Jennifer Chan emailed in response to my criticism of her post about hiphop:
I just want to say I'm rather horrified at your lack of interest in the political dimensions of net art and popular culture; your apathy is no different from my phone-addicted freshmen students or my Gen-Y peers who believe we're so post-racial and post gender in light of new technology. Apathetic teens become apathetic adults I guess.
Am equally horrified by Chan's lack of interest in music, a topic she was ostensibly covering in that post (hiphop is popular music, right?). Much has been written about the ecstatic and "dionysian" aspect of music that makes it very anti-control system (see, e.g., Simon Reynolds on raves) -- there's a political dimension to this and possibly her students and peers are more attuned to it than she is. I don't use the terms post-racial or post-gender except in jest and Chan obviously doesn't look at this blog if she thinks it's apathetic.
Update: The bludgeoning continues (Chan's email response to the above):
That's because I'm doing social and cultural crit, not music appreciation. As an artist/curator/critic type it's not my job to critique a genre I'm not well-read on as much as how people are using technology to make art about it. It's not interesting if I tell you the music is "good" or "bad" -- I might as well be writing for Pitchfork then. Your critique of my writing and logic is weak because you are not stating what my arguments have achieved or not achieved. (Even weaker is attacking the tone of the argument instead of the thesis because it was not what you like to hear.)
My reply to her (also via email):
Music has cultural and social dimensions, too, and artists "use technology" to make it (and appropriate it). It's not just a thumbs up or down analysis. You are critiquing parts of a multi-disciplinary genre (hiphop) and leaving out others.
In the case of Will Neibergall this resulted in an injustice - you didn't give fair weight to his music and only attacked the surface trappings of a single performance (which were clearly imposed on him by Trecartin & Co.)
Nothing obligates me to address your whole argument - I did mention your lack of defined terms.