Day: November 16, 2010

Have mentioned this post by Erik Stinson a couple of times:

http://erikstinson.tumblr.com/post/652622317/the-dumping-styles-of-several-people

...as an example of writing that helps understand what's going on on dump.fm but also connects to the more interesting things going on right now, "net art"-wise or social media art-wise. Stinson recently did a new draft of his post called:

http://erikstinson.tumblr.com/post/1544482660/the-dumping-styles-of-several-people-2-0

...which has some overlap with the previous version but continues to develop the ideas. A concluding paragraph captures the anti-"art" dynamic well:

to me, it seems really important to approach dumping with the kind of lazy convictions of those who use dump. when i dump it’s often vague/idle brainstorming (for design or advertising) or simply relaxing, ‘blowing-off-steam’ as if i am watching a very fast game show-and-tell, with 20-year-olds who are mostly tired from work and stoned. in truth, i see dump as a window into unconscious interests and vague aesthetic impulses of internet friends, rather than as a ‘forum’ or ‘website’ or ‘fucking sweet new marketing tool.’ very occasionally you glimpse the possibilities of dump as a place to explore new ways of living/interacting or new modes of art. mostly, people are less ambitious..

Some people are more ambitious or competitive in terms of racking up "favs" but (i) it is ultimately less ambitious because the site exists mostly in the present and there's no point in dumping the best work in your portfolio all the time because it will just disappear into your rarely-examined log and (ii) there are no rules for what gets fav-ed: some people use tech skills and others are funny/sociable. Am not going to say more on this topic because I've already been told my perception of dump is horribly fucked and wrong. I defer to Erik...