In defense of our panel’s attendance the event was sold out and the auditorium full at the outset, and the event ran overtime. I can’t tell you whether the number of people *remaining* at the end of the night was lesser or greater than the EAI panel’s attendance.

Which is not to say the discussion wasn’t specialized and insider-y. I think the amount of content you pulled out of it for the comparison suggests the evening was more impressive than you say it was, but then, you’ve added a lot with your links and the way you’ve put it together.

As for the attendance, I actually can’t compare the two events on that level since I only listened to the EAI thing online. I’ll probably put up an mp3 of Friday’s talk.

[1]
The new museum needs bigger tables… we look really squished up there.

[2]
There was a guy in a tie-die there? WTF?

[3]
Thanks for the notes Paddy; they’re really good.

With respect, “internet-aware” as an adjective for art sounds silly to me. I spoke with Ed on the phone before the panel and when he used the term, I must admit that I laughed for a bit. It sounds to me as silly as saying ‘flower-aware’ art.

Your term is better, but isn’t it just simpler to say that your subject (or part of your subject) is the Internet?

Hope you’re having fun in berlin :-)

“internet aware artist” is partially a sarcastic joke, because everyone is supposedly quite aware of the internet (but the art is not yet.) i’d bet its the same thing that you were/are talking about, Marisa, can’t wait to hear your response in rhizome board dudeland..

You seem to make a lot of jokes that are then in turn taken seriously.

I’m afraid of you. You should be stopped.

(Or maybe Ed just makes things seem serious. He seems serious about everything, but that’s what critics do I guess — take things seriously.)

The term is dorky, fine. But yeah, I agree, the ‘net as the subject or inspiration of art == good thing.

I can assure you I take nothing seriously.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rnttyFGAtI

We are going to use this term.
And BTW I just realized you included some of the MUA (made up acronyms) I posted to NN–thanks! They were slipped in so naturally I forgot where they came from. (Or maybe I was distracted by the sexy shower.)

I was sitting next to tye-dye boy. For me one of the most interesting segments was Damon Zucconi talking about his use of wikis vs. the surf-club-standard blog. I think there is a lot of meat in his idea that blogs ‘never end’ since they are in this constant state of publishing, and his switch to using a wiki was in part an urge to make his work into more of a living document. If surf club blogs are all about a post-by-post articulation of a certain group identity’s aesthetic/style/language, when is there any closure? When can we say its complete, or think that we are somehow able to step back and view that group’s work as a whole? Nasty Nets had a finite life span, so now post mortem we can talk about it as a whole, but with still active blogs, a piece of work(post) becomes dead once its off the front page as we wait for the next new post. I don’t know if the change of form to wiki solves this ‘problem’ (if it is a ‘problem’) but there is a lot in there to talk about.

The “late ’90s problem” that blogs solved was “how do you know what’s new on this *%$??!! page?” Yes, it means you are eternally in the present but it means the page is dynamic (to the naked eye) and not a puzzle to solve.

Damon suggested RSS feeds but those only notify you of the fact of the changed page, I believe, not what actually happened on the page.

Nothing wrong with a WIKI if you’ve got the time and inclination to roam around a site seeing what’s new.

As for Petra, I really do like her work and think what she’s doing is significant in the trajectory (sorry Tim) of net art (sorry again). After hearing her speak, however, it seems like she should leave the analysis of her work to others.

Damn, I’m coming across real negative here. Both artists have produced work that I genuinely appreciate. I just was expecting more meat to their presentations.

I think it’s a really bad idea to tell any artist they should leave the analysis of their work to others, since I’ve always found the most critical aspect of any artistic practice is to be purposeful. The ability to articulate that purpose, for many takes time, but it is a critical part of an artist’s job.

I would say generally the younger artists in the room were interested in what Damon and Petra had to say and tolerated the “professionalism” of the older artists.

Also, while you may be right, I have to point out that the audience reaction you describe is speculative.

Also, I see where you’re coming from in saying that it is a critical part of an artist’s job to provide self-analysis. Hell, just look how Murakami is doing just that and pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes at the Brooklyn Museum. I tend to think, however, that even the most articulate and seasoned artists often (not always) can’t attain enough critical or personal distance from their own work to properly contextualize it.

Apologies to Damon and Petra for the tone of my last comment.

"I think there is a lot of meat in his idea that blogs ‘never end’ since they are in this constant state of publishing, and his switch to using a wiki was in part an urge to make his work into more of a living document."

this doesn’t quite seem to hold up. your idea of a blog post dying is it being relegated (even that is the wrong word) to the second page? it still exists, both live and in the archives (there are two ways to access a post that is not on the front page, right? click "next page" or go to the archives). even though nasty nets is no longer active or receiving new content, it is still existing online. it is still "alive". it was alive as a published blog, and it is alive as an archive.

also, your distinction between something "never ending" versus something "living". i don’t get what you mean? isn’t a wiki page still never ending? i mean, the author has to delete content or edit over it in order for the content to completely disappear, but even then the edits are archived. or am i wrong? i don’t know wikis that well.

also, having missed the panel, somebody please articulate why one of these is preferable to the other and why (is this possible?).

"If surf club blogs are all about a post-by-post articulation of a certain group identity’s aesthetic/style/language, when is there any closure?"

why does there need to be closure? the nature of a blog it seems (it’s predecessor is the diary right?), is to end with the end of the author’s life, or perhaps in this case, the author’s <i>online</i> life.

to me the change from a blog to a wiki doesn’t solve any problem (none have been articulated), nor does it open up to anymore special potential (the kind that you seem to be looking for in damon’s comments). to me, the two prominent wikis to think of here are both closed to public editing. so what is the point? what is the radical act? is it simply that content is constantly refreshed and only the action of editing is archived rather than the content itself? why wouldn’t you want to view archived content?

i will not deny the power of a wiki and it’s communal structure. but to me these wiki’s i’m thinking of (maybe i’m wrong to cite only these???) are closed communities. the are open to public observation, but closed to direct public interaction and intervention.

the wiki is alive either as an open venue or as a closed venue for the dissemination of content.

the blog is alive either as a published medium online (editable after being published), or as an archive online.

supercentral as a wiki open to the public, to me, was pretty radical. as a closed wiki it is interesting and different, but not necessarily radical. not that radicality matter.

(that was long winded)

the issue i was proposing was simply the question of at what point does something become a form of documentation, online?

when you say “alive as an archive”, i do have a problem with that. the archive is inherently retrospective and closed (”deathlike in appearance”). i was thinking that maybe this is something that, online, becomes tied to technological progression; that we associate a work with a particular moment in a technical support’s history. i’m uneasy about that though.

i was saying that a blog produces a kind of meaning that is syntactical and relational; that meaning operates in-between the posts as much as it does with individuated posts, and through this perhaps trying to think of how the blog form could be thought of as a ‘daily practice’ that ties into this idea of art/life as a pure activity without an end result. when we look at the archive like this then it becomes something that is maybe prospective or anticipatory as opposed to retrospective?

(i’m using the wiki as a tool that allows me to re-enter works in a way that a blog didn’t and for me this is a very private function, which isn’t to say that it has to be. the other thing i was moving away from was a strict chronological ordering scheme which, again, isn’t to say that one thing or the other is problematic.)

as far as damon and petra’s performance is concerned… I would much rather have a confident/powerful/inspiring online presence (which both d and p have in spades) [and no duh they were nervous]