ARTBASE (1)
BIO
born in 1962 in Lier, Belgium.
studied filology at Louvain, Belgium.
worked a lot in bars and restaurants before i became obsessivly addicted to producing stuff on computers.
i once won a design contest of cgi-magazine and they let me go to New York for four days, that was nice.
i think in terms of writing mostly (or programming, but those are very similar processes for me)
painting is a very different process and i'm very bad at it but i do it anyway because i like the differences it produces and i like the freshness of amateurism, i guess.
what i produce new media-wise is also very much influenced by my daily practice of webdesign and programming with its concerns of usability and the pragmatic approach it implies.
studied filology at Louvain, Belgium.
worked a lot in bars and restaurants before i became obsessivly addicted to producing stuff on computers.
i once won a design contest of cgi-magazine and they let me go to New York for four days, that was nice.
i think in terms of writing mostly (or programming, but those are very similar processes for me)
painting is a very different process and i'm very bad at it but i do it anyway because i like the differences it produces and i like the freshness of amateurism, i guess.
what i produce new media-wise is also very much influenced by my daily practice of webdesign and programming with its concerns of usability and the pragmatic approach it implies.
Information on Lionel Ziprin
Does anyone here have any more information about Lionel Ziprin, the poet and
scholar who was known in the sixties for his perhaps weird and apocalyptic
poetry? From the little information I could gather he is born and living(?)
in East Brooklyn.
I'm doing a little (re)search for/about his work within my project at
http://www.vilt.net/nkdee/letsgo.jsp because what I could read from it made
me curious. Anyone from the New York area perhaps?
Please answer to dv@vilt.net if you can.
Thanks a lot,
dv
scholar who was known in the sixties for his perhaps weird and apocalyptic
poetry? From the little information I could gather he is born and living(?)
in East Brooklyn.
I'm doing a little (re)search for/about his work within my project at
http://www.vilt.net/nkdee/letsgo.jsp because what I could read from it made
me curious. Anyone from the New York area perhaps?
Please answer to dv@vilt.net if you can.
Thanks a lot,
dv
Cathedral in Search of missing Artist: Lionel Ziprin (NKdeE Newsletter 5)
...
Neue Kathedrale des erotischen Elends, process nAart at
<http://www.vilt.net/nkdee> www.vilt.net/nkdee
NKdeE Newsletter # 5 3/5/2005
Cathedral in Search of missing Artist: Lionel Ziprin
Residents at the Cathedral of erotic Misery
... <http://www.vilt.net/nkdee/letsgo.jsp> Lionel Ziprin: Sentential
Metaphrastical ...
An inspired visionary, a genius of critical poetic ontology or just another
deranged victim of the drugs-infused art scene of the sixties? Whatever he
is or was, Lionel Ziprin is definitely missing. Google him and the only
thing you
Neue Kathedrale des erotischen Elends, process nAart at
<http://www.vilt.net/nkdee> www.vilt.net/nkdee
NKdeE Newsletter # 5 3/5/2005
Cathedral in Search of missing Artist: Lionel Ziprin
Residents at the Cathedral of erotic Misery
... <http://www.vilt.net/nkdee/letsgo.jsp> Lionel Ziprin: Sentential
Metaphrastical ...
An inspired visionary, a genius of critical poetic ontology or just another
deranged victim of the drugs-infused art scene of the sixties? Whatever he
is or was, Lionel Ziprin is definitely missing. Google him and the only
thing you
Re: a chance for brains to work on making us rich
Jason & all,
Concerning point second the first:
Perhaps we also need to be very much aware of the fact that Net Art is
irritating: people look for information on websites, when none is given they
get irritated.
Even when 'advertised' as such, and 'visited' by users ready to 'experience'
Net Art, Net Art remains 'contaminated' by user habits of 'going online'.
Trying to escape the browser context (pop-up windows and other strategies of
taking over browser control) tend to add to that basic feeling of irritation
instead of diminishing it & when you look at it, those strategies are very
aggressive indeed.
There's aa older piece on this at the NkdeE blog at
http://nkdee.blogspot.com/2005/03/pop-out-progress-some-real-window.html
if anyone is interested in what i tend to think on these questions on rainy
days
have a nice weekend,
dv
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-list@rhizome.org [mailto:owner-list@rhizome.org] On Behalf Of
Jason Nelson
Sent: vrijdag 29 april 2005 2:00
To: list@rhizome.org
Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: a chance for brains to work on making us rich
Dearest All,
Excuse the overblown and awkwardly worded subject
line, but it does point towards..ahem...my point.
Perhaps I can make a slightly askew statement and say
that idea of supporting ones self through their art
can be tied (not solely but related to) two other
factors (again not the only factors): One (yes I like
to list), the generation of larger audiences for our
work, and Two, more and more diverse and more
personalized engagement with our audience.
First the second: people collect prints (copies of
paintings or photographs) often because they are
signed, because they know that the artist they admire,
that touches them, has touched, has added to the
print. So ....how can we....being all creative and
intelligent and quirk-handsome, how can we devise new
methods to make our work both universally available
and personalized? Perhaps there needs to be some type
of signing? Perhaps work can have additions, like
variants of the work (which we do already)? Perhaps
the work could be tied to the physical object the work
contains. Like much of my work is ficto-biography. So
could I create artifacts to compliment that work?
Secondly the first: of course, you say in a gurgling
mad voice, of course we need larger, more varied
audiences. Yes, but then what is being done to gather
those audiences? Most of us shoot for the Ars Elec or
the Siggraph or the Tate or whatever. But the
audiences there are largely ourselves. Poetry has the
same problem. But poetry does better then we, despite
it being doomed to small sections of bookstores, and
we with the entire web, and the skills to manipulate
said environment.
I suppose my call should fall to myself, but I am just
a displaced country boy who forgets the punch line at
fancy parties.
cheers, Jason Nelson
__________________________________________________
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-> questions: info@rhizome.org
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-> give: http://rhizome.org/support
-> visit: on Fridays the Rhizome.org web site is open to non-members
+
Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
Concerning point second the first:
Perhaps we also need to be very much aware of the fact that Net Art is
irritating: people look for information on websites, when none is given they
get irritated.
Even when 'advertised' as such, and 'visited' by users ready to 'experience'
Net Art, Net Art remains 'contaminated' by user habits of 'going online'.
Trying to escape the browser context (pop-up windows and other strategies of
taking over browser control) tend to add to that basic feeling of irritation
instead of diminishing it & when you look at it, those strategies are very
aggressive indeed.
There's aa older piece on this at the NkdeE blog at
http://nkdee.blogspot.com/2005/03/pop-out-progress-some-real-window.html
if anyone is interested in what i tend to think on these questions on rainy
days
have a nice weekend,
dv
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-list@rhizome.org [mailto:owner-list@rhizome.org] On Behalf Of
Jason Nelson
Sent: vrijdag 29 april 2005 2:00
To: list@rhizome.org
Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: a chance for brains to work on making us rich
Dearest All,
Excuse the overblown and awkwardly worded subject
line, but it does point towards..ahem...my point.
Perhaps I can make a slightly askew statement and say
that idea of supporting ones self through their art
can be tied (not solely but related to) two other
factors (again not the only factors): One (yes I like
to list), the generation of larger audiences for our
work, and Two, more and more diverse and more
personalized engagement with our audience.
First the second: people collect prints (copies of
paintings or photographs) often because they are
signed, because they know that the artist they admire,
that touches them, has touched, has added to the
print. So ....how can we....being all creative and
intelligent and quirk-handsome, how can we devise new
methods to make our work both universally available
and personalized? Perhaps there needs to be some type
of signing? Perhaps work can have additions, like
variants of the work (which we do already)? Perhaps
the work could be tied to the physical object the work
contains. Like much of my work is ficto-biography. So
could I create artifacts to compliment that work?
Secondly the first: of course, you say in a gurgling
mad voice, of course we need larger, more varied
audiences. Yes, but then what is being done to gather
those audiences? Most of us shoot for the Ars Elec or
the Siggraph or the Tate or whatever. But the
audiences there are largely ourselves. Poetry has the
same problem. But poetry does better then we, despite
it being doomed to small sections of bookstores, and
we with the entire web, and the skills to manipulate
said environment.
I suppose my call should fall to myself, but I am just
a displaced country boy who forgets the punch line at
fancy parties.
cheers, Jason Nelson
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
+
-> post: list@rhizome.org
-> questions: info@rhizome.org
-> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
-> give: http://rhizome.org/support
-> visit: on Fridays the Rhizome.org web site is open to non-members
+
Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
...The Cathedral Mother Lecturing 2 Birds on the very Night of Conception (in the Rain) ... (NKdeE Newsletter 4)
--------------------NEWSLETTER - NKdeE - NIEUWSBRIEF ------------
The Cathedral Mother Lecturing 2 Birds on the very Night of Conception (in
the Rain)
But
look how thin we are
& of whose love you speak
inevitably as if (
not rain)
or
is it? he:
erasing (you knew)
[falling in circles untill
the impact wears of]
.
the Cathedral Mother is a female Resident of the Cathedral spending most of
her time sitting naked on relics of ancient civilisations just outside the
Cathedral. I happened to overhear this Lecture and besides writing it down
for you, i also made you a painting (I'm a lousy painter but no
photographing is allowed near the Cathedral.). The painting garbage is not
for sale yet, I still have to varnish it, but you can look at it plenty at
http://www.vilt.net/nkdee/cMother.jsp
E
-------
N
De Kathedraal-Moeder is een vrouwelijke Bewoner van de Kathedraal die
meestal net buiten het gebouw naakt op restanten van oude beschavingen zit.
Toevallig hoorde ik haar deze Lezing geven, ik heb deze genoteerd & verder
nog een schilderijtje gemaakt (ik ben maar een vrijdagsschilder maar je mag
geen foto's nemen in de Kathedraal.). Het verfafval is nog niet te koop (ik
moet er nog die bootvernis overgieten), maar je kan het zolang je wil
bekijken op <http://www.vilt.net/nkdee/cMother.jsp>
http://www.vilt.net/nkdee/cMother.jsp
.
De Kathedraal-Moeder in een Lezing aan 2 Vogels op de Nacht van Conceptie
zelve:
Maar
kijk hoe dun wij zijn
& van wiens liefde spreek je
onvermijdelijk als-
of (
geen regen)
echt niet? hij:
je wist het
[in cirkels vallen tot
de aanzet ebt]
Dirk Vekemans, Central Cathedral Authoring Process
@ the Neue <http://www.vilt.net/nkdee> Kathedrale des erotischen Elends
www.vilt.net/nkdee
------------------------
(NL) ViLTNET respecteert uw privacy. U ontvangt deze nieuwsbrief omdat u (of iemand anders met dit adres) er zich ooit voor ingeschreven hebt (echt hoor). U zich kan makkelijk uitschrijven door een bericht te sturen naar nkdee@vilt.net met in de berichttitel LEAVE. Als dat niet lukt stuur dan effie een mailtje naar dv@vilt.net, dan vis ik er u handmatig uit. Groeten, dv.
(EN) ViLTNET respects your privacy. You are receiving this message because you (or someone else using this address) subscribed to it (really, it's true). You can easily unsubscribe by sending a blank message to nkdee@vilt.net with LEAVE in the subject. If that doesn't work, send me a mail at dv@vilt.net and i'll remove you manually. Greetings, dv.
The Cathedral Mother Lecturing 2 Birds on the very Night of Conception (in
the Rain)
But
look how thin we are
& of whose love you speak
inevitably as if (
not rain)
or
is it? he:
erasing (you knew)
[falling in circles untill
the impact wears of]
.
the Cathedral Mother is a female Resident of the Cathedral spending most of
her time sitting naked on relics of ancient civilisations just outside the
Cathedral. I happened to overhear this Lecture and besides writing it down
for you, i also made you a painting (I'm a lousy painter but no
photographing is allowed near the Cathedral.). The painting garbage is not
for sale yet, I still have to varnish it, but you can look at it plenty at
http://www.vilt.net/nkdee/cMother.jsp
E
-------
N
De Kathedraal-Moeder is een vrouwelijke Bewoner van de Kathedraal die
meestal net buiten het gebouw naakt op restanten van oude beschavingen zit.
Toevallig hoorde ik haar deze Lezing geven, ik heb deze genoteerd & verder
nog een schilderijtje gemaakt (ik ben maar een vrijdagsschilder maar je mag
geen foto's nemen in de Kathedraal.). Het verfafval is nog niet te koop (ik
moet er nog die bootvernis overgieten), maar je kan het zolang je wil
bekijken op <http://www.vilt.net/nkdee/cMother.jsp>
http://www.vilt.net/nkdee/cMother.jsp
.
De Kathedraal-Moeder in een Lezing aan 2 Vogels op de Nacht van Conceptie
zelve:
Maar
kijk hoe dun wij zijn
& van wiens liefde spreek je
onvermijdelijk als-
of (
geen regen)
echt niet? hij:
je wist het
[in cirkels vallen tot
de aanzet ebt]
Dirk Vekemans, Central Cathedral Authoring Process
@ the Neue <http://www.vilt.net/nkdee> Kathedrale des erotischen Elends
www.vilt.net/nkdee
------------------------
(NL) ViLTNET respecteert uw privacy. U ontvangt deze nieuwsbrief omdat u (of iemand anders met dit adres) er zich ooit voor ingeschreven hebt (echt hoor). U zich kan makkelijk uitschrijven door een bericht te sturen naar nkdee@vilt.net met in de berichttitel LEAVE. Als dat niet lukt stuur dan effie een mailtje naar dv@vilt.net, dan vis ik er u handmatig uit. Groeten, dv.
(EN) ViLTNET respects your privacy. You are receiving this message because you (or someone else using this address) subscribed to it (really, it's true). You can easily unsubscribe by sending a blank message to nkdee@vilt.net with LEAVE in the subject. If that doesn't work, send me a mail at dv@vilt.net and i'll remove you manually. Greetings, dv.
Re: re net art market she shoots she scores
JudsoN,
When I used the word media it was in the general sense of anything that
broadcasts information, organised in commercial companies and competing to
make the most money from anything they can pick up as content. Internet used
to escape most of that infrastructure, it is now getting to be increasingly
a functioning part of it. You don't really exist as a website, unless you
get listed by it's infrastructure. Eg: if you develop an internet game on
your own, you stay offline with its potential unless you get commisioned,
inscribed, talked about in the 'media'. We Dutch ponies use the word in that
sense constantly :-)
Your Harpo example is well chosen, also because it illustrates that an
essentially poetic process, your 'pitch', is shown to be a more mundane
process than most people tend to think, that it can be dependent on
external, and therefore changeable, dynamic ways of perceiving things.
Whenever people get carried away by something like that they often say sth
like'it had a very poetic feeling about it' and they usually refer to the
logic that is behind a complex of evocations of parts of reality. If you
deal with poetry intensively, you learn how to spin that logic, make it a
repeatable process, a working method. Correlating those kind of methods to
programming practices is what I'm after, but I find that I need to find new
ways of programming because I don't see our current practice of OOP very
effective in this area, although it is a proven technique with great results
elsewhere. It's so much of a succes no one wonders any more that it still is
a choice that is being made.So it's not a critique in the meaning of saying
Object Oriented Programming is bad, it's very good actually and I don't see
how you could claim it to be other, but it could turn out to be not the
right way of programming for artistic purposes. It's just a haunting idea I
have, based on what I know from ontological discussions, and I want to
investigate it.
Oh well, o, sorry, I got on my pony again. Anyway, you're probably right
that i overestimate the importance of the sales wrap that you see as the
main divergence. Perhaps I overestimate it because in what I was doing the
subject was and is a very sensitive one. It's so sensitive because the
amount of work you put into writing 'serious' poetry is never gonna be met
with any respect or respons you could expect. You might write your guts out
in a manner of speakin and still gain less respect than any third rate
novelist. It's not a bad situation though, because you know all of that when
you start doing it.
On the other hand I watched myself going through the first building stages
of my first net art project and I noticed that from the moment I started
applying for commisions and such, there were heaps of microdecisions that I
let be influenced by the very fact that I applied for those commisions.
Knowing that I hardly stood a chance of getting any (it would have been a
small miracle), I still didn't want to blow my changes and I was very
prudent about lay-out decisions, exact wordings and such. I got increasingly
annoyed by this, in so far that I now am very glad I didn't score anywhere
and I feel freed now, back to square 1, free to not care about anything else
and just let the process grow on itself. Somehow I seem to have made the
project's not-for-sale part an essential basis of it. The only thing I do
sell is what I call dead processes, objects, garbage that is left after the
act. But that's more of a joke, critisizing today's 'traditional' art market
prizes, where the value of a painting is decided by whether your work is
taken up in the elite circle of commercial speculation objects or not. Once
you are there, you can scribble away anything you want, it will still fetch
prizes a tenfold of the allready exuberant prices I ask for my horridly
amateuristic varnish covered layers of water paint. Traditional painting in
that respect is a prime example of how commercial structures and value
attribuations dictate the market, in so far it has nothing to do with art
anymore imho. Painting is pretty much killed by the painting market and
financial speculation there.
So yes there is a difference if you add up all the small choices to how a
net art work comes into being, especially so with net art 'cause you get
immediate feedback: your economic value is as good as equal to how many
pageviews you get, and you can watch new users clicking away from you if you
add or delete an element that does or does not 'compile' in your viewers
conception of your work. Off course this is true also when you're not
focussing on economical value, but you I think are more easily satisfied
with something that scares some of your audience away, when you don't focus
your pageviews. I deal with my project as something that changes every day,
so I just can't let the sales wrap take over. I think I just lost my 'pitch'
as you call it the moment I started applying for commissions, it made me
think too much, and hesitant.
Don't know if this is still clear or even related to what you were saying.
I'm sorry that I keep referring to my own work, but it's the only thing I
feel I can make general remarks about that make any sense
Greetings,
dv
_____
From: Plasma Studii - judsoN [mailto:office@plasmastudii.org]
Sent: dinsdag 26 april 2005 18:41
To: list@rhizome.org
Cc: Dirk Vekemans
Subject: RE: RHIZOME_RAW: re net art market she shoots she scores
if you see the media as a gigantic scanning device looking for money
everywhere it can
though eventually folks have figured out how to make most media marketable,
media isn't at all designed to find that market?
probably, "media" is just a vague term, but do you mean media as art on
computer screen versus print, delivered via web versus a truck, or stored on
a disc versus stored on a tape? some of these differences have been gotten
used to, are now mainstream, while some still foreign. many are just
getting used to the idea that storage on disc is just as "real" as storage
in a box. but it's taking a lot longer to get used to the delivery methods.
>I'm finding it very hard doing the writing/developing/net art/working
>combination without starting to bend my highly poetic notions into some
>stuff that's sellable. I don't like that because i feel i'm wasting time
>with that kind of detour
from another point of view, one could also say :
my criteria is always most important to me because, well, it's mine. it's
my baby. i developed it. giving it up sucks. but i also want to get as
much (reward, even if it's just appreciation or joy delivered) for what i do
as possible. so people often assume there's a choice between them.
but appeal isn't really even related to any particular criteria. for
instance, harpo marx, who wasn't really saying anything of public interest
(wasn't saying anything at all!) but his interests (in the harp!?) became
mainstream. not because of what his interests were specifically, but
because of the WAY he shared them. and you may even say because he was so
excited, it was infectious. later we wonder "why did anyone sit through
those harp solos?", because we missed the pitch.
mostly, we really just sell salesmanship, out attitude, our presentation.
people get excited about and forget the actual aesthetics so easily they
aren't even relevant. get em excited and they'll buy a used kleenex. the
work has nothing to do with it. getting in touch with what gets people
excited is a separate skill/gift. that alters peoples' memories and
perceptions of the product. the question then isn't how can i make a
painting that is good by my criteria, or saleable by another one, but how
can i word the description of it, that raises buyers blood pressure. may
sound pessimistic, but only if you think the old way is good and the new
bad. neither, just different, and probably more suited to what peoples'
brains are capable of. and then if you literally think of the sales pitch
as a sales pitch.
SO, ultimately, selling out has less effect than starving, but feeling good
about your integrity has better effects on your "pitch" than feeling like
your aesthetic is of no interest to others. whatever lets you work/sell the
most comfortably is the only ideal.
When I used the word media it was in the general sense of anything that
broadcasts information, organised in commercial companies and competing to
make the most money from anything they can pick up as content. Internet used
to escape most of that infrastructure, it is now getting to be increasingly
a functioning part of it. You don't really exist as a website, unless you
get listed by it's infrastructure. Eg: if you develop an internet game on
your own, you stay offline with its potential unless you get commisioned,
inscribed, talked about in the 'media'. We Dutch ponies use the word in that
sense constantly :-)
Your Harpo example is well chosen, also because it illustrates that an
essentially poetic process, your 'pitch', is shown to be a more mundane
process than most people tend to think, that it can be dependent on
external, and therefore changeable, dynamic ways of perceiving things.
Whenever people get carried away by something like that they often say sth
like'it had a very poetic feeling about it' and they usually refer to the
logic that is behind a complex of evocations of parts of reality. If you
deal with poetry intensively, you learn how to spin that logic, make it a
repeatable process, a working method. Correlating those kind of methods to
programming practices is what I'm after, but I find that I need to find new
ways of programming because I don't see our current practice of OOP very
effective in this area, although it is a proven technique with great results
elsewhere. It's so much of a succes no one wonders any more that it still is
a choice that is being made.So it's not a critique in the meaning of saying
Object Oriented Programming is bad, it's very good actually and I don't see
how you could claim it to be other, but it could turn out to be not the
right way of programming for artistic purposes. It's just a haunting idea I
have, based on what I know from ontological discussions, and I want to
investigate it.
Oh well, o, sorry, I got on my pony again. Anyway, you're probably right
that i overestimate the importance of the sales wrap that you see as the
main divergence. Perhaps I overestimate it because in what I was doing the
subject was and is a very sensitive one. It's so sensitive because the
amount of work you put into writing 'serious' poetry is never gonna be met
with any respect or respons you could expect. You might write your guts out
in a manner of speakin and still gain less respect than any third rate
novelist. It's not a bad situation though, because you know all of that when
you start doing it.
On the other hand I watched myself going through the first building stages
of my first net art project and I noticed that from the moment I started
applying for commisions and such, there were heaps of microdecisions that I
let be influenced by the very fact that I applied for those commisions.
Knowing that I hardly stood a chance of getting any (it would have been a
small miracle), I still didn't want to blow my changes and I was very
prudent about lay-out decisions, exact wordings and such. I got increasingly
annoyed by this, in so far that I now am very glad I didn't score anywhere
and I feel freed now, back to square 1, free to not care about anything else
and just let the process grow on itself. Somehow I seem to have made the
project's not-for-sale part an essential basis of it. The only thing I do
sell is what I call dead processes, objects, garbage that is left after the
act. But that's more of a joke, critisizing today's 'traditional' art market
prizes, where the value of a painting is decided by whether your work is
taken up in the elite circle of commercial speculation objects or not. Once
you are there, you can scribble away anything you want, it will still fetch
prizes a tenfold of the allready exuberant prices I ask for my horridly
amateuristic varnish covered layers of water paint. Traditional painting in
that respect is a prime example of how commercial structures and value
attribuations dictate the market, in so far it has nothing to do with art
anymore imho. Painting is pretty much killed by the painting market and
financial speculation there.
So yes there is a difference if you add up all the small choices to how a
net art work comes into being, especially so with net art 'cause you get
immediate feedback: your economic value is as good as equal to how many
pageviews you get, and you can watch new users clicking away from you if you
add or delete an element that does or does not 'compile' in your viewers
conception of your work. Off course this is true also when you're not
focussing on economical value, but you I think are more easily satisfied
with something that scares some of your audience away, when you don't focus
your pageviews. I deal with my project as something that changes every day,
so I just can't let the sales wrap take over. I think I just lost my 'pitch'
as you call it the moment I started applying for commissions, it made me
think too much, and hesitant.
Don't know if this is still clear or even related to what you were saying.
I'm sorry that I keep referring to my own work, but it's the only thing I
feel I can make general remarks about that make any sense
Greetings,
dv
_____
From: Plasma Studii - judsoN [mailto:office@plasmastudii.org]
Sent: dinsdag 26 april 2005 18:41
To: list@rhizome.org
Cc: Dirk Vekemans
Subject: RE: RHIZOME_RAW: re net art market she shoots she scores
if you see the media as a gigantic scanning device looking for money
everywhere it can
though eventually folks have figured out how to make most media marketable,
media isn't at all designed to find that market?
probably, "media" is just a vague term, but do you mean media as art on
computer screen versus print, delivered via web versus a truck, or stored on
a disc versus stored on a tape? some of these differences have been gotten
used to, are now mainstream, while some still foreign. many are just
getting used to the idea that storage on disc is just as "real" as storage
in a box. but it's taking a lot longer to get used to the delivery methods.
>I'm finding it very hard doing the writing/developing/net art/working
>combination without starting to bend my highly poetic notions into some
>stuff that's sellable. I don't like that because i feel i'm wasting time
>with that kind of detour
from another point of view, one could also say :
my criteria is always most important to me because, well, it's mine. it's
my baby. i developed it. giving it up sucks. but i also want to get as
much (reward, even if it's just appreciation or joy delivered) for what i do
as possible. so people often assume there's a choice between them.
but appeal isn't really even related to any particular criteria. for
instance, harpo marx, who wasn't really saying anything of public interest
(wasn't saying anything at all!) but his interests (in the harp!?) became
mainstream. not because of what his interests were specifically, but
because of the WAY he shared them. and you may even say because he was so
excited, it was infectious. later we wonder "why did anyone sit through
those harp solos?", because we missed the pitch.
mostly, we really just sell salesmanship, out attitude, our presentation.
people get excited about and forget the actual aesthetics so easily they
aren't even relevant. get em excited and they'll buy a used kleenex. the
work has nothing to do with it. getting in touch with what gets people
excited is a separate skill/gift. that alters peoples' memories and
perceptions of the product. the question then isn't how can i make a
painting that is good by my criteria, or saleable by another one, but how
can i word the description of it, that raises buyers blood pressure. may
sound pessimistic, but only if you think the old way is good and the new
bad. neither, just different, and probably more suited to what peoples'
brains are capable of. and then if you literally think of the sales pitch
as a sales pitch.
SO, ultimately, selling out has less effect than starving, but feeling good
about your integrity has better effects on your "pitch" than feeling like
your aesthetic is of no interest to others. whatever lets you work/sell the
most comfortably is the only ideal.