The Rhizome Digest merged into the Rhizome News in November 2008. These pages serve as an archive for 6-years worth of discussions and happenings from when the Digest was simply a plain-text, weekly email.

Subject: RHIZOME DIGEST: 3.04.05
From: digest@rhizome.org (RHIZOME)
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 14:42:43 -0800
Reply-to: digest@rhizome.org
Sender: owner-digest@rhizome.org

RHIZOME DIGEST: March 4, 2005

Content:

+announcement+
1.Kevin McGarry: Rhizome.org Announces "Raiders of the Lost ArtBase,"
curated by Michael Connor of FACT
2. Kevin McGarry: FW: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] DATA Browser 01
3. Michael Weisert: SWITCH Journal Issue 19 Released :: Call for Entries,
Issue 20

+opportunity+
4. Kristina Maskarin: Net Art Competition:: Deadline: March 31, 2005

+comment+
5. Kevin McGarry: FW: [MARCEL-members] Internet2: Orchestrating the End of
the Internet?
6. Philip Galanter: Internet2: Orchestrating the End of the Internet?

+interview+
7. Trebor Scholz: Reflections on Schemas of New Media-Based Educational
Models
8. Trebor Scholz: Interview with John Hopkins

+thread+
9. Jason Van Anden, t.whid, Marisa S. Olson, joy.garnett AT gmail.com, atomic
elroy, Jo-Anne Green: American Artstar
10. Matthew Mascotte, Jason Van Anden, Kevin Hamilton, ryan griffis, Anthony
Craig Drennen, nathaniel hitchcock: Pod Pals (IN Network)

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1.

Date: 3.01.05
From: Kevin McGarry <kevin AT rhizome.org>
Subject: Rhizome.org Announces "Raiders of the Lost ArtBase," curated by
Michael Connor of FACT

Rhizome.org Announces Third ArtBase Exhibition


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, March 1, 2005

CONTACT
Kevin McGarry, Rhizome.org
Phone: 212.219.1288 X220
Email: kevin AT rhizome.org


NEW YORK, NY--Rhizome.org is pleased to announce the opening of our third
online exhibition curated from works in the Rhizome ArtBase, an archive of
over 1400 new media artworks established in 1999. The show is entitled
³Raiders of the Lost ArtBase² and is curated by Michael Connor, Curator at
FACT in Liverpool.


http://rhizome.org/art/exhibition/raiders/


Unlike past exhibitions, ³Raiders of the Lost ArtBase² takes the form of a
blog. Connor ³will be tunneling into the Rhizome ArtBase until his eyes
bleed, hunting for buried treasures both ancient and new,² selecting works
sequentially, over the course of several weeks, and posting them to the
³Raiders² website. Here, viewers may not only browse the evolving
exhibition, but also add to it by interjecting comments about the works.
Viewers may also receive the exhibition in a live, distributed format by
syndicating it or subscribing to its RSS feed:


RSS: 0.92: http://rhizome.org/art/exhibition/raiders/wp-rss.php
RSS 2.0: http://rhizome.org/art/exhibition/raiders/wp-rss2.php

More about syndication and RSS: http://rhizome.org/syndicate/


The first work Connor has unearthed is ?Zombie and Mummy¹ (2002), Dragan
³Drax² Espenschied (DE) and Olia Lialina¹s (RU) serial comic strip about two
ancient misfit-buddies looking for hobbies and meaning on the Internet and
elsewhere. Drax is also responsible for the epic design of ³Raiders of the
Lost ArtBase,² which is a vertically scrolling tour from the gif-strewn
cosmos to the seventh circle of ArtBase hell. ³Scrolling is good,² explains
Drax, ³because people need more exercise.²


Rhizome Exhibitions is a program begun in November 2004, which invites
international artists, curators, and writers to curate online exhibitions
from works in the ArtBase.


Member-curated Exhibits is a companion program also launched in November
2004, which allows Rhizome members to curate and interlink their own online
exhibits from works in the ArtBase, using a web-based curating tool. Links
to member-curated exhibits are interspersed throughout rhizome.org via
member pages and included artworks. As they are added, member-curated
exhibits will also appear here:


http://rhizome.org/art/member-curated/


FACT is a £11 million arts centre for artists¹ film, video, and New Media
that opened in Liverpool in 2003. Since that time, FACT Curator Michael
Connor has programmed a series of exhibitions, screenings, and online
programs that include ?Computing 101B¹, a major touring exhibition by artist
duo JODI.

For more information please contact:
Kevin McGarry, Rhizome.org
Phone: 212.219.1288 X220
Email: kevin AT rhizome.org

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2.

Date: 3.01.05
From: Kevin McGarry <kevin AT rhizome.org>
Subject: FW: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] DATA Browser 01


------ Forwarded Message
From: joasia <joasia AT I-DAT.ORG>
Reply-To: joasia <joasia AT I-DAT.ORG>
Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 14:53:21 +0000
To: NEW-MEDIA-CURATING AT JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] DATA Browser 01

--
The first book in the DATA Browser series:

ECONOMISING CULTURE: ON 'THE (DIGITAL) CULTURE INDUSTRY'

http://www.data-browser.net/01

contributors:
Carbon Defense League & Conglomco Media Conglomeration | Adam Chmielewski |
Jordan Crandall | Gameboyzz Orchestra | Marina Grzinic | Brian Holmes |
Margarete Jahrmann | Esther Leslie | Marysia Lewandowska & Neil Cummings
|Armin Medosch | Julian Priest & James Stevens | Raqs Media Collective |
Mirko Tobias Schäfer | Jeremy Valentine | The Yes Men

--
The interaction between culture and economy was famously explored by Theodor
Adorno and Max Horkheimer by the term 'Kulturindustrie' (The Culture
Industry) to describe the production of mass culture and power relations
between capitalist producers and mass consumers. Their account is a bleak
one, but one that appears to hold continuing relevance, despite being
written in 1944. Today, the pervasiveness of network technologies has
contributed to the further erosion of the rigid boundaries between high art,
mass culture and the economy, resulting in new kinds of cultural production
charged with contradictions. On the one hand, the culture industry appears
to allow for resistant strategies using digital technologies, but on the
other it operates in the service of capital in ever more complex ways. This
publication, the first in the series, uses the concept of the culture
industry as a point of departure, and tests its currency under new
conditions.

--
details:
Title: ECONOMISING CULTURE: ON ?THE (DIGITAL) CULTURE INDUSTRY¹
Authors: Various contributors, edited by Geoff Cox, Joasia Krysa, Anya Lewin
Publisher: Autonomedia (DATA browser 01) in association with i-DAT
Copyright 2004 (all texts released under a Creative Commons License)
ISBN 1-57027-168-2
Pages 256, Paper Perfectbound
Price $15

To order online visit:
<http://bookstore.autonomedia.org/index.cgi?cart_id=6878017.4706&pid=460>
Or
<http://www.data-browser.net/01/>

Distributed by Autonomedia (US) and Pluto Press (UK & Europe).


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Rhizome is now offering organizational subscriptions, memberships
purchased at the institutional level. These subscriptions allow
participants of an institution to access Rhizome's services without
having to purchase individual memberships. (Rhizome is also offering
subsidized memberships to qualifying institutions in poor or excluded
communities.) Please visit http://rhizome.org/info/org.php for more
information or contact Kevin McGarry at Kevin AT Rhizome.org or Rachel Greene
at Rachel AT Rhizome.org.

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3.

Date: 3.04.05
From: Michael Weisert <mike AT mweisert.com>
Subject: SWITCH Journal Issue 19 Released :: Call for Entries, Issue 20

[SWITCH JOURNAL ISSUE 19]

The CADRE Laboratory for New Media at San Jose State University is pleased
to announce the launch of SWITCH Issue 19. SWITCH is an online journal of
contemporary media culture.

SWITCH Issue 19: http://switch.sjsu.edu

Issue 19 Features:

- Interviews with Cory Arcangel, Alex Galloway, and Jim Campbell
- "The Body", by STELARC
- Coverage of the Silicon Valley Golf Classic
- An urban storefront art show in downtown San Jose at Phantom Galleries
- Projects from the Human Machine Interface Class at San Jose State
- Fear-Oriented Programming



[OPEN CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO SWITCH ISSUE 20]

In preparation for the upcoming 2006 ISEA International Symposium of
Electronic Arts, SWITCH will be exploring the themes of the upcoming
symposium, the first of which being transvergence. Transvergence as the
creation of new disciplines from a multidisciplinary model that becomes a
hybrid, or departure from its place of origin.

More information about "Transvergence" & ISEA 2006 can be found at
http://isea2006.sjsu.edu

We are seeking contributions in the form of papers, writing, artworks and
interviews that effectively approach, as well expand upon the understanding
of this topic.

Deadline for submissions is April 4th, 2005

All submissions and inquiries should be sent via email to
switch AT cadre.sjsu.edu

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Rhizome Member-curated Exhibits

http://rhizome.org/art/member-curated/

View online exhibits Rhizome members have curated from works in the ArtBase,
or learn how to create your own exhibit.

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4.

Date: 3.01.05
From: Kristina Maskarin <kristina_tina AT yahoo.com>
Subject: Net Art Competition:: Deadline: March 31, 2005

International (open to everyone) competition.
Projects that experiment with new forms of interdisciplinary collaboration
and user interactivity.

http://turbulence.org/comp_05/guidelines.htm

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5.

Date: 3.01.05
From: Kevin McGarry <kevin AT rhizome.org>
Subject: FW: [MARCEL-members] Internet2: Orchestrating the End of the
Internet?

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Jon Ippolito" <jippolito AT umit.maine.edu>
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 16:20:10 -0500
To: "Jon Ippolito" <jippolito AT umit.maine.edu>
Subject: [MARCEL-members] Internet2: Orchestrating the End of the
Internet?

Internet2: Orchestrating the End of the Internet?

Anyone who wonders how the Internet will die will find one possible scenario
in the recent decision by the Internet2 consortium to bring Hollywood into
the design process for our next-generation Internet.

Hollywood is on a roll. In a fraction of the time that it took the music
industry to emasculate Napster, the Motion Picture Association of America
has managed to shut down the highest profile file-sharing sites (Suprnova
and LokiTorrent) and begun
to sue its own share of college students. More importantly, the MPAA
recently persuaded Congress to legislate something their fellow lobbyists in
the music industry never managed to achieve: a copyright control device in
every player. By this July,
every DVD player and TiVo box will sniff for a "broadcast flag" that
prevents it from copying digital TV broadcasts. This hardware intervention
effectively destroys even the possibility of fair use, since artists and
educators cannot transform,
parody, or criticize what they cannot record.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is mounting a noble campaign to
grandfather a compliant tuner before the legislation takes effect [1]--but
in the meantime the MPAA has set its sights on its next acquisition: the
ultra-high bandwidth Internet2,
which runs on the 10 gigabit per second Abilene backbone:

"We've been working with Internet2 for a while to explore ways we can take
advantage of delivering content at these extremely high speeds, and
basically manage illegitimate content distribution at the same time," said
Chris Russell, the MPAA's vice
president of Internet standards and technology. "Those would go hand in
hand." [2]

To judge from the statements of Internet2 bigwigs, their technologists have
already capitulated before the battle has even begun:

"This wraps together the broad interest we have in working with our members
and potential members on advanced content delivery," said Internet2 Vice
President Gary Bachula. "Obviously we're interested in making sure that's
legal and safe." [2]

The presentations I've seen to date from the Internet2 consortium, from
music classes taught by "master" conductors [3] to biometric and
authentication applications for "managing identity" [4], suggest that
Internet2 is a broadcast organization in
network clothing. While it's doubtful that everyone at work on Internet2
shares this vision, the consortium's choice to "collaborate" with the MPAA
could give media conglomerates a chokehold on the 21st-century Internet.

The stated goal of this collaboration--to investigate new business models
for streaming movies--sounds reasonable until you read that Internet2 is
already capable of transmitting a DVD movie from Switzerland to Tokyo in
under 5 seconds. (Cut to Jack
Valenti choking on a bagel as he reads this in the morning paper. [5])

No Hollywood exec is going to sanction a business model that lets Joe User
download a movie onto a hard drive faster than the time it takes to launch
his Web browser. Forget streaming video on demand. Hell, that isn't even
enough time to watch a BMW
ad.

The technology behind Internet2 *breaks* anything remotely resembling a
broadcast business model, which is why the MPAA will do its best to disarm
the technology by installing Digital Rights Management directly in its
routers to stop interesting
content from ever getting into the pipeline.

Now, the idea of "intelligent routers" may sound appealing to the average
Congressperson, but the technologists of Internet2 should know better.
Internet 1 was able to adapt so quickly to new uses--from email to the Web
to IM--because its routers
are fundamentally *dumb*. As engineer David Reed and others argued in the
late 1970s [6], an indiscriminate "end-to-end" network would allow its users
to hook up ever faster and more capable computers to its endpoints, without
locking out uses that
the network's architects could not have foreseen. Broadway was built for
horse-drawn carriages, but since then its level pavement and wide footprint
has accommodated Model Ts and Toyotas--precisely because its architecture
was not optimized for
carriages. Even companies like Disney and Microsoft have publicly recognized
the importance of e2e to technological innovation. [7]

Yet David Reed already smelled a threat to the e2e paradigm back in 2000,
citing among other threats Hollywood's interest in streaming movies. In "The
End of the End-To-End Argument?," Reed imagined uses that could not be
foreseen by intelligent
routers, including "collaborative creative spaces":

"With broadband networks we are reaching the point where 'pickup' creation
is possible--where a group of people can create and work in a 'shared
workspace' that lets them communicate and interact in a rich environment
where each participant can
observe and use the work of others, just as if they were in the same
physical space." [8]

Reed's description of emergent collaborations bubbling across the network
like so many games of pickup basketball is a world apart from the stuffy
master classes of the Internet2 consortium. But it reads a lot like
Internet2's stepsister, the MARCEL
network of Access Grid communities [9]. If the "official" Internet2
consortium is a symphony orchestra in tails, the MARCEL network is a
makeshift performance troupe. Internet2 has 200 university and corporate
sponsors; MARCEL has a motley crew of
artsy scientists, network performers, and Jitter jocks. Internet2 uses
stable high-bandwidth videoconferencing for the privileged participants and
netcast for everyone else; MARCEL uses the rickety Access Grid platform,
which permits all users to
participate at the same level.

As MARCEL's Don Foresta has suggested, "efficient use of network resources"
will be the argument marshalled by the media conglomerates against creative
re-purposing of Internet2, just as the phrase was used justify the
commercialization of the
airwaves even if it contradicted the physics of electromagnetics. [10] (In
Italy fascist apologists vindicated Mussolini by boasting that the trains
ran on time.) Again, Reed saw this coming:

"The architects who would make the network intelligent are structuring the
network as if the dominant rich media communications will be fixed
bandwidth, isochronous streams, either broadcast from a central 'television
station' or point-to-point
between a pair of end users. These isochronous streams are implicitly (by
the design of the network's 'smart' architecture) granted privileges that
less isochronous streams are denied--priority for network resources." [8]

Privileges and networks don't make good bedfellows. For all its talk of
community and access, Internet2 seems to be offering a backwards-thinking
hierarchic model of culture, a sort of Great Performances meets Reality TV.
To be sure, MARCEL has
experimented with broadcast models as well, featuring gigs by luminaries
such as fractal mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot and Max/MSP inventor Miller
Puckette. But these admirable cameos don't reveal MARCEL's true potential;
that happens when three
students from different continents suddenly realize they are in the same
Access Grid "room," and begin trading Max patches or holding pen-and-paper
sketches up to the videocamera. In these quotidian, pickup
collaborations--as in the beguiling
video-composite performances Net Touch and Net Hope organized by Tim
Jackson's Synthops lab in Toronto [11]--high-bandwidth networks prove they
can be even *more* reciprocal than low-bandwidth networks. [12].

While MARCEL has for some time seemed a promising platform for the
interchange of ideas and networked art, only recently have I come to realize
that it can also serve a valuable tactical function. Like the EFF's efforts
to make room for legitimate
uses of digital TV recordings, MARCEL's creative community can develop and
showcase remixable network performances--both for their own sake as well as
to provide empirical evidence for future court cases to defend the value of
end-to-end networks.
[13] In so doing its members can promote the vision of a vibrant future for
the Internet--one that lets us all play onstage instead of admiring the
players from the balcony.

Jon

NOTES

[1] http://eff.org/broadcastflag/

[2]
http://news.com.com/MPAA+seeks+Internet2+tests%2C+P2P+monitor+role/2100-1026
_3-5458537.html

[3] http://www.nws.edu/NWS_internet2.asp?pg=NWS_internet2.asp

[4] http://www.campus-technology.com/print.asp?ID=10405

[5]
http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/Hearings/05122004hearing1265/Valenti1987
.htm

[6]
http://www.reed.com/dprframeweb/dprframe.asp?section=paper&fn=endofendtoend.
html

[7]
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200212/msg0005
3.html

[8]
http://www.reed.com/dprframeweb/dprframe.asp?section=paper&fn=endofendtoend.
html

[9] http://newmedia.umaine.edu/marcel/

[10] http://www.newamerica.net/Download_Docs/pdfs/Doc_File_143_1.pdf

[11] http://www.rcc.ryerson.ca/synthops/process.htm

[12] Theorist-gadfly Jean Baudrillard pointed out that reciprocality was the
key feature missing from Hans Magnus Enzensberger's definition of
emancipatory media.
http://www.calarts.edu/~bookchin/mediatheory/essays/19-baudrillard-03.pdf

[13] Cyberlaw guru Lawrence Lessig laments that a lack of empirical evidence
doomed his argument in Eldred v. Ashcroft.
http://www.authorama.com/free-culture-18.html


_______________________________________________
MARCEL-members mailing list
MARCEL-members AT wimbledon.ac.uk
http://wimbledon.ac.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/marcel-members

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6.

Date: 3.04.05
From: Philip Galanter <list AT philipgalanter.com>
Subject: Internet2: Orchestrating the End of the Internet?

A few days ago Jon Ippolito posted a sort of manifesto positing
Internet2 as a threat to the kind of internet artists and academics
would like to continue to use.

I know Jon a bit from my MARCEL involvement and elsewhere. Jon's a
really smart guy with a keen gift for deft rhetoric, and I am sure he
means well.

Unfortunately Jon's post invokes several basic misunderstandings of
the related technologies. These confusions are no mere technical
quibbles. They are fundamental to the central thesis that somehow
the Internet2 effort may bring about the death of the internet.

This couldn't be more wrong.

I'll let the basic facts, as corrected in the following, speak for
themselves.

>By this July, every DVD player and TiVo box will sniff for a
>"broadcast flag" that prevents it from copying digital TV
>broadcasts. This hardware intervention effectively destroys even the
>possibility of fair use, since artists and educators cannot
>transform, parody, or criticize what they cannot record.* The
>broadcast flag does not prevent making recordings for time shifting
>or other personal "fair use".

This is simply not true. There are hairs to be split, but basically
(1) the broadcast flag only applies to over-the-air broadcasts (not
cable, satellite, or internet streaming), and (2) it will not prevent
copying for fair use. For example, you will still be able to record
over-the-air broadcast TV shows at home for later use.

The broadcast flag system *will* prevent large scale redistribution,
i.e. massive piracy. But this has always been illegal...even in the
era of videotape.

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000717032165/

>The technology behind Internet2 *breaks* anything remotely
>resembling a broadcast business model, which is why the MPAA will do
>its best to disarm the technology by installing Digital Rights
>Management directly in its routers to stop interesting content from
>ever getting into the pipeline.

Again, this is simply not true. Router level digital rights
management is not being considered by any of the internet standards
bodies. It's not even over the horizon. However, the current
worldwide internet upgrade from IPv4 to IPv6 *does* make multicast an
intrinsic part of the protocol rather than an add-on. And multicast
is *exactly* the technology a broadcast model needs.

But multicast also benefits "the little guy" because in principle
independent artists will no longer have to pay for increased server
capacity as their audience grows. The shared network, rather than
the server, will distribute the stream to as many viewers as are
interested.

So if anything, "broadcast" related technical changes in Internet2
(and eventually other networks) will serve as a democratizing
equalizer.

And by the way, IPv6 multicast has *no* built-in Digital Rights
Management. None. And routers under IPv6 remain "dumb" contrary to
implications otherwise.

(As a footnote, multicast is also the enabling protocol technology
that makes the Access Grid, MARCEL's current platform of choice,
possible.)

http://www.tcpipguide.com/free/t_IPv6MulticastandAnycastAddressing.htm

>For all its talk of community and access, Internet2 seems to be
>offering a backwards-thinking hierarchic model of culture, a sort of
>Great Performances meets Reality TV.

Again...not true. Reasonable people can disagree when it comes to
matters of esthetic taste, but contrary to Jon's central thesis
Internet2 technology remains both content and application agnostic.

Elsewhere he mentions "privileged" isochronous channels. But
isochronous channels don't, and can't, even exist under either IPv4
or IPv6 or on either Internet2 or "internet1".

The ability to quickly create improvised collaborative groups was
recognized as being among the highest application priorities in the
earliest pre-planning of Internet2. Application level efforts such
as the Internet2 Commons, VRVS, and indeed the very Access Grid
technology that MARCEL depends on, are some of the fruit of this
early vision.

Today on Internet2 non-hiearchical social interaction isn't
speculation...it's already well established standard practice.

And when it comes to Internet2 *content* people are free to do what
they will. If one finds the current crop of artistic efforts to be
wanting the best, and entirely invited, response is to go out and
create something better.

To sum up, there is simply no factual basis for any Internet2 vrs
MARCEL conflict.

And I personally look forward to working further with both!

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7.

Date: 2.28.05
From: Trebor <trebor AT buffalo.edu>
Subject: Reflections on Schemas of New Media-Based Educational Models

Reflections on Schemas of New Media-Based Educational Models

Interview with Patrick Lichty (adjusted by Trebor Scholz)
As part of WebCamTalk1.0
http://www.newmediaeducation.org

Trebor Scholz: Who influenced your thinking about new-media art education?

Patrick Lichty: Henry Giroux's ideas on radical pedagogy influenced me a
great deal in terms of electronic communication in education. Although
Giroux has not addressed new media per se, his thoughts on radical pedagogy
as agent of social change have had an influence in terms of activist
writings and media tactics. In this day and age when our rights to free
speech are being imposed upon so badly, one must engage in media tactics in
order to get a full range of ideas across.

What we see in the current mass media is what I would call 'tactical
reality,' which is a highly subjective (or speculative), ideological form of
reality that gets replicated until it reaches a point of mass acceptance.
The question remains: Who shapes this information? Accuracy in reporting and
accountability might have evaporated a long time ago, but these issues
absolutely belong on the table of the new media educator. Earlier than any
work with groups like The Yes Men, I was a member of a subversive pedagogy
group called Haymarket Riot. My colleague Jon Epstein and I created
multimedia and a series of rock videos that dealt with postmodern sociology,
similar to the old 'Schoolhouse Rock' genre but with a hard industrial track
and 3D computer graphics. It had two purposesâ??- first, it was intended to
test our theories on multimodal learning in light of early 90s media
culture. And secondly, it got our message into the classroom. We distributed
the tapes widely across universities in the United States. A few students
remember the questions about technological determinism that we posed in
those tapes today. We just received feedback about these tapes a month ago
which was peculiar since the project had been dormant since1999.

Another crucial theoretical influence is the Brazilian philosopher Vilem
Flusser, who distinguishes discourse from dialogue. In my reading of Flusser
discourse is a unilateral transmission of information, hopefully building on
prior dialogues. Conversely, dialogue is a multilateral exchange of ideas.
Under this model, dialogue should generate more information and knowledge;
it is a seed generator and feedback machine. Through a more distributed/less
hierarchical exchange of information there is the possibility for greater
generation of ideas. Perhaps this is the principle behind the move from
lecturer to facilitator in academia.

TS: For some time now there has been an increased interest in notions of
self-institutionalization, so called anti-universities, and 'free
universities.' What can the self-contained institutional apparatus of the
university learn from these 'collaboratories'?

PL: From a conversation I had with Steve Dietz several years ago on new
terms for emerging cultural forms, I have liked to play off of Hakim Bey's
idea of the 'Temporary Autonomous Zone' in which individuals agree to create
a brief social compact for a common aim. In Beyâ??s case, it refers to
temporary communities like Burning Man, but in my conversation with Dietz
(the Temporary Autonomous Taxonomy) my thought was to create ad hoc
vocabularies for a given cultural situation for better understanding. I am
arguing for temporary intellectual zones spinning off Hakim Bay. In this
case, I am thinking of a 'Temporary Intellectual Zone' in which groups might
be able to create and exchange bodies of knowledge that can keep up with the
rapid change of technoculture. These zones can address niche cultures that
are so small that institutional organs like journals would not take notice.
I am arguing for media such as micro- or on-demand journals, and communal
electronic media like Wikipedia. These micro-institutions can manage rapidly
changing aspects of culture while maintaining some legitimating functions to
ensure the accuracy of their content.

In 'Speaking the Multimedia Culture' (University of Maryland, College Park;
1996) I have spoken about media literacy that encompass multiple channels of
media transmission/communication in which contemporary culture talks through
media and metaphors across many more channels of information than ever
before. Although this is not directly analogous to the Temporary
Intellectual Zone, one could translate this concept into the potential need
for expanded niche groups to address emerging social issues. At the same
time there is the danger to drown in a sea of information. The speed of
information creation and consumption could lead to a breakdown of the
ability to process it. At that point, the acceleration of cultural
production would perhaps lead to a form of â??information paralysisâ?? far
worse than what we witness already. Useful responses to this problem include
information filters such as news aggregators for RSS feeds.

TS: Do you think that the productive sites outside the university are
morphing faster than academia? A book in the academic publishing cycle, for
example, takes about two years to get published. Online you can insert your
contribution immediately into a peer-reviewed distributed debate.

PL: Absolutely. An unnerving aspect of culture is that the private sector
universities such as the University of Phoenix and Capella seem to be
pioneering much of the use of social software for learning, although much of
it simply relies on adapted news servers and Microsoft Outlook. Their
software is basic, but the systems under which they employ connectivity and
asynchronous learning have been developed by trial and error over a period
of years. The challenge in distributed learning is not technological but has
everything to do with the implementation into social systems.

As a related note, it is interesting to see the shift in pedagogy from
discursive to that of a team-centered learning facilitation approach. This
model follows a move from the hierarchical top-down approach to a more
distributed one in the classroom. This is another area where I am somewhat
uncertain, as the obvious influence of the private sector is obvious here,
but the team approach towards learning seems to have some real strengths. I
am curious about the long-term effects of this methodology.

http://www.uopxonline.com
http://www.capella.edu

There are other readily available technologies that can circumvent the usual
barriers of time and space so that students can get in contact with some of
the better thinkers of our time. For example, the use of a basic powerbook
and an iSight camera with a decent broadband connection allows for
conversation that was only available by teleconferencing before, and was not
feasible by webcam before. Products like this are not open source, and by no
means free, but at $125 for an iSight camera, one can get a lot of social
bandwidth. You can see and hear the person well, and it is easily
implemented-- it does not require an elite knowledge that technologies like
VR systems still require. However, the upper-end systems there are also
dropping in price. For example, an Access Grid node can be set up for less
than $25,000 using off-the-shelf parts. The Access Grid (AG) is an
open-source Internet 2 consortium of institutions, which have adopted a set
of multi-threaded audiovisual, and media net casting standards for
distributed information sharing.
In addition, there is an open-source Virtual Reality consortium called the
GeoWall that was originally based in Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
that is again using off-the-shelf resources to create more affordable
virtual reality resources. Here at Bowling Green State University, Gregory
Little and I are trying to develop distributed Virtual Reality environments
through which people will hopefully be able to collaborate. This will be
implemented by using common interfaces to examine sets of data, the most
common being terrains or avatar-based environments.

http://www.apple.com/
http://www.accessgrid.org
http://www.geowall.org
http://art.bgsu.edu/~glittle/ars

Some of the other powerful emerging cooperative technologies include
podcasting and text messaging. On a recent visit to the Cleveland Institute
of Art, I noticed that their broadcast video class is using a blog for the
development of ideas for projects and for the logging of progress. Blogging
technology is starting to be adopted in the classroom. Based on this the use
of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) news aggregators in combination with MP3
(and soon video, I am sure) attachments could create the ability to have
asynchronous models of lecturing for classes. In these models, the
aggregators could grab the media files, upload them to the userâ??s personal
media device, and then deliver the content, to which the student could
respond via the blog or forum. As an educational model podcasting is
relatively simple.

Texting and SMS are other media that look like good models for information
delivery. With urban legends in the media talking about kids texting on
their cell phones at speeds of up to 150 words per minute, they are rapidly
shooting a lot of information at each other. And while I was annoyed at
first when I saw it used by my students, I soon realized that if they are
using that social bandwidth so effectively then educators should bring it
into the classroom as well.

http://www.podcasting.net
http://www.engadget.com/entry/5843952395227141/
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/ptech/02/07/podcasting.ap/
http://www.lights.com/weblogs/rss.html

To sum up-- we are in a period of rapid technological change, and although I
am against technological determinism, I feel that educators need to be aware
and make use of the technological developments happening in the world of
their students. From the angle of knowledge creation, social networks as
generators of information and ideas have a lot of merit if there are models
in which the veracity of the information can somehow be maintained. The
question regarding the gatekeepers of knowledge then comes up vis-à-vis
authority and legitimacy of the information and who gets to regulate it. In
the classroom, the move from a top-down to a more horizontal /distributed,
facilitated form of learning seems to be increasingly accepted. I think the
most exciting part of network culture is the potential to get students
closer to relevant knowledge. There is much to consider and we are merely in
the process of sorting it out.

TS: Thank you for being with us today.

PL: Always my pleasure.


About:
Patrick Lichty is a technologically-based conceptual artist, writer,
independent curator, and Executive Editor of Intelligent Agent Magazine. He
has also collaborated as part of numerous collectives, including Terminal
Time, The Yes Men, Haymarket Riot, ScreenSavers, and others.

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8.

Date: 3.02.05
From: Reinhold Grether <Reinhold.Grether AT netzwissenschaft.de>
Subject: Interview with John Hopkins

Facilitating a Dialogical Platform for Creative Engagement

Interview with John Hopkins (adjusted by Trebor Scholz)
As part of WebCamTalk1.0
http://www.newmediaeducation.org

Trebor Scholz: You have taught all over the world: from Reykjavik and
Helsinki, to Bremen and Boulder. Working in between cultures you encountered
difficulties finding relevant reading materials in the native language,
which led you away from introducing texts and instead you started to focus
more on the creation of 'dialogical spaces.'
There is also the aspect of new media research texts most often being
authored and distributed in English, which comes with the danger of imposing
one cultural context onto others. In a previous conversation you said that
teaching without using much theory felt liberating to you.

John Hopkins: Yes, I would definitely use the word liberating. In 1992
when I founded the new media area at the Icelandic Academy of Art
there were no relevant texts available in Icelandic. And I hesitated to
assign foreign language readings as this felt imposing, imperialistic even.
Often I found my Nordic students to have a better command of English than my
Northern American ones -- so that was not the reason I shied away from texts
in English. But text governs so much of the hierarchy of control -- to toss
this out is a very powerful step. It frees the students up as well as myself
to get to their specific issues, which are relevant in relation to their
local context. A socially constructed framework such as a text may not speak
to the situation at hand despite the widespread perception that if a teacher
assigns a text that it must somehow be relevant to the student's life. Often
you just do not get to this situation of social, cultural, and geographical
relevance when you slog through a mass of critical texts. (But, just to be
clear, I do not want to devalue theory. It is one specific type of socially
mediated information. But if it appears as a prevailing input that forces
discovery into one single focus, then I am highly suspicious of it.)

While I do consume mediated information much of the time, I do give higher
value to the lived local experience. I could teach theory until I am blue in
the face as they say. But unless there is an associated and relevant praxis
arising, there would be no point. I did occasionally assign texts by Geert
Lovink or David Garcia, both of whom I find very inspirational. I also
introduced the first zkp4's* to American students hot off the press in 1997
and they surprisingly engaged with the texts. I have also been known to even
assign the UnaBomber Manifesto from time to time. But I find my teaching of
texts pointless unless it is on a pathway to a lived practice.

TS: Earlier we spoke about Martin Buber's influence on your work and how you
mobilize his ideas of dialogical space.

JH: I use the term dialogue", borrowed from Buber -- which I define as an
energized exchange between the self and the other. A bi-directional
exchange, not just verbal but a full exchange of human energies. This is
what dialogue is about.
Starting from this concept -- talking about distributed exchanges. Martin
Buber's essay "Genuine Dialogue and the Possibilities of Peace" deeply
struck me as it promotes dialogue as the pathway to a more democratic,
caring, just, and sustainable world. He proposes that societal changes are
made on a granular human to human level and not on a world political scale.
Otherwise, he claims, we are just playing around with social systems. My
personal idea of an energized encounter is a full-spectrum dialogue between
the self and the other. It requires a shifting into a space modeled by
quantum physics, Taoism, and Tibetan Buddhism: the universe as a field of
energies. When two people meet and they walk away with more energy than they
had prior to this encounter then something has happened. When we engage with
the other and an excess energy remains after we part-- that is inspiration.
My teaching is a facilitation of open frameworks, of platforms in which
these inspirations can grow. I am of course also sympathetic with Hakim
Bey's "Temporary Autonomous Zone."

With students I designate a time period -- between 6 hours to 24 hours --
in which they first experience each other and then use the available
networked technology to express themselves. I may give one student an hour
on a stream and they have to curate this time. This could be a poetry
reading by a friend or a live performance-- there is no set topical agenda
or issue that they respond to, it is entirely a response to their particular
local situation. This mostly also involves cooking and eating together. This
is very important. To break bread together is a powerful experience.

TS: Did you see much of this inspiration unfolding in the universities at
which you taught?

JH: A lot of full-time faculty get burned out, they lose energy, they are
under extremely high degrees of daily stress in a heavy power structure.
Thankfully, I can give 15 workshops in a row in different countries and I am
in the end still energized because I am open to receiving something --
through energized relationships. And that is because I kept myself open in
the teaching situation. Fortunately, I let go of the idea that I am the only
source of knowledge and energy, which is a great feeling.

TS: What you describe as inspiration coming out of an encounter. In his book
"The Third Hand" Charles Green referred to this as the "third body."

JH: Yes, there are many models for this and Christianity (among that host
of other models) formulates this when Christ says: "For where two or three
are gathered in my name, I am there among them." This merely describes the
excess of energy that arises when two or three people are in focused
engagement. Interaction between self and the other is fundamental -- it is a
fact of everyday life. I start all my courses with the task for students to
pair up and connect with each for two full hours in a focused and
concentrated way. I see this as an anchor with the topic being absolutely
open, it is an encounter with a stranger. It is simply two human beings
engaging with each other. Engaging with a stranger is of course related to
fear -- the uncomfortable engagement with the unknown other. Once you pay
attention to these face-to-face encounters then you have a much better
understanding of what happens in the mediated, extended, remote, disembodied
communication channels.

TS: Which open source software tools are you using?

JH: First, I seize whichever hardware is available and then I use software
such as iChat, IRC, Quicktime/Darwin servers, REAL servers, and Audion.
I don't exclusively use open source software but I do try to stay clear of
Microsoft products.

I refuse to let situations be crippled by a lack of hardware, or a
limited infrastructure. I don't walk into a situation and say: "Oh, no,
there is no streaming server, I can't do this project..." I always seize
what is available. I have problems with techno-prima-donnas who come in and
can't "do art" without this or that tool. We can always set up ad-hoc
networks -- all one needs for an artwork is two human beings. I never failed
to see a group of people to seize their resources and do something
interesting. I would never let the technology lead a situation -- that, to
me, is a proven concept. Technology needs to follow the human elements and
not the other way around. As somebody who comes from deep inside the
military industrial complex I have seen the dangers of letting technology
lead. We have all seen those results. When has there have ever been
something good that came out of a situation where technology led people?
Frankly, I could not think of an example. It is critical that people
understand that tools mediate human situations and that we understand the
loss that comes from this mediating process between the self and other.
The more there is a technological mediation between self and other -- the
bigger the loss. That is something that is not often addressed in depth. On
the other hand I use technology that allows a focused and attentive exchange
with an other person. Of course the degree to which people can put up with
telecommunication tools varies. Some person accepts this kind of loss on a
cell phone but would be critical of the connective possibilities of video
conferencing.

TS: Earlier you framed your networked practice as art. I am not so
interested in grouping the discussion in art or non-art terms. This debate
all too often leads to attempted definitions that then stand in as power
tools for admittance or exclusion. But I am curious about the emergence of a
social aesthetics in the technological channels that we use and I wonder if
this can be related to histories of that-- of art.

JH: I had a career in science and technology and only then made a formal
transition to art. I personally try to shed terms like artist or engineer. I
refuse titles. If anything, I would use the term networker. People who are
networkers seem to be a little more able to let go of those kinds of
frameworks and can imagine what other people's contexts are like. Who is
this other person in the network -- what are they about? How can I express
empathy for that person? Exchanges here become extremely subjective. All
these identities are transitory -- in my practice I do not label people but
rather discover them dynamically while engaging with them, not defining them
by their social standing or rank. This opens up more possibilities for truly
human interactions. The rewards are much greater than the costs. You may
irritate people when you refuse a label like "artist." They may even get
desperate -- they will do anything to put you in some kind of box. So, art,
engineering, science, technology-- these are all important areas that I move
across but I found that dropping a reliance on those terms and boxes is
necessary to crack situations open.


References:

John Hopkin's Bookmarks:
http://neoscenes.net/links/bookmarks.html

Teaching
http://neoscenes.net/hyper-text/text/teachphil.html

zkp4's
http://www.ljudmila.org/nettime/zkp4/toc.htm

Tools:
http://www.panic.com/audion/download.html


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9.

Date: 2.24.05-3.03.05
From: Jason Van Anden <jason AT smileproject.com>, "t.whid" <twhid AT twhid.com>,
"Marisa S. Olson" <artstarrecords AT yahoo.com>, <joy.garnett AT gmail.com>,
atomic elroy <atomicelroy AT mac.com>, Jo-Anne Green <jo AT turbulence.org>
Subject: American Artstar


Jason Van Anden <jason AT smileproject.com> posted:

I searched Google this morning looking for online commentary about the
upcoming (US) reality TV show "Artstar". For those of you who have not
already quit your day job - I refer you to: www.artstar.tv . The week long
open call starts next Monday - picture a long line of bohemian-types smoking
and shivering in the cold as they wait to have their life's work
ambivalently pecked over by some very well dressed art world dignitaries,
Jeffrey Deitch cast in the role of Simon Cowell (or "The Donald"? I dunno,
I just read about TV). I envision something like a living "A Chorus Line"
but with artists - or "Who Wants to Marry A Millionaire" but with artists -
or something.

My search revealed that our very own t.whid was the only artist in with a
blog brave enough to publicly express a mix of skepticsm and disgust. I am
pretty sure we will hear a more about this next week - albeit after the
cutting begins - links follow.

Good Luck!
Jason Van Anden

MTAA blog entry:
http://www.mteww.com/mtaaRR/news/twhid/re_artstar_tv.html

Google "artstar.tv":
http://www.google.com/search?q=artstar.tv

Clay Aiken:
http://www.delafont.com/music_acts/clay-aiken.htm

Whatever happened to "Draw Tippy"?
http://www.google.com/search?q=Draw+Tippy

+ + +

"t.whid" <twhid AT twhid.com> replied:

if yer interested...

index of all my artstar ramblings and rantings here (only 3):

http://www.mteww.com/mtaaRR/index.find?find=artstar&plugin=find

plus m.river's take:

http://www.mteww.com/mtaaRR/news/mriver/m_river_art_star.html

+ + +

"Marisa S. Olson" <artstarrecords AT yahoo.com> replied:

Hey, all. I actually find this whole debate an
interesting one, and it covers some of the topics I've
tried to address in my own work and in my curatorial
efforts. (I feel smarmy giving links, but ask me if
you want them.)

Reading TWhid's blog entry, below, I feel compelled to
ask (of him or anyone here who cares) what comprises
this "fine line" between the two extremes of "good Pop
Art and a sickening psychophantical homage to the
dominant media culture"..? And must all art that
appropriates the form and/or content of popular media
fall into one or the other of these extreme
categories?

Where does parody fit in, because to me, for something
to be truly successful, on a parodic level, it has to
be highly imitative--and, hence, to some degree,
reverent, even if only in the sense of (let's say)
what Jameson calls "nostalgia films," which are not
necessarily acting in praise... To me, it is this act
of shadowing (miming, resulting directly from, yet in
contrast and however shape-shifted) that best affords
the opportunity for critique. Admittedly, it is sort
of an act of relinquishing some of the sense of
"value" implied in models of authority (read:
authorship), in order to sort of free one's speech, ie
to protest.

But anyway. I also wonder how TWhid (& MRiver) would
situate their 1 year performance project re: reality
tv--and if they see similarities, then have they given
us "good Pop Art [or] a sickening psychophantical
homage to the dominant media culture"? ;)

Marisa


+ + +

Jason Van Anden replied:

Hi Marisa,

Do you think Artstar is parody?

MO>(I feel smarmy giving links, but ask me if you want them.)

Please do. I am glad that I found the American Idol Audition Blog. (took a
quick look for now, plan to revist when I have more time) Other links would
be super appreciated.

Jason Van Anden

+ + +

twhid replied:

Hi Marisa,

reply here:
http://www.mteww.com/mtaaRR/news/twhid/yet_even_more_artstar_tv.html

and below. Take care :)

+++++
>MO:
I feel compelled to ask (of him or anyone here who cares) what
comprises this ³fine line² between the two extremes of ³good Pop Art
and a sickening psychophantical [sic] homage to the dominant media
culture²..? And must all art that appropriates the form and/or content
of popular media fall into one or the other of these extreme
categories?

>TW:
(As soon as I saw my words quoted back at me I thought,
³Psychophantical? That¹s not how you spell sycophantical.²)

>MO:
Where does parody fit in, because to me, for something to be truly
successful, on a parodic level, it has to be highly imitative?and,
hence, to some degree, reverent, even if only in the sense of (let¹s
say) what Jameson calls ³nostalgia films,² which are not necessarily
acting in praise? To me, it is this act of shadowing (miming, resulting
directly from, yet in contrast and however shape-shifted) that best
affords the opportunity for critique. Admittedly, it is sort of an act
of relinquishing some of the sense of ³value² implied in models of
authority (read: authorship), in order to sort of free one¹s speech, ie
to protest.

>TW:
What comprises the fine line? I don¹t know, but I know it when I see
it. Parody, it seems to me, is neither Pop Art or ?sickening¹
sycophancy. Good Pop Art doesn¹t seem like straight-up parody to me as
it¹s critique isn¹t as implicit. You¹re not quite sure if Warhol is
critiquing popular culture or celebrating it. His best pieces (and his
life) seem to have a conceptual shimmer. One is unsure of his
intentions. Nonetheless there always seems to be a critical text in
there somewhere? it¹s just hard to pin down sometimes.

I don¹t think Artstar.tv is intended to be a parody. Perhaps I¹m wrong.
It also doesn¹t seem to be intended as Pop art. It just seems to be a
regular ole reality TV show (which btw will air on the Zoom
hi-definition satellite network) using reality TV conventions and
grafting them onto the art world. This is only speculation, but there
doesn¹t seem to be a critical text or sub-text in sight.

>MO:
But anyway. I also wonder how TWhid (& MRiver) would situate their 1
year performance project re: reality tv?and if they see similarities,
then have they given us ³good Pop Art [or] a sickening psychophantical
homage to the dominant media culture²? ;)

>TW:
1YPV doesn¹t have anything to do with reality TV or Pop art IMO. Since
reality TV is so heavily edited there isn¹t really any formal
connection. The closest thing it comes to is the 24/7 web-cams that Big
Brother used to have online.

Thanks for the discussion Marisa!

+ + +

joy.garnett AT gmail.com added:

here:

http://www.deitch.com/projects/sub.php?projId=156

+ + +

twhid added:

I need to add,

I see why Marisa is interested in these questions due to her American
Idol project (http://americanidolauditiontraining.blogs.com/marisa/).

Her project seems to walk this line. One is unsure if the project is
parody or serious.

I think it would be interesting to see other artists explore the
reality TV phenomenon from the inside and critically. It's a rich area
of popular culture to explore without a doubt.

(I could be talking completely out of my ass, but) I don't see any
evidence that the producers of artstar.tv are attempting to explore
this area critically. They simply wish to provide a keyhole for viewers
to peek through at a particular aspect of the art world and probably
humiliate a few people along the way.

+ + +

Marisa S. Olson replied:

Wow. Good to wake up (West Coast!) to this discussion.
Thanks to Jason, TWhid, Joy, et al.

I should back up and say that I do not know whether
the artstar.tv folks intend their project as a parody,
and in my heart i doubt that they do, though I don't
know.

What I meant to do, in raising the question of parody
was to sort of unpack or problematize what TWhid said
about everything falling into the two extremes of
great pop art vs a "sickening sycophantical homage to
the dominant media culture,? with only a fine (and
heretofore undefined) line dividing them. I'm selfish.
as the creator of a parody spun out of reality TV, I
wanted to know where my work fell on that weighty
continuum.

But, in a larger sense, I wanted to know where parody
could be accommodated, in this model. To me, parody is
an extremely important act, offering great potential
for protest.

I won't launch into too much of a quotefest, here, but
when I was doing my own personal research on the
theory of parody, in the course of my American Idol
project, I came across this comment by Linda Hutcheon
that really resonated with me:

"[W]hat we find in post-modernism is a form of art
that is complicitous with the cultural dominants of
our age [but] still wishes to retain its right to
criticize that culture. That paradoxical politics of
being complicitous but critical is characteristic of
all forms of post-modernism." (Linda Hutcheon, in an
interview with Joseph Pivato, Aurora Online 2001, 20
May 2004
http://aurora.icaap.org/archive/hutcheon.html)

I think TWhid's model speaks to this paradoxicality,
but I think that his "fine line" is worth
defining--and manipulating. Artstar.tv may not be
worthy of inspiring this discussion (actually, I kind
of like the idea, though when several friends
suggested I audition I declined), but it is a
discussion worth having, nonetheless.

I truly think that, ultimately, in order to make room
for parody in this paradox of critique vs
participation, we will need to shift some of our basic
(capitalist) ideas about what an author is, what a
work is, and what the 'market' (and, more so, economy)
for that work is...

Marisa

+ + +

Marisa S. Olson added:

P.S...

Jason Van Anden:
> MO>(I feel smarmy giving links, but ask me if you
> want them.)
>
> Please do. I am glad that I found the American Idol
> Audition Blog. (took a quick look for now, plan to
> revist when I have more time) Other links would be
> super appreciated.

Yes, TWhid linked to my AI project:

And then, on a curatorial level, I would point mostly
to the show POP_Remix, at SF Camerawork, last
May-June. This is the only documentation currently
online:

http://www.sfcamerawork.org/past_exhibits/pop_remix.html

and

http://www.sfcamerawork.org/journals/spring_04.html

Best,
marisa

+ + +

Jason Van Anden added:

Thanks for the links. I checked them out, as well as your American Idol
blog in more detail. I am now even more curious about where you feel parody
fits in with artstar.

Marisa Olson wrote:
>Where does parody fit in, because to me, for something
to be truly successful, on a parodic level, it has to
be highly imitative...

Best,
Jason Van Anden

+ + +

Jason Van Anden <jason AT smileproject.com> added:

I agree with Marisa that artstar most likely does not merit too deep a
discussion - except in the context of parody.

I have a bunch of thoughts about this as well as her very interesting
comments about the fine line between critique and participation.

Too little time to pursue the latter at the moment - but in the interest of
keeping this discussion alive, here's a few questions that are raised for me
if we understand artstar as parody:

What is it a parody of?
Who is the artist and who is the market?

+ + +

atomic elroy <atomicelroy AT mac.com> added:

hi y'all!

could this ( artstar.tv) perhaps be nothing more that a publicity stunt by
Deitch?
albeit with a certain benefit to the "winning artist".

or perhaps just another chance to delve into pedantic ambiguity?

AE05.

+ + +

t.whid added:

Hi all,

new development in the artstar.tv area:

http://www.mteww.com/mtaaRR/news/twhid/maybe_notstar_tv.html

+ + +

Jason Van Anden added:

It's started shooting at any rate ...

Note the big photo of artist-clown (online at least).

Nice quote from Jeffery Deitch about how pathetic artists have become.

t.whid quoted as skeptic on same page.

Reality newspaper:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/02/arts/television/02reality.html?8hpib

Jason Van Anden

+ + +

Jo-Anne Green <jo AT turbulence.org> added:

http://www.test.org.uk/archives/002373.html

+ + +

Jason Van Anden added:

Was everyone else on line last Monday?

Jo-Anne Green wrote:
http://www.test.org.uk/archives/002373.html

This appears to suggest that Artstar might not be exploitive because Kartoon
Kings are involved. Of the cast of characters (listed below) it seems that
they would be the only artists in the pecking order that have an opportunity
to "wrest control of the artworld's economic hierarchy" - kinda.

Artstar Pecking Order:
1.) Collectors with $ to burn who also watch TV
2.) Deitch Projects
3.) Kartoon Kings
4.) Artists (non-self respecting, clearly not from 70's)

Why not have an art realty tv show loosely based on "Joe Millionaire" where
out of a pool of eligible gallery directors one will be selected for a
chance to marry an incredibly wealthy collector?

Self-respecting artists of the 00s unite!

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10.

Date: 3.02.05-3.04.05
From: Matthew Mascotte <mascotte AT mac.com>, Jason Van Anden
<jason AT smileproject.com>, Kevin Hamilton <kham AT uiuc.edu>, ryan griffis
<grifray AT yahoo.com>, Anthony Craig Drennen <adrennen AT scad.edu>, nathaniel
hitchcock <redredshoes AT popstar.com>
Subject: Pod Pals (IN Network)

Matthew Mascotte <mascotte AT mac.com> posted:

i'm wondering where the Pod Pals project fits into the
overall scheme of things. ok, the project calls attention
to the importance of digital gear in our daily lives
and is utilizing popular modes of connectivity (podcasts,
inNetworks, etc) but is the material recently haked from
Ms. Hilton's cell phone Art? As significant (and cool) as Mandiberg
and Steinmetz are what is it about their upcoming moblog/podcast
and emails that is important? What exaclty are we being
asked to contemplate here? Not the content of the
project (nothing has been made yet really) and as far as the
conceptual plan is concerned I don't see how what they're doing is
unique.

Matthew

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Jason Van Anden <jason AT smileproject.com> replied:

Why do you ask?

J

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Matthew Mascotte replied:

ivan-

I see no difference in how the project is being
established and all the other moblogs/podcasts
out there both in terms of content and concept.
i'm questioning why pod pals has been
elevated to the status of art... Turbulence funding
and a Net Art News review is what I mean by important it
has been contextualized into the Art scene before its
even happened and as far as i can tell its gonna
operate just like a mom and pop blog.

A running critique throughout the project's run
(especially a formalist one) would be very interesting indeed...
I'm game if you are.

respects,

Matthew

On Wednesday, March 02, 2005, at 04:24PM, Ivan Pope <ivan AT ivanpope.com>
wrote:

>Is this a question you always ask about art, or does this bother you
> for some reason? Why does it have to be 'important'? Why do you think
> we are being asked to 'contemplate'?
>We can do an online crit if you like, might be fun?
>Cheers,
>Ivan

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Kevin Hamilton <kham AT uiuc.edu> replied:

Ivan and Matthew

I agree that this piece might serve well as a starting point for critique -
only I would ask not "How is this art?" but "How is this unlike commerce?"

I'm curious about how exactly this work will differ from the dreams of
telepresence marketed by the telecom industry. Is 24-7 telepresent
connection the pure fulfillment of these dreams, or, like Marinetti's car
crashed in the ditch, an absurd manifestation that reveals their inevitable
failure?

>From the proposal and description, I suspect that it's more the former than
the latter - though even with Marinetti it's hard to tell. The project could
perhaps learn a bit from Tehching Hsieh and Linda Montano, who lived
together for a year tied by a short rope. (I always heard that they ended up
requiring legal mediation.) There is plenty sinister in companionship, and
plenty of obstacles to connection in even the clearest line.

I'll be following with interest.

Kevin Hamilton

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ryan griffis <grifray AT yahoo.com> replied:

Ricardo Miranda Zuniga's "virtual landscape" is another, much less
techno-utopian (yet more theatrical), exploration of the long-distance
relationship caused by the required mobility of the culture industry.
http://www.ambriente.com/net/mount/mount.html
Of course, the techno-utopianism of IN Network is part of its subject
matter, the perceived lack of options requiring complete subservience
to the IT order. it's "you've got mail" hyper updated to account for
the dream/nightmare of 24hr connectedness/separation. it allows them to
be "together" only by forcing them to be apart. the family-plan gives
the illusion that distance is really closeness.
Or as AT&T predicted/ordered, "You will."
http://ad-rag.com/114815.php
if only shulgin's fuck-you-fuck-me device had been made commercial...
http://www.fu-fme.com/

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Anthony Craig Drennen <adrennen AT scad.edu> replied:

Matthew,
I think I agree with you as to the significance of Pod Pals project. It is
ostensively presented--if I understand it correctly--as technological
application that blurs the boundaries between "art" and "life." I think
it's just as likely that the opposite is true, that the perpetual blurring
of art and life (yawn) is simply a pretext to support and legitamize new
technology products. The intent seems to be a rhapsodic mediation on
presence and absence...in the life of middle management academics. Actually
I like it better now....
Anthony Craig

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nathaniel hitchcock <redredshoes AT popstar.com> replied:

i dont think that it is about thier connectivity with each other through
technology.
when they project thier personas into this space, thier personalities are
skewed even when they had known eachother as long as they did. it is like
the natural space skewing the contiousness of the supernatural. the
hyperspace is skewing the contiousness of the natural, or maybe vice versa.

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Matthew Mascotte replied:

We can find a multitude of ways to contextualize
and discuss the inNetwork project and I think there has
already been some interesting ideas. Joe-Ann Green's
recent link to test.org regarding ArtStar has
yielded one...after poking around there i found an interesting
post called "Are You Awake Are You in Love" (which, if you've
been following inNetwork content is an apt title)...the piece
looks at three projects that utilize mobile technologies
and suggests among other things that "the production and
consumption of an artwork can be reduced to the same act."
http://www.test.org.uk/archives/000612.html


In decribing ROSEN (Real-time Online Sound Environment Network)
Brian Lee Yung Rowe states "it becomes necessary to consider
existence as occupying more than just space and time; it now also
includes virtual space." http://muxspace.com/brooding/rosen/

If virtual space is a component of human existence/a
dimension of reality then when will it be time to turn our attention
to what is being made there as opposed to a fascination with simply
using the infrastructure? This is where Mandiberg and Steinmetz's
project falls apart for me.

Yesterday there were a total of 9 posts made to inNetwork: 2 photos,
3 podcasts and 4 text messages...hardly a feast for my eyes and ears
and brain to chew on in any space-time continuum.

respects,

matthew

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