Syndicate: a commentary on Conformism in net.art

[Tapio Makela <tapio@projekt.net> (by way of Andreas Broeckmann)]

A short commentary to Kelomees/Rohtvee...

I read with interest your interview about conformism in net.art. Especially
bearing in mind a situation, where the writing I speaks through a puppet
on-line, an alter self. Using that third person perspective allows a quick
retreat through the fictional "I" or "us". I found your comment that
"web-, net.art should never represent something, not the outside world. It
should only represent itself."
very perplexing. It sounds like a retro modernist cry for autonomy of art,
which should only be done for its own sake. For me, the net as a context
for critical activity is interesting precisely due to the opposite reason:
that boundaries between issues, projects and phenomena can be consciously
blurred to the degree that "art" as a separate category becomes hard to
sustain.

I would like to ask you... why do you find it important to resist
representation? Net cannot be more isolated from representation than books
are; as long as it is not a  self-referential system without users,
representation plays a role. But do you think that artists are programmable
subjects that will go to the museum stables to eat fresh grass when it gets
cold outside?

"It should fight and be as radical as possible. To define its new territory
will not be that simple because we have already history of
>conformism is that in the end it will accept history as it is, accept
>the rules of representation, the gallery system, museums, catalogues,
This very act of writing about "net.art" is much more efficient than any
existing gallery or museum in confining that term to appear as something
which can relate to conformism. Perhaps you can strike out the art in
net.art, and consider net.activism or net.activity for the less politically
inclined. Swap the context? Which history is yours?

>N. R. You should have a look for example the difference between the
>so-called net.art group which is a specific group a lot of net artists.
You make up a history which is not there... But perhaps I am mistaking this
text for something else, maybe you are discussing migrating birds that move
in flocks and can be recognized by their common shriek...

Perhaps the interview was not real. Even if Nelli Rohtvee did not exist as
a person, it exists as a text... If this interview was a parody, on the
other hand, about net.art discussion, what is it trying to propose?

"She is known by her childish and honest manner of writings: she says what
she has in mind. She is untouched by powergames."

... or she has become part of one now.

These discussions within the traditional art framework about net.art turn
it into a rubber boat. Once it is inflated, it is pushed to the watery art
world and left floating in the isolated continuum of art history. Those who
puffed and puffed will be out of breath, those who are on the boat are
trying to paddle hard to reach the video art raft, to have some company....
Where is the El Nino effect in this discursive sea of art bla bla?

puff puff,

says Tapio, a migrating net.pidgeon from Helsinki



Tapio MÅ kelÅ 
writer, critic, researcher, producer, X
Projektnet Ab Senior Project Manager <tapio@projekt.net>
Muu Media Base co-producer
www: http://www.projekt.net  http://muu.autono.net.
Address: Lapinrinne 4 D 30, 00180 Helsinki, Finland
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