Re: <nettime> Call for support: why?

["Jon Ippolito" <jippolito@umit.maine.edu>]

Felix Stalder on December 6, 2008 at 3:42 PM -0500 wrote:

>> One might say that the whole issue is about the unexpected reactions of
>> the general users, who rejected the project
...
>
>I don't think the relevant point is whether this is 
>art or not (at least not for the people hating the project). Rather, it 
>seems to reveal how much the "free culture movement" (if there ever was 
>such a thing) has been reshaped as "web2.0" and how much it is now happy 
>with this niche of "user generated content" or "amateur creativity". This 
>niche is promising respectability and, who knows, perhaps even a career or 
>two, but for this to succeed it needs to be disassociated from the more 
>radical approaches -- e.g. file sharing -- that cannot be assimilated so 
>easily. 
...
>
>Projects like the "Pirates of the Amazon" blur this distinction and 
>threaten to undo the last couple of years of work of building 
>respectability for the CC and YouTube set. This, I think is why the 
>reactions on digg.com and other web2.0 sites are so hostile. 

I agree, and because the student project triggered this revelation, Eddie
Shanken is right to call it successful.

That said, I think there is an ulterior, perhaps unconscious motive in Digg
users condemning the project. Most of them pirate games and movies when
they're not at their respectable Web 2.0 jobs, but they don't want artists
calling attention to such "radical approaches" for fear that they'll lose
free and easy access to the entertainment that makes holding down a job
more palatable in the first place.

Cheers,

jon 


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