In "<a href="/cgi-local/query.cgi?action=grab_object&kt=kt0483">Representing
ISEA97</a>" [RHIZOME CONTENTBASE, 3.2.97] Pit Schultz wrote:

"You can put up your own server, which can get as many clicks as
MSN.com."

Really? And how much does a server cost? And how much does it cost to
keep it on-line? And how will I let people get access to it once the
'digital gateway' (in these islands at least) is guarded by the man
Murdoch? And will this not mean that the "model of representation,
applied in minority politics [which] is based on the logic of Television
and other broadcast media" will not invade digital environments once the
'logic of Television' and the current modes of digital distribution
converge? And how is the ISEA offering free server space different from
them offering free tickets?

Is this not the problem with the Utopianism inherent in the 'rhizome'
model anyway? - Deleuze & Guattari seem to have offered the perfect
model that allows our cosseted, techo-abundant western culture to
assuage our guilt by imagining that we're all de-centered whilst the
bucks pile up on our desktops. Yeah…of course we're working within a
'rhizome', that's why I can never find any addresses from the main
search engines I use that actually exist outside the States. It would
seem that vegetal growth grafts best onto American soil…

The ISEA should be applauded for realising that whilst the 'rhizome'
model is fine for most of us, giving free places to those that genuinely
can't afford it is a pragmatic way of opening up the debate - claiming
that it's patronising charity is an accurate, but misplaced criticism.

Yet more in-fighting within the left/liberal clan…there are bigger
fish to fry than the ISEA.