Steve Dietz Out at Walker Art Center

It's the beginning of the end…

—– Original Message —–
From: "t.whid" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2003 11:54 PM
Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Steve Dietz Out at Walker Art Center


> fwd w/out permission.
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> > From: Murphy <[email protected]>
> >
> >> Walker Art Center announced the layoffs of 5 percent of its staff
> >> Wednesday
> >> afternoon, becoming the latest local arts organization forced to
> >> downsize in
> >> difficult economic times.
> >> The Minneapolis museum said it would lay off seven members of its
> >> staff of 149
> >> full- and part-time workers. The cuts came at all levels and included
> >> Steve
> >> Dietz, the center's director of New Media Initiatives. The Walker was
> >> one of
> >> the first art centers in the country to have a curatorial position in
> >> the
> >> nascent artistic field of new media.
> >
> > http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/entertainment/5809781.htm
> >
> >
> >
> > Part of the problem is that the article calls new media a "nascent
> > artistic
> > field". That's a pretty old baby – 40, maybe 50 years old? I would
> > date its
> > inception from the founding of the concept of Cybernetics. Perhaps the
> > real
> > problem is that the Walker had invested its endowment in "new media
> > stock"
> > and took a bath and so took revenge. I would think with such grand
> > building
> > plans they would pay someone like Dietz to stick around and advise
> > them on
> > how to incorporate new media forms into the construction of the
> > building.
> >
> > murph
> > offshore|online
> > ——————————————————————–
> > t h i n g i s t
> > message by Murphy <[email protected]>
> > archive at http://bbs.thing.net
> > info: send email to [email protected]
> > and write "info thingist" in the message body
> > ——————————————————————–
> >
> >
> –
> <t.whid>
> www.mteww.com
> </t.whid>
>
> + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php

Well, I know art orgs are suffering, but Steve was doing such interesting,
varied work – for a long time. Totally sucks!! Steve was really one of the
first museum curators who was a pillar of net art culture. I hope he can
keep up some of his projects as an independent, or maybe he'll hop to
another institution….

> It's the beginning of the end…
>
> —– Original Message —–
> From: "t.whid" <[email protected]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2003 11:54 PM
> Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Steve Dietz Out at Walker Art Center
>
>
>> fwd w/out permission.
>>
>> Begin forwarded message:
>>
>>> From: Murphy <[email protected]>
>>>
>>>> Walker Art Center announced the layoffs of 5 percent of its staff
>>>> Wednesday
>>>> afternoon, becoming the latest local arts organization forced to
>>>> downsize in
>>>> difficult economic times.
>>>> The Minneapolis museum said it would lay off seven members of its
>>>> staff of 149
>>>> full- and part-time workers. The cuts came at all levels and included
>>>> Steve
>>>> Dietz, the center's director of New Media Initiatives. The Walker was
>>>> one of
>>>> the first art centers in the country to have a curatorial position in
>>>> the
>>>> nascent artistic field of new media.
>>>
>>> http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/entertainment/5809781.htm
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Part of the problem is that the article calls new media a "nascent
>>> artistic
>>> field". That's a pretty old baby – 40, maybe 50 years old? I would
>>> date its
>>> inception from the founding of the concept of Cybernetics. Perhaps the
>>> real
>>> problem is that the Walker had invested its endowment in "new media
>>> stock"
>>> and took a bath and so took revenge. I would think with such grand
>>> building
>>> plans they would pay someone like Dietz to stick around and advise
>>> them on
>>> how to incorporate new media forms into the construction of the
>>> building.
>>>
>>> murph
>>> offshore|online
>>> ——————————————————————–
>>> t h i n g i s t
>>> message by Murphy <[email protected]>
>>> archive at http://bbs.thing.net
>>> info: send email to [email protected]
>>> and write "info thingist" in the message body
>>> ——————————————————————–
>>>
>>>
>> –
>> <t.whid>
>> www.mteww.com
>> </t.whid>
>>
>> + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
>> -> post: [email protected]
>> -> questions: [email protected]
>> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
>> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
>> +
>> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
> + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php

This is a real loss for the Walker and for the field. Steve did terrific
work. Interesting to note that Jon Ippolito (Guggenheim) and Benjamin Weil
(SFMOMA) have both transitioned from full-time to part-time in the past
year or so. Taken together, these three changes represent a major reduction
in the commitment of American museums to new media art. I may be forgetting
someone, but I think no American museum now has a full-time new media art
curator. This comes as no surprise–during tough economic times,
institutions focus on their core activities. It will be interesting to see
what happens as the economy recovers.

At 11:06 AM 5/9/2003 -0400, Rachel Greene wrote:
>Well, I know art orgs are suffering, but Steve was doing such interesting,
>varied work – for a long time. Totally sucks!! Steve was really one of the
>first museum curators who was a pillar of net art culture. I hope he can
>keep up some of his projects as an independent, or maybe he'll hop to
>another institution….
>
> > It's the beginning of the end…
> >
> > —– Original Message —–
> > From: "t.whid" <[email protected]>
> > To: <[email protected]>
> > Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2003 11:54 PM
> > Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Steve Dietz Out at Walker Art Center
> >
> >
> >> fwd w/out permission.
> >>
> >> Begin forwarded message:
> >>
> >>> From: Murphy <[email protected]>
> >>>
> >>>> Walker Art Center announced the layoffs of 5 percent of its staff
> >>>> Wednesday
> >>>> afternoon, becoming the latest local arts organization forced to
> >>>> downsize in
> >>>> difficult economic times.
> >>>> The Minneapolis museum said it would lay off seven members of its
> >>>> staff of 149
> >>>> full- and part-time workers. The cuts came at all levels and included
> >>>> Steve
> >>>> Dietz, the center's director of New Media Initiatives. The Walker was
> >>>> one of
> >>>> the first art centers in the country to have a curatorial position in
> >>>> the
> >>>> nascent artistic field of new media.
> >>>
> >>> http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/entertainment/5809781.htm
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Part of the problem is that the article calls new media a "nascent
> >>> artistic
> >>> field". That's a pretty old baby – 40, maybe 50 years old? I would
> >>> date its
> >>> inception from the founding of the concept of Cybernetics. Perhaps the
> >>> real
> >>> problem is that the Walker had invested its endowment in "new media
> >>> stock"
> >>> and took a bath and so took revenge. I would think with such grand
> >>> building
> >>> plans they would pay someone like Dietz to stick around and advise
> >>> them on
> >>> how to incorporate new media forms into the construction of the
> >>> building.
> >>>
> >>> murph
> >>> offshore|online
> >>> ——————————————————————–
> >>> t h i n g i s t
> >>> message by Murphy <[email protected]>
> >>> archive at http://bbs.thing.net
> >>> info: send email to [email protected]
> >>> and write "info thingist" in the message body
> >>> ——————————————————————–
> >>>
> >>>
> >> –
> >> <t.whid>
> >> www.mteww.com
> >> </t.whid>
> >>
> >> + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
> >> -> post: [email protected]
> >> -> questions: [email protected]
> >> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> >> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> >> +
> >> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> >> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
> > + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
> > -> post: [email protected]
> > -> questions: [email protected]
> > -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> > -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> > +
> > Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> > Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>
>+ ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
>-> post: [email protected]
>-> questions: [email protected]
>-> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
>-> give: http://rhizome.org/support
>+
>Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
>Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php

On Saturday, May 10, 2003, at 12:16 PM, Mark Tribe wrote:

> This is a real loss for the Walker and for the field. Steve did
> terrific work. Interesting to note that Jon Ippolito (Guggenheim) and
> Benjamin Weil (SFMOMA) have both transitioned from full-time to
> part-time in the past year or so. Taken together, these three changes
> represent a major reduction in the commitment of American museums to
> new media art. I may be forgetting someone, but I think no American
> museum now has a full-time new media art curator. This comes as no
> surprise–during tough economic times, institutions focus on their
> core activities. It will be interesting to see what happens as the
> economy recovers.

perhaps not 'when', but 'if' the economy recovers. hhhmmm, i wonder…
new media curators as the canary in the coal mine of US culture?

Japan has been in bad times for, what? almost 10 years now. the way
king george is running things we could see an economically and
emotionally depressed US populace whipped into fear by the republican's
machinations to hold onto power. politicians colluding with last
century businesses like bechtel and halliburton could strangle
innovation; gray times that could last for years.

but then, i guess new media curators in the american art institutions
will be low on our priority list at that point :-)

>
> At 11:06 AM 5/9/2003 -0400, Rachel Greene wrote:
>> Well, I know art orgs are suffering, but Steve was doing such
>> interesting,
>> varied work – for a long time. Totally sucks!! Steve was really one
>> of the
>> first museum curators who was a pillar of net art culture. I hope he
>> can
>> keep up some of his projects as an independent, or maybe he'll hop to
>> another institution….
–
<t.whid>
www.mteww.com
</t.whid>

I'm not sure who I'm replying to, so I'm not quoting anyone and I'll
assume everyone's kept up with this thread.

I'm all for a letter or petition. The admin may have no clue how many
people are out 'here' who support this medium. We need to build a web
site for people to sign-up on, names, addresses, etc can simply be
written to a file on a server (no need for a db), then we need to
hard copy it to the Walker admin. They need to understand that there
are lots of people out in the world who are advocates for this field
at the very least.

If Sarah writes the letter, I'll build the web site for the sign-up
and we can coordinate from there.

++

Beyond that, we do need to find the silver-lining. We've lost
curators and advocates over the past couple of years, but in america
we've gained an institution, Eyebeam. The closed nature of such
museum-like institutions can be very frustrating, it's true, but
they've been doing some decent work over there so far.

++
The funny thing about the work possibly being lost from the Walker
servers is that rhizome had set-up a system where they would archive
work… the artbase clone feature, do they clone any longer? and
people were angry that rhizome didn't pay them for the privilege of
archiving their work. If any other sort of grassroots org or Eyebeam
offered this service, would people take advantage of it? Or would
they complain that this org was 'stealing' their work? 'using' them
for the org admin's advantage?

it would be nice if someone, The Thing or Rhizome, could organize a
huge archive of the web/internet work, Rhizome tried and people
bitched and moaned about it. Perhaps it was the way Rhiz went about
it?

So maybe a new grassroots org could rise to handle just archiving,
storing work. It ain't cheap, the disk space, bandwidth, searchable
index, interface development might cost you more than 5 bucks a year.
Rhizome has all of this going on already of course, but they don't
push the cloned art objects much anymore, people didn't want to
'give' away their files.
–
<twhid>
http://www.mteww.com
</twhid>

> people are out 'here' who support this medium. We
> need to build a web
> site for people to sign-up on, names, addresses, etc
> can simply be
> written to a file on a server (no need for a db),
> then we need to
> hard copy it to the Walker admin.

i'm not so pro for hard copy i prefer gif, but ztatic
one, zen after send it to digital fair with ozer non
linkgif..ze fuck i forget ze name..bobig ? what is ze
fucking name of zis wait a minute damien hirzchzl
formaline net art exhibition nobody understnad then
itz great as a parzec kheopz..ekzept murph only me
follow in zis fucking netart, but rob follow with 2
billion year late, that standing stone all, but it'z
due to his bigbenbell he has as chaos the very virst
rattleznake

They need to
> understand that there
> are lots of people out in the world who are
> advocates for this field
> at the very least.
>
> If Sarah writes the letter, I'll build the web site
> for the sign-up
> and we can coordinate from there.
>
> ++
>
> Beyond that, we do need to find the silver-lining.
> We've lost
> curators and advocates over the past couple of
> years, but in america
> we've gained an institution, Eyebeam. The closed
> nature of such
> museum-like institutions can be very frustrating,
> it's true, but
> they've been doing some decent work over there so
> far.
>
> ++
> The funny thing about the work possibly being lost
> from the Walker
> servers is that rhizome had set-up a system where
> they would archive
> work… the artbase clone feature, do they clone any
> longer? and
> people were angry that rhizome didn't pay them for
> the privilege of
> archiving their work. If any other sort of
> grassroots org or Eyebeam
> offered this service, would people take advantage of
> it? Or would
> they complain that this org was 'stealing' their
> work? 'using' them
> for the org admin's advantage?
>
> it would be nice if someone, The Thing or Rhizome,
> could organize a
> huge archive of the web/internet work, Rhizome tried
> and people
> bitched and moaned about it. Perhaps it was the way
> Rhiz went about
> it?
>
> So maybe a new grassroots org could rise to handle
> just archiving,
> storing work. It ain't cheap, the disk space,
> bandwidth, searchable
> index, interface development might cost you more
> than 5 bucks a year.
> Rhizome has all of this going on already of course,
> but they don't
> push the cloned art objects much anymore, people
> didn't want to
> 'give' away their files.
> –
> <twhid>
> http://www.mteww.com
> </twhid>
>
——————————————————————–
> t h i n g i s t
> message by "t.whid" <[email protected]>
> archive at http://bbs.thing.net
> info: send email to [email protected]
> and write "info thingist" in the message body
>
——————————————————————–

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—– Original Message —–
From: "t.whid" <[email protected]>

> The funny thing about the work possibly being lost from the Walker
> servers is that rhizome had set-up a system where they would archive
> work… the artbase clone feature, do they clone any longer? and
> people were angry that rhizome didn't pay them for the privilege of
> archiving their work. If any other sort of grassroots org or Eyebeam
> offered this service, would people take advantage of it? Or would
> they complain that this org was 'stealing' their work? 'using' them
> for the org admin's advantage?


Well it is important to note that this binary exists because both needs are
rightfully expected to be met. I don't know how many people objected to
having thier work included in the artbase, the index of that thing is
massive and far too inclusive for its own good and overall sustainability.
The problem is that Rhizome has a reputation for being Rhizome first and art
second, a reputation that they have repeatedly failed to address to my
satisfaction. [I would also say that the shift to the five dollar enrollment
fee was not a problem in and of itself, but came at a time when there was a
marked shift between rhizome as "grassroots org" and rhizome as
"institution."]

The archive is clearly not stealing anyones work, but let's be honest,
Rhizome benefits from having and maintaining the archive whereas artists can
simply make back up cds and keep the sites up independantly if they wanted
to. The proof of this is the ratio of cloned objects compared to linked
objects- almost nothing is cloned. [The one piece I personally gave to the
artbase is cloned.]


> it would be nice if someone, The Thing or Rhizome, could organize a
> huge archive of the web/internet work, Rhizome tried and people
> bitched and moaned about it. Perhaps it was the way Rhiz went about
> it?

I think a lot of people took advantage of it [look at a list of artists in
the art base] but some legitimate questions were raised concerning
precedents and artists rights. I think another element of the backlash
against rhizome is the fact that they were in a position to set multiple
precedents and failed to utilize that opportunity despite promoting
themselves to the contrary, sort of a new media Al Gore. Had rhizome set up
a five dollar a month user fee from the beginning for admittance to the
artbase and provided some kind of split between the artists in the artbase
and rhizome itself [and had been less inclusive of every website that had
the word "art" on it] it may have been able to succesfully provide a *model*
for revenue streams. Even if that stream was ridiculously small, which it
would have been, it could have been a step in the right direction that
spawned other institutions to try that model. It's not like charging
admittance to an art museum is a radical concept. Granted, a lot of stuff
sucks about this model, but it's better than paying exorbinant server and hd
costs for an archive that doesn't really even benefit the artist.

Rhizome also has a problem with truly archiving work in that the archive is
not immune to browser changes, a problem that has been brought up when they
opened the artbase but never really acted on. While they added more than one
piece a day to the archive last year, the principal strategy seems to be
"emulation" which is, they will re-write the code to work for new browsers.
At this rate by 2010 they will have something like 5000 archived pieces of
art in the artbase. Why they would prefer to hire a coder to "restore" these
pieces to work with new browsers [destroying the integrity of the original
work] as opposed to simply running a simultaneous "browser museum" is
anyone's guess.

I feel like if rhizome was serious about the artbase they would have
addressed these issues by now, but they seem to overcome that by simply
allowing for a massive rate of expansion, and whether rhizome will last
until 2010 is still up in the air. I personally doubt it survives 2004. What
happens to the archive then?

-e.

At 09:46 AM 5/12/2003 -0400, t.whid wrote:

<snip>

>The funny thing about the work possibly being lost from the Walker servers
>is that rhizome had set-up a system where they would archive work… the
>artbase clone feature, do they clone any longer?

yup: http://rhizome.org/artbase

as of may 1, the artbase had 984 art works. not sure how many are cloned
vs. linked. in the case of linked art works, the artist has supplied
information about the art work and a link to it, but has not provided a
copy of the work itself. in the case of cloned art works, the artist has
provided information as well as a copy of the work to be stored on our
server for posterity.

>and people were angry that rhizome didn't pay them for the privilege of
>archiving their work. If any other sort of grassroots org or Eyebeam
>offered this service, would people take advantage of it? Or would they
>complain that this org was 'stealing' their work? 'using' them for the org
>admin's advantage?
>
>it would be nice if someone, The Thing or Rhizome, could organize a huge
>archive of the web/internet work, Rhizome tried and people bitched and
>moaned about it. Perhaps it was the way Rhiz went about it?

there was a bit of bitching and moaning, but there has also been a lot of
participation.

>So maybe a new grassroots org could rise to handle just archiving, storing
>work. It ain't cheap, the disk space, bandwidth, searchable index,
>interface development might cost you more than 5 bucks a year. Rhizome has
>all of this going on already of course, but they don't push the cloned art
>objects much anymore, people didn't want to 'give' away their files.

we don't push it, but we do give each artist the option. artists can also
change their minds later. so if you've submitted a linked object and would
like to give us a copy for safe keeping, you can do so at any time.

At 12:37 PM 5/12/2003 -0400, Eryk Salvaggio wrote:

>Rhizome also has a problem with truly archiving work in that the archive is
>not immune to browser changes, a problem that has been brought up when they
>opened the artbase but never really acted on. While they added more than one
>piece a day to the archive last year, the principal strategy seems to be
>"emulation" which is, they will re-write the code to work for new browsers.

Actually, emulation referrs to running old software on new hardware by
installing emulators (kind of like running Windows software on a Mac using
Virtual PC. Imagine, for example, that we are living in the year 2018 and
want to experience a work of net art that was made in 1998. This art works
best on the Netscape 4 web browser (not sure if Netscape for is the right
browser for 1998, but you get the idea), but the Netscape web browser is
obsolete–you can't even install it on your fancy new Macintosh GS11
computer. So you download a Pentium II emulator and install it. Then you
download free copies of the obsolete software you need: Windows 98,
Netscape 4, maybe a particular Shockwave plug-in. After installing all
these, you can enter the URL of the art work, and experience the art. There
are several problems. It will be difficult and expensive to make emulators.
We can only hope that smart people will want to make them and that
institutions with major resoruces will pay for it. Second, nobody that we
know if us archiving operating systems, browsers and plug-ins (not to
mention all the other software that other forms of new media art might
require). Third, nobody is keeping track of the software required to run a
given work of art. We'll probably be able to work that out retrospectively,
but it would be much better to get the information up-front from the
artist. Rhizome does not have the resources to archive commercial software
(we looked into it, and it's harder than it sounds to do it in a thorough
and organized way). Right now, we are focused on the third problem: getting
info from artists on what software is needed to run the art work in an
ideal situation. In order to do that, we need funding. We applied for a
grant from the NEA to cover this, but we got much less than we asked for.
So this might have to wait a while (until the funding situation improves).

Alternatives to emulation include documentation (screen shots, etc.),
migration (updating old code to meet new specs) and recreation (rebuilding
old work from scratch so it would work in a new technological environment).

We have a lengthy questionnaire for artists who submit copies of their work
(what we call cloned objects). For each of the four main preservation
tactics we contemplate (documentation, migration, emuation and recreation),
it asks for permission (i.e. do we have permission to document your work in
the future?), information (tech specs, etc.) and guidance (what's are the
most important aspects to preserve?).

This is all explained in some detail, including a copy of the
questionnaire, at http://rhizome.org/artbase/policy

For a report by Rick Rinehart that talks about emulation and sets out a
plan for gathering information on required software, see
http://rhizome.org/artbase/policy.

>I feel like if rhizome was serious about the artbase they would have
>addressed these issues by now,

We have addressed these issues, Eryk. You just haven't been paying attention.

;-)

At 12:37 PM 5/12/2003 -0400, Eryk Salvaggio wrote:
>The archive is clearly not stealing anyones work, but let's be honest,
>Rhizome benefits from having and maintaining the archive whereas artists can
>simply make back up cds and keep the sites up independantly if they wanted
>to. The proof of this is the ratio of cloned objects compared to linked
>objects- almost nothing is cloned. [The one piece I personally gave to the
>artbase is cloned.]

The Rhizome ArtBase currently contains 270 cloned art works and 716 linked
art works.

At 14:14 -0400 5/12/03, Mark Tribe wrote:
>At 12:37 PM 5/12/2003 -0400, Eryk Salvaggio wrote:
>>The archive is clearly not stealing anyones work, but let's be honest,
>>Rhizome benefits from having and maintaining the archive whereas artists can
>>simply make back up cds and keep the sites up independantly if they wanted
>>to. The proof of this is the ratio of cloned objects compared to linked
>>objects- almost nothing is cloned. [The one piece I personally gave to the
>>artbase is cloned.]
>
>The Rhizome ArtBase currently contains 270 cloned art works and 716
>linked art works.
>


Each artist, if they're even mildly diligent, is backing up their
projects keeping their web sites more or less up-to-date.

This piecemeal approach doesn't address the needs or future curators,
viewers, researchers who will need a centralized database of this
work for them to be able to get any sort of historical perspective at
all.

Also, i wasn't critting the rhiz's artbase in my last post. I wanted
to point out that it seemed that some folks were afraid for the work
in the Walker's collection but there is a system running presently to
address the archival issue.

Rhizome should be more proactive in my opinion. If artists don't
submit work that the admins feel is important than rhizome should
make copies/mirrors of the work without permission. But then of
course, they might not want to charge for access if that's the policy.

–
<twhid>
http://www.mteww.com
</twhid>

— Mark Tribe <[email protected]> a ecrit

> <twhid>

in slice in huile d'olive premiere pression a froid de
cul nu de vierge de camaret, or 100 yearz connerie
inkjet probe

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I remember that I signed something saying that Rhizome had the right to
alter my piece if any portion of it became obsolete and needed to be
emulated. I think this was specifically in the case of flash, which is
proprietary, and if it went under and went obsolete [a process which would
take 4-7 years perhaps] there would be no way to emulate proprietary code
such as flash. Therefore, the work would have to be altered because rhizome
doesn't want to ["can't"] keep an archive of the 3mb Flash 4.0 plugin.

I also have doubts about whether netscape, opera, and explorer are
considered "commercial" software, and whether or not keeping an offline
archive of these freely distributed browsers is violating some law or
another. But with internet law being what it is it wouldn't be a total
shock.

-e.



—– Original Message —–
From: "Mark Tribe" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, May 12, 2003 2:02 PM
Subject: Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: [thingist] Steve Dietz Out at Walker Art
Center


> At 12:37 PM 5/12/2003 -0400, Eryk Salvaggio wrote:
>
> >Rhizome also has a problem with truly archiving work in that the archive
is
> >not immune to browser changes, a problem that has been brought up when
they
> >opened the artbase but never really acted on. While they added more than
one
> >piece a day to the archive last year, the principal strategy seems to be
> >"emulation" which is, they will re-write the code to work for new
browsers.
>
> Actually, emulation referrs to running old software on new hardware by
> installing emulators (kind of like running Windows software on a Mac using
> Virtual PC. Imagine, for example, that we are living in the year 2018 and
> want to experience a work of net art that was made in 1998. This art works
> best on the Netscape 4 web browser (not sure if Netscape for is the right
> browser for 1998, but you get the idea), but the Netscape web browser is
> obsolete–you can't even install it on your fancy new Macintosh GS11
> computer. So you download a Pentium II emulator and install it. Then you
> download free copies of the obsolete software you need: Windows 98,
> Netscape 4, maybe a particular Shockwave plug-in. After installing all
> these, you can enter the URL of the art work, and experience the art.
There
> are several problems. It will be difficult and expensive to make
emulators.
> We can only hope that smart people will want to make them and that
> institutions with major resoruces will pay for it. Second, nobody that we
> know if us archiving operating systems, browsers and plug-ins (not to
> mention all the other software that other forms of new media art might
> require). Third, nobody is keeping track of the software required to run a
> given work of art. We'll probably be able to work that out
retrospectively,
> but it would be much better to get the information up-front from the
> artist. Rhizome does not have the resources to archive commercial software
> (we looked into it, and it's harder than it sounds to do it in a thorough
> and organized way). Right now, we are focused on the third problem:
getting
> info from artists on what software is needed to run the art work in an
> ideal situation. In order to do that, we need funding. We applied for a
> grant from the NEA to cover this, but we got much less than we asked for.
> So this might have to wait a while (until the funding situation improves).
>
> Alternatives to emulation include documentation (screen shots, etc.),
> migration (updating old code to meet new specs) and recreation (rebuilding
> old work from scratch so it would work in a new technological
environment).
>
> We have a lengthy questionnaire for artists who submit copies of their
work
> (what we call cloned objects). For each of the four main preservation
> tactics we contemplate (documentation, migration, emuation and
recreation),
> it asks for permission (i.e. do we have permission to document your work
in
> the future?), information (tech specs, etc.) and guidance (what's are the
> most important aspects to preserve?).
>
> This is all explained in some detail, including a copy of the
> questionnaire, at http://rhizome.org/artbase/policy
>
> For a report by Rick Rinehart that talks about emulation and sets out a
> plan for gathering information on required software, see
> http://rhizome.org/artbase/policy.
>
> >I feel like if rhizome was serious about the artbase they would have
> >addressed these issues by now,
>
> We have addressed these issues, Eryk. You just haven't been paying
attention.
>
> ;-)
>
>
> ——————————————————————–
> t h i n g i s t
> message by Mark Tribe <[email protected]>
> archive at http://bbs.thing.net
> info: send email to [email protected]
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> ——————————————————————–
>