February 2009

Simon Reynolds on whether there will be a revival of mid-'80s bands. Don't know any of the ones he's talking about (from '83-'86 or current soundalikes). I switched to stations playing hiphop and classical in that period. To me the mid-'80s is the Smiths, pop-wise, which I didn't hear until '89 or so. This comment from "Chewtoy" made my ears perk up, though:

1983 - 1986 was the period of what NME's Chris Bohn (a.k.a. Biba Kopf) called "Hardcore", which was not so much a distinct style but an attitude. It included Nick Cave, Sonic Youth, the Butthole Surfers, Lydia Lunch, Henry Rollins, Flipper, Hüsker Dü, No Trend, and the complete roster of the Some Bizzare label and its K.422 sublabel: Einstürzende Neubauten, Test Dept., Psychic TV, Coil, Foetus, The Swans, Wiseblood, The The, Marc & The Mambas, Dave Ball, Cabaret Voltaire.

And then there were a whole bunch of experimental groups lumped together under the terrible misnomer "Industrial", such as Nurse With Wound, Current 93, Death in June, Zoviet France, Laibach, Greater Than One, Controlled Bleeding, Die Form, SPK, Lustmord, Muslimgauze, Bourbonese Qualk, the Anti Group, Severed Heads...

1986/1987 saw the emergence of the more danceable Electronic Body Music with bands like Front 242, Skinny Puppy, Nitzer Ebb, Renegade Soundwave and Meat Beat Manifesto.

Ahhh, that I can follow.

Update: A few of Reynolds' references are ringing a bell. Portion Control I learned about from the Mutant Sounds blog. I can't who remember who recommended the Wolfgang Press to me back in the day but I'm fairly I certain I never heard them before the YouTube video Reynolds links to. (It's not very good.)

Here is an anecdotal history of Paul Slocum's YouTube collage Transformer Fire, in several incarnations including a gallery version shown at artMovingProjects and a recent reblogging at Rhizome.org.

Wikipedia editor Daniel Rigal has a cast iron stomach and the patience of Job. He stood his ground in refusing to allow a Wikipedia-page-as-conceptual-project onto Wikipedia. Here's what he said in the Wikipedia Articles for Deletion chat, echoing arguments about the project on Paddy Johnson's blog: "I don't think it is productive to discuss this. I now regret giving it an opening as it isn't relevant here. (This is what I get for trying to be helpful.) Some people reject the concept of encyclopaedic knowledge. That is their choice but I don't see any reason for a person of that view to hang out on an encyclopaedia. This sort of stuff gets discussed interminably by philosophers. We are not going to get anywhere with it here. Lets let it drop. --DanielRigal (talk)"

Opposing him is Patrick Lichty, whose quotes in support, from the same Wikipedia "Articles for Deletion" discussion are collected here to show how a self-described "media studies and New Media Art professor & curator" puts his thumb on the scale for art he likes (short version: he repeatedly cites himself as an authority and refers to discussion elsewhere on the web that he initiated). This sucks, y'all:

This sort of artwork already has strong precedents in history - the Surrealists' Exquisite Corpse, Debord's idea of Situationist detournement, and although I am not part of this collective, I fully intend to include it as part of my chapter for the upcoming book of distributed writing commissioned by Turbulence.org, and it will be mentioned as part of my talk on new art practices at a guest lecture at Denver University on 2/16/09, and I have already written on it on my critical blog in London. Therefore, the reference is to the emergence of the concept, which now exists outside Wikipedia, and is paradoxical but not solipsistic. I think that the person suggesting the idea of letting the idea grow is well-reasoned, and a time for review (say, 90 days) could be set for re-evaluation.--24.14.54.88 (talk) 22:17, 14 February 2009 (UTC)--TS [TS is Patrick Lichty, per a hyperlink]

Comment: I would very much beg to differ on the point of the Surrealists. Dali would lay in traffic, Artaud organized a riot aginst Dulac's first screening of the Clergyman and the Seashell. If the Surrealists would have found it "appropriate" for the message, I am absolutely sure they would have done Corpses in the library. The way I see it, if it gets pulled, it will become by definition a case for reinsertion as an "event" in New Media art history. However, I know the project is being watched by a number of curators with great interest.--Patlichty (talk) 23:36, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

* 'Comment: the flags on the authors of the Wikipedia Art article are unwarranted - Kildall is a gradute of the Art Institute of Chicago, and well exhibited, I am not familiar with Biran per se, and I wrote a term paper in part about Nathaniel's work during my MFA studies on African Computer Art in the mid 2000's. These are legitimate people, and their pages are justified, and only justifiable criticism maybe citations or formatting.--Patlichty (talk) 23:36, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

* 'Comment: Well, right - "legitimate" is not the proper word. However, all three have substantial records, and if it takes an exxternal scholar to go over their records, then we can set that up.User:Patlichty|Patlichty]] (talk) 23:36, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

First, notability - as a media studies and New Media Art professor & curator, I find this missive "Highly" notable, for obvious reasons. This is a great project, either way it's resolved. It has also been picked up for discussion in at least one scholarly publication in this first day.
Secondly, verifiability - there external resources on the issue, and it is alrady in discussion in the greater community. I think the issue might be whether the site or the entry is the art, which has not been resolved.
Reliable Sources: there are two blogs, an installation, and a developing discussion on a 10,000 person listserv (Rhizome). I'm sure that this will be undeniably resolved to Wikipedia standards soon.
No Original Research: This might be the weakest leg in that much of it was written by the progenitors, but if needed, objective scholars can be asked to render their thoughts as well.
Don't Garfinkel the WIKI (DGtW); That's a bit gray, again on terms as to whether the site or the entry is the "art". In my opinion, the decision will likely be much clearer after a period of time (as stated before, 90 days, and probably minimum of 30).
--Patlichty (talk) 01:47, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

As I've seen the new "Context" section put forth, and not by any of the artists, I think the article is MUCH more solid, is more grounded in external art historical references, and all around more grounded as an "article" per se. There the piece was truly solipsistic in the beginning, and probably fated for swift deletion, I think that comments by people like Frock, the new edits, and the development of the article over such a short amount of time shows its potential. In addition, I move that before deletion, we really should get someone in who's edited the New Media/Tech Art pages. If they're here, please chime in, and state you've been editing there.--Patlichty (talk) 03:47, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

The last quote is the only one that seems unbiased.