Honoria
I can see only a couple of minor mistakes in your answers to the question.
Only that Chuck Welch DID NOT invent the term "telematic art" (I think, but am
not sure that Roy Ascott did).
Only other thing: Ruud Janssen is Dutch not Norweigan.
That's it for me.
Reed
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Dear H. R. Fricker,
>
> Thank you for your most thoughtful email. I have been thinking about
> Internet and Mail Art for a long time and I have been taking courses at the
> University of Texas at Austin in communication, new media, open systems
> thinking, and interaction design to help me understand the vast and
> powerful systems at work in Mail Art. I have just finished my courses for
> a Ph.D. and I will now research and write a book on influences of the
> Internet on the Mail Art Network.
>
> I am taking the liberty of sending you my response to a qualifying
> examination question about Mail Art. The answer was composed quickly and
> under timeline pressures but it was a joy to open my eyes fully to Mail Art
> on the Internet and contemplate our future. I wonder what you think about
> Mail Art/Internet artists and issues of Mail Art and the Internet in
> addition to the observations you sent to me. Now that I am no longer in
> structured university classes I am free to do my research and correspond
> about mail art again. My heart leaps for joy to be able to look back into
> Mail Art theory, philosophy, products, attitudes, and evolutions!
>
> Gratefully and respectfully,
> honoria
>
> Question 5 of honoria's qualifying examinations for Ph.D.
> How would you expect an Internet-based mail art community to differ from a
> mail art community that used traditional postal services?
>
> ---------------honoria's answer to question 5 --------
> Introduction
> I am attracted to this question because I have been a mail artist
> for sixteen years and creatively working online for five years. Because I
> have both types of networked art in my life, I'm searching the Internet to
> find ways in which other mail artists are using email and HTML. My
> long-term interest/joy stemming from my involvement with mail art has lead
> to my decision to write a book/dissertation about mail art in an
> electronically networked world. In order to begin dissertation research I
> am looking for information about ways artists, specifically mail artists,
> are using the Internet. I'm also interested in the dynamics of
> international artists groups, such as mail art. Because I am just
> beginning my research I don't have a huge amount of data gathered and
> sorted, but I do have some threads I've picked up and followed. The
> threads are beginning to weave a pattern of how an Internet-based mail art
> community may differ from the mail art community that has thrived on the
> paper-based foundation of the international postal systems.
>
> Mail art and Mail art projects
> Over the last few years I've found some Internet -based mail art
> projects that I've divided into three general categories; first,
> circulating collaborative projects; second, collections of paper-based mail
> art that has been scanned and made into World Wide Web pages; and third,
> message boards where mail art events and discussions are posted.
>
> Circulating Collaborative Projects
> One example of a circulating collaborative project is Guy Bleus'
> 1997 E-MAIL-ART & INTERNET-ART MANIFESTO. Guy Bleus is a Belgian mail
> artist with one of the largest archives of mail art in the world. Bleus is
> interested in the theory and practice of mail art. His 1997 E-MAIL-ART &
> INTERNET MANIFESTO was a call to all the mail artists whose email addresses
> he knew to participate in a collaborative manifesto. The manifesto was
> distributed via email to all participants and was printed as Volume III,
> number 1, of E-Pele-Mele Electronic Mail Art Netzine. To print the volume
> is a crossover strategy by Bleus to distribute the online communication
> about mail art and electronic mail art via both distribution systems.
> Another example of a circulating collaborative project is Vittore
> Baroni's INCONGRUOUS MEETINGS of 1998. The Incongruous Meetings were real
> or virtual meetings of any two or more mail artists during the year of
> 1998. Documentation of the meetings was sent to Baroni and he sent out
> periodic reports of the meetings through email and through postal mail.
> The Incongruous Meetings represented a continuum in the mail art tradition
> of Years of Congress. During congress years groups of mail artists gathered
> together to create collaborative mail art, realize performance art
> projects, discuss theories of mail art, and to party. Incongruous Meetings
> were Baroni's distributed, rather than concentrated, interpretation of the
> mail art congress theme.
> Guy Bleus' E-MAIL-ART & INTERNET-ART MANIFESTO and Vittore Baroni's
> INCONGRUOUS MEETINGS are two examples of collaborative mail art projects
> that used the Internet as a means of collection and distribution of hybrids
> of Internet-based concepts and traditional mail art theory.
>
> World Wide Web mail art pages
> Chuck Welch's ELECTRONIC MUSEUM OF MAIL ART is an example of a
> paper-based mail art concept that was realized in a digital form. Chuck
> Welch is known to many mail artists as CrackerJack Kid. Welch was an early
> proponent of Internet distribution of mail art. He coined the term
> "telematic art" in 1994 and initiated a mail art project called
> CyberStamps. For the CyberStamp project mail artists used computer graphic
> programs to make electronic images that had the perforated edge shapes of
> postage stamps yet were never to be printed, only displayed virtually in
> Welch's Electronic Museum of Mail Art (EMMA) on Dartmouth College's web
> server. When Welch's family relocated in 1997 EMMA was no longer qualified
> for space on the Dartmouth server. Welch sent out a plea for a new
> electronic home for EMMA which now resides on a server in the Advanced
> Communication Technologies Laboratory (ACTLAB) at The University of Texas
> at Austin. (www.actlab.utexas.edu/emma)
> Ruud Janssen's MAIL ARTISTS' INTERVIEWS is another example of a
> mail art method that has been moved into a digital form. For over twenty
> years Norwegian mail artist Ruud Janssen, also known as TAM (Traveling Art
> Mail), has been interviewing mail artists and publishing the interviews in
> booklets. The booklets were mailed to whoever corresponded with Janssen or
> whoever participated in his long-running project to collect as many rubber
> stamp images used by mail artists as possible. In recent years Janssen
> posted all of his mail art interviews on the geocities servers
> (http://www.geocities.com/Paris/4947/). Janssen's TAM archive of mail art
> interviews is probably the richest single resource of mail art material on
> the Internet today.
> Welch's Electronic Museum of Mail Art and Janssen's online TAM
> interview archives are examples of how mail artists have used the World
> Wide Web to extend mail art into cyberspace. Chuck Welch's ELECTRONIC
> MUSEUM OF MAIL ART functions as an electronic version of a mail art show.
> Ruud Janssen's interview material had only been available to the few who,
> through the mail art network, learned of its existence but is now available
> to any search engine looking for key words relating to mail art. In my
> research I hope to learn about many other projects in which mail artists
> are extending or changing traditional mail art network systems of
> collection, publication and distribution.
>
> Message Boards
> Mark Bloch's ONE WORLD Plexus message board is an example of an
> electronic bulletin board where mail artists can post invitations to mail
> art shows. Artist can also posts digitized graphics of their work. The
> One World Chalkboard is hosted by the Guggenheim Museum and because
> OneWorld message board's high profile affiliation with the Guggenheim, it
> attracts many artists who have probably never heard of mail art. The
> result is that there is a strange mix of postings on One World. Some posts,
> with little or nothing to do with mail art, announce gallery shows by
> traditional artists. Some posts are specific mail art invitations. Every
> so often some mail artist will attempt to steer traditional gallery artists
> into a mail art context but really it's too much fun to see the mix of art
> worlds missing each others' meanings on the board. Mark Bloch, the
> official moderator of the board, stepped away from its day-to-day
> moderation years ago. The confused chaos of gallery shows and mail art
> shows is visible to someone who is used to mail art invitations but may not
> be visible to someone who does not know that mail art shows are not gallery
> shows and may enter mail art shows and be surprised when they receive mail
> art documentation. (http://www.plexus.org/chalkboard/oneworld/) There are
> a number of other message boards about mail art and rubber stamp art and
> artists books that I would love to research.
> In summary, mail artists are beginning to use the Internet in a
> number of ways, for example, for circulating collaborative projects, to
> publish mail art content on World Wide Web pages, and to use message
> boards to distribute mail art invitations. I have found several "femail
> art" sites recently and I look forward to furthering my connections to
> women mail artists who are using the Internet. I am excited to connect to
> many mail artists' experimental uses of electronic networks as I proceed
> with my dissertation research.
>
> Projected differences between Internet-based mail art and snail mail art
> I cannot go into a history of paper-based mail art in the time
> allotted to answer this question so you'll have to stay tuned for the
> upcoming dissertation literature review or read the TAM archives but I will
> venture a few projections about the future of mail art and make a few
> observations about how Internet art will be different from mail art.
>
> The death of the post office
> As email and electronic communications become more widespread it
> has been predicted that electronic communication will replace paper-based
> communication quickly. As new communication systems replace older systems,
> the new systems will be available to a wide range of people. When the
> distribution of electronic communication reaches into the homes of mail
> artists to the extent that mail artist believe the electronic
> communications to be as accessible as the traditional mail art, then mail
> art will become email art or Net mail art.
>
> Networks and cultures
> The Internet will provide increased number of formats for creative
> collaboration. As cultures become linked through electronic networks, and
> exchange of artworks is a common method of sending rich visual and audio
> communications, the mail art networks' history of cross-cultural exchange
> will provide a continuing base from which new informal international
> artistic connections will grow. In addition, as common forms and traditions
> grow in Internet-based culture, mail artists will playfully manipulate
> online regulations and traditions much like they have with the postal
> service regulations and traditions.
>
> Congresses and performances
> Things are going to get even livelier as mail art acquaintances
> will not have to travel long miles in order to congress together. One big
> change in the mail art network will be an increase in the number of live
> online performance art pieces.
>
> Predictions on how Internet-based mail art will be different from snail
> mail art
> In conclusion, mail art will embrace the distribution systems of
> the Internet once the online systems are as ubiquitous, inexpensive, and
> easy to use as the postal service is now. As support to maintain the huge
> global paper-based postal system diminishes and online services are more
> available, mail artists will continue to adopt electronic methods of
> creative communication. Mail artists meet each other as often as possible
> now, and I project that the Internet will greatly facilitate congress and
> performance opportunities for mail artists. Mail artists will enjoy sharing
> performances and getting together in virtual congresses once video
> conferencing is accessible to most mail artists. In the long run as the
> postal systems are less used by mail artists, the name mail art may change
> to one of its other appellations such as correspondance art or some other
> name that is not directly associate with the post office. Mail artists will
> continue to use the cheapest and most widely distributed methods of
> communication in an effort to be inclusive to everyone in the network. Mail
> art files will be saved in low-bandwidth to insure accessibility to artists
> with varying hardware, software, and connectivity. Mail artist will
> encourage, rather than disparage new users who do not have sophisticated
> knowledge of the growing electronic mail art/correspondance art/eternal
> network systems. And finally, a strange new book will appear on the
> bookshelves of Guy Bleus, CrackerJack Kid, Ruud Janssen, Vittore Baroni,
> and Mark Bloch and a number of other mail artists who use the Internet; and
> that book will be my dissertation.
>
> References
>
> Bleus, G. (1997, December). Re: The e-mail-art & Internet-art manifesto.
> E-Pele-Mele Electronic Mail Art Netzine. 3.
>
> -------------- www.cyberopera.org -------------
