"Let's register," proposes Ryz.
If donuts.co wins the .art domain from ICANN we may have a chance. If Anton Vidokle's e-Flux fiefdom wins we are probably screwed, unless we can demonstrate that the golfc.art website deals with commodification or "the body." Well, it gets bodies around the golfcourse...!
No one else seems too interested in the issue of the new "top level domains" being peddled by ICANN as the next hot Internet thing, in particular the .art domain being sought by various would-be hosts for big bucks, but I appreciate getting to have a discussion of this issue with Orit Gat and Michael Connor over at Rhizome.
Gat's article covers more than just .art -- I didn't know prior to reading it that the virtual art fair website Art.sy actually had a Syrian domain or that obnoxious URL-shortener Bit.ly was based in the land of Qhaddafy. (I don't think about either site that much.) Well, those do seem like supremely stupid and fucked-up choices for where to host your internet. (Art.sy seemed not to know that Syria was a repressive dictatorship.)
In response to my complaint that Rhizome wasn't taking any stand on e-Flux's attempt to snatch the .art domain, editor Michael Connor said:
I am interested in Orit's article not as a stance for or against e-flux's application (an issue you and Paddy have already offered excellent analysis of). The interesting thing is that whatever happens, participation in .art will imply an alliance with the domain manager, whether the wingnuts or with e-flux, in the same way that participation in .sy unfortunately implies an alliance with Syria - URLs map onto political relationships, inside and outside of the "art world."
Whether or not intended, I'll take that as a subtle jab at e-Flux, which my fellow art types (including Paddy Johnson) seem to trust to handle the .art domain responsibly. Am not having any of that personally. As I said to Gat on Rhizome:
If, as you suggest, Deviantart.com wins [the .art domain], this whole problem goes away.
e-Flux, by actively soliciting art and e-world support, is in effect asking us to gamble on whether .art will be a Socialist utopia (a la the Timebank) or a Communist hell (a la Facebook).
"Let's have the revolution and fix the bugs later" is not preferable to a "weird democratic taxonomy" that works reasonably well.
I posted this comment in response to Rhizome.org's article Internet Real Estate, Art and Power: The cases of Artsy and .art, which downplays the amount of fear and loathing there has been on the subject of the ".art" domain:
Are "new speculative opportunities as dizzying as those of Zola’s 19th-century Paris" a good thing? Bad? Pure hype? Orit Gat's article takes no position on e-Flux's attempt to corner the ".art" domain. An organization taking its name from a diffuse, rhizomatic conception of the Web might just say "whoa, wait a minute" to plans to have a single organization acting as gatekeeper for all of art. If this goes through will Rhizome move to Rhizome.art? What happens to all the artists on Facebook and their "like" economy? Isn't deviantart.com actually more of a democratic conception of art than e-Flux's insider-y mailing list?
Some of these topics were discussed on Paddy Johnson's and my blogs a year ago. See links below. In reply to being called out as a would-be gatekeeper, e-Flux's Anton Vidokle replied "we are not planning to curate the art domain." Is a gatekeeper the same as a curator? All one has to do is say "yes you are art" or "no you aren't art." I wouldn't call that curating but I'd call it gatekeeping.
Also, how about a little skepticism regarding ICANN's claims that the new top level domains will change the face of the internet? Vidokle thinks they will. Others have called TLDs a Mafia-like shakedown of nervous web businesses. Vidokle is paying $185,000 just to bid for the domain. That should make any art-lover nervous. "Trust the Party - we have the best of intentions for your art."
See:
http://www.artfagcity.com/2012/06/21/e-flux-could-increase-future-funding-for-the-arts-through-art/
http://www.artfagcity.com/2012/06/25/e-flux-co-founder-anton-vidokle-says-art-will-not-be-curated/
Update: Apologies to Orit Gat for misspelling her name in the (uneditable) Rhizome comment.
Posted on Vimeo.
An embedded version is here.
"HD" or hi def should be on by default (see button on right side of controller).
If it isn't initially showing HD on your player, please shoot me an email.
Update: I edited and re-uploaded the video so the vimeo URL has changed. Sorry -- after I did it I realized there's a way to replace the video without changing the URL. The replacement video has one new clip but also, after some initial reactions, I decided to eliminate some desktop screenshots that were distracting from the content, fascinating as the theme of non-Apple-using creatives may be.
