe Inc.). Still, you begin to head toward a more holistic "multimedia" kind of "'dialogue." What we were doing here ( http://rhizome.org/object.php?o=2261&m=1000739 ) was expanding the context of the dialogue further to encompass the entire web page, from browser edge to browser edge. Yes, we were taking screenshots and remixing each other's images in photoshop/illustrator. Yes, we were riffing off of each others text comments and titles. But we were also restyling the entire structure of the web page that housed the discussion thread – controlling its layout, color scheme, hierarchy, typography. The entire thread became a wall-to-wall collaborative, perpetually mutating utterance.

Technically, you simply create an external style sheet that modifies the thread (cf: http://lab404.com/misc/1.css ), store it on your own server somewhere, and then call that style sheet into the page of the thread by posting it in your text comment window [like so:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://lab404.com/misc/1.css"/>
Such calls are supposed to appear in the "head" of an html document, but they will work in the body as well. So a single post hijacks the layout of the entire thread (background image, rules, type, color, and all). Then each subsequent person overwrites part of the next person's style sheet. Some commands remain, others are replaced. Ultimately the thread literally crashes under the weight of its own hypertrophied code (plus all the embedded midi, mp3, and quicktime files, etc.).

All that is required is for the moderator of any blog or bulletin board to turn off the default disabling of html tags in a post and allow them. It is a shift away from the operative mechanism of the discrete, textual blog post and toward a more holistic, collaborative, visual form of communication. The dialogue can still retain a flavor of the curatorial remix (depending on the source images one chooses), but it becomes more of a hy[per/brid] conversation rather than merely a meta-conversation.

Of course, it can be both, neither, something else entirely, or 82 other things. Put it through the ringer. Let it grow holes like socks. It may begin to matter.

Best,
Curt

, curt cloninger

Nerd Note: the rhizome bulletin board software totally erased my style sheet call in the post above, since it is set to not allow such code to be posted. Had it allowed the code (as active html), the entire look of this web page would have been altered. The edited code can be seen here:
http://lab404.com/misc/the_css_call.txt

, Frederic Madre

whoever conceived the rhizome interface for discussion had evidently in mind the objective to kill it
well done

, Lee Wells

Yes I miss the simplicity of RAW.

, Lee Wells

They get more hits on the website this way and that looks good to the trustees.

, Damon Zucconi

"I'd rather talk about the material and conceptual differences between an open-html bulletin board environment and a closed-html, off-the-shelf-configured linear blog environment."

i was actually a member of dreamless (http://rhizome.org/object.php?o=2261&m=1000739) way back when this wasn't documentation and i would like to ask how much of this idealization of so-called "open" environments is the result of a kind-of nostalgia?

…which is to say, i believe the structuring of these group blogs are based on conscious decisions which aren't ignorant of the history of said systems.

[for clarification: the way the supercentral wiki is structured is in such a way that a user can alter the entire structure of the webpage(s). but as to whether or not this constitutes a kind of "openness"… i personally would rather not have such illusions.]

, curt cloninger

Hi Damon,

I'm not interested in open-ness for any sort of ethical, "open source" reason. And I'm not idealizing dreamless from a purely nostalgic perspective. I'm simply proposing another kind of collaborative dialogue that treats html as more than mere plumbing, and incorporates it into the dialogue. As is, group photo-blogging seems more like a meta-art conversation than a collaborative art project. Allowing users to tweak the html shifts the medium closer toward a kind of collaborative/performative art project. Again, it's not an either or.

Did you participate in the ascii chaos forums on dreamless? Does such an environment seem potentially interesting to you now (given the lack of specialized knowledge now necessary to participate in such a forum, and the amount of artists now able to bring de-stablizing media to the table)? My problem with dreamless was that it was a group of graphic designers more interested in displaying their ds9 skillz than in developing an interesting conceptual dialogue. My problem with most old school net artists is that they were more interested in conceptual one-liners than in engaging with the materials of the medium.

A list of who I'd invite (off the top of my head):
http://oculart.com
http://tex-server.org
http://www.bam-b.com
http://jimpunk.com
http://www.subculture.com
http://www.beflix.com
http://www.grrrr.net
http://www.destroyevil.com
http://dream7.com
http://www.titler.com
http://www.tinkin.com
http://www.jimmyjoeroche.com
http://www.theblowupmedia.com
and my man http://www.coldbacon.com

Best,
Curt

, Damon Zucconi

i don't think i mean it in the sense of "open source" but in the sense of the "utopian" values and illusions that surround the structure of communications online: sovereignty, decentralization, non-hierarchical and what-have-you.

I'm also not saying it is from a purely nostalgic perspective… but that certainly is a reality on some level when talking about something from that point of the internet's development and the state of net art at that time (and specifically with the case of dreamless).

yes, i did participate in them. (but i was 14 then, so the level of criticality i had at the time is probably up for debate :)

what is maybe interesting in the case of graphic designers is their value of clarity in communication and the kind of excesses that occurred there when presented with such a format? they are certainly engaged with the material realities of communication, in any event.

, Frederic Madre

"I'd rather talk about the material and conceptual differences between an open-html bulletin board environment and a closed-html, off-the-shelf-configured linear blog environment."
to damon: i'd rather talk about the fact that your homepage is white
why did you choose white ? why are all the surfclubs white ?
IT SUCKS!

, Vijay Pattisapu

Hi Curt,

Yes, Bakhtin provides a good model for the wiki, as opposed to surfclub's opportunities for individualism at the post level: each person can "solo" at will within the overall percussion of the thread, as opposed to the nonterritorialized anonymity of the wiki.

Yet I don't quite understand how Saussurean language is somehow the other side of a dialectic here, since it seems to me that Saussurean signif(ier|ied) dynamics occur in both of these cases, and, for that matter, most of the communication on the Internet. Detournment is a rhetorical strategy, and it does not by that fact change or even necessarily refer to linguistic constraints or substructures.


Vijay

, C. Pappas

It died because a troll found the page and would maliciously erase everything, everyday.

, Tom Moody

As for the complaints about blogs being linear–you can hyperlink anywhere. Having a linear thread as opposed to these Rhizome messes where people respond to comments upthread is just a concession to manners and coherency, not a conspiracy by code-ignorant defaults-lovers.
I participated in a ListServ vs Blogs debate on empyre a while back. Uggh. I hate ListServs with emails that fill up my inbox and have to be flushed. Many people from empyre came over to my blog and we had a fun email-less conversation. (This is when I still had comments.)
I don't think comments need to be little works of art with user-customizable html. This is just plumbing. The straighter and cleaner the better.
I am very bullish on Nasty Nets and my posts there. I appreciated the sustained critical attention that Marcin Ramocki paid to those efforts and don't care too much for flip comments by people who are only surfing the surfers.
The members of these "clubs" are serious artists in their own right, and should be accorded respect.

, curt cloninger

Hi Tom,

I'm not proposing a list serv vs. a blog. You can open html posting on a blog as well.

I'm not proposing that individual blog comments be little works of html art. That is actually my critique. I'm proposing that the entire blog become one giant, perpetually reconfigurable work of art. "The straighter and cleaner the better" seems a curious thing for a meme slicer to say.

I'm not making flip comments about nasty nets. I'm comparing Bakhtinian and Saussurean paradigms of language in my analysis of two different structures of online conversation and their relative efficacy to modulate culture.

I'm not disrespecting any artists who participate in surf clubs. I like the work I've seen of Damon and Petra. I appreciate Olia's writing, and I think Marisa is a fun and energetic curator.

You seem kind of defensive. Is your operative mojo to lump everyone who disagrees with you into the same pile and then dismiss them categorically? I don't represent any sort of faction or camp. I'm not out to steal your fifteen minutes. I'm just some dude from North Carolina talking about media.

Respectfully,
Curt

, Damon Zucconi

well, some of the thinking in using these formats has to do with the fact that the level of portability is much higher than something that is tied down to a single "location" and context. the fact that rhizome can often re-blog works of art in their primary form without decontextualizing them is actually really remarkable.

, Frederic Madre

of course reblogging is decontextualizing
it is ONLY decontextualizing nothing else

, Damon Zucconi

er. yeah, sorta.
swap decontextualizing with flattening.

, Frederic Madre

curt: "I'm proposing that the entire blog become one giant, perpetually reconfigurable work of art. "
yes, of course, brilliant idea and that's what I was hoping for with 2balles
never happened though

because it is contrary to the very essence of blogging which is simply put "hit and run"
why would one bother to implement a CMS (blogging or other) whose purpose is the automation of what people find tiresome about html/css AND THEN reintroduce the tiresome bit with the "perpetually reconfigurable" ?
why not, instead, just get rid of the CMS and "perpetually reconfigure" by hand (so to speak) ?
that is much more rational

the only question which is more aptly resolved by a CMS is that of the archives
and, possibly, the RSS
but, hey,
FUCK ARCHIVES!

, Frederic Madre

tom: "As for the complaints about blogs being linear"
that's not my complaint
my complaints about blogs is that they are "de rigueur", that they are everywhere and that there very form is normative (or normalizing). blogs produce conformity, that's how they caught on so fast: you could easily do exactly what all the others were doing
catch: you are really no different from all the other bloggers

, curt cloninger

Yes Fred,

This is my main critique, and it is an admittedly ethical critique. Eddo Stern or whomever said that the interweb itself is always going to be more interesting than any single, autonomous, discrete piece of "net art." So a tactic of tweaking the overall procedural operations of the web seems like it might matter. DJ Spooky suggests a tactic for avoiding commodification – a kind of perpetual remix/detournement, so that you swim in the media without ever letting it have the last word (remixing someone else's remix of your remix, publishing a review of your own show, etc). One way or another, to simply submit yourself to what the medium already wants to do is hardly a tactic for modulation or transformation. Those who would namecheck Warhol as some kind of patron saint who absolves and blesses all banal pop churnings are missing his ingenius genius. Pop culture is like the tar baby – it's tricky to dance with without getting co-opted and rendered impotent. And I'm guessing a lot of artists hitching their wagon to this star could care less.

The potentially useful thing about group photoblogging may be a kind of rapid prototyping model that riffs first and ask theoretically critical questions later (if ever). On the other hand, it could be, like Twitter, that any kind of blogging reduces the scale of your thoughts and output to a series of soundbytes that never gain enough momentum to modulate much of anything (he posted from the Asheville airport between flights). Yes, the modular ease of RSS reblogging affords something, but what? That everyone's art is reducible to a summarizable reblog post? Then we're back in 1997 to the conceptual (or, in this case, animated gif-ceptual) one-liner. Hardly Wagnerian in any sense. Maybe this is what the web wants, but that hardly makes it interesting art. I can watch the web be the web on youTube. I don't need to watch artists using the default web. I can just watch my neighbors use the default web. I'm not advocating a high vs. low dichotomy. I'm advocating critical, ingenious modulation vs. uncritical, banal wanking. Hopefully the former is happening and I'm just missing something.

, Vijay Pattisapu

1.
"…the interweb itself is always going to be more interesting than any single, autonomous, discrete piece of 'net art.'"

So what? The world will always be more interesting than any piece of art. Was "most" the goal at Lascaux?


2.
"…riffs first and ask theoretically critical questions later (if ever)."

Isn't this the typical case, though? Math works with theoretical principles a priori. Aesthetics works with theory (if ever) a posteriori. Hence the logical gap we call the Muses, Genius, Providence, Grace, Saraswati, et al.

Sol LeWitt may have politely knocked ahead of time every time (he had to sell his wares to the residents), but others may break and enter.


Vijay

, eryk

I am out to ruin everyone's 15 minutes, and I say: DEFEND YOUR VERSION REVISIONS

, Frederic Madre

I'm NOT going to stare at that sentence for 15 minutes, Eryk, sorry

, Tom Moody

of course reblogging is decontextualizing
it is ONLY decontextualizing nothing else


it is recontextualizing it with whatever surrounds it in the blog, plus what you say about it via captioning or commentary.
Saying a blog is "like all the other blogs" because it's a blog is like saying a book is "like all other books" because it's a book. It's just a convention, it works well for some people.

Linear plus hyperlinks is not the same as linear.

Vijay, I'm continuing to enjoy your reports from the other cyberspace:

Also pledging allegiance to surfclubs, or anything, is exactly what gets a body /facepalmed and b&.
If there is some kind of untelevized revolution going on there, maybe it's the fact that nobody gives a fuck about their medium. Yesterday this kind of behavior was shared in IRC / DC++ / P2P chatrooms, then it was danboorus, then chans / rapidshit forums, and who knows what next. The mods gave 7chan cancer and 4chan diabetes (until some slick Web 2.0 shmuck came along and resurrected 4chan into an effete reflection of its former self). Everyone agreed. Time to move on.


In worrying about the surfclubs and how they are displacing his own movement, T.Whid is thinking in ten year cycles–what you are describing here is happening in days, I think.

, Vijay Pattisapu

It is frustrating and exhilarating. A vanguard with day jobs.

, T.Whid

+++

I'm not worrying about surf clubs replacing 'my movement.' Actually, they seem to be practicing the rigorous definition of net art that I use. If anything, they're carrying the 'movement' forward.

My problem (if you can call it that) is that it is a very specific genre but seems to be the only thing happening in the field. I just wish there was a larger ecosystem of net art.

, T.Whid

+++

BTW,

Loshadka is doing, er, um, something at OTO (MTAA's studio) this friday!

Check it out...

, b'l't

most of blogs are representations of vertical height why not offer also horizontality. I mean in general blogs are built in a perspective which seems to bury informations, blogs are like tombs, each one have is own, grab scrupulously his own. Maybe blogs can grab real gateways if the interest become more focused on communication, in different directions than fill a form … It's my feeling …

The context is a big deal with hypermedia, the context on the net is something we need to create each time we activate links. A context is like a journey, and just available for this journey, because it's not an ended form.

, Tom Moody

Re: blogs as "just filling out a form," white space imitating the printed page, etc

We are talking about defaults–a premise of the defaults "movement" is you use the technology that's there. Search engines will find your words. A blog is "good enough" for communication. (Certainly better than email, fixed pages that have to be hand coded–who has time for that when most practice is slipped into the cracks of office work?–and, I would say, WIKIs where changes are hard to follow.)

This idea that every utterance on the web is supposed to be an original moment that bends space, time, and mammalian communication is, as Damon Zucconi said above, a utopian assumption or illusion ("that surrounds the structure of communications online: sovereignty, decentralization, non-hierarchical and what-have-you").

The people arguing against blogs or group blogs on this page have a tendency to make blog users sound like sheep when in fact many know what they are doing and why.

, Vijay Pattisapu

"…when in fact many know what they are doing and why."

Yes. The same applies to surfclubs. Your mention of time for the creative act as stolen from office work makes sense. I think this idea plugs in well to talking about de Certeau on how in the practice of everyday life we have to hedge on the larger structures, the strategies, and instead usefully confine ourselves to tactics. We were talking about this somewhere at http://rhizome.org/discuss/view/37290


, Guthrie Lonergan

Vijay: "we shouldn't ALWAYS talk about surf clubs as an artistic entity per se"

YES! – please!, everyone!, stop focusing and talking about surf clubs!! The individual work of some of the surfers involved is more interesting and more worth analyzing. I'm mystified why "surf clubs" get all the attention – and I'm the one who invented the stupid term.

And perhaps you should add this after your "hipsters != artists"…… "NERDS != ARTISTS"
…perhaps we should remove the relational operator and just say "nerds are not artists" :-P

(^ imagine all this said in friendly, jokey way)

, T.Whid

+++

"– and I'm the one who invented the stupid term."

So it's YOU we have to blame!

if ( nerd || hipster && artist ) {
output = art;
}

:-)

, Guthrie Lonergan

CHRIST!

Though I must admit the following statement usually evaluates to "true":
(nerd && artist) > (hipster && artist)

, john michael boling
, john michael boling

hahahaha. meant to be response to guthrie.

, Guthrie Lonergan

frederic: "to damon: i'd rather talk about the fact that your homepage is white
why did you choose white ? why are all the surfclubs white ?
IT SUCKS!"

Now this is interesting!!

Nasty Nets is/was made white to maintain the default aesthetic of the web (black text, white background, blue links, 12 point Times New Roman), to blend into the web and look very bland, refreshingly humble yet depressing, plain but aware of its blogness. (Though this style is a bit of a throwback to 1.0, I'd say most blogs are white background and black text by default… I like that this is what things look like if you do not specify any style or CSS definitions… A style made by doing nothing.)

I'd say Damon uses white because he is playing with the concept of a "normal", formal artist's website. (??)

I know a lot of people complain about white backgrounds on screens being incredibly bright and abrasive to eyes.

On my own pages, I use light blue – almost sky blue – (also used on the side bar on Nasty Nets, btw) – for similar reasons to the above, but also referencing both amateur homepages (GeoCities to myspace) and corporate/office design (pastel colored letter paper) – I like the opposition between these two associations. I also came to the conclusion that light blue is probably the most neutral of all colors – even more so than white, black, and grey, which have been appropriated by slick minimal design (iPods and sports cars etc). Light blue is just universally ignored, it is not sexy in any way – orange and yellow are too bright, green is too lush, purple and red are too sexy. It is also the color of the sky, so we see it more often than any other color. (Why I want to achieve this effect is because it ties in with my work.)

I'd guess that your comment is more aimed at visual aesthetics, which I'm less familiar with, and so less comfortable talking about – Would love to hear your thoughts on background colors!, I see a lot of what I'd call "gold" on pleine-peau.com.

, Damon Zucconi

"Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color, and at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows –a colorless, all-color of atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues –every stately or lovely emblazoning –the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtle deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge -pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like willful travelers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him."

, Damon Zucconi

actually, i really don't think this is the thread to talk about such a complex issue as color on the web…

, Guthrie Lonergan

just thought it was a more interesting topic than surf clubs and hipsters:)
writing in forums makes me anxious, i've never done it – i have this weird fear that everything im writing will be interpreted as sarcastic ??

, Damon Zucconi

but to answer guth; my choice of it has nothing to do with 'neutrality'…

, Guthrie Lonergan

no??
i'm going to email you a million questions about your website, i actually wrote a short paragraph about it a couple days ago

, b'l't
, Vijay Pattisapu

Cliquet: "The default interface can be considered a voluntary memory."

The more a "default" interface triggers one's memory of the interfaces in which one was first exposed to computers and the Internet, the less that interface is actually "default" and instead quaint, given the amount that interfaces – defaults included – have changed over the years (Lialina's essay, for example, shows how defaults have changed / are changing, like from Geocities sites to MySpace pages …).

, Frederic Madre

"IT SUCKS!"

Now this is interesting!! "

it is fundamental. and it deserves its own thread but unfortunately I see that while I spent the whole day in a meeting at a call center you've already nested deep into the subject. so, let's jump

guthrie: sure, nasty nets white as a statement works and I understand your reasoning (btw I never saw it white because I have a default value on my browser as light grey for situations where people don't have a body bgcolor: that should be fixed, but, hey, it's a very common error I can tell you)
I also used white for http://pleine-peau.com/BOARD because it's a piece against all that is on white background
whe I did http://bruit-direct.org I had to make a big effort to make it readable because, after all, it's there to sell records, it's NNA (not net art) and, biy, was that hard
and, sure, damon's whole site is white because he wants everything to be unintrusive and clear and easily findable and, to me, it looks like he's wearing a 'brick coat' to just blend into the scenery. it's conformism or the easy option out of a choice and it is NNA (not net art)

my comment is not about visual aesthetics, it is about the political stance you take when choosing that color

… I always though of pleine-peau as dark red!

, Frederic Madre

(you can't even fix typos on that bloody white discussion thing)

, D Z

ok, fine let's talk about color:
http://www.reticular.info/
http://www.reticular.info/index.php?n=Work.Olympic
http://www.damonzucconi.com/index.php?n=Work.Repeater
http://proto.reticular.info/files/repeater/

let's use this array of web safe color descriptions to try to get somewhere:

"aliceblue", "antiquewhite", "aqua", "aquamarine", "azure", "beige", "bisque", "black", "blanchedalmond", "blue", "blueviolet", "brown", "burlywood", "cadetblue", "chartreuse", "chocolate", "coral", "cornflowerblue", "cornsilk", "crimson", "cyan", "darkblue", "darkcyan", "darkgoldenrod", "darkgray", "darkgreen", "darkkhaki", "darkmagenta", "darkolivegreen", "darkorange", "darkorchid", "darkred", "darksalmon", "darkseagreen", "darkslateblue", "darkslategray", "darkturquoise", "darkviolet", "deeppink", "deepskyblue", "dimgray", "dodgerblue", "firebrick", "floralwhite", "forestgreen", "fuchsia", "gainsboro", "ghostwhite", "gold", "goldenrod", "gray", "green", "greenyellow", "honeydew", "hotpink", "indianred", "indigo", "ivory", "khaki", "lavender", "lavenderblush", "lawngreen", "lemonchiffon", "lightblue", "lightcoral", "lightcyan", "lightgoldenrodyellow", "lightgreen", "lightgrey", "lightpink", "lightsalmon", "lightseagreen", "lightskyblue", "lightslategray", "lightsteelblue", "lightyellow", "lime", "limegreen", "linen", "magenta", "maroon", "mediumaquamarine", "mediumblue", "mediumorchid", "mediumpurple", "mediumseagreen", "mediumslateblue", "mediumspringgreen", "mediumturquoise", "mediumvioletred", "midnightblue", "mintcream", "mistyrose", "moccasin", "navajowhite", "navy", "oldlace", "olive", "olivedrab", "orange", "orangered", "orchid", "palegoldenrod", "palegreen", "paleturquoise", "palevioletred", "papayawhip", "peachpuff", "peru", "pink", "plum", "powderblue", "purple", "red", "rosybrown", "royalblue", "saddlebrown", "salmon", "sandybrown", "seagreen", "seashell", "sienna", "silver", "skyblue", "slateblue", "slategray", "snow", "springgreen", "steelblue", "tan", "teal", "thistle", "tomato", "turquoise", "violet", "wheat", "white", "whitesmoke", "yellow", "yellowgreen"

, D Z

papayawhip

, D Z

"navajowhite" is of particular interest.

, coldbacon

navajowhite!

pshhhhh…. sooooo 2002.

midnightblue = roberta flak
salmon = matisse
dodgerblue = speaks for itself

and don't just say "firebrick", say "firebrick red". you have to say them together like that. or it doesn't sound 1/2 as cool. come on. stay with me.

-cb

, Tom Moody

Butting in–I believe Drx said black is the best color because it uses less light but that was true of CRTs and I don't think is true of LCDs. I personally find black hard to read and use white to avoid making any aesthetic color choices. I also like it. Back to fredric.

, Frederic Madre

tom: "use white to avoid making any aesthetic color choices"
but by avoiding what you perceive as "aesthetic" you then risk to be experienced as socially, let's say, common

as for the best combination for eyesight it is 00FF00 on 000000
as seen here http://wwwwwwwww.jodi.org/
and I can't tell you how many lines of cobol i've written on that kind of terminal… millions ?

, Vijay Pattisapu

Once I made a site with black backgrounds and a woman walked up to me in person to tell me to change it, because, she said, it reminded her of "one of those sites …" :|

, Tom Moody

Sorry, I meant Frederic.

, Tom Moody

Damon, thanks for the Melville. I had forgotten the "high horror of whiteness."

, Tom Moody

tom: "use white to avoid making any aesthetic color choices"
but by avoiding what you perceive as "aesthetic" you then risk to be experienced as socially, let's say, common


that's fine–the logic of "defaults" is that the viewer looks past the template and judges the site by its uncommon amount of excellent art, music and writing. [smiley]

as for the best combination for eyesight it is 00FF00 on 000000

not my eyesight! the black and green gives me a headache. My feeble laptop LCD reduces white to a mellow grey glow.

I don't see this issue as political, compared to say, 1 out of 100 of my country's adult citizens being in prison. We have to prioritize what we politic about.

, Travis Hallenbeck

Graffiti rules.

, Frederic Madre

graffiting your own space only is for lamerz, though

, Travis Hallenbeck

n00b

, Pascual Sisto

ok got to this via guth (greets G)

I must add that the new background for my site is going to be this:

[img]http://www.pascualsisto.com/transparent.png[/img]

Much more "neutral" and it works with png files…

, Joel

You know Guthrie, (if thats your real name JK) waiting 2-3 years to take credit for inventing the term "surf club" is a little problematic. 1st it places all of this criticism under the umbrella of nasty nets, and Guthrie as Éminence grise. 2nd if we are talking about nasty nets, it negates all of the months of discussions and hard work that went into launching a site that couldn't have been more of a collaboration in nature. Remember, we didnt even have our names under the posts at first until Marisa suggested that we take individual bragging rights.


, Guthrie Lonergan

youre rite , J, that came out all wrong – was just trying to quickly establish a context for my impassioned whining (which I feel silly about now..i think im done with web boards..) – I really loved what we created with NN, but i'd still rather your work get talked about than nasty nets, i feel like the "surf club" thing is overshadowing something much more important which is going on – do you disagree? p.s. im in my room but going to breakfast, skype me

, Matthew Williamson

I agree….but what is going on?

I thought NN was an interesting entity on it's own but it also went a long way to promote the individual artists. Who for the most part seemed to be engaged in this type of practice before getting together.

There is also a lot of distinction being made between first gen and new gen. It would be interesting to know what are the criteria for each group. Maybe a quiz.

, Tom Moody

Quiz:
1. Do you know who Marcel Duchamp is?
2. Do you know who Roland Barthes is?
3. Do either of them have any bearing on art practice?
4. Does an artist who uses a computer have to be able to "program" it?
5. Is a blog a multiple choice format?
6. Does a blog limit artistic expression?
7. Is "finding" enough or must one also "make?"
8. Which is more interesting, the network or the content on the network?
9. Is a scan of a photo of a painting on a blog "net art"?
10. Which is better, blog pages that change every day or static, fixed pages?
11. Which is better, pages where new content is at the top or pages where you have to hunt for the content?
12. Is speed a virtue on the Internet or is slowness a valid experience?
13. Broken links: cool or uncool?
14. Which is the best way to communicate–email ListServs or blog comments?
15. Is the design of a page more important or the content on the page?
16. Are default templates unartistic?
17. Are computers good and are they helping us to be a better species?
18. Should every artwork question its own means of implementation?
19. Is an artwork an individual statement in space and time or could it be cumulative?
20. When a group of artists agree on a set of conventions is that significant or insignificant?


, harm

1. yes
2. after googling yes
3. I once saw a bear in the wild, apart from that I don't understand the question.
4. no
5. no
6. yes
7. both is ok when done well
8. impossible to make that distinction
9. no
10. too general
11. too general
12. slowness is a virtue and speed a valid experience
13. uncool
14. both don't really do it for me
15. impossible to separate
16. sometimes
17. yes
18. on some level yes
19. yes
20. sometimes

, Rob Myers

1. Do you know who Marcel Duchamp is?

He was a skilled painter and draftsman with a keen sense of mischief.

2. Do you know who Roland Barthes is?

He was the subject of Art-Language volume 4 number 3

3. Do either of them have any bearing on art practice?

One is a long-dead iconoclast who would be aghast at the endless dross that hides behind his name, the other is a very earnest semiologist.

4. Does an artist who uses a computer have to be able to "program" it?

Does an artist who uses paint have to be able to "mix" it?

5. Is a blog a multiple choice format?

The medium is the message.

6. Does a blog limit artistic expression?

I saw a good knitted blog the other week.

7. Is "finding" enough or must one also "make?"

Finding makes a found object.

8. Which is more interesting, the network or the content on the network?

The interesting content will have trouble being interesting if it is not delivered by the network.

9. Is a scan of a photo of a painting on a blog "net art"?

If it is used to make net art.

10. Which is better, blog pages that change every day or static, fixed pages?

It depends on which is the UN declaration of human rights and which is the local news.

11. Which is better, pages where new content is at the top or pages where you have to hunt for the content?

It depends on the which is the net.art and which is the emergency services phone number list.

12. Is speed a virtue on the Internet or is slowness a valid experience?

It depends on whether the slowness is due to considered pacing of content or to lag.

13. Broken links: cool or uncool?

I just use the wayback machine.

Coding a custom 404 page is cool, though.

14. Which is the best way to communicate–email ListServs or blog comments?

Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?

15. Is the design of a page more important or the content on the page?

How do you separate them in net art?

16. Are default templates unartistic?

They are the blank canvasses of information culture.

17. Are computers good and are they helping us to be a better species?

Beware teleology.

18. Should every artwork question its own means of implementation?

Any implementation contains its own immanent critique.

19. Is an artwork an individual statement in space and time or could it be cumulative?

It's very hard to nominate something cumulatively.

20. When a group of artists agree on a set of conventions is that significant or insignificant?

If they create anything of interest they will break them within ten seconds.

, Frederic Madre

why do you want to know ?

, curt cloninger

1. Do you know who Marcel Duchamp is?
Do you know who Marcel Broodthaers is?

2. Do you know who Roland Barthes is?
Do you know who Georges Perec is?

3. Do either of them have any bearing on art practice?
Both get name checked a lot by a certain group of contemporary artists. Duchamp bears on a practice because he dropped out all that time to play chess. He was Coltrane to Picasso's Miles Davis. The moral: less self-pimping; more hunkered-down, idiosyncratic, rigorous inquiry. It might wind up mattering (beyond the confines of one's insular, parochial scene).

4. Does an artist who uses a computer have to be able to "program" it?
Now that "art" is anything and an "artist" is anyone, what are the criteria for discerning art that actually matters?

5. Is a blog a multiple choice format?
all of the above

6. Does a blog limit artistic expression?
c, d, and e

7. Is "finding" enough or must one also "make?"
Should an art practice be driven by rigorous conceptual inquiry, or may it simply concern itself with superficial, formal dichotomies? What would an art practice look like that rigorously inquired into the conceptual ramifications of superficial, formal dichotomies?

8. Which is more interesting, the network or the content on the network?
Why ask questions that tautologically presuppose a modernist rift between form and content?

9. Is a scan of a photo of a painting on a blog "net art"?
http://www.afsnitp.dk/onoff/Texts/broggernetart,we.html
http://www.linkoln.net/complex/
Why ask is it "art" or is it "net art"? Why not instead develop a criteria for evaluating whether it matters?

10. Which is better, blog pages that change every day or static, fixed pages?
Why are we still talking about "blog pages?"

11. Which is better, pages where new content is at the top or pages where you have to hunt for the content?
Why are we still talking about "pages" and "content"?

12. Is speed a virtue on the Internet or is slowness a valid experience?
Is red a virtue on the color spectrum, or is blue a valid experience?

13. Broken links: cool or uncool?
Why are we still talking about "links?"

14. Which is the best way to communicate–email ListServs or blog comments?
http://www.meet-in-a-nice-restaurant.org

15. Is the design of a page more important or the content on the page?
Why (repeatedly) ask questions that tautologically presuppose a modernist rift between form and content?

16. Are default templates unartistic?
Why ask is it "artistic" or "unartistic"? Why not instead develop a criteria for evaluating whether it matters?

17. Are computers good and are they helping us to be a better species?
Are hammers good and are they helping us to be a better species?

18. Should every artwork question its own means of implementation?
http://lab404.com/misc/wwcd.jpg (cf: rule #6)

19. Is an artwork an individual statement in space and time or could it be cumulative?
May I be excused professor Bergson? I have to go to the bathroom.

20. When a group of artists agree on a set of conventions is that significant or insignificant?
It can be a good marketing strategy if you hope to get canonized in an art history book (unless the art your group is making turns out to be insignificant.)

, rafael rozendaal

1. Do you know who Marcel Duchamp is?*
http://www.leduchamp.com

2. Do you know who Roland Barthes is?
15%

3. Do either of them have any bearing on art practice?
yes

4. Does an artist who uses a computer have to be able to "program" it?
no. i dont think theres any artist that can actually program. maybe
some artists can mess around a bit but i cant imagine an artist who
could really create great software.

5. Is a blog a multiple choice format?
no

6. Does a blog limit artistic expression?
no

7. Is "finding" enough or must one also "make?"
finding is ok sometimes

8. Which is more interesting, the network or the content on the network?
no difference

9. Is a scan of a photo of a painting on a blog "net art"?
there is no net art as there is no such thing as "art". categories are
useless and just created to guide people who lack taste and character

10. Which is better, blog pages that change every day or static, fixed pages?
fixed pages

11. Which is better, pages where new content is at the top or pages
where you have to hunt for the content?
center no scrolling very direct

12. Is speed a virtue on the Internet or is slowness a valid experience?
internet has its own rythm and i like fast

13. Broken links: cool or uncool?
sad

14. Which is the best way to communicate–email ListServs or blog comments?
internet is not really a communication tool its good as an exhibition
space but you dont really exchange thoughts there

15. Is the design of a page more important or the content on the page?
there are no things such as inside or outside or shell and filling
every decision is a decision and has consequences

16. Are default templates unartistic?
no

17. Are computers good and are they helping us to be a better species?
too soon to tell, we will know in about 4000 years
but its hard to answer since i dont know what is good or better

18. Should every artwork question its own means of implementation?
no

19. Is an artwork an individual statement in space and time or could
it be cumulative?
there are no rules

20. When a group of artists agree on a set of conventions is that
significant or insignificant?
significant
its great when artists get together and make an imaginary fence and
jump over it later

, jpegmess

1 yes
2 yes
3 indirectly
4 no
5 maybe
6 no
7 hopefully they are equal
8 what?
9 maybe
10 what?
11 i agree with harm here
12 what do you mean by "speed" or "slowness"?
13 indifferent, but kind of exciting
14 neither
15 hopefully they are equal
16 no
17 yes
18 depends
19 everything
20 depends on the conventions :P

, Salvatore Iaconesi

ho Marceng,thenetworkor tmust one all Duchamp is? ho Rolednetor isan a painntdArecoarethey hobe Barthes is? them h luncavagesthrt"n Shouldter hvery artwoartpractice? whoiol? atchangeserofto uIs anmat? twork aniswherenr saveto beable to"program"it? tipl ommunicaewcontendartisgemeWhen aartisroupof ar you knou es aftenton owwthe Iaogamunahor binks:cxpeticexpression? Is"fimrDoyou valid e p goodandn restidthebe so"make?" Whichecies? ees a compui toofsesign o Lionthenetwork? Isasa its omplementatirchoice forc log pault temhe ? Whichtatemend timeor gloglimitiseanybtatic, fixed pages? Which onasetof conving" enougis atthes thave tohunt for the content? Isspe moreinteslowness dertDoting onabloheconte know wBroken n ofaphoo ttstwayDoeveg "neta wn means tof iWhichbetter,bctuef a paDoe isrydayoents? nt insp ulace aIs theore importconnidplatesIsterwherey Areistic?age?oolo s earingou abeeither sp rk qsane–emailstionon? ndivablantor tualscould itbe cumulative? tisttersagreeentions isthat significant orinsignificant? top orpageselpingu arience? tstServs orblog comm better, pages the p a virtueon Do

, Travis Hallenbeck

1. yes
2. no
3. no
4. yes
5. no
6. yes
7. make
8. same
9. if someone takes the time to scan a painting, well, the answer is obvious!
10. this is the toughest question on here
11. another tough one
12. yes, but variety in speed/timing matters most in chat and email (personal communication) - on pages (public), everything must be blazing
13. not really a matter of cool, more a matter of individual preference - kind of a moot point, broken image are slightly less, but still trivial
14. blog comments are better, but not the best way
15. there's the same
16. did you really have to ask this one?
17. yes (but could/should be much better)
18. yes
19. I must be missing the intent of this question. You have a work, and you have works.
20. In this case, significant, hahaha, but the disagreements could be more significant.

looking to forward to seeing what other people say, especially on 10 and 11 - maybe I'll come back to those

, Travis Hallenbeck

ah for 4, the obvious answer is no, but really, if you're making art, you have some sort of "program" going on, and that coincidentally perpares you to program the computer

imagine all the cycles wasted

, Travis Hallenbeck

ugh, not nesting these correctly

welcome to my art!

, Eric Dymond

An Art quiz… with Duchamp and Barthes…!
New Media 101, this is just silly.

, Tom Moody

No, it's New Media 202. Matthew Williamson suggested a quiz.

, Eric Dymond

>No, it's New Media 202.
but it's still a first year course?

, Tom Moody

Yes, several people expressed confusion about the differences in Web Art 1.0 and 2.0 over the last couple of weeks so I thought the quiz needed to be at this level. When we have some consensus on the camps we could move up to harder questions.

My conclusions from the post-Net Aesthetics 2.0 panel threads are that there is a group here at Rhizome that dismisses Nasty Nets, Double Happiness, et al and their component artists and with equal vehemence denies that that dismissal is based on any doctrinal differences (i.e., that camps exist). If no camps exist, I suppose, it is easier to believe that the 2.0 examples are just a plot by Rhizome staffers or cronyism as usual.

, Eric Dymond

Outside of the panel, Rhizome readers, and yours, do you think that Net 2.0 or Web 2.0 has currency then as a named movement or is it a subtext of New Media. Is it necessary for Net 2.0 to replace Net 1.0 (which didn't know it was Net 1.0) or does simply offer another way to work with computers, maybe as a genre rather than a symbol of progression.
I think what may have upset some of the more process oriented artists who see computer language knowledge as a key to expression was being told they were an older version of something they really had no desire to be a part of.
Net 1.0 and Net 2.0 just don't seem to overlap, it's like saying video replaced film making. Boldly said at the time (1960's-1970's), but it never happened. A new way of doing things, less technical, portable and smaller in scale made itself available to artists but the older media continued (and is now the Mother of the Arts). Technical knowledge never ruined an art form, and managed art still requires knowledgable directors.

, MTAA

+++

"I think what may have upset some of the more process oriented artists who see computer language knowledge as a key to expression [snip]"

There's an entirely mistaken assumption being propagated on this forum that net art (as opposed to the current period: post-net art) did NOT include work that did NOT dive into the deeper sections of the technological layer of the net. (the previous is one confusing sentence…)

Unless you count some simple HTML as being part of the tech layer of the net (which I suppose it technically is, but please) there was lots and lots of 'user-generated' net art. None of use knew what we were doing in the beginning. We just hacked some crappy HTML, JPEGs and GIFs together. Server-side databases and scripting languages weren't common and weren't cheap. Those technologies started to be common and cheap in the early 00s, most (if not all) early net art were static pages sitting on servers and most decidedly 'user-generated' including JODI, Olia Lialina, et al.

Some other (admittedly self-serving) examples:
MTAA's TIME!® http://rhizome.org/object.php?1691 (1997-1998)
MTAA's Direct To Your Home Art Projects http://mteww.com/dyhap/index.html (1997-1998)
MTAA's [email protected] http://www.mteww.com/3mb/ (2000)

and there's lots more by many diverse artists, check M.River's X and XX for other examples.

, Vijay Pattisapu

~(netArt.include(work.dive(net.deeperTechLayers) == false)) == false
Double negative stack overflow!

, twhid

+++

"Double negative stack overflow!"

OK, howz this:

Net art did include lots of work that functioned within the content layer of the net without diving into the deep end of the technological layer.

, Rob Myers

Net.Art 1.0 : Homepage Chic.
Net Art 1.5: Search Engine Chic.
Net Art 2.0: Blog Chic.
Net Art 2.5: Social Networking Chic.
Net Art 3.0: Celestial Jukebox Chic.
Net Art 3.5: Singularity Chic.

, Tom Moody

Eric,
Re: video replacing film.
Movie houses are renting themselves out now for sports and opera simulcasts to stay afloat and all that distributed "man on the street" media predicted in the 70s is coming to pass with the social media sites.
Movies have morphed into "thrill rides" because that's what it takes to get people out of their houses and shelling out 12 dollars. Film is a dinosaur but if you want to compare Net Art 1.0 (or what I'm calling "pre-Net Art") to that, fine.

, Eric Dymond

Netflix, Bittorrent, Youtube, Movie Houses (well they can be nice too).

http://www.wikinvest.com/concept/Movie_Attendance
see the chart, current attendence is still higher than 1980, and has been slowly growing over the years. The decline, which can't be demonstrated, could well be a ruse used to attract government aid.

So now I wonder, the Net 2.0 definition wants to place the DIY movie on youtube ( a small movie house with ads all over the place). The indy film maker with an internet connection can post the work online, accumulate comments from her 20 friends, but can't compete with the social impact of a talking dog (matching the thrill ride of it all).

As I asked in a different thread, what does the 2.0 signify? You can't simply identify a group arbitrarily, assign a number to them, and declare a new king when the country was never a monarchy.
So thanks

, Tom Moody

Here's what I see as the central problem of this discussion (that is, the people bashing current work):

If you have to ask what is different about the current work or what the 2.0 signifies then you can't at the same time say that "there's nothing new here" or that this is just an extension of what already exists.

You just can't.

There have been attempts by the antagonistic group to define the current work, but sorry, "ironically posting links to existing media with your friends on a group blog" doesn't cut it.

Several times I have suggested reading the Lialina and Ramocki essays but it is obvious from the above quote (from the thread here: http://rhizome.org/discuss/view/37731) that too much reading causes eyestrain.

, Rob Myers

[i…]If you have to ask what is different about the current work or what the 2.0 signifies then you can't at the same time say that "there's nothing new here" or that this is just an extension of what already exists.

If someone has to ask what is different about something then it is precisely the case that they cannot see what is different about it. They therefore cannot say what is new or discontinuous about it.

…Several times I have suggested reading the Lialina and Ramocki essays but it is obvious from the above quote (from the thread here: http://rhizome.org/discuss/view/37731) that too much reading causes eyestrain.

Both essays are excellent but I do not believe that they support your case.

The Lialina essay shows that the meaning of the net to its participants is reflected in the aethetics of the materials that circulate within it. What it does not show is that the attitude of net artists to those materials has changed. If the net used to be idealistic and is now blase, and net.art used to be idealistic and is now blase, then the relationship of net.artists to the net is passive and constant. See my next comment to T.Whid.

The Ramocki essay presents Surf Clubs precisely as ironically posting links to existing media with your friends on a group blog. By "irony" I don't mean sarcasm or pretension, I mean altering the meaning while maintaining the form. And semiotics was hardly under-represented in the discourses of early net art.

, joe mckay

1. Do you know who Marcel Duchamp is?*
yes

2. Do you know who Roland Barthes is?
yes

3. Do either of them have any bearing on art practice?
yes

4. Does an artist who uses a computer have to be able to "program" it?
no

5. Is a blog a multiple choice format?
no

6. Does a blog limit artistic expression?
no

7. Is "finding" enough or must one also "make?"
finding not necessarily enough, but making not always the answer.

8. Which is more interesting, the network or the content on the network?
neither is necessarily intrinsically interesting at all

9. Is a scan of a photo of a painting on a blog "net art"?
could be

10. Which is better, blog pages that change every day or static, fixed pages?
"better"?

11. Which is better, pages where new content is at the top or pages where you have to hunt for the content?
at top (usually)
12. Is speed a virtue on the Internet or is slowness a valid experience?
???

13. Broken links: cool or uncool?
uncool, but I'm one to talk.
14. Which is the best way to communicate–email ListServs or blog comments?
email

15. Is the design of a page more important or the content on the page?
content
16. Are default templates unartistic?
depends
17. Are computers good and are they helping us to be a better species?
not yet
18. Should every artwork question its own means of implementation?
no

19. Is an artwork an individual statement in space and time or could it be cumulative?
can be both (or neither)

20. When a group of artists agree on a set of conventions is that significant or insignificant?
significant (at least to the group of artists)

, Tom Moody

Let's use an example. They've been in short supply around here.

This post by Javier Morales on Nasty Nets:
http://nastynets.com/?p=1498

Petra had this onscreen for a while during the panel, during the part T.Whid called "boring."

I think it's brilliant. Using very simple means (screenshots and some html scrolling) it works in sexual content, in a very distanced, fetishistic way–just the words penis and vagina in a configuration that is both a mirror and a conflict. It is a snapshot of current culture–some earnest websites such as democraticunderground.com, cybersleuths, and cvcorner come up only because they use the word penis or vagina and google finds them. There are accompanying images that seem to have no connection to the words underneath them–did google do this or the artist? Plus there are snippets of text, moving just slowly enough to be read: "or is the penis a very large clit?" "the craze for designer vaginas" that somehow have to be accounted for in the overall clash of contexts. Plus it is nice to look, with its suprematist squares collapsing into each other.

Now, this was not submitted to Rhizome for institutional sanction as far as I know. It existed "out there" with 4Chan and all the other mashup sites. It's true that Rhizome sanctioned Nasty Nets but there is no link on NN to Rhizome or any other signifier that it exists in an approved stream of processing "art" content.

Perhaps you hate this piece but I don't think you can reduce it to "ironically posting links to existing media with your friends on a group blog." Perhaps you like it but I don't think you can claim it is what Net Artists have always done if you think it is "ironically posting links to existing media with your friends on a group blog."

I personally believe this is a new taxonomic class to be evaluated. The fact of it being on a blog, a blog that blends into the Internet "street," existing "outside" the world of grants for technological innovation, where the surrounding posts may very well be found material (but you have to figure it out), the fact of it using Google to generate a snapshot of the present moment, which did not exist in 1999 (yet still has old school simplicity), means it is different, and I think better. More complicated, more real than XYZ tech art where algorithm Y converts raw material X into social solution Z. Javier can't be blamed if some Rhizome staffers think what he is doing is important enough to rate a new version.

But regardless of whether I'm right about it being different, you can't both claim it and repudiate it.

, Vijay Pattisapu

Nice work, Tom. This the unit of analysis I think that artists on Nasty Nets, the Chans, and other surfclubs deserve, instead of being characterized as this or that depending on what web address they happened to deliver their stuff on.

Lialina and Ramocki have made brilliant beginnings in talking about these kinds of art, but I think we can refine their critique by going deeper than generalities and jumping around several discursive levels on a sort of continuum of general to specific, e.g.,

- The arts in general

- Net Art

- Surfclubs in general

- Individual surfclubs

- Memes

- Artists (where names or individual identities are available)

- Pieces

… etc. …



Another thought on scope:

Maybe for Nasty Nets type boards the unit of analysis is more properly the individual work of art, but for the Chans maybe the unit of analysis is more properly the series, since much, if not most of the art there is memic. Nasty Nets does have a couple of memes, e.g., banner ad collage, but something about the culture there, compared to Channish boards, endorses individuality. Maybe this is because Nasty Nets happened to attract practicing artists a priori. Or maybe that culture at Nasty Nets developed in tandem with structural constraints of having a username, whereas Channish boards allow one to remain anonymous.

, Rob Myers

Perhaps you like it but I don't think you can claim it is what Net Artists have always done if you think it is "ironically posting links to existing media with your friends on a group blog."

Net artists have always mimicked and ironised the existing forms of the internet. In the Web 2.0 era, "ironically posting links to existing media with your friends on a group blog." has the same relationship to the source material as hacking up a custom 404 page had in the early net.art era.

It's like artists who take snapshots of tragic young models rather than painting pictures of sad old clowns. We can see that the social content and function of the works is equivalent because of what we understand of the semiotics of each class of images within their indexical environments.

, curt cloninger

Hi Tom,

I appreciate the specific example. It gives us something specific to talk about. I can "claim it" because all sorts of people were doing similar things as early as 1998. I can "repudiate it" because I have changed my mind about the value of such things and no longer think they are as important as I once did.

In 1999, on Rhizome Raw, Tim Whidden and I spent a lot of time arguing about what wound up being characterized as net art vs. web art. Tim and others defended a kind of "net art" that, if burned on a ROM and then run on a computer without an internet connection, would simply not work (for example, http://www.irational.org/heath/_readme.html ). I defended a kind of "web art" that would work on a CD-ROM, disconnected from the internet, but whose visual aesthetic would seem silly apart from the context of a browser and internet culture (for example, http://www.playdamage.org ). Such "web art" achieved its particular sheen and visual aesthetic from the low bandwidth limitations of the network, from the various technologies that browsers would recognize, from the various glitches and lossiness of the file formats they would support, and from the cut and paste sampling culture of the network itself. It's not that web art was "unconceptual." It's just that its concept was less didactic and more embedded/embodied in a visual "aesthtetic."

As I teach internet art ( http://lab404.com/330 ), I break it up into four categories:

1. Network art
This is Tim's conceptual "net art." Rachel Greene's Thames & Hudson Internet Art book is comprised entirely of this genre of net art. She breaks her books up into various conceptual topics, but it is all basically conceptual art that would not work if a machine were disconnected from the network. Furthermore, this art is usually largely unconcerned with visual "aesthetic." There is nothing more low-bandwidth than a pure concept.

2. Linear narrative
Not really that exciting, but foregrounds the difference between linear web narrative and linear film narrative.

3. Closed Interactivity (lev manovich's term) aka non-linear narrative
Non-linear. May have multiple outcomes, but still only a finite number of them.

4. Open Interactivity (lev manovich's term) aka software art
Like generative painting, an infinite number of outcomes. Processing software is often involved.



The elephant in the room of this thread seems to be canonization. I am still awaiting some sort of manifesto or explanation that convinces me that net art 2.0 is something other than a re-bloggable version of linear narrative. I am wondering how javier's animated gif is anything more than "web art" posted to a group blog. I am not convinced that the RSS-ability of his post radicalizes its nature, or that the "semiotic" terrain his animation is exploring is intrinsically related to the "social web." To me, the new technology of the "social web," (the "web 2.0" of twitter, social networks, myspace) simply takes the technology that early net artists were using critically, and makes it available for everyone to use uncritically. This suggests the potential for a new, even more radically critical move on the part of contemporary artists, but reblogging animated gif mashups with vague references to Saussure and Barthes hardly seems to be that move.

To me, here is a high water mark of the social web ( http://www.intelligentagent.com/archive/Vol5_No2_sxsw_cloninger.htm )
Non-artists using the network to accidentally create a better distributed, net-centric, non-linear narrative than any single net artist has ever accomplished. Compared to that, how radical is a group of artists photoblogging?

"We do not lack communication. On the contrary, we have too much of it. We lack creation. We lack resistance to the present." - Deleuze+Guattari, 1996

The canonized history of "net art," if it is even canonized at all, will not be decided on rhizome RAW. It won't be decided on anybody's blog or by anybody's pdf article. It won't be decided in Manhattan galleries. It won't be decided by artists (young, old, 1.0, 2.0, or 35.7). It will most likely be decided by academics publishing books for university presses (people like Mary Flanagan, Alex Galloway, Mark Hansen, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Peter Lunenfeld, etc.).

I say all this to try to try to bring clarity to a thread that is becoming increasingly solipsistic and thus uninteresting to me. Marissa, Lauren, do y'all have any clarity to add? I missed the panel. Perhaps you could stream it? A link-list of work in this genre? It's not that the work I've seen thus far is bad. It just doesn't seem to be all that I'm being told it is.

Best,
Curt

, t.whid

+++

Curt,
We ended up agreeing about all that?

, curt cloninger

Of course we never agreed. And I can't speak for you, but I'm guessing we have both changed (some) since and met somewhere in the middle. Now I'm less impressed with wacky looking, ass-backwards-hacked low-fi animations that end where they begin and are conceptually vacous. And it seems as if y'all's work has become (a bit) less artist-statement dependent and a bit more visceral (although no less conceptual).

I must admit, I'm still a sucker for outsider.net.art (cf: http://deepyoung.org/current/outsider/ ). I just got a DVD from my man cold bacon, and it is really great. But I would be at a loss to justify it conceptually.

, twhid

+++

oops, one quibble..

"This is Tim's conceptual "net art." Rachel Greene's Thames & Hudson Internet Art book is comprised entirely of this genre of net art."

More self-serving posting right… now:

MTAA's Random Access Mortality is included in that book and I would classify it as web art.
http://mteww.com/RAM/index.html

Except for the fact that it's part of Website Unseen – which is net art.
http://mteww.com/websiteunseen/

It's all so confusing…

+++

, Tom Moody

correction: last sentence, para 4: "nice to look at" not "nice to look"

, Tom Moody

Thanks for your comment, Vijay. I have been trying to focus on specific examples of the new work on my blog (from time to time) as well as an overview like the ones Ramocki and Lialina gave, plus how the single units fit together with the larger frame of a blog or a group blog.

Rob, the Morales piece is not ironic so it seems you missed my point (again).

, Rob Myers

Tom - I wasn't claiming that Morales is being ironic, I was claiming that he describes irony. I'm sorry if I what I wrote was unclear.

, Rob Myers

Now that time I did misunderstand your point. Whoops. ;-)

, Pascual Sisto

1. Do you know who Marcel Duchamp is?*
Of course

2. Do you know who Roland Barthes is?
Brings me right back to film school

3. Do either of them have any bearing on art practice?
yes

4. Does an artist who uses a computer have to be able to "program" it?
I hope not

5. Is a blog a multiple choice format?
no

6. Does a blog limit artistic expression?
no

7. Is "finding" enough or must one also "make?"
As long as you make something out of what you find

8. Which is more interesting, the network or the content on the network?
Both exist through content

9. Is a scan of a photo of a painting on a blog "net art"?
Is Richard Prince an artist?

10. Which is better, blog pages that change every day or static, fixed pages?
All of the above or None of the Above

11. Which is better, pages where new content is at the top or pages where you have to hunt for the content?
Top not better, but easier

12. Is speed a virtue on the Internet or is slowness a valid experience?
Speed is a must

13. Broken links: cool or uncool?
404 error: Answer not found

14. Which is the best way to communicate–email ListServs or blog comments?
Email = SMS / Chat = Phone Call

15. Is the design of a page more important or the content on the page?
Design should be equivalent to the content.

16. Are default templates unartistic?
Depends (i.e. what if work is about defaults)

17. Are computers good and are they helping us to be a better species?
Good yes, not making us any better though. We can "appear" to be better, prettier and smarter (in a Baudrillardian way).

18. Should every artwork question its own means of implementation?
No

19. Is an artwork an individual statement in space and time or could it be cumulative?
All of the above

20. When a group of artists agree on a set of conventions is that significant or insignificant?
Significant for the artists in question

, Tom Moody

As Rafael said about this thread on del.icio.us: "long discussion might be interesting in 600 years." Thanks to all who are answering the quiz questions–they are helpful in the here and now.

, Frederic Madre

just two days offline makes it completely unreadable
I agree to give it another 600 years
ciao

, ilia

1. yes
2. yes
3. yes
4. not at all
5. no
6. no
7. you gotta tell someone
8. usually the content
9. wtf is net art
10. depends
11. depends on my mood
12. i prefer speed
13. annoying
14. dont know what listserv is. phone call
15. content
16. no
17. i like them
18. no
19. both
20. significant

, Petra Cortright

sorry boyz time to break up the circle jerk

1. Do you know who Marcel Duchamp is?
… duh

2. Do you know who Roland Barthes is?
yeh a lil

3. Do either of them have any bearing on art practice?
i cant be bothered whoknows + i dun care

4. Does an artist who uses a computer have to be able to "program" it?
lol ridiculous. fuck nerds.

5. Is a blog a multiple choice format?
i think so yeas. people with a cool brain can see all possible posting pathways and beyond

6. Does a blog limit artistic expression?
if the artist sux and cant fig out a way to make it cool then sure yah. its so easy to make blogs tight n cool . just post your hopes dreams and death wishes. instant sucessszz

7. Is "finding" enough or must one also "make?"
if ur only gonna "find" then u better find the fuckin best most dope rare shit ever and then know what to do with it or else gtfo cus anyone can "find"

8. Which is more interesting, the network or the content on the network?
i dun get this one, cnotent cahnges all th e time someimtes everthing is sofucking boring

9. Is a scan of a photo of a painting on a blog "net art"?
lol

10. Which is better, blog pages that change every day or static, fixed pages?
depends, the page can change every 5 second for all i fucking care but if i sucks then i dont want to look at it

11. Which is better, pages where new content is at the top or pages where you have to hunt for the content?
depends wat mood im in sometimes i like the chase the hunt but sometimes im tired of hunt and i want to be enetertainedd

12. Is speed a virtue on the Internet or is slowness a valid experience?
slwoness creatse anxiety for me and slows my workflow and i need things as fast as i can think i dont think slowness is cool. i cnt even handle slow internet i will bash my head against somethign. it makes me sik

13. Broken links: cool or uncool?
uncool net dust

14. Which is the best way to communicate–email ListServs or blog comments?
comments threads gchat flickrmail

15. Is the design of a page more important or the content on the page?
eh both &also one shouldn't carry the other its all about b-=-a-=-l-=-a-=-n-=-c-=-e, u mugs

16. Are default templates unartistic?
some are cool some are ugly if u pick a coo l one then cool and good job

17. Are computers good and are they helping us to be a better species?
oh god oh god i hope so i hope they good orelse we're all 2 invested and way2FUCKED

18. Should every artwork question its own means of implementation?
that woudl produce 2 much overthought trashheap shit everyone should just relax and just make stuff and pray 4 cool

19. Is an artwork an individual statement in space and time or could it be cumulative?
i think its sort of a marker like on a timeline like at a game at the fair where you squirt the water gun at the target and the horses move along the line

20. When a group of artists agree on a set of conventions is that significant or insignificant?
no one ever agrees on anyhting ever except baby animals everyone likes those lil guise

shoutout to women

, Tom Moody

Re: "Shoutout to Women"
These Rhizome threads are horrible dudefests and Petra is brave to come on here.
I have several women blogger friends that read these threads in horror.
Not to say women can't act like dudes but none of the ones I know want to–there is something fundamentally ugly here.
I'm certainly guilty of sparring but it seems like the only possible stance in this environment.
Without a decent human moderator commenters are rude and people are allowed to just make shit up (MTAA) and smile about it.
You try to come on and correct the disinformation and possibly lose your temper–then you are told you need anger management and asked why you are defensive. You are told "it's an open board and we're just exchanging ideas, man."
Petra is right, it's a circle jerk and fuck all y'all.

, curt cloninger

You keep bowing out Tom, and yet you're still here. I think we need a moderated hierarchical structure at RAW (you know, to protect the weak and defenseless), and you seem like the perfect moderator for us. You're balanced, fair, never one to forward your own agenda, always willing to receive constructive feedback from others, well-connected, on-the-ground, not one to easily take offense, never trolling or factious, full of humor and perspective, a wise old head and yet still "with-it," theoretically enlightened, and most importantly, a strong man with a tender heart for the weaker sex. We should just turn RAW into a blog, and then you could post the lead articles and we could add our subordinate comments (and occasional animated gifs). Then you could parse through them and choose which ones to allow and which ones to delete (we trust your correct perspective). That would be a great 2.0 use of the network. Plus it would look good on your C/V.

I venture to say that most of the acrimonious churn here recently has been largely in response to your polemic rhetoric. The agenda you are forwarding ("net art 2.0" as a version reset) is largely unconvincing. It's not that the work being made by "surf club" participants is uninteresting. Much of it is actually quite funky and invigorating. It may even be the next "big thing" (check local listings for details). But you're not really talking about the work itself much (and I would like to talk more about the particulars of the work). You are pushing for the work to be accepted as more historically radical than I think it is. And anyway, time and more perspicacious heads will decide all that. So I disagree with you now. To quote the eloquent sophist Thurston Moore, "I can understand it, but I don't recommend it."

For me, the value of RAW is that you can (often) proceed dialogically until you come to the crux of your disagreements. Nobody is ever fully persuaded. Nobody is objectively declared the winner. But just understanding the crux of my disagreements with various people has been of great advantage to my own practice. This is why I characterize the recent threads as solipsistic. You've got the attention (ire) of a large group of folks here (many of them very intelligent and most of them who aren't a part of your parochial scene). But instead of using them to figure something out for yourself, you just want to win. Even as purely spectacular flame wars go, it's not all that entertaining. You can win on your own blog or at your dealer's gallery. This is an unmoderated international art forum (one of the few left standing, oddly enough). If you mean to colonize it, then I have (yet more) problems with your vision of the radical future network.

As You Wish,
Curt

, juliet

Hello,,
i read your profile at (www.rhizome.org) it was so good to me.i feel you are the only one missing in my entered life so i desided to stop on it and let you know that i am interested to be a friend first.i also believe that coming to you will be a probabilty of meeting that very thing that has been lacking in my entered life. please contact me at ([email protected]) i am a girl with respect and responsible,i respect people also and believe if you contact me,i will giove you a full introduction of my self okay. i hope to hear from you soon. cares for my future love.
Juliet,,

, Tracky Birthday

crap, i totally missed this discussion

, Greg

This was a pretty cool discussion. I wish I took part in this.

bad breath remedies

, Travis Hallenbeck

Greg, it's still going on.