The Great Internet Sleepover

Thank you AFC.. i’ve been waiting around for someone to actually write something about this even. (all ive found is tom moody’s write up and a bunch of flickr pics.) your comments are wonderful and i wish i could read a bit more from some of the events organizers.

There were some logistics problems related to the layout of the space — I didn’t have the table space to setup all of my gear, let alone work closely with anyone. I came back from chatting with someone and found someone using my laptop that was running a video patch to check their gmail!

So there’s some lessons to be learned there for the next time we hang out.

A quick stab at “native”–the humor of the culture clash between the agrarian, pre-technological culture (ostensibly) being celebrated on the website and the enjoyably kitschy animated GIFs of Christmas lights and disco balls which are a staple of Nasty Nets and instantly recognizable to those who follow the blog and the members’ various blogs. Slocum’s caption is a shorthand of why he posted it. A lot of what happens on NN is free-associative and would probably die from too much explanation.

As to the lack of critical discussion at Nasty Nets generally, the following is a back-and-forth Marisa and I had on my blog a few days ago. I said:

>>As I’ve mentioned elsewhere I’m bullish on these collaborative pages where artists don’t actually talk to each other much (Nasty Nets, etc).

>>Everyone does their own projects and posts them, someone could riff on it or not, but little discussion or verbally “working through a problem” occurs (Other than to maybe say “cool” meaning “I like what you did to my piece.”)

>>I suppose it’s just the alienation of the Lonely Crowd in blog form but it’s true anarchy as opposed to institutionalized grant supported anarchy.

>>My sense is Nasty Nets “members” are scared to talk among themselves too much about what’s happening on the site lest the magic bubble pop.

– tom moody 6-26-2007 2:04 pm

Then Marisa said:

>>Umm… Speak for yourself, dood! 😉

>>We love commenting on each others’ posts and often talk about them in emails, IMs, and in-person, when we’re in the same city! I don’t always agree that “problems” *have* to be “worked out,” in general, or collaboratively, but I do think everyone’s entitled to their own process.

– marisa (guest) 6-26-2007 2:26 pm

I should clarify that the context of Marisa’s and my exchange was a question on my blog about collaboration. Someone had asked about artist teams where different parts of a common task were split. And I was questioning whether, in the tech art arena, that made art more bland because both team members had to understand it well enough to explain it to others.
I was complimenting NN for avoiding this with a casual distribution of labor and egos functioning within a group without losing their identities. The overall vibe is beyond anyone’s control.

Other NN’rs have said (off the record, so no names) about the site that “there is no real mission – the overall aesthetic is defined by vibing of each other and an unspoken but shared idea of what’s interesting/smart/cool.”

This idea of “riffage” and “vibing” from post to post is important. There’s something musical about that and the last thing you want at a jazz concert is someone on the side of the stage offering a running narrative. That said, I’d like to see more discussion and controversy but that’s slightly hypocritical coming from someone just turned off his comments.

Whoops, Marisa’s and my exchange was a few months ago, not days.

Re: Paul Slocum’s Native…I suppose I might have said I understood the short hand, but I don’t think it eliminates other problems.

Re: Critical discussion and vibing etc…these things are determined as you go along of course, so I can certainly see not wanting to interfere with “vibing” from post to post. Sometimes the practicalities of emerging art forms don’t always match up neatly — I think it’s equally important that it’s made accessible to the larger art community through critical discourse. If people think the work is important (and I do) then it has to be treated by everyone involved as though it’s more than just a “passing fad” (the words of Charles Broskoski not me.)

JJkemp: I added a few links of related material to the post – you’ve probably seen most of that stuff, but it’s there none the less.

Jon: Geez! I can be kind of possessive about my computer and would be slightly grossed out if a stranger used it without asking.

AFC, Tom re. the ‘native’ post: Describing that “agrarian, pre-technological” culture in those terms is a really normative way to go about it. It is also certainly an utterance coming from the a privileged and technocratic position. The ironic value in the post, if we understand it under those terms, is constituted by a stereotype that deprecates an ethnic group based on their value system (clearly not a industrial/capitalist/technocratic one) and how it differs from our own. Perhaps this is just a remedial postcolonial critique, but how can we not talk about it when such ideas are currently so unfashionable?

I love what tom said about the vibing being musical. I hadnt though of it that way, but i would have to agree. for the first few months exploring and getting to know these surfing blogs (nastynets, doublehappy, supercentral, ect…), i didnt have a clue what was going on. i think it was the vibing that created just enough enticement for me to return and explore some more. (i dont know if that make sense, but anyway…) I feel like the way these surfers talk about the work and amongst themselves is very much an important part of the work. something about its inaccessibility seems to work for me.
with that said, i agree with AFC that a more open critical discourse would be pretty great, but how to go about doing that is not clear to me. maybe a new blog devoted to talking about the other blogs 🙂

jj: Yes–I proposed on my blog (the one with comments) a while back that VVork is not a complete project without a parallel blog where someone actually evaluates that endless stream of conceptual art photo-profundity. Similarly the surf clubs need blogs that annotate and make sense of the rollicking condescension of the “Reagonomics kids sugar cereal crowd” (as someone on my now defunct comments described my taste in art).

b, I said “ostensibly” agrarian, etc. We all know native Canadians use computers. I agree the “Native” post is rooted in laughing at, not with, the authors of the site. However, I don’t think ethnicity has anything to do with it. It’s the exuberantly crude style that’s funny–it’s universal. If the site is identified on NN as native perhaps it’s because it identifies itself as native, rather loudly I would say. I thought we were past these early 90s identity politics discussions where the supposed sociopolitical biases of the speaker are rooted out–they are buzz killers.

Tom: “If the site is identified on NN as native perhaps it’s because it identifies itself as native”

hmmm. I totally buy that.

Tom: Identifying the post as native because the site’s author’s identify themselves in such way is a captioning strategy; you can’t seriously argue that quoting or captioning is a neutral act? If it were so, where is the “critical” power of reblogging or collective web surfing?

When we quote we draw attention to something, and this is significant. I once had a semiotics teacher of mine describe the quoting process as a “fencing off” or demarcation of language–putting it on display within, but apart from, your own. I like to think of the visual impact of quotation marks for a literal illustration of this.

On review of what I was responding to, I’m rather uninvested in the original post. It doesn’t really matter, and is pretty insignificant. What I do think is significant here are strategies for quotation and mimesis.

Yes, neutral. What’s he supposed to call it–“stuff”?

The critical power is a critique of style, which you’re digging deep to see as racist/classist.

Forget digging, you’re right and I’m not interested. It’s a critique of style that functions by.. quoting, no? A selection process is involved, and a repetition, parroting, or reconstruction of what was originally present is presented.

Quoting can’t be neutral because it would render so much media and indexical art irrelevant. Isn’t a photographic image a quote of a view onto a space? Another example: When the artist Seth Weiner remade a scale replica of Ted Kaczynski’s cabin last year at Exit Art he drew power for the piece directly from quoting an original, without modification, and merely presenting it alongside another quoted cultural object (a looped reading of some writings by Thoreau). http://www.exitart.org/site/pub/exhibition_programs/building_show/seth_weiner.html

b. This is an intellectual argument that is getting away from the practicalities of actually posting material. I think we can grant the fact that quoting isn’t neutral, but lets not forget the age old artistic tradition of looking at other artists shit and stealing it (Van Gogh anyone?) I think some acknowledgment that the aesthetics of the page are of interest to Nasty Nets has to be made.

Acknowledged.

I think there are some very valid points being brought up in this discussion. Per bosko’s comment regarding “remedial” postcolonial critiques I found this lecture on youtube very instructive.

Some really interesting things being said in this post and comments, I 100% agree that there needs to be much more criticism going on (workin on that). I don’t want Nasty Nets to be a closed-off surf culture… but at the same time I have trouble thinking of NN itself as art — personally, it’s where I put things that I don’t think are “arty” enough for my own blogs. I’ll admit that post-sleepover I am a little more freaked out that the whole surfer thing is headed down the “youth culture” route, which is not very interesting to me

“It’s a critique of style that functions by.. quoting, no?”

Actually, no.

What’s interesting about NN to me is the demands it puts on viewers to parse what’s in front of them without a running commentary. In some cases it’s a straight quote (Guthrie’s stock footage appropriations), in some cases alterations are made (my combos of Net/generative art with crystal images for an Earth Science class), and in some cases the art is made out of whole cloth (Petra’s flashing Nasty Nets ascii pattern). Paul didn’t just appropriate, he dropped an image and some bare bones commentary into this context that already lacks clear ground rules. Not saying you can’t take it post by post, but let’s pull back and look at the whole. It’s not just appropriation theory at work here.

And as Guthrie says I think everyone takes a bit lighter touch to avoid the heavy demands of “art,” although the comments and in-jokes are steeped in art references.

C.Coy: If you’re going to deflect the issues, can we at least leave Rick Astley out of it.

Guthrie: Yeah, the “youth culture” isn’t very interesting to me either. It’s too bad you weren’t part of the discussion, because I think your rationale for posting would have added a lot.

Tom: I’m sure it will surprise you to read that I really don’t mind a little running commentary. Of course, as Marisa says “… I do think everyone’s entitled to their own process.”

Guthrie: that is what i find sooo interesting…when you say, “..personally, it’s where I put things that I don’t think are “arty” enough for my own blogs.”
Now i dont know who everyone that posts on NN is (well as a matter of fact i dont really know who anyone is..) but it seems to me many of the contributers are artists of some type. I doubt anyone who contributes actually saves their “best” work for NN. artist usually work on somewhat of a personal level, so i often view surf blogs as the artwork that is produced on a more public rather then personal level. (i could be wrong about that, but its how i tend to think). so much of a net surfing blog is about the audience, which kinda brings me back to the idea of how to open that up further then the the blogs authors.

ps. sorry for the delayed post, went to be too early i guess

Great back and forth – i think there needs to be more specificity. Discussion about individual relationships and their interpretations. Tom’s comparison to music is really insightful. If each post is a note then the whole becomes some kind of song. However, it is an endless tune. The volume of material produced creates a noise that becomes hard to understand. But it is much fun anyway. Understanding is overrated.

Something I said above I’d like to explain further:

“I should clarify that the context of Marisa’s and my exchange was a question on my blog about collaboration. Someone had asked about artist teams where different parts of a common task were split. And I was questioning whether, in the tech art arena, that made art more bland because both team members had to understand it well enough to explain it to others.”

The second sentence should probably read “Someone had asked about artist teams where different parts of a common task were split, say, between an artist and an engineer.”

The context was XYZ art. Someone asked whether so much bland, by-the-numbers tech art was the fruit of artist-engineer teams. The idea being that in order to work together, the artist had to dumb down the art theory to explain it to the engineer and the engineer had to dumb down the hardware or software theory to explain to the artist. The product they announced to the world was then doubly-dumbed down, hence XYZ art.

This would never happen with the surf blogs because it’s not that type of collaboration. The surfers either (i) act as their own engineers or (ii) proudly have no skilz whatsover except roaming the internet and mashing up its by-products using off-the-shelf software.

chris: your youtube lecture went right over my head! perhaps i’m too humorless to understand your coded point.

Guthrie, Paddy-
I’m curious to know what exactly you are referring to when you mention your fears of web surfing becoming associated with “youth culture?”

Do you mean you think it might get cool or trendy within the youth mainstream, and thus corrupted in some way from its original form, and further isolate art practitioners from it’s meaning with more youth aloofness?
…”youth culture” for me (in a negative sense) conjures up images of Sprite commercials, the X-games, and Nintendo – the commercialized version of growing up. But I think you guys might be referring to something else?

Though I haven’t been in an elementary school any time recently, I’m under the impression that the youth are learning/being taught more in-depth skills related to working on the internet (i.e. html, blogging, programming, javascript, photoshop, formats, video, etc) and also spending more time surfing than any previous generation.

I see this combination of tech literacy, exposure to the breadth of content on the internet, and reflection about what the internet was like in their past as the first in-points of relating their experience using the web to the kind of content that is highlighted on the posts in these web surf clubs. And if they keep watching the posts long enough they might want to do it themselves.

At least thats what happened to me.
I see that process as being somewhat inevitable, but I think that the youth is always coming up with some good ideas, so it doesn’t bother me.
But again, I think you guys might be referring to another type of “youth culture” altogether?

Critical discourse, say HOOOOOOOO!

p.s. Seecoy – that was an epic RickRoll. kudos.

hey bennett

wooops, “youth culture” did not mean Sprite commercials or X-Games

I meant… think of some kind of local underground music scene, like a bunch of kids in bands playing punk rock shows. culture, subculture, something like that.. to me a lot of art like this becomes “hipster art”, pretty horrible stuff — i dont want surfer art to become hipster art

and yeh, part of it is also the trendiness and the style, and i feel like paperrad’s style has already largely been absorbed by the mainstream (that beck music video from a couple years ago?), which is something we should be conscious of… i mean, i freaking love default rainbow gradients, but maybe they’ve gained some kind of different meaning by now?

yeh, it makes sense that we’re all young, coz the internet is so young — but its a little upsetting somehow.. maybe this is why tom moody is so cool 🙂

Im really glad this conversation has been picked back up – lots of good thoughts.

Since the post is in response to some ideas that have been attributed to me (I think the thoughts about titling and captioning were actually Tom’s), I’d like to side step the thread and respond to a couple of Paddy’s initial comments for a moment.

First of all, I’d just like to say that in the context of the evening’s conversation, these statements weren’t nearly as polemical as they seem paraphrased, set in bold and numbered.

With that said…

Re: Articulating your practice.

I’m certainly all for artists owning up to their work and being able to talk about what they’re doing. At the same time, I don’t think there is the same type of onus on this type of work to define itself as there is with, say, art in a gallery or early net.art, simply because it isn’t attempting to insert itself into any pre-existing system or discourse. Like much of the world wide web, it’s just out there, doing it’s thing, you can check it out if you’re into it. Sure, this event was hosted at Eyebeam, an institution with a definite reputation in the “New Media Community,” but as you’ve already noted, most of the participants were more interested in hanging out than discussing or explaining their practice.

Re: Internet surfing and net art is a practice you either get or you don’t.

This comment wasn’t intended as a justification for a lack of discussion, but simply an observation. I think that “getting” a lot of this stuff requires very specific relationships to certain things: aesthetics, computers, fine art, subcultures, etc. By no means is this elitism – I have no qualms saying I don’t get everything on Nasty Nets (I definitely don’t get a lot of stuff on Supercentral) – it’s simply saying it’s not for everyone. Can that gap be bridged, can these things be explained? Sure, but it seems like few people involved with these sites think that’s a priority. As I expressed above, were this practice actively attempting to insert itself into a larger art discourse, that might be a problem. Instead, like most of the web, these sites are engaging with small organically created communities.

You state you are wary that this polarization suggests a “community akin to avant-garde film; insular, and pushed to the outside of the art world.” This seems to assume that these websites – and avant-garde filmmakers for that matter – are ultimately interested in having a larger role in the art world, an assumption I don’t think would necessarily ring true.

Of course, I can’t speak for everyone on any of these points. Being a part of a diffuse community without a defined mission allows for – and perhaps herein lies the greater challenge when discussing these things – a kind of Ouija Board-esque perspective: you feel like both a participant and an observer. As a result, while I’m a member of Nasty Nets, the sentiments I’m expressing are more the observations of an onlooker than my own personal ideologies.

I definitely don’t get a lot of stuff on Supercentral. Which is not to say it’s bad. None of them talked to me at the Sleepover, either, except Charles. I figured it was because of my rhymin in our beef.

As They Might Be Giants sang, “Youth Culture Killed My Dog.”

And yes, I now remember bringing up captioning and titling in the panel. “Native” happened to be on the screen at the time, so now I’m wedded to it.

Bennett: Thanks for joining the discussion.

To answer your question, I’m not referring to “youth culture” as something that represents a commercialized version of growing up, but rather that this culture seems to represent a viable market. There’s nothing wrong with this per say, but it’s not something that interests me because it inevitably means emptying out the original content.

Also, I have to be honest, and say that it worries me that commentors on this site who have unpopular opinions are dismissed with a Rick Roll, as opposed to a substantive response (such as the one given by Tom Moody.) It smacks of anti-intellectualism, and uses the meaningless one-up-manship of nostalgic pop references, as if to say “watch me care less than you. Here’s an irreverent/irrelevent use of media”

Finally, I should clarify that my distaste for youth culture doesn’t mean that I dislike 20 year olds, though I did have one question in regards to the statement:

“I see that process as being somewhat inevitable, but I think that the youth is always coming up with some good ideas, so it doesn’t bother me.”

This statement has a “the children are our future” feel to it, which of course does sound like a Pepsi commercial. Are you privileging the 20 something crowd to the 40 something crowd?

this conversation is still great, but i just have one thing to add:

seecoy’s Rick Roll was amazing. in my opinion, it fit just fine with the intellectual back and forth (and it was funny.. nothing wrong with a little funny 🙂

MBS: Thanks for some great feedback!

First let me begin by saying that I used some of your comments as a spring board for my own thoughts on the event as a whole, but acknowledge that they were not nearly so polemical, so I have to apologize for making them seem that way. When I create a summary post of all the comments received here I will make that clear.

Re Re: Articulating your practice.
I like your points, and largely agree with them, and would add that these group blogs function a lot like sketch books – we don’t ask artists to talk about the stuff in their sketch books – it’s material they collect to work out ideas, but at the same time, we at least identify that that’s what that is. Maybe I’m wrong about this, but my sense is that artists are still figuring out how much of this activity contributes to their art making practice.

Re re: Internet surfing is a practice you either get or you don’t get.

I know this comment wasn’t intended as a justification for a lack of discussion, but I guess I have just heard it a few too many times from the net art community to be entirely comfortable with it. Perhaps it’s all in the way you put it, since “it’s not for everyone” is something I can get behind.

As for the assumption that these websites want to have a larger part in the art world, or at least be positioned as fine art, I think we probably disagree on the extent to which the community takes a side on this issue. I think you’re right to call me out for making it seem as though everyone wants these websites to be considered in a fine art context, (my comments certainly indicate the like) but I don’t think that posting philosophy can be applied across the board. Surely there are members of Nasty Nets who consider this a part of their Fine Art practice.

“professional internet surfing” is a performance. the internet acts as content and canvas. loshadka is a place for me and my friends to roll down the window and pump the jams, whether they’re our own or pilfered from the intertubes.

i thought the sleepover was going to be a big parking lot for all these fly rides. when i got there though, it was like all these fish were out of the water (don’t get me wrong, i fish all the time and fish out of the water are fuckin sweet). so it wasn’t what i expected, but who cares; it was fun and i got to see all these sweet fish irl. if you were looking for more collaboration or intellectual analysis, then get back in the water or on the streets (depending on the metaphor you like better). This thread has had more constructive conversation than i could have ever hoped for from the sleepover.

and i stand by c.coy’s rick roll. truly epic.

No, I don’t mean to simply champion the young over the old. I’m 22, and I cling to the thought that my generation will probably be the last to have the internet as something that our parents and elders (to a degree) don’t understand, but we do.

The 40-something crowd certainly has the advantage of hindsight and experience of media advancement in general. I’m old enough to remember the advent of the web first as an educational and communication tool, then for entertainment and commercial ventures, and later for socializing and interaction. Most recently, I’ve turned to the net as artistic medium.

With the pervasiveness of internet use in the home, school, and workplace today, I think that up-and-coming surfers won’t experience the nets in the compartmentalized way that I and those older than myself understand it.
I find that youth art movements often lack pretension, due in part to not caring (or not really being aware of) what part they might play in the canon of art history, which allows for the output of unchecked creativity.
My hope is that those growing up now in a net-saturated life will be able to make web artworks that use the medium in unprecedented, absolutely bananas ways that we can’t even imagine, works that somehow “use the whole internet,” as Charles mused during the panel discussion. That is exciting to me.
And if we work hard I think we might just be able to get close to that ourselves.

—–> A Note on Rickrolls

A Note on Rickrolls:

Seecoy’s Rickroll was well placed, and I think it was not meant to insult anyone or be anti-intellectual.
While the original rickrolls were related to video game previews, the content of Rick Astley dancing to an awesome song has quickly lost its function as a non-sequitor. The humor and game of it lies in the act of the unexpected trick. Successful Rickrolls now require thinking of more innovative ways to roll your friends, better ways to camouflage the delivery, and unused venues of attack. The Rickroll lurks everywhere, and Seecoy’s use here in a more serious forum of discussion might seem rude at first, but studying his form, attention to detail, and timing shows that it is well considered. He knew that we were taking this extra seriously and therefore our expectations had so much farther to fall.

He totally rolled all of us, hard, and I commend him for it.

Here is some more information about how to protect yourself and other from being RickRolld with NARRP (Not A RickRoll, Promise) certification:
http://www.blog.ni9e.com/archives/2007/08/narrp_not_a_ric.html (narrp)

tom moody’s got a good point on his blog… the rickroll was intended to just be a hiccup in a very good discussion… here’s for b. and afc and tom moody for furthering a discussion that’s important for all (http://www.tommoody.us/archives/2007/09/18/sleepover-comment/)

Bennett:

I think the time line of Internet as presented in your comments is a little inaccurate (social networking for example has been around forever and is no means new), but let’s leave this alone in favor of below:

Et al re: RickRolls

I want this part of the discussion to end. I don’t need the joke explained to me; I get it, I always did. Even if we were going to evaluate the joke on its humor and (God forbid) “greater cultural significance” it would still get a lousy grade because the trick is so easy.

If someone wants to return to the discussion about NN posting techniques and the actual sleepover I’m all ears.

Also as seecoy suggests, you should visit Tom Moody’s blog for more comments on the subject. (see link in c.coy’s post above.)