Re: <nettime> report_on_NNA

[t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>]

gita@ping.ca (Wed 06/07/06 at 12:38 PM -0400):

> >" But if our absence merely ended up paving the way for a 'private' --
> >through commission and omission -- event, can you tell me why exactly the
> >name nettime had or has anything to do with it?"
> >
> >Yikes..!
> 
> double-yikes, indeed!
> 
> this diminution is directed at not just the organizers but also the 
> presenters.  1)  i'd like to invite TED to define, for the 
> illumination of all of us, what exactly he means by 'private'? i have 

Gladly. A bit more context for that quotation may help:

     Sorry to be so negative but Felix and I have put in many
     years of work underwritten by (in my view) a model of
     service more modest than the 'heroic' approach of nettime's
     Founding Fathers. In that light, it was entirely apt that
     neither of us ended up being at the ~meeting. But if our
     absence merely ended up paving the way for a 'private' --
     through commission and omission -- event, can you tell me
     why exactly the name nettime had or has anything to do with
     it? 

As I explained in a subsequent private mail to Tobias, 'commission' 
and 'ommission' are slightly ~catholic terms for 'inaction' and 
'action,' respectively. In 'commission' I was referring to the fact, 
among other things, that Geert Lovink -- who gladly accepts credit 
for nettime without mentioning that he hasn't really had much to do 
with it for the last 8+ years -- popped in for a chat at NNA. In 
'omission' I was referring to the fact that the lack of any writeup 
on the list had, in effect, rendered NNA 'private' (hence Tobias's 
remark that "moderators have been bugging me to write something of a 
report"). It's my sense that later mail with Tobias cleared up some 
misunderstandings about commissions-as-in-funding and so on, which 
wasn't at all what I meant.

> no 'private' relations with any of the organizers, presenters or 
> attendees, most of whom i met and/or became aware of for the first 
> time in montreal.   2) in my view, the strength of the gathering was 
> precisely that it paid little heed to 'nettime' as an identity/brand 
> - even though most people were nettime subscribers - as it became a 
> space for discussing critical practice more broadly (what exactly 
> makes nettime fathers think that it's the be-all, end-all in 
> criticality?), and for making connections that the online list does 
> not encourage nor facilitate.  so i ask TED to also clarify why the 
> name nettime is so important to him? and more, what exactly does it 
> mean to him?

Let's say for the sake of argument that nettime is actually run by 
Satan himself. Do his motives matter? For most subscribers' purposes
I think the answer is probably no. The very worst I could do is a pale 
shadow by comparison with him, so it seems like my motives would be 
that much less noteworthy. As for the rest, it's best to let straw men 
rest.

Cheers,
T


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