<nettime> adaweb thread

[nettime-l@Desk.nl]

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From: Keith Sanborn <mrzero@panix.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Re: Leading Art Site Suspended - Samyn, Weil,
 Garrin, Byfield

Holy cheese-whiz, Batman, we've gone from shoot from the hip, know-it-all,
get-real smartness to turgid blocks of reading between my lines. It's
interesting to know what I was really talking about from the point of view
of such neo-manicheans.

My response was precisely to the neo-con, or should we say Machivellian
variant of the Californian ideology Mr. Weil was promoting and the social
darwinism used to defend it by Mr. Samyn. And just to be clear about it,
since the capcity to imagine my thoughts doesn't seem to be universal, I do
not think the state is a more moral entity than corporations. But maybe
being clear is the same as being naive. Oh gosh, I'll just have to risk it.

It's interesting to note how consistently in Tbyfield's and B Weil's
postings the term "naive" is or "being in denial" deployed as a descriptor
of a point of view which opposes their own. This is not very subtle, you
big bad realists you. Guess, I'll just have to cry myself to sleep in my
big Utopian fantasyland. How many tickets does it take for the Internet
ride?

Making work for hire, or an exchange in kind for advertising, amounts to
pretty much the same thing. Artists who have corporate hosts for their
sites are signing on as decorators of their corporate lobbies. Those who
accept government subsidies perform the same function for the state. It's
not a matter of pure or impure, it's rather a matter of not only what
you're saying, but where you stand when you say it. But we're really
talking about small potatoes here. I can only wonder at the moral dilemmas
an Oscar Niemeyer must face. The hilarious thing is that in Europe or
America it's so ludicrously cheap to have your own website and so
idiotically simple to make one, that you don't NEED a government or
corporation to sponsor you, unless you of course want to fulfill the dream
of all cadres of living without working.

I don't really think there is such a thing as clean money, or dirty money,
I simply prefer to use my own money. It doesn't mean I don't use an
umbrella to stay out of the rain. Contray to the world-weary, too-wise
neo-con posturing, it is possible to make corporations and the state cough
up blood from time to time by putting pieces of broken glass in with the
cakes we bake and which they will always come around sooner or later to
consume. It doesn't require a sponsor to do so, but then again I'm not
concerned about having a "career." Gee, I wonder if the Zapatistas have a
corporate sponsor who supplied experts to hack their way into the Mexican
government website. Is there a form I can fill out so that I can get some
too?

Keith Sanborn

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From: "Armin Medosch" <armin@mail.easynet.co.uk>
To: nettime-l@Desk.nl
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 23:40:11 +0000
Subject: Re: <nettime> adaweb and water on the moon

on the same day when i posted this nytimes article about the suspension of 
adaweb to this list i also wrote a short an rather journalistic article 
about this event, but also about how art is valued in society. What you 
say here...

>This is because the general social perception in Western societies is that
>art practice is the jam on the social bread, art can be tolerated as long
>as life feels fairly comfortable. As is illustrated with adaweb, when the
>going gets a bit tough - tell your artists  its enough. 

...is one of the central points i try to make in this article. So for all 
those who read german please have a look at 

http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/glosse/3187/1.html

cheers and (for me)
good night
a.
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