Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 07:13:25 -0700 From: lewis lacook Subject: alt.oids\\\\\the curiously strong usenet group! MEZ:..can u e.laborate on yr view of wot a critics job is? and i'd be keen 2 kno if u perceive the code.wurks i send to this list r just static text as well? wot _do_ u admire about my work if it, too, is equally conceived [by u] as static text dressed up in networked drag? LL: ][][][][][the critics job is to provoke debate just like this, which is healthy & should serve to widen my conciousness, as well as yours, and anybody's who wishes to listen.... WHAT I ADMIRE ABOUT YOUR WORK: ----i love the design...the multimedia aspect (you use sound well, you use flash's native button IDE well...)...i like the questions it raises... is it text in networked drag? sometimes...but works like skin code aren't...they DO depend on the user to enact certain parts...it could not exist as a book... MEZ:lewis, this n.capsulates wot i c as the fundamental flaw in yr [critiquer] assertions....at no point when curating the gallery did i claim that the works selected where "new".... LL: EXACTLY! i believe i stated this in my critique... MEZ:..the important point here is that the works illustrate a method of working that is dependant on the net itself 4 construction, dissemination, & collaboration, & not dependant on previous models 4 its actualization, not that they echo a brand-spanking new .ism....... LL: you're definitely right there, and i believe i mentioned that these works were born of the network... MEZ:u can't just rip these works away from the net infrastructure in which they r dependent, in which they reside.....try clicking on an authors name in a book & getting a potential communication channel there??? yr idea of interactivity as being vague makes me assume that u r quite happy 2 equate interaction with overt actionality; click N point interactivity which is only 1 [a highly forced pathway-dependent] version of wot constitutes interaction....... LL: but i can rip them away from the browser...mailto links aside, most of these works could occupy a book...my point was they don't depend on the network to the extent that doing so would alter them in any fundamental way....they aren't liquid... (there is, however, the social aspect of the interaction, which i believe you're right about)(could these works have been WRITTEN without the network? no)(are they dependent on the network for manifestation? nocan they be printed? yes)(do they allow the user to commune with the author, do they break down the tyrannical hierarchy of authorhood? no)(depending on the net for distribution is to me a peripheral fact about many of these works====& please don't misunderstand me, i do not believe these works are any less complicated for that fact::::::::i believe "static" text (((as i so horridly put it)))) is at times more dynamic than any network art====)))))) point-and-click is low interactivity====as colin moock once wrote, interactivity achieves its loftiest height in the form====i believe that when the user must invest information in the work the degree of communion is higher than when the user is following an author-determined pathway or link=====THIS IS WHAT I MEANT WHEN I POINTED OUT MY OWN FAILURES///// MEZ:well, if u choose 2 completely discount the architectonics & contextual nuances of net/code.wurks such as these, and persist in ignoring the very mechanics that allow these wurks 2 function [ie engaging in browser usage, packet + code driven exchanges etc] as well as the potentialities via which the wurks can unfold then that's yr choice........but it unfortunately smaks 2 me of post-hoc defensive reasoning, s.pecially from some1 as intelligent as u....... LL: but other than the initial handshake common to all html docs, where do packets figure in here? i didn't see any works that used the serial port...i didn't see any works that initiated anything serverside other than the handshake that also happens when i log on to yahoo...yahoo's handshake may even be more complicated, as it involves cookies, remembering state....(once again, this does not make these works any less interesting) MEZ:..at base lvl, yes the wurks do function as characters in a document [yes, in a document, not in a page; another fundamental network|text difference!!]. the point u seemed 2 making in yr article was that these net/code.wurks [can] function as purely _static_[offline, printable-yet-maintaining-their-s.sential-form] texts, which is untrue & misleading, not 2 mention ridiculous when considering their construction & code dynamism.... LL: ====most of the code exists at surface level, and isn't functioning code...one can print a book of code...i don't know what you mean by code dynamism...sure, they play with code syntax, but not much actual code is there (JODI, of course....& i've seen Jodi's game elsewhere...other than the fact that it seems to me to be too self-referential (((i don't like net art that beats me over the head with the fact that it's net art)))), it does represent the type of art i'm talking about as crucial in any discussion of what art i endemic to the internet...what art DEPENDS on the internet to manifest..... MEZ:(from the gallery intro)The selected code.worker projects are also concerned with the warping of computer language/systems into referential, aesthetic or conceptual compositions that are replicated/sequenced in burgeoning incremental waves, resulting in the weave & flow of accented and disruptive code-emulations. Some are web-based, some are post-game [mangled] patches, and some are caught in net-based circulation and avatar adoption[s]. JODI, joe keenan, Integer/Netochka Nezvanova, ted warnell, and brian lennon rewrite the underlying notion[s] of code as functional/accessible via blatant infrastructural rewiring that encourages the redirection of an absorbers [ie interactors] typical meaning gaze/gauge." LL: i have no agrument with this...but the majority was still text... MEZ:......the works offered _DO NOT_ constitute a text [as in print] anthology, with all of its structural institutionalized segmentative order.....i am equating yr use of static text 2 mean offline print, & if u cannot factor in the very fact of the netwurk in the construction & conception of wurks such as these, then *y* not continue publishing yr work offline lewis? wot is the drawcard here 4 u? r the works that u create and send 2 lists such as this only mere static texts in yr opinion? does the network offer u nothing but spam-like ego-perpetuating allure? i hope not, but am curious 2 perceive just how u align yr work practice here...... LL: How doesn't it? By virtue of the fact that these same names keep popping up, i'd say that's pretty institutionalized... are the works i send to lists static texts? yes...unless it's a link to an interactive work...& some do find their way offline into books and literary journals...i'm drawn to the net because it offers a way out of the tyranny of authorhood::::a way to short-circuit the ego-driven dynamics of linear text....if the work is a text poem it is a static work, only interactive metaphorically (which is not to say that text isn't one of the most complicated mediums there is)===even if the text is produced by a program i've written, the text itself could (and has) just as easily occupy book form with no fundamental change::::the executable itself is not static, and in some cases these are net works... ====the reason i glorify interactivity is to escape ego===not to perpetuate it==== MEZ (& previous LL): >& that's what i'm looking at >net art with, that ideal in my head...i can't do it >yet, but i have seen some works that show promise of >it... this x.plains a great deal. LL: ...hmmmm...so i offer some criticism of a gallery and you attack my work? ah well... bliss l ===== http://www.lewislacook.com/ http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/385/lewis_lacook.html __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs http://www.hotjobs.com Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 09:13:59 -0700 From: Soli Psis Subject: Re: alt.oids\\\\\the curiously strong usenet group! not to reveal a buboe in the midst of a "curing" but, for one thing, TO ME, the whole notion of NET WRITING, NET TEXT, NET INTERACTIVITY, all of it, the whole lot is so much privileged cate(mon)gorisation.. The entire field of experience is a living network.. a semiosphere.. "I" AM A NETWORK.. the brain is a network..the body.. the book is a network. THE ECOSYSTEM AND ITS DIEING IS A NETWORK, THE PADEUMA, IE CULTURE, is a network.. putting it country simple, the universe is an energy network.. This privileged category of NETWURK.codework.. is just another layer in the total palimpset of network integration.. and saying that text in a book is not interactive is rubbish.. MARX, hello this is russia.. we read your book.. oops.. look what we did..? not to be sarcastic, but this is like listening to two rats scurrying inside a pipe maze.. The notion that webcrafted artworks have some monopoly on "true" interactivity, or should, or ever will, or can at all, is just plain hooey.. or that author privilege is some kind of problem.. anything is a problem if you make it a problem.. authorial affect is just another "effect-field" in a field of total effect.. which is specific contextually.. place, time reader etc.. this Barthesian hang-over which has been foisted on us, has about as much sap as a wicker commode.. Author Privilege.. Is that what Baudelaire had.. Lautreamont? Rimbaud? Gertrude Stein? Kathy Acker? Whatever! Look, the web offers some new vistas in instantaneity, in modulation of the linear, and mostly in convenience.. other than that, it becomes just another form of bad-breath.. I like books, and they are plenty interactive.. And it is wonderful to make the most of a new cultural environment, the web.. but the web is also just another outfolding of the incredibly complex network of development and biology of the last 15,000 years.. I don't need or want to be a netwurker or codeartist or anything of the sort.. there are already chemical, molecular codes seething through my body, engendering my EXPERIENCE.. which is much more interesting than PACKET EXCHANGE,, and much higher bandwidth.. now that said.. the tone of this may be bellicose.. but I say this in the spirit of zen, as in a board to the head saying wake up.. You are standing in the network, and the network is YOU! be creative with it.. repair it.. express it.. I'm just not sure we need a privileged category for computer enabled writing.. its seems frivolous at best and demeaning mostly.. as the letter itself is a fantastic accretion and trace of the human network.. Web-based aesthetic discussions have their place, but the web, to me is not the raison d'etre.. just a thought lanny nettime unstable digest vol 8 Fri Aug 23 14:47:51 2002 Subject: alt.oids\\\\\the curiously strong usenet group! From: lewis lacook Subject: Re: alt.oids\\\\\the curiously strong usenet group! From: Soli Psis