general

Am thinking hard about re-evaluating my artist statement for the era of iPads and Facebook. I wrote this in 2000 and haven't substantially revised it.

"I'm amused by the lingering rhetoric of futurism--the Buck Rogers, 'machines-will-change-our-lives' spieling--that continues to surround digital production in our society. The computer is a tool, not magic, and possesses its own tragicomic limitations as well as offering new means of expression and communication. I am intrigued by the idea of making some kind of advanced art with this apparatus--objects, images, and installations that hold up to prolonged scrutiny in real space. At the same time, I am drawn to 'cyber-kitsch' in all its forms, whether in old programs such as MSPaintbrush, the amateur imagery that abounds on the Web, or the unintended poetry of technical glitches. My work proudly inhabits the 'lo-fi' or 'abject' end of the digital spectrum."

I have been accused of "battling Internet change" and the statement above was offered as Exhibit A.
The person who made this suggestion is a Mac user and a Facebook user who resents any suggestion that those might be corrupt empires. These are his lifestyle choices and are by definition not sleazy, so no critique will be brooked. He also doesn't appreciate the use of animated GIFs as a form of in-browser expression, believing them to belong to the era of avatars on bulletin boards.

Just because computer and Internet speeds have increased and the web has become a more streamlined place of consumption doesn't mean things work well, though. I seem to recall a recent smartphone that had to be held a certain way for the antenna to work, an operating system called "Vista," and a New York-based art-and-technology center whose reblog archives vanished one day without a trace--years of work by guest bloggers, poof. Entropy can take many forms, including groupthink, bureaucratic idiocy, and collusion between large conglomerates to wall off public bandwidth for private gain. What are the artist's options when faced with this landscape? Mine are still to try to maintain an independent bleat of protest that can be registered without "logging in" to a website that demonstrably wants to "use your data," and also, to make artwork in the zone that Dan Graham has called the "recently outmoded." This means a double-edged use of the GIF: it is both an old, dot com era relic, and also something that browsers still read and that can be used in new ways, to make fast-loading animations operating below the corporate level of interest, support, and editorial control. Obviously when some tipping point is reached of "numbers of browsers that can't read GIFs" (75%? 50%?) another semi-obsolete tech will have to be found. By then it may be html5.

Mr. Mac-and-Facebook likened the GIF to 8-track tape players--but that's wrong, it's more like xerox and cassette tape, as they were used in the '80s. So, in conclusion, will probably not rewrite my statement, but am interested in any feedback others might have on the relevance of these assumptions. Please email (see FAQ page) or visit me on some social media website where you have to login but ZuckerBorg isn't listening in trying to use you.

Nice jpeg (I assume) of a painting by Mark Dagley from 1986, viewable on Bill Schwarz's page.

I clicked on the painting to find out more but it went to a Facebook login.
It sort of belatedly amazes me that "gallery artists" embraced Facebook, since from what I'm told it has one of the worst image handling policies (no GIFs, everything converted to jpeg, images transferred to a server the artist doesn't control, no outside linking, etc.--please let me know if I'm wrong about any of this).
You would think artists would resist such an odious scheme of corporate coercion, but ironically it was Zuckerbook that "brought artists online" after so many resisted blogs in the early to mid-'00s.
Compared to say, a Word Press blog, it seems like about the worst place in the world to show work.

Update: Things got a bit ugly when I criticized Bill's use of a Facebook link. He accused me of trying to freeze the internet and let me know exactly what he thinks of trying to repurpose animated GIFs for artistic ends. (Not much.) In view of those digs, it's hard for me to focus on his defense of Facebook as a great place to be an artist.

Have been looking around for some anti-Facebook resistance posts just to feel there is a purpose to the universe.

Facebook Suicide.
Geert Lovink.

The first one recommends flooding Facebook and clicking on every preference to regain some kind of anonymity. The Lovink post suggests Facebook alternatives.

From a visual essay in the form of a massive logo dump (meant in a good way): "[IMG MGMT] Squiggles, Trees, Ribbons and Spirals: My Collection of Women’s Health, Beauty and Support Group Logos as the Stages of Life in Semi-Particular Order." The collection of over 200 logos from all over the internet offers a double indictment: of lazy, mediocre web design (the two above are kind of good/bad--most are bland pastel shapes done in Adobe Illustrator) as well the problem stated by commenter Chelsed:

i actually worked as a designer for a women’s org and struggled with this. there really isnt a “hip” way to portray women. the bathroom women icon is patronizing; these abstract squiggles and spirals appeal to an audience of women i havent yet encountered; so i just used the general woman symbol–but even then i feel like it’s TOO gender segregated. the problem is men dont HAVE a gender. men’s football is football. men’s soccer is soccer, etc etc– they dont need distinction. what is the symbol for women NOW?

The guest essayist/artist is Shana Moulton, from Paddy Johnson's series [IMG MGMT], an ongoing, annual series of guest posts where gallery artists and/or new media artists present digital image files in a way that reflects on their nature as images, as image files or some interconnection between the two.

Last Sunday a project by The Jogging (blog) that used Memegenerator.net to make "live" internet art went south fairly fast.

The way it worked was, The Jogging (aka Brad Troemel) called for artists to make internet art "memes" that would be projected live at Participant gallery's show about "collectives":

Jogging invites you to contribute to Participant Inc’s Collective Show. You can do so by logging on to http://memegenerator.net/theinternetartist and contributing to an as-of-yet uncreated meme. We have left this meme devoid of text, so it’s up to you as participants to define the semantic substance of it. An automatically reloading page of the latest 3 images posted will be shown at the exhibit. Begin posting whenever you feel like it. The opening will take place this evening from 7-9:00 PM (EST).

One participant posted his name over and over (assuming it was his name). The show became a troll referendum on certain, uh, presences in the "net art community." Thanks to all who wrote funny captions mentioning a particular popular athlete from Down Under.

How could it turn out otherwise? "As-yet-uncreated meme" is a contradiction: surely a meme doesn't occur until it is repeated. Likewise "Meme generator" is an empty premise - like a man saying "I had a baby" after donating a sperm sample. "Forced meme" has become a popular way to describe these ideas-in-search-of-completion. As for the "internet art" part, elevated claims for online expression almost guarantee non-repetition.

Into this cognitive vacuum comes hostility. As someone said on dump.fm: "thats what happens when u crowdsource to a crowd that resents ur art." It started with jokes about Troemel and then everyone else got piled on.