These projects are way old and have been published in books, and you are abusing your status as an arbiter in the art world by creating filler blog content like this. You can't just annex everything new media/web art of the last forty years into the rhizome blog just to post something. this is uncritical reinforcement of your and rhizome's own implicit agendas, which is to perpetuate your statuses as arbiters.

creating filler content like this, like, oohh rhizome will be my go-to spot to learn about the present, future, and past of web art/new media, is the same logic that big corporations follow when they release a new model of shoe every season just to come out with something new, to perpetuate the brand, because a company is always either growing or dying.

do you get what i'm saying?

On the contrary, I think the Rhizome front page is currently tremendous & those posting are doing a sterling job of publicising a lot of excellent&/interesting recent work and also really giving some sense of the historical development of the area in an actually pretty inclusive and non-tendentious way. Of course one would naturally have some small disagreements here and there but in general the sheer volume of stuff posted means accusations of partiality don't hold water.
The corporate comparison is just plain stupid - by embracing a facile surface comparison it manages to miss the essence of what distinguishes a not for profit arts organisation from its corporate polar opposite. Do you think perhaps the Rhizome folk should post *less stuff*? Would that make it better? How?
m.

@ curt cloninger
I think that the emphasis on "form" is necessary in the visual arts field, but - and this might be the point - it is not the only category art can be classified under. What i am missing in the "content"-part of many of the arworks published at Rhizome - I do not want to say that there is no content, but, that the contextualisation in art history, technology, philosophy and society is missing - there is only a little criticism and too much affirmative writing about it. To me, this seems a bit like the discussions about "political art", where the problem develops the other way around: not the "form" but the "content" is the main emphasis, not the "how", but the "why" - only both of them - on the same level - can be taken into account when it comes to talk about art, no?

@ Michael Szpakowski
*less stuff* wouldn't make it better at all. I think Rhizome is doing a really good job by displaying and disseminating a lot of different works and artistic practices. But yet, if the only parameters of choice are "0" and "1", "including" and "excluding" and if there is only a little criticism, it will be(come) a kind of PR-machine. I think Rhizome should not be a blog-like, copy-pasting magazine, but, rather a critical tool for the - still missing - implementation of the so called new media in the traditional art world.

hi marc,

in fact, I think this is just the natural process a - more or less private and successful - initiative has to go through: -- founding at a time when nothing else is there -- becoming powerful with the contributions of many leaders -- cosolidation by commercialisation -- struggle for survival as "top dog" for reasons of stagnation -- and then?

what i am wondering about is that - apart from "exhibitions and events, commissioning, daily art news" - there is only a little "in-depth criticism" as described in the mission statement. net art, new media art, media art, media-affiliated art, internet-aware art needs more criticism - that's what I am trying to say, perhaps in a bit long-winded way ;)

best, fratha

Hi Fratha,

I think we are coming from a similar point of view here. As you mentioned, it is a natural process, but it did not have to be this way.

They most definitely chose this route, whch is probably what is so disappointing for the many (who have left), when compared to what Rhizome was once, and of course what it could of been. Yet, we do not know who is making these decisions. The only thing we have to go by is what we experience, and the approach here is what most art groups do after a few years of establishing themselves - they become more centralized and conservative - look how bland and how out of touch the ICA (UK) is these days. flashy websites and noisy visuals are not really going to cut the mustard, only divert people's gaze for a while from seeing the larger cultural landscape. Rhizome has always suffered from incestious enterprises, but it is not looking outside of itself these days as much as it might have done before (every now and then) and is danger of being seen as nationalist and a platform for Dazed and Confused clientelle and other zombies...

In the past, there has been much stuggle and debate shared with the Rhizome crew and its community. Sometimes, more than it has deserved. Even though many people in its community in the past, have generously shared (including myself) their valuable time and energy in offering critical, intellectual and imaginative ideas on how they can become more flexible and expansive, beyond a singular mono-cultural entity - it seems, on reflection that perhaps it was all a waste of our time. What has really been happening is that, many of us have just been feeding a process of fait accompli, market forces vs creative freedom.

This infortunate binary trap may not necessarily reflect those who work on the Rhizome platform, although it looks like it is of their making, mixed with upstairs domination perhaps. To be honest, I am not sure whether the Rhizome crew could find a way out of this culs-de-sac, even if they wanted to. It would take some radical changes from the heart and big changes all the way through the organization itself infrastructurally.

>apart from "exhibitions and events, commissioning, daily art
>news" - there is only a little "in-depth criticism" as described
>in the mission statement. net art, new media art, media art,
>media-affiliated art, internet-aware art needs more criticism...

I think Rhizome is missing out on the most important contemporary artists and groups of the day. This may be because their values do not match what is happening out there, or they are trying to create a kind of America vs everyone else divide. It does not look promising for the more critical and imaginative, but great news for the one-liners and whiz-bang lot and more trad-like - yes these people are just fine ;-)

Hi Curt & Franz,

Like Rhizome.org, furtherfield.org are dedicated to art, but we believe that all nuances should be allowed to breath and thrive on its own terms, not denied. The problem with Rhizome's approach is that it smacks of censorship. It also means that those who visit this site (front page especially) are not experiencing an true represenation of what is really happening world-wide in media arts culture.

This then, becomes a political act in its own right. The irony here is that, in trying to eradicate more contextual media art, whether issues are explored and disovered genuinely or not. A culturalized void appears and then much is lost. The quality of questioning which is as much a part of sharing and learning about art, loses its presence, dialogue is stunted and discussions about the process of making, discovery and motives behind such artworks become taboo. This really is not a healthy place to be, and not just that, it is an extremely restrictive approach. There is too much control going on and there nothing wrong with allowing room for all kinds of diverse media art or contemorary practices in - let it be, let it in.

Hi Brian & all,

Yes, Ruth Catlow & myself asked many people in fact. We posted a request to people who use the Internet world-wide, to support our pledge "we won't fly for art" http://www.pledgebank.com/wewontflyforart. We posted to various lists and Netbehaviour.org which is quite a collaborative list in its nature, was one of them. If you are interested what the other lists were, they include Nettime, Syndicate, Spectre, Nodel as well as Rhizome.

The Pledgebank is a online platform existing outside of all of media art communities. Here is a link to other pledges which were successful in getting shared representation by users of the Internet - http://www.pledgebank.com/list/succeeded - Our project on this page was successful, but only because it was networked and connected internationally. I doubt that it would of been as successful if we kept it only within the furtherfield or Netbehaviour communities, it needed to be part of larger thing to have meaning as well as survive.

We wanted to pose questions about the art world's relationship with climate change, especially in respect of our dependencies on conferences internationally and ask how we could explore this dichotomy together - is there a way out of this trap that we all seem to be caught in? Just because certain questions may be bringing about feelings of impossible resolve, it really does not mean they should not be explored or discussed. In fact, great things can come out of such shared visions and ideas, which can offer positive ways around such issues being shared and explored.

Moving onto your comment proposing that I am complaining, this 'word' in itself really does not justify or take on the true complexity of what is being discussed on here. I have a strong, personal place in my heart for Rhizome and have grown with many others through the years, up with Rhizome and its community. It did not used to be as unusual to be discussing the nature, function, ideas around what Rhizome was, as it seems now - it used to be a regular part of a shared dialogue, functioning at many different levels which was one the many special things and qualities that Rhizome shared with its community.

Having said this, I am beginning to realise how much Rhizome has 'really' changed - more than I originally had presumed. I can imagine various subscribers of Rhizome lurking in the background, saying "Deal with it, that's the way it is". In a way, I would agree with them, but I also feel that it is important to share dialogue with others on subjects that matter, and Rhizome does matter. I would go as far as saying that it is because I value Rhizome so much, that I am willing to spend a little snippet of my precious time in discussing this subject with you and others on here in the first place. I get annoyed with Rhizome, like one gets annoyed with a friend. I mean no harm but sometimes it is good to air things rather than just keep things hidden under the carpet.

Rhizome is a part of A media art culture that I have spent a lot of my time with, as an individual artist and director of furtherfield, and other nodes and projects through the years. I have, with many others invested in Rhizome, given it respect and quality time in supporting it, whether it be culturally or by giving money to keep it going. In return, Rhizome has also (in the past) been open in supporting myself and other projects that I have been connected with, which is a kind of mutual arrangement, unofficially of course. And yes, I will still remain a subscriber to Rhizome because I believe that it is extremely important to support other groups out there who are engaged in media arts as well as related creativities.

I think what has been expounded from my own corner, is a position of what one values. In no way would I want Rhizome to be just a place that is only political. Art is big enough and flexible enough as a creative endeavour to allow more than just a few specifically themed resources or behaviours in this multifarious, ever changing movement of internationally shared expressions. It is important to remember that Rhizome's spirit grew out of net art, it is still a networked environment but in contrast to other social networks, it is now more closed than before, which is a remarkable achievement itself, even though one may not necessarily agree with the reasoning behind it or be happy with the consequences.

So, because I know that the Rhizome staff will probably be in the background wishing I would just shut up, as well as other punters here. I will.

I am really hoping that, those who are bothering to read this have the vision and flexibility within themselves, in allowing space and time to contemplate where I am coming from without turning to easy assumptions, thus diverting their minds from what is really being discussed. It's complicated...

Wishing everyone well, and I am sorry for being such a pain - it is not intentional, I will try to be less passionate next time ;-)

Marc Garett apparently had some difficulty posting this earlier
& he mailed me & asked me to post it on his behalf..m


Hi Brian & all,

Yes, Ruth Catlow & myself asked many people in fact. We posted a request
to people who use the Internet world-wide, to support our pledge "we
won't fly for art" http://www.pledgebank.com/wewontflyforart. We posted
to various lists and Netbehaviour.org which is quite a collaborative
list in its nature, was one of them. If you are interested what the
other lists were, they include Nettime, Syndicate, Spectre, Nodel as
well as Rhizome.

The Pledgebank is a online platform existing outside of all of media art
communities. Here is a link to other pledges which were successful in
getting shared representation by users of the Internet -
http://www.pledgebank.com/list/succeeded - Our project on this page was
successful, but only because it was networked and connected
internationally. I doubt that it would of been as successful if we kept
it only within the furtherfield or Netbehaviour communities, it needed
to be part of larger thing to have meaning as well as survive.

We wanted to pose questions about the art world's relationship with
climate change, especially in respect of our dependencies on conferences
internationally and ask how we could explore this dichotomy together -
is there a way out of this trap that we all seem to be caught in? Just
because certain questions may be bringing about feelings of impossible
resolve, it really does not mean they should not be explored or
discussed. In fact, great things can come out of such shared visions and
ideas, which can offer positive ways around such issues being shared and
explored.

Moving onto your comment proposing that I am complaining, this 'word' in
itself really does not justify or take on the true complexity of what is
being discussed on here. I have a strong, personal place in my heart for
Rhizome and have grown with many others through the years, up with
Rhizome and its community. It did not used to be as unusual to be
discussing the nature, function, ideas around what Rhizome was, as it
seems now - it used to be a regular part of a shared dialogue,
functioning at many different levels which was one the many special
things and qualities that Rhizome shared with its community.

Having said this, I am beginning to realise how much Rhizome has
'really' changed - more than I originally had presumed. I can imagine
various subscribers of Rhizome lurking in the background, saying "Deal
with it, that's the way it is". In a way, I would agree with them, but I
also feel that it is important to share dialogue with others on subjects
that matter, and Rhizome does matter. I would go as far as saying that
it is because I value Rhizome so much, that I am willing to spend a
little snippet of my precious time in discussing this subject with you
and others on here in the first place. I get annoyed with Rhizome, like
one gets annoyed with a friend. I mean no harm but sometimes it is good
to air things rather than just keep things hidden under the carpet.

Rhizome is a part of A media art culture that I have spent a lot of my
time with, as an individual artist and director of furtherfield, and
other nodes and projects through the years. I have, with many others
invested in Rhizome, given it respect and quality time in supporting it,
whether it be culturally or by giving money to keep it going. In return,
Rhizome has also (in the past) been open in supporting myself and other
projects that I have been connected with, which is a kind of mutual
arrangement, unofficially of course. And yes, I will still remain a
subscriber to Rhizome because I believe that it is extremely important
to support other groups out there who are engaged in media arts as well
as related creativities.

I think what has been expounded from my own corner, is a position of
what one values. In no way would I want Rhizome to be just a place that
is only political. Art is big enough and flexible enough as a creative
endeavour to allow more than just a few specifically themed resources or
behaviours in this multifarious, ever changing movement of
internationally shared expressions. It is important to remember that
Rhizome's spirit grew out of net art, it is still a networked
environment but in contrast to other social networks, it is now more
closed than before, which is a remarkable achievement itself, even
though one may not necessarily agree with the reasoning behind it or be
happy with the consequences.

So, because I know that the Rhizome staff will probably be in the
background wishing I would just shut up, as well as other punters here.
I will.

I am really hoping that, those who are bothering to read this have the
vision and flexibility within themselves, in allowing space and time to
contemplate where I am coming from without turning to easy assumptions,
thus diverting their minds from what is really being discussed. It's
complicated...

Wishing everyone well, and I am sorry for being such a pain - it is not
intentional, I will try to be less passionate next time ;-)

I've been insanely busy with No Soul For Sale this week, so apologies for not responding sooner.

I've noticed a lot of speculation and assumptions running around this discussion so far regarding Rhizome editorial and our motives, so I thought it would be best to begin by explaining how we do our research and how we decide to post what we do.

I do research all the time, through delicious, numerous art/culture/technology/etc. blogs, art magazines, mailing lists, etc. The same is true for John Michael, Brian, Ed and Marisa, as well as all of our contributors. Everyone is also engaged in numerous projects and activities (making art, curating, etc.), which only enriches the quality and depth of the blog. I'm also doing my PhD at NYU right now, and often my academic research and studies surface on the blog or in other ways. So that's where our information comes from, not from Pepsi or Dr. Evil.

Every morning, I check in with John Michael and we discuss our plan for the day. Usually I will send him a video or art project I found online or saw in a gallery, or he will do the same. For example, with the ebay projects we posted, John Michael sent me the Cary Peppermint piece, which reminded me of the Keith Obadike, John Freyer, and Michael Daines. I thought it was interesting that all of these works dealt with identity or the body through eBay, and also surfaced around the same time (2000/2001). Publishing these projects was not an attempt to fill space, but an effort to highlight 4 projects that used eBay to think about the body and identity. Usually John Michael and I will try to pair things thematically, it's a bit like DJing. I've thought of introducing the topics before we post, but I like keeping it loose. Curt got it right when he said:

>This blogging process seems fun to me, because I like art (and curation) that foregrounds the invisible connections >between things (les liens invisibles, if you will). I'm often less interested in the pieces themselves than in the implicit >connections that are gradually constructed between the pieces.

That's exactly what we're trying to do. In other instances, we'll post new work or old work because we like it, without an overarching thread to tie them all together. I see these posts as a visual conversation in a way, and I like that.

But art isn't the only thing we post. One of my frustrations with the old one paragraph format of Rhizome News was its brevity. In expanding Rhizome News to a forum for 1000-2000 page articles, we've been able to commission timely and insightful articles by some of the most outstanding writers in the field on a weekly basis. We also pay our writers rates comparable to some print publications, something I'm proud of. We've also been able to maintain the informational side of the Rhizome Digest in the Rhizome News mailer, with the latest announcements and discussions from the site. I'm very pleased with the current strength and direction of Rhizome News, and I look forward to seeing it develop further.

In terms of accusations that Rhizome is too focused on American artists, I disagree and I think this claim is totally unfounded. John Michael looked over his art posts from the last four months, and approximately 1/3rd of the artists are foreign born or currently based overseas. I know, personally, I filed two long articles in the past month on the Oberhausen Film Festival and the Venice Biennale, both of which focused on almost exclusively non-American artists and filmmakers. Today alone Brian wrote a really wonderful piece on his visit to Zagreb, spotlighting Mama, Kontejner, and artists such as Goran Skofic. Our website is in English, which in it of itself poses some limitations, but beyond that I think we've done a stellar job in covering and supporting a diverse and international group of artists. I've also worked very hard to open up the scope of our coverage to many practices - sound, sculpture, painting, performance, etc. - that engage technology in order to enrich the conversation and to acknowledge the expansion of the field. In addition, I'm keen to keep readers aware of the larger history of media art. I think we've succeeded in that regard as well, with posts such as Robin Oppenheimer's excellent article on psychedelic light shows on the west coast in the 1960s, Gene McHugh's article on Willoughby Sharp's research and experimentation with art and technology, Carolyn Kane's recent piece on James Turrell, etc. Marc, the fact that you would distill all of this into "one-liners and whiz-bang" art or "flashy websites and noisy visuals" is insulting.

In response to discussion - I've been thinking about that a lot, and I've noticed that the younger artists involved with Rhizome rarely contribute to the board. I would like to change that. I think part of it has to do with the way conversation happens online today. All of us have accounts on facebook, twitter, myspace, etc. Our conversations happen even more informally than they have in the past, and are distributed widely across numerous platforms. When Rhizome first began in the 1990s, this was not the environment it inhabited, and I think that produced a different platform for conversation. I've brought up the idea of starting something like empyre here, by inviting a group of people to discuss a specific subject over a set period of time, in order to focus the attention of participants and to establish a thoughtful, oriented conversation. I'm interested in hosting more discussion on the boards again and I am opening to hearing your suggestions in order to make that happen.

Hi Ceci & all,

Thank you for your response I am going on holiday for a week. So will not be able to discuss any of this right now, but will read your comments when I am back :)

Wishing all well - marc

Marc, enjoy your holiday!

Hi all,

I apologize for my lateness to this discussion, but it came up right when I was leaving on a much needed holiday. I wanted to address some of the specific issues brought up about the discussion section, and I'm gonna be making improvements to the discussion functionality as you've all suggested.

@Curt Cloninger- "It seems to me more a matter of decreased moderation, increased prominence, and increased ease of use."

Moderation - The only posts we "moderate" are spam posts made by advertisers trying to get link backs, so if you're post contains a link, I just have to look at it first. If this policy wasn't instated and spam posts with links weren't blocked, the discussion section would quickly fall apart (as it nearly did when we were first hit by the wave of spammers). Unfortunately, our open policy towards discussion in the past was what brought a massive amount of spammers to the site in the first place. We had to quickly create a blunt but powerful tool to block the massive amount of spam that was hitting the discussion section.

These actions and choices have resulted from purely administrative decisions without political or aesthetic intent. If we didn't block these spam posts, google and other indexing sites would probably give us a very low site rank as we would appear to simply be a spam depot. Furthermoe, I received many complaints about the spam, so I'd say that there are many people who are happy to have it gone. I'll work on loosening things though so that conversations can take place closer to "real time".

Prominence - I've put discussion posts on the front page in a prominent place and I agree that they should have been there in the first place, but were probably taken down a few months ago when the front page got too busy. This was something that needed to be addressed, so thanks for pointing it out Curt.

@Curt Cloninger- "When I post, I need to see a confirmation that I've posted instead of just being returned to the thread as if I haven't posted. Better yet, I need to see my post immediately appear."

I agree with you Curt, and unfortunately when I had to patch things together when beefing up the discuss code to block the spammers, the confirmation notice that pops up when you reply to a post had to be sacrificed. But you are right, it should be there, and I'll work to bring it back. I'll also make posts appear quicker for those of you who post often.

@Curt Cloninger- "Personally, I think the discussions should be uber-easy to use, uber-unmoderated, and uber-prominent. This is an obvious risk that most institutions are unwilling to take, a bit like featuring unmoderated inmate poetry in the asylum newsletter. It will increase both the signal and the noise; their ratios will fluctuate, but at least people will be posting again. Maybe the noise will become more interesting than the signal. Whatever the case, it will be the antithesis of hierarchical moderation and curation. Is it possible to curate a space that is purposefully left uncurated? Will senators ever vote to decrease their own salaries? Are you willing to let it devolve and grow holes like socks? Perhaps even open up html/css posting capabilities so that threads could be purposefully visually hijacked and formally restructured. "How can you kill me; I'm already dead."

I really like this idea, actually, though I don't think the discuss forum is the right place to execute it. Maybe in the future we can open up a space for this, but right now, given our resources and work overhead, this space will have to wait. We do have some things in development though, and we plan to open up a discussion on how these thigns will develop so that our community can have input on the future of the site. But more on this later...... :)

Basically, Rhizome has one full time developer, which is me. We have a part-time developer who we outsource other projects to and we bring in interns when we can (and these interns provide incredible assistance!!!). But overall we are a very small number of people doing a lot of things at once. Our code is custom, so that means that adaptability can be slow as I work to balance out all my numerous duties.

I ALWAYS welcome suggestions/criticisms/ideas. Feel free to email me at anytime.

Thanks and best to all!

Nick
nick.hasty@rhizome.org