Eryk:

>But Rhizome as "Art Project" certainly does bother me; especially if >it is
>considered Mark Tribes art project because he facilitated dialogue

Yeah, Rhizome always seemed strange to me, and after reading some Deleuze &
Guattari it always seemed to mimic a traditional company w/ a board of
directors, centralized artbase + cast of regulars rather than a
decentralized applet for new media art. I was always bugged by the fact
that I had to "sign in" and that it read more like the NYTimes than anything
else. It's like I was reading headlines about what was happening in the new
media art world "out there" than actually being a part of it. But maybe
this was what they were going for, really legitimizing things using this
format.

There was some interesting stuff happening w/ the Rhizome club nights at FUN
and other venues (i think set up by Soundlab folk?) but there was never any
dialogue btwn participants, and they had guest dj's "scratching" the
participants work (a common idea of mixing the participants, but when your
work is being "mixed" by the guest dj then it's less than a fun, or ideal,
place to showcase something you've worked on).

Rhizome.la was weird b/c it was run by only one person (!) who did it in her
spare time, but there were some great lectures and presentations.

But it takes 2 to tango, so if MT says rhizome is social sculpture and we're
all like: "okay…sure….whatever" then it doesn't get much further than
that.

Anyway, my friend groiss from vienna gave me a great demonstration of what
he thought Rhizome to be: he clasped both hands together into a tight ball,
looked at me, laughed, and said "rhizome"

Tim