Trebor Scholz and Judith Rodenbeck bring up an interesting topic in their dialogue on Collaborative Mapping (the bittorent video will be available here shortly). It's a topic that needs much more exploration and their's is a start: When will new media be accepted by the art establishment?

Rodenbeck gave a solid, if academic, rundown of historical "participatory" art forms while Scholz gave examples of current practices. Unfortunately not much was resolved, but it's a start towards a much needed discourse, something we hope to nurture here.

In the Q&A I brought up how "adult entertainment" has driven online technology to a response from the audience that was, how should I say it, dismissive. The title of the talk brought the subject up and how can you talk about participatory media without including that vast, and popular, arena? Adult entertainment drives the technology and, as Flusser pointed out, people don't so much create technology as technology creates new types of users.

Where is the bridge between "art history" where an oddball like Gordon Matta-Clark has found a place, and new media? That's our task here, maybe.