One thing that Andreas' posts (including the one today) brings up, myself
as well, James, others, lurkers, is the vast difference we all have in
relation to resources. Mine are seriously limited, since I'm unemployed -
what I'm good at - maybe even brilliant at - is teaching, but that's gone;
I'm now unhirable. This takes me out of the conference circuit, and it's
difficult to even think of approaching a gallery when I don't have the
cash to properly set up a show (a friend of mine - who just got a NY Times
review etc. etc. - has invested at least $10k in media materials for hir
work). I may be a nuisance on this list, but like others, I have nowhere
else to present my material - most of my 'residencies' are in virtual
worlds, and most of my presentations or discussions (next week an
exception) are from my home computer - they're online. Like a lot of
others here I feel despair, unbearable isolation, uselessness. The point
is that there's a vast spectrum of participation here and in new media art
/ networked art in general - there are people on the grant circuit with
great teaching jobs, and there are people trying to just stay alive and
continue working. Yet at the other end of things - including conferences -
we're all expected to be economically equal.
The conference issue has been critical for me; I get invited to them, but
almost always have to turn them down (and/or appear virtually), since
they're expensive, and, in spite of the liberal leanings of a lot of these
things, without any sort of sliding scale. This only increases isolation
and an inability to remain abreast of the field - or at least an inability
to network and feel part of a community. I've fought this, but it's really
hopeless.
So my artist friend currently showing makes over 100k a year, and I bring
in 10k a year, if that, in total.
Maybe - other than through cries of despair - all of this is something
that the list should consider. And mind you, I'm lucky - there are ads now
on tv (we can't afford cable) stating that 1.3 million New Yorkers are
hungery - the homeless are going into the tens of thousands, and there's
no end in sight as social services are increasingly cut back.
What's great about Furtherfield btw in relation to all of this is the
populist webpage - anyone can participate who has a computer, anyone can
contribute creatively! But there - somewhere - should be deeper structural
changes in what passes for creative live; otherwise, as is happening here,
there really will be an elite group of academic theoreticians, cultural
works, what have you, relatively closed off from what most people around
the world - and here (at least NY) are going through.
- Alan
On Wed, 9 Feb 2011, Ruth Catlow wrote:
Hi Andreas,
Interesting question.
"Is netbehaviour is becoming a privileged platform for the same
incestuous incrowd as always is the case when concepts are mistaken
for art? "
It seems to be an ironic function of "openness" and "networked" platforms to
produce convincing and perhaps self-fulfilling mirages of elites.
Though my experience tells me that the perception of incrowds and elites has
to also be subjective. I do know that *everyone* I encounter in this field
(of critical, networked, art, technology, action and thought) considers
themselves to be an outsider. Viewed from the outside one sees the networks
and connections between other people more clearly.
While this mailing list has over 700 subscribers we 'hear' from no more than
40 people in a month (sometimes many fewer). I remember being a confirmed
lurker for years on other lists and having to endure a week of nervous
sweats before posting something, followed then by the shock of no-one
responding.
The stress for newbies of joining a conversation that they are not sure is
FOR them is not to be underestimated. This is even more exaggerated perhaps
than in other public forums. People take a while to feel at home. Perhaps
they make a post or two. Responding to others' posts is the more effective
way to join the conversation.
However unless we (subscribers to NB) find ways to make new people feel
welcome to listen, read, speak, post (when ready) with connections that are
meaningful to them we do not live up to our name. Netbehaviour is about
experiencing what it is to be an artist working in the open scale free
networks of contemporary digital/fleshy life- adding new nodes and forming
and acknowledging new behaviours as we go. Ra ra!
: )
Ruth
==
email archive: http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
webpage http://www.alansondheim.org
music archive: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/
current text http://www.alansondheim.org/qw.txt
==
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