Re: Re: <nettime> Re: Re: net art history

[Station Rose <gunafa@well.com>]

This discussion is going on for so long now and is really interesting!
Although I am not as precise with words as I am with visuals, I post here,
too.
IMHO this is a problem with lists anyway- there are only few postings by
artists-on their topics.

I am doing netart projects since 92, when we started our first online club
projects, in Frankfurt. I remember well that back then there was not one
art critic who understood what we did there. Dealing with online projects
became a focus much later. So finally when it was a theme for the (net)art
critics ca. 95/96, one has to see here clearly that there has been half a
decade of net projects already.

Now it is a theme, and I see the next point coming up, which is
including/excluding positions. This not by artists but by critics. It is
much too soon to let something so young die. and who would have the right
to decide that anyway? Nobody needs an "inquisition" here, which decides
what may stay alive and what not. There are enough financial & technical
points that have to be solved. An inquisition would kill the new netscene.
the capitalistic system comes up with enough obligations, that one can
fear, sooner or later artists leave the field.

An example on streaming art in the net: the GEMA (german company who takes
care of money musicians get when having air-play on the radio,..) right now
tries to figure out how much money they can take from webcasters when they
play in the net It is not clear if net artists like us have to pay in the
future - not only for  computers and streaming software, but also to GEMA.
it is absurd. I think, one has to look at these developments.  If we dont
want to have only stupid TVprogramms, talkshows and mainstream stuff in the
net in another 5 years.
It would be unimaginable, when later on one would have to say - forget the
net, nothing is happening there anymore. it became cooperate.

I hope that critics find enough time in the realtime environment called
cyberspace "to find more great net artists", go forward and backwards to
try to get an overview of 10years and more of net projects.
And artists find enough time and budget to develop many different projects.

And I dont see the point that netart is entering the museums. Where is the
problem? if the net scene would be powerful enough to let artists live on
netart that would be a point, for sure. As long as it is as it is now,
much critizism and not enough money involved, the museums use the time to
make their collections.



Josefine Bosma:
I think the way to approach net art is very much the way Steve Dietz has
>approached the question (that is one of a number of questions that keep
>coming up): "Why have there been no great net artists?

olia lialina :
>> My students came back from Transmediale in Berlin and said
>> there was a speaker, Mark America, who was announcing that
>> net art is dead.
>>
I was at Transmediale, too. The festival was not always stimulating.
Conferences instead of art installations is often too  dry for me. I would
prefer to see and hear projects, not only get words/descriptions of
something. i hope this will happen more next year. And here again" net art
is dead" as a slogan is problematic.


Elisa Rose

----------------------------------------------------
STATION ROSE hypermedia (Elisa Rose & Gary Danner)
* LIVE-webcasting at <http://www.stationrose.com>
    tonite  TUE 20.2.01, 9pm CET with Force Inc. label
* "private://public"- the new book  ISBN : 3-85266-114-5
    STR in conversation with Geert Lovink,  Bazon Brock, Birgit Richard,
Stefan Weber,
   Thomas Feuerstein, Josephine Bosma a.o.

#  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
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net