<nettime> no people, no consensus digest [waz, bad, content-wire, sondheim]

["nettime's_flamethrower" <nettime@bbs.thing.net>]

Re: <nettime> no people.
     waz@easynet.co.uk
     "Mr. Bad" <mr.bad@pigdog.org>
     "Content-Wire.com" <PGalaxy@compuserve.com>
     Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>

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From: waz@easynet.co.uk
Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 21:47:39 +0100
Subject: Re: <nettime> no people.

> Pardon my cluelessness, but what, exactly, is this? Too much of Nettime is
> beginning to feel like an in joke for people who live their lives inside
> invisible quotation marks.

Wow.

Yet another 'I don't understand this' response to a non-standard text,
yet again lashed with a totally unnecessary attack. This was more
politely rephrasable as something like 'please stop bothering my poor
overloaded head with text that was not written according to some
quasi-corporate set of plain English guidelines, with a special precis
for the ultra-busy executive.'

Which bit of the text failed to flag up its writerliness? Yeah, Mark.
Literature is dead, right? Just one big in joke for people who live
their lives inside invisible quotation marks. Burn the books. All due
respect, etc, but that idea can fuck off.

Presumably the suggestion is that we should all make sure that we should
reduce nettime to the level of other lists - we should never post to
nettime without a clear logical 'point', we should all be sure to make
our 'point' in the first paragraph, we should take a strict inverted
pyramid approach to all texts contributed to nettime, and that any text
deviating from this paradigm should be moderated out.

Well, bollocks to that.

Just to remind you, Mark, "<nettime> is *not* just a mailing list but an
effort to formulate an international, networked discourse that neither
promotes a dominant euphoria (to sell products) nor continues the
cynical pessimism, spread by journalists and intellectuals in the 'old'
media who generalize about 'new' media with no clear understanding of
their communication aspects. we have produced, and will continue to
produce books, readers, and web sites in various languages so an
'immanent' net critique will circulate both on- and offline."

(see http://www.nettime.org, emphasis added by me)

Translated into a vernacular that anyone can understand, this says
pretty clearly that you can post what the fuck you like. If it gets
moderated out, it'll be there on nettime-bold. If it doesn't, we all get
it. There are ragged grey areas on the boundary of what does and doesn't
get moderated, but this is inevitable and in the nature of moderation.

In this case, you might reasonably request an explanation of how the
posting 'no people' constitutes anything remotely resembling 'immanent
net critique'. Ok, here goes...

(sound of academic-wank-fest-hat being donned... *sigh*...)

The language is obviously poetic, in the grand ancient sense of the
term, but turning an old theme on its head. Compare this piece with the
'Battle of the Trees' from Chapter Two of Robert Graves' White Goddess.
All kinds of stuff about 'I am this, I am that, I am the other'. How can
this be interpreted? Without betraying too much of my own ignorance of
literature of this sort I think I can safely say that both the Battle of
the Trees, 'no people', and a plethera of other texts, operate within a
*very* ancient tradition of poetry or poetic literature expressing a
discussion of the same kind of personal unity with the entire universe
reported by acid-heads, schizophrenics and other visionaries throughout
the centuries. The greatly expanded window on the world provided us by
the internet makes it a lot less strange for us in the year 2001 to
consider this kind of unity with the world, but Sondheim has chosen to
turn it on its head. According to 'no people', he is not the eagle, not
the proud lion, not the humble mole, etc etc, despite the temptation our
technology provides to fantasise about this omnipotence.

(As it happens, I disagree, Alan, mate, oh yes you bloody well are the
eagle, the lion, the mole etc. As are we all - just as we were before
the internet, and just as we will continue to be when the net is nothing
but a forgotten chapter of history. But that's for another post,
preferably written in more appropriate language...)

Meanwhile, Alan Sondheim, nn, and the other posters from what Mark Dery
would presumably refer to on a good day as 'left-field' are the main
reason I value my nettime subscription. I personally find the earnest
discussion of net.arse - especially in reference to how hard it is to
make a living out of it - to be pretty damn tedious most of the time.
(Clue: it's *damn* hard to make a living as *any* kind of artist.
net.arse is not unique in that regard. Damn 
good luck to anyone who manages it, of course..:) Meanwhile, the writers
who are brave enough to use nettime as a forum for a properly creative
interpretation of 'immanent net critique' are the ones who make nettime
far more than just another boring wank-fest of academic discourse. Of
which there is no shortage, and, sadly,  I am as guilty as any of
contributing to the stains.

So I'll stop now.

Cheers etc.,

Wayne
http://www.waz.easynet.co.uk/

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Subject: Re: <nettime> no people.
From: "Mr. Bad" <mr.bad@pigdog.org>
Organization: Pigdog Journal
X-PGP-Fingerprint: 91F8 6B2D EBEA 8D7A 3F20  E5B0 6D97 B3BC F498 A1D9
Date: 20 May 2001 15:37:44 -0700

>>>>> "MD" == Mark Dery <markdery@mindspring.com> writes:

    MD> Too much of Nettime is beginning to feel like an in joke for
    MD> people who live their lives inside invisible quotation marks.

"What" do you "mean"?

~Mr. Bad

-- 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Mr. Bad <mr.bad@pigdog.org> | Pigdog Journal | http://pigdog.org/ 
 freenet:MSK@SSK@u1AntQcZ81Y4c2tJKd1M87cZvPoQAge/pigdog+journal//
 "Statements like this give the impression that this article was
  written by a madman in a drug induced rage"  -- Ben Franklin
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 18:35:35 -0400
From: "Content-Wire.com" <PGalaxy@compuserve.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> no people.

I guess the guy is a poet and sharing his poetry


dont have to understand everything all the time, just let it be

pdm

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Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 20:35:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> no people.
Errors-To: sondheim@panix.com

I'm not sure how to answer this since it's already cut into the fabric of
an in-joke.

What is nettime exactly? A place for cultural work, cultural politics? A
place of discussion? A place of textual dissemination? Of cultural produc-
tion?

It's all of these. I write texts; these particular ones deal with the
stereotyping of others - animals whose characteristics are related
primarily to those of first-grade readers, at least in the United States,
at least when I was a child. The 'noble lion' and so forth.

So this is nothing more than a list of these characteristics and their
negation and a somewhat edgy denial of the negation, the whole in quota-
tion marks.

I think nettime has room for my work and Kenji Seratori's and NN's and a
variety of textual practices, all of which from one or another viewpoint,
might leave one clueless; I know when I first saw Kenji's work, I didn't
know what to make of it, for example.

Having been at the ELO awards and the EPoetry conference - both within the
past few weeks - I feel there's place for many modes of thinking, working
through ideas.

I apologize if you feel that this is a nettime in-joke; in fact, I feel,
like many others, outside of the nettime mainstream, such as it might be.
But I also feel there's room for all of this.

Finally, not sure what you mean about invisible quotation marks; mine are
evident in the piece, but beyond that, I'm not quoting anyone.

Alan

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