[NetBehaviour] worries about blacklists

Ann Light ann.light at gmail.com
Tue Feb 7 18:21:54 CET 2012


I'm seeing something else that's detrimental for the independent-minded
artist in the last couple of years. Alternative patterns of engagement (and
not just art pop-stars) have thrived in the smaller arts
organisation/centre, where there has been a socially engaged agenda -
whether digital art, or other kinds. But I'm seeing that eroded through the
latest cuts and not only because core funding has gone, but because the
community groups and public sector orgs that - however instrumentally -
benefited from the 'art' can no longer afford to employ its practitioners.
With 'austerity', the more benign forms of support are withering, throwing
people harder into the 'fame or die' binary choice. 

 

What is perhaps heartening is that other forms of making - less critical in
their content, but not necessarily in their structure of engagement - are
appearing through the DIY movements. My solace as someone interested in
maintaining alternative spaces, radical thought and creative practice, is
that young people are not all turning to commercial models of exchange. The
commercial art market is highly visible and rapacious, but, in other
pockets, energies are going somewhere where no commercial models exist at
all.

 

Ann (Not an artist. Someone who hangs around with artists?)

 

From: netbehaviour-bounces at netbehaviour.org
[mailto:netbehaviour-bounces at netbehaviour.org] On Behalf Of Simon Biggs
Sent: 07 February 2012 16:47
To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity
Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] worries about blacklists

 

Art has always had a difficult relationship with power. Its potential for
corruption is nothing new (whether in religion or ideologies of various
kinds - including capitalism). However, it is has become much harder to
avoid the crap. There was a time (in the 70's and 80's) when artist run
centres and experimental creative practices could be undertaken beneath the
radar of the art world mainstream (and out of sight of most of society).
What has happened since then is the mainstreaming of this activity,
especially in the UK where such artists have become household names and
celebrities appearing on TV talk shows and such-like. The present generation
of younger artists have taken this as a model for how the contemporary
artist should engage the public and now aspire to being more like pop
musicians. This is a pervasive pornification of art, as with the rest of our
society, and its inescapability is that is especially depressing.

 

best

 

Simon

 

 

On 7 Feb 2012, at 16:08, isabel brison wrote:





I agree with your portrait of the artworld, but hasn't it always been a bit
dodgy, ever since the days when art was almost exclusively religious
propaganda? 
Not sure if the best way to deal with this is to drop the term "art"
completely, or to just carry on doing it and perhaps ignore the artworld.
After all, it's just an oversized commercial circuit. 



On 7 February 2012 15:18, Simon Biggs <simon at littlepig.org.uk> wrote:

I can understand why some people don't want to call themselves artists, even
when they are. Mike Kelly, a very successful artist, was quoted as saying
that if he'd known art was going to become as corporatised as it has he
would never have chosen to be an artist (this quote has been viral on
Twitter since his recent death). I wonder what he would have chosen to be -
or would he have made up something new? This is what we need...

 

People consider what I do as art and assume I'm an artist. However, like
Kelly and James, I became disillusioned with art and the art world a long
time ago - not because I've been given a hard time (quite the contrary) but
because I am disgusted at what seems to motivate many artists and the people
who engage (and run) art professionally. It's become a laundry for dodgy
money. Many artists, curators and cultural commentators are happy to join
the circus. It is sad.

 

Due to this I now think of what I do as the "practice once known as art". A
programme I run, which is nominally in an art college (although for
administrative reasons it is located in an architecture department)
intentionally does not have the word art in its title (MSc by Research in
Interdisciplinary Creative Practices). This allows us to work in ways that a
course in our art department, with the expectation of producing artists to
work in the art world, would struggle to consider, bound by a pre-determined
framework of creative practice and engagement that is "art" as we now know
it. Again, it's sad (hope my colleagues in art aren't reading this) to see
students being primed as potential cannon-fodder for the art world.

 

best

 

Simon

 

 

On 7 Feb 2012, at 14:29, isabel brison wrote:





Hello,

Just wondering why you choose not to call yourself an artist. Because the
random stuff you post looks suspiciously like art to me...

Isabel 



On 6 February 2012 15:04, James Morris <james at jwm-art.net> wrote:


Hi,

I recently noticed that facebook warns people about links to my website
being malicious and surbl.org <http://surbl.org/>  blacklists my domain name
as associated
with spam.

>From what I can tell, some email clients allow filtering of messages
based upon these blacklists such as multi.surbl.org
<http://multi.surbl.org/>  or ws.surbl.org <http://ws.surbl.org/>  and
it is within these lists where my domain is listed in. Spam filters
which use these lists scan the message _body_ and if a reference to a
blacklisted domain is found then the message is regarded as spam.

I'm rather disappointed about this and it's lead me to wonder if maybe
something I've posted here is to blame. I know I've been argumentative
at times and been reactionary to things I dislike but I hope that the
actual work I've posted (not so much recent work) over the years has
made up for it.

The artist career thing for me never took off and academically the
degree was as far as I got. Programming has become my focus and due to
that I find little time for anything else.

With that in mind I'm left making posts on the occasional inspired
impulse. Hence the mobile-shot audio-clips and photographs from while
I'm at (factory)work. Or screenshots of software I'm trying to develop.

Seems like I'm producing less and less art. But does it have to be art
to post here? I tend to focus on the "creativity" in the title to help
me justify my posts here. I have a memory (real or imagined) of when I
first subscribed of asked Marc if it was ok and he said 'for now'.

The thing is I don't want to unsubscribe just because I'm not an artist
any more, but the impulses to post *random*stuff* are likely to be
around for a while... Unless people speak up to disuade me and give
good reasons for why and etc....

James.


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-- 
http://isabelbrison.blogspot.com/

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Simon Biggs

simon at littlepig.org.uk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ @SimonBiggsUK skype:
simonbiggsuk

 

s.biggs at ed.ac.uk Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh

http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ http://www.elmcip.net/
http://www.movingtargets.co.uk/

 

 

 

 


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NetBehaviour mailing list
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-- 
http://isabelbrison.blogspot.com/

_______________________________________________
NetBehaviour mailing list
NetBehaviour at netbehaviour.org
http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour

 


Simon Biggs

simon at littlepig.org.uk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ @SimonBiggsUK skype:
simonbiggsuk

 

s.biggs at ed.ac.uk Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh

http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ http://www.elmcip.net/
http://www.movingtargets.co.uk/

 

 

 

 

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