Hi, John Michael,
Question about the title of the Paul B. Davis/Paper Rad piece: on YouTube it says "Umbrella Zombie Mistake" but here you are calling it "Umbrella Zombie Datamosh Mistake." Where did you find the revised title?

Davis posted some of his code (with amusing comments) in a PDF for an exhibition called "Structures Found/Structures Lost." He also has some commentary about recycling pop culture. He talks about the *content* of the datamosh (although he doesn't use the word datamosh) and questions the role (and sufficiency) of the artist-as-editor.

PDF:
http://www.fiveyears.org.uk/archive2/pages/036/pages/pics/STRUCTURES%20FOUND%20STRUCTURES%20LOST-1.pdf
exhibit:
http://www.fiveyears.org.uk/archive2/pages/036/pages/036.html

That you are calling the Davis/Rad and Murata "two early examples" when they preceded the West vid by a year or two shows the futility of basing one's art on an effect. Of the two examples you've given, the Murata is the weaker for that reason. Once the wow factor is past it's just old movies (or whatever) set to spooky festival music.

Best, Tom

typo 2: "the piece was transformed from a series of YouTubes with ordinary, interactive controls into a rather elegant video collage," not "the piece was transformed to a series of YouTubes with ordinary, interactive controls into a rather elegant video collage." jeebus.

typo: "I think it was a better piece," not "i think it was better piece." (How is babby formed?) I miss not being able to edit my fkubs.

Curt, I don't doubt you are capable of being even more condescending.

On my blog I've listed other instances of Lichty's "pseudo-scholarship as performance," or however it's being justified here: http://www.tommoody.us/archives/2009/02/17/daniel-rigal-toughs-it-out/

On the Wikipedia "articles for deletion" page Lichty repeatedly cites himself as an authority in support of the piece and refers to "a developing discussion on a 10,000 person listserv (Rhizome)" without mentioning that he initiated it.

(http://www.rhizome.org/discuss/view/41713)

He isn't playing academia off of Wikipedia. He is earnestly arguing for inclusion of the piece, citing himself as an authority. Either way it is wasting the Wikipedia editors' time.

Editor Daniel Rigas was the soul of patience in saying: "I don't think it is productive to discuss this. I now regret giving it an opening as it isn't relevant here. (This is what I get for trying to be helpful.) Some people reject the concept of encyclopaedic knowledge. That is their choice but I don't see any reason for a person of that view to hang out on an encyclopaedia. This sort of stuff gets discussed interminably by philosophers. We are not going to get anywhere with it here. Lets let it drop.

Well, you can shoot the messenger and say he's missing the point all you want but there are divisions between new media and the "artists with computers" category discussed in my post.

Look at the mostly supportive threads on Rhizome re: a recent Wikipedia-intervention-as-art:

http://www.rhizome.org/discuss/view/41713
http://rhizome.org/editorial/2360

vs the thread on Paddy Johnson's blog discussing the same piece. Most of the people on Johnson's blog are strangers to me but they don't seem to be new media regulars and they have come together to say the intervention is a weak idea:

http://www.artfagcity.com/2009/02/16/wikipedia-art-lasts-all-day/

Someone left this little gem: "Maybe flashy icons and digital bling would have made it more interesting?" I can only speculate that that's someone who followed a link over to Johnson's from Rhizome but that is definitely a reference to the "surf club" artists Johnson frequently writes about, written in the snotty, deliberately obtuse style one frequently sees here in discussions of such artists.

Stark polarization is a fact, deny it all you want.