Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Hi David, great you are here this time!!
getting really busy to do both conf+webcast at the same time

yeah, cows a taboo topic since dec2000
  

    
shuffling past windows
windows shuffling past
past windows shuffling
  

    
is what this is
  

    
Ok, that last greeting has me thinking: these living room pictures...
with you waving and alll; is that actually live? 
  

    
it is live!
  

    
Infinite windows! And another big HI...

And there you are, a few hundred kilometers away, and here we are
talking via servers across an ocean and continent.

Love it.

And Gary's finding new rhythmlets inside rhythmlets...
  

    
Yes, fiddling with the sampler live - timestretching, resampling,
looping and ringmodulating - laptop krautrock !
  

    
That clicking almost sounds like it might have come from Kraftwerk.
They could use the upgrade you're offering! <g>
  

    
upgrade soundz good.

we are almost finished with the webcast.
again it was a great experience. and this time the californain friends
seem to have missed it. great you were part of this realtime live
session, David!
  

    
Woo-hoo! Applause! Whistles! Feet stomping and more woo-hoos!
  

    
Seriously. 

Oh, yes. I want *your* job.

<g>

One more woo-hoo!
  

    
A cool experiment !
  

    
Thank you very much!!!!!!
it was a pleasure to play for you.


it is a very nice combination - the webcast and inkwell.

when I think it will be over on friday, it makes me a bit sad. 
I will miss you! 

what about reopening it only during future webcasts?
  

    

Well, it's not going to be "closed" in any sense, so you could come back
whenever you want.  But next time, please post the night before with all
instructions for connecting, so that we can all remember to be here!
  

    
Yes it was live. And like so often, my computer crashed 5 min. before
the end ... Thanks for the applause, David ! I recorded parts of the
audio stuff during the session, and will work on it tomorrow.
  

    
e-mail from Petra Klaus:

Hello,
I really appreciated participating in Station Rose's webcast no. 13 - good 
atmosphere, good performance and an important impact on the possibilities of 
webcasting in a creative way, furthermore conversations of really interesting 
content and reflections on the medium webcasting itself.
Petra Klaus
  

    

BTW, if anyone else reading along out there on the Web wants to send in
your comments or questions for Gary and Elisa, e-mail them to
inkwell-hosts@well.com and we will see that they get posted!
  

    
Hi Petra !
Webcast 13, yes, this was one of the early "in
conversation"-streamings, but it went very well. 
For all who don´t know, Petra is director of RadioX here in Frankfurt,
a completely independent (yes, no commercials!) radio station; highly
recommended.
  

    
Very sorry that I was missing in action during the webcast (I was on the
road, or (more literally) in the air! However I just want to second
Linda's comment - this topic doesn't have to cycle out tomorrow. We ask
for a two-week participation commitment, but we're overjoyed if the topic
lives on indefinitely... so I suggest that we continue our parallel
webjams here during future webcasts forever!

Gary, re. your comment:

> the output would become diletantic,
> when not focused. 

I was speaking as an unfocused dilletante: your focus is inspiring!
  

    
I wanted to participate but screwed up the time zone thing. When you
post a time as 9pm CET, CET refers to Central European Time? Does that
translate into 9 hours earlier in California which obviously looked
like you started at noon in California???
  

    
Jon, we gladly extend our webjams to this conference in the future !
  

    
 <really>, I'm pretty sure there's a 9-hour difference between CET and
PST, so yes, I guess the Webcast last night started at noon your time.

I didn't get around to thanking you, Gary and Elisa, for your long and
generous answers to that last question way back when -- the ones on
Frankfurt, the places you go to find hints of where the near future
might be heading, etc. Getting to some of those now:

Elisa, regarding your reaction to Tilman's review of _Cyberville_, at
first, I thought, well, he's comparing the Echo and the Well *of that
time*, and of the two cultures, the Well's was indeed more foreign and
strange to Europeans, I think. Surely, I thought as I read, he's aware
that both San Francisco and the Well have changed over the years (not
that those changes are inextricably linked, of course; and btw, this
idea that SF and Frankfurt have become more like each other: basically,
I'd agree). But reading on, I see that he's not necessarily pitting SF
and NYC against each other as he is pitting Stacy Horn and Howard
Rheingold against each other -- and I suspect that neither one would
want to go along with that for a second. I'll let Tilman know that
there's a new edition of _The Virtual Community_ out and point him to
<inkwell.vue.91> (which might make for a pretty nifty appendix to the
*next* edition). Anyway, that might help shake out a few cliches.

What is my opinion regarding the problems of financing one's art?
First, even though I consider myself pretty much a rather boring sort
of social democrat, more or less, I do think that Geert and others in
this circle reach a little too easily for the quick fix of public
funding. The artist's dilemma you describe is not new, as we all know.
At the drop of a hat, I'd wish free access to the basics -- decent food
and shelter and the essential tools we need to work with -- for me as
a writer, for you as digital bohemians, for all artists. But
unfortunately, this is just plain unrealistic. Besides, we've all dealt
with the people and the political entities that make these decisions,
and oh, let's not get started. <g> But at the same time, I do agree
with you: in Germany's specific case, Hans Eichel's red pencil has been
way too eager, IMHO; we should not try to emulate the inequalities,
the sort of brash favoritism shown to corporations and all the other
defining characteristics of the US's 'new economy'; and, while he looks
young, untested and a bit nervous, I hope the new Kulturminister will
be able to pound the table now and then and secure a *reasonable and
fair* amount of funding for the arts.

Oh, but I'm really babbling now. Ok. Gary, you write, "But we live in
the digital times. So who needs a metropole? Remember that Techno was
not a metropolitan thing, but it emerged from Detroit, Frankfurt or
Sheffield." Excellent point. You go on: "Multimedia will conquer the
clubs in the near future, at last."

Ok, let's look way distant now. With your Webcast still very much on
my mind, I set about my job this morning at the crack of dawn. On
Tuesdays and Thursdays, I write the "Euro Media Grok" for The Industry
Standard Europe, and this involves surveying the morning editions of
the major European papers and then summarizing the top stories in a
hopefully somewhat entertaining way.

Well, this morning, as on so many mornings in Europe, it was all about
mobile telephony. See, I'm still on a waiting list to get a DSL
hook-up, but Viag, a German company introduced its GPRS service today.
UMTS, which, if it performs half as well as the hype, will make a DSL
connection look rather sorry for itself, should be available within two
years or so... or, sure, maybe more. But *way* down the line: Die Welt
had a story this morning on the fourth generation. People in white
coats at Siemens, Ericsson, Bell Labs, etc., are already looking into
it. One even speculated that by 2010, we may be looking at small,
portable devices connected to each other at speeds of between 20 and
100 *megs* per second.

You can transfer a high definition television signal at 15 megs per
second.

Now then. Bandwidth (again) is only one aspect of my next question,
but: You've both played with some of the early attempts at creating
virtual spaces such as The Palace via Electric Minds. Could you imagine
a Webcast during which we all meet at some virtual place -- there were
the shots of your living room we talked about for example -- could you
imagine inviting us to take a seat next to you on the sofa? Or sliding
together down a virtual ski slope, whatever, you get the idea.

And secondly, would you want to head towards creating such experiences
in your work, or is all that completely irrelevant?
  

    
"... a Webcast during which we all meet at some virtual place."
Yes, sure, if the costs to do it are affordable in the first place. If
it´s going to be more expensive  for the producers (us) than
webcasting is now, another model of sharing the costs has to be found.

And then there is another important issue when thinking about this
future scenario.

What shall we all do there, in the virtual room ?
Media festivals showed in the early 90ies, when interactive
installations were the big thing, that these don´t work as an
interactive tool, nor as a communications tool.
So I would not be interested in providing an interactive
music-setting, where people can dabble as  composers. I would prefer
just meeting in cyberspace, without calling this art. (Talking about
art & music: I´m still quite happy about sitting in front of my hifi,
listening to CDs, or taking a taxi to a club to watch a live act.) 
I remember, when we went online in 1991, the great thing about the net
in the "early days" (1991 - 1995) was that it was somehow "art-free".
That does not mean that we did not put creativity into it (remember the
early CUseeme experiments), but it did not follow rules, simply
because there still was nothing like webart or netcritique in
existance. For us as artists, it was a "new land", very much like Egypt
in our Cairo-phase 1988/89, where we could refrain from the european
art system with its values and rules. When we went online, or when we
connected during Gunafa Clubbing, it was to create a sense of
community, to communicate in this new land; to call into this space,
and look and listen what comes back. 
Our job as artists would be the setting. We would try to set up
virtual rooms for different occasions. Not so much like a webcast,
which is an art thing, but more like an installation.
  

    
first of all, hi Petra, nice to see you !  and <really>, a time
calculator is on our website. Linda and Jon, yes, we could stick to the
combination of webcast and inkwell, cause we like the combination a
lot. next time we announce the webcast sooner.

David, to your opinion regarding financing art:
you say "I do think that Geert and others in this circle reach a
little too easily for the quick fix of public funding". I would say
this is the way, cultural capitals like Vienna and Amsterdam make their
reputation with. A city having a budget big enough for culture can
offer a diversity here. and one has to realize that we do not only talk
about art projects but also about magazines like "Springerin" as an
example, which are more or less completely financed by funding. It is a
matter of fact that neither Springerin, nor de:Bug or Spex, and others
make enough money by selling copies. They all have a certain
reputation, but not enough revenue. So in a way a lot of projects are
minus in money but nevertheless important. I dont think this is great,
but diversity is still more important, and only if the net becomes even
complex and divers, it will stay to be interesting.
And the net is still so young, that a modus of making money out of
cultural projects can only evolve in the coming years. The danger here
again is an advertizing habitus. with lots of netslaves needed who sort
of behave arty, when working for cooperate projects. trying to set
rules  how the net should be programmed "in a flashy way". 

Concerning access - ISDN- DSL-UMTS:  I think, they are important, but
not really in the center for me today.  Because as an active
contributor to the net, I see many points from another point of view
(than the consumer). This means: if we webacst, we always have to go
down, as lo as 28k, to be sure everybody can see it. if we would only
stream in ISDN quality, or even beyond, people would be upset. (this
can be compared with the CDROM and QT-production years ago. at that
time the "showstopper" where the slow cd-drives). When streaming in
DSL, this would be really elitist. So what becomes clear here is that
webcasting is still connected to lo-fi in a way. Maybe excluded again
here the advertising people, but I am really not interested to see a
BMW webacst full screen.

So I think it is more important that great webcasts are happening in
the next months/years than the size of the screen.  This will grow
anyway.

And you say "free access to the basics -- decent food and shelter and
the essential tools we need to work with" is not the point IMHO. We are
talking about lots of time we, you and others need for doing online
projects. As the net will become more complex, we all will need even
more time and focus for it. This is the main point. Free access is
peanuts.

And finally coming back to your question, if we could imagine having
virtual guests sitting on our sofa. yes we can. I think Palace already
made a big step into that direction. Looking forward how the next step
will look like. And looking forward to meet friendz that way. how that
meetings will be affordable/realizable moneywise for each one interests
me, too.  And, as Gary mentioned already, it has maybe more to do with
meeting than composing together. Composing is very complex and
fragile, so jam sessions with others would require other professionals
to work with. A good example here is jazz musicians, the better they
are the better they jam.

So the last day of the 2weeks is here, even if we dont stop after it.
Wonder what else is in the air as questions today?! 
my bumpersticker today : very much appreciating inkwellfar!!;-)
  

    
 "so"
it has to be "very much appreciating inkwell so far".
sorry for not having been enough focused.