In reply to Pit Schultz's "<a href="/cgi-local/query.cgi?action=grab_object&kt=kt0880">net.gain</a>," Mark Tribe wrote:

hey pit,

it's taken me a little while to digest your comments.

first, i think your critique is very intelligent, and appreciate your
subtlety & agility.

stockobjects is set up so that it can contain just about any kind of
digital art object – that is, any modular fragment that can be re-used
as a design element. as a laissez faire market system, the consumer will
indeed decide what to buy, and thus who gets rewarded financially. but
people can send in objects that come from a space that isn't determined
by consumer taste(s), and these objects can be purchased and re-used by
people doing non-commercial recombinant things.

as i think about this, about why it's interesting and productive to
create a free market space for digital objects, i'm reminded of manuel
delanda's talk at 5cyberconf in madrid. manuel was arguing that the
problem with capitalism isn't free markets, but markets that are
controlled by large corporate interests. stockobjects is in fact very
close to a "perfect market" in that it's not constricted by "old boy"
power networks, nationalist trade barriers, or structural
inefficiencies.

i hope that neither stockobjects nor RHIZOME is falling victim to "bad
club" syndrome, as your note seems to suggest.

i guess, from my perspective, your critique does sound a bit naive and
unrealistic, but new york tends to make people cynical. perhaps your
surprise at the fact that there are "interesting galleries, respectable
artists, and interesting works in the US digital culture" reflects the
somewhat cloistered weltanschauung of certain alt.euro.net.art denizens.
;-)

and maybe if you came over here and took a look below the surface, you'd
see that the us dance music sector, as you call it, doesn't entirely
suck!