<nettime> Arts@Large column

[Eduardo Kac <ekac@artic.edu>]

I hope this will be of interest:

Articles about the end of Mirapaul's Arts@Large column :

Wired News <http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,37843,00.html>

The New Republic <http://www.tnr.com/online/kettmann080400.html>

E-mail addresses to express your opinion to the NYT:

<cybertimes@nytimes.com>

also <letters@nytimes.com>

Please see below my email to the NYT.

EK
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Dear Sir, Madam

I am writing to express my dismay at the announcement that the Arts@Large
column will no longer be published. This column was what drew me to the web
edition of the New York times in the first place; while there, I often read
several other articles. I have followed the column from the beginning and
can assure you that it is without parallel, both for the quality of the
writing and for its ability to keep up with -- and often to anticipate --
developments in the field. I'm afraid the same cannot be said about the
majority of current journalistic writing on cyberspace elsewhere. Perhaps
the most unique and important quality of the column was that it reported on
digital culture and technology not purely and simply from the ephemeral
commercial perspective, which saturates the media with sameness and
perpetuates the false notion that cyberspace is "business as usual" and not
a driving force in the new digital culture. The "Arts@Large column" played
the key role of reminding us that new media has a very important cultural
presence. If readers cannot count on the New York Times to stand above
average and report on innovative cultural practices, on what daily paper
can one count in the US? As a subscriber to the print edition of the New
York Times, I hope that the paper will see the wisdom of reconsidering this
decision, and that it will bring the column back in its original form.

Sincerely,

Eduardo Kac
Assistant Professor of Art and Technology
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago



______________________________________________________________________

Eduardo Kac
Assistant Professor of Art and Technology
Art and Technology Department
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
112 S. Michigan Avenue, Room 414
Chicago IL 60603
Phone: (312) 345-3567
Fax: (312) 345-3565
E-mail: ekac@artic.edu

http://www.ekac.org

______________________________________________________________________

Research Fellow
Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts,
University of Wales, Newport, UK
______________________________________________________________________

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