In a previous text object, Robert Atkins wrote:

…Artists working as businesspeople is a time-honored conceptualist
strategy from *at least* the late sixties (think Les Levine's
Candadian-Kosher Restaurant) or Iain Baxter's NEThing Co in Vancouver.
So we must be in neo-conceptualist generation 4 by this time…

Barry Marks:

Artists, like everyone else, need to survive.This did not start in the
sixties, it has been a reality since cave painting and probably before.
At times, it seems that some business people are more creative than
artists. "The Arts" is one of the biggest supporters of the Internet and
certainly has alot to do with it's continued growth. How long this will
continue is anyone's guess. What I have been wondering about is: do we
need manifestos still? "So we must be in neo-conceptualist generation 4
by this time." Does everything need a lable, still? Do I have to be a
conservative or a liberal, a Democrat, an Anarchist, or a Republican? Am
I an artist, or a geek?

honoria wrote:

"Am I an artist, or a geek?"

I am a secretary.
I am a mail artist.
I have a Master's degree in instructional technology.
I have been making the first cyberopera for 3 years now combining the
values and joy of mail art with new media contacts. Combo-networking.

I am so very very very happy.
but I have a very low salary :-(
and very high art levels :-)
never knowing how to effectively combine technical and art WITH
income?????

I am an artist, a geek and a bouyantbump on on the pontoon bridge to the
21st.. . . bobbin along, (still reading books too)

Robert Atkins replied to Barry Marks:

You missed my point. Les Levine and Iain Baxter did those projects *as*
artworks, not as day jobs to support their art or pay the rent. They,in
fact, doubtless lost money on them. As for "labelling" you seem to have
a problem with language. To call Rudy G. a Republican is simply a
description. And obviously some descriptions are better than others,
depending on the skill and acuity of the describer.