Re: <nettime> Hardt & Negri "Counseling the aristocrats" [2x]

["Lorenzo Taiuti" <md3169@mclink.it>]

Table of Contents:

   Re: <nettime> Hardt & Negri "Counseling the aristocrats"                        
     "Lorenzo Taiuti" <md3169@mclink.it>                                             

    <nettime> Hardt & Negri "Counseling the aristocrats"-The ideal-website         
     "Lorenzo Taiuti" <md3169@mclink.it>                                             



------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 12:50:22 +0200
From: "Lorenzo Taiuti" <md3169@mclink.it>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Hardt & Negri "Counseling the aristocrats"


Ciao Miltos

i like very much this thing about what you said:
"unvisited and unfriendly territories, which are gradually transformed
into a domestic landscape. From the Alps to the Japanese garden, this is the
scenario: the illusory promise of order and system. "
But i would like to know more about what you think.
Don't send me to your website. I know it.
Tell me more.
More precise ideas.
More "real things" you expect from the web.
You come from a visual art experience.
What's different?

Lorenzo Taiuti

- ----- Original Message ----- 
From: "m" <m@manetas.com>
To: "Lorenzo Taiuti" <md3169@mclink.it>
Sent: Friday, April 16, 2004 4:16 PM
Subject: Re: <nettime> Hardt & Negri "Counseling the aristocrats"


> > But the problem remains the same.
> > Cannot we find new and fresher instruments of thought?
> > Was it not said (over and over again) that the "Web" would produce a
> > different feeling and production of ideas?
> > Lorenzo
> >
> Yes, Neen is what you are asking for...
>
> read the text I just finished re-writing. Neen is not exactly about social
> theory but it can be expanded. Maybe you can do that.
>
> Best
>
> Miltos Manetas
>
> Websites is the art of our times
> Miltos Manetas
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Websites are today's most radical and important art objects.
>
>
>
> Because Internet is not just another "media", as the Old Media insists,
but
> mostly a "space", similar to the American Continent immediately after it
has
> been discovered - anything that can be found on the Web, has a physical
> presence. It occupies real estate. To encounter a logo, a picture or an
> animation in the Internet, is a totally different experience than to find
> the same stuff in a magazine or on the television.
>
>
>
> "Things" in the Internet exist in a specific location. While in magazines
> and on TV contents are mostly bullets of information, online they
constitute
> a body: they are parts of a new genre. They are Web Entities. These
> "creatures" are sometimes a mix of humans and software (think of Google),
> but sometimes are made by information only - such as in the case of
>
> Googlism.com, a website able to make a portrait of anything by collecting
> descriptions about that subject from Google itself (1).
>
>
>
> Most Web Entities are social entities. They get in touch and they
advertise
> their existence to each other. Similar to human beings, they evaluate,
> criticize, "link" to each other, and ultimately, they develop a "taste".
>
>
>
> Bob Dobbs (a friend of McLuhan) said: "advertising is communication
between
> machines". He also suggested that machines came alive in 1967 and that
"now
> they are in an angelic state". According to him, "advertising is
> communication between angels".
>
>
>
> Well, some of these Web Entities - or shall we simply call them "Angels"?
> communicate already in a "pretty" way. As a result, a new type of "Art",
or
> better, what- may-become -Art later, can be found in certain websites. But
> where exactly?
>
>
>
>
>
> The Telic spirit.
>
>
>
> The Web is nothing more and nothing less than what the World has always
> been: unvisited and unfriendly territories, which are gradually
transformed
> into a domestic landscape. From the Alps to the Japanese garden, this is
the
> scenario: the illusory promise of order and system. But still, the simple
> rocks and sand in the well-arranged composition of a Japanese garden, for
a
> better-trained intellect, are black holes and chaos. The Web came from
this
> chaos; in a certain way, it came directly out of the Trojan Horse,
described
> in Homer's Iliad, and now we are Ulysses lost in the ocean all over again.
> But we are not traveling alone: there is a special spirit that helps us
> navigate and that is the spirit of Telic.
>
>
>
> Telic is our relationship with the tools that help us to design the World
> and to see things in a perspective. It is in mobile phones, computers but
> even in the way our houses and clothes are made. Our times are Telic.
>
>
>
> Telic means "something directed or tending towards a goal or purpose;
> "purposeful". For example "I am driving my car to Los Angeles" is a Telic
> statement. "I am driving my car " is not. Telos, in Greek, means "the end"
> or "the purpose". Telic, firmly believes that it is Telic. (You may never
> arrive to Los Angeles; you may crash on a tree or something). Telic is
super
> creative, often in a paranoid way. It is serious. It wants to explain
every
> little detail. It will submit footnotes and references. It is "open
source"
> and it accepts updates from anyone. Telic doesn't have a taste; it can be
as
> ugly as an IBM computer.
>
>
>
> Telic authors and artists have usually jobs in the tech industry, or they
> teach in Universities. They survive thanks to the grants that other Telic
> people are managing and they avoid the Art World, which in return also
> ignores them.
>
> But Telic shapes the World. As J.G Ballard wrote: "Science and technology
> multiply around us. To an increasing extend they dictate the languages in
> which we speak and think. Either we use those languages or we remain
mute".
>
>
>
> Telic is making sense from these languages but then again, do we really
want
> to make sense? Why shall we be so domesticated and so productive? Why does
> our "design" sometimes become so irrelevant that even the most boring
> companies are comfortable to sponsor it and use it as their banner?
>
> After all, we all know how frustrating a trip in the Internet can be. It
> easily can feel like a flea market with people offering you stuff in every
> corner, a nightmare, complete with the occasional buffoons who are
providing
> vulgar entertainment with their "funny" websites. And when it comes to
> creativity, all you can usually find is all same style designers: the
Martha
> Stewarts of the Net.
>
>
>
> You wish there is somewhere a secret society; some people who know how to
> give to you the feelings directly, and who will keep you thinking, even
> after you'll quit browsing. You wish there were some websites, which will
> offer the metaphysical suspense of a painting. You wish of Neen.
>
>
>
>
>
> Neen is a frame of Mind.
>
>
>
> "I actually know for sure that there are scenes on the Internet that
nobody
> knows about and nobody cares about, and within those milieus, very
> specialized sensibilities are evolving". (William Gibson, 2003)(2)
>
>
>
> Neen is the crazy little brother of Telic. Invented by the Branding
Company
>
> Lexicon, the creators of Pentium, Powerbook and hundreds of other brand
> names, it owns its existence in the realization that certain ideas or
> animations, certain sounds, words or behaviors are indeed Neen. It was a
> group of people from all around the planet who started talk about Neen
> around 2001. These people eventually met, some online and some in the real
> world and start exchanging their experience. A new art movement has been
> born, the first of the 21 Century. But still, Neen is mostly a concept and
> as such it has it's own life, which is independent from the activity of
> people who practice it.
>
>
>
> A person who thinks about Neen is a Neenster, while who actually does Neen
> is a Neenstar. What a Neenstar does may seem sometimes silly but only
> because it is easy and amazing. A Neenstar is not trying to make sense;
> he/she doesn't suffer from any stress of production and doesn't respect a
> pattern. The dream of a Neenstar is to become a special Icon - but not the
> type of icon you usually find in the glossies. A Neenstar starts his
career
> by becoming the Icon of his own imagination. Then, he projects that Icon
to
> the outside as if it is a fact.
>
> Identity is not a priority for a Neenstar, but one will fetishize oneself
> anyway and use that as a style: it's a fast way to produce content. But in
> contrast with contemporary artists, a Neenstar will change identities
often,
> according to the situations: Neen is ultimately a state of mind. People
such
> as Lucio Fontana, who were doing painting by simply slashing a canvas,
were
> Neen before Neen.
>
>
>
> Because the Internet is the best place to exercise your inertia, Neenstars
> spend a lot of time online. They are Friends of the information and not
> Users as the Telic people are. The word "cute", which has a dubious
> reputation in the West, while it is very respected in Asia, describes most
> of the times a Neen piece. But it's also Military Cute, Comme des Gar�ons
> for your brains.
>
>
>
> Neenstars are obsessed with names. They will run a search in the Internet
to
> see if the domain with a new name they envisioned is available. If it is,
> they will register it. Immediately after, they'll do something fresh and
> they'll put it online: it will not be your father's website with the usual
> links, info and stuff - it will be something minimal, strange, romantique.
>
> Neenstars will let the webpage to be what we are looking for on the
> Internet: something never seen before, a new art object.
>
>
>
>
>
> "It's really interesting... (Is it Jeffrey?)"
>
>
>
>
>
> "Contemporary Art", the art of the past century, was based mostly on the
> following principle: "if you put something in an empty room, it seems
> strange and significant".
>
> A variation of that was: "if you take something out of its context, it
seems
> strange and significant".
>
> Another was: "if you change the scale of something, it will seem strange
and
> significant", and a last one: "if you multiply something it also becomes
> strange and significant". But after 80 years of different combinations for
> any kind of objects inside the hopelessly empty spaces of our art
> institutions, nothing seems really interesting. We see clearly now, that
the
> supposed "art" is simply a bunch of trash, just some products bought in a
> mall or a photo illustration.
>
>
>
> Outside of the Internet, there's no glory.
>
>
>
> Non-Internet artists are just some freelance employees of other employees
> (the curators of the exhibitions). To work for somebody else is not
> necessarily a bad thing, that's after all how beautiful religious pictures
> have been produced in the past. The problem starts instead, when your
> commissioner doesn't have a clue of what he/she wants from you.
>
>
>
> Most art curators and people who commission art today, never really ask
for
> anything specific from the artists that they choose. They want a "story"
and
> the artists are required to provide it: they have to show yet for another
> time what they (the artists) are already known for. It's an International
> loop and exhibitions in fact are identity control tests. Institutions
bestow
> curators with confidence and power. They are not suppose to look for any
> unseen objects but for some evidence of human expression, which they will
> bring back to their commissioners, as a well-trained dog would do with its
> ball.
>
> They are just sampling stories...
>
> No wonder then, that any top level art exhibitions such as the Whitney
> Biennial, the Documenta in Kassel, the Manifesta and the Venice Biennial,
> all look alike, and look like Graduation Day for students of anthropology.
> In these "shows", any realistic representation could as well be used as an
> illustration for the National Geographic, while any abstract piece becomes
> mere decoration.
>
>
>
> The Art World is relaxed and open to anything, because it knows that
nothing
> peculiar will ever happen. Even if the gallery is left empty, the public
> will search for the label with the name of the artist who did the "work"
and
> it will be satisfied in one way or another. Balloons, beds, chickens. Real
> Space has lost its emptiness.
>
>
>
> But in the Internet, where space is created by software and random
> imagination, an empty webpage is really empty. People and Web Entities
> ("Angels"), can still invent unpredictable objects to put there.
>
>
>
>
>
> "Collectors"
>
>
>
> Because Art is ultimately the power to put a form in the chaos, anyone who
> is busy with forms and concepts is an artist. That today includes
> "curators", "gallerists", "museum people" and even "collectors". They are
> all artists, most of them bad, but artists.
>
> A "collector" however also does also another job. Because he is a man with
> property, he decides what should survive. That's his artistic media after
> all: the power of keeping a piece into existence. Never this power has
been
> more significant, than for a collector of websites.
>
>
>
> Very few people yet are cool enough to collect websites. It requires
> intuition and courage. It is similar to the purchase of an apartment in a
> ghetto area of Harlem. You need to take the risks. Anybody instead can
walk
> into a Gagosian gallery and buy some contemporary art. It's as easy as
> buying designer clothes: the House which sells the product guarantees its
> value and you get what you pay for: a giant certificate of authenticity
with
> some picture on the front.
>
> When you buy "Contemporary Art", you buy a copy of what belongs already in
a
> Museum, because contemporary art museums are made specifically for this
type
> of art and will eventually host anything produced by the major galleries.
>
>
>
> It's an industry of memorabilia. Collecting in this case is not an
> adventure, but a banal experience, something like opening yet another
> Savings Account. Larry Gagosian in fact, refers with surprising sincerity
to
> his collectors as "customers". It is ok of course to be a customer, but it
> is far more interesting to be a collector of websites.
>
>
>
> The collector of a website has total control on the pieces he owns,
because
> the art in a website is not the animation or the code, or the pictures
that
> the website contains, but the experience of all the above in a unique
place
> somewhere in the cyberspace, under a unique name. What a collector of
> websites acquires, is a contract that passes to him the ownership of the
web
> domain - the place where the work actually exists. If he decides one day
to
> not pay the hosting fee, the work will disappear. You can burn a painting
> but its photograph will always permit people to reproduce it. It's not the
> same with the website though. The name of the website will return to the
> pool of the available domain names. The whole piece will expire, as if it
> has never existed.
>
>
>
> Collecting a website, is a trip to a secret Villa. If a collector decides
to
> keep this experience just to himself, he may put a password on the page
and
> nobody will be able to access it. He will lock the Villa and keep the art
a
> secret and that is ok. But if he will decide to let the piece available
for
> viewing to the public, he will experience the feelings of the ultimate
> property. You are the owner of art that all can enjoy but only you own. In
a
> time where anyone can buy anything, the only really glamorous collecting
is
> the collecting of websites and other digital objects. The pieces which are
> not considered art yet but will be art later.
>
>
>
>
>
> To be continued
>
>
>
>
>
> Miltos Manetas is an artist who lives in New York and Paris.
>
>
>
> Reference:
>
> (1). Googlism for: miltos manetas
>
> miltos manetas is the net
> miltos manetas is best known in
> miltos manetas is lying on a brown psychoanalyst's couch that constitutes
> the only colorful furniture in the entire white and gray loft that he
> inhabits with
> miltos manetas is an artist
> miltos manetas is similar
> miltos manetas is known for his paintings of computer hardware and
> vibracolor prints
> miltos manetas is one of the artists who addresses these mixed messages
> miltos manetas is a greek artist who works and lives between los angeles
and
> new york city
> miltos manetas is not an evil force magdalena sawon
> miltos manetas is a ny/la
> miltos manetas is an artist whose paintings mostly explore the realm of
> computers
>
>
>
> (2) William Gibson interviewed by Eric S. Elkins.
>
> http://www.ugo.com/channels/freestyle/features/williamgibson
>
>
>



------------------------------

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 13:53:56 +0200
From: "Lorenzo Taiuti" <md3169@mclink.it>
Subject:  <nettime> Hardt & Negri "Counseling the aristocrats"-The ideal-website

Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Caro Manetas
i know your website and i understand ( and like) your idea of a "website
as ideal place". (is that correct?)
But tell me more about it.
More precise things.

Ciao
Lorenzo Taiuti


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