Last week RHIZOME and The Kitchen presented the second DIGITAL DESSERTS,
an evening of net art, conversation, and damn fine cookies. Invited
guests Mark River and Tim Whidden posted the following report.

+ + +

Mark River:

Brief thoughts about last Fri night in NYC…it began with Rachel and
Mark going into the RHIZOME site–What it is–How it works–etc. They
spoke about the Web Stalker and Lialina's last will and testament site,
and other sites. Eugene Thacker presented the Techne site
(http://gsa.rutgers.edu/maldoror/techne). It is a wonderful site. Clean
and beautiful in its design and smart in its content. He brought up the
relation of the "physical" space and the online space (think fakeshop
etc.) Twhid and I went into the http:mteww.com site with a slant to work
that we have pounded out using RHIZOME as a platform (DYHAP [Direct to
Your Home Art Project] and V-TAV). We also had a brief commencement
ceremony for the first 6 or 7 grads of the SoCC (3 of which were in the
house).

One thing I was surprised by was Eugene's use of the phrase "Call and
Response" I think I've seen Murph use it before but Twhid and I always
thought it was a uncommon phrase (we picked it up in relation to
Brazilian Drum calls and started using it to explain to each other the
relation of audience interactivity in our web projects). Anyone else run
across this before? Anyway…"a good time was had by all"…any thoughts
TWhid?

Tim Whidden added:

sure, "call and response" is also used to explain a lot of
african-american music, Ray Charles' "What I Say?' (is that the name,
please correct me if i'm wrong) is the perfect example of call and
response in action. as well as lots and lots of hip-hop.

much net.art uses this as a strategy of working: Kogo at the candy
factory, fakeshop in their cu-seeme performances, and peppermint's
Conductor #1. (hint:search RHIZOME for more info and urls.)

interaction is the name of the game when it comes to net.art as far as
i'm concerned, it makes perfect sense to create pieces that aren't
completed until the audience takes part. and the call and response
strategy is an old and i think very vital artistic form.

there were some technical glitches (to be expected i guess) and the
treats were scrumptious.

any nyc RHIZOMErs there that want to give their thoughts on the evening?

in closing i want to say that i think vuk cosic is a kick-ass net.artist!

+ + +

In reply to Whidden and Thacker's interest in "call and response,"
Robbin Murphy added:

Call and response describes certain internet protocols: http is a call
to another server to send a response. I don't know where it comes from
but there were various Artists Calls over the years including the
Artists Call to End the War in Vietnam. There was a group called Four
Walls that held one night exhibitions by sending out calls for
participation, exhibiting whatever came. The current exhibit at
Postmasters is another–and these days rare–example. We did this to
some extent with PORT at MIT. Instead of starting out with a list of
work or artists who should be in the exhibit, we issued a Call over the
net for projects. Though we then had to choose among the responses due
to the constraints of the exhibition many of them were basically Call
and Response. On the Internet there was Alexei Shulgin's "Desktop IS"
and many others. I think the essential aspect of Call and Response is
the willingness to let it be as auto-curating as possible. Within stated
parameters whatever comes in is in. Also, the Call should be issued as
widely as possible and the result should be ephemeral but should also be
documented.

I'm not sure I would call this interactivity because interaction is a
matter of granularity and how much one element is able to significantly
change the whole. It isn't just providing optional narratives like
hypertext novels or interactive games. I think interactivity is
over-rated and is often an excuse to get other people to do the work
(usually for free). Call and Response to me doesn't complete a work but
creates the work.