Honestly though I was surprised by the amount of passionate and vocal audience participation, even if much of it was unsolicited. It does serve as a nice counterpoint to Zittrain’s “comic relief” which seemed more condescending and inappropriate from where I was sitting. It seemed like he was operating from some mid-ninteties caricature of hackers as friendless nerds in their parents’ basement and completely ignored the passionate political movements going on around the web through the creative commons, EFF, and (as you noted) PCF.

For every digital utopian there needs to be a nay-sayer, and for every Mechanical Turk there’s something like reCAPTCHA (http://recaptcha.net/) but there’s a lot to be said beyond that and generally I think the panel went there. Thanks for the summary.

I agree that Zittrains comic relief had a condescending undertone to it, and I felt the same way when he spoke in Croatia last year at the icommons conference. That said, I still think he’s an extremely effective speaker, so I’m inclined to forgive a lot (but not the ignoring of web based activism).

Re: reCAPTCHA. Agreed.

With all that I agree that it made it hard to delve particularly deep into any one facet of this debate, and the Q&A really took it all over the place. But the energy was palpable.

re: Shirky talking about the sitcom:
I thought his point was that the time freed up by industrialization was initially filled by the passive sitcom, and now that time is filled with the internet. Some seem surprised that ‘people have so much time to make all of this internet culture,’ but really we have had that free time since the 50s - now we use it in a more active and productive way.

I agreed with Lauren’s point that web art has often predicted future online social behaviors and trends. I think that non-artist online groups like 4chan and other lulz/meme related outfits also generate and popularize a lot of the content that later become more general cultural memes (generally jokes, as opposed to more ‘artistic’ content).
Web art actions (ranging in form from making posts to the techniques used to cull materials) often subvert standard web use practices, sometimes doing things ‘wrong,’ taking the long way around, noticing patterns, using online tools for non-functional ends, and getting caught up on aesthetic/presentation in places where information is supposed to be paramount.
In terms of a Future for the Internet, I wonder if online art will follow the path of the meme and be able to bring its ideas into a larger artistic/cultural conversation about media (I hope so) without getting lumped in with the expectation that ideas and culture that start on the internet have to be for entertainment or be funny (I hope not.)

(correction: Zittrain was referring to “HR Pufnstuf” - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA3FFT54Ehs)

http://rhizome.org/editorial/fp/blog.php/616

so, thanks. It’s nice these issues are being talked about here, if not on Rhizome.

Yeah, that was Shirky’s point, but I don’t think he put a positive or negative spin on whether the kind of activity the internet inspired was productive. My feeling was that, if anything, lolcats were given negative connotation as far as time spent, since they were directly compared to the 50’s couch potato. I doubt he’d make an overt blanket statement about their cultural value though since it’s not really a black and white issue.

I guess I’m pretty skeptical about the concept that art is a barometer for future trends and social behaviors, if only because the term has be spread so thin in order for that to be true. I mean, if we assume that the internet flattens everything, and any creative act is essentially an artistic one if you chose to name it so, then sure, “that teenager working all day in his basement” Cory Arcangel describes as his largest artistic rival, is an artist, and we’re at the forefront. But I don’t wholly subscribe to the line of thought that there is no hierarchy on the web. If this is true, why is Rhizome even necessary? Also, I think the whole notion of artists being the barometer of future trends is a popular myth that is only partially true. A few will act as this barometer, yes, but I don’t think this is unique to the field of fine art. Lauren herself pointed out that the true innovators are also in the porn industry, so it seems to me most likely that the true innovators a sprinkled across many fields, and only later will we know who are the most significant.

With that said, I do think your observations about web art actions that subvert web standard use practices are one example of where artists have stood out from the crowd, and may they well be part of the few who are “the barometer” we speak of. The interesting thing about this, is that, I think these actions, at times, can be deceptively simple, so people frequently overlook their value as art. I always thought John Michael Boling’s use of the marque tag in 50 Years Ago Today was kind of like that - it’s easy to do from a technical standpoint - in the same way making a singular mark with a paint brush might be, but executing it with such elegance isn’t, nor is having the foresight to do it in the first place.

In regards to the future: I think online art is gaining visibility, and artists will likely be able to bring their ideas into larger cultural conversation. How that will happen exactly remains to be determined, but generally speaking, I think if artists want it to happen, they’ll find a way to do it. That’s what artists do.

PS Thanks for the correction!

Agreed.

“Since Grand Theft Auto IV is a hot topic at the moment and by writing about it we’ll get more hits and ad revenue as people search for the latest information about the game on Google, in today’s article…”

Of course the purpose of these sites is to be “a barometer of future trends” because they live by the success and expansion of their market. They treat the web like an object, trading it like iron and corn.

An art website, by contrast, is a gift. An art website is made outside of a market, regardless of trends. It is made at a loss. Instead of connecting users with other users, an art website can connect us with a profound experience.

I agree with your statement “I don’t wholly subscribe to the line of thought that there is no hierarchy on the web.” You have described John Michael’s piece, for example, as “elegant” therefore placing higher value in it. Online art will not be able to contribute much to the larger cultural conversation until we are able to admit that there is a hierarchy on the web — that there are profound experiences to be had online, and that a criteria can be developed to separate the saccharine billboards from the truly beautiful and nourishing work.

Well not everything comes in at the same level — I think everything on those sites appears at the same level which is different. It’s like going to a yard sale - some people love sorting through the junk for the good stuff, others don’t find it so interesting and prefer more presorting to have been done.

I’m uncomfortable saying that everything we see is leveled because so many of the web tools we have seem to have been made in an effort to help users create hierarchy. The fundemental difference here from traditional media seems primarily in the search functions themselves, which keep the hierarchy defined by the user. One of the concerns this panel discussed was the need to keep as much of this ability in our own hands. It seems to me that this is particularly important to artists who don’t need someone sorting through material for them first to tell them whether it’s worth their time.

PPPS Re: “the economics of the art world remain based on scarcity” is a meme I’d like to see retired. People do not make paintings to be scarce, they make them because they are trying to say something. The economy of the art world is based on intimacy and connection to real objects and spaces that small TV screens do not satisfy. Which is not to say it’s not a reactionary or conservative environment–just that it’s not based solely on a market conspiracy. Others besides Lauren Cornell in the new media scene have said this about scarcity and it needs a rethink.

(This is where Ed Halter says I am a Pollyana about the true nature of the art world, but so be it–better a Pollyana than a cynic.)

J

Physical artworks are also all constructed of the same medium — molecules. Just because all physical artworks are constructed of molecules does not mean that all physical artworks are leveled. Some artists arrange molecules better than others. Some net artists arrange non-physical information better than others.

The web is like a desert. The peaks and valleys of quality are not very apparent. From a distance the desert seems flat, but it is actually this vast low frequency wave of mediocrity. The slightest rustle in the wave is what we have to watch for carefully if we want to have those profound experiences.

On the issue of scarcity, I suppose it’s a little reductive to say the economics are based on availability alone, though my over all sense was that the point was made as a means of illustrating the difference between how much influence the web has on business economies of virtually any kind, and how comparatively little change the art world has seen. There’s much more complexity to all this than scarcity expresses, but I tend to let a few of those things slide at a lecture, because it’s a discussion. With that said, as a counter to the concept of scarcity Lauren brings up, I tend to think 20×200 as a business model challenges that reality, though it’s very new, and like you, I’m much more interested in discussing what an object does, than the mechanics of how it’s sold.

I like that a lot.

By “leveling” I was talking about the medium–how everything from a tinkertoy construction to the Sistine ceiling becomes a 72 dpi image on one basic type of browser.

Not saying rustles in waves can’t be detected in this arena, only that it’s hard and people need a better idea of how to go about it.

This is where the giant cell phone is a good example:
Did the artist get punked by a corporation? Is he punking us? Does the photo need some additional level of transformation to be art? Is the surf club the same as a white cube frame so that even corporate crap becomes art? Does everything on such a site have to be art? Does it have to be good art? Should one always be able to differentiate between good, crap, and work in process? etc

Art fair or comic con?

I’d be reluctant to pick either choice.. but I think Joel’s notion of “watered-down content” is something worth more consideration…

Why place all the burden on a single flower? If you spend your time picking apart a single flower, you might miss the beauty of the whole field.

But seriously, I’ve posted crap for the hell of it and don’t expect to be called on the carpet for it; I have also been hoaxed. It is all part of the training process to where everything becomes beautiful.

Damon: I think the explanation helps some, but the viral marketing of a faux amateur photo of a natural event, with or without the question of art, still doesn’t do all that much for me.

But perhaps that doesn’t matter too much anyway. From what you’re saying, and what I understand Joel’s quote to mean (I think “notion” is overstating a sly comment), it sounds like you weren’t considering it this way at all to begin with, and as such you feel the criticism wasn’t warranted. On those grounds, of course, you’re right, but it seems to me, that even with in the group there were some fairly different ideas about how they were using the blog, and as a reader and critic, I can’t be expected to intuitively know how each member is framing their posts. This is one of the reasons the expanded membership didn’t work for me. As a reader I could more or less keep up with the styles of 7-11 people. Much more than that, and it becomes really difficult.

To answer a couple of Tom’s questions:

Is the surf club the same as a white cube frame so that even corporate crap becomes art?
As mentioned above, as long as you basically know the players the answer is not necessarily. The equation changes some though when you take into consideration Rhizome support, and the expanded membership.

Does everything on such a site have to be art? Does it have to be good art?
That’s for members to answer.

Should one always be able to differentiate between good, crap, and work in process?
YES!!! For readership purposes I think even some color coding of posts to indicate their intentionality as art, ideas, work in progress or whatever, would help everyone out a lot.

http://www.tommoody.us/archives/2008/04/07/todays-question/

And I’m sure I’ll do more. Instead of answering your question, I recommend comparing and contrasting what Marisa Olson said about Double Happiness, and what Bennett said here, to Kevin’s manifesto. I expect a short paper by the end of class.

http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=214