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