Begun in 1991 in the days before the World Wide Web, Making Art Online was an ongoing narrative of artists' words about using online systems to create art and to collaborate and communicate with other artists. The idea was to create an electronic document that would document the early history of Internet systems and could be continually written to and displayed. To create Making Art Online, Judy Malloy invited writers, artists, technocreators, and Internet advocates to send words about their ideas and experiences. Their contributions were "keyed" by subject and entered into a database. Using that database, Malloy periodically generated a collaboratively written paper about making art online.
Initially
titled: A version of Making Art Online was published in the November 1, 1991 issue of the seminal online journal FineArt Forum as Judy Malloy, MAKING ART ONLINE, FineArt Forum 5:21, November 1, 1991 
|
INTRODUCTION - Judy Malloy""""""""""""""""""""""""""INTRODUCTION"""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""THE EXPERIENCE"""""""""""""""""""""""""" """""""""""""""""""""""""THE EXPERIENCE"""""""""""""""""""""""""" THE THIRD CONFERENCE ON COMPUTERS, FREEDOM AND PRIVACY, March 9-12, 1993 p. 5.8 """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""WHY?""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""WHY?""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """""""""""""""""""""""""""""WHY?""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" "Virtual Communities" WHOLE EARTH REVIEW, Winter 1988 """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""WHY?""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""WHY?""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" THE ELECTRONIC CAFE We must begin to create at the same scale as we can destroy, or else art, and more dangerously the human spirit and imagination, will be rendered decorative and impotent. If the boundaries between art and life dissolve it will be the result of artists migrating towards a new order of artmaking, abandoning the conventional standards and practices and becoming 'new practitioners' or systems integrator, who practice situations, contexts, and permanent environments or utilities. The 'new practitioners' can begin the process of healing the aesthetic wound that has disfigured the business of Art, and continue the aesthetic quest in more relevant directions. New creative activities must emerge such as multi-media creative solutions networks, not simply computer networks for Artists, but rather multi-media telecommunications networks with agendas that can engage multi-disciplinary constituencies. This will require the development of new skills and the cultivation of new relationships between the participants. The movement is towards the control of a meaningful context, creating environments not just to support art, but that create the possibility for new scales of creativity across all disciplines and boundaries. The dark side of the "new world information order" suggests that a new scale aesthetics be created. It will take several years from the time this work begins for creative solutions networks of appropriate number, scale, velocity, and dexterity to evolve to maturity. Consider: co- creating non-imperialistic, multi-cultural or domestic agendas for community of global scale aesthetic endeavors. Consider: the continuous re-invention of non-hierarchical telecom networks that will allow people to bypass cultural gatekeepers and power brokers. We must accept these kinds of challenges and recognize what can be gained by solving them.
All of this implies that there is a new way to be in the world. That
the counterforce to the scale of destruction is the scale of
communication, and that our legacy or epitaph will be determined in many
ways by our ability to creatively employ informal, multi-media,
multi-cultural, conversational, telecommunications and information
technologies. """"""""""""""""""""""POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS""""""""""""""""""""" Through a simple twist of fate I was very recently invited to participate in an ad-hoc meeting in Washington, D.C regarding Arts and Humanities computing and the NII co-hosted by the (ARL, CAUSE and Educom sponsored) Coalition for Networked Information and the Getty Foundation. The meeting involved some twenty participants including presidents or directors of a wide range of humanities organizations, information industry and publishing organizations as well as officials of NEA, NEH, and NSF. Meeting co-chair Charles Henry, Director of Vassar College Library, set the tone or the meeting by noting that "more space is devoted in the NII prospectus to discuss automating heating of federal buildings than to arts and humanities computing." Like many of you receiving this posting, I had been under the impression that surely someone was speaking for our interests in the deliberations of the Clinton administration regarding NII. However in the discussion that followed it became quite clear that this was not so. A number of participants shared horrifying tales which made it clear that not only were humanities and arts interests not being heard but also that, as regards humanities and arts computing, entertainment industry forces (which Stuart Moulthrop has termed the "Military Infotainment Complex") were largely calling the shots. There was a wide-spread feeling among participants that a crisis existed and that something had to be done. As the lone electronic artist at the meeting I described my own participation by saying I felt like the unelected representative of a nomadic tribe, a representative of the many unrepresentable (in both senses) artists, writers and others who depended upon the network as a place for performance, community, collaboration and publication. I suggested that many of us fancy ourselves as functioning at the interstices in temporary autonomous zones and yet nonetheless increasingly find that our own "cultural heritage" *is* the net itself. While our interests and those of traditional humanities organizations (such as university presses or textual archive projects) might be at cross purposes, I suggested that we shared the concerns of those at the meeting seeking to preserve and protect. "object information," textual databases, and digital libraries. My comments were received with respect and interest by a group which understood the need to form alliances with us but quite frankly wished to focus on what they perceived as the immediate crisis. The meeting ended with a consensus on the need to define a rubric for humanities and the arts in NII; to collect data on computing in the humanities and the arts to support congressional lobbying; and to form alliances with identified stake-holders in these efforts. A preliminary crisis statement drafted by a steering committee will be presented to congress and the administration.and widely publicized. What prompts this message.is an invitation to review and perhaps join in the signing of this statement when it is circulated.in the coming week. Since to the best of my knowledge no coordinating group of network artists and writers exists, I am asking interested persons and organizations to email me directly (MIJOYCE@vassar.edu).and I will circulate the statement for you to consider. If you decide to affiliate yourself or your organization with the statement, I will gather the (virtual) signatures and forward them to the steering committee. I do not myself intend to form an organization but will collect these signatures under a collective umbrella which I'm calling NAWOC (network artists, writers and others concerned). If any organization is already actively involved in such a project and would rather coordinate such an effort, I would be happy to forward all this information to them. (Likewise if there is a wider interest in forming such an organization, I'd be happy to join in those efforts.)
What's important is to act (at least for the moment) in
concert. """""""""""""""""""""""""""ARTWORKS"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" The guidelines were very simple: participants were asked for two items. First was the text, whether story, observation, or poem. This was the "whisper". Second was the "theme". By theme, I meant a simple distillation of what this story/observation/poem meant to the participant. Each person chose their own theme for their text. Once it entered the HALL OF WHISPERS, other people could assign it other themes, or connect it with a story of their own, or one of the many stories already sent in from around the world. Meaning was no longer individual and sacrosanct, but communal.
Someone faxes in a story about the time they were followed by a
horde of wasps when they spilled Hi-C tropical fruit punch on them-
selves at a family picnic in Iowa. Someone else writes that every
Friday night when they get off work, they get caught in the traffic of
hundreds of high school kids cruising down the one street of their
Alabama town. And someone else e-mails in that the week before
Carnival in Rio, her family buys everything they'll need, as if
they're preparing for a hurricane; she says it's much like returning
to primitive times. And all three stories are connected by a larger
theme of
HALL OF WHISPERS has two stages. The first stage circulated
stories between participants on the electronic networks via FAX,
computer, and telephone. Several people also participated via standard
mail. A large part of the project I didn't foresee in the beginning
were the conversations in my own neighborhood. For people who had no
experience, or interest, in using the net, but still had a wealth of
life experience to share, I became a scribe. I would pass on the
stories from the net, and they would tell me their own. It became a
sharing of gifts, flowing across the arbitrary boundaries of virtual
and physical communities.
The second stage of the project is still in formation. At this
writing, I foresee the stories in digitized human voice, so it will
literally begin to whisper. The same interconnections of the stories
will still hold in a hyper-linked database, allowing visitors to
follow their own thread of associations. For this, I'm looking at the
possibility of CD-ROM distribution. This stage will be completed in
the first part of 1993.
I was interested in several things at the outset of HALL OF
WHISPERS. First, I wanted to create a virtual community using an
ancient fundamental of community-making: shared stories. Second was
creating a council model for understanding our world. Basically, the
council model holds that it is in the sharing that greater wisdom
evolves. Finally, in a turbulent world, it is easy to lose sight of
the small beauties and moments of grace that occur constantly around
us. I wanted HALL OF WHISPERS to give voice to that side of ourselves
that recognizes that this is as much a time of renewal as it is a time
of decay.
Has it succeeded? I can't say for sure; it's still very early in
the life of the piece. But I talked to one of the participants the
other day, and I asked her what happens for her. Here's what she told
me: "First, I think I should write something. I should respond. But I
don't. Not right away. Instead, I read the stories and I start
thinking about things I haven't thought about in twenty years. I take
my time because I'm looking for something. I don't know what, but I
know it when I find it. I don't want to send back just any old story.
It's too special. LEONARDO ELECTRONIC NEWS 3(1), January 15,
1993
Matrix is an ancient word that has many meanings. The archaic
meaning of matrix is womb. In "Neuromancer," William Gibson's
book about cyberspace, matrix is used synonymously with computer
network...a matrix can be seen as a nurturing, flexible, and
creative environment where change and growth are possible within
the web of the matrix itself.
Current technological challenges are the ability to seamlessly
exchange images, video, and audio across platforms -- without
requiring users to have specialty software to decode
transmissions. This work has taken two tracks -- the high end
requiring tremendous bandwidth and resources, and the low end
focusing on currently available bandwidth, and working toward
general availability. MATRIX: WOMEN NETWORKING will demonstrate
low end developments... Our goal in focusing on the low end is to
call attention to the technological disparities that exist in our
society, and to raise questions about their impact. We hope to
expand the concept of technological advances to include their
social and cultural underpinnings and affects.
MATRIX features works by women of differing cultures and artistic
backgrounds who are working with computer networks as a means of
creating collaborative works with artists and non-artists alike,
to decentralize the creative process, to educate about and preserve
their distinct cultures and communities, and to provide online
access to population groups who would otherwise be the have-nots
of the information age.
- Anna Couey & Lucia Grossberger Morales, 1993.
"Imagining the Information Age," Anna Couey (couey@well.sf.ca.us),
A populist Electronic Town Hall in which collaboratively created
fictive Representatives from four nodes chart a course for the future.
"Forty Minutes on the San Miguel River," Judy Malloy
(jmalloy@well.sf.ca.us),
A collaboratively creative narrative.
"Garbage," Judy Malloy (jmalloy@well.sf.ca.us),
You think you need an encryption program? How can you get one?
"Easy - I'm writing one and I'll send it to you free. But first I need
to collect some suitable "garbage" -- like these words and phrases
I've already collected from literature and conversation found/overheard
at computer conferences." - Judy Malloy
"ProjectArtnet," Aida Mancillas, Chicana, (mancilla@tmn.com)
An interactive online artist's book that documents Project Artnet, an
inter-generational community history project involving art, poetry,
movement, and computer technology. The "Matrix: Women Networking"
installation also featured animated video/text documentation for
Project Artnet by Lucia Grossberger Morales, Latina.
"Bandana," Lorri Ann Two Bulls, Oglala Sioux, (c/o
afallis@silver.sdsmt.edu)
I set the story in the San Francisco Bay area during the 30 minutes
preceding the Loma Prieta Earthquake. John and Mary were preparing
(separately) for their first date. The third character was a street
person known as Rubber Duck for his habit of constantly muttering the
words "rubber duck". John was in his apartment shaving. Rubber Duck was
sitting on the steps of the Museum of Modern Art. Mary's route involved
a freeway and a bridge that would both break when the earthquake hit.
I asked participants to choose a character, enter the topic and
speak/think as that character. Since this was the group mind taking
the persona of the characters, the emphasis was on the character's
thoughts and memories.
In the final work, I put the 3 topics in a narrative data structure in
which the thought streams of the 3 characters were simultaneously
displayed in 3 parallel columns. The writers included: Anna Couey,
Abbe Don, Matisse Enzer, Carole Gould, Eleanor Kent, Tom Mandel, Gil
MinaMora, Harold Poskanzer, Howard Rheingold, The Normals, Fred Truck,
and Kathleen Watkins. Their unedited words formed a surprisingly
seamless 7 page narrative in which the thoughts of men and women about
each other were openly expressed - interspersed with Rubber Duck's
sometimes appropriate (and sometimes inappropriate) words, thoughts and
memories.
DIGITAL MUDRA was originally an interactive installation where viewers
became acquainted with cross-cultural correlations of hand gestures and
their trans-cultural meanings by both seeing and doing. Slides of
political figures gesticulating; portrait gesture assemblages on the
wall; and a videotape of Mudra dances prepared the viewers to become a
participants. As participants they composed phrases from selected
Mudra gestures that when entered into the computer became an animated
gesture dance on the screen. The gestures were then transformed back
into their original word meanings which, when selected, triggered
relevant philosophic guidelines from a data base of epigrams by the
sage Rabindranath Tagore.
The telecommunication piece offered the Mudra word list from which two
selected words were to be used in a phrase about the "sweet mystery of
life". The key word choice that helped unlock this mystery and the
query of whether the other word "sweetened the mystery" generated the
Tagore epigram. The sweet tooth of both the audience and myself were
wetted by this experience.
As a consequence, in 1986 fellow composer John Bischoff and I began a
group called "The Hub". a computer network band. The idea was to find a
way for composers working in the computer controlled electronic music
medium to play together. Each composer has a computer controlled
synthesizer system which is connected to the others on a local area
network system of our own design. Composers designing pieces for this
band generally only specify the data which is to be shared between
players on the net. The result is a sort of enhanced musical
improvisation, when the computers and players are all continually making
musical decisions based upon what the others are doing.
The nature of the collaboration between Hub composers is unusual. There
are many meetings where data exchange formats are ironed out. Composers
then go home, write some code, come together and try it out, and make
adjustments. Often group discussions take place over e-mail. At
performance time, the computers are making most of the note-to-note
decisions, and the composer/performers are left to make global
adjustments. The result is a really new kind of collective composition,
a new social way of making music that didn't exist before. We have a
good time.
I always feel guilty when I upload a poem. A poem lives through its form.
It feels wrong to force a poem through a wire - scatter it to bits - and
reassemble it in a place where there is no paper or breath. There is no
surface for the poem to rest on. Does it get vertigo?
Yet I think my poems are willing to suffer the journey if they get to be
seen and read.
The Matrix Artists' Network: An Electronic Community. IN: CONNECTIVITY:
ART AND INTERACTIVE TELECOMMUNICATIONS Leonardo 24(2), 1991 p. 230
The impact of network impressions may not translate into the
traditional domain of commodity display in a coherent or analogous
manner. A distortion or muting of intent and impression are more likely
the result, what was transmitted or shared becomes invested with
pre-conceived expectations, or structured in hierarchical ways to serve
completely separate purposes. Then the echo has no reference to its
source.
Shifting and dissolving boundaries of mind, and of time and space open
higher dimensionalities of possibility. The virtual realities of
networking and conception make what was once fantastic or ambitious in
scope become more probable, approachable, given that the shared
resources of the global energy of minds is accessible and transmutable.
The merger of collective imaginations in a collaborative endeavor is an
entity perhaps beyond the comprehension of any single participating
mind, which may yield societal organisms, communal thoughts, and
consciousness of great potential and resonance. The power of converging
minds amplifies in the open system contexts of networking.
This mind fusion community and awareness is beneficial to the planet
and humanity. Closure is a fate we can't afford given that the times
are about survival and require vision emanating from beyond the given
constructs of any socio-political-economical status quo.
Embarking on a Janusian voyage is not a vacillation, it is referential,
and the past is a staging area for thrusts or migrations into the
future. We are in a period of experimentation and exploration,
glimpsing horizons, and creating conditions for enduring co-existence
with the universe."
"""""""""""""""""""""""THE MEDIUM"""""""""""""""""""""""
This is in the days when gelatin and plastic substrates were not yet
invented, when they actually strung together glass plates to try and
project a moving image. The artists and inventors working then had a
passionate belief that film would become a revolutionary medium - and
for years and decades these inventions were developed in the back rooms
of inventors homes.
At this time there was no knowledge of what the right format would be -
whether film would be shown in booths in fair arcades, in theaters, or
even in the large "panorama" facilities where large painted scenes were
scrolled by a walking audience.
Artists working today in art and telecommunications are in a position
of these early pioneers in film technology. The vision of what could
be, but the technology is not yet a "plastic" medium under the control
of the artist.
Artists have been struggling with text based media, with slow scan
transmission, with facsimile. The limitations of the technology are
frustrating. The ultimate multi-media telecommunications medium is
probably decades away - and even ISDN and all the other near term
solutions are not really here yet.
At the same time the artists working together are establishing the
theoretical base for all the issues that will eventually become crucial
in these art forms of the future. In many ways the Constructivist
artists worked out many of the issues of computer art, before the
computer was available. For the reasons of technical limitations, the
most powerful use of telecommunications systems today is often the
simplest and the most thoughtful at a conceptual level.
Artists interested in the perspective of the early days of film
technology, are referred to the book THE LAST REEL for some thought
provoking comparisons.
In the case of commercial suppliers, such as MCI Mail, Compuserve, the
WELL, and GENIE, major corporations are owners. I.P. Sharp has donated
space to artists for use in messaging and art projects.
Problems perceived:
Conclusion: In most commercial systems, the artists pay something as it
stands now. These same systems offer gateways to USENET, and the rest
of the world. If the artist is located in a university situation,
access is often free (or paid for by his or her dept). None of these
situations are owned or operated by artists. All are vulnerable to
economic or institutional control, thus reminding one of the current
NEA mess concerning grants for the Robert Mapplethorpe photography show
and raising the spectre of censorship.
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""THE MEDIUM"""""""""""""""""""""""""""
If information sent out does not connect with sufficient local
context connections, then this information is either incomprehensible
to the receiver or misunderstood. Because electronic media allow
us to communicate with people while being totally ignorant of the
context of the receiver, then there is a real danger of the
communication being a very violent and blunt instrument
Its always surprised me how many people want to receive Fineart Forum,
but what a small percentage of these people ever send us email
either for us to include their submissions, or else to comment on
what they see. The electronic media should be democratic and
non-centralized by their nature- yet so easily it becomes a mere
broadcasting medium not an interactive medium.
>In the case of USENET and all of its variations, the Defense
>Department and many university computer science departments pay for
>that node's long distance services.
Excuse me? The Defense Department?
You seem to be confusing USENET (which is an anarchic cooperative
network with no centralized authority) with the Internet (parts of
which are supported by various government agencies, but most by
assorted companies, universities, and other organizations) with
the ARPANET (which doesn't exist any more, but used to be supported
by the Department of Defense).
>Problems perceived:
This has never been true. USENET has no administration, and if it did,
it would not be by the U.S. Department of Defense.
>Conclusion: In most commercial systems, the artists pay something as
GEnie has no gateways to anywhere, as far as I know.
CompuServe has no gateways to USENET that I know of
(it does have mail gateways to the Internet).
>If the artist is located in a university situation,
>show and raising the spectre of censorship.
You've got a good point, but the background is very confused.
What you seem to want to talk about is *government* sponsorship,
or, rather, setting of access policies, for networks.
The most relevant government agency these days is NSF,
the National Science Foundation, for the NSFNET backbone
and for the proposed NREN (National Research and Education Network).
And, to a lesser extent, local governmental sponsorship,
as for universities.
Confusion about which network is which and why it matters is rampant,
which is why I wrote ``Which Network, and Why It Matters'' in our
newsletter, Matrix News. Matrix News is a monthly paper newsletter
about contextual issues related to computer networks; preferably issues
that cross network, organizational, or political boundaries. We cover
network policy issues such as the history and current status of NREN,
The recent Secret Service raids, and international connectivity.
Each issue attempts to draw connections between technology, politics,
and community, ranging from Smoot Carl-Mitchell's ``X.400 - Fact and
Fancy,'' to John S. Quarterman's and ``Analogy is Not Identity.''
Articles have included ``Cyber Art: The Art of Communication
Systems,'' by Anna Couey, Billy Barron's ``Libraries on the Matrix,''
and R.R. Ronkin's ``Global Cyberspace -- Who Needs It.'' Guest
editorials have included ``Encouraging Equitable Competition on the
Internet,'' by Mitchell Kapor, ``Public Institutions in an Electronic
Society,'' by Steve Cisler, ``Walking the Beat in the Global Village,''
by Richard Civille, and ``On the Need to Develop Internet User
Services,'' by Peter Deutsch. Issue 8 (November) examines networks in
Argentina in depth, explains mailing list conventions, and reviews the
program netfind. Issue 9 (December) has reports on recent CPSR and CNI
meetings, a book review, and material about WAIS.
What you don't talk about in your article is the issue of who owns not
the nets but the *words*. I don't know if this has ever been litigated,
but at one time CompuServe was asserting a kind of "collective copyright"
meaning that they would go after someone attempting to gateway an
*entire* CompuServe forum. That's a pretty big strike against CompuServe
as an art locus.
By contrast, the WELL appears positively enlightened. It tells me the
moment I log in that *I* own my words. Sounds perfect as an art locus,
right? Well, wait a minute. If I own my words, that means no one can
reproduce them (read gateway ...) without my permission. I feel *VERY
STRONGLY* that telcom based art must be gatewayed to as many networks as
possible, preferably automatically. For a WELL conference to be
gatewayed, it would require a kind of "implied consent" that the poster
to a conference gives permission for her or his words to be gatewayed to
wherever.
Now there is precedent for this. I'm thinking of the Venice Biennale
feed.* Back then we were all so thrilled to have the opportunity to be
telecommunicated to Venice that no one picked nits. But frankly,
automatic gatewaying of a conference on the WELL *does* violate the
letter of the law of WELL policy; this is an issue that's got to be
decided by the WELL community itself. (It's possible this has been
discussed already; I haven't been very active on the WELL for a long
time.)
On the other hand, USENET is in fact perfect as an origin net for
gatewaying to other nets. It is already international, which CompuServe
and the WELL and Prodigy are not. Automatic gatewaying to other networks
is no different than the store-and-forward propagation that happens
already internal to USENET.
*ed: in 1986, a conference on ACEN on the WELL was ported to PLANETARY
NETWORK, an installation at the Venice Biennale organized by Roy Ascott
and others. Technology and telecommunication provides a new medium to explore. This medium is "cyberspace". Cyberspace is the ultimate realm for artists (as well as every other type of being) because not only is it such an adaptable medium, but it is also a configurable TOOL. Cyberspace is a world where anything is possible. Oh, sure you can paint/sculpt/write/etc. in all sorts of mediums; but, this is the first place to offer them all (soon!). Cyberspace can be molded to fit your (and everyone else's) needs, all at once. This may sound crazy, or impossible, but it isn't. Never before has mankind [don't mean to be sexist!] had the possibility to manipulate its environment to such an extreme, as is available in cyberspace. Not even close. What does this all mean? There is a new toy we can ALL play with. Anyone who works in ANY medium can find their place(s) in cyberspace.
One step closer to linking minds. Cyberspace, networks, thoughts exchange;
A realm untouchable by laws, rules, and logic awaits us all
patiently.
Think freely. Play fair. And above all, do what you want; you can
now.
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""THE MEDIUM"""""""""""""""""""""""""""
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""SYSTEMS""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Additionally, System X is used as a publishing medium for artwork created by artist-members. This work may be visual, auditory, literary, or all three (eg multimedia) in nature. This work is published in a "virtual gallery" with short text descriptions of the work. System X is on-going, no immediate end is yet visualized.
It is the only project of its kind in Australia. The individuals who
are responsible for its smooth administration are:
Communications, discourses, and artwork exchanges with other artists
are highly welcomed. The creation of communities of choice rather than
geography is a highly desired aim of System X members.
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""SYSTEMS"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
THE LIVING ROOM (LAMBDAMOO OCTOBER 4, 1993) >You open the closet door and leave the darkness for the living room, >closing the door behind you so as not to wake the sleeping people inside. >The Living Room >It is very bright, open, and airy here, with large plate-glass windows >looking southward over the pool to the gardens beyond. On the north >wall, there is a rough stonework fireplace. The east and west walls are >almost completely covered with large, well-stocked bookcases. An exit >in the northwest corner leads to the kitchen and, in a more northerly >direction, to the entrance hall. The door into the coat closet is at >the north end of the east wall, and at the south end is a sliding glass >door leading out onto a wooden deck. There are two sets of couches, one >clustered around the fireplace and one with a view out the windows. >You see Cockatoo, README for New MOOers, a fireplace, a newspaper, >Welcome Poster, LambdaMOO Takes A New Direction, The Daily Whale, The >Carpet, The Birthday Machine, Helpful Person Finder, lag meter, Noodles, >Lanfear, Mustang Sally, GUARD, Banshee, Timbre, and shadow here. >Soulglue (distracted), Leigh-Cheri, john, Wocha (confused), evangeline, >Valere, Trystan, KarlT, CyberTec, Zeebo (worn out) (bored), gekko >(Disconnected), Dr.Fate, Gus (distracted), legba, and Uther_Pendragon >are here. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""SYSTEMS"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 2. Beware the state. I'm a real believer in reaching for the Touffler ideal, and I fear the perversion of a government increasingly dependent upon computers and telecomm without public participation. Individual empowerment is #1. 3. Cyberspace is cool. It is both a production, distribution, and exhibition space all rolled into one. *Media* people may still slobber over video, but telecomm is the NeXT wave. I just want to be involved before the NEA creates funding categories for it, and the arts institutions co-op it all. 4. Telecomm is liberating. Freed of time, space, age, race, and gender, people are able to create new organic relationships. Here is the new age paradigm shift. Lets breaking boundaries and building new bridges. 5. Beware the corporation. Prodigy. Need I say more? 6. Information wants to be free; The cry of the cyberpunk. If we actually shared our resources, the world would be a happier place. Telecomm gives us an infrastructure to make this possible -- if we want. 7. Computers are cool. I still can't program, but I still am able to wrap my hands around the world through my terminal screen. Better than free frequent flyer miles. 8. A community within teleCOMMUNICATIONS. Its a big bad post-modern world out there. People need a support system to survive. Find it through a church, a gang, a local coffeehouse -- or through an online net. 9. Why look back? You can't control the past or the present, but you can chart a future trajectory. And telecomm is THE future. 10. Make big bonzo bucks! Yeah, right ;-)" (Originally posed on ARTBASE) """""""""""""""""""""""""""""SYSTEMS""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""SYSTEMS"""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """""""""""""""""""""""""""""SYSTEMS""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" A sequence of exchanges will provide for the exercise of fluxes and refluxes, propagating pulses and impulses of information. As structured yet intermittent connection, REFLUX is intended to create a micro-process of cultural propagation, mirroring the analogous process of cultural diffusion and change which occurs in large scale. The interactive process must entail a cultural responsiveness, a confrontation of codes and attitudes, a flowing of non-compulsory interactivity.
The implemented network will act as an instrument for collective
symbolic production reflecting the voice of a community scattered
throughout the planet..." (from a Description of the REFLUX Project)
As government and corporate interests form alliances and position themselves to create a new National Information Infrastructure, there is a growing movement among regional and local communities and dedicated individuals to shape a more humane, socially serving direction for our tele-media-ted future. Participate in this vital conversation and help promote an ecology of the information environment..........
Part of the statement from the Telluride Institute eighth annual Ideas
Festival that focused on "Tele-Community".
Leonardo 24(2), 1991 """"""""" Edited by Roy Ascott and Carl Loeffler, CONNECTIVITY includes seminal papers about systems (such as Jeff Mann -The Matrix Artists' Network; Phillip Bannigan and Sue Harris - an Electronic Arts Network for Australia) and about artworks online (such as Dana Moser's CORRESPONDENT IN BABEL and Karen O'Rourke's CITY PORTRAITS and Jennifer Hall's NETDRAMA as well as many papers about the history, theory, and philosophy of art and telecommunications. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""COLLABORATION"""""""""""""""""""""""""" In it, he describes the changes in our perception effected by the development of statistical science. Humankind remade in the image of Everyman/Average Man /Probability Man. Depressing? I was reminded of the poem in John Brunner's dystopian near-future novel *Stand on Zanzibar*, entitled "Citizen Bacillus", a devastating implication of the society that reduces human beings to interchangeable units, numbers in a database... bacteria, subhuman. But more to the point, Gifford talks about the sheer quantity of artistic "product" being produced daily, annually. There are 96,000 people who register as visual artists on the census of New York City. He speculates on how many truly great poets are going to be lost forever in a sea of mediocrity. What an appalling vision... As I thought about this, I wondered if it is not time to resubmerge the creative mind into the group effort, like those medieval monks who anonymously created all those intricate, painstakingly-made texts in utter anonymity. Is that possible, or desirable? Is willing and intentional obscurity the only alternative to forcible obscurity in the "confetti of numbers"? Would the tide be even slightly stemmed if the world's artists all pooled their efforts instead of individually producing their own ego-invested works?
*Ed: NY, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990
HIPITCHED VOICES Some of our current plans include: - the establishment of an ftp archive site (that is, online and available through the Internet), titled VOX, at Washington University in St. Louis. Initially, two ideas will be implemented for this space. First, a hypertextual literary anthology called "the Making" which will be designed somewhat in the manner of a MUSE (Multi-User Simulation Environment) as an online "place" that anyone can visit, adding their own contributions to the collection. Second, a workshop or commentary location for works-in-progress. This last will also be used as a kind of "central basket" for works of any kind placed there by each participant in HiPitched Voices. The basket, conceptually part of the originating prospectus, will be used as a means to help find partners for writing, multimedia, graphics, or other projects, and perhaps as a scene of ongoing rounds of "readings" (or changes) by anyone within Voices.
- the creation of a performance art work on the subject of women in
technology which would "travel" various email lists. By the time I sat down with the captains of industry, government advisers, and academic experts at the panel table, I had over 200 pages of expert advice from my own panel. I wouldn't have been able to garner that much knowledge of my subject in an entire academic or industrial career, and it took me (and my virtual community) six weeks. The same strategy can be applied to an infinite domain of problem areas, from literary criticism to software evaluation." (from "Virtual Communities"
WHOLE EARTH REVIEW, Winter 1988)
For further information see: Welch, Chuck. NETWORKING CURRENTS:
CONTEMPORARY MAIL ART SUBJECTS AND ISSUES. Boston, Massachusetts:
Sandbar Willow Press, 1986. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 
|
Making Art Online was first implemented as a website by the Center for Image and Sound Research, (CSIR) Vancouver, B.C., Canada on their pioneering ANIMA website in the early days of of the World Wide Web. Commissioned for ANIMA in 1993 by Derek Dowden, Making Art Online went online in January, 1994 as one of the first web-based works of computer-mediated information narrative. A version which approximates the historic ANIMA version was included in the traveling exhibition Telematic Connections: The Virtual Embrace, 2001 curated by Steve Dietz and is hosted online by the Walker Art Center at http://telematic.walkerart.org/timeline/timeline_malloy.html The final version includes contributions from John Coate, Anna Couey, Pavel Curtis, Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, Carolyn Guyer, Michael Joyce, Roger Malina, Jeff Mann, Lucia Grossberger Morales, Tim Perkis, Pauline Oliveros, Howard Rheingold, Jim Rosenberg, Randy Ross, (Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and Otoe Missouria) Sonya Rapoport, Fred Truck, and many others. Documentation of Making Art Online is available in the Judy Malloy Papers at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University. Judy Malloy
|