Thanks Sandra That is a fascinating read and very much on topic. B
On Sun, 28 Mar 2021 at 15:37, Sandra Braman <[email protected]> wrote: > This piece from 1996 on art and various forms of capital in the digital > world has some things to say that are pertinent to this interesting > conversation. You'll see some theorists not as present in ongoing > conversation these days as they were then, but I stand on the piece. > > "Art in the Information Economy" > http://people.tamu.edu/~braman/bramanpdfs/011_art.pdf > > Sandra Braman > > On Sun, Mar 28, 2021 at 5:00 AM <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Send nettime-l mailing list submissions to >> [email protected] >> >> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit >> http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l >> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to >> [email protected] >> >> You can reach the person managing the list at >> [email protected] >> >> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific >> than "Re: Contents of nettime-l digest..." >> >> >> Today's Topics: >> >> 1. Re: what does monetary value indicate? (Molly Hankwitz) >> 2. Re: what does monetary value indicate? (Brian Holmes) >> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> Message: 1 >> Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2021 18:50:30 -0700 >> From: Molly Hankwitz <[email protected]> >> To: Michael Goldhaber <[email protected]> >> Cc: [email protected] >> Subject: Re: <nettime> what does monetary value indicate? >> Message-ID: >> <CAH5TXpxUg4Lor3z=BLftTdqghDAk= >> [email protected]> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" >> >> Hi Michael, >> >> Or, maybe, originality has been all along, a fictional history, and a >> signifier for fictional social relations in much art history, if only to >> justify value through ?scarcity? (genius and originality are rare) or >> create its justification (there is only one original) and to obscure modes >> of artistic production not about ?sole? authorship and individual >> creativity? Somewhere along the line, ?originality? was seen to be a >> valuable asset in art making, taught, told, produced, encouraged, and then >> it died many deaths as a concept; as something to strive for or achieve or >> practice or expect? ?Death of the author?, digital reproducibility, >> post-medium conditions, AI Art, all seemingly question or consider at >> least >> art without ?originality?. >> We have replaced this expectation instead with collectivity, >> collaboration, >> stakeholders, or, much more importantly, maybe, the artist as an >> ?original? >> interpreter of systems. So, I?m thinking that the new artist might be more >> akin to an economist who comprehends the communication of value or an >> artist who digs deeply into AI enough to transform it...originally. This >> appears to me by way of Paglen, Steryel, and others to be a trend. Artist >> as ?administrative author? or initiator of a system, through which >> communities can act, somewhat recursively to establish value, and/or >> prosper via, for instance, a shared currency? >> >> (Fresh from MoneyLab events) >> >> Molly >> >> >> >> >> On Sat, Mar 27, 2021 at 4:02 PM Michael Goldhaber <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> > On Mar 27, 2021, at 1:27 PM, Molly Hankwitz <[email protected]> >> > wrote: >> > >> > >> > ..how original is original when originality died long ago ? >> > >> > >> > Yes, originality died with the second cave painting, but has been reborn >> > many times since, even if only evident to new generations. Depending on >> > the fineness of your mesh, it is always relatively rare, and thus, with >> so >> > many trying for it today, perhaps easily not seen. But I bet still >> around. >> > >> > >> > Best, >> > >> > Michael >> > >> > >> > >> > -- >> >> >> molly hankwitz - she/her >> http://bivoulab.org >> -------------- next part -------------- >> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... >> URL: < >> http://mx.kein.org/pipermail/nettime-l/attachments/20210327/1483fa99/attachment-0001.html >> > >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> Message: 2 >> Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2021 23:28:14 -0500 >> From: Brian Holmes <[email protected]> >> To: Molly Hankwitz <[email protected]> >> Cc: a moderated mailing list for net criticism >> <[email protected]> >> Subject: Re: <nettime> what does monetary value indicate? >> Message-ID: >> < >> canuitgwqjvwcrzinuz6z51jyrwwzng0jw-gxohdbtstzmev...@mail.gmail.com> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" >> >> On Sat, Mar 27, 2021 at 8:51 PM Molly Hankwitz <[email protected]> >> asked: >> >> Artist as ?administrative author? or initiator of a system, through which >> > communities can act, somewhat recursively to establish value, and/or >> > prosper via, for instance, a shared currency? >> > >> >> I am fascinated by the concept of the artist as "initiator of a system," >> it's the most profound and still-relevant notion of art to come out of the >> late 20th century. To initiate a system is to open up the field in which >> something like orientation or valuation can take place. Exactly what the >> orientations and values must be is not initially prescribed, but still, >> the >> coordinates and the terms of measure are made available and shared, as we >> all know from software and activist movements and even love (let's think >> co-initiators). >> >> But the demon of contradiction wants me to take something so admirable >> into >> a more troubling direction, which could have some bearing on Felix's >> question of NFT motivations. >> >> There were these two dudes, I happen to know their story, Leo Melamed, the >> star trader of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and Milton Friedman - >> well, >> you get the picture. Leo went to listen in on the classes given by ol' >> Milt >> at the University of Chicago, notably because of the idea that in a world >> of floating currency values, futures markets would easily emerge. Money >> could be made from the possible future values of money - it fired >> Melamed's >> imagination. When Nixon suspended the Bretton Woods treaties and opened up >> the floating world, Leo commissioned Milt to write an authoritative paper, >> and the two co-initiators went to Washington to institute a new world >> order. Legal to boot. Friedman rang the bell at the opening of the >> International Monetary Market on May 16, 1972. It opened up the entire >> computational space of financial derivatives. You can read Melamed's prose >> if you're curious, but you gotta see the look on Friedman's face: >> https://bit.ly/3rvC1t8 >> >> NFTs are gesturing toward a new market, a hitherto unknown territory of >> abstraction. For a financier this would be the equivalent of the voyages >> of >> discovery - Christopher Columbus. The everyday lives will get colonized >> later on. Right now these people have the sense of establishing, not just >> an asset class, but something new under the sun. They feel like world >> movers. >> >> The weird thing is that I think many of us can imagine it, at least a >> little bit. Do you remember what it was like, co-initiating >> social-computational systems? Maybe you still do it? >> >> Around that time back in the early 70s, the conceptual artist Marcel >> Broodthaers was ironically exploring what he called "the conquest of >> space." It was about Columbus and the art market and the Apollo Program. >> Certainly with the symbolic space they opened up - now the Globex trading >> platform - Friedman and Melamed oriented the whole neoliberal period. >> They >> discovered a new America. They created and administrated what you might >> call an effective abstraction, which has not yet ceased to govern the vast >> lifeworlds of just-in-time production and distribution. This is the >> terrifying other side of initiating systems. >> >> NFTs are not going to rule the world. This is an attempted conquest of >> art-market space. But the desire it attempts to symbolize is significant. >> What kind of currency would a computational oligarchy need for the era of >> accelerated technological change and asymptotically granular population >> control that is emerging as a possibility right now, through the >> ubiquitous >> applications of AI? In the best of cases this would have to be a truly >> common currency, enabling resilience, adaptation, transformation for the >> future 9 billions of human earthlings - and infinite other species. In the >> worst of cases, it would be the currency of a veritable state-financial >> nexus, the kind David Harvey talks about, where privatized monetary >> creation is the enabler of hyper flexible bureaucratic control. >> >> Frankly, just reading the newspapers, I see a huge struggle going on over >> the initiation of systems. Either you get eco-socialism, or you get the >> nexus. >> >> Meanwhile I see lots of artists trying to invent new blockchain >> currencies. >> But who is the Marcel Broodthaers of the onrushing AI era? And how would >> *they* express themselves? >> >> curiously, Brian >> -------------- next part -------------- >> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... >> URL: < >> http://mx.kein.org/pipermail/nettime-l/attachments/20210327/c99ca3c7/attachment-0001.html >> > >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission >> # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, >> # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets >> # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l >> >> End of nettime-l Digest, Vol 162, Issue 33 >> ****************************************** >> > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected] > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: -- Bronaċ
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