"The joy of the Postmodern, and as we go into the next period at the moment (name TBA), is that immaterial culture's association with the material (expand at will) is that the antagonism between the art market and the avant is diffused by allowing for localized discourse. Since the "ism" was destroyed, art atomized into very local threads of genre, into small groups, and even imploded to the individual.

It's been asked why Rhizome, and for that matter a lot of listservs for that matter, have dropped in the degree of content during the present decade. There are a few lists out there that still have a lot of content, traffic, but in general, Pall Thayer's observation that listserv traffic has dropped considerably, at first glance, appears to be true.

update
In regards to the upcoming "Automatic Update" exhibition at the MoMA NY, there seems to be a great deal of question about a number of issues. These are; the re-writing of history,the relevance of net-based art, the perception of popular culture, and the role of the New Media movement/ Genre in the contemporary scene. What seems to be a key dialectic about the state of New Media as force in contemporary art derives from two poles; one from the MoMA colophon about the Automatic Update show; The dot-com era infused media art with a heady energy. Hackers,programmers, and tinkerer-revisionists from North America, Europe, and Asia developed a vision of art drawn from the technology of recent decades. Robotic pets, PDAs, and the virtual worlds on the Internet provoked artists to make works with user-activated components and lo-res, game-boy screens. Now that "new media" excitement has waned, an exhibition that illuminates the period is timely. Automatic Update is the first reassessment of its kind, reflecting the artists ambivalence to art, revealed through the ludicrous, comical, and absurd use of the latest technologies. [1]

Much of this post is arecontextualization of a post I did on the IDC listserv about the fact that we frequently do NOT read Terms of Service (TOS) and End User License Agreements (EULAs) when using social media, or technology in general. If one looks closely, many popular sites claim ownership of all information put on them (myspace does this, or very close), and Second Life takes no liability for the reliability of its software, service, possible monitoring of user activity, or the veracity of its core currency (read the ToS).

The Collision of Extremism and Appropriateness: The Passion of Don Imus and Michael Richards

First, let me say that the answer to shocking language and socially ‘inappropriate’ behavior in the mainstream media is not to excise the offending member. I’ll try to explain my point on the matter.

Over the past few months I have seen comedian Michael Richards and shock radio host Don Imus lambasted, or even excised from culture for racist epithets. On November 17, 2006, Richards lost his composure with hecklers at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, California by alluding to Lynch mobs, and repeatedly using the word “Nigger”. What ensued was a media frenzy in which outlets like MSNBC and CNN nearly preempted far more important issues like warfare and hunger to keep Richards’ face on the air day and night for nearly two weeks, as well as demands by subject Kyle Doss for reparations. This was despite statements of contrition and (refused) requests for reconciliatory meetings with African-American leaders such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and articles on conspiracynet about linkages of Richards to his Masonic affiliation and the Freemasons’ linkage to the Ku Klux Klan.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6502643.stm

About Kathy Sierra's blog death threats, it highlights one of my problems with blogs and my overall lack of surprise about the matter.

Blogs, in and of themselves have fewer homeostatic mechanisms than forums or listservs. They are primarily a voluntary push medium with the ability to respond. I have never felt like I have been part of a conversation as part of a blog; only as a journalist or lecturer. They have never made me feel "part" of anything, they have only made me feel part of an audience, and it is this belonging that is special to networked conversation.

I was just thinking about this, and maybe I'm off on the wrong track. I mean look at Jeff Koons and Ilona Staller, Matthew barney and Bjork...

Did I miss the boat here somehow?

Maybe Orlan's looking for a guy...
Hmmmm...

There were points in the early 90’s, when New Media was called Cyberarts, when I had not thought about the role fo the later sage New Media artist. What do I mean by this? When I speak of the later-stage New Media artist, I’m talking about the artist in their late 40’s or even 50’s who has a different set of experiences and skills than the 20-something who is whipping together amazing code-based works. It’s my belief that not only do their mental processes necessitate different practices, but their experiences provide a different civic responsibility for their utilization. However, this also necessitates a delicate statement to be made regarding the role of that artist in the creative process as well.

Trebor Scholz has aggregated a brilliant set of missives on continuous partial attention, which I think is a tremendous problem today.

"Continuous partial attention describes how many of us use our attention today. It is different from multi-tasking. The two are differentiated by the impulse that motivates them. When we multi-task, we are motivated by a desire to be more productive and more efficient. We're often doing things that are automatic, that require very little cognitive processing. We give the same priority to much of what we do when we multi-task -- we file and copy papers, talk on the phone, eat lunch -- we get as many things done at one time as we possibly can in order to make more time for ourselves and in order to be more efficient and more productive."

madamichinaga
Well, a quick update on times in Second Life.

Last night was interesting - research continues apace. However, I was there with colleagues Gazira Babeli, and suddenly the Singularity takes place.

Gaz and I wind up in a combat test zone, and we get nuked. Then we go to my Art Center, and there is an invisible box three times the size of the center itself lodged in the floor. Then, about four IMs come up from friends who are; a coder, a madam, an architect, and a writer. Gazira hits a button, and hundreds of images of Georgs Bush fall from the sky, an escort asks me "...what I'm doing today?" while i'm in alt.gender drag...