[NetBehaviour] Solutionism Re: An interview with Geert Lovink

[Patrick Lichty]

Rob,
I think that as usual, you¹re brilliant.  The metric tracking idea seems
OK, maybe, but might be a bit of a red herring.

All:
I think that Furtherfield is at a pivotal moment similar to the
institutionalization moment of Rhizome, where it asked; ³How can we have
maximum imapact/reach, etc?²

I know I¹m conflating a LOT of terms here, but I think my core argument is
sound.  I realize that the impetus here is to bring FF goodness to larger
groups and spread light in the jungle of other art communities.  However,
a few things to consider.

So, what happened?  In my conversation with the execs there over time,
There was an admission that the lists were forumized to facilitate
institutional discourse, and Michael Connor even admitted to not focusing
on community, and with the cutbacks, I¹ll be curious to see what Zach
does.  

Secondly, regarding bridge-building - this relates to serving inter
community needs. An extreme example is my conversation with Cao Fei during
the building of RMB City in Second Life.  She had no idea of the necessity
for community engagement before our conversation; she just assumed that
people would know who she was and flock to the servers.  What she didn¹t
realize was that Sl and the Artworld are totally different birds.

Furherfield is in a much better position in that the ³new media² (sic)
community, as shown in my (hopefully) upcoming late review of ISEA that
the Contemporary and the Tech Media artworlds are less divergent than
ever, probably (urrrŠ) thanks to the postinternets.  ISEA 2015 showed that
the art historical traditions are concurrent at this time, and piercing
the membrane might be relatively easy.

Back to Rhizome.  

I think that Rhizome¹s path was a Faustian bargain.  Its decentering from
the community model, IMO, is coming to roost as the institutions are
giving it less resources (and isn¹t it even outside of the NuMu now?), and
there isn¹t a community except for the young blue-chips to rely on.
First, withFF¹s punk roots, I doubt that many of the pitfalls that beset R
will hit FF.  And there is a valid question - how does FF continue to
evolve without neglecting its core values? Good question.

 And I¹ll be selfish in that although I am not terribly active, the list
is my main umbilical to the community at this time, and I want it to stay
a list.  I¹mnot against outreaches, don¹t think that the list should just
be a haven for hoary New Media artists, but on the other hand, I feel that
the list has a good community that is pretty healthy.  I also think there
are good models like Nettime that are excellent cases to defend the form,
andŠ

For Powers¹ Sake, The Well???

There¹s is a case for the power of Ur-Forums and their continued power.
My buds Lebkowsky and Sterling rock the cybersphere every year from a
anciently formatted mail thread there every year through The State of the
World every year.

I think FF has a precious resource in its list, and I¹m not in favor of
much more than incremental change.  The axiom of that which evolves dies
doesn¹t necessarily fit here, as it¹s a matter of community investiture
rather than logistics.  Looking at the list institutionally rather than
socially is a salient debate to have, and I don¹t want to lose the sense
of community I have here.  This is one of the last informal venues I have
to just shoot the shit, as it were, and I think it¹s one of the few where
you can in this format.

My .02 AED...

On 10/3/15, 9:01 AM, "Rob Myers" <rob at robmyers.org> wrote:

>On 02/10/15 04:03 AM, ruth catlow wrote:
>>
>> Furtherfield HQ (first think Google and then try to imagine the
>> opposite)
>
>An open-ended and non-enclosed structure with no basketball courts or
>free candy vending machines?
>
>> Two issues
>> 1) the cost and time associated with strategising, consulting,
>> designing, planning and remunerating all involved, for their efforts
>> while: future-proofing community infrastructure, caring for the
>> archive/database. We have had some really very good and generous support
>> from a number of people to help us understand what the process might be,
>> but the work still needs doing...and all risks mitigated!
>> 
>> 2) connected to the above - maintaining the connections we all have,
>> while inviting in new and diverse (in age, background, device-loyalty,
>> ethnicity) people.
>
>There are a few approaches, with different affordances and costs
>(economic and political).
>
>1. Yay Walled Gardens!
>
>Use Medium for publishing articles, hosted Discourse for mail/boards,
>and Slack for co-ordination/chat.
>
>Cost: 100USD/month plus your soul.
>Demographic: Current.
>
>2. All Zuck All The Time
>
>Use Facebook Notes for publishing articles, Facebook pages for
>discussion, and Facebook messaging for co-ordination/chat.
>
>Cost: Zero, plus the souls of all humanity.
>Demographic: Previous.
>
>3. Current Free Software
>
>Use Jekyll for publishing (mediated via GitLabs or at a pinch GitHub)
>[TODO: comment system], self-hosted Discourse or Groupserver for
>mail/boards, and an existing GNU social install or irc for co-ord/chat.
>
>Cost: As much as hosting costs.
>Demographic: current.
>
>4. Hosted Free Software
>
>Use Wordpress for publishing, see if lurk.org will host Netbehaviour on
>their Groupserver install, and use an existing GNU social install or irc
>for co-ord/chat.
>
>Cost: As much as the services cost, look for donations.
>Demographic: Almost current.
>
>
>For any self-hosted or donated services, stick them behind Cloudflare.
>Good for DDOS and ssl, bad for centralization.
>
>Choice of platform is to a degree choice of audience, cultural context
>and politics. Not in a technologically deterministic sense but in the
>sense that different book publishers or record labels are. Change the
>system, exploit the system, or buck the system?
>
>- Rob.
>
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