general

The superhero we used to call The Inedible Bulk occupied half the front page of today's New York Post. News is advertising and vice versa. Marvel would like to pretend that it hasn't already made this movie. I am only interested if it means people lose interest in hotlinking my 1ron m4n G1F.

Jim Henley:

[W]hen McCain and Lieberman et al try to liken an indefinite, massive presence in Iraq to the country’s lengthy deployments in Germany, Japan and South Korea, the politically potent rejoinder is probably, “Oh. And when can the troops’ families join them?” While I think the US could easily bring its soldiers home from Germany and South Korea, and should bring them home, that’s a minority opinion. But the fact is, American military personnel have been able to raise entire generations of families on bases in Europe and the Western Pacific. Everybody knows that the Defense Department is never going to authorize family housing in Iraq, for practical values of never. When McCain and Bush plan to keep The Troops in Iraq indefinitely, they’re planning a completely different experience for military families than basing troops in Europe or the Pacific entails.

The reason Cheney wants 58 permanent bases in Iraq is to "keep the peace" so the US can control the oil. Cheney thinks history will vindicate him, as gas prices continue to climb, that he laid an early claim on the remaining big spigot. He is a madman but his "reasoning" should be more out in the open, instead of these dodges such as comparing Iraq to Korea.

copied and pasted:

"palette" of isometric photoshopped bricks made into Sol LeWitt-less arrangements
boring photo of classical statue cubistically scrambled using cloning/morphing tech
line of Venice tourists arranged in Spiral Jetty for photo op
unidentified colored ring and tracing of adam & eve expulsion, both against black backgrounds
cady noland-esque arrangement of aluminum frame, concrete, sawdust, beach towel, radio with nylon strap
sunglass lenses on ball chain, hanging on painted screw attached to white wall
x-rays and laser scans supposedly revealing contraband--image sources unknown
leafy plant lit by three neon tubes on microphone stands
flowers growing under neon ceiling lamp dangling at 45 degree angle
sayings by soccer players inscribed in astroturf (commercial poster series)
soccer trading cards defaced by turning players into hairy nude guys fondling themselves and others
altered newspaper image--soccer ball is "camouflaged" to look like the surrounding grass
photo of Parisian street waste in found composition: soccer ball on pipe, plaster lion on column, chalk marks on sidewalk
scale model stadium made with fruit crate boxes, fruit, wood, light stands, halogen work lights, grass carpet
installation with model of a soccer stadium and all 2006 championship games transmitted live over radio (supposedly)
soccer match with players removed (text description of video)
bridges as musical instruments 2: sounds of multiple bridges make symphony
vibrations sensors on London's Millennium Bridge convert bridge movements into sound art
wallpapered gallery--the pattern is the words "conceptual decoration" in 10 pt block capitals repeated gazillions of times
photo of guys perched on iron gate making fountains with their mouths at each other
Pathfinder Sojourner photo of Mars landscape appropriated with permission from NASA
walrus habitat painting (repost)
oil painting of random dot autostereogram
murals of jungle flora and nude bow hunters in rooms with classical and nouveau furnishings (photos)
video monitor swings on pendulum, image on screen has corresponding side to side camera movement, swinging motion shapes digi-soundscape
cut-up Le Corbusier illustrations, floor installation of laminate samples, Eiffel Tower bed of nails
electronic sound piece based on Magritte's non-pipe (with recursive non-explanation)
satire about the "recent transmutation of language into a global market ruled by Google et al." doesn't actually use Google
post-painterly abstraction as room environment with door and "window" grid of paintings--documentation or digital mockup?

(from some offline correspondence that sent me back to Rosalind Krauss' "Notes on the Index: Part 1")

What stuck out for me was where she talks about the importance of naming.
She notices that Duchamp is talking about his readymades in the language of photography ("rapid exposure" etc) and from there equates the readymade and the index (a "trace" that has a dynamic relationship to the object, such as a barometer or sundial, often used to describe photographs).
But she says the index (whether readymade or photo) becomes a blank empty sign unless you say what it is.
That's the paradox: the index is supposedly superior to a(n arbitrary) symbol because it's an imprint of the thing itself.
But we're still unsure what it is, without some description.
She talks about how important Duchamp's notes to the Large Glass are to understanding it--to knowing whether he intended an appropriation as a joke or what kind of joke.

(which leads us to VVork)

hardly anyone treats those posts as possible fictions. The documentation is treated as the index of the work and the caption definitively "nails" the interpretation

(which leads us to twitter/vvork)

it's counterdocumentation that rides on top of the official version and usurps the power to name. it doesn't lie or spin counter-fictions but it editorializes, through word choice. "Supposedly" is used whenever the photo isn't enough proof and we're "supposed" to accept the artist's statement of behind-the-scenes fact (e.g. "the keys on this ring open every door in this building"--who sez?)

A couple of follow-up comments to last night's Net Aesthetics 2.0* panel.

--Moderator Ed Halter mentioned the term "internet aware art" as an alternative shading of "net art." He attributed the term to Guthrie Lonergan but it had not registered with me before. I put one panelist on the spot asking for an example. Sorry, wasn't trying to be jerk, but was genuinely curious to know what this subgenre might consist of. An example could be Aron Namenwirth's paintings of Hillary Clinton and Osama bin Laden as barely-formed pixelated imagery. You can't look at them without thinking "blurry thumbnail on the Net blown up" but they are not Net Art because they don't use the medium of the web. Guthrie's use of the term, in his interview with Thomas Beard, takes the emphasis away from the Net but also objects (i.e., paintings):

Right now I'm scheming how to take the emphasis off of the Internet and technology, but keep my ideas intact. Objects that aren't objects... I got a couple of books and a t-shirt in the works. Right now I'm really into text (not visually/typography... just... text...), and lots and lots of lists… "Internet Aware Art." :)

This concept could use some elaboration!

--Halter asked whether Internet Art was always minor or slight and if anyone had produced the "long form" equivalent of a novel or opera. I said that a blog over many years could be like a novel but it isn't a novel or read like one--it's a new creature. Ed asked if Internet art could express emotions like sadness. Didn't have time to mention, for example, Guthrie Lonergan's delicious bookmarks tagged "self publishing". Sad might be too dramatic, but there is certainly melancholy in these found book covers for self-published books. The style is below professional design standards but not so low that it becomes entertaining "dirt style." In a way it reflects on all of us who self-publish, we see our own pitiful aspirations reflected in these barely-off-the-ground efforts. To get back to the long form, Travis Hallenbeck's bookmarks have hundreds of examples of "not ready for prime time" art that evoke struggling "little guys" or "lonely girls" right out of Tennessee Williams. The bookmarks alone define the artistic sensibility, there is no self-conscious shaping. YouTube abounds with sad videos and Guthrie has an eye for them and how to put them together. So the answer to the question is an emphatic yes, but because we're talking about a "new medium" here the emotions may not be so apparent as someone in Viking garb singing his heart out with a downcast expression.

Update, 2010: "Internet aware art" continued to be discussed after the panel. Halter and others kept using it to mean "offline art based on online activity" or some such and pointing to Lonergan's quote above as the source of the concept. Lonergan has since clarified that he was (i) being sarcastic, as in "who's not aware of the internet?" and/or (ii) thinking more about people who make things off line with an eye to how they will ultimately look on the web (i.e., internet-ready, a la Vvork.com).

*Update, 2011: The Rhizome link has been changed to http://rhizome.org/editorial/2008/jun/2/net-aesthetics-20/