Endnode (AKA Printer Tree)

MTAA's new work is being launched tonight at Eyebeam
(http://www.eyebeam.org/artists/air02.html) and we invite everyone to
join the "Endnode" list-serv and take part in the work.

short description (from Eyebeam's site):
The arts collaborative MTAA has created a life-sized sculpture of a
tree with a networked print server in its trunk and printers on each
branch that print and release a rain of email-leaves that cascade to
the ground. The public is encouraged to email the tree through the
Endnode Mailing List.

see http://www.endnode.net for more information.

the list:
Join the "Endnode" mailing list here:
http://www.endnode.net/mailman/listinfo/endnode

The Endnode list-serv is an unmoderated email list which we hope will
focus on new media art. Remember, there will be hardcopy of your email
falling from the "Endnode" sculpture when you post to the list.

--
<t.whid>
www.mteww.com
</t.whid>

i'll defend rhizome. i'm cc'ing to Rhizome too.

first, it's unfair to compare the 7k that The Thing received to Rhiz's
440k as TT also has dough coming in from it's ISP service; for the last
year Rhiz got only grants and donations (they are now attempting a
hosting service and classes to raise money so that may change in the
future). What sort of revenue does TT make from it's ISP business?

second, is The Thing non-profit? Do I get a tax write-off if I donate?
I took a quick look at the site and didn't see any info to that regard.
I suppose I could write-off ISP and hosting fees as expenses but I can
get those elsewhere cheaper and write 'em off too.

Rhiz pays an editor (rachel greene), a programmer (francis hwang), an
artbase assistant, and MT of course. fair compensation for these four
should be at least 150k (or more). they also pay for daily net art news
blurbs (assuming 50 bucks per blurb 50USD * 5 * 52 = 13k). they don't
have their own hosting facilities on-site as TT does so they pay for
hosting and bandwidth. i would guess from what little i know about
these commercial rates that they prolly pay 30-50k a year. plus the
commissions, they just paid out around 20k (or more). and the expensive
soho loft of course. prolly costing at least 24k (they were sharing the
costs) a year. plus software, legal, office expenses, insurance,
hardware, event hosting, travel, development... (my total comes to
around 250k, but that's not counting the list of expenses at the end)

we could just ask Mark Tribe, he's always been upfront and honest about
what he's doing; as robbin noted, he's obligated to make it public
anyway.

re: expensive soho loft: I invite Rhizome to move to beautiful
Brooklyn, that's where all the cool kids are anyway :-)

On Saturday, October 12, 2002, at 10:54 AM, Liza Sabater wrote:

> It can't be 440,000 this year!! Didn't he say back in June at the
> Upgrade they had no money then? Could that have been money tied into
> the commission money they gave out this year? Anyhow, their offices
> are (were) in Soho. That in itself would make anybody go bankrupt.

>
>
>
>> on 10/11/02 2:24 PM, Wolfgang Staehle at wolfgangsta@thing.net wrote:
>>
>>> Last Monday I read in the Times that Rhizome received
>>> $440.000 in grants this year... so far The Thing, in spite of
>>> intense
>>> fund raising efforts, received two mini grants (from NYSCA and
>>> MorganChase - thank you!) totaling $7,000.
>>
>> What _does_ Mark _do_ with all that money! We should ask to see
>> Rhizome's
>> annual report, which they have to file as an NPO. There's something
>> really
>> screwy going on there.
>>
>> And the Rockefeller Foundation has also dumped a pile of loot for
>> something
>> called the Arts Lab created by Leonardo Journal and headed by Michael
>> Naimark (http://www.artslab.net/pr071502.html) that sounds
>> suspiciously like
>> what we proposed two years ago to the same foundation.
>>
>> Argh!
>>
>>
>>> Checks or money orders may be sent to The Thing Inc, 601 West 26th
>>> Street, New York NY 10001.
>>>
--
<t.whid>
www.mteww.com
</t.whid>

>
>roll yr own...
>http://www.googlefight.com/
>

musta been slashdotted--the server is overwhelmed.
--
<twhid>
http://www.mteww.com
</twhid>

A note from t.whid:

perhaps of interest to the list

============================================================

From Wired News, available online at:
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,55592,00.html

Art: What's Original, Anyway?
By Kendra Mayfield

2:00 a.m. Oct. 10, 2002 PDT

If current copyright laws had been on the books when jazz musicians
were borrowing riffs from other artists in the 1930s and Looney Tunes illustrators were creating cartoons in the 1940s, entire art genres such as hip-hop, collage and Pop Art might never have existed.

The debate over whether artists can use copyrighted materials entered
the national spotlight this week as the Supreme Court heard opening arguments in Eldred v. Ashcroft, a case in which plaintiffs are seeking to overturn the <a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d105:SN00505:
TOM:/bss/d105query.html">1998 Copyright Term Extension Act.

See also: -
Fencing Off the Public Domain -
Free Speech Same as Free Content? -
Making Copy Right for All -
Setting Boundaries on Copyrights -
Discover more Net Culture -
Picture Yourself in Politics

To acknowledge this landmark case, an exhibit will celebrate
"degenerate art" in a corporate age: art and ideas on the fringes of intellectual property law.

The exhibit, Illegal Art: Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age,
will take place in New York from Nov. 13 to Dec. 6 and in Chicago from Jan. 25 to Feb. 22.

"Almost all art, to a certain extent, is unoriginal," said Carrie
McLaren, publisher of Stay Free! magazine and organizer of the exhibit. "(In) an environment where you can have free exchange of ideas, you get better art."

The show will examine the intersection between intellectual property
and the First Amendment. Some pieces have been the focus of court battles, while others have eluded copyright lawyers.

Digital rights activists argue that creativity is under assault with
the recent passage of laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Current copyright laws discourage the creation of new works, McLaren
said. For example, filmmakers typically screen anything that appears on camera for copyright violations.

"That effectively makes filmmaking off limits for anyone who's not a
millionaire," McLaren said.

Some digital rights advocates believe that Eldred v. Ashcroft could
shift the balance of power.

"The fact that the Supreme Court is taking this case is a major
opportunity for this discussion," McLaren said. "It shows that the court is concerned about the First Amendment implications of copyright."

Timed with the exhibit's opening in November, a panel discussion at
New York University will focus on some of the aspects of using and archiving artworks that appropriate copyrighted or trademarked material.

"Understanding the sociopolitical implications of the current
copyright regime is of particular concern at this time," said Meg McLagan, an assistant professor of anthropology at NYU, "given the challenges posed by corporate attempts to limit access to works that should be moving into the public domain." McLagan is the panel's moderator.

Exhibit organizer McLaren hopes Illegal Art will "wake people up" to
restrictive copyright legislation. "When people see this exhibit they won't want to support the laws that make this type of work illegal," she said.

The exhibit surveys a variety of mediums -- from collage to audio and
film -- and includes pieces that flout intellectual property law by violating copyrights or infringing on trademarks.

The visual art exhibit, viewable online, features murdered Disney
characters, a parody of the Starbucks logo and a painting of a lace doily that incorporates the Texaco logo.

The exhibit's site also highlights illegal films and videos that
appropriate others' intellectual property through the use of found footage, unauthorized music, or shots of copyrighted or trademarked material.

Site visitors can also download illegal MP3s, including recycled
lyrics from 2 Live Crew's parody of Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" and Vanilla Ice's 1990 hit "Ice Ice Baby," which borrowed the main riff from David Bowie and Queen's song "Under Pressure."

The site includes links to audio works by experimental music and art
collective Negativland, longtime advocates of the concept of fair use since the group was forced to cease performing and distributing a parody of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" in 1995.

Since the early '90s, "these issues have become more and more
mainstream," said Mark Hosler, one of Negativland's founding members.

Groups like Negativland have felt the repercussions of the digital
copyright wars. In 1998, Negativland's CD manufacturer refused to press the band's latest album because of concerns over the inclusion of unlicensed samples.

"It really has impacted us very directly," Hosler said. "It seems like
the content owners don't care any more about what we're doing. But in terms of getting (CDs with samples) manufactured, that's the problem."

A compilation CD of music featuring plundered hits by Negativland,
Public Enemy, John Oswald and other artists will be given away free at Illegal Art events in New York and Chicago.

The free CD, which includes several tracks that were sued out of
existence, could create some legal entanglements of its own.

But the exhibit's organizers insist that its material is fair game.

"Since we're criticizing and educating about this, we think it falls
under fair use," McLaren said. "We wanted to have more discussion and debate about this. We're not just throwing this stuff out there."

Related Wired Links:

Fencing Off the Public Domain
Oct. 9, 2002

Free Speech Same as Free Content?
Oct. 8, 2002

Music Biz Lament: Stealing Hurts
Sep. 26, 2002

Every Montage Tells Another Story
June 27, 2002

Making Copy Right for All
May 17, 2002

Setting Boundaries on Copyrights
Feb. 20, 2002

Why Copyright Laws Hurt Culture
Nov. 27, 2001

Where Everything Is Negativland
May 9, 2000

Open Source in Open Court
April 26, 1999

A Mickey Mouse Copyright Law?
Jan. 13, 1999

Samples Silence Negativland
Sep. 1, 1998

Copyright (C) 1994-2002 Wired Digital Inc. All rights reserved.

At 12:47 -0700 10/8/02, Jim Andrews wrote:
>I've read quite a bit of talk in new media writings about the
>importance of databases to the
>art. But where are the examples of interesting use of databases in
>art? There are very few such
>examples. Database work is the bread and butter work of computing,
>generally for business, and
>the creative use of databases in art is relatively rare.
>

i don't know if i would call them rare; use your own judgement as to
if they are interesting. perhaps there aren't that many standard
databases (like the ArtBase) used in new media art (the artBase
itself has at least 4-5 interfaces as art (or as rhizome calls them,
alt.interfaces). but if one is more offensive if applying the term i
think that there are quite a few.

Jennifer and Kevin McCoy (http://www.mccoyspace.com/) have been
exploring the idea of treating cultural objects as databases in lots
of their work. check out:

"every anvil" (http://www.mccoyspace.com/anvil.html) --they did a
bunch of pieces similar this

"448 is Enough" (http://www.mccoyspace.com/448.html)

and of course:
"201: a space algorithm"
(http://www.mccoyspace.com/201/index.html)

and lots more on their site.

there is MTAA's very own rip-off of the McCoy strategy called
"website unseen #1: Random Access Mortality"
(http://www.mteww.com/RAM/)

++
i have a question for the list:

can a piece like "Carnivore" (http://www.rhizome.org/carnivore/),
which uses real-time network data as raw material for client
artworks; or a new piece M.River and I have been working on called
"Endode" (http://www.endnode.net), which uses email lists and user
posted messages to create part of the work, be considered database
works?

i submit that they simply use databases that are in the process of
being created and in Carnivore's case an ephemeral database which
only exists in part for a short period. ~or~ abstract databases,
simply a definition of what the data will be with no actual 'basing'
(storing) of the information. am i stretching the definition for no
good reason?

--
<twhid>
http://www.mteww.com
</twhid>