If you can do something better offline, do it offline

Feb. 4, 2003

Type: discussion

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<div align="left">thoughts.</div>
<div align="left"> 
</div>
<div align="left">Starved of formal 'net' training as
I am, I'm currently lapping up curts
notes from his course </div>
<div align="left">http://www.lab404.com/373/</div>
<div align="left"> 
</div>
<div align="left">Granted, I haven't got much
past the first page yet but that is because
the first page is has given me so much to well think about. It's not
particually that I haven't heard it before, but how concisely it offers
understanding. Anyway, XP has buggered
up my network and I'm
waiting for scandisk so if there is such a thing as 'thought in progress'
this is the start …</div>
<div align="left"> 
</div>
<div align="left">"If you can do something better
offline, do it offline" or roughly
translated this evening as what the fuck am I doing this for? </div>
<div align="left"> 
</div>
<div align="left">I'm producing a new body of work for
the new year. a set of net work
(mostly in flash and or mixed with html basic scripts and lo-res video)
and a video triptych that I thought might work well as a installation
(offline). The theme of the new work is called 'trival connections' and I
am working through my ideas of the the absurdly compatible nature of
communication and routine on the net [+ wider into digital] with the
frustrations, triviality of domesticity. So, where does my work fit
contextually within curts 6 steps ( you need to understand here that
eryks 6 rules sit behind my left ear with a whisper like an aesthetically
pleasing catholic priest offering redemption and guilt in equal
proportions)? It's not just my own work. I've been trying to 'place' a
number of other artists who make up raw. I've tried - but they just creep
backs saying "actually…"</div>
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Why have I spilt my work into offline and online
this year? Partly
because of usability - it does work better offline. Video on the net
reminds me of drinking through a straw. You fill up, you stomachs full
but it doesn't actually touch your lips so no matter how mush you take
your mouth keep telling you it's been cheated. That's not to say net
video can't work at all but its so big and heavy most of still comes out
looking like the BBC's andy-pandy in the seventies. If you want it to look
like that that fine (although I always preferred 'rubarb') and if you are
lucky enough to have broadband and get the big stuff then double fine -
but for me, video always 'works' best on the net when mixed with
something else (multimedia, many-to-many?) and its the 'else' that
makes it work - and usually on a 56k modem. The main other reason for
taking it is offline is that I have a growing desire to start seeing people
reactions to the connections I'm trying to make. To observe the
communication that's going on between them and the works…
So given that why make the net work at all? Its {mostly]
in flash. Its low-
tech. Interactively it's going to piss off anyone who is waiting for
INTERACTION. There is absolutely nothing to do with surveillance, AI,
bots, multi-user-INTERACTION,  telepresence, transloacility (if using
the whitney definition) or any of the other words that currently trickle of
mirapauls honey tongue.
The significance here is when I'm working with video
it's not the media
that's important. I'll have to make a decision at some point but right now
I don't care if the videos are shown on a tv sets, projected in a box, in a
small room in a large room, as a triptych together or as individual slices
- what is important to the work is that the 'viewer' sees within it some
echo (however abstracted) of their own ordinariness running in parall
with the noises and patterns of the image (in this case the silent
movements of my childrens heads & mouths syncopated with sampled
digital sounds). The medium is only part of the message. This changes
when the net work goes up (er,soon…), Suddenly, how, when and even
if it is delivered becomes integral to the work itself because (and this is
the [box] that I can't find in curts texts) my suggestion is that net.art
essentially site specific. Within the internet the 'site' is  translocal, in
flux, multi-user or locational-independent but at the point of  delivery
(loadurl) the site (mainframe >> desktop >> laptop >> palmtop >> cell
phone >> pager >> ) influences and alters the artwork and where and
even when this happens disrupts and/or create immeasurable
influences on how the work is 'read' by the user. Add to this the other
basic interactivity (which is so often seen as net.arts unwanted dirty
sibling)   i.e.
emotional engagement by the user
[E.E] and suddenly
both curt and eryks category heading seem limited.
Within this framework you can combine curts 'illogical
media'
eg multimedia + location-independent + site-specific
+ E.E + many-to-
many
"In the final analysis, the web is best understood
as an emerging
communications medium".  why is why I'm working offline & online,
communication on many levels.
[thoughts in progress]
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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<div align="left"> o</div>
<div align="left">/^ rssgallery.com</div>
<div align="left"> ][</div>
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