<nettime> p.s.: don't forget to water the rhizome! digest [flagan, guderian]

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

Re: <nettime> The economy getaway car 
     Are Flagan <areflagan@artpanorama.com>
Re: <nettime> Re: One Day Left
     Carl Guderian <carlg@vermilion-sands.com>

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Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 14:00:54 -0500
Subject: Re: <nettime> The economy getaway car 
From: Are Flagan <areflagan@artpanorama.com>

Re: 1/17/03 11:07, "nettime's suv driver" <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>:

> As an academic, neither I, nor anyone I work with, drives an SUV (for a
> variety of reasons).

Metaphor can be very, very tricky.
 
> It is absolutely true that I have spent more than $5 on other arts
> subscriptions, including my local struggling museum, from which I arguably
> get a lot less back than I have from Rhizome. It's not a lot of money to
> ask.
> 
> However, as you state, it is not 1995 it is 2003. The net and net.art
> communities have increasingly over the years become elitist and we see the
> same names over and over again being published, commissioned, and
> validated. All of this happens even while all of these folks continue to
> profess the democratic, equal access, non-hierarchical aspects of this
> culture. So, while $5 is not a lot to me (even if I do drive an economy
> car), I will not join Rhizome for that amount because I believe this step
> will take that list one step further on its path to being a rarefied club.
> It will mean that I can no longer freely ask my students to look at an
> article or a project in the artbase, nor refer things to friends who might
> not subscribe but might otherwise have a look.

First of all, you don't ask your students to look "freely" at anything, just
as you "freely" don't ask them anything, and just as this "freely" stands
between you and them. If we break down a semester of 15 weeks into 30
sessions and divide the most conservative credit cost with this number, they
pay at least $20 per session of your impeccable value for money. And as the
recent University of Michigan case has shown, and that friend of the court
brief from the white house has further indicated, academia is not by any
means a rarefied and elitist club. (Sarcastically) right? (BTW: Thanks Eliot
Spitzer, for some guts, again.) The specific point initially responded to --
and which seems to have gotten sidetracked completely into academia -- was
that meta plainly asked rhizome to step up and offer a direct $$$ return on
a community investment. So why does this question not apply to you, as an
academic, in the same direct $$$ way, and why do you invoke a cuckoo-land
morality/idealism to remove yourself from the same economy (also of
questioning)? In the same vein and out of curiosity, why do you go to yahoo,
develop a new profile, join nettime (again), and then post?

> I donate regularly to pursuits that are grass roots, that I believe in,
> and that I know are run on a shoe string (most recently being Michael
> Mandiberg's excellent Calls and Opps List). Rhizome is just not on that
> list in my mind.

Michael is, or was until very recently, a student at CalArts. Your shoe
string is probably called a loan with interest, a graduate assistantship,
and the usual scattered means of making ends meet, your donation included.
Please ask Michael where he got his info from in the days of starting that
list...

> Good luck to Rhizome, I hope they don't fold and I wish them a long
> future, without me.

Let's see: The difference between $5 and $20,000-$30,000 a year is what
exactly? (Apart from a sidebar visit to the excellent and completely free
http://www.w3schools.org.) It is a knowledge economy of monopolies,
protectionism, and capital distribution. Why did you ditch Rhizome again? It
arguably has a lot to do with this potential future without you and
hypocrisy all around.

-af 

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Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 12:51:21 +0100
From: Carl Guderian <carlg@vermilion-sands.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Re: One Day Left

Academics are getting it from all sides, aren't they? There's also the
post-Tower Day attempt at McCarthy-style blacklist, and before that was Tom
Wolfe's hysterical (and outdated) image of a postmodern master of
gobbledegook, driving around in a convertible Jaguar, long scarf flying,
imagining himself a latter-day Theophile Gautier (though Isadora Duncan comes
more readily mind...).

Rhizome.org have bills to pay like everyone else, and funding has dried up.
Netslaves had to start charging too, and they don't pay their submitters
either. Five bucks is far too little to spark a debate like this.

Carl

nettime's suv driver wrote:

> Table of Contents:
>
>    re: one day left
>      Economy Car <economycar2003@yahoo.com>
 <...>

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