HI Curt
as usual, thoughtful, smart &, by implication,
massively tendentious. But tendentious in a way that
appeals to me, so I'll answer it.
Despite the evident disadvantage of my East European
background my work is pretty much an
irony/telematic/simulacrum free zone ( although I have
recently succumbed to a surveillance cam, albeit one
from the Edenic suburb of my youth,schooling & first
girlfriend &c), except perhaps it might occasionally
rise to irony as much as I might be so in
conversation.
I'd be happy for folk to see all my work. I try to be
transparent in it, to show people who are interested
what it's like to be me. I trust that things are
connected up enough for my worm's eye view to have
some relatively universal resonance. That, in my view,
is the wager you make when you presume to make "art".
The nicest thing anyone ever said about my work is
when Edward Picot wrote in a catalogue essay that my <
work showed in a small way what it's like to be a
human being>, or words to that effect.
When I make pieces about my late father there's no
double, or ironic intention -I do it because he was a
magnificent & singular human being & I loved him.
If I choose to engage with nature, it's because even
in the 21st century the cherry tree in my garden or a
walk up to Higger Tor

http://images.google.co.uk/images?svnum&hl=en&lr=&q=higger+tor

still does it for me. Nature, beauty, love are not
cliches or outworn for me, but important facets of my
experience & things I would pity the person who lived
without.
On the other hand, I'm trying hard these days not to
*rush* to judgement & I've changed my mind on a number
of things - I appreciate that *my* way is not
everyones & that there are an extraordinary number of
paths to truth & beauty, some of them quite
difficult..
warmest wishes
michael








— Curt Cloninger <curt@lab404.com> wrote:

> Hi everybody,
>
> I'm doing a graduate school residency this summer in
> Maine. I will
> rent a room from a family there. I talked with the
> wife on the
> phone, and they required a reference, which I
> supplied. They also
> asked if I could send them something that would act
> as a
> self-reference. I immediately thought of this John
> Ruskin quote:
>
> "Great nations write their autobiographies in three
> manuscripts, the
> book of their deeds, the book of their words, and
> the book of their
> art. Not one of these books can be understood
> unless we read the two
> others, but of the three the only trustworthy one is
> the last."
>
> It got me thinking about mediated identity, which
> has so much to do
> with net art. Not that all net art need be
> autobiographical, but I r
> ealized that merely sending them a link to one of my
> analytical
> essays or to one of my experimental artworks would
> not necessarily
> assure them that I was a safe bet to sleep in the
> same house with
> their daughter.
>
> In an era where the idea of "true self" has been
> systematically
> discredited, a lot of net art ostensibly about
> identity is actually
> about in-identity. I could see me telling this
> couple, "Yeah, I did
> this net art project a while back where I posted
> online as 'Jennifer'
> even though my name is really 'Alan', just to see
> how it would make
> me feel."
>
> Here's what I sent them:
> http://www.lab404.com/video/where_are_your_eyes.html
>
>
http://www.lab404.com/audio/no_one_knows/your_beauty_fills_my_eyes.mp3
>
http://pastemagazine.com/action/article?article_idx3
>
> I'd be curious to see other people's best guess
> mediated
> representations of what they consider to be their
> true selves. Don't
> pretend you're trying to get work into an eastern
> eurpoean exhibit on
> the telematic embrace of the simulacrum. Pretend
> you're trying to
> convince a family who doesn't know you to let you
> live in their house
> for the summer.
>
> This is your mission, should you choose to accept
> it.
>
> yours truly,
> curt
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