<br />RHIZOME DIGEST: July 9, 2004<br /><br />Content:<br /><br />+announcement+<br />1. Roopesh Sitharan: Open Call For Online Participation<br />2. Ian Clothier: the District Of Leistavia welcomes you at ISEA 2004<br /> <br />+opportunity+<br />3. Deanna Bowen: Executive Director, InterAccess Electronic Media Arts<br />Centre <br />4. Robert Zimmer: New Masters Programme in Arts Computing at Goldsmiths<br />College, London<br />5. jillian mcdonald: digital artist in residence<br />6. tammy: Technical Director Position @ Squeaky Wheel/Buffalo Media<br />Resources<br />7. Simon Biggs: FW: re PhD studentship announcement<br />8. Annette Weintraub: Visiting Artist Position<br /><br />+work+<br />9. variablemedia: "Twinned With" at Variablemedia<br />10. Eduardo Navas: Diary of a Star: new project<br /><br />+thread+<br />11. Jason Van Anden, Lee Wells, Dyske Suematsu, Francis Hwang , curt<br />cloninger, jeremy, Bob Wyman, t.whid, Michael Szpakowski, ][mez][, Matthew<br />Mascotte <mascotte@mac.com>, Alexander Galloway, liza sabater, Joy Garnett:<br />Blog vs Board (re: Blogging Survey)<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />1.<br /><br />Date: 7/08/04<br />From: Roopesh Sitharan <intergra@rocketmail.com><br />Subject: OPEN CALL FOR ONLINE PARTICIPATION<br /><br />OPEN CALL FOR ONLINE PARTICIPATION<br /><br />Info on participating online at UD on:<br />Tuesday July 27, 2004<br /><br />interFACES <LIVE>: A cross-cultural project exploring the impact of<br />globalization, free market capitalism, consumerism, and communication<br />technology on the young generation, especially in regards to the notion of<br />self, identity, nationality, spirituality and cross cultural experiences.<br /><br />The task is simple- Upload your self portrait and download other's self<br />portrait to be digitally manipulated, turning each face into a typical and<br />stereotyped face of your countrymen.<br /><br />We are very much interested in your virtual participation, collaboration and<br />feedback, and hope that you can join us from wherever you are at that day!<br /><br />You are also welcomed to join us physically if you are anywhere around the<br />participating venues:<br />National Art Gallery Malaysia<br />Multimedia University Malaysia<br />University Sains Malaysia<br />Raffles LaSalle International Design School Thailand<br /><br />| Tuesday, July 27 |<br />| 14.00 - 16.00hrs MAS, GMT + 0800 |<br />| Kuala Lumpur | <br /><br />WEBARCHIVE of the project and LIVE collaboration via:<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.uploaddownload.org">http://www.uploaddownload.org</a><br />If you think you may be able to join us online, please register online<br />beforehand through the website.<br /><br />Best regards, looking forward to having you with us on that day,<br /><br />Roopesh Sitharan<br />roopesh@mmu.edu.my<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />2.<br /><br />Date: 7/08/04<br />From: Ian Clothier <i.clothier@witt.ac.nz><br />Subject: the DISTRICT OF LEISTAVIA welcomes you at ISEA 2004<br /><br />{??&theDISTRICT OF LEISTAVIAwelcomesyou||participate++.1234END}<br /> <br />Do not adjust your keyboard. This is a call to artists and interested<br />persons: you are invited to participate, collaborate and contribute.<br /> <br />Gender equality, sustainable use of resources, birds, cats, boats, hybrid<br />cultures and interconnections between cultures: are one or more of these of<br />interest to you? If so, this projects invites your participation.<br /> <br />the DISTRICT OF LEISTAVIA welcomes you at ISEA 2004<br />Internet space will be territorialised as part of a project for ISEA 2004.<br />The project falls within the umbrella of the interRepublic of Hybridia, a<br />nonlinear, non-geographical entity mediated by digital files - it's cultural<br />boundary is ultimately flexible.<br /> <br />The District of Leistavia within the interRepublic of Hybridia is a<br />projected hybrid cultural space influenced by cultures worldwide. People of<br />all backgrounds are invited to contribute. The project is one of a growing<br />number of â??digital fluxusâ?? type events. Contributions can be in the form<br />of the gift of images (copyright free only), taking part in the discussion<br />and collaborating.<br /> <br />Territorialisation<br />Interested persons and artists are free to dream of a space unhindered by<br />orthodoxy, where hierarchy is not presumed. The space will then be created.<br />What is able to be done in the name of Leistavia depends on the discussion<br />that occurs. <br /> <br />If a zone was territorialised from law making up, what kind of zone would be<br />generated, in 2004? That is one question this project sets out to answer.<br />The discussion will take place via email, be documented on web pages and an<br />image collection assembled and projected. Should this space then be<br />de-territorialised?<br /><br />Image and text context<br />Cultural interconnections will be sought and images combined and manipulated<br />to suit. People of all cultures are invited to take part in the project, and<br />a special request is made to people of the cultures of Estonia and Finland,<br />and Pitcairn-Norfolk culture. These and other cultural energies will flow<br />through the DISTRICT OF LEISTAVIA [see note 1 below].<br /> <br />The 1838 Laws of Pitcairn Island, a unique document, is used as a starting<br />point for locating connections. The Laws gave women and men the vote and<br />made education compulsory for both genders. Sustainable use of wood resource<br />was vital. The gravest criminal act in 1838 was to kill a cat, for which<br />there was a fine of $50. There were no laws against assault, stealing or<br />murder as these were unknown. White birds were also protected in the Laws.<br /> <br />Aspects of the Pitcairn Laws used as context for cultural interconnection in<br />this project are gender equality, sustainability, and birds & cats. Boat<br />stories or mythologies are also likely to be an interconnecting factor.<br />Further interconnections may also be discovered in the process.<br /> <br />What to do<br />Email the co-ordinating artist Ian M Clothier at i.clothier@witt.ac.nz and<br />register your interest. Please read the comments about contributions by<br />clicking on the {+GIVE%=YOU} link, and related material at the project<br />interim web pages:<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.art-themagazine.com/hybridia">http://www.art-themagazine.com/hybridia</a><br />Mirror: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://ianclothier.orcon.net.nz/hybridia/index.htm">http://ianclothier.orcon.net.nz/hybridia/index.htm</a><br /><br />Ian M Clothier<br /> <br />Note 1. Known main cultural groups in Finland, Estonia, Norfolk Island and<br />Pitcairn Island are: Finn, Swede, Sami, Roma, Tatar, Estonian, Russian,<br />Ukranian, Belarusian, descendants of Bounty mutineers, English, Tahitian,<br />Australian, New Zealander, Maori, Polynesian and others. Others are welcome<br />to contribute/participate.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Rhizome is now offering organizational subscriptions, memberships<br />purchased at the institutional level. These subscriptions allow<br />participants of an institution to access Rhizome's services without<br />having to purchase individual memberships. (Rhizome is also offering<br />subsidized memberships to qualifying institutions in poor or excluded<br />communities.) Please visit <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/info/org.php">http://rhizome.org/info/org.php</a> for more<br />information or contact Rachel Greene at Rachel@Rhizome.org.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />3.<br /><br />Date: 7/02/04<br />From: Deanna Bowen <deanna@interaccess.org><br />Subject: CALL FOR APPLICANTS - EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, InterAccess Electronic<br />Media Arts Centre <br /><br />InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre<br />EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR<br />CALL FOR APPLICANTS<br /><br />InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre is a not-for-profit artist-run<br />centre in Toronto, Canada that enables artists and the general public to<br />explore the intersections of art and technology. We are currently seeking an<br />individual to fulfill the position of Executive Director.<br /><br />POSITION MANDATE:<br />The InterAccess Executive Director is the driving force behind the<br />organization¹s mandate and vision, navigating the stability and growth of<br />the organization in all areas related to its strategic development,<br />programming and special projects. Working with Board of Directors, the<br />Administrative Director and Program Manager, the position ensures the that<br />the overall activities of the organization are in keeping with its mission.<br />The Executive Director is a visionary with social entrepreneurial skills and<br />a rich contact base, and will optimize the capacity of the organization by<br />generating various types of support to its programs and services.<br /><br />The ideal candidate will have background in or knowledge of the media<br />arts/electronic arts landscape in Canada and abroad, posses excellent<br />organizational and communication skills, experience in curatorial research<br />practices, public relations, grant writing, is energetic and goal-oriented.<br /><br />RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE POSITION:<br />* Curatorial direction: With input from the staff and Programming Advisory<br />Committee, sets the overall artistic and curatorial direction of the<br />organization for each season, including the use of facilities, education and<br />workshop programs; supervises the Program Manager and Administrative<br />Director to ensure smooth implementation of such programs; monitors programs<br />as they progress. Manages the Program Advisory Committee.<br /><br />* Strategic development: Identifying new funding opportunities and<br />partnerships; maintaining and strengthening current relationships;<br />identifying opportunities (domestic and international) for financial and<br />profile enhancement.<br /><br />* Grant applications/proposal writing: Working with the staff and Board,<br />leading the direction of grant applications for core funding (TAC, OAC, CC);<br />developing project grant applications, as required; grant reporting.<br /><br />* Special project assessment and overall management: Assesses special<br />project proposals for eligibility for consideration as they are received,<br />manages assessment of proposals, creates and maintains relations with<br />external producers as projects progress. Responsible for successful<br />conclusion to each special project.<br /><br />* Marketing communications: Working with the Administrative Director and<br />Communications Coordinator, creating and leading clear and concise<br />communications of InterAccess¹ programs and member services.<br /><br />* Budgeting: Directs the overall strategy to annual budget, working with the<br />Administrative Director, including development and maintenance of budget for<br />core programs.<br /><br />* Liase with community: Creates and fosters good relationships with core<br />membership and electronic media arts community in Canada and abroad.<br /><br />* Statutory functions: government reporting, attendance at Board and<br />Programming Advisory Committee meetings.<br /><br />* Delegation: Delegates appropriate responsibilities to staff under the<br />Executive Director¹s supervision.<br /><br />* Internal communications: Maintains open and clear channels of<br />communication with the Board of Directors and committees of the Board;<br />attending meetings when needed; writes monthly report to the Board.<br /><br />HOURS AND COMPENSATION:<br />The position requires 32 hours per week (4 days per week) and is prorated<br />against an annual salary of 40,000CAD. Initially, vacation allowance is 2<br />weeks, and becomes 3 weeks after two years, and 4 weeks after 5 years.<br />Performance is reviewed annually. There is an initial probationary review<br />period of six months.<br /><br />All applicants selected for an interview will be required to submit one<br />writing sample of a grant application, curatorial writing or proposal, in<br />advance of the interview.<br /><br />Interested individuals should forward their cover letter and resume by July<br />23, 2004, to:<br /><br />InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre<br />Attn: Hiring Committee/ED Position<br />444 - 401 Richmond St. W.<br />Toronto, ON M5V 3A8<br />Canada<br /><br />Fax: +1-416 599-7015<br />Email: jobs@interaccess.org<br />(if by email, please send .rtf files only)<br /><br />We thank all applicants for their interest, but only short-listed candidates<br />will be contacted.<br />…………<br />InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre<br />#444, 401 Richmond Street West,<br />Toronto, ON<br />M5V 3A8<br /><br />www.interaccess.org<br /><br />P.: 416.599.7206<br />F.: 416.599.7015<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />4.<br /><br />Date: 7/02/04<br />From: Robert Zimmer <r.zimmer@gold.ac.uk><br />Subject: New Masters Programme in Arts Computing at Goldsmiths College,<br />London<br /><br />MSc in Arts Computing<br /><br />Arts Computing is a new one year Masters Programme that has been developed<br />to enable to students with good arts backgrounds to learn advanced computing<br />topics and techniques in the context of visual arts and design. It will give<br />you a firm foundation in Computing, which will enable you to take on a<br />leading role in a creative or technical firm, go on to do academic research<br />at the boundary between computing and art, or simply to produce artworks<br />that are informed by the latest thinking in Computer Science.<br /><br />For further information see<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.doc.gold.ac.uk/artscomputing.html">http://www.doc.gold.ac.uk/artscomputing.html</a><br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />5.<br /><br />Date: 7/05/04 <br />From: jillian mcdonald <jillianmcdonald@hotmail.com><br />Subject: digital artist in residence<br /><br />Digital Artist-in-residence<br /><br />The Pace Digital Gallery and The Center for Advanced Media (CAM) is pleased<br />to offer an artist's residency beginning Spring 2005. This is a pilot<br />program. We are offering a digital artist the opportunity to work with CAM's<br />resources to produce a new artwork.<br /><br />Site<br />The Center for Advanced Media (CAM) Is a collaborative research environment<br />located in Pace University's School of Computer Science and Information<br />Systems in downtown New York City. Its goal is to develop computer-oriented,<br />human-centered systems that help people solve problems by transforming the<br />way they experience the world and the way they collaborate within it. CAM is<br />founded on Pace University's collective faculty experiences in software<br />engineering, human-computer interaction, information visualization, and<br />computer graphics. These computing fields are fundamentally human-centric,<br />with design as the common approach to complex representational problems.<br />Because visual artists, musicians, and writers possess different perceptual,<br />design, and representational skills, CAM is interested in augmenting its<br />computer science foundations with participants who work in the arts and<br />humanities to broaden the research and educational mix.<br /><br />The Pace Universityâ??s Digital Gallery is an outgrowth of CAM's conceptual<br />foundation, executed as the combined initiative between CAM and Fine Arts<br />Department. Its goal is to foster the creation and understanding of digital<br />art for the benefit of Pace University and the surrounding community. It<br />furthers Pace Universityâ??s commitment to educational excellence,<br />diversity, and civic involvement by exhibiting curated work of leading<br />digital artists, as well as the work of Pace faculty and students. It<br />sponsors lectures and symposia on digital art, and supports publication of<br />materials for its documentation and promotion.<br /><br />The Digital Galleryâ??s first show entitled Digital Downtown opened to rave<br />reviews in Spring 2003. Since then it has co-hosted a Pan-American<br />collaborative performance event titled Accélerateur, and an installation of<br />video works entitled Screen Kiss. Its current online exhibition eBay: Buy or<br />Sell or Buy, will run through September 2004. An evening of artists' talks<br />was organized and catalogue issued in conjunction with the eBay exhibition.<br /><br />Residency<br />The artist-in-residence will have the opportunity to work with CAM faculty<br />and students whose research includes computer graphics, virtual reality,<br />image processing, human-computer interaction, and collaborative computing.<br />This work is supported by technology that includes a virtual reality display<br />system, networked PCs, multi-display and plasma display systems, projectors,<br />video cameras, scanners, etc.<br /><br />The artist-in-residence will be expected to produce a new artwork during<br />their tenure at Pace (January 30 - May 10, 2005), which will remain the<br />property of the artist. Pace Digital Gallery will produce, with the artist,<br />a printed brochure about the work completed in residence, and will expect<br />the artist to give a presentation of their work to the Pace Community and<br />the general public. Pace Digital Gallery will also feature the artist on our<br />website, and in gallery space at Pace University. There will be a modest<br />stipend, but no living accommodations are provided. Access to equipment will<br />be Monday through Friday from 8:00AM to 6:00PM, and Saturday from 8:00AM to<br />3:00PM.<br /><br />Pace University affirms its commitment to the principle of equal Career<br />Opportunities as stated in Federal, State, and local laws, which prohibits<br />discrimination because of sex, race, age, ethnicity, marital or domestic<br />partnership status, national origin, sexual orientation, religion,<br />disability or veteran.<br /><br />Artists will be chosen by a jury comprised of the gallery directors, as well<br />as a local artist and curator.<br /><br />Pace University Digital Gallery<br />Francis T. Marchese and Jillian Mcdonald, co-directors<br />DigitalGallery@pace.edu<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.pace.edu/digitalgallery">http://www.pace.edu/digitalgallery</a><br /><br />Applications due Oct 1, 2004<br /><br />Please send via mail (email applications will not be accepted):<br />1. cover letter and project description, describing how the work proposed<br />relates to the artist's body of work<br />2. CV, bio<br />3. work samples - DVD, CD-Rom, URLs, etc<br />4. SASE if you wish your work to be returned<br /><br />Prof. Jillian Mcdonald<br />Pace Digital Gallery<br />41 Park Row #1205<br />New York, NY 10038 <br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Rhizome is now offering organizational subscriptions, memberships<br />purchased at the institutional level. These subscriptions allow<br />participants of an institution to access Rhizome's services without<br />having to purchase individual memberships. (Rhizome is also offering<br />subsidized memberships to qualifying institutions in poor or excluded<br />communities.) Please visit <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/info/org.php">http://rhizome.org/info/org.php</a> for more<br />information or contact Rachel Greene at Rachel@Rhizome.org.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />6.<br /><br />Date: 7/08/04 <br />From: tammy <tammymcgovern@yahoo.com><br />Subject: TECHNICAL DIRECTOR POSITION @ SQUEAKY WHEEL/BUFFALO MEDIA RESOURCES<br /><br />Squeaky Wheel/Buffalo Media Resources, is looking for a self-motivated,<br />responsible and detail-oriented individual to fill the part-time position of<br />Technical Director. Must be familiar with video, 16mm and 8mm film<br />production and projection equipment. Should have knowledge of Mac-based<br />operating systems. Familiarity with Mac-based editing and DVD authoring a<br />very strong plus. Should be sympathetic to and familiar with independent and<br />community-based media. Please send letter of intent, resume and names of<br />three references by July 29th to:<br /><br />Squeaky Wheel<br />Att. Technical Director Search<br />175 Elmwood Ave <br />Buffalo, NY 14201 <br /><br />No phone calls please.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />For $65 annually, Rhizome members can put their sites on a Linux<br />server, with a whopping 350MB disk storage space, 1GB data transfer per<br />month, catch-all email forwarding, daily web traffic stats, 1 FTP<br />account, and the capability to host your own domain name (or use<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.net/your_account_name">http://rhizome.net/your_account_name</a>). Details at:<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/services/1.php">http://rhizome.org/services/1.php</a><br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />7.<br /><br />Date: 7/08/04<br />From: Simon Biggs <simon@littlepig.org.uk><br />Subject: FW: re PhD studentship announcement<br /><br />The Art and Design Research Centre (ADRC) at Sheffield Hallam University is<br />offering a university-funded PhD studentship in Fine Art, Design or Media<br />Production. The studentship will provide fees, a maintenance allowance in<br />line with UK Research Council norms and some support with practical research<br />costs.<br /> <br />We invite enquiries from people who have achieved a high standard in their<br />previous studies, who have identified a challenging research problem in an<br />area of which they have a broad understanding. This may have arisen from<br />earlier postgraduate studies or from professional experience.<br /> <br />Sheffield Hallam University is one of the UK's leading research centres for<br />Art, Design and Media Production, achieving a 5 rating in the most recent UK<br />Research Assessment Exercise. We were also the first UK University to<br />introduce a full-time Research Methods training programme in Art and Design<br />leading to a Masters Qualification.<br /> <br />Our research includes a significant amount of collaborative work with other<br />disciplines, notably in healthcare materials science and in computer<br />science. To develop this inter-disciplinary theme the university has formed<br />a Culture, Communication & Computing Research Institute in which ADRC is the<br />largest element. <br /> <br />We encourage research in which creative practice plays a significant part in<br />investigations and we have taken a lead in developing and disseminating<br />effective methods for investigative creative practice.<br /> <br />If you would like to explore this opportunity, please send me a CV and brief<br />outline of your research interests.<br /> <br />regards<br />Chris Rust<br /> <br />**********************************<br />Professor Chris Rust<br />Head of Art and Design Research Centre<br />Sheffield Hallam University, UK<br />c.rust@shu.ac.uk<br /><br />Simon Biggs<br />simon@littlepig.org.uk<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.littlepig.org.uk/">http://www.littlepig.org.uk/</a><br /><br />Research Professor<br />Art and Design Research Centre<br />Sheffield Hallam University, UK<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/cs/cri/adrc/research2/">http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/cs/cri/adrc/research2/</a><br /><br />Senior Research Fellow<br />Computer Laboratory<br />University of Cambridge<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />8.<br /><br />Date: 7/08/04<br />From: Annette Weintraub <annette@annetteweintraub.com><br />Subject: Visiting Artist Position<br /><br />Visiting Assistant Professor. Starting Sept. 1, 2004.<br />Interactive Multimedia/Digital Video/Computer-based Design<br />Department of Art, The City College of New York.<br />Qualifications: M.F.A. or equivalent, plus college teaching. Seeking<br />a professionally-engaged artist or artits/designer with broad<br />interests/skills in interactive multimedia, digital video and screen<br />based design. Other interests might include physical computing,<br />and/or gaming. To teach undergraduate courses in interactive<br />multimedia, digital video and BFA thesis, plus possible development<br />of courses in gaming/physical computing. Strong<br />exhibition/professional record of achievement. Must demonstrate<br />excellent administrative, communication and technical skills. Shared<br />responsibility for program administration as well as department<br />committee work and significant student advisement.<br /><br />Send a Letter of Interest with CV by email, asap to: Professor<br />Annette Weintraub at weintraub@ccny.cuny.edu.<br />Finalists will be asked to send an artists' statement, statement of<br />teaching philosophy; CV; portfolio of own and student work on CD or<br />as URL, along with the names, addresses & phone numbers of 3<br />references by July 26, 2004.<br /><br />For furtheer information contact: Professor Ellen Handy, Chair, Art<br />Department. City College of New York. Convent Avenue at 138th Street,<br />NY, NY 10031. 212 650-7421. An AAEO/ADA/IRCA Employer.<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/electronic_design">http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/electronic_design</a><br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />9.<br /><br />Date: 7/05/04<br />From: variablemedia <info@variablemedia.info><br />Subject: "Twinned With" at Variablemedia<br /><br />"Twinned With"<br />by the artist Cliona Harmey.<br /><br />Started 22nd June 2004 at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.variablemedia.org">http://www.variablemedia.org</a><br />Further information at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.variablemedia.info">http://www.variablemedia.info</a><br />—<br /><br />Variablemedia's latest project is "Twinned With" by the artist Cliona<br />Harmey. Online at variablemedia.org, this work is developing over a 40-day<br />period.<br /><br />The project starts with a series of photographic images taken by the artist<br />along a walking route through an Irish coastal town; the small town she grew<br />up in. They are presented in sequence, each one a clickable link to the next<br />in the journey. The images have been created using a matchbox camera obsura<br />attached to the lens of a digital video camera. This process of analogue<br />filtering digital, obfuscates image detail, creating temporal vistas, which<br />could be attributed to a multitude of places. During the 40-day project,<br />Harmey will regularly replace a number of images in the sequence with<br />similar photographs, images which copy the original compositions, taken<br />whilst making journeyâ??s through other locations.<br /><br />Harmey sees her photographs as both material embodiment and metaphor for<br />memory. Retracing a journey she took time and again as a child she captures<br />the subject using a technique which suggests a falsification of history. By<br />applying processes of repetition, replication and remixing to the original<br />photographic narrative, she alludes to an experience of memory, one in which<br />details, times and places can be rewritten according to the present. These<br />evolving image sequences are not personal souvenirs but acknowledgements of<br />the fragile nature of recorded experience.<br /><br />Cliona Harmey is an Irish artist who works with a variety of media including<br />video installation, photography and the Internet. She has shown her work in<br />numerous exhibitions internationally;<br />â??Thaw 01â??, The Institute of Communication and Culture, Iowa; â??Tisâ??,<br />State of the Art Gallery, Ithaca, New York; â??Vdor Break 21â??, Llubijana,<br />Slovenia; â??The Reading Roomâ??, Catalyst Arts, Belfast. Harmey lives in<br />Dublin and works as a lecturer in Fine Art Media at the National College of<br />Art and Design. This is her second project for Variablemedia.<br /><br />Related Links<br /><br />Cliona Harmey's personal website:<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.charmey.net">http://www.charmey.net</a><br /><br />Definition and history of Camera Obscura:<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.acmi.net.au/AIC/CAMERA_OBSCURA.html">http://www.acmi.net.au/AIC/CAMERA_OBSCURA.html</a><br /><br />Previous project for Variablemedia 'SeaPoint' hosted at Rhizome's Artbase:<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/artbase/7110/index.htm">http://rhizome.org/artbase/7110/index.htm</a><br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />10.<br /><br />Date: 7/08/04<br />From: Eduardo Navas <eduardo@navasse.net><br />Subject: DIARY OF A STAR: new project<br />Recent Project:<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://navasse.net/star/index.html">http://navasse.net/star/index.html</a><br /><br />DIARY OF A STAR is a critical take on blogging that appropriates selections<br />from the Andy Warhol Diaries.<br />Read the context link for more details:<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://navasse.net/star/Context.html">http://navasse.net/star/Context.html</a><br /><br />Best,<br /><br />Eduardo Navas<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://navasse.net">http://navasse.net</a><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://netartreview.net">http://netartreview.net</a><br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />11.<br />Date: 7.04.04 - 7.12.04<br />From: Jason Van Anden <jason@smileproject.com>, Lee Wells<br /><lee@leewells.org>, Dyske Suematsu <dyske@dyske.com>, Francis Hwang<br /><francis@rhizome.org>, curt cloninger <curt@lab404.com>, jeremy<br /><jeremy@silencematters.com>, Bob Wyman <bobwyman@pubsub.com>, t.whid<br /><twhid@twhid.com>, Michael Szpakowski <szpako@yahoo.com>, ][mez][<br /><netwurker@hotkey.net.au>, Matthew Mascotte <mascotte@mac.com>, Alexander<br />Galloway <galloway@nyu.edu>, liza sabater <liza@culturekitchen.com>, Joy<br />Garnett <joyeria@walrus.com><br />Subject: Blog vs Board (re: Blogging Survey)<br /><br />Jason Van Anden <jason@smileproject.com> posted:<br /><br />I am a fairly new member to the Rhizome community. When I first discovered<br />Rhizome, I was excited to find a forum of artists with common interests and<br />concerns, and looked forward to the discussions that would take place, and<br />that I could take place in. Since I joined a few months ago, there have<br />only been a few sustained threads, while the archives are filled with lively<br />and fascinating discussion. What happened?<br /><br />The recent survey requesting community interest in a blog service via<br />Rhizome has caused me to wonder if this is because of some trend; moving<br />away from boards, and towards blogs. If so, I wonder what the ramifications<br />of this may be. In some ways, blogs and boards are the similar, they both<br />enable ongoing, two way communication. The clear difference is that a blog<br />is run by it's moderator, which changes the dynamic, a lot.<br /><br />If everyone runs their own blog, everyone is a moderator, and system becomes<br />decentralized. This requires more effort by the blog owner and his/her<br />audience. The person running the blog needs to keep things interesting<br />enough to keep people visiting, the audience needs to keep track of many<br />blogs instead of one.<br /><br />At the time that I discovered Rhizome, I also discovered a lot of other<br />on-line resources influenced by it. After doing an unscientific<br />cost/benefits analysis, I decided that the service that Rhizome provides as<br />a centralized and democratic community was the best one, and decided to<br />become a member. Personally, this meant that I devote some of my time (and<br />ego) for the greater good of the group, by posting my opinions and reactions<br />to topics of interest, in one place.<br /><br />I believe that a socialist-democracy (the ideal of Rhizome) is a much better<br />way for this community to thrive than anarchy (fractured, poorly maintained<br />blogs). In order for this to happen, I think that members need to<br />deliberately devote their resources to the good of the board than their own<br />blogs.<br /><br />Given that we all have a finite amount of time to devote to our art, our<br />day-jobs, and so on, I am interested in why members feel it is better to<br />blog than to participate in a board.<br /><br /> Best Regards, <br /> Jason Van Anden <br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Lee Wells <lee@leewells.org> added:<br /><br />Survey Says, "EGO. was the number one reason for self-aggrandized blogging."<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Dyske Suematsu <dyske@dyske.com> replied:<br /><br />Every medium and context encourage their own unique behaviors. For instance,<br />a friend of mine is a member of WeightWatchers.com, and she showed me what<br />sort of discussions take place on their boards. I was quite surprised to see<br />women behaving badly. On most discussion boards, women tend to behave more<br />civilzed than men do. But, apparently, in a context where they know there<br />are only women, they change their behaviors. (Or perhaps it is the topic of<br />weight that encourages that sort of behavior; who knows.).<br /><br />Minor differences in user interface, system architecture, graphic design,<br />theme, the personality of the organizers, etc. can influence the behaviors<br />of the members significantly. I currently manage several discussion boards<br />and I am always surprised by how differently people behave because of these<br />subtle differences. By changing small aspects of them, you can encourage or<br />discourage certain behaviors. For instance, making people register first<br />before posting makes a big difference in terms of the quality of content;<br />you get a lot less abusive posts. Being able to easily view all the posts<br />made by a specific user, makes people think twice about saying anything too<br />stupid. And so on…<br /><br />Blogs and discussion boards are quite different. For one, blogs, for the<br />most part, are one-way communication. You have something you want to say,<br />and you say it on your blog, not necessarily expecting that people would<br />respond. Not all thoughts you want to write down are appropriate for<br />discussion boards, even less so for discussion boards with specific subject<br />matters, like Rhizome. So, I do not see blogs and boards as something you<br />need to choose.<br /><br />As for the lack of interesting discussions on this list: There are things<br />you can do to encourage interesting discussions too. I've always found<br />Rhizome to be problematic when it comes to how it supports text. Thoughtful<br />posts, like that of Curt you pointed out, get lost in a flood of other<br />posts. It may get on the home page for a few weeks, but after that, it gets<br />the same treatment as the other posts that contain frivolous remarks. Unless<br />you know exactly what you are looking for, there is no easy way to browse<br />though quality content on the site. If there were a page with a list of<br />substantial contributions, many more readers would be encouraged to read<br />them, and that in turn would encourage writers to submit more substantial<br />contents.<br /><br />When most people go to sites like nytimes.com, they do not exactly know what<br />they want to read. They just know the quality and the reputation associated<br />with New York Times. nytimes.com therefore needs to provide a way to let the<br />readers easily scan through contents. If their home page looked like<br />Google's home page, most people would simply go elsewhere. This is<br />essentially the situation Rhizome has with respect to substantial contents<br />contributed to RAW. It does not make sense especially because the majority<br />of Rhizome's content is relatively timeless. (This particular post that I am<br />writing now, for instance, should still be relevant to some readers a year<br />from now.)<br /><br />So, given this design of the site, you as a writer know, consciously or<br />subconsciously, that whatever you write will be for the consumption of the<br />few who happen to catch it at the right time. This does not make you want to<br />spend much time composing your thoughts. It makes more sense to use the list<br />for something more casual (like short comments and remarks) or temporary<br />(like announcements of current events).<br /><br />For these reasons, I believe that being frustrated with the way people are<br />behaving or not behaving is a waste of time. Trying to discipline people by<br />criticizing achieves very little. You need to provide an environment that<br />makes them want to behave certain ways.<br /><br />Now, as an experiement, if you have read this post this far, I would like<br />you to click on the link below which will count the number of people who<br />actually read this. I'm curious how many people in general actually read<br />posts on Rhizome. Many people open a web page or email, but not many, I<br />suspect, actually read the content.<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.dyske.com/visit.asp?p=1">http://www.dyske.com/visit.asp?p=1</a><br /><br />-Dyske<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Jason Van Anden replied:<br /><br />RSS feeds might solve the problem, (1: below) if everyone has their own<br />blog. As Dyske points out (2:below), this is not trivial. To be worthy of<br />community interest, it needs to be well maintained and promoted.<br /><br />If the community accepts that Rhizome Raw is like a community blog, the end<br />result would be one rich site instead of many competing, poorly maintained<br />and promoted sites.<br /><br />Dyske also point out (3: below) "As for the lack of interesting discussions<br />on this list: There are things you can do to encourage interesting<br />discussions too." I have tried to do this, and I suspect that it takes some<br />practice. I have not enagaged in an online forum such as Rhizome before.<br />Perhaps this is why I have such high expectations for it's potential.<br /><br />Jason Van Anden<br />1 - Geert Deekers<br />>Tracking decentralized posts outside of rhizome, but within the rhizome<br />>community could be facilitated – just thinking aloud here folks – by<br />>implementing rss feeds. Joining the rhizome community with your blog<br />>would then be as easy as posting your rss address to some specialized<br />>rhizome page. Or does this already exist?<br /><br />2 - Dyske Suematsu<br />> Minor differences in user interface, system architecture, graphic<br />> design, theme, the personality of the organizers, etc. can influence<br />> the behaviors of the members significantly. I currently manage several<br />> discussion boards and I am always surprised by how differently people<br />> behave because of these subtle differences.<br /><br />3 - Dyske Suematsu<br />>As for the lack of interesting discussions on this list: There are things you<br />can do to >encourage interesting discussions too.<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Jason Van Anden added:<br /><br />The comments have been enlightening. To summarize, blogs serve different<br />purposes not achieved by paritipating in a community message board: Ego (1 -<br />Lee Wells) and protecting fellow message board participants from topics not<br />necessarily appropriate for discussion (2 - Dyske Suematsu). Each raises an<br />interesting question:<br /><br />1.) Eyeballs == Ego Fuel:<br />Does the typical individual's blog draw more traffic than Rhizome?<br /><br />2.) Raw == 'Enter at Your Own Risk':<br />Do the levels of Rhizome's board distillation<br />(Raw as opposed to Digest, etc…) poorly protect the membership from<br />inappropriate topics of discussion?<br /><br />Jason Van Anden<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Dyske Suematsu replied:<br /><br />Let me avoid a confusion, and use the word "list" or "email list" instead of<br />"board", because the latter is a medium of its own (generally web-based).<br /><br />I don't see the "ego" argument in this context. Ego is certainly the motive<br />for both an email list and a blog (and a board). I do not believe that a<br />blog is fueled more by ego than a list is. In many ways, a list is more<br />ego-fueled since it is a "push" medium. You are pushing your message to<br />people who may not be interested in what you have to say. I find a blog to<br />be less egotistical because only those who are actually interested in what<br />you have to say would come visit. It is less intrusive and less<br />presumptuous.<br /><br />On my last post, I provided a link for those who actually read my post. So<br />far 13 people have read it. When you hear that Rhizome has 17,000 members,<br />you might get an idea that at least hundreds of people would read your<br />posts, but no matter how big the list is, those who are willing to be<br />involved actively are always handful. In fact, there is a natural size of<br />active participants towards which all lists tend to incline. If too many<br />people start discussing, it becomes impossible to keep on top of it. Part of<br />the nature of email list is that there is a point at which the number of<br />posts per day becomes unacceptable for most people. Like population growth<br />of a city; at some point it becomes uncomfortable and people start leaving.<br /><br />All these characteristics of email list encourage and discourage certain<br />behaviors. Because of the way Rhizome is set up, I would imagine that my<br />last post will not be read by too many more people even after a year. So,<br />when you write something for this list, you want to keep in mind that what<br />you are writing is going to be read by about a dozen people. This will<br />certainly influence most people in terms of how much time and energy they<br />would spend on writing something.<br /><br />This is not a bad thing. This encourages people to casually express their<br />opinions. In fact, that is my impression of Rhizome; a casual place, not a<br />serious one. For the same reason, it is a good place for announcements. 76%<br />of the members being artists, if you post an announcement for a grant or a<br />commission, I'm sure hundreds of people would actually read it.<br /><br />The bottom line is that Rhizome cannot be everything you want it to be. It<br />is what it is. It is good for what it is good for. Beyond that, you either<br />have to find some other websites/lists/boards, or start your own with<br />specific designs that encourage desired behaviors.<br /><br />Best,<br />Dyske<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Francis Hwang <francis@rhizome.org> added:<br /><br />I'm up to my eyeballs in this stuff these days. Here's my take on it:<br /><br />First of all, it's only 2004 and I'm already sick of the word "blog".<br />Unfortunately, there aren't many words that serve its purpose well, so<br />we're stuck with it for the time being. In the long view, the<br />particular technology that gets used isn't as interesting as the<br />technical philosophy behind how people communicate. The best phrase<br />here is, to use the title of a book by David Weinberger, "Small Pieces<br />Loosely Joined". The good things about blogs are:<br /><br />+ Small Pieces: They are highly atomized, individualistic venues for<br />self-expression, more so than on more centrally administered services<br />like email lists or wikis.<br />+ Loosely Joined: They use standards-driven technologies to help<br />readers aggregate them into meaningful, manageable chunks of<br />information. If you have an RSS reader (you can download good, free RSS<br />readers for every operating system under the sun), you can channel-surf<br />20 blogs in the time it might take you to visually read 4 webpages.<br /><br />In a broad sense, the internet is now a big enough technology that the<br />economics of such a case are compelling. You can no longer build one<br />central community site that harnesses more energy than all those blogs<br />out there. In the specific sense, this lines up well with the<br />development of the field of new media arts. Once upon a time Rhizome<br />was a gigantic fish in a teensy tiny pond; now we're a biggish fish in<br />a much bigger pond. This is a much healthier situation, of course. It<br />also means we might want to rethink how we relate to that pond.<br /><br />But, blogs are very different in tone from email lists, wikis,<br />UltimateBBS, MOOs, etc., etc. They're much more public, and they<br />drastically increase the "15 minutes of fame" factor of online life. It<br />happens all the time that some no-name blogger comes up with some<br />really great idea that gets passed around blogspace really quickly, and<br />bang they have hundreds more readers and lots of emails and maybe<br />comments. Having a blog increases the chances that some stranger will<br />point to your work and say "This gal's a goddamn genius." It also<br />increases the chances that they'll say "She's full of shit." Caveat<br />author.<br /><br />So adding blogs to Rhizome would mostly be about offering options.<br />Blogs won't replace email lists, just like television never replaced<br />radio. But a proliferation of forms for online communication will mean<br />that people will be free to discover which forms are better for which<br />sorts of content.<br /><br />As to how quickly it would take if introduced here, it's hard to say.<br />If you look at our space (tech/arts/culture), you see a lot of very<br />smart people who don't write or read blogs, they prefer to hang out on<br />mailing lists like Rhizome Raw or Nettime or thingist or Syndicate or<br />what have you. I don't believe that's an accident, or simply a function<br />of technophobia. People have their own preferences, and of course those<br />preferences matter a great deal.<br /><br />Mostly, though, I think of this as a big experiment. Experiments are<br />cool.<br /><br />F.<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />curt cloninger <curt@lab404.com> replied:<br /><br />Hi Jason,<br /><br />To quote Gene Eugene, "it is what it is what it is." I often use RAW as my<br />blog because I'm just stupid enough not to care. The only thing keeping<br />anybody from posting anything at all (other than the token $5) is fear of<br />being ridiculed, or losing face, or losing a commission, or losing status in<br />whatever micro-scene politics one happens to be tracking.<br /><br />I was searching through old email correspondences the other day, and I found<br />this classic squelch from my dear friend Tim Whidden, november, 2001:<br /><br />+++++++++++++++++++++++<br /><br />please curt, why don't you grind your little axe over something<br />else, it's getting very old and very tired.<br /><br />you've proved you're naive understanding of contemporary art practice<br />again and again on this list, this thread is only the most recent<br />example.<br /><br />+++++++++++++++++++++++<br /><br />to which I replied:<br /><br />I love you (mostly since I discovered you used to copy heavy metal album<br />covers).<br /><br />++++++++++++++++++<br /><br />Ah, those were the days! But I digress. Unlike Thing/NetTime, RAW is<br />totally self-policing (due to Mark Tribe's original fascination with Beuys'<br />"social sculpture" notion), so sometimes it's boring as crap, sometimes it's<br />lively, sometimes it's hijacked by poly-pseudonymous eastern european<br />situationist rhetorical tar babies. Often it talks about itself and how it<br />can become more interesting. People get fed up with it and stop posting,<br />but they usually return (brad brace, eryk salvaggio), because you gotta be<br />in it to win it.<br /><br />All that to say, you can't make a totally open forum any more open via<br />protocol or legislation. If you want to use RAW as a blog, you don't need<br />RSS tech implemented on the rhizome server. Just cut and paste each entry<br />from your blog and email it to list@rihzome.org . ("Currently Listening To:<br />Adam and the Ants. Current Mood: Feisty!")<br /><br />The achilles heel of rhizome is fear of critical discussion. [ cf:<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.marumushi.com/apps/socialcircles/socialcircles.cfm?list=rhizome">http://www.marumushi.com/apps/socialcircles/socialcircles.cfm?list=rhizome</a><br />to visualize the lack of list interaction.] Between the academics and the<br />relativists and the self-promoting artists, nobody dare say "sucks" without<br />fear of receiving the scarlet letter ("S" for "sucks"). So we read each<br />other's one-to-many announcements, and we occasionally make our own<br />one-to-many announcements. And every now and then something like joywar or<br />the CAE case gets everybody all stirred up (and understandably so). And<br />then of course, the liberal majority always feels at liberty to perpetually<br />slag all things un-liberal despite the fact that most of their screeds have<br />nothing to do with new media art.<br /><br />I am always surprised at the number of people who email me offlist about<br />discussions we are having onlist. Why don't they just post their comments<br />to the list? But I hesitate to encourage lurkers to vocalize, the same way<br />I hesitate to encouarage people to vote. If you're too apathetic to vote,<br />why do I want you to vote? If you're too timid to post, why do I want you<br />to post?<br /><br />peace,<br />curt<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Jason Van Anden replied:<br /><br />I agree with Francis that 'experiments are cool'. But experiments should be<br />recognized as just that; a trial<br />(<a rel="nofollow" href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=experiment">http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=experiment</a>).<br /><br />Questioning whether blogging strengthens or weakens an online community is<br />my attempt to follow Dyske's suggestion '… start your own with specific<br />designs that encourage desired behaviors.' without having to build it<br />myself. <br /><br />Jason Van Anden<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Dyske Suematsu replied:<br /><br />Speaking of preferences. If I were in charge of the technology at Rhizome,<br />my strategy would be this: I would try to define the objectives of Rhizome<br />first, and then try to use technologies that best serve those objectives.<br />What I end up choosing as my solutions may be nothing exciting, old<br />technologies or something everyone uses.<br /><br />To define my objectives, I might ask questions like:<br /><br />Do I want to encourage thoughtful discussions that can be shared with a<br />large audience?<br /><br />Do I want Rhizome to be a casual place where people can express their<br />opinions freely whether they are intellectually or emotionally motivated?<br /><br />Would Rhizome members benefit more by encouraging intimate inter-member<br />communication or one-to-many communication?<br /><br />Should Rhizome place its emphasis on supporting its own members or the<br />general public who are interested in digital art?<br /><br />If one of the objectives is to raise awareness of digital art among the<br />general public, what sort of content should Rhizome foster? How could we<br />foster it? What would the general public want to see on Rhizome? How should<br />the site be organized for that purpose?<br /><br />Should Rhizome be completely undiscriminating about what constitute good<br />art, and collect everything and anything? (convenient for artists) Or should<br />Rhizome use its own judgment and highlight works it deems as good art?<br />(convenient for the audience)<br /><br />And so on…<br /><br />After answering these questions, I would find the best technologies for<br />them, and implement them specifically for those objectives.<br /><br />I find that some technologists are too experimental without having specific<br />visions and tangible goals. They experiment, and they describe the results<br />of those experiments: How certain technologies ended up being used. What<br />sort of social implications they have. What it is good for. How it changed<br />people's lives. Etc.. That is, always after the fact. Their thinking is not:<br />"We want to achieve this; so let's use this technology this way." Instead,<br />they think: "Let's try this new technology and see what happens." Thus<br />technologies get used for their own sake.<br /><br />Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that this is what Francis does. I'm aware<br />that he is concerned about some of the questions I raised above. I'm<br />illustrating the two extremes in how technologists think. Everyone falls<br />somewhere in between.<br /><br />In fact, someone does need to experiment with new technologies, for the rest<br />of us to be able to use them appropriately. The question as a director of IT<br />is: Is my role to explore the possibilities of new technologies, or to use<br />them to serve a certain purpose? I find that many directors of IT end up<br />doing the former because it is more exciting, better for their careers, and<br />offers more recognition for their achievements. It is rare to see IT<br />directors who put objectives before the allure of new technologies. I've<br />personally witnessed millions of dollars go down the toilet because of these<br />tendencies of IT directors.<br /><br />Again, I do not want to sound like I am criticizing Francis personally. This<br />is simply my own personal philosophy of managing IT.<br /><br />-Dyske<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Francis Hwang replied:<br /><br />Interesting points, Dyske. One of the broad questions in my mind was<br />hinted at in my earlier post: In the face of an increasingly growing<br />internet, and a much bigger new media arts world, how do you a) engage<br />the parts of it that are interesting to you and b) foster some sort of<br />sense of relationships and even (cough) community?<br /><br />So that's a goal of mine, though it's perhaps less concrete than the<br />goals you offered. Blogs to me make sense because an increasing amount<br />of discussion in our field lives outside the Rhizome walls. There are a<br />lot of small reasons for it (and, yes, the membership policy is one of<br />those) but the big reason is this: The internet ain't what it used to<br />be. There are lots of people who want to maintain their own little<br />atomic sites somewhere else besides on some mega-community site like<br />Rhizome … I think it would be cool to find ways to include them in<br />the conversation, too.<br /><br />It's possible that doing so will bring more non-artsy people into the<br />new media field. (Certain new-media-ish projects, like Dodgeball.com or<br />Pac Manhattan, already get significant traction in the non-artsy<br />memespace.) That would be sweet. It's also possible that a Rhizome bl*g<br />product would make more artist/curator/critics into bl*ggers, upping<br />the arts volume online overall. That would also be sweet.<br /><br />But I'm not even thinking that specifically. Mostly, I'm thinking about<br />harnessing energy–by which I mean the desires and enthusiasm of other<br />people. People want to talk to other people, and online communications<br />works best when it complements that innate desire. Who do you want to<br />talk to? What rhythm should the conversation have? What do you want to<br />talk about? How can a site like Rhizome help you find those people and<br />conversations? Maybe blogging will help. If it doesn't, I suppose<br />people will just stop using it, and then we'll have to try something<br />else.<br /><br />Francis<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />jeremy <jeremy@silencematters.com> added:<br /><br />Dyske, I like your questions. I was thinking along similar lines today.<br /><br />I wanted to ask the community:<br /> "What is Rhizome? Can you describe it?"<br /><br />and as Dyske says, "What sort of content should Rhizome foster?"<br /><br />I think that with the open discussion of what it is, we will come to<br />understand the direction it should take, through a natural process.<br />Help me dream up ideas and possibilities! I am looking forward to an<br />engaging discussion.<br /><br />-jeremy<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Bob Wyman <bobwyman@pubsub.com> added:<br /><br />Francis Hwang wrote:<br />> If you have an RSS reader (you can download good, free RSS<br />> readers for every operating system under the sun), you can<br />> channel-surf 20 blogs in the time it might take you to<br />> visually read 4 webpages.<br /> Warning: Crass plug follows:<br /> Francis, if you have an RSS news aggregator AND you have a few<br />subscriptions (free) at PubSub.com, you can channel-surf over 2 million<br />blogs and over 50,000 newsgroups simultaneously!!!<br /> What you do is create a subscription that specifies a search-query<br />that we'll then match against every new blog entry as we discover<br />it.(several million each day) Once something matches, we'll insert it into a<br />personalized RSS file for you. This is like what you do with traditional<br />"retrospective" search engines like Google, etc. except that we're<br />"prospective" in that we search the future, not the past.<br /><br /> bob wyman<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />t.whid <twhid@twhid.com> added:<br /><br />Dyske's comments are right on the money IMO.<br /><br />[…]<br /><br />artists here, right? Isn't ego the basis of all<br />their actions ;-)<br /><br />My thoughts regarding 'art blogging' are here:<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.mteww.com/mtaaRR/news/twhid/art_blogs.html">http://www.mteww.com/mtaaRR/news/twhid/art_blogs.html</a><br /><br />I'll pull one quote:<br /><br />Since it¹s very easy to update the site I just post things there all<br />the time that I might email to either my collaborator M.River or post<br />to a discussion list like Rhizome. I was very active on the Rhizome<br />list for many years but I like the blog better. Discussions started on<br />the blog are less likely to devolve into flame wars and it¹s less<br />aggressive. If people want to read my opinions and thoughts the site is<br />passively waiting for them to visit, my ideas don¹t wind up in people¹s<br />in-boxes. Plus, after Rhizome switched to a fee-based membership I<br />decided that any extended writings of mine needed to be freely<br />accessible via the Internet.<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Jason Van Anden replied:<br /><br />I think all of Dyske's questions are spot-on and super thoughtful (as<br />usual). <br /><br />I feel the most important one is:<br /><br />>Do I want Rhizome to be a casual place where people can express their<br />>opinions freely whether they are intellectually or emotionally motivated? -<br />Dyske Suematsu<br /><br />I would like Rhizome to be a lively and respectful forum for new media<br />artists to share their intellectually or emotionally motivated musings about<br />the state of the art. I think the current structure is a really good one,<br />it's just not as lively and respectful as it could be.<br /><br />Curt Cloninger expressed that "The achilles heel of rhizome is fear of<br />critical discussion."<br />I wonder if more energy could be harnessed if the members felt safer about<br />participating. I share Curt's concerns. I am guilty of second and third<br />guessing myself about what to say for fear of being horribly misunderstood<br />by who knows and at what costs?<br /><br />I believe that if the environment felt more safe, the content on Rhizome<br />might have a better chance of flourishing without having to touch the<br />technology. The current structure would suggest that this is up to the<br />membership. Rules of Engagement? A Constitution?<br /><br />Jason Van Anden<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />curt cloninger replied:<br /><br />Jason Van Anden wrote:<br /><br />> I believe that if the environment felt more safe, the content on<br />> Rhizome might have a better chance of flourishing without having to<br />> touch the technology. The current structure would suggest that this<br />> is up to the membership. Rules of Engagement? A Constitution?<br /><br />I don't think so. The lack of any democratically sanctioned world view is<br />the whole fun and challenge of rhizome. How can I carry on a logical<br />conversation with someone who doesn't believe in aristotelian logic? How<br />can I carry on a conversation about aesthetics with someone who doesn't<br />beleive in aesthetics? In some extreme situations, how can I carry on a<br />meaningful conversation with someone who doesn't believe meaningful<br />conversations are possible or even desirable? Thus the boundries of the<br />community are hammered out rhetorically, post after post.<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/info/index.php">http://rhizome.org/info/index.php</a><br />"we're tired of trees" is the mantra. did it happen? no.<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/baseims/navbar_subtitle.gif">http://rhizome.org/baseims/navbar_subtitle.gif</a> you can't have a rhizome<br />"at" anywhere. "AT the new museum" is more than just semantics. it's proof<br />that a pure rhizomatic social experience is not immune to other overarching<br />control structures. but an agreed upon constitution isn't going to make it<br />any more rhizomatic.<br /><br />So what do I want out of rhizome? When I first came to rhizome, I wanted to<br />discover a like-minded community of creative folks who wanted to talk about<br />art. I never quite discovered that (except for a handful of kindred<br />spirits). What I did discover was different, but in some ways even more<br />beneficial to me (although it took me a while to appreciate it).<br /><br />"Don't rock, wobble."<br />- the bubblemen<br /><br />working from one end to the other / and all points in between,<br />curt<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Michael Szpakowski <szpako@yahoo.com> added:<br /><br /> < I am guilty of second and third<br /> guessing myself about what to say for fear of being<br /> horribly misunderstood by who knows and at what<br /> costs?><br />I still shudder when I think about my first post to<br />Rhizome -it had lots of horrible manifesto like<br />feeling and a fair degree of "LOOK AT ME!" to it.<br />..and its probably out there and accessible..arrgh!<br />However since I decided to participate rather than<br />shout ( I hope!) I have found the list to have the<br />wonderful spin off of making me think through my ideas<br />in a systematic way and attempting to argue them<br />clearly. For me this has been of enormous personal<br />benefit.<br />I've also met some very interesting folk and discoverd<br />a lot of things I didn't previously know.<br />Furthermore I've come to respect a number of people<br />whose views I largely reject and therefore at least<br />carefully consider what they have to say, and, on<br />occasion, I've had my mind changed.<br />For me participation in the list has been literally a<br />life changing activity but I do think a certain<br />investment of time and energy is needed for<br />participation to bear fruit.<br />Also ..to be brutal about it.. if someone has<br />something to say.. eventually they'll find the courage<br />and foolishness to say it…this *is* a discussion<br />list for grown ups and not a kindergarten.<br />As for blogs …well..fine.. let a hundred flowers<br />bloom… but the glorious elegance and simplicity of<br />the list form, with its slow burn and its cumulative<br />impact, makes it unbeatable for me.<br />best<br />michael<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />][mez][ <netwurker@hotkey.net.au> added:<br /><br />At 04:33 AM 7/07/2004, you wrote:<br />>Interesting points, Dyske. One of the broad questions in my mind was<br />>hinted at in my earlier post: In the face of an increasingly growing<br />>internet, and a much bigger new media arts world, how do you a) engage the<br />>parts of it that are interesting to you and b) foster some sort of sense<br />>of relationships and even (cough) community?<br /><br />…. when we r confronted with the _domestic_rigmarole of the net & the<br />[its] x.tensions [s.pecially those that x.hibit characteristics that<br />follow acceptable, regurgative modes of discourse] its tempting 2 slip<br />in2|against these x.tensions, especially as they b.come de rigueur,<br />shifting in2 the spotlite of contemporary text[ures]….<br /><br />……1 way 2 n.courage this is assume lurker status periodically….normal<br />ebbs N shifts occur here like everywhere, according 2 warps + wefts not<br />blanket-obserable|perceivable…..<br /><br /> ….those more akin with hardening them.selves with[in] coded|acceptable<br />communication paradigms can perceive this lack of response as somehow<br />damning, or indicative of a lack of overt engagement, rather than<br />indicating other ][w][e][bs][dges of the net.work, the discursive shadowing<br />in communica][do][tion, the patternings of data marrow of a sort that<br />creeps out from under the hoopla & labels…..part of this is 2 accept the<br />lull as a normative x.pression….silence as more than an indicator of<br />non-partic[le]ipation…..<br />perhaps this is my own bug-bear, but x.traction & x.pression still seem<br />viable, even .here……………<br />chunks,<br />mez<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Jason Van Anden replied:<br /><br />Has my original post been preempted?<br /><br />Dyske's well written thread (3 of 22) sets up an experiment to examine how<br />invested the community is in actually reading each other's posts. The<br />impetus for this was an actual conversation he and I and t.whid had in real<br />life. I like Dyske's method. It's a very clever way to measure the<br />participation of the membership.<br /><br />My original post (1 of 22) takes this ambivalence as fact, and questions<br />whether the trend towards blogs dilutes a board like Raw. I feel that the<br />thread was going in a really productive direction. I am concerned that<br />focusing on how ambivalent and detached the memebership may be, doesn't<br />address what can be done about it.<br /><br />If members felt more secure participating in this board, I feel that a lot<br />more would decide to participate as a community, rather than opting to<br />secede into their own blogs. This has less to do with how new technology<br />can accomodate this activity, but rather how this already huge community<br />could be motivated to become more invested.<br /><br />Jason Van Anden<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Matthew Mascotte <mascotte@mac.com> added:<br /><br /> <br />Michael. yes. me too. have found much<br />and learned a bit more here. like the "slow<br />burn" of this list as well. makes me consider<br />my words…and i look forward each day to<br />watching the flow which like most things runs<br />rich sometimes and thin other times but there<br />in lies its beauty.<br /><br />matthew<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Alexander Galloway <galloway@nyu.edu> added:<br /><br />i find this blog thread very interesting. these are some of the issues<br />that we have wrestled with ever since the beginning of rhizome: the<br />best way to exchange content collaboratively.<br /><br />a quick summary of what rhiz has attempted thus far (Francis–correct<br />me if i'm wrong)… at the start of rhizome, mark tribe decided that<br />the best way to navigate the signal-to-noise problem was to have two<br />lists, one heavily moderated and one completely open. this resulted in<br />the Digest/Raw format that has persisted since. people wanting a filter<br />subscribed to Digest, while those who could handle the deluge<br />subscribed to Raw. in the olden days the website was edited by the same<br />person who edited Digest, and therefore ended up resembling the<br />filtered email list rather then the unfiltered. eventually a web<br />archive of Raw was added to balance things out a little. then, after a<br />few years, rhizome switched over to a more decentralized format,<br />handing the editorial selection for the website to a group of<br />"superusers" who are able to pick which articles appear on the front<br />page.<br /><br />as others have already pointed out in this thread, RSS feeds have<br />fundamentally changed the landscape of the web. it's my opinion that<br />rhizome might be ready for another redesign, one that can accommodate<br />the aggregation and republishing functionality enabled by RSS. yes,<br />email will always be the killer app, so of course some balance between<br />email content and web feed content should be achieved.<br /><br />by way of contrast.. i've recently been hanging out over on the eyebeam<br />reblog system (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://eyebeam.org/reblog/">http://eyebeam.org/reblog/</a>) and am currently coding<br />version 2 of the backend (with much help from Jonah Peretti and Michael<br />Frumin). reblog is formally quite similar to the current rhizome<br />website in the sense that it has a community-fed text input system that<br />is then parsed and republished on the site. reblog is simple, it takes<br />an unlimited number of RSS feeds as input and lets you parse them into<br />a single RSS feed as output. the main differences with rhiz i can see<br />are 1) rhizome uses the emails posted to rhizome raw as its input<br />channel, while reblog uses posts from about 80 web feeds, 2) rhizome<br />uses a group of "superusers" who can publish articles on the website,<br />while reblog uses a single rotating "guest reblogger" (a convention<br />which could easily be changed in the future to include multiple<br />simultaneous rebloggers).<br /><br />rhizome could conceivably reorganize itself around the reblog model,<br />using both email and rhizomer blog feeds as the input.<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Jason Van Anden replied:<br /><br />Hi Alex,<br /><br />Are you actually suggesting a Re-Re-Blog? It seems to me that Re-Blog does<br />a really great job at what it does, so why would we need another? I don't<br />see how a Rhizome Re-Blog would taste any different than the Eyebeam<br />flavored one - the topics of interest are pretty much the same. The only<br />obvious difference to me is the effect of many super users moderating<br />instead of one rotating one.<br /><br />What if they endlessly Re-Blogged into one another?<br /><br />Jason Van Anden<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Francis Hwang replied:<br /><br />Actually, I think it's much more promising to add individual blogs, for<br />individual authors, than to have one more collectively moderated<br />channel on Rhizome. The ecosystem of RSS users already has its own<br />collective moderation, as drawn implicitly through the act of linking<br />and tracked on search & indexing sites like Technorati, Blogdex,<br />PubSub, Google, etc., etc., etc. There are, of course, group blogs out<br />in the world, but with a well-armed RSS reader you can mix your channel<br />anyway.<br /><br />Individually authored blogs are easier to code/maintain, too.<br /><br />I also have to say that I don't think it's at all guaranteed that email<br />will always be the killer app. These days I get more than 5000 emails a<br />week, and the overwhelming majority are spam … client-side filtering<br />doesn't work at this volume, legal measures will just push spammers<br />into legal gray zones, and, various sender verification systems are<br />making their way through the standards process but will take years to<br />codify and implement. In the meantime, the upcoming versions of<br />operating systems from both Redmond and Cupertino will include RSS<br />readers … the future of email as a one-to-many broadcast medium is by<br />no means guaranteed, unfortunately.<br /><br />F.<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Jason Van Anden replied:<br /><br />Those of us who have blogs, seem to think it would be super to connect them<br />to Rhizome in some way. It seems like a good a way to maintain one's<br />identity (autonomy, individuality, percieved star power…) while benefiting<br />by the strength in numbers. From this vantage it provides the best of both<br />worlds. Cool.<br /><br />The question still remains: how does facilitating the inclusion of blogs as<br />part of Rhizome actually improve the service to the community and content it<br />delivers? At what cost and at what benefit? I am convinced that more focus<br />should be on fostering community involvement rather than encouraging it's<br />diffusion.<br /><br />It takes a village…<br /><br />Jason Van Anden<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Francis Hwang replied:<br /><br />Multi-replies below:<br /><br />On Jul 7, 2004, at 6:41 PM, Jason Van Anden wrote:<br />> The question still remains: how does facilitating the inclusion of<br />> blogs as part of Rhizome actually improve the service to the community<br />> and content it delivers? At what cost and at what benefit? I am<br />> convinced that more focus should be on fostering community involvement<br />> rather than encouraging it's diffusion.<br /><br />When you say "community involvement", Jason, what sort of involvement<br />do you have in mind?<br /><br />On Jul 7, 2004, at 5:00 PM, Joy Garnett wrote:<br /><br />> in that case, would it be possible/worthwhile to add a blogroll to<br />> rhizome somehow? someone (superusers?) would have to choose what blogs<br />> to subscribe to…<br /><br />Well I was just imagining that each blogger would get her own<br />individual blogroll. No need to aggregate them all together.<br /><br />F.<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Jason Van Anden replied:<br /><br />Thanks for asking Francis. I am not going to be able to post again until<br />tommorrow, and I am still formulating what it is exactly that I mean, but<br />here is where I am currently at:<br /><br />Community Involvement == What can be done to inspire the Rhizome membership<br />be more motivated to participate in it's success?<br /><br />My insistence on focusing the discussion on "community involvement" is a<br />continuation of thoughts that I had after you reported the very low<br />particpation in this year's gaming commission voter turnout. The system you<br />had created was wonderfully conceived, and executed - so it was not for lack<br />of trying. It amazed me that so many members did not take advantage of this<br />unique opportunity. How come? How do you motivate individuals to<br />cooperate?<br /><br />Not a new question for most life forms sharing the planet - and for good<br />reason (ie: bees and flowers, the creation of the city state, slashdot). I<br />do not think that this has anything to do with technology, but rather human<br />nature.<br /><br />Artists of course, are ten times more protective of their autonomy as most,<br />thus the current trend to homestead many mini-Rhizomes (uni-blogs?) all over<br />the net instead of collaborating.<br /><br />Darwin would predict that this will eventually lead to a few strong blogs<br />succeeding, and most failing. As people start to weigh the cost/benefit of<br />this reality, collaborative blogs will evolve. Thing is, we already have<br />this in the form of Rhizome.<br /><br />I would like to skip to step two, accept that pooling resources is for the<br />common good and expedite the process.<br /><br />Recognizing that these ideas are not new, I ordered two books: "Protocol"<br />and "Bowling Alone". Perhaps they will shed more light on the topic.<br /><br />Jason Van Anden<br />www.smileproject.com<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Francis Hwang replied:<br /><br />Interesting points, Jason. Though I might argue that you're putting the<br />cart before the horse. Let me go out on a limb and say this: I think<br />Rhizome's success is sort of a boring stupid thing to have to worry<br />about. I mean, obviously I think about it, but I think its success is a<br />lot less interesting than the success of a) new media arts as a whole,<br />and b) the possibility of destabilizing the hierarchical nature of<br />discourse in the arts. Or: "More rock, more talk." I like to think that<br />if Rhizome helps those other things succeed, it itself will succeed,<br />but of course nothing is guaranteed and nothing lasts forever.<br /><br />I'll also say that Rhizome tries to provide lots of different services,<br />and some of them are less cooperative than others. Text discussion in<br />an email list is fairly cooperative and intimate, but getting your work<br />into the ArtBase is fairly solitary: You do your work, you submit it,<br />you shepherd it through the archival process. You might exchange a lot<br />of email with Kevin if you submit an artwork, but you won't be relying<br />on the collective judgement of Rhizome members to do it. (For now.<br />There's nothing that says that couldn't be changed in the future.)<br /><br />Commissions voting is probably somewhere in the middle. Yes, I was<br />disappointed by the low turnout, but overall I wasn't disappointed with<br />the result. The main point of commissions wasn't to give me warm<br />fuzzies about the Rhizome community; it was to award money to artists<br />so they could spend time on doing good art, and in that we succeeded. I<br />was pleased (though not surprised) that the community-chosen selection<br />was as good as the others. And my disappointment with turnout is still<br />mostly focused on that single goal: More turnout might mean better<br />publicity and more interesting grant applications, which might<br />translate into more money for artists the next year.<br /><br />(Also, I don't particularly think voting necessarily counts as<br />"cooperative", since conflicts are resolved using a dry mathematical<br />formula. In my mind cooperation involves trying to figure out what<br />might make others happy and then actively seeking compromise with that<br />in mind. Wikis are cooperative. Divvying up household chores with your<br />roommates is cooperative. Voting is more like "politely competitive",<br />maybe.)<br /><br />Anyway, another point worth addressing is the notion of what it means<br />to have a blog succeed. I'll say this: The vast majority of blogs out<br />there do not have huge audiences, but that's only failure if you<br />expected to be the next Slashdot. For most people they're not like<br />bullhorns in the town square. They're like a family Christmas card.<br /><br />But those are pretty nice, anyway. My youngest brother just went to<br />South Korea for a few months, and he set up his own blog about it. This<br />blog isn't going to get him a book deal or a pundit spot on MSNBC, but<br />I can read it to get updates about what's going in his life. That stuff<br />matters, and I'm glad he's doing it. (Of course, I had to email him to<br />tell him to add an RSS feed, and I'm not sure when he'll get around to<br />that. Tech ain't perfect.)<br /><br />Francis<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Jason Van Anden replied:<br /><br />I did not mean to imply that blogs are bad things that should not exist, nor<br />that I feel that Rhizome is in trouble. Since both things are new to me,<br />that would be really rude. I have personally benefitted from my involvement<br />in Rhizome in countless ways, and I only joined this year.<br /><br />I know I said in my last post that I would not be able to post again until<br />tomorrow, but on the drive home I started to wonder if I had side-stepped<br />Francis's question. I did not mean to, but I don't think I actually<br />answered it.<br /><br />I am not super-prepared to answer it right now, but off the cuff, here is a<br />totally made up example:<br /><br />Let's say that someone had an idea for a website called "artornot.com"<br />(apparently not very original idea - domain already taken - I checked), to<br />be used as a open forum for new media art criticism and discussion. Let's<br />say that this was a really good idea (just). I think it would be great if<br />that person was encouraged to come to this community with the idea, with the<br />possibility that it would get support (developmental, moral, financial,<br />coding, etc…) from other members, rather than letting it rot on the vine<br />because of lack of personal resources (time, money, faith).<br /><br />I see an institution like Rhizome as being in a unique position to<br />facilitate this kind of community activity. As I am writing this, I am<br />thinking about what Dyske said in a much earlier thread - perhaps it is my<br />responsibility to initiate such things.<br /><br />Feedback appreciated.<br /><br />Jason Van Anden<br />www.smileproject.com<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Curt Cloninger replied:<br /><br />Jason Van Anden wrote:<br /><br />> I see an institution like Rhizome as being in a unique position to<br />> facilitate this kind of community activity. As I am writing this, I<br />> am thinking about what Dyske said in a much earlier thread - perhaps<br />> it is my responsibility to initiate such things.<br /><br />Hi Jason,<br /><br />I'm part of this initiative in my hometown:<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://themap.org">http://themap.org</a><br /><br />we spent all this time focusing up, getting corporate sponsorships and local<br />government endorsement and professional consultations and a 5 phase<br />implementation plan, etc.; but none of that stuff in and of itself makes a<br />creative scene. A scene is probably better instigated by a bunch of<br />sleep-deprived freaks with no funding, sitting in the basement mixing up the<br />medicine. One can prototype and technologize and discuss ad infinitum, but<br />if the energy and interest is not there at a root level, it simply won't<br />materialize. As you say, it has to do with motivating humans. As Bill<br />Burroughs said, "Every man a god, that is if ye can qualify. You can't be<br />the god of anything unless you can do it."<br /><br />I admire artist who just started making cool stuff from the ground up.<br />Daniel Johnston recorded his original songs onto lo-fi mono one-track<br />cassette tapes and just walked around downtown Austin, Texas, wandering up<br />to strangers and giving the tapes away. Howard Finster was refurbishing old<br />bicycles for poor kids when he saw a face in a paint smudge, then he drew<br />the face, then he heard the voice of God telling him to take a dollar bill<br />out of his pocket and draw it. Finster protested, "But I can't draw." God<br />responded, "How do you know? How do you know? How do you know?" So<br />Finster drew the dollar, then he drew some pictures of Abraham Lincoln, then<br />he spends the rest of his life making brilliant cool messed up shit.<br /><br />Or my man Al Sacui, still going strong and off the radar: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://gisol.org/">http://gisol.org/</a><br /><br />So I'd say if you have a mind to start using rhizome to do something, start<br />using it to do something and see what happens. I'm not trying to squelch<br />the dialogue, and I hope something good comes of it, but you don't have to<br />wait on Francis before you attempt to reinvigorate rhizome. You just have<br />to motivate a bunch of very busy, spread-thin creative folks with varied<br />goals and different understandings of what art is "good for."<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />jeremy added:<br /><br />Jason, i like where you are taking this.<br /><br />Going off of what you said,…..<br /><br />"I see an institution like Rhizome as being in a unique position to<br />facilitate this kind of community activity."<br />So I was thinking……. What if there was a site (RHIZOME?) that had a<br />pool of members.. and each week there were 3(?) featured Artists on some<br />part of the site.<br />And as a member you are required to participate in 2 out of the 3<br />discussions a week for a months time in order to obtain a spot on the<br />rotating weekly calendar. Once you have a months worth of time in,..<br />your name goes up on the list and you become available to show your work<br />when your name comes around. If you want to wait, or you have nothing to<br />show at the time,. that is fine. you can always join the rotating weekly<br />schedule when you have something to show, as long as you are maintaining<br />your monthly discussion dues. If you stop contributing for lets say,…<br />2 wks then you have to star over. You just need to contribute to the<br />energy of the discussion in order to get in line… and you need to<br />maintain your presence in the discussion if you want to be in the<br />schedule in the future. it is simple. And if you keep the rotation going<br />fast enough, like weekly… you will get enough discussion in and<br />maintain relative interest in the process.<br /><br />I think this would be a great way to encourage involvement, and generate<br />energy and lively evolving discussion. I have been looking for ways to<br />talk about art as much as the process of the industry we are involved<br />in. I would like to see the discussions branch out beyond the art, and<br />into our presentation of our art,.. and our administrative duties as<br />artists (taxes, resumes, proposals, bios, archive..etc.) Talking about<br />the art will get us all farther in our work, reshaping the system we<br />work in will help us to define the art, and becoming clearer in our<br />paperwork will help us to continue doing what we do. Is this too much to<br />ask of a community?<br /><br />I guess the worst case scenario is that you are forced to give<br />constructive criticism to someone who's work you dont understand… in<br />which case, i am sure they could use some help with clarifying their<br />artist statement. :)<br /><br />Let me know what you guys think. I would be happy to contribute my<br />skills to making anything happen. I would like to see this go beyond<br />what it is, and i dont know that i have completely bought into the Blog<br />vs Board argument. I dont know that either is the solution. I like<br />having my email right here in front of me. I dont want to have to go to<br />some website to participate, unless i was getting something more out it<br />than an ordinary Blog.<br /><br />-jeremy<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />liza sabater <liza@culturekitchen.com> added:<br /><br />Hi Jason, <br /><br />I've followed with interest this thread and was going to post a<br />meta-response but there's too much for that.<br /><br />On Sunday, Jul 4, 2004, at 10:31 America/New_York, Jason Van Anden wrote:<br />I am a fairly new member to the Rhizome community. When I first discovered<br />Rhizome, I was excited to find a forum of artists with common interests and<br />concerns, and looked forward to the discussions that would take place, and<br />that I could take place in. Since I joined a few months ago, there have<br />only been a few sustained threads, while the archives are filled with lively<br />and fascinating discussion. What happened?<br /> <br />Fatigue. Other interests. Growth.<br /><br />The recent survey requesting community interest in a blog service via<br />Rhizome has caused me to wonder if this is because of some trend; moving<br />away from boards, and towards blogs.<br /> <br />A little more than a year ago I started talking to people here in NYC about<br />blogs; about how I would love to see art sites with XML feeds and such<br />because, well, I'm lazy and hate browsers. Not that I am asking people to<br />give up use of the browser but to look at the technology of blogs as the<br />real way to build a rhizome (not this art site but the concept as per<br />Deleuze and Guattari). But mainly, it's because I'm lazy, I want to metaweb<br />art sites and hate bookmarks. TWhid was part of that round of conversations.<br />Alex, Francis and others.<br /><br />Also, technologically speaking, there is an enthusiasm and energy around<br />blogs very much like the one that brought the net art scene back in 1996.<br />Explorations on the possibilities of the semantic web are pushing the<br />envelope on technologies such as XML, Atom, trackbacks, CSS, PhP. And the<br />new hot thing is anything social or like they say at Corante, YASNS (yet<br />another social networking software). Orkut or Friendster anyone?<br /><br />If so, I wonder what the ramifications of this may be. In some ways, blogs<br />and boards are the similar, they both enable ongoing, two way communication.<br />The clear difference is that a blog is run by it's moderator, which changes<br />the dynamic, a lot.<br /> <br />Blogs have no more of a moderator than an email list. You are comparing<br />apples with oranges. Blogs can be scaled vertically via RSS whereas there is<br />no way of doing that with an elist unless you RSSscrap it or hack a feed<br />(which someone did so a while back for Rhizome). Still, hacked feeds like<br />that are not malleable.<br />If everyone runs their own blog, everyone is a moderator, and system becomes<br />decentralized. This requires more effort by the blog owner and his/her<br />audience. The person running the blog needs to keep things interesting<br />enough to keep people visiting, the audience needs to keep track of many<br />blogs instead of one.<br /> <br />That's what a rhizome is supposed to be :<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/info/index.php">http://rhizome.org/info/index.php</a><br /><br />"To these centered systems [arborescent structures], the authors contrast<br />acentered systems, finite networks of automata in which communication runs<br />from any neighbor to another, the stems or channels do not preexist, and all<br />individuals are interchangeable, defined only by their state at a given<br />moment–such that the local operations are coordinated and the final, global<br />result synchronized without a central agency."<br /> <br />What I want to bring into light is your comment about effort. Blogs are not<br />things. They are technologies. Software that is meant to manage a site by<br />separating the structure (HTML/PHP), from the design (CSS) and the content<br />(TXT). So if you are used to creating sites with Dreamweaver, yeah, the<br />thought is daunting. But as someone who is not a software developer, I have<br />to say that there is nothing better for easily managing a site than a CMS.<br />Now, does that mean that you should give up on artsy-fartsy sites? No. What<br />it means is that artists need to think strategically about their sites. That<br />the art stay separate from the actual management of the site. To use the CMS<br />as a way of archiving and curating your site.<br /><br />Tina LaPorta the other said to me "As net artists, we've lost out way". It<br />came out of a conversation that net art was supposed to be about<br />decentralization, the rhizome, nomadism and as it is it's become<br />institutionalized. So in effect, the first wave of net artists basically<br />emulated online the very systems they sought to by-pass offline in order to<br />show/disseminate their art. Is this bad? I don't think so because, really,<br />social networking software like wikis and blogs, for example, have exploded<br />in the last 2 years. Rhizome and the first wave of net artists has been<br />around since 1996. Their old farts in web / technology years if you think<br />about it. <br />At the time that I discovered Rhizome, I also discovered a lot of other<br />on-line resources influenced by it. After doing an unscientific<br />cost/benefits analysis, I decided that the service that Rhizome provides as<br />a centralized and democratic community was the best one, and decided to<br />become a member. <br /> <br />Rhizome is centralized but is not a democratic community. It was never set<br />up to work like that. Rhizome comes out of a salon / atelier / studio /<br />gallery / museum tradition. It's about centralizing art. So that's where the<br />technology for the site went. It's not a good or bad thing, BTW. The rhizome<br />at Rhizome is a metaphor but not an actual realization of the blueprints<br />given out by D&G*. That has happened with CMS.<br /><br />The technologies developed for blogging come from two traditions : Online<br />link logging and self publishing. So the onus of disseminating a site is<br />taken on by the blogger because, if they don't do it nobody will. And the<br />links have become a way of not just acknowledging influences of showing love<br />to other bloggers but of creating prestige ranking: of not only showing your<br />influences but assessing your influence on others.<br /><br />Personally, this meant that I devote some of my time (and ego) for the<br />greater good of the group, by posting my opinions and reactions to topics of<br />interest, in one place.<br /> <br />With blogs, that new place is the feed reader.<br /><br />To read about feeds go to : <a rel="nofollow" href="http://news.yahoo.com/rss">http://news.yahoo.com/rss</a><br />For what feed readers do, check out NetNewsWire at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.ranchero.com">http://www.ranchero.com</a><br />I believe that a socialist-democracy (the ideal of Rhizome) is a much better<br />way for this community to thrive than anarchy (fractured, poorly maintained<br />blogs). <br /> <br />Sorry but your analogy is hollow. Educate yourself a bit more about how the<br />technologies work and then come back to that. I still have not read Alex<br />Galloway's Protocol but I have on my site an essay he wrote with Eugene<br />Thacker called the Limits of Networking. It's brilliant. Check it out at<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.culturekitchen.com/archives/000574.html">http://www.culturekitchen.com/archives/000574.html</a><br />In order for this to happen, I think that members need to deliberately<br />devote their resources to the good of the board than their own blogs.<br /> <br />I will be publishing this weekend a long post on metablogging the net art<br />world. Hopefully it will be informative enough about the importance and<br />utility of CMS technology for net artists.<br />Given that we all have a finite amount of time to devote to our art, our<br />day-jobs, and so on, I am interested in why members feel it is better to<br />blog than to participate in a board.<br /> <br /><br />Quick thoughts : Vertical scaling (metaweb), categories, archives,<br />networking, diffusion, dissemination, the rhizome. More to come.<br />[…]<br /><br />You cannot compare the typical blog with Rhizome. It would be more like<br />does "Gawker" get more traffic than Rhizome or something like that. And<br />still it's not a good comparison because longevity + hits has a lot to<br />do with ranking on places like Google.\\[…]<br /><br />David has a great post on Many-to-Many at Corante. It's called<br />Redefining Friendship<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2004/07/07/">http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2004/07/07/</a><br />redefining_friendship.php<br /><br />What I found interesting a year ago (and still do) is how the<br />technology of blogs are CONCRETELY changing the web; whereas 8 years<br />ago net art redefined the web METAPHORICALLY –including this here site.<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />twhid replied:<br /><br />I post more often to my own site then to Rhiz, here's why:<br /><br />1. I have complete control over linking<br /><br />No one can put any sort of impediment in front of it for any reason<br />(even a little $5 fee).<br /><br />2. I have complete control over availability<br /><br />My posts will be there for as long as I choose. Rhiz could go under.<br />I'm not going to close-up shop on my web site until the day I die. Look<br />what happened to the Walker's new media program…<br /><br />3. I find I'm a better person when I'm posting to my own site.<br /><br />I share more instead of making a public pose. I'm much less likely to<br />flame and complain. I don't know why but I'm less reactionary. (of<br />course this is my own issue…)<br /><br />4. It's less aggressive. (this is related to point 3)<br /><br />Blogs are passive; email lists are much more aggressive PUSH media.<br /><br />5. I can syndicate (this is related to 1)<br /><br />RSS baby<br /><br />> <snip><br />>><br />><br />> What I want to bring into light is your comment about effort. Blogs<br />> are not things. They are technologies. Software that is meant to<br />> manage a site by separating the structure (HTML/PHP), from the design<br />> (CSS) and the content (TXT). So if you are used to creating sites with<br />> Dreamweaver, yeah, the thought is daunting. But as someone who is not<br />> a software developer, I have to say that there is nothing better for<br />> easily managing a site than a CMS. Now, does that mean that you should<br />> give up on artsy-fartsy sites? No. What it means is that artists need<br />> to think strategically about their sites. That the art stay separate<br />> from the actual management of the site. To use the CMS as a way of<br />> archiving and curating your site.<br />><br />> Tina LaPorta the other said to me "As net artists, we've lost out<br />> way". It came out of a conversation that net art was supposed to be<br />> about decentralization, the rhizome, nomadism and as it is it's become<br />> institutionalized. So in effect, the first wave of net artists<br />> basically emulated online the very systems they sought to by-pass<br />> offline in order to show/disseminate their art. Is this bad? I don't<br />> think so because, really, social networking software like wikis and<br />> blogs, for example, have exploded in the last 2 years. Rhizome and the<br />> first wave of net artists has been around since 1996. Their old farts<br />> in web / technology years if you think about it.<br /><br />I'm need to comment on this 'net artists lost their way' thing.<br /><br />I don't see net artists losing their way. There isn't as much of it<br />going on, it's not as exciting and new as it was, but to say, "we've<br />lost our way" simply makes lots and lots of assumptions about what net<br />artists were thinking about in the early days. I for one didn't think<br />all that much about rhizomatic structures or nomadism (nomadism?). I<br />was more excited about the fact that I, ME, JUST LITTLE OLE ME, had<br />access to a mass medium! That was what excited me. Also, most newer net<br />art projects use decentralized, networked processes in the make-up of<br />the work even if it's being supported by centralized art world<br />institutions.<br /> <br />[…]<br /><br />>> I believe that a socialist-democracy (the ideal of Rhizome) is a much<br />>> better way for this community to thrive than anarchy (fractured,<br />>> poorly maintained blogs).<br />><br />> Sorry but your analogy is hollow. Educate yourself a bit more about<br />> how the technologies work and then come back to that. I still have not<br />> read Alex Galloway's Protocol but I have on my site an essay he wrote<br />> with Eugene Thacker called the Limits of Networking. It's brilliant.<br />> Check it out at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.culturekitchen.com/archives/000574.html">http://www.culturekitchen.com/archives/000574.html</a><br /><br />Yeah, I wouldn't make that analogy either, that is, anarchy=blogs, that<br />really doesn't make any sense to me.<br /><br />My experience in blogland is it maintains a very democratic nature as<br />there is no one voice of authority or mechanism of centralization. Of<br />course some voices rise to the top (in the web design field for<br />instance, there are a few 'main' bloggers: Zeldman, stopdesign, What do<br />i know, mezzoblue, k10k, etc). But the same thing happens on a<br />discussion board but it's much harder to create one's own filter of the<br />leading voices in a field.<br /><br />Similar blog voices link via their post links, their blogrolls, their<br />comment links, their trackbacks, etc. The mechanism of grouping or<br />networking therefor is decentralized; if one blog goes down, much like<br />the Internet, it doesn't tear down the entire network of blogs in a<br />field. We need that desperately in the new media/net art world. If<br />Rhizome goes out tomorrow, what becomes of the artbase? the texts? our<br />RAW clubhouse? It's gone.<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />liza sabater replied:<br /><br />On Tuesday, Jul 6, 2004, at 13:53 America/New_York, Dyske Suematsu wrote:<br /><br />In fact, someone does need to experiment with new technologies, for the rest<br />of us to be able to use them appropriately. The question as a director of IT<br />is: Is my role to explore the possibilities of new technologies, or to use<br />them to serve a certain purpose? I find that many directors of IT end up<br />doing the former because it is more exciting, better for their careers, and<br />offers more recognition for their achievements. It is rare to see IT<br />directors who put objectives before the allure of new technologies. I've<br />personally witnessed millions of dollars go down the toilet because of these<br />tendencies of IT directors.<br /> <br />Completely agree with this. Just to reinforce my opinion about the 'culture'<br />that this new service will be serving.<br /><br />I have just finished designing a blog for Napier's potatoland. Not ready to<br />launch yet but once I finish the post on metablogging, I'll be pointing to<br />some examples of how I will be using the site for archival / curatorial<br />purposes. <br /><br />There are people out there actually using blogging technology to create art.<br />Will give some of those as well. But these possibilities might not be<br />available to users if you are centralizing the system.<br /><br />If decentralized, how different would that make you from TypePad? Then there<br />is the kind of licensing you may be using for the software itself; the<br />amount of blogs allowed per user, etc. etc.<br /><br />[…]<br /><br />The poster-child for metawebbing and vertical scaling has to be this site :<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.electrokin.com/netart_links.htm">http://www.electrokin.com/netart_links.htm</a><br /><br />Net Artists should kiss the feet of people like Christiane Paul or Curt<br />Cloninger. I have no idea how they do it, really. Clicking one bookmark at a<br />time? Is that the best net artists can do? And don't get me started with<br />those all-flash-all-the-time sites. Really, keeping track net art is like<br />trying to give cats a bath.<br />[…]<br /><br />On Tuesday, Jul 6, 2004, at 23:59 America/New_York, curt cloninger wrote:<br />So what do I want out of rhizome? When I first came to rhizome, I wanted to<br />discover a like-minded community of creative folks who wanted to talk about<br />art. I never quite discovered that (except for a handful of kindred<br />spirits). What I did discover was different, but in some ways even more<br />beneficial to me (although it took me a while to appreciate it).<br /> <br />This makes me think of the house of greek parents in "My Big Fat Greek<br />Wedding". It's funny how the house was built to keep the Exenos from coming<br />in. What I like about having a blog is that I have no idea who will get<br />hooked into it. I am the #3 search choice for spongemonkeys and #6 for<br />masturbation month <br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.google.com/search?q=spongemonkeys&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8">http://www.google.com/search?q=spongemonkeys&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8</a><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.google.com/search?q=masturbation+month&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8">http://www.google.com/search?q=masturbation+month&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8</a><br /><br />No I have not been masturbating for a month with spongemonkeys (although I<br />should post something like that and see what happens). Anyhow, it's been<br />interesting to see some of the comments on these and other topics. Then<br />there are the personal emails I receive from people that, once I visit their<br />sites I go, WOW! now I know why they 'clicked' with what I write.<br /><br />You just don't get that on a gated community. Need the traffic or<br />pedestrians, runners, strollers and transients. That's what makes blogs<br />rhizomatic. <br />[…]<br />> i find this blog thread very interesting. these are some of the issues<br />> that we have wrestled with ever since the beginning of rhizome: the<br />> best way to exchange content collaboratively.<br /><br />True.<br /><br />> a quick summary of what rhiz has attempted thus far (Francis–correct<br />> me if i'm wrong)… at the start of rhizome, mark tribe decided that<br />> the best way to navigate the signal-to-noise problem was to have two<br />> lists, one heavily moderated and one completely open. this resulted in<br />> the Digest/Raw format that has persisted since. people wanting a<br />> filter subscribed to Digest, while those who could handle the deluge<br />> subscribed to Raw. in the olden days the website was edited by the<br />> same person who edited Digest, and therefore ended up resembling the<br />> filtered email list rather then the unfiltered. eventually a web<br />> archive of Raw was added to balance things out a little. then, after a<br />> few years, rhizome switched over to a more decentralized format,<br />> handing the editorial selection for the website to a group of<br />> "superusers" who are able to pick which articles appear on the front<br />> page.<br />So the decision came out of the main technology email. Since you're the<br />Perl guy Alex, did you know about blogging systems when you were<br />building R1 or R2? I am assuming you did not because the technology<br />really did not explode until about 2 years ago and you were already<br />done with the site. Correct? I really want this information because …<br />well … inquiring minds want to know. I really want to know the<br />details of the process for building the site.<br />> as others have already pointed out in this thread, RSS feeds have<br />> fundamentally changed the landscape of the web. it's my opinion that<br />> rhizome might be ready for another redesign, one that can accommodate<br />> the aggregation and republishing functionality enabled by RSS. yes,<br />> email will always be the killer app, so of course some balance between<br />> email content and web feed content should be achieved.<br />That would be a huge undertaking. You already have the chops with PhP<br />and there's a lot of nifty things done with it that surpass what is<br />accomplished with the mere mortal HTML CMS site but, I'm thinking more<br />of the structure of Rhizome itself. This is social software after all.<br />How are you going to manage the socialization on the site and why. Two<br />big questions to answer before going ahead with a redesign of that<br />nature.<br />> by way of contrast.. i've recently been hanging out over on the<br />> eyebeam reblog system<br />Hanging out? Hogging it is more like it. Get off it! I want to reblog<br /><pout> <pout><br />> (<a rel="nofollow" href="http://eyebeam.org/reblog/">http://eyebeam.org/reblog/</a>) and am currently coding version 2 of the<br />> backend (with much help from Jonah Peretti and Michael Frumin). reblog<br />> is formally quite similar to the current rhizome website in the sense<br />> that it has a community-fed text input system that is then parsed and<br />> republished on the site.<br />Nononononono. It is edited. It is not a regular feed where anything<br />would be aggregated unfiltered. It is definitely not conventional XML<br />aggregation and Jonah wanted it that way because they wanted a<br />moderated aggregation to the site. Correct?<br />> reblog is simple, it takes an unlimited number of RSS feeds as input<br />> and lets you parse them into a single RSS feed as output. the main<br />> differences with rhiz i can see are 1) rhizome uses the emails posted<br />> to rhizome raw as its input channel, while reblog uses posts from<br />> about 80 web feeds, 2) rhizome uses a group of "superusers" who can<br />> publish articles on the website, while reblog uses a single rotating<br />> "guest reblogger" (a convention which could easily be changed in the<br />> future to include multiple simultaneous rebloggers).<br />The advantage of 1 list to 80 blogs is huge and that is what I mean by<br />vertical scaling.<br />> rhizome could conceivably reorganize itself around the reblog model,<br />> using both email and rhizomer blog feeds as the input.<br />Absolutely. Yahoo! has an RSS for their open email lists. So the<br />model has been proven. I have to dig for the link to that feature but<br />have used it.<br />[…]<br /><br />On Wednesday, Jul 7, 2004, at 16:20 America/New_York, Francis Hwang<br />wrote:<br />> Actually, I think it's much more promising to add individual blogs,<br />> for individual authors, than to have one more collectively moderated<br />> channel on Rhizome. The ecosystem of RSS users already has its own<br />> collective moderation, as drawn implicitly through the act of linking<br />> and tracked on search & indexing sites like Technorati, Blogdex,<br />> PubSub, Google, etc., etc., etc. There are, of course, group blogs out<br />> in the world, but with a well-armed RSS reader you can mix your<br />> channel anyway.<br /><br />The question still is who gets to blog for Rhizome. Payers of the<br />service? Members who already have blogs? A mix of both? And then how<br />would that be reflected on the site? Just simple aggregation or by the<br /># links to a certain post or by the # comments? How is all that<br />technology going to be put to use to fulfill the needs of Rhizome?<br />> Individually authored blogs are easier to code/maintain, too.<br />Maybe, maybe not. It all depends on the user. The issue here is that<br />you have a very small % of net art people using blogs. So your focus<br />may well be about educating people on how to use them. Most net art<br />people equate blogs with just writing and have no idea how to use it<br />for their own art purposes.<br />><br />> I also have to say that I don't think it's at all guaranteed that<br />> email will always be the killer app. These days I get more than 5000<br />> emails a week, and the overwhelming majority are spam … client-side<br />> filtering doesn't work at this volume, legal measures will just push<br />> spammers into legal gray zones, and, various sender verification<br />> systems are making their way through the standards process but will<br />> take years to codify and implement. In the meantime, the upcoming<br />> versions of operating systems from both Redmond and Cupertino will<br />> include RSS readers … the future of email as a one-to-many broadcast<br />> medium is by no means guaranteed, unfortunately.<br />><br /><br />That is true to. Push media, due to spamming, is going the way of …<br />well… telemarketing and spamming.<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Jason Van Anden replied:<br /><br />This discussion, by it's very existence, actually does a good job of<br />illustrating why I brought this topic up.<br /><br />How would this discussion be realized on a blog?<br /><br />How would you know about it?<br /><br />Who would be motivated to contribute to it?<br /><br />The thoughtful contributions from the membership have motivated me to<br />contiue to participate in this ongoing discussion. I feel like I have spent<br />my time well.<br /><br />Jason Van Anden<br />www.smileproject.com<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />jeremy replied:<br /><br />LIZA did a fine job today of sewing together a series of posts on this<br />subject. I felt like i was reading a blog. I enjoyed reading them, but i<br />became turned off to the whole thing after a while.<br />She made me take a look at RSS. I dont really understand what it is<br />yet,. but she got my curiosity peaked.<br />I do know that i like recieving Rhisome via email for the very fact that<br />i feel like i am in a neutral environment. (this is just an illusion in<br />my head)<br /><br />however, i could easily see my self taking part in a rhizome blog if the<br />discussion were ALIVE.<br /><br />I am looking forward to helping out in any way possible. I would like to<br />get something going.<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Joy Garnett replied:<br /><br />This discussion has brought up everything for me–everything that I've<br />been struggling with for the past 4 years of editing newsgrist and trying<br />to make it work. Ha! Liza has indeed done an amazing job of tieing it all<br />together. What remains for me to say is perhaps personal, and I hope a<br />little bit useful here: ironically, newsgrist started as an adverse<br />reaction to Rhizome flame wars and my own irritation with Raw – ah, the<br />good old days. (Alex, please don't laugh!)<br /><br />But those were also pre-RSS pre-blog days. I started a news digest<br />(c. 2000) because I wanted editorial control as well as "reach"–<br />in those days that killer app was not yet bogged down by spam or<br />worminess. Also and most important: I felt the painful gap between one<br />art community, which at that point was starkly Luddite, and the digital/<br />net scene, which had basically changed my life and my work in untold and<br />amazing ways. The gap wrankled me (still does). So newsgrist set about its<br />mission in a proto-bloggy fashion: it wanted to build a community<br />through distribution and sharing of info, not unlike Phil Agre's Red Rock<br />Reader list, if anyone remembers that phenom. At that stage it was very<br />much a landscape of lists. and of course, bbs.<br /><br />Anyway, long story short: this year I finally decided to shift newsgrist<br />into blogdom. There is no point in ignoring RSS etc. BUT at the same time,<br />the idea of abandoning a carefully taylored and large subscriber list made<br />no sense (abandon all my subscribers?). So instead of emailing out a news<br />digest (which gets archived on a website that no one visits) I blog and<br />blog and blog…and then send out a news digest to my as yet non-bloggy<br />subscribers–a digest of the blog itself. The links are almost all<br />permalinks so they will be led to the non-bloggy, should they choose to<br />click, new newsgrist blog, and hence (and this is the idea) to other<br />blogs; to the world of blogs. So my idea: to create some kind of bridge<br />between a passive community that barely looks at the web, that likes to<br />receive email (they used to be the Luddites) and a bloggy world of<br />aggregators and feeds. One thing leads to another.<br /><br />Even successful (um, $$$) blog entrpeneurs like Nick Denton (Gawker,<br />Wonkette, FleshBot, etc.) are trying to figure out how to drive the<br />non-bloggy community into the blog market–that's the idea behind sites<br />like Kinja.com. But my feeling is that we don't have to be absolutists:<br />there are uses for blogs, for boards, for email lists—they all serve<br />different needs, different communities even. Reality is hybrid.<br /><br />I don't know that Rhizome really needs to change radically right now–Net<br />Art <br />News being their feed, their way of drawing both bloggers and non-bloggers<br />(net art news subscribers). Perhaps the real question is: Are any of the<br />current modes that Rhizome employs expendable? Or is it rather a question<br />of adding something new?<br /><br />Hmmmm.<br />best,<br />Joy<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://newsgrist.typepad.com">http://newsgrist.typepad.com</a><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://imvoting.com">http://imvoting.com</a><br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Jason Van anden replied:<br /><br />Wow. Lots to think about. I want to respond to the points made by, well,<br />everyone - but I need to digest it all, and have the free moment to write it<br />responsibly. I hope to be able to do this sometime over the weekend.<br /><br />Perhaps it is not necessary to say this, perhaps it is even self-centered<br />and presumptuous, but at the expense of sounding square… I have to admit<br />that I often wait in anticipation for a reply to my posts. I think it is<br />about a yearning for recognition, and relying on feedback from others for<br />some sort of self-actualization - interesting topics for therapy at any<br />rate, or perhaps the reason I chose to pursue art. I am new at this kind of<br />interaction, so maybe this does not need to be brought up, the informal<br />protocol of this medium excuses the need to. I would hate to think that<br />someone felt dismissed because of the pause, especially given the amount of<br />effort members have invested in their contributions.<br /><br />[…]<br /><br />Joy is not the first person to have referenced the legendary Rhizome "Flame<br />Wars" as being the beginning of some sort of Rhizome schism. Was it ever<br />documented, analysed, made into a prequel? If not, can someone bring me up<br />to date? Really curious.<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Lee Wells added:<br /><br />Dear Liza:<br /><br />Art is not about blogging.<br />Blogging is about art.<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Rob Myers replied:<br /><br />On 10 Jul 2004, at 15:41, Lee Wells wrote:<br /><br />> Art is not about blogging.<br />> Blogging is about art.<br /><br />There's always "Whistler's Blogger"…<br /><br />More seriously there's Belle du Jour (etc.), blogs as literature<br />(allegedly).<br /><br />I *don't* think Rhizome Raw would be better as a blog. I like the<br />peculiar mix of press releases, ASCII art and chit-chat that is this<br />list. I like the volume of traffic. And I like the semi-private nature<br />of the list. Rhizome Raw would be a late and redundant entry to the<br />blogging arena. As a mailing list it's something very special.<br /><br />- Rob.<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />jeremy replied:<br /><br />I dont understand RSS enough,. but it seems like it would be a happy<br />medium in between the two.<br />And besides, any system has flaws, which will ultimately be exploited<br />and used to create beautiful havoc. And if those flaws are not being<br />exploited, then we will be here to see that they are.<br />Let it change and evolve, and move on.<br />I am more interested in seeing what things come out of a change, than<br />what could come from using the same tired methods.<br />-jeremy<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Jason Van Anden replied:<br /><br />I think the artornot.com example was a poor choice.<br /><br />Liza wrote:<br />>That would mean changing the whole structure of how the (non-profit) business<br />of >Rhizome is run. It's not just about the technology.<br /><br />This was an attempt to answer Francis's question about what I meant by<br />community participation. My example was not meant to suggest that we should<br />be developing profitable products umbrellaed under the Rhizome brand. Later<br />posts by Joy Garnett and T.Whid actually illustrate my point much better.<br />Disenfranchised by activities going on within the Rhizome community, they<br />were motivated to start their own blogs: T.Whid had a problem with the fee<br />structure, Joy Garnett with the flame wars. Clearly both of these members<br />contribute (a lot) regardless or I would not know this, however, this<br />suggests to me that this board is quieter since they decided to focus their<br />efforts on their blogs.<br /><br />I think both Joy and T.Whid have excellent blogs, so perhaps it is not a bad<br />thing that they were inspired to do what they do.<br /><br />But doesn't this suggest that this board (and community) might be more<br />active if members were more motivated to focus their thoughts and idea here<br />instead?<br /><br />Jason Van Anden<br />www.smileproject.com<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Francis Hwang replied:<br /><br />On Jul 9, 2004, at 6:31 PM, liza sabater wrote:<br /><br />><br />> On Wednesday, Jul 7, 2004, at 16:20 America/New_York, Francis Hwang<br />> wrote:<br />>> Actually, I think it's much more promising to add individual blogs,<br />>> for individual authors, than to have one more collectively moderated<br />>> channel on Rhizome. The ecosystem of RSS users already has its own<br />>> collective moderation, as drawn implicitly through the act of linking<br />>> and tracked on search & indexing sites like Technorati, Blogdex,<br />>> PubSub, Google, etc., etc., etc. There are, of course, group blogs<br />>> out in the world, but with a well-armed RSS reader you can mix your<br />>> channel anyway.<br />><br />> The question still is who gets to blog for Rhizome. Payers of the<br />> service? Members who already have blogs? A mix of both? And then how<br />> would that be reflected on the site? Just simple aggregation or by the<br />> # links to a certain post or by the # comments? How is all that<br />> technology going to be put to use to fulfill the needs of Rhizome?<br /><br />I don't think there will be such a thing as blogging "for Rhizome", as<br />you put it. Although we haven't really nailed down how much this will<br />cost per person (and accordingly how we'd want to charge for it), more<br />or less anybody who'll want one can get one. There's no vetting or<br />anything like that. You can come and blog about Holocaust revisionism<br />for all I want, I don't care. (Though if you were into that sort of<br />thing you might be better off somewhere else, because if you don't care<br />about integration into the Rhizome community then there's not much<br />reason to blog here.)<br /><br />There are a lot of different ways that the proposed blogs could be<br />integrated into the rest of the site: Personally I think this needs to<br />be rolled into some sort of design/usability review though I'm not sure<br />when we'll find the time. So, to give you a sort of weasely<br />non-committal answer: We're very interested in reflecting this in the<br />site in lots of different ways but don't know exactly how we'll do it.<br /><br />F.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Rhizome.org is a 501©(3) nonprofit organization and an affiliate of<br />the New Museum of Contemporary Art.<br /><br />Rhizome Digest is supported by grants from The Charles Engelhard<br />Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for<br />the Visual Arts, and with public funds from the New York State Council<br />on the Arts, a state agency.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Rhizome Digest is filtered by Kevin McGarry (kevin@rhizome.org). ISSN:<br />1525-9110. Volume 9, number 28. Article submissions to list@rhizome.org<br />are encouraged. Submissions should relate to the theme of new media art<br />and be less than 1500 words. For information on advertising in Rhizome<br />Digest, please contact info@rhizome.org.<br /><br />To unsubscribe from this list, visit <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/subscribe">http://rhizome.org/subscribe</a>.<br />Subscribers to Rhizome Digest are subject to the terms set out in the<br />Member Agreement available online at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://rhizome.org/info/29.php">http://rhizome.org/info/29.php</a>.<br /><br />Please invite your friends to visit Rhizome.org on Fridays, when the<br />site is open to members and non-members alike.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />
