thingist July 2010

thingist@mailman.thing.net

15 participants
7 discussions

What about a subjective, evolving, archive?
by Justin Berry 18 Feb '12

18 Feb '12

I am new to THE THING, having only become involved in the last year or so, working with W and Christoph on The.Thing.Net and the White Slab screenings. I became involved almost by accident--I was recently out of graduate school and making non-salable and non-exhibitable work, mostly web stuff, and feeling a bit chagrined about the art world and its various camps of ideology. I was randomly surfing the web and sending out feeler emails to every organization I could find that was involved in New Media. Wolfgang was the one who answered back. I had no idea what THE THING actually was. I went to look it up online and struggled to find information, only coming up with numerous references to someTHING but never an actual history or a literal description. The most glaring example of THE THING online was the Post, and I think enough has been said about that. It took a long time of being involved, listening in conversation, and attending talks by Wolfgang, etc. in order to really arrive at a sense of what THE THING was and what it represented. If it were not so tragic it would be humorously ironic that an organization that did so much to galvanize thinking about the internet as an artistic and political medium has no functioning legacy online. I think that a proper and academic archive could potentially happen, but it will take a long time and a great deal of work. The nature of academia is to quest after a kind of perfection, to create a source of objective authority. Great! That would be awesome. In a few years it will be something we can all be proud of. I think something different needs to be planned in the interim. What about creating a subjective archive? What about creating a nexus for the stories and narratives of THE THING. It could be a relatively simple interface, something like a data or tag cloud full of links to various stories, where the only hierarchy might be determined by font size. People with a story to tell or an event to document could create their own HTML page, with the only standard requirement being a ‘back to home’ button of some kind. The advantage is that this would allow each person’s ‘history’ to be acknowledged without necessarily privileging one or the other. One link might be called ‘eToy war’ and could be an account of those events while another might be called ‘Justin Berry’ and include simply my own experiences. These pages don’t even have to share styling, though we could certainly provide a CSS sheet for people to use if they chose. One person’s page might be a video, while another person could choose to simply write an essay; an event might be documented with only a series of contextless pictures. Something like this embraces the history of THE THING as a forum and a platform. This does not have to exist in opposition to a formal archive; it can be an accompaniment to that project. It also requires less energy to happen. Once a stable and functioning interface is set up it can be left to individuals to create pages as they wish. Each contribution can be considered on its own terms. It does not have to be ‘finished’, it can be an ever evolving project as new pages are added. Perhaps this is only a selfish wish. I would like to hear the stories and see the history and I would like to have that kind of experience sooner than later. There should be an online presence of THE THING’s legacy. In my experience every time people attempt to create an authoritative history of something there are a whole lot of histories on the table and it takes a long time to negotiate which ones stick around. Justin Berry -- Justin Berry (713) 302 9599 www.waymakergallery.com JustinBerryArt(a)gmail.com Waymaker(a)WaymakerGallery.com

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art life
by Jim Foster 19 Jul '10

19 Jul '10

Oh Dear, I just love to excite myself and then later on it takes my breath away that I actually just let my thoughts fly- and sometimes edit ! I let life trick me - into doing art works. The bronze is so much fun. I am changing my whole style of living by getting out of clay. Now I don't think I'm doing anything all day - where I was running something like a Dairy. All the bronzes have rubber molds made so more can be produced and by that time I just let the foundry do it all-except for the art work. Art work - has to break rules- go beyond what you did last- and totally make you think Whewww, how did I ever break all those rules and do that !!!! Video and computer editing are next ! Our minds are so important.... Need I say more. So much of our society is geared to staying in the trench, worrying, stressed out, pickled with safety nets all over the place so you can't take a fall- and then you gotta have new clothes on all the time, white tennies do the trick. We get all these tips from our folks, our teachers, our politicians, our policemenandwomen-and our soldiers get blown away and think they are fighting for freedom. I think we have to live as far away from the world as we can. Why do we love magicians and never learn their craft and make love with it ? Ohh, I can hear him coming way up the road from us. Now he is here. A motorcyclist rides by every morning at 4:30 on the dot and he is so noisy with Harley News, and then whosshssss he's gone. Whoops looks like he was early- or maybe that wasn't even him- too quiet, this time. A little like me. love to all and thanks for yours, jim

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Re: [thingist] Fw: Re: What about a subjective, evolving, archive?
by Alan Moore 18 Jul '10

18 Jul '10

hi Folks, moved to make some comment - although i lost my notes -- maybe i am not on the right list here? dunno... -- we'll see -- i get this at yahoo and at gmail -- symptomatic, actually, of the depth of engagements at work, since Yahoo is my email for old lists, etc.... i read W's letter, and found it somehow sad... agree with some of the critiques by people i've never met -- now i am in Hamburg for some days, so it looks like i may meet at least one of the "secessionist" thing-ers... in terms of life -- i agree with Joseph -- let the younger ones make the determinations how to use thing Joseph was my compatriot, as was Wolfgang, in important self-organized artist action in the 1970s and '80s -- ABC No Rio, artists' cable TV -- this work also by the way remains largely unhistoricized... ABC only because Marc Miller and i made the book -- much of this book is now online at 98bowery.com -- very good, but coming off an actual physical book, so the differences are significant... for me the Thing has been first a mystery, and then a sporadic engagement -- unlike James Allan, i never "hung up my six guns and moved to town" -- i am still out there somehow, and masterless... but the difference between me and you is that i did not discover the uses of the internet until very very late -- still i can't do much on it, and what i have learned was at my occasional university jobs when i had support -- but actually i do a lot of online work on my project now, which is research on EU occupied social centers and that too is really unknown, or, rather historicized from particular angles, and without any comprehensive reflection... i like the idea of Justin Berry -- it is a way to begin the process of historicization, and that is very important, to begin... you can begin openly, or -- really if you have a lot of money and staff, or a person(s) who dedicate themself to it -- you can wait until it's all together to make it public i also think it is good to let Steven Kaplan and "James Kalm" continue -- they do what they do, and it is not nothing -- there is also Douglas Kelley, who is part of what goes on at thing.post.net, and has been for a long while... i used Kalm's work in my attempts to understand the Brooklyn self-organized scene in the '90s and '00s -- again, the world of markets and institutions does not care about this, so nothing is done except by artists in the way of organized remembrance and passing on of these experiences -- and that is what it is about, is passing it on -- well, i am sermonizing... but in Hamburg i am beginning to see that people are and have been making art about making space, and that is a central drama of our times, since as it opens virtually it is closed down and reclaimed actually -- and the enclosure extends of course to the virtual, as Rhizome is institutional, and Hamburg Thing is archived -- not, as i have heard as a matter of choice, but because they lost their funding because they were too political... and the politics is cultural politics, the work to preserve space and money for open, horizontal, democratic culture, not only the "winners" in the market and institution games this was Toywar too -- the contest for virtual space, a successful campaign without which Yes Men would not have been, or it would not have occurred to them to do that -- oh well, just to say, what was the thing is a very interesting question - and it becomes only more interesting as time goes by... what is the thing is a sort of mercurial fluid position at a moment when things have hardened up all around us - and that, believe it or not, is extraordinarily valuable -- eine offentliche Raum that people pay attention to -- or not conclude? i think most constructive *re. the blog* is do nothing, and also don't boycott -- put in some posts, maybe determine a collective tack or theme... John Menick had and collected many ideas for how to evolve it, prepared for grants -- if development gets active, they can be revisited i have my private opinions, but i also post to thing.net and really it is an important position for me -- where else should i go? i am socially lazy, and don't go to the right parties now to meet the new people about the *thing past*, go with the "subjective" cloud thing, and see how that moves forward -- also it is important to make connection with people who do this history for a living, and get them interested in the thing as a project -- you know who they are, not me, altho i can find out, and would help on this when the ball is rolling... the very indefinition of the thing is what is so very interesting about it.... a private public utility... i look forward to the screenings as a chance to meet and chat with people i will surely like to know all the best, -am p.s. re Archives of American Art -- just dumping doesn't usually work -- you need earlier preparation of materials... also maybe not the right place, or, rather, not the only place -- needs a consultation and investigation on this question On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 11:27 AM, Alan Moore <awm13579(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > > Alan W. Moore > > 123 Scribner Ave SI NY 10301 > cel : 917 574 8392 > > working this project: http://occuprop.blogspot.com > MWF video archive: http://www.brickhaus.com/amoore > > --- On *Sat, 7/17/10, Joseph Nechvatal <joseph_nechvatal(a)hotmail.com>*wrote: > > > From: Joseph Nechvatal <joseph_nechvatal(a)hotmail.com> > Subject: Re: [thingist] What about a subjective, evolving, archive? > To: thingist(a)mailman.thing.net > Date: Saturday, July 17, 2010, 4:05 PM > > > Justin, > > > When I met you at White Slab, your creative energy, enthusiasm and > competence became quickly evident to me. Your idea below shows the same > level of talented verve, but I very much doubt that it will manifest. Based > on the first round of letters - and obvious divergent positions held - my > impression is that The Thing's early members have run out of energy and > would not rise to the occasion of retelling the past. Nice as an idea it may > be. The proposed abandonment of the TT blog seems to indicate this to me, > for example. > > > I see two possible strategies left at the moment: > > > 1) Pass The Thing on to a younger generation - as we did with ABC No Rio - > no matter how different the activities may be from the founders original > ideals and practices. > > > 2) Fold the tent and give all materials to The Archives of American Art ( > see: http://www.aaa.si.edu/about/donating_papers.cfm ). This allows > professional archivists to preserve and communicate TT's legacy - if it has > one. > > > I for one would like to see TT continue and improve, but I have become too > much the realist to expect it. > > > Would like to hear other voices on these perceived two options, of course. > > > cheers > Joseph Nechvatal > > > > > ------------------------------ > Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2010 12:10:36 -0400 > From: justinberryart(a)gmail.com > To: thingist(a)mailman.thing.net > Subject: [thingist] What about a subjective, evolving, archive? > > I am new to THE THING, having only become involved in the last year or so, > working with W and Christoph on The.Thing.Net and the White Slab > screenings. I became involved almost by accident--I was recently out of > graduate school and making non-salable and non-exhibitable work, mostly web > stuff, and feeling a bit chagrined about the art world and its various camps > of ideology. I was randomly surfing the web and sending out feeler emails > to every organization I could find that was involved in New Media. Wolfgang > was the one who answered back. I had no idea what THE THING actually was. > I went to look it up online and struggled to find information, only coming > up with numerous references to someTHING but never an actual history or a > literal description. The most glaring example of THE THING online was the > Post, and I think enough has been said about that. It took a long time of > being involved, listening in conversation, and attending talks by Wolfgang, > etc. in order to really arrive at a sense of what THE THING was and what it > represented. If it were not so tragic it would be humorously ironic that > an organization that did so much to galvanize thinking about the internet as > an artistic and political medium has no functioning legacy online. I > think that a proper and academic archive could potentially happen, but it > will take a long time and a great deal of work. The nature of academia is > to quest after a kind of perfection, to create a source of objective > authority. Great! That would be awesome. In a few years it will be > something we can all be proud of. I think something different needs to be > planned in the interim. > > > > What about creating a subjective archive? What about creating a nexus for > the stories and narratives of THE THING. It could be a relatively simple > interface, something like a data or tag cloud full of links to various > stories, where the only hierarchy might be determined by font size. People > with a story to tell or an event to document could create their own HTML > page, with the only standard requirement being a ‘back to home’ button of > some kind. The advantage is that this would allow each person’s ‘history’ > to be acknowledged without necessarily privileging one or the other. One > link might be called ‘eToy war’ and could be an account of those events > while another might be called ‘Justin Berry’ and include simply my own > experiences. These pages don’t even have to share styling, though we > could certainly provide a CSS sheet for people to use if they chose. One > person’s page might be a video, while another person could choose to simply > write an essay; an event might be documented with only a series of > contextless pictures. Something like this embraces the history of THE > THING as a forum and a platform. This does not have to exist in > opposition to a formal archive; it can be an accompaniment to that project. > It also requires less energy to happen. Once a stable and functioning > interface is set up it can be left to individuals to create pages as they > wish. Each contribution can be considered on its own terms. It does not > have to be ‘finished’, it can be an ever evolving project as new pages are > added. > > > > Perhaps this is only a selfish wish. I would like to hear the stories and > see the history and I would like to have that kind of experience sooner than > later. There should be an online presence of THE THING’s legacy. In my > experience every time people attempt to create an authoritative history of > something there are a whole lot of histories on the table and it takes a > long time to negotiate which ones stick around. > > Justin Berry > > > -- > Justin Berry > (713) 302 9599 > www.waymakergallery.com > JustinBerryArt(a)gmail.com <http://mc/compose?to=JustinBerryArt@gmail.com> > Waymaker(a)WaymakerGallery.com > > ------------------------------ > Hotmail has tools for the New Busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your > inbox. Learn more.<http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:…> > > -----Inline Attachment Follows----- > > _______________________________________________ > thingist mailing list > thingist(a)mailman.thing.net<http://mc/compose?to=thingist@mailman.thing.net> > https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/thingist > > -- Alan W. Moore cel: 917 574 8392 123 Scribner Ave SI NY 10301 Summer of '10 in Madrid, Hamburg, Berlin & etc. doing "House Magic: Bureau of Foreign Correspondence" blogging at http://occuprop.blogspot.com

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Re: [thingist] the thing with the thing
by w 16 Jul '10

16 Jul '10

On Sun, 2010-07-11 at 17:47 +0200, Caspar Stracke wrote: > Hi. > > A few days ago I got together with Jan and we started to brainstorm > about possible future scenarios for the online presence of THE THING > (we are in Berlin, therefore no W involved) > The reason is the overall appearance of THE THING ...without organs, > if you want [update: although I should/could re-phrase that as White > Slap Palace event may get very active soon...] > > > However, after lots occasional talks with Wolfgang and huge chunks of > time passing I finally want to take this initiative and propose a > "clean up" - something we start talking about as the first subject > after the return of thingist. > I would assume that most of you agree with me to say that the legacy > of THE THING it too important to leave it with a mainly abandoned > two-person art blog - especially unmoderated , and in a sad default > drupal design that has as much charm as a blog of a New Jersey dentist > association. Other than that there are too many loose ends flying > around: thingist, events. thing.net , etc. > > Jan and me discussed possible options: > > 1) Make a distinctive separation between archive and active areas, > re-design the blog into a more complex forum and divide event post, > documentation of thing events, art reviews and hopefully a few more > fresh initiatives. ( I had a loose idea for a THING MONTHLY > section, which I call a curator's ping pong project) > Oh and touch up the ugly drupal of course > > 2) Get rid of the blog entirely and make it all archive, but with a > decent documentation, gathering material that maybe could also be the > touchstone for the long planned print documentation of the history of > THE THING. > > I have no info on the stats of post.thing, [W?] how many people > actually read these art reviews of post.thing.net. I have to admit > that for myself I had stopped even checking out this blog for a long > time. But I guess that's the normal progression of everybody cutting > back on online time (hence the radical disappearance of discussion > lists) > > If we look back, so much of THE THING's activity of the recent years > has moved into parallel universes, as for art review, there's the old > art net, then Rhizome of course and recently Marc Lafia's arts+ > culture, then 16 beaver group for events/talks and we-make-money for > silly media art pranks. (don't get me wrong: I love Regine's work) > among many others. > If we admit there are so many others that do the same activity, > probably even better, why not shutting down the blog and rather making > THE THING a very decent and well-designed archive. > > > I really admire the hard working Hamburg people among Connie Sollfrank > that picked up the old THING satellite initiative, founded THING > Hamburg, which was highly active for 3 years, then turned it right > away into an archive. > > > [W, I certainly and consciously left out all ISP and editions > activities here, so ultimately an index page would always need to make > the distinction between archive and active areas..] > > > Would be nice to hear some feedback on that form all of you. > > > ahoy, > > © > > -- > > > caspar stracke > > www.videokasbah.net > > dear caspar et al, i agree with you on almost all counts. post.thing.net has been taken over by two egomaniacs who have nothing in common with anything the thing ever stood for, but are using it as a springboard for better and bigger publishing opportunities. i did let it pass, because nothing else was going on and the thing has a tradition of being an orphanage anyway (blackhawk's words). but you are right, it's not a good idea to become associated with people who only abuse the platform for their own ends and think they are doing you a favor. page views on post usually range from 150 to 2500 (average i estimate at 1000 reads), not bad, not great either, but who cares about the eyeballs if we don't care about these sycophantic reviews in the first place? so i have no problem shutting it down. there are exceptions though, when alan moore or joseph nechvatal post something it's usually well worth the read. archiving bbs.thing.net (1997 - 2004) has stalled since the media branch of the lbi has been shut down in january. max and walter started restoring the bbs, but as far as i can tell nothing has happened since last year. gunther reisinger tried to get the unversity of graz to take over the project and finish the job, but i really don't know what has been going on lately and nobody bothers to update me on that account. i have no idea how to finish this job at the moment. it's a drag, since it would be a great historical resource. in the meantime i've been thinking how to keep on going and started to develop http://auctionthing.net with 4 partners (daniel burckhardt, daniel newburg, phillip brandt, rainald schumacher). the idea is to bring some more liquidity into the secondary art market and at the same time support independent art projects. the agreement between the partners is that at least 10% of the proceeds will support thing activities. we expect to have auctionthing ready for action by september. so ok, the priority seems to be to get the archive finished and save as much as possible for posterity. maybe max or walter can offer an answer as to where we stand on that front. second, what to do right now and in the future. in regards to online stuff... frankly i am suffering from internet fatique, so i am not the right person to address this issue now. i don't give a damn about facebook and twitter and i think anybody who's participating in this social networking data mining crap should not even be allowed a thing membership. i reluctantly agreed to have a thing facebook fan (spam) page set up to reach some of these morons, but i already regret this decision, since it implies tacit approval of facebook policies (and they are the exact opposite of what the thing ever stood for). one has to ask the question what kind of socio-cultural intervention makes any sense at this historical moment. for the last ten years i have retreated to the ivory tower of making art and was happy just to concern myself with aesthetic issues. maybe the best thing is to start small. we can do a film and video program at white slab in the fall. no pain, no pressure. then we have time to think about what kind of program, publication or on-line presence we really need. as to the latter, i agree that what we have now is a mess, but all this crap was done haphazardly without any competent coders. in the past the recipe for our success was the inclusion of competent programmers as equal partners in the whole decision making process. the big question still looms: why the effort and what for? there are many issues out there that that still tick me off. generally, i'm not happy with the state of the arts. on the one hand you have the academic part of the art world that overwhelmingly privileges purely socio-historical aspects of art. then, on the other, you have the market place, drunk with spectacle, speculation and narcissism. so "real" art is caught in this horrible pincer movement and i would like to have a tool or a medium to fight back. nothing wrong with well executed social activism (like the yes men, who i greatly admire, for example) or selling art for a decent price to make a living, but there is more to art than just the socio-political dimension or speculative market value respectively. so in order to step in and do something about this, i suppose you need a serious group effort of like-minded people and my problem is that i don't know if there are enough like-minded people. it's quite an effort to work towards cultural change, a herculean, if not sisyphean task. sometimes it just looks easier or more realistic to make your statement with your art work and that's it. there is only so much you can do in this short life. as you say, there are things out there that picked up where we left off. here are my examples: * cabinet magazine, which is doing an outstanding job combining art, literature, essays... it's the kind of mix i always liked. * e-flux, after shrewdly and relentlessly making inroads into the upper echelons of the art world's shakers and makers association, is now positioning itself as the critical stand-in for the status quo, kind of an updated artforum (now that's the place i didn't want to got to). * our old "rival" rhizome at the new museum; don't know much what they are doing these days, but a couple of months ago they hosted an interesting performance orchestrated by goldin and senneby. ok, to come to an end, where does all this leave us? the thing had its glory days. it stood for something. it was more an attitude than anything else, some kind of anti-authoritarian cyber-punk thing and we played it well. it was fun with all the clumsy antagonists we enjoyed fighting, from Mattel to DOW to eToys. and it was also fun to explore this new medium with all the artists who made their first tentative moves there. it's history now and it will be a tough act to follow. but i am open for suggestions. best, wolfgang ps: if nobody objects i would like to carry this over to thingist and open it up to a larger crowd. if you haven't subscribed yet here's where you do it: https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/thingist thingist - the facebook antidote.

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the thing with facebook
by w 16 Jul '10

16 Jul '10

Caspar Stracke wrote: > Re: Facebook links and interaction with social media > absolutely not necessary in my opinion. A Facebook antidote? Despite > debates on privacy, I dont really understand the big fuss here. What > has one to do with the other? > People come to fb to giggle with (or at) their friends or -as some > THING members- becoming friends with Paul the octopus. That's it. i am always surprised how sanguine some people, who in many other respects display some degree of critical faculty, take the facebook phenomenon. during the dot com years, i somehow got on the list of a focus group head hunter. he probably thought the "ceo" of thing.net would be a qualified participant for focus groups that dealt with new online services, technical products, advertising and these kind of things. i often gladly accepted, since the groups met in the early evening, not too far from the office, and included coffee and sandwiches and at the end of a 90 minute session an envelop stuffed with $200 in cash. this is the difference, facebook doesn't give you free coffee and cash and behind the one-way mirror glass wall there are no human marketing spooks watching you, but banks of computers registering your every "like" and aggregating it into mind-blowing amounts of marketing data. recently some web sites popped up helping facebook and other social networking aficionados to "commit suicide," sites like http://www.seppukoo.com/ and http://suicidemachine.org/ (btw, the southpark episode is worth the download). they all were hit with cease and desist orders from zuckerberg & co and surprisingly they all complied. another indicator how media culture has changed. we relished those fights and employed every trick in the book to keep going and provide time and legal wiggle room, didn't matter whether the opponent was DOW or eToy or Mattel. recently on the idc list an aricle appeared which i am reposting below. the author of the article notes the suicide phenomenon on social media networks and suggest an even more effective method of resistance. stay on and just befriend everybody and like everything, just flood the system with meaningless clutter (not that it isn't full of that already). so THE THING member you allude to, the one befriending paul the oracle octopus, is doing just that. back when i was doing these focus group sessions, i was almost always bored to death with the products or design suggestions, so i invented answers i thought they might be fishing for or sometimes i just went for the opposite. it was a similar strategy. at least i was paid handsomely for my time. ---- from iDC list -------------------------------------------- Sean Dockray wrote: Everyone now wants to know how to remove themselves from social networks. It has become absolutely clear that our relationships to others are mere points in the aggregation of marketing data. Political campaigns, the sale of commodities, the promotion of entertainment – this is the outcome of our expression of likes and affinities. And at what cost? The reward is obvious: we no longer have to tolerate advertisements for things for which we have no interest. Instead our social relations are saturated with public relations. But at least it is all *interesting*! Unlike the old days, when we could invent online identities daily, our social networks today require fidelity between our physical self and our online self. The situation is unbearable. The frightening consequence of it all is that we believe in the value of these networks. We understand perfectly well that our privacy is being renegotiated without our consent; the rules are changing in plain view; but we still participate! It is like a new form of money, something we realize is a myth, but we act like it is real and that is its power. We can’t leave because everyone else is there! Or because we are invested in the myth ourselves. The question is how do we extract ourselves from this predicament? Recently, some programmers figured out how to computationally do exactly this. By entering in your username and password, the software would delete as much information as possible, ultimately removing the account itself. It was a radical enough idea to attract the legal attention of Facebook. This software did not go far enough! When someone disappears from Facebook, does anyone notice? Does this software retroactively invalidate all of the marketing data that has been collected from the account? Has this person de-dividuated themselves? No, silence has not disrupted the system in the slightest! Social networks need a social suicide. In the same way that 99.99999% of users on Facebook don’t exist within the cloistered world of one’s home page, an invisible user – one who has committed suicide – is simply a non-factor in the constant and regular computational logic of the thing. The answer isn’t silence, but noise! Suicide on a social network is a matter of introducing noise into the system. It spreads viruses and misinformation. It makes things less interesting for others. It disrupts the finely calibrated advertising algorithms on which suggestions are made – for friends, groups, institutions, ideas, and so on. Social networking captures, quantifies, and capitalizes on positive feedback. It records and reproduces similarity. Oh yes, everyone is not watching one of three mass-produced choices; but beneath all of the possibilities there is only one choice! The one for you! A roadmap for an effective Facebook suicide should do some of the following: catching as many viruses as possible; click on as many “Like” buttons as possible; join as many groups as possible; request as many friends as possible. Wherever there is the possibility for action, take it, and take it without any thought whatsoever. Become a machine for clicking! Every click dissolves the virtual double that Facebook has created for you. It disperses you into the digital lives of others you hadn’t thought of communicating with. It confuses your friends. It pulls all those parts of the world that your social network refuses to engage with back into focus, makes it present again. Invisibility comes in many forms, and on social networks it is the form of a radical overload of information – a maximum participation. No more thought, because every considered click adds to the collaborative filtering algorithms that makes sure everyone continues to like what they like, but in slightly modified form. Click everywhere, click often, and don’t stop until you have disappeared beneath a flood of meaninglessness. This is a call for suicide, for the abandonment of seriousness and belief. It is a call to reclaim ourselves from the sad version of ourselves that lives in that bloodless village. Don’t become nothing, the singular point defined by an absence, become everything, with everyone else. Drown the system in data and make a new world in the ruins that remain! iDC — mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity --------------------------------- and if you are still not clear what "the big fuss about privacy and facebook" is about, here is a starter via bruce sterling: http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2010/05/facebook-backlash-time/ ahoi mate, wolfgang

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the thing with the thing
by Caspar Stracke 14 Jul '10

14 Jul '10

Hello everybody, OK guys, two options: We either dive 4500 ft deep and put a plug on The Thing, which is currently polluting the ocean, OR we have to start building a new platform! (for the new listeners all initial posts before thingist below...) Thanks for all the necessary, detailed additions, explanations and corrections, W! Wolfgang carries my question on /how ///to continue a more existential level by adding .../why /to continue? So far most reactions point towards the decision of closing the blog. My point in first place was a very practical one: To make a decent appearance of the archive, BUT at the same time remain some kind of pilot flame burning. Inevitably I opened a can of worms here..especially since everything points back to the good old days. As for considering new concepts / projects - GH I very much like your idea to introduce a featured artist page. I am a big fan of VVORK - for being such a radically simple (mainly) emerging art collection, image only, No text (just names and links) a vitalizing refreshing tool for arts/culture academics who constantly OD on art criticism. I could imagine some curatorial ping pong concept, designed in a similar simplicity, image only, nonetheless with option for comments / responses. GH, you add in the end: > Personally I think it would be more effective and have a certain > gossip/shock value if you start with a new project that is all about > energy and doesn't rest on any historical reference to previous faded > glory. On which I disagree. It's not that there is a fresh new project in place here and somebody wants to built upon an existing and well-respected network/platform. It's rather the opposite - making something out of the existing network itself. Speaking of "building upon" and to continue W's and my list of where THING activities have evolved - only look at this John Hershend guy and THE THING MONTHLY that has now completely hijacked the name even for events in NY: "Join us in NY on Friday, May 14th for the Public Release of Starlee's Kine's issue 10 of THE THING. Starlee Kine and friends will be on hand offering onion-cutting demonstrations (using her issue as the cutting board),... Housing Works Bookstore Café 7:00-8:30PM, 126 Crosby Street, NYC 10012" No silly finger pointing intended maybe I just want to I add a drip of (gulf) oil into the fire... Re: Facebook links and interaction with social media absolutely not necessary in my opinion. A Facebook antidote? Despite debates on privacy, I dont really understand the big fuss here. What has one to do with the other? People come to fb to giggle with (or at) their friends or -as some THING members- becoming friends with Paul the octopus. That's it. So...any more thoughts on GH's proposal of a dedicated featured artists project idea? © >> Hi. >> >> A few days ago I got together with Jan and we started to brainstorm >> about possible future scenarios for the online presence of THE THING >> (we are in Berlin, therefore no W involved) >> The reason is the overall appearance of THE THING ...without organs, >> if you want [update: although I should/could re-phrase that as White >> Slap Palace event may get very active soon...] >> >> >> However, after lots occasional talks with Wolfgang and huge chunks of >> time passing I finally want to take this initiative and propose a >> "clean up" - something we start talking about as the first subject >> after the return of thingist. >> I would assume that most of you agree with me to say that the legacy >> of THE THING it too important to leave it with a mainly abandoned >> two-person art blog - especially unmoderated , and in a sad default >> drupal design that has as much charm as a blog of a New Jersey dentist >> association. Other than that there are too many loose ends flying >> around: thingist, events. thing.net , etc. >> >> Jan and me discussed possible options: >> >> 1) Make a distinctive separation between archive and active areas, >> re-design the blog into a more complex forum and divide event post, >> documentation of thing events, art reviews and hopefully a few more >> fresh initiatives. ( I had a loose idea for a THING MONTHLY >> section, which I call a curator's ping pong project) >> Oh and touch up the ugly drupal of course >> >> 2) Get rid of the blog entirely and make it all archive, but with a >> decent documentation, gathering material that maybe could also be the >> touchstone for the long planned print documentation of the history of >> THE THING. >> >> I have no info on the stats of post.thing, [W?] how many people >> actually read these art reviews of post.thing.net. I have to admit >> that for myself I had stopped even checking out this blog for a long >> time. But I guess that's the normal progression of everybody cutting >> back on online time (hence the radical disappearance of discussion >> lists) >> >> If we look back, so much of THE THING's activity of the recent years >> has moved into parallel universes, as for art review, there's the old >> art net, then Rhizome of course and recently Marc Lafia's arts+ >> culture, then 16 beaver group for events/talks and we-make-money for >> silly media art pranks. (don't get me wrong: I love Regine's work) >> among many others. >> If we admit there are so many others that do the same activity, >> probably even better, why not shutting down the blog and rather making >> THE THING a very decent and well-designed archive. >> >> >> I really admire the hard working Hamburg people among Connie Sollfrank >> that picked up the old THING satellite initiative, founded THING >> Hamburg, which was highly active for 3 years, then turned it right >> away into an archive. >> >> >> [W, I certainly and consciously left out all ISP and editions >> activities here, so ultimately an index page would always need to make >> the distinction between archive and active areas..] >> >> >> Would be nice to hear some feedback on that form all of you. >> >> >> ahoy, >> >> © >> >> -- >> >> >> caspar stracke >> >> www.videokasbah.net >> >> >> > > > > > dear caspar et al, > > i agree with you on almost all counts. post.thing.net has been taken > over by two egomaniacs who have nothing in common with anything the > thing ever stood for, but are using it as a springboard for better and > bigger publishing opportunities. i did let it pass, because nothing > else was going on and the thing has a tradition of being an orphanage > anyway (blackhawk's words). but you are right, it's not a good idea to > become associated with people who only abuse the platform for their own > ends and think they are doing you a favor. page views on post usually > range from 150 to 2500 (average i estimate at 1000 reads), not bad, not > great either, but who cares about the eyeballs if we don't care about > these sycophantic reviews in the first place? so i have no problem > shutting it down. there are exceptions though, when alan moore or > joseph nechvatal post something it's usually well worth the read. > > archiving bbs.thing.net (1997 - 2004) has stalled since the media branch > of the lbi has been shut down in january. max and walter started > restoring the bbs, but as far as i can tell nothing has happened since > last year. gunther reisinger tried to get the unversity of graz to take > over the project and finish the job, but i really don't know what has > been going on lately and nobody bothers to update me on that account. > i have no idea how to finish this job at the moment. it's a drag, since > it would be a great historical resource. > > in the meantime i've been thinking how to keep on going and started to > develop http://auctionthing.net with 4 partners (daniel burckhardt, > daniel newburg, phillip brandt, rainald schumacher). the idea is to > bring some more liquidity into the secondary art market and at the same > time support independent art projects. the agreement between the > partners is that at least 10% of the proceeds will support thing > activities. we expect to have auctionthing ready for action by > september. > > so ok, the priority seems to be to get the archive finished and save as > much as possible for posterity. maybe max or walter can offer an answer > as to where we stand on that front. > > second, what to do right now and in the future. in regards to online > stuff... frankly i am suffering from internet fatique, so i am not the > right person to address this issue now. i don't give a damn about > facebook and twitter and i think anybody who's participating in this > social networking data mining crap should not even be allowed a thing > membership. i reluctantly agreed to have a thing facebook fan (spam) > page set up to reach some of these morons, but i already regret this > decision, since it implies tacit approval of facebook policies (and they > are the exact opposite of what the thing ever stood for). > > one has to ask the question what kind of socio-cultural intervention > makes any sense at this historical moment. for the last ten years i > have retreated to the ivory tower of making art and was happy just to > concern myself with aesthetic issues. maybe the best thing is to start > small. we can do a film and video program at white slab in the fall. no > pain, no pressure. then we have time to think about what kind of > program, publication or on-line presence we really need. as to the > latter, i agree that what we have now is a mess, but all this crap was > done haphazardly without any competent coders. in the past the recipe > for our success was the inclusion of competent programmers as equal > partners in the whole decision making process. > > the big question still looms: why the effort and what for? there are > many issues out there that that still tick me off. generally, i'm not > happy with the state of the arts. on the one hand you have the academic > part of the art world that overwhelmingly privileges purely > socio-historical aspects of art. then, on the other, you have the market > place, drunk with spectacle, speculation and narcissism. so "real" art > is caught in this horrible pincer movement and i would like to have a > tool or a medium to fight back. nothing wrong with well executed social > activism (like the yes men, who i greatly admire, for example) or > selling art for a decent price to make a living, but there is more to > art than just the socio-political dimension or speculative market value > respectively. so in order to step in and do something about this, i > suppose you need a serious group effort of like-minded people and my > problem is that i don't know if there are enough like-minded people. > it's quite an effort to work towards cultural change, a herculean, if > not sisyphean task. sometimes it just looks easier or more realistic to > make your statement with your art work and that's it. there is only so > much you can do in this short life. > > as you say, there are things out there that picked up where we left off. > here are my examples: > * cabinet magazine, which is doing an outstanding job combining art, > literature, essays... it's the kind of mix i always liked. > * e-flux, after shrewdly and relentlessly making inroads into the upper > echelons of the art world's shakers and makers association, is now > positioning itself as the critical stand-in for the status quo, kind of > an updated artforum (now that's the place i didn't want to got to). > * our old "rival" rhizome at the new museum; don't know much what they > are doing these days, but a couple of months ago they hosted an > interesting performance orchestrated by goldin and senneby. > > ok, to come to an end, where does all this leave us? the thing had its > glory days. it stood for something. it was more an attitude than > anything else, some kind of anti-authoritarian cyber-punk thing and we > played it well. it was fun with all the clumsy antagonists we enjoyed > fighting, from Mattel to DOW to eToys. and it was also fun to explore > this new medium with all the artists who made their first tentative > moves there. it's history now and it will be a tough act to follow. > but i am open for suggestions. > > best, > > wolfgang > > ps: if nobody objects i would like to carry this over to thingist and > open it up to a larger crowd. if you haven't subscribed yet here's > where you do it: https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/thingist > thingist - the facebook antidote. > > > > gh comments: > I agree the blog/art reviews should be retired. I think that the > thing should do a very simple concept/interface design. I think the > thing should have one project either by a group or an individual > artist featured for four months. I think a very simple rss forum can > go along with this. Maybe a few people, writers, theorists etc.. who > are interested in the project can be invited to the discussion. I > also think that the thing needs to have a simple way to interact with > various social media from facebook, linkedIn, to academia.edu as a > push alert. > more commentary below; > > On Jul 11, 2010, at 11:47 AM, Caspar Stracke wrote: > >> 1) Make a distinctive separation between archive and active areas, >> re-design the blog into a more complex forum and divide event post, >> documentation of thing events, art reviews and hopefully a few more >> fresh initiatives. ( I had a loose idea for a THING MONTHLY >> section, which I call a curator's ping pong project) >> Oh and touch up the ugly drupal of course > > This goes along with my notion of one project every four months. Maybe > this is an information project. > > >> >> 2) Get rid of the blog entirely and make it all archive, but with a >> decent documentation, gathering material that maybe could also be >> the touchstone for the long planned print documentation of the >> history of THE THING. > > I absolutely agree with this idea of getting rid of the blog idea. > Blogs are dead. >> >> I have no info on the stats of post.thing, [W?] how many people >> actually read these art reviews of post.thing.net. I have to admit >> that for myself I had stopped even checking out this blog for a long >> time. But I guess that's the normal progression of everybody cutting >> back on online time (hence the radical disappearance of discussion >> lists) >> >> If we look back, so much of THE THING's activity of the recent years >> has moved into parallel universes, as for art review, there's the >> old art net, then Rhizome of course and recently Marc Lafia's arts+ >> culture, then 16 beaver group for events/talks and we-make-money for >> silly media art pranks. (don't get me wrong: I love Regine's work) >> among many others. >> If we admit there are so many others that do the same activity, >> probably even better, why not shutting down the blog and rather >> making THE THING a very decent and well-designed archive. >> >> > As far as I understand W was trying to get the thing archive up and > running with the help of a Ars Electronica but it only lasted for a > little while. That's a really difficult project. > >> I really admire the hard working Hamburg people among Connie >> Sollfrank that picked up the old THING satellite initiative, >> founded THING Hamburg <http://www.thing-hamburg.de/>, which was >> highly active for 3 years, then turned it right away into an archive. >> > I like the idea of doing a time targeted project and then archiving > it. 3 years is a good goal! > >> >> [W, I certainly and consciously left out all ISP and editions >> activities here, so ultimately an index page would always need to >> make the distinction between archive and active areas..] > > Personally I think it would be more effective and have a certain > gossip/shock value if you start with a new project that is all about > energy and doesn't rest on any historical reference to previous faded > glory. > > > > G.H. Hovagimyan > http://nujus.net/~gh <http://nujus.net/%7Egh> > http://artistsmeeting.org > http://turbulence.org/Works/plazaville > >

2 1

W's original response
by gh hovagimyan 14 Jul '10

14 Jul '10

Here's casper's message & w's response. On Sun, 2010-07-11 at 17:47 +0200, Caspar Stracke wrote: > Hi. > > A few days ago I got together with Jan and we started to brainstorm > about possible future scenarios for the online presence of THE THING > (we are in Berlin, therefore no W involved) > The reason is the overall appearance of THE THING ...without organs, > if you want [update: although I should/could re-phrase that as White > Slap Palace event may get very active soon...] > > > However, after lots occasional talks with Wolfgang and huge chunks of > time passing I finally want to take this initiative and propose a > "clean up" - something we start talking about as the first subject > after the return of thingist. > I would assume that most of you agree with me to say that the legacy > of THE THING it too important to leave it with a mainly abandoned > two-person art blog - especially unmoderated , and in a sad default > drupal design that has as much charm as a blog of a New Jersey dentist > association. Other than that there are too many loose ends flying > around: thingist, events. thing.net , etc. > > Jan and me discussed possible options: > > 1) Make a distinctive separation between archive and active areas, > re-design the blog into a more complex forum and divide event post, > documentation of thing events, art reviews and hopefully a few more > fresh initiatives. ( I had a loose idea for a THING MONTHLY > section, which I call a curator's ping pong project) > Oh and touch up the ugly drupal of course > > 2) Get rid of the blog entirely and make it all archive, but with a > decent documentation, gathering material that maybe could also be the > touchstone for the long planned print documentation of the history of > THE THING. > > I have no info on the stats of post.thing, [W?] how many people > actually read these art reviews of post.thing.net. I have to admit > that for myself I had stopped even checking out this blog for a long > time. But I guess that's the normal progression of everybody cutting > back on online time (hence the radical disappearance of discussion > lists) > > If we look back, so much of THE THING's activity of the recent years > has moved into parallel universes, as for art review, there's the old > art net, then Rhizome of course and recently Marc Lafia's arts+ > culture, then 16 beaver group for events/talks and we-make-money for > silly media art pranks. (don't get me wrong: I love Regine's work) > among many others. > If we admit there are so many others that do the same activity, > probably even better, why not shutting down the blog and rather making > THE THING a very decent and well-designed archive. > > > I really admire the hard working Hamburg people among Connie Sollfrank > that picked up the old THING satellite initiative, founded THING > Hamburg, which was highly active for 3 years, then turned it right > away into an archive. > > > [W, I certainly and consciously left out all ISP and editions > activities here, so ultimately an index page would always need to make > the distinction between archive and active areas..] > > > Would be nice to hear some feedback on that form all of you. > > > ahoy, > > © > > -- > > > caspar stracke > > www.videokasbah.net > > > dear caspar et al, i agree with you on almost all counts. post.thing.net has been taken over by two egomaniacs who have nothing in common with anything the thing ever stood for, but are using it as a springboard for better and bigger publishing opportunities. i did let it pass, because nothing else was going on and the thing has a tradition of being an orphanage anyway (blackhawk's words). but you are right, it's not a good idea to become associated with people who only abuse the platform for their own ends and think they are doing you a favor. page views on post usually range from 150 to 2500 (average i estimate at 1000 reads), not bad, not great either, but who cares about the eyeballs if we don't care about these sycophantic reviews in the first place? so i have no problem shutting it down. there are exceptions though, when alan moore or joseph nechvatal post something it's usually well worth the read. archiving bbs.thing.net (1997 - 2004) has stalled since the media branch of the lbi has been shut down in january. max and walter started restoring the bbs, but as far as i can tell nothing has happened since last year. gunther reisinger tried to get the unversity of graz to take over the project and finish the job, but i really don't know what has been going on lately and nobody bothers to update me on that account. i have no idea how to finish this job at the moment. it's a drag, since it would be a great historical resource. in the meantime i've been thinking how to keep on going and started to develop http://auctionthing.net with 4 partners (daniel burckhardt, daniel newburg, phillip brandt, rainald schumacher). the idea is to bring some more liquidity into the secondary art market and at the same time support independent art projects. the agreement between the partners is that at least 10% of the proceeds will support thing activities. we expect to have auctionthing ready for action by september. so ok, the priority seems to be to get the archive finished and save as much as possible for posterity. maybe max or walter can offer an answer as to where we stand on that front. second, what to do right now and in the future. in regards to online stuff... frankly i am suffering from internet fatique, so i am not the right person to address this issue now. i don't give a damn about facebook and twitter and i think anybody who's participating in this social networking data mining crap should not even be allowed a thing membership. i reluctantly agreed to have a thing facebook fan (spam) page set up to reach some of these morons, but i already regret this decision, since it implies tacit approval of facebook policies (and they are the exact opposite of what the thing ever stood for). one has to ask the question what kind of socio-cultural intervention makes any sense at this historical moment. for the last ten years i have retreated to the ivory tower of making art and was happy just to concern myself with aesthetic issues. maybe the best thing is to start small. we can do a film and video program at white slab in the fall. no pain, no pressure. then we have time to think about what kind of program, publication or on-line presence we really need. as to the latter, i agree that what we have now is a mess, but all this crap was done haphazardly without any competent coders. in the past the recipe for our success was the inclusion of competent programmers as equal partners in the whole decision making process. the big question still looms: why the effort and what for? there are many issues out there that that still tick me off. generally, i'm not happy with the state of the arts. on the one hand you have the academic part of the art world that overwhelmingly privileges purely socio-historical aspects of art. then, on the other, you have the market place, drunk with spectacle, speculation and narcissism. so "real" art is caught in this horrible pincer movement and i would like to have a tool or a medium to fight back. nothing wrong with well executed social activism (like the yes men, who i greatly admire, for example) or selling art for a decent price to make a living, but there is more to art than just the socio-political dimension or speculative market value respectively. so in order to step in and do something about this, i suppose you need a serious group effort of like-minded people and my problem is that i don't know if there are enough like-minded people. it's quite an effort to work towards cultural change, a herculean, if not sisyphean task. sometimes it just looks easier or more realistic to make your statement with your art work and that's it. there is only so much you can do in this short life. as you say, there are things out there that picked up where we left off. here are my examples: * cabinet magazine, which is doing an outstanding job combining art, literature, essays... it's the kind of mix i always liked. * e-flux, after shrewdly and relentlessly making inroads into the upper echelons of the art world's shakers and makers association, is now positioning itself as the critical stand-in for the status quo, kind of an updated artforum (now that's the place i didn't want to got to). * our old "rival" rhizome at the new museum; don't know much what they are doing these days, but a couple of months ago they hosted an interesting performance orchestrated by goldin and senneby. ok, to come to an end, where does all this leave us? the thing had its glory days. it stood for something. it was more an attitude than anything else, some kind of anti-authoritarian cyber-punk thing and we played it well. it was fun with all the clumsy antagonists we enjoyed fighting, from Mattel to DOW to eToys. and it was also fun to explore this new medium with all the artists who made their first tentative moves there. it's history now and it will be a tough act to follow. but i am open for suggestions. best, wolfgang ps: if nobody objects i would like to carry this over to thingist and open it up to a larger crowd. if you haven't subscribed yet here's where you do it: https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/thingist thingist - the facebook antidote.

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thingist July 2010