Interactive Technology suddenly begins to require governing
bureaucracies to be accountable to more than special-interest lobbies.
Other essential cultures will take longer to free themselves from
similarily imposed sanctions; keeping the channels of disbelief open will
only assist the maturation process. This is even apparent in the
academe-art-world where it is no longer possible to retract and posture
behind hallowed 'accredited' texts and papers. The usual claims of
singular intellectual and historically verifiable dominance in lieu of
anything-else, – which can only be, after-all, facile emotional,
untested, unverifiable,… tripe!

The World is now subsuming this haughty one-track regime; all
approaches are now equally valid. The bureaucratic 'art-speak' of the
old-world still indignantly bristles at the mention of any challenge. A
fresh critical language/practise has only begun to break from the ossified
jargon of the hierarchical/insipid academy. Already, the patentedly absurd
notion of 'art-movements and schools' is being parodied on IRC – witness,
the Fluxus-Channel, in which participants deliver-up the
pseudo-intellectual posturings of yester-year, and thereby inadvertently
prompt the Fluxus-Artist-Bot to chime-in with its 'personal' anecdotes of
that pseudo-period. This mawkish humor is sure to spawn other similarly
'specialized' channels.

Meanwhile, the remaining art-experts continue to parry, thrust and
quibble over verifiable historical details and 'textual evidence' that
either supports or dismisses their esteemed positions. But, who knows,
some of these players may still be real, and thereby motivated to cling to
the vestiges of this morbid, cloying ritual. Perhaps this is the sadistic
appeal of these 'period-channels'– that suddenly, the predatory, selfish,
stagnant, internal mechanizations of the art-academy are laid-bare –
their crusty orifices now swollened shut…

Which leads me to mention a current project of mine… (I
introduce it now in part because of an inherent elegance which exceeds a
cohesion of facts;) which is not to imply that art is yet possible– real
practise must still 'span the current cultural spasm.' It's still not
clear whether art-presented through the Net escapes this stultifying
condition elsewhere– that is to say, that art-now can be seen, but
then-instantly vanishes within the larger culture without reverberation or
consequence. Anyway– I've finally 'realized' some ideas that I initiated
ten-years-ago; I've also found a probable-use for digital-art-image
filters. The work consists of a set of collected imagery through various
quirky industrial machineries which I've 'stylistically-generalized' with
Art-Effects Filters. Once on-screen they look especially appealing and
uneasily nostalgic from across the room. I think this imagery would be
well-suited to body-tattoos (blue-black as in the illustrations). Let me
know if you have one done! (http://www.teleport.com/~bbrace/bbrace.html
or /tattoo.html)