Re: nettime report_on_NNA
dear tobias, dear nettimers, i would merely like to congratulate tobias and the team in montreal for organising the meeting! i don't really understand the bickering and, tobias, don't worry, the fact that this meeting has taken place is already a great achievement, after many years of trying to do sth like this. i'm envious for not having been able to be there, and i hope that it is going to resonate positively on the list as well. (for me the question is, whether it is possible to get out of the stale-mate that the list seems to be in; is it possible to make communication more fluid again, or is the list just too old after 11 years? vuk - whatever happened to the spirit of 1996?) besides, there was ample information about the planned meeting beforehand, and as far as i am concerned, wherever two or three of you meet in the name of nettime, it can be called a nettime meeting. (excuse the paraphrase) greetings from sunny berlin, -a # 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
nettime report_on_NNA
Greetings from a lurker, I guess if I don't chime in now, I never will. I just wanted to thank Tobias for his report on the meeting. Finally someone has said a few things that needed to come out. Now I am curious to see what the reactions will be. Hopefully, this will start a constructive discussion on how to open up Nettime a tad more. Maybe not, and it is time for a Nettime jr. list! (apologies to Ken) When Roberta criticised the power dynamics at the meeting and was elegantly dismissed by S. Kovats, a few people came up to us after and commented on the consistency between online and offline interaction. At the same time, it is a shame that many star Nettimers are not aware of the positive effect that the list is having on those who do not use it to post essays that will be published in some MIT volume or other (which is also immensely useful). There will always be lurkers on lists, but i am sure there could be less in a more inviting environment where younger or less experienced people can post their comments. Something good could come from that too (would it make things too chaotic then? probably). Nettime and their f2f meetings do work as an inspiration for people like me to go out and do stuff, as well as write about it. And now that the bomb has been dropped, the Montreal meeting could also have been successful in making more people speak up. When Geert Loving asked whether Nettime had its days counted i was really sad. Why not just try an look back at the last ten years critically and see what can be tweaked with? (that is, if you feel there is something wrong with it, otherwise it could stay as it is). There is nothing wrong with Nettime, you have created a great space. But especially because it is so great it may be time to ask how to make it better. Things have changed very fast from the 90s and you all say it. So, how do you resuscitate/reinvent critical practice? Is tactical media really dead? if so, what now? Can we recuperate anything from it and take it to a next level? Don't know, but i have the feeling that discussing the successes and failures of single projects while also looking at the past would be helpful in developing new, more successful and sustainable ones. This is where the new and old generation of Nettimers should meet and join forces, while the old go on working at their well deserved and established careers and we struggle and pray to Saint Precarious Sorry, I had to say this Alessandra # 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime report_on_NNA
I'll skip the comment on European levels of funding (I mean, tobias, Canada is hardly an underfunded environment and seems rather comfortable for a lot of people in Europe), but the questions raised by tobias' remarks on events and funding as well as the intimidating atmosphere on the list deserve - I think - discussion. Some comments ...: That those who attended were not those who make their presence felt in writing, here, was interesting for us. Whether this constitutes leeching or learning, or is a factor of various intimidating atmospheres produced by this list was itself a topic of discussion during the Gathering at various points ... 4. As for the lack of posts to the list, many if not most of the people there were on Nettime but said -- on the webcast, in public -- that they never bother posting due to an intimidating atmosphere on the list, because they feel they have nothing to contribute in this atmosphere, etc. Ken Werbin discussed aspects of list cultures in detail, including the diversity/unity problem of information today, and the problem of too many lists. Many of the people, like me, have been on the list for some years, but many, unlike me, don't feel comfortable posting. Gita Hashemi spoke on this specifically in relation to gender and technology. There were many others who chimed in as well, including Abe Burmeister, on the meaning of critical practice (net.critique) in the 21C and why this term might not resonate well with newer ways of thinking. This was all publicly webcast ... Why is it that out of so many thousands of subscribers, only a handful post? Good questions. Besides the general discrepancy between active and passive participants that always seems to exist in one form or another, some other explanations might be: 1) the increasing institutionalisation of critique, which in the case of nettime tends to manifest itself in a bias towards pieces of writing published (all for free, of course...) on the list at the expense of more - I'll just use this word for lack of a better alternative - holistic options, such as the Nettime-event in Montreal (too bad I couldn't be there ... but then... being an unfunded phd-student myself, how could I have paid for the ticket from london to montreal?) 2) As I see it, this also tends to lead to a preferential treatment - unconsciously so, for sure - of more theoretical and academic issues, which are enormously exciting, but - in the end - exclusionary by definition. Nothing wrong with that, but it could mean that some people on the list feel they have nothing to contribute to such an atmosphere. After all, those who have a boring job in order to pay the rent, cannot talk the talk on the same level as those well-funded associate professors and other academics on tenure. We are the newer or 2nd/3rd generation of Nettimers, who don't have stable careers, who won't benefit from this list to advance our said careers, and who are nonetheless trying to f*cking do something anyway! So there you have it! .. are we to be blamed for throwing this in the conditions which currently exist for DiY non_institutional events..? Does anyone realize that none of us are paid and that this was entirely voluntarily organised..? That there were NO funds to speak of...? That this took several months of work, yadda yadda? Which leads to these comments by Tobias. What would interest me is the question (and I'll just formulate it bluntly): what is the effect on nettime and net.culture in general of the fact that quite a lot of the 'star names' are increasingly part of the academic system? Even those critics that have started out 'outside' this system tend to end up here. Would be an interesting micro-research for a friday night: just count the amount of net.critics that are now part of academia, but were not 5 or 10 years ago. Again, I have nothing against academia, but it does mean that maybe net.culture.representatives should reflect more extensively on the discrepancy between net.rhetoric and academic reality. best, Bas # 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime hear ye, hear ye... truce for NNA discussion
just in case it's not obvious the nettime problem continues to be undue moderation people won't be bothered to compose posts (compost) if they are blocked (constipation) /:b # 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
nettime calling all lurkers
It's fascinating, funny and welcome, to read the debates arising from the efforts of that long list of people whom Tobias has named as the movers, shakers and happening-makers of nettime's assymetrical 10th birthday party. Wish I could've made it. Thought about it but it proved impossible. Sounds like it was great. For those whose careers allow them to live in small apartments, nettime is basically the world in your bedroom. It's the nightcap of delayed conversation which occasionally even gets a response, the morning after or a few days later, or sometimes, years later in the form of a mail, a telephone call and a visit. For me personally, the career means that the apartment has expanded into the hotel rooms, and, unfortunately, airplanes where I often spend the night, in between those activities of dubious merit called conferences aka the rubber chicken guru circuit (Kodwo Eshun's phrase). There or at home, I read, amongst so many other things, whoever has been courageous or shameless or unconscious enough to post something onto this list. Lately a lesser flow than in the past, but whatever. Despite the website I've developed with some friends, Nettime remains, for me, the vehicle of choice for free distribution of what I write: a way of sending it back to the cooperative flow it came out of, as well as a place for some exchanges on politics and art and technology and social movements. Free distribution of my kind of concept-crunching may contribute to the imposing feeling that was talked about in Montreal. It may also generate all kinds of more-or-less fantasmatic ideas about the careers of certain people. This is the kind of secret thought that each one of us has to deal with in their bedroom when they're alone with their inner furnishings. But since the world comes into our bedrooms, and what's more, as a conversation, this is a theme that would be worth discussing a little more openly. There are always at least 2 generations of nettime. The generation before you got on the list, and yours. But 5 years from 1996 brings us to 2001, which was not only the end of the tech-bubble but also the turning-point of world politics. So there are probably also 2 generations of nettime: those who were active during the 5-year boom, and during the optimistic phase of antiglobalization and tactical media; and those who came later (or maybe just lurked through). Through familiar patterns, those who were active during the boom years with code and language and images - and with free distribution - became names and through various kinds of insertion into various institutions, so that some now enjoy what has been called careers. Whether in software development, the new media circuit, the universities, the art circuit, or in the slipperier realm of general media punditry, often associated with technology or social movements. What this means must be relative to each one's position. Myself, I have basically gone on doing what I always did, trying with some difficulty to grasp the extreme changes and to find a language that could make sense amidst them. The career thing is really a pretty mixed bag. I admire those who are holding onto something interesting on an institutional level. About a third of the events I participate in as a panel-trotter have some connection to new media - and by and large, it's pretty disappointing I must say. Not as offensive as the old art circuits can be, but also, not as elaborate or deep. Often a waste of time - as the old art circuits often are too. You sift through such things the way you sift through email, exchanging glances or backchannel comments, looking to expand the informal networks where everything real is finally happening, at the singular level where you can plug into it. As for travel, it's literally killing me, but still it remains incredibly informative, the absolute most interesting thing, and a chance to keep in touch with people who are really doing things. For those who have a career but no job, who are more interested in writing about what they want than publishing where they could make money, travel is the only reason for having this so-called career. With a constant wonder whether it's reason enough to do it. So, that all said, what do the lurkers think? There can easily be another round of talking about the role of the moderators (a venerable nettime tradition), but more interesting to my mind is just talking with each other, about what the list is good for, and also what's happening around us. What else is there to do? Recently someone told me, iDC [the Institute for Distributed Creativity list] is actually more interesting than nettime these days. Yes, why not? I said. But isn't that a problem? they responded with some kind of quizzical anxiety. Well, I just laughed, but on reflection, it is. Because nettime is a larger and more complex group which has learned how to talk about more than just tech and the Internet. And so I miss it at those moments when iDC, or
Re: nettime report_on_NNA
Tobias - I regret I wasn't able to make it. I'm in a remote spot in Switzerland at the moment, but followed the progress of the event with interest. Glad to see that it went well! We should try something in NYC. I think that the list has been a bit flat for a while, but hey, there's always more than one way to do things, and your event seems like a step in the right direction. Best wishes, Paul aka Dj Spooky # 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime hear ye, hear ye... truce for NNA discussion
Yes, the NNA report was somewhat informative but smeared, obscured, lipsmacked by the trivial sidebar complaint. What fear, of what or whom? Truce for what, a minor snit sniffle, piffle? And what is this illiteracy about stars and the little nobodies aching to lick their shriveleds as if condemned to it by trepidation. That stinks of abject student trolling the profs, whimpering where there is no need except by the protection of embracing secondary status. Turn not thy tender belly up for mercy, bite whatever barks at you, real or imaginary, or threatens or bluffs, yeah, it must be about bluffing, pretending to be terrified or worse, bored, at no longer masterful or fed up with being slavish. Fuck that and that and me. Elpeda where art thou to stiletto this whining and regretting the old days chickenshittish, lollygagging procrastinating, side-eyeing the medal giving head patters for effect. Backroom chat is servantish carping about disrespect when the house needs burning, weeping throats inviting slitting, your own mostso. No truce, no mercy, no overdone respect for anybody. # 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
nettime report_on_NNA
Hello All, greetings from Budapest, I was one of the few lucky ones to make it (in the nick of time) to the Montreal meeting. I found the presentations and the discussions very informative and once more, it brought home to me that activism is a multilayered, many faceted (and in our case often informal) enterprise. It was great to hear fresh approaches frequently infused with humour linking North American nettimers to the rest of the nettime world. I certainly hope that nettime's days are not over yet - just wish we could have more frequent occasions to meet in person as this makes a real difference. Thanks Tobias and all, who made it possible. ( and what is this background noise about?) nina # 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
nettime The EU and democratic role for citizen?
In light of: 1. Merkel and Chirac set timetable for EU constitution - 07.06.2006 - 09:39 The leaders of France and Germany have agreed a new timetable for trying to revive the EU constitution setting 2008 as the year when decisions on the document should be taken. http://euobserver.com/9/21782/?rk=1 This is perhaps an important consideration: 2. Citizen Model for the Study of the Internet New technology demands new paradigm, methodology About the problem of the border between citizens and their representatives discussed during the first Finnish Presidency of the EU in December 1999 and continuing as a problem in EU and on 1996 proposal that the Internet and the netizen provide a means to explore the problem: http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=296646rel_no=1 (If anyone is interested in this issue, I have come across some interesting research on it, and welcome being in contact with others interested in the problem.) ronda rondaATais.org # 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime report_on_NNA
On Jun 7, 2006, at 5:13 AM, Andreas Broeckmann wrote: (for me the question is, whether it is possible to get out of the stale-mate that the list seems to be in; is it possible to make communication more fluid again, or is the list just too old after 11 years? vuk - whatever happened to the spirit of 1996?) If I remember correctly, many of the same questions were being asked in 1996 when a lot of the artists on the list felt constrained by the moderation and left or stopped posting. Since The Upgrade started out as an artists' group in NYC there's probably some concern about nettime being presented as an art project in that context -- a subject that is still relevant and should be discussed on nettime! not vuk Robbin Murphy THE THING, Inc. # 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
nettime report_on_NNA
Well, now that the background noise seems to be moving to the foreground, now that we have had the time to also see how much maybe was indeed student whining and above all, now that it seems that a lot of people are willing to discuss, what to do? This is the hard part... Not sure but maybe one way to go is to really look at what this stale mate is. Is it a problem with Nettime only or is it also that times are tougher and there is less enthusiasm to do things? Perhaps a bit of both. I find the discussions on the topics that are raised, especially the theoretical ones always very stimulating but, yes, action or analysis of action is less available. When Nettime started, tactical media was a big thing, people felt they had a new tool for struggle and critique, and there was more talk about projects. But this didn't come from the sky, it was many of the people on this list who actually came up with the ideas, the action and the theory. I believe that the same people, and the new comers could also develop something effective for the present--or at least try. i don't know how easy it is on a mailing list and this is why it is great to have meetings. I do think though that one of the strength of Nettime (and this is why it is still an important institution) is to be able to create spaces where people can actually come together, talk and experiment. I have heard many general discussions on the problems with tactical media, about the newly formed divide between artists and activists and so on. Maybe some more localised and in-depth analyses of single instances will help clarify this further. Does anyone know of projects from which we can learn? How do we come up with ad hoc ways of developing, supporting new experiments if not through exchange and experience? Why do we only hear about the launch of great projects but hardly anything about them later, even if they fail? What may be outdated or ineffective in one place may be useful in a different context (and i am thinking of the thesis on tactical media in Brazil and various projects in India). One of the great things about NNA was the showcasing of different undertakings that could also be of inspiration to other people somewhere else. Let information, ideas, proposals and reports circulate, discuss them, compare experiences. Is this too naif? Alessandra # 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
RE: nettime NNA critical openings and closings
There was a passionate point raised near the end of NNA, that just when people begin to critically say something on/about nettime, discussion quickly gets shut down, generally through the invocation of 'highbrow theory' and/or 'academic references'. And while this is true to a certain extent, people do hide behind references and theories, they are also increasingly inclined, in our ever expanding open social order, to hide behind forwarded information; not taking a position one way or the other, just forwarding. Sadly for us, both on and off nettime, without positions, collective critical engagement will wane and ultimately vanish, not just here, but everywhere. And so in the spirit of position-taking, I contend that with more and more social noise blaring out of internet-boom-boxes we are moving towards entropy and inertia; we are increasingly inclined to neither hate, nor love, just to open up more. With every passing moment, the diversity and variety of stories we tell and access about anything and everything are opening infinitely. And the more stories we are exposed to, the less inclined we are to take positions. How could we? Knowing that so many view things so differently. Today, we value information openings and fear closures against social noise; we fear the -isms they may produce. This is life in open social order, in cybernetic ecumenical society. And we are not here by chance. There is a legacy to this project, of which the internet is but one component. This legacy traces back to cybernetics and the mass adoption of a mathematical philosophy that is based on undertsanding both humans and machines as 'open information processing systems'. Through a variety of mapping techniques based on notions of feedback loops, cybernetics seeks to model socio-technical organizations and environments in order to subject them to simulation and experimentation with the aim of predicting movement and behavior, and ultimately controlling it. While early adoption of such mathematical philosophy was exclusively military, such notions quickly extended to questions of social order, leading to a series of initiatives spearheaded by the US government since the mid-40s to 'connect' people globally in the hopes of eliminating what an Adorno study on 'Racism in America' called the 'authoritarian personality'. Simply put, the idea was that the more 'open' and 'connected' people are, the less inclined they will be to take extreme 'authoritarian' positions of hate. The adoption of cybernetics as a basis for a worldwide social order was cemented at the Macy conferences in Chicago in the mid 1940s, which were attended by cybernetic and psychological luminaries including Norbert Wiener, Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead, von Neumann, von Forester and Kurt Lewin, as well as the CIA. These conferences ultimately gave rise to a series of 'open' social experiments including the LSD experiments at Harvard, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters and also ARPANET. Contrary to many accounts of the impetus for ARPANET, the idea of an 'open social order' to encourage a world without hate was the fundamental goal behind the advent of the internet's predecessor, not fear of nuclear disaster. So, where I agree with Tobias to a certain extent, that there is an intimidation factor at play on nettime, my greater fear is that critical discourse is not just waning on the list, but throughout digital cultures and societies overall and this 'critical' inertia is a factor of an anachronistic term that merits re-emergence; information overload. And so, I take a position on the future of nettime-l: I think nettime-l is a good closure, as it stands, and language aside, it should not branch off into nettime jr., nettime sr., or whatever more, and heaven forbid, the blogosphere, with all its wide-openeness and capital co-optability. There is already enough noise from too many such openings. Rather, we need to take advantage of new openings that emerge from within the list itself, like NNA; and perhaps more importantly, we need to take more positions and provide far less information, in life as much as lists. Think twice about what you forward. Is it a good opening, or merely more noise? Take a stand nettimers! Take positions! Make closures! FUCK THE NOISE! at least fleetingly...and keep doing it HERE! ~kcw # 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime calling all lurkers
I want to agree w/ Brian here - nettime for me ironically has the status of a book, not only because of peripheral publishing, but also because of the functioning of the list, little chatter, more emendations, articles, considered replies, some fecundity kept at a minimum. All of this would tend towards modernism, i.e. articulated/decontextualized/constructed, were it not played out against the background of the roiling net/s; most of my time is taken up with culling these days. The internationalism of nettime is fundamental to me. It's also my writing venue of choice (which means I fundamentally cull before submitting), and the back-channel replies I receive have always been incredibly useful. I miss the news- papers... - Alan blog at http://nikuko.blogspot.com - for URLs, DVDs, CDs, books/etc. see http://www.asondheim.org/advert.txt - contact [EMAIL PROTECTED], - general directory of work: http://www.asondheim.org Trace at: http://tracearchive.ntu.ac.uk - search Alan Sondheim # 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
FW: nettime NNA critical openings and closings
There was a passionate point raised near the end of NNA, that just when people begin to critically say something on/about nettime, discussion quickly gets shut down, generally through the invocation of 'highbrow theory' and/or 'academic references'. And while this is true to a certain extent, people do hide behind references and theories, they are also increasingly inclined, in our ever expanding open social order, to hide behind forwarded information; not taking a position one way or the other, just forwarding. Sadly for us, both on and off nettime, without positions, collective critical engagement will wane and ultimately vanish, not just here, but everywhere. And so in the spirit of position-taking, I contend that with more and more social noise blaring out of internet-boom-boxes we are moving towards entropy and inertia; we are increasingly inclined to neither hate, nor love, just to open up more. With every passing moment, the diversity and variety of stories we tell and access about anything and everything are opening infinitely. And the more stories we are exposed to, the less inclined we are to take positions. How could we? Knowing that so many view things so differently. Today, we value information openings and fear closures against social noise; we fear the -isms they may produce. This is life in open social order, in cybernetic ecumenical society. And we are not here by chance. There is a legacy to this project, of which the internet is but one component. This legacy traces back to cybernetics and the mass adoption of a mathematical philosophy that is based on undertsanding both humans and machines as 'open information processing systems'. Through a variety of mapping techniques based on notions of feedback loops, cybernetics seeks to model socio-technical organizations and environments in order to subject them to simulation and experimentation with the aim of predicting movement and behavior, and ultimately controlling it. While early adoption of such mathematical philosophy was exclusively military, such notions quickly extended to questions of social order, leading to a series of initiatives spearheaded by the US government since the mid-40s to connect people globally in the hopes of eliminating what an Adorno study on 'Racism in America' called the authoritarian personality. Simply put, the idea was that the more open and connected people are, the less inclined they will be to take extreme 'authoritarian' positions of hate. The adoption of cybernetics as a basis for a worldwide social order was cemented at the Macy conferences in Chicago in the mid 1940s, which were attended by cybernetic and psychological luminaries including Norbert Wiener, Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead, von Neumann, von Forester and Kurt Lewin, as well as the CIA. These conferences ultimately gave rise to a series of 'open' social experiments including the LSD experiments at Harvard, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters and also ARPANET. Contrary to many accounts of the impetus for ARPANET, the idea of an open social order' to encourage a world without hate was the fundamental goal behind the advent of the internet's predecessor, not fear of nuclear disaster. So, where I agree with Tobias to a certain extent, that there is an intimidation factor at play on nettime, my greater fear is that critical discourse is not just waning on the list, but throughout digital cultures and societies overall and this 'critical' inertia is a factor of an anachronistic term that merits re-emergence; information overload. And so, I take a position on the future of nettime-l: I think nettime-l is a good closure, as it stands, and language aside, it should not branch off into nettime jr., nettime sr., or whatever more, and heaven forbid, the blogosphere, with all its wide-openeness and capital co-optability. There is already enough noise from too many such openings. Rather, we need to take advantage of new openings that emerge from within the list itself, like NNA; and perhaps more importantly, we need to take more positions and provide far less information, in life as much as lists. Think twice about what you forward. Is it a good opening, or merely more noise? Take a stand nettimers! Take positions! Make closures! FUCK THE NOISE! at least fleetingly...and keep doing it HERE! ~kcw # 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime report_on_NNA
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Wed 06/07/06 at 12:38 PM -0400): But if our absence merely ended up paving the way for a 'private' -- through commission and omission -- event, can you tell me why exactly the name nettime had or has anything to do with it? Yikes..! double-yikes, indeed! this diminution is directed at not just the organizers but also the presenters. 1) i'd like to invite TED to define, for the illumination of all of us, what exactly he means by 'private'? i have Gladly. A bit more context for that quotation may help: Sorry to be so negative but Felix and I have put in many years of work underwritten by (in my view) a model of service more modest than the 'heroic' approach of nettime's Founding Fathers. In that light, it was entirely apt that neither of us ended up being at the ~meeting. But if our absence merely ended up paving the way for a 'private' -- through commission and omission -- event, can you tell me why exactly the name nettime had or has anything to do with it? As I explained in a subsequent private mail to Tobias, 'commission' and 'ommission' are slightly ~catholic terms for 'inaction' and 'action,' respectively. In 'commission' I was referring to the fact, among other things, that Geert Lovink -- who gladly accepts credit for nettime without mentioning that he hasn't really had much to do with it for the last 8+ years -- popped in for a chat at NNA. In 'omission' I was referring to the fact that the lack of any writeup on the list had, in effect, rendered NNA 'private' (hence Tobias's remark that moderators have been bugging me to write something of a report). It's my sense that later mail with Tobias cleared up some misunderstandings about commissions-as-in-funding and so on, which wasn't at all what I meant. no 'private' relations with any of the organizers, presenters or attendees, most of whom i met and/or became aware of for the first time in montreal. 2) in my view, the strength of the gathering was precisely that it paid little heed to 'nettime' as an identity/brand - even though most people were nettime subscribers - as it became a space for discussing critical practice more broadly (what exactly makes nettime fathers think that it's the be-all, end-all in criticality?), and for making connections that the online list does not encourage nor facilitate. so i ask TED to also clarify why the name nettime is so important to him? and more, what exactly does it mean to him? Let's say for the sake of argument that nettime is actually run by Satan himself. Do his motives matter? For most subscribers' purposes I think the answer is probably no. The very worst I could do is a pale shadow by comparison with him, so it seems like my motives would be that much less noteworthy. As for the rest, it's best to let straw men rest. Cheers, T # 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime report_on_NNA
Thanks Tobias for the report -- I was a bit dismayed to receive the email announcing the stream too late to tune in, as I had wanted to. Although many of the issues definitely hit home, I guess I have found that nettime front-channel is what it is. I rely on it for noisy and occasionally brilliant topical and opinion bursts along with subjective viewpoints about this messy space of networks, media, and criticality. It rarely addresses praxis which I find problematic, and rarely applies principles to its own space of action, so, in that respect I see it as another channel of academic discourse -- more about Word and less about Action (note how many early nettimers have sought shelter in academia since 1996 from the more radical fields of cultural/media activism). I use it primarily as a stimulus for backchannel 1-to-1 interactions that are personally more satisfying and more energizing. Anyway, as an 'oldtimer', I realized that I have a pretty much complete Eudora archive of nettime back to January 1997 (prior to that the archive vanished into ELM heaven). It is interesting to sort on Sender and see what/who shows up. I thought to write a script of sorts to make a table for easier analysis, but haven't the brain power for that -- I would challenge somebody out there (preferably not a moderator!) to either be allowed access to a digital copy of the full online nettime archive to massage the data to provide this info -- or if possible, give me some input on how I can do that myself relatively easily. (It could also perhaps be instructive to compare my received-mail archive to the 'official one!) Cheers John # 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime report_on_NNA
Let's say for the sake of argument that nettime is actually run by Satan himself. Do his motives matter? For most subscribers' purposes I think the answer is probably no. The very worst I could do is a pale shadow by comparison with him, so it seems like my motives would be that much less noteworthy. As for the rest, it's best to let straw men rest. This is of course, an issue -- facilitating a space for creative encounters among others is a control issue no matter where you set the slider-tab on the range from NO CONTROL (one devil) to TOTAL CONTROL (another devil). It is subjective, delicate, and always open to conflict-of-interest criticism. Ideally, such facilitation should provide a discursive space that is not too large to be difusive, and not too small to disallow experimentation. A moderator has to decide this range based on the full range of posts, and select a range where he/she believes to be reasonable (to whom?). Impossible mission. In terms of possible solutions to help nettime make the next evolutionary step, while retaining the format of list (vs blog, etc) what about, for example, that moderators not be allowed to post except back channel to individual subscribers -- this would eliminate instantly the very real conflict between moderation and opinion which has generated more noise than necessary (and more noise than signal on several occasions). Moderators should have a public email address (public to subscribers) for back channel communications, and that communications content should be placed on an archive server. Easy technical solutions. I can't imagine that you can say Geert has had nothing to do with nettime for 8 years. That's total bullshit. And not that I always have the time to read his prodigious posts nor do I frequently even agree with his ideas -- anyone who reads, lurks, posts, subscribes is as much a participant as any other. If you understand networks, I don't understand how you can make such a statement. You are not acting as a moderator when you say something like that. You shouldn't be a moderator if you think things like that. As someone who has admined my share of lists over the years, it seems that nettime has had the worst time with the relation between moderation or lack thereof. In spite of this there has been a decent flow of interesting ideas. For that I am thankful. And I respect the work of adminning and moderation (and the dedication of Felix and Ted and the others who do this kind of facilitation), but maybe it's time to look for new moderators, or have a rotating moderation structure. Ted, you sound as though you are burning out, and that's no position to be in when attempting this kind of facilitation... Facilitation is not about carrying crosses. Cheers JOhn # 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
nettime The Ontological Museum Project
Hi Brian and all, I have been lurking here for some time and thought I would respond to your cry... The internet remains for me a great tool especially for conceptualization and projecting ideas into my slice of the art world. As some of you know I am the founder of the Ontological Museum (OM) of the International Post-Dogmatist Group ( http://ontologicalmuseum.org ) and its most active wing; the International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction (IMCAC) ( http://collagemuseum.com ). The OM was founded in 1996 as a kind of alternative to typical art museums whose collections have been established according to the whim of wealthy collectors whose primary interest - it seems to me - is in wealth building. I wanted to attempt something more akin to a scientific specimen gathering museum that is not based on the collector market - where most museum art comes from - but rather by asking contemporary artists to donate works to the museum with an open arms attitude. I established an listserv for the museum in 1998 which, at this time has some 1,300 collage artist participants ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/collage/ ). The most successful project so far has been a mail art exchange among collage artists called the Baker's Dozen International Collage Exchange. Well over 10,000 collages have been exchanged through this project and the Museum is approaching 1,000 works of art collected into its permanent collection; many have come in through this exchange and many through direct contributions of artists from around the world. ( http://collagemuseum.com/collage-exchange-index.html ) Where Duchamp gathered his assemblage into a valise and Cornell gathered his materials into a shadow box, the OM shall gather its assembled parts into a museum as the ultimate framing device. The OM will then attempt to promote its gathered and growing collection of art and other intellectual property as all museums promote their collections; through publications, reproductions, exhibitions, scholarly monographs, etc. All of this done so far through the use of the internet as the primary social environment and communicating vessel working to promote cooperation and communication among artists from many cultures world wide as suggested in the following post-dogmatist statement... The International Post-Dogmatist Group has been founded to advance creative endeavor in all of its multifarious expressions, to encourage freedom of creative experiment and diversity of perspective, to foster tolerance and understanding among creative persons of all nations, to provide a context for interaction and association, to honor and acknowledge all those who, whether known or unknown, have worked to encourage and nurture the creative unfoldment of the human spirit and to overcome the oppression of ignorance and fear. I am now in the process of working toward the museum becoming a non-profit, finding funding and finding its own permanent space which I envision as a museum complex that incorporates enough dynamic elements to become self sustaining without a heavy reliance on wealthy patrons. The museum has been set up to operate on a shoe string thus far but the need for funding is starting to become important. Well, I just though I would give a synopsis of what my main internet project has been the last 10 years and certainly shall be for the next 10. I do this in conjunction with my personal career as an artist and poet. ( http://cecil.touchon.com ) Would love to hear from others and would expecially love to receive any materials for the museum. Here's a page showing some of what we have an interest in: http://collagemuseum.com/exhibitions.html Best Regards, Cecil Touchon, Director The Ontological Museum 6955 Pinon Street Fort Worth, Texas 76116 http://ontologicalmuseum.org Casa del Artista Inn and Exhibition Space 307 Calle de las Piedras Cuernavaca, Morelos Mexico 62270 http://casadelartista.com Brian Holmes wrote: ... Calling all lurkers! In Montreal and elsewhere. best, Brian # 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
