Dear Kevin, many thanks for your kind and thoughtful answers, my Dodo-text was indeed purposedly over-pessimist as a sort of provocation (and a feedback in the first place to some Dodo mailings I got from other mail-artists, so part of a collective "game). I was bewildered too by the total lack of answers from the ma newsgroup, so your words (and b saved too, I should add) make it a bit less surrealistic to me. I experienced the same feeling in the past, when I posted a text pointing to the fact that my AAA Editions is the only small publishing house in the world to have produced 3 books on the history of mail art (2 of which in English/Italian) and only about 10 copies of each were sold to mail artists despite a large circilation of info about it (luckily, I sold enough in the normal Italian bookstores to almost cover the costs). I am not bitter about it, I enjoyed doing it and will do it again, I am just bewildered by the surrealistic lack of interest in the history of the medium from the part of those who take part in it. Yes, there probably never was a true mail art community, just an oneiric utopia from us seasoned old hippies. It's everyone for himself, homo homini lupus, and all that :-) And you are right on live8 too, at least half of the acts should have been African, or it's just hypocritical self-promotion (of course, Bush didn't move an eyelid, so what can we do?). I thank you again for your much needed human contact, to touch paper just write to vittore baroni, via c. battisti 339, 55049 viareggio, italy
ciao, V. ><html><body> > > ><tt> >freightening that there hasn't been any comment (at least in the<BR> >group) on the email and its contents, so i'll throw a few typed<BR> >letters onto the screen<BR> ><BR> >On 7/18/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:<BR> >> I recently wrote this short text for a snail-mail mailing cum dodo ATC >attached,<BR> >> am I just a old embittered snob totally off mark?<BR> >> VB<BR> >> <BR> >> DODO not DADA - summer reflections on a shiny mailbox<BR> >> <BR> >> So, is mail art still alive or (almost) extinct? Though I never stopped<BR> >> swimming in the correspondence flow since I first entered the postal >network<BR> >> way back in the late Seventies, this question is becoming more and more<BR> >> difficult to answer. The mail art community, if there ever was one, >from<BR> >> my observation point seems to be receding into utter obscurity or melting<BR> >> into (Inter)net-art, which is a wonderful but rather different kind >of experience.<BR> ><BR> >here it seems that you are saying that there is a community, otherwise<BR> >it could not recede into utter obscurity. you are framing this<BR> >statement with such a pessimistic tone that it would be hard to want<BR> >to do anything. starting back at the beginning, (almost) extinct is<BR> >still alive (tho, a wonderful turn of phrase that (almost) extinct).<BR> ><BR> >> Yes, there are still mail art shows and ?festivals? being organized >around<BR> >> the (Western) world, but the medium has become a bit stale and tired, >the<BR> >> original feeling of excitement and discovery is long gone (and this >is understandable<BR> >> for a phenomenon that spans four decades, no small feat in itself!) >but<BR> >> it has not been replaced by the wisdom and maturity that old age usually<BR> >> brings forth. I perceive a forced mood of ?eternal youth? for a medium >that<BR> >> has had its days. <BR> ><BR> >this mode of 'eternal youth', who is behind it? i make no claims to<BR> >having been in the mail-art community for a long time, indeed i'm a<BR> >rube, however i would suggest that those behind the eternal youth<BR> >message are *probably* people who are, well, older<BR> ><BR> >The very symbols of correspondence (artists? postage stamps,<BR> >> rubber stamps, postcards, envelopes, etc.) are being gradually abandoned,<BR> >> they are not the main focus of postal activities anymore, or they have >become<BR> >> rare practices pursued by a dwindling number of veterans. Artists? >> Trading<BR> >> Cards might be a cute new twist to the old game, but it never really >spread<BR> >> out and conceptually I find it a bit weak, missing a precise link with >the<BR> >> postal medium (and art history). Mail art lost a centre of gravity, >its<BR> >> identity fragmented into a myriad of individual projects, and not many >seem<BR> >> to care much anymore about a communal ?philosophy?. <BR> ><BR> >can't an 'individual project' exist within a communal philosophy?<BR> >can't this be the next possibility to 're-invigorate'? this is, for<BR> >me, the balancing act and one of the more interesting points raised<BR> >within the essay<BR> ><BR> >Old mail artists die<BR> >> - too many to mention, r.i.p. - and the newcomers are often unaware >of mail<BR> >> art?s tradition (yet there are books available to be read, just check >Google<BR> >> or Amazon!), so the dream of a global and peaceful community of artists<BR> >> sharing experiences is fading away into underground myth and urban >> legends.<BR> >> Something you will tell to your grandchildren, and they will smile and >shake<BR> >> their heads in disbelief?<BR> >> <BR> >> I find rather telling the fact that one of the few ?signs of networking<BR> >> life? - messages that are not aimed at individuals but rather addressed<BR> >> to the entire circuit of postal artists - that I noticed in the past >few<BR> >> months is a series of loosely connected mailings (from Lumb, Bates, >Brignull<BR> >> and others) comparing mail art to the Dodo, the notorious exotic bird >that<BR> >> has come to represent the endangered animal species par excellence. ><BR> ><BR> >a period of pessimism seems expected, that aside, are(n't) messages<BR> >aimed at the idea of mail-art, the entire community, possibilities for<BR> >discussion, for dialogue, indeed for community building?<BR> ><BR> >So I<BR> >> am not the only pessimist networker feeling the ground shake under his >feet.<BR> >> Things have changed a great deal in the almost thirty years I spent >inside<BR> >> (and outside) the postal net: riding on the crest of the new wave/punk >energy<BR> >> in the Seventies, but still maintaining the positive ideals of the Hippie<BR> >> era, resisting the boredom of the Eighties and Nineties clinging to >the<BR> >> collectivist Utopia of a free-for-all and open trading system, entering<BR> >> the new Millennium to find out that, after all, maybe those cynical >punks<BR> >> were right, this is a ?no future? situation for the planet. Evil forces<BR> >> prevail, the model for global cooperation that mail art so well >> exemplified<BR> >> proved inapplicable to the big numbers. <BR> ><BR> >as someone who grew up during the 20 years of great boredom that you<BR> >mention, it seems to me absolutely foolish that people actually<BR> >believed that mail-art, or any artistic practice, could prevail over<BR> >the evil forces (loosely defined)<BR> ><BR> >Maybe all the money we dumped in<BR> >> postage stamps and photocopies would have been better invested in some >charity<BR> >> project, maybe a little voluntary social work would have been less wasted<BR> >> time. <BR> ><BR> >it isn't a waste of time, you did indeed take pleasure from these<BR> >activities, and clearly you are passionate about it. but, reflecting<BR> >what i typed above, if one wants to make a truly immediate impact,<BR> >than yes volunteering is a better way to go. the impact of artisitic<BR> >and mail-art activities can't be wide-spread, but it is 'more<BR> >targeted' as an individual opens a package as opposed to, for example,<BR> >teaching a group of adults literacy. it is unfair to compare charity<BR> >versus art in this vein. ross priddle brought up a sound point a month<BR> >or two ago but in a different context, namely that mail-art, or all<BR> >art requires a degree of leisure time and disposable income--at least<BR> >in north america, definitely in the united states<BR> ><BR> >But just see what millions of people reunited by music with the ?Live8?<BR> >> event has been able to obtain by the powers that rule the Earth: next >to<BR> >> nothing. Contemporary popular culture has touched an unprecedented low,<BR> >> the new generations have got used to a diet of heartless blockbusters >and<BR> >> mindless bestsellers. Mail art is not the only endangered Dodo around.<BR> ><BR> >true, but the promoters and participants in 'Live8' were a little<BR> >self-congratulatory about all 'the good work' they were doing by<BR> >playing pop songs<BR> ><BR> >vittore, i appreciate your wisdom (despite what you wrote earlier that<BR> >mail-art, with age, has gained none!) and for bringing up the points<BR> >you raise--bill wilson who has grown silent, and probably does not<BR> >wish for me to circulate his name is another person who has much to<BR> >offer. everything you two (and guido is very good too) not to mention<BR> >(fuck, this has turned into an awards banquet, 'and i would like to<BR> >thank') tamara okay, enough of names--i think my sentiment is clear<BR> ><BR> >xoxo<BR> ><BR> >kevin<BR> ><BR> >> The Dodo was a mild bird with a hooked beak and a gentle spirit. When >the<BR> >> Portuguese sailors first discovered the friendly bird on the shores >of the<BR> >> island of Mauritius in the year 1598, they called it ?dodo? (?simpleton?)<BR> >> mistaking his child-like innocence and lack of fear as stupidity. Being<BR> >> also unable to fly, the bird was easily killed by men and by other new >animals<BR> >> introduced in its environment, like dogs and pigs. By the year 1681, >the<BR> >> Dodo had been completely wiped out from the face of the planet. We do >not<BR> >> even have a complete skeleton, so the bird only lives today through >the<BR> >> rare descriptions of the time and the pictures of artists, such as the >drawing<BR> >> made by Sir John Tenniel for Lewis Carroll?s Alice in Wonderland. Maybe<BR> >> the same will happen to mail art in a near future, when postage rates >will<BR> >> have become even more expensive: artistamps and such ephemera will >> survive<BR> >> only in the description and catalogues of a few devoted bibliographers >and<BR> >> scholars. Mail art is not only endangered by sky-rocketing postage rates<BR> >> though, I think the most perilous risk factors are not those that come >from<BR> >> outside but those that spring from its own ranks. I notice a widespread<BR> >> lack of interest in mail art history (taking at face value Ray Johnson?s<BR> >> pun ?mail art has no history, only a present? may have fatal >> consequences!),<BR> >> so there is a consequent scarcity of magazines or forums for a collective<BR> >> debate on the relevant issues related to networking (there are a few >newsgroups<BR> >> on the Internet, I peeped into them, but it is mostly small talk and >unrelated<BR> >> projects). Ultimately, mail art is folding on itself for the general >inability<BR> >> to come up with new networking concepts, different from the worn-out >?theme<BR> >> show? format, the ageing ?assembling? zine, the never ending >> chain-letter-like<BR> >> add-to-and-pass-on formula. I am not just whining and preaching, I try >to<BR> >> do my bit: with the participation to the Funtastic United Network concept<BR> >> (SUN of FUN convention organized by Piermario Ciani coming up in early >September),<BR> >> with the When the Saints show of alternative ?holy images? (the second >?station?<BR> >> opening in Pisa at the end of September), with the planned Luther >> Blissett<BR> >> multiple name decennial commemoractive dvd, just to mention three recent<BR> >> projects in progress, I try to take networking tactics into new grounds.<BR> >> The doomed AAA book on artists? postcards may finally see the light >one<BR> >> of these days, and there are other publications placing mail art in >a historical<BR> >> perspective bubbling to be published soon (by John Held Jr., Mark Bloch<BR> >> and others). I may be one of the ?last dodos?, but I will not be crushed<BR> >> down so easily and without reaction. Wanna join the fight?<BR> >> <BR> >> Vittore Baroni >@ E.O.N. ? July 2005<BR> >> <BR> >> <BR> >> <BR> >> <BR> >> <BR> >> <BR> >> To unsubscribe, send an email to:<BR> >> [EMAIL PROTECTED]<BR> >> <BR> >> Mailinglist from Sztuka Fabryka<BR> >> <a href="http://www.sztuka-fabryka.be/";>http://www.sztuka-fabryka.be/</a><BR> >> Yahoo! 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