>----------
>> From: "Nathan Hactivist" <nathan@hactivist.com>
>> Reply-To: "Nathan Hactivist" <nathan@hactivist.com>
>> Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 20:31:24 -0400
>> To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
>> Subject: <nettime> Wal Mart wants to police the internet and arrest
>> Re-Code.com
>>
>> WE NEED YOUR HELP
>> forward this around
>> get us address for your local new stations to send videos to
>> print out the posters at re-code.com and stick them up around your town

oops, sorry about the dupe
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>X-Authentication-Warning: bbs.thing.net: majordomo set sender to
>nettime-l-request@bbs.thing.net using -f
>From: "Nathan Hactivist" <nathan@hactivist.com>
>To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
>Subject: <nettime> Wal Mart wants to police the internet and arrest
>Re-Code.com
>Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 20:31:24 -0400
>Sender: nettime-l-request@bbs.thing.net
>Reply-To: "Nathan Hactivist" <nathan@hactivist.com>
>
>WE NEED YOUR HELP
>forward this around
>get us address for your local new stations to send videos to
>print out the posters at re-code.com and stick them up around your town
>
>Keep Political Dissent Legal!
>
>Re-Code.com is a website that allows user to upload product UPC ID numbers
>and pricing information into a database. That database is freely visible and
>is used with Re-Code's custom barcode generator to generate barcode image
>files in real time. Re-Code.com went public on March 20th. The Re-Code.com
>website is a complete mockery of the Pricelin.com website which promotes the
>concept of "Name your own price." Re-Code.com only attempts to take this
>advertisement to its logical conclusion. The goal of the project is to
>create a new space for political satire using products that already exist in
>stores. The audience for this form of art/activism becomes the cashiers and
>shoppers at targeted stores. Re-Code.com takes a humorous approach to these
>activities as hilited in their forst commercial downloadable at
>www.re-code.com/videos.html. One suggested tactic the commercial makes is to
>re-code brand name items with generic items barcodes. This is an attempt to
>illustrate the dramatic difference in cost between similiar products based
>only on brand. Re-Code.com believes that our customers deserve the right to
>make their voices heard and protest their own contributions to the support
>of the bloated adsvertising space that inflated prices of name brand goods.
>We encourage our customers to truly name their own prices.
>
>On April 7th, Re-Code.com was forwarded a letter from the attorneys for Wal
>Mart Stores, INC. The letter was addressed to the company Domains by Proxy
>http://www.domainsbyproxy.com who's tagline is "your identity is nobody's
>business but ours." Apparently that commitment only held up for 3 days. On
>April 10th, Re-Code. was informed that their service agreement had been
>terminated by Domains by Proxy. Re-Code.com has not officially responded to
>the letter yet. The letter is visible at http://www.re-code.com, as is
>several posters that Re-Code encourages visitors to download, print, and
>distribute.
>
>Is political satire illegal? Does Wal Mart have the right to police the net?
>Are barcodes intellectual property? These are only a few of the questions
>that may be raised over the next few days as the battle begins between
>artist and transnational corporation.
>
>On April 10th, a story about these happenings will debut on salon.com
>The story is live now and is called "Steal this Barcode"
>the entire article is included below.
>
>Re-Code.com contact info: press@re-code.com
>
>SUPPORT US BY ADDING THE BELOW TEXT TO YOUR SIGNATURE
>__________________________________________________
>Do you Re-Code!?
>Re-Code! Shopping - Clip Barcodes, Not Coupons!
>http://www.re-code.com
>
>
>Steal this barcode
>Re-Code.com offers a do-it-yourself product repricing service. Wal-Mart is
>not amused.
>- - - - - - - - - - - -
>By Katharine Mieszkowski
>
>April 10, 2003 | Is it social commentary, or shoplifting?
>
>The Web site Re-Code.com parodies the design and chipper lingo of
>Priceline.com's "name your own price" shopping site. It invites shoppers to
>"recode your own price," by making their own barcodes using the site's
>barcode generator. The theory: There's just a 10-digit number standing
>between you and a better deal on anything that you want in a store, and this
>site will help you crack the code.
>
>The site's creators call it satire. Wal-Mart's legal counsel calls it an
>incitement to theft and fraud.
>
>Re-Code.com lets shoppers share barcode numbers from products they've
>purchased or search for codes entered by other visitors to make their own.
>So far, the site claims that it has collected about 150 codes. Barcode
>swapping, say the site's creators, is a way of subverting a chain's own
>inventory management system to really name your own price: "Apply the
>cheaper item's barcode to the more expensive item," the site instructs, then
>go to the checkout where: "Cashiers usually don't notice but machines never
>do."
>
>Re-Code.com is a project of the Carbon Defense League, an artist and
>activist collective affiliated with the "tactical media network"
>Hactivist.com.
>
>"Nathan Hactivist," the nom de guerre of one of the collective's operatives,
>who is based in upstate New York, says "We think of ourselves as a friend of
>Priceline.com, making good on their promises of naming your own price. We're
>carrying out their goal to its logical extreme." He sees the site as a
>commentary on the absurdity of a company, like Priceline, marketing itself
>as "giving the power to the consumer," and as a tool for making a political
>statement about the perceived differences between brand-name and generic
>products, organic-labeled and non-organic foods.
>
>But just days after opening for non-business on the Web, Re-Code.com has run
>afoul, not of Priceline's legal council, but of Wal-Mart's, the retailing
>megalith and the U.S.'s largest private employer. Despite the legal
>disclaimers at the bottom of Re-Code's home page pledging that the site is
>not intended to be used for illegal ends, Wal-Mart wants it shut down.
>
>On April 2, Janet F. Satterthwaite, a Washington trademark attorney
>representing Wal-Mart Stores Inc., sent a letter to Domains by Proxy, a
>service that the Carbon Defense League used to register the Re-Code.com
>domain name anonymously, demanding that the site be shut down within 48
>hours. It accuses Re-Code.com of "encouraging and facilitating theft and
>fraud against Wal-Mart," noting that "Wal-Mart barcodes are specifically
>made available on this Web site."
>
>Domains by Proxy responded on April 10 by "canceling our privacy service for
>that domain," says Justin Scholz, the company's spam and abuse
>administrator. But the site is still up, since Domains by Proxy does not
>control its hosting or domain name registration, just the anonymity of that
>registration. Wal-Mart's lawyer refused to comment on the matter, but the
>collective behind Re-Code has gone on the offensive.
>
>They posted the text of the letter on their home page, and added a more
>elaborate disclaimer, which visitors must pass through to visit the site:
>"If you understand that Re-Code.com is a site of satire then you may enter.
>We are not liable for any misuse of the contents of this site."
>
>Below the disclaimer appears a handy list of "tactical shopping options
>using Re-Code.com" with Wal-Mart products. It suggests barcode swaps as a
>way of commenting on the war in Iraq: "Option 3: If we are to believe the
>mainstream news, casualties are very few in the current war. Why not suggest
>that our military begin strategic Nerf strikes by replacing Winchester Light
>Target Load Ammunition (UPC ID 2089200442) with Nerf Ballistic Balls (UPC ID
>7628161348). Ain't no war like a Nerf war."
>
>"We thought we'd target Wal-Mart specifically, since they chose to target
>us," says Nathan Hactivist. He says the Carbon Defense League has sought
>legal advice from lawyers affiliated with RTMark, a kind of counter-culture
>artists' front organization that helped etoy.com fight the dot-com eToys.com
>in a protracted trademark battle (which etoy.com eventually won). And right
>now, they don't believe that Wal-Mart has a case: Are 10-digit barcode
>numbers intellectual property? And where's the proof that anyone has stolen
>anything from Wal-Mart stores with the help of the site?
>
>"In my mind, this is similar to 'The Anarchist's Cookbook,'" Nathan
>Hactivist says. "If the argument is that we're facilitating theft, then they
>should be going after the people who invented the barcode, which is the
>thing that's making it easier to steal. All we're doing is creating a
>database of the barcodes that already exist on the products that we
>purchase."
>
>
>- - - - - - - - - - - -
>
> About the writer
> Katharine Mieszkowski is a senior writer for Salon Technology.
>
># distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
># <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
># collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
># more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
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>
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>
>
>
>Full Fathom Five
>

very nice, thanks.

I'll contribute this:

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/pollock/fathom-five/pollock.fathom-five.jpg
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<twhid>
http://www.mteww.com
</twhid>

>Hi Ivan & Michael,

>
>But if we do not question our own actions when making art, whether it be for
>a cause or not, who is?
>

everybody else?
--
<twhid>
http://www.mteww.com
</twhid>

Hi Jean,

At 11:21 -0700 4/9/03, D. Jean Hester wrote:
>I am not sure why someone, given the chance, would NOT want the
>daily drudgery, etc etc, swept away so that they could focus on
>their art.

++
t: Yah. I thought it was a very simple question. Though I've never
considered a applying for a retreat or residency that lots of my
friends and colleagues take as I'm afraid there will be no TV or Net
access. In college I thought my work suffered because I didn't have a
television.

++
J:
Isn't that the impetus behind artist retreats, to have time to focus,
away from the ringing phone, the day job, the gas bill that needs
paying? Isn't that one of the things that drives people into grad
school programs, that promise of TIME to focus? (At least that is
the primary attraction of grad school for me...) Isn't that the
dream/fantasy driving the purchase of lottery tickets?
>
>Yes the daily grind does inform the work, yes daily life is a
>crucial element. But being able to change the balance from 80%
>daily grind/20% art to the opposite would be nirvana (at least for
>me).
>
>That said, being free of the worries of rent is not the same thing
>as "ascending the ivory tower to live in intellectual, abstract
>realms". The way I approach my work, the ideas I am interested in,
>the processes I use, what I believe in, would not change were I
>suddenly given a patron with deep pockets. I would just spend one
>hell of a lot more time on my art, and a lot less at the evil day
>job.
>
>If anyone knows of a patron who needs a starving media artist to
>make their life fuller and of more value, send them my way... ;)
>
>
>-- D. Jean Hester

>>From: "t.whid" <twhid@mteww.com>

>>
>>hi all,
>>
>>Sorry I keep harping on this but I don't think what I was
>>originally questioning was addressed.
>>
>>Lets put aside all the collaborative, open source, community
>>oriented, and yet-to-be-invented models of cultural production and
>>remember what the Dia did for these lucky artists in the early 70s.
>>They gave them the time and means to pursue their grandest visions
>>without encumbrance. They didn't have to worry about raising money
>>from investors, writing grant proposals, organizing teams to build
>>parts of their work; they simply had to worry about their vision.
>>
>>The Dia attempted to remove all obstacles btw the artist and his
>>vision. The artists were free to ascend the ivory tower and live in
>>intellectual, abstract realms. Would this sort of ivory tower be
>>beneficial for net/web/new media artists? Should net/web/new media
>>artists have the daily drudgery swept away? Does the daily hubbub
>>inform our art in a essential way? Do artists need to mix with the
>>hoi polloi?

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