[thingist] the thing with the thing
Caspar Stracke
kasbah at thing.net
Wed Jul 14 13:42:49 UTC 2010
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 energy and doesn't rest on any historical reference to previous faded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
>
>
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