Day: July 10, 2008

This blog would have more respect for the Rhizome.org chatboard denizens* if they said this:

1. There are two generations, or camps, of artists on the Net.
2. Ours puts a premium on building from scratch and understanding what's under the hood, so to speak.
3. We are interested in conceptual art and how it applies to networks and the underlying architecture of software.
4. We don't understand what you are doing, but it seems trivial--calling a pre-packaged blog your art platform and linking to commercial media products and calling them readymades. Or posting art on your blog and calling it Net Art.
5. We get that Marcin Ramocki, Olia Lialina, and others have said there is more to it than that, but frankly we are at a loss to "get" the art. Their arguments are facile and sophistic because [refute arguments].
6. We don't give a crap if someone calls your art Version 2 of what we are doing, we are the originators.

But that's not what they said, instead it was:

1. We are upset that someone is calling your art Version 2 of what we are doing, since we are the originators and it makes you sound better.
2. We don't understand what you are doing. It seems trivial--calling a pre-packaged blog your art platform and linking to commercial media products and calling them readymades. Or posting art on your blog and calling it Net Art. Can you please explain it? Oh, that's your explanation, well, that doesn't convince us, sorry.
4. We get that Marcin Ramocki, Olia Lialina, and others have said that there is more to it than that, and those are very fine arguments. Nevertheless, they do not convince us.
5. Although neither you nor your spokespersons have explained what you are doing to our satisfaction, we are quite confident that it is exactly what we are doing and there is no need for a new version.

What a mess.

*changed from less neutral word

This blog recently participated in a seance and asked the late Theodor Adorno some questions:

TM: Which version of the Mariah Carey green screen video do you like better, Oliver Laric's* or Caspar Stracke's?

TA: They are both rather terrible. Art that relies on the simplistic device of subtracting information with digital tools isn't really art at all, is it? No, strike that, Joe McKay's UFOs made from partially erased street lamps were quite poignant, so it can be done in the right hands.

TM: But if you had to choose, which would it be, Laric or Stracke?

TA: Laric's video, I suppose, because it allows you to ogle this magnifique sexy woman with no surrounding distractions, other than the fact that she is hovering somewhat clumsily in a green monochrome. Whereas with the Stracke you are forced to look at the horrible actor who plays the computer nerd "rocking out" and such and the femme fatale is reduced to a green silhouette.

TM: What did you think of the Mariah Carey video when "net artists" were just linking to it as a found object?

TA: Bad, bad. Carey's producers reached out to the nerd demographic and the nerds took the bait. We are still doing it with this interview.

TM: Thank you for your time, sir.

*Update, 2011: The Rhizome link has been changed to http://rhizome.org/editorial/2008/jun/30/go-ahead-touch-her/