Art Fag City at The L Magazine: Surf Clubs 101

by Art Fag City on March 18, 2009 · 2 comments The L Magazine

art fag city, tom moody, screengrab warp, surf blogs
Image by: Jpegmess.  Image via: Tom Moody

My latest piece is up at The L Magazine. The teaser below.

Emerging in 2005 as a response to the social bookmarking tool del.ic.ious, surf blogs were formed to facilitate communication between artists. But do artists look at the web differently when they seek material for a group blog? How do they find their content? Is it art? Ask net artists these questions and the answers frequently differ. However, the form itself — a small-to-midsized number of invited members scouring the web for ephemera to manipulate or re-post — remains a unifying factor.

Other constants in the fluid pratice of “surfing” are the common internet tools and applications employed. Marcin Ramocki of Spirit Surfers (spiritsurfers.net), for example, gave me a far less complicated answer as to how he found his images than I expected. “Usually Google,” he told me plainly. “Looking for a post is a different kind of gaze,” Ramocki explained. “It's a certain mindset. You're actually looking — it's not like you're reading CNN to learn about the news or find something. You have to open yourself to everything”¦ to the interface.” By this he means looking at the browser window, ad placements and any other visual detritus that appear while surfing. Like the other surf club members I spoke to, though, he was quick to add, “Everyone's [search methods are] different.”

To read the full piece click here.

{ 2 comments }

tom moody March 18, 2009 at 2:56 pm

Please note the image above is a Nasty Nets post by jpegmess (Robert Wodzinski): http://nastynets.com/?p=1675

tom moody March 18, 2009 at 9:56 am

Please note the image above is a Nasty Nets post by jpegmess (Robert Wodzinski): http://nastynets.com/?p=1675

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