Marisa Olson thinks the phenomenon of surf clubs (group blogs run by net artists who repost found and original web ephemera) may constitute a movement. She’s probably right, though the piece is written as though nobody else has done any work on the subject. “[surf clubs have] yet to benefit from substantial critical analysis.” she writes, later reiteriting the thought with, “There have yet to be many significant essays on the movement, and the artists have debated the need for anything resembling a manifesto, saying amoungst themselves that they are waiting to hear interpretations from exterior critical voices. So I am making a first stab here, knowing full-well that I might wipe out.”
Undoubtedly Olson’s essay is more accurately contextualized as “amongst” rather than “the first”, in a small pool emerging critical discourse on the subject. Certainly Ed Halter’s Recycle it, written for the Museum of Moving image this July, posits a lot of the same ideas, most specifically the link between certain net artists and film maker Lev Kuleshov’s montage experiments. Also, a fair number of defining surf club points laid out in Marcin Ramocki’s Surfing Clubs: organized notes and comments presented this spring at NSCAD, similarly graced Olson’s introduction so it wouldn’t have been a bad idea to acknowledge their source, (or a lot of the online discussion generated by Tom Moody.)
Crediting issues aside, Olson focuses a significant portion of her essay on the act of quotation (reposting found material), framing and contrasting it to photography. It’s not a bad direction to take, but this quote confuses me: “Ultimately, I will argue that the work of pro surfers transcends the art of found photography insofar as the act of finding is elevated to a performance in its own right, and the ways in which the images are appropriated distinguishes this practice from one of quotation by taking them out of circulation and reinscribing them with new meaning and authority.” I don’t understand why reposting material without attribution on a blog should take the work out of circulation, or remove a pre-existing narrative/economy. Sure they carry a different authority when posted by a well respected net artist, but this doesn’t negate their history, nor is it any way distinctive from the mechanisms of other online social networks. After all, an influential DIGG member carries authority too.
With these quibbles stated, the piece is still well worth reading in so far as it makes a claim that, “these practices resemble the art historical use of found photography, but verge on constituting some other kind of practice—something, dare I say, more original.” I’m not particularly interested in pitting one studio practice against another, but I rather like that artists do this. It’s important to stake your territory — even if in this case, a little more has been claimed than there’s necessarily a right to.
{ 16 comments }
I like Marisa’s artwork but she is a most ungenerous pundit. Don’t know why she doesn’t mention Marcin Ramocki’s essay, the Olia Lialina essays you noted in a previous post, my blog posts, or all the discussion here (such as your notes comparing the two Net Aesthetics 2.0 panels). She is well aware of all this material–this is a very small community. Maybe she thinks she has the Ultimate Spin.
Also, she has a tendency to want to pluck individual artists out of the group blogs for critical validation when the whole point is the blogs are collaborative efforts, a dynamic Ramocki addressed in his analysis. This selectivity puts her very much in tune with the offline art world. We all have our fave artists but this is supposed to be unbiased writing for a museum.
I like Marisa’s artwork but she is a most ungenerous pundit. Don’t know why she doesn’t mention Marcin Ramocki’s essay, the Olia Lialina essays you noted in a previous post, my blog posts, or all the discussion here (such as your notes comparing the two Net Aesthetics 2.0 panels). She is well aware of all this material–this is a very small community. Maybe she thinks she has the Ultimate Spin.
Also, she has a tendency to want to pluck individual artists out of the group blogs for critical validation when the whole point is the blogs are collaborative efforts, a dynamic Ramocki addressed in his analysis. This selectivity puts her very much in tune with the offline art world. We all have our fave artists but this is supposed to be unbiased writing for a museum.
I’ve of course read the commentary and notes by Tom, Marcin, etc. I was referring to critical essays, of which these are not. I have not read Ed’s Recycle It essay, though. Shame on me. Thanks for the link. And Tom, there were sadly lots of talented people I didn’t get to mention. The word count was far too short to play favorites.
I’ve of course read the commentary and notes by Tom, Marcin, etc. I was referring to critical essays, of which these are not. I have not read Ed’s Recycle It essay, though. Shame on me. Thanks for the link. And Tom, there were sadly lots of talented people I didn’t get to mention. The word count was far too short to play favorites.
I guess I’ve inadvertently revealed the slippage between essays and lectures. My bad.
These disputes aside however, I really am interested in hearing your thoughts on taking images out of circulation.
I guess I’ve inadvertently revealed the slippage between essays and lectures. My bad.
These disputes aside however, I really am interested in hearing your thoughts on taking images out of circulation.
I wouldn’t concede any difference in the digital age among lecture notes, essays, and blog posts. They are all vehicles for the presentation of ideas, with varying degrees of formality. I quote blogs and lecture notes all the time.
I wouldn’t concede any difference in the digital age among lecture notes, essays, and blog posts. They are all vehicles for the presentation of ideas, with varying degrees of formality. I quote blogs and lecture notes all the time.
I hadn’t really meant it to read as such.
I hadn’t really meant it to read as such.
For the record Marisa and I were both members of Nasty Nets and were in the thick of that discussion of “manifestolessness.”
Marisa, your writing hardly constitutes an “exterior critical voice,” whether or not it is in essay form or and whether or not it is for a museum. You are a total insider with a stake in the discussion, as am I.
As I recall I said manifestos were good and you said we didn’t need them because NN members were having discussions about NN via email and IM.
And now you’re putting on your museum hat and supplying the critical spin. So far a good percentage of people writing about surf clubs, authoritatively or not, are or were surf club members, it should be noted.
For the record Marisa and I were both members of Nasty Nets and were in the thick of that discussion of “manifestolessness.”
Marisa, your writing hardly constitutes an “exterior critical voice,” whether or not it is in essay form or and whether or not it is for a museum. You are a total insider with a stake in the discussion, as am I.
As I recall I said manifestos were good and you said we didn’t need them because NN members were having discussions about NN via email and IM.
And now you’re putting on your museum hat and supplying the critical spin. So far a good percentage of people writing about surf clubs, authoritatively or not, are or were surf club members, it should be noted.
This reminds me of parents deciding when baby said the ‘first word’. The reality is the parents do it by hearing an utterance that sounds like something simple and going ape shit over it, which baby assumes has effective power. This elicits from baby a repeatable act of power. Conversation begins. I’m noticing the above treat this new phenomena in old ways, Olsen’s sorta weak comparison to the history of photography and Christian Metz’ mis en scene, Halter’s synchronic geneology and Ramocki’s organized notes w/ its heavy handed allegiance to semiotic models. (Ramocki could have saved a lot of wind and just referenced Barthe’s Elements or Eco.) The problem e.g., is w/ Ramocki having his critical apparatus grounded in Saussure (and Metz is into Saus. aussi),we have attempts at discourse which have a very simplistic linguistic model. I think we can safely say we are way beyond Sign = Signifier/Signified = etc. Jakabson’s (yeah we all remember the J is like a Y) similarity/contiguity, paradigmatic/syntagmatic suffer similarly. Long story short, it seems old critical models based on linguistics will yield some things, but to me this phenomena is much more like conversation, w/ certain rules for turn taking, rage etiquette, topic raising, questioning, sourcing, trolling, immediate feedback, not to mention the shear globalness of the imagery. I’m going out on a limb here to say critical discourse doesn’t hold to semiotics, but is more of a stew involving identity politics, queering, some old scientizing semiotics, maybe Jameson?
This reminds me of parents deciding when baby said the ‘first word’. The reality is the parents do it by hearing an utterance that sounds like something simple and going ape shit over it, which baby assumes has effective power. This elicits from baby a repeatable act of power. Conversation begins. I’m noticing the above treat this new phenomena in old ways, Olsen’s sorta weak comparison to the history of photography and Christian Metz’ mis en scene, Halter’s synchronic geneology and Ramocki’s organized notes w/ its heavy handed allegiance to semiotic models. (Ramocki could have saved a lot of wind and just referenced Barthe’s Elements or Eco.) The problem e.g., is w/ Ramocki having his critical apparatus grounded in Saussure (and Metz is into Saus. aussi),we have attempts at discourse which have a very simplistic linguistic model. I think we can safely say we are way beyond Sign = Signifier/Signified = etc. Jakabson’s (yeah we all remember the J is like a Y) similarity/contiguity, paradigmatic/syntagmatic suffer similarly. Long story short, it seems old critical models based on linguistics will yield some things, but to me this phenomena is much more like conversation, w/ certain rules for turn taking, rage etiquette, topic raising, questioning, sourcing, trolling, immediate feedback, not to mention the shear globalness of the imagery. I’m going out on a limb here to say critical discourse doesn’t hold to semiotics, but is more of a stew involving identity politics, queering, some old scientizing semiotics, maybe Jameson?
Marisa: At the very least I really think Marcin Ramocki’s Surf Clubs Organized Notes and Comments deserves a little more than the dismissal you give it for not taking the form of an essay. Significant portions of your piece are indebted to that work and it’s not been acknowledged. I think you do a real disservice to yourself and others by writing as though you’re the first to publicly address these issues. Notably, no one is talking about the content of your essay, including you, due to this distraction. Certainly there are points I’ve brought up that could use further explanation.
The Hill: Section 4.5 in Ramocki’s essay talks about signifiers as a means of describing the linguistic structure of surf clubs. I haven’t read the essays you’re talking about so you’re going to have to make a better case for why Ramocki should have used Barthe instead of Saussure. As far as I can tell the common paradigm sets and syntagms make perfect sense as applied to the clubs. I simply don’t understand the issue.
Marisa: At the very least I really think Marcin Ramocki’s Surf Clubs Organized Notes and Comments deserves a little more than the dismissal you give it for not taking the form of an essay. Significant portions of your piece are indebted to that work and it’s not been acknowledged. I think you do a real disservice to yourself and others by writing as though you’re the first to publicly address these issues. Notably, no one is talking about the content of your essay, including you, due to this distraction. Certainly there are points I’ve brought up that could use further explanation.
The Hill: Section 4.5 in Ramocki’s essay talks about signifiers as a means of describing the linguistic structure of surf clubs. I haven’t read the essays you’re talking about so you’re going to have to make a better case for why Ramocki should have used Barthe instead of Saussure. As far as I can tell the common paradigm sets and syntagms make perfect sense as applied to the clubs. I simply don’t understand the issue.
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