Re: [-empyre-] Territory/workvs.labor

[John Klima <klima@echonyc.com>]

Patrick Lichty wrote:
> 
> Methinks that wither the individual should be able to find a less complex
> > > method of expressing the same concept or understand that they are doing
> it
> > > for personal satisfaction, and not feel entitled for the art world to
> > > support it.
> > >
> > > John, I know that you might snack me for this, but we'll talk about this
> in
> > > person, I'm sure. I know where you're coming from.
> 
> > i wouldn't smack you for that! i think yer right. i don't feel that the
> > world owes me anything and i do indeed do it all for personal
> > satisfaction ... liza napier would smack you, but thats cause she has two
> little mouths to
> > feed.
> 
> Of course, I have no problem with this; I have a serious art jones to feed.
> And people doing work that is communicating aptly _deserve_ (but are not
> entitled) to to get what they need.  My point is pragmatic (as I frequently
> am) in considering what is the balance between investiture in time, thought,
> and technique to sufficiently articulate a concept, get it to the public,
> and get compensated for it.  In hearing Mark's ideas on the translation of
> flag data into vectors being the bulk of the time, I would think that this
> could have been farmed out, as it's grunt work.  For some odd reason, I feel
> like if Mark would have gotten Corel or Illustrator, imported the flags from
> clipart, and then output them as vectors he coudl parse (or even print them
> on graph paper for the data entry gnomes to use), he could have saved a lot
> of time.

indeed there may have been a more efficient approach to the flag
problem, and indeed a lot could have been farmed out, but when i'm faced
with a limited budget and a lot to do, i tend to do it all myself. i am
the grunt 'cause when it comes right down to it, i need the fucking job!
this way, one also gets what one needs, no explaining for the 10th time
how its supposed to look.
 
> And I'm sorry; when you start getting into art as capitalism, Taylorism
> becomes an issue. Time/production.
> 
> That's why a lot of my work is a little more basic than I would want.

i think napier and i share the same opinion that regardless of how much
we are getting paid to do something, we're gonna make the final work
what we want it to be, and not base the final product on a realistic
production cost criteria.  at least this is how i have worked thus far.
for the commission i am about to start, i intend to do it the other
way.  the labor/payment ratio is still way skewed, but i'm taking the
monetary value of the commission, figuring how many weeks i can eek-by
on that sum, and that is how long i'm going to work on the project.
comes to 10 weeks, $500 a week. thats just barely enough to stay afloat
in NYC. as a point of comparison, my rate for corporate consulting was
$500/day for "short" days, about 6 hours. 

in the past i've been a staunch advocate that the tech should follow the
art in all things. don't dumb down the tech solely to reach a wider
audience because then you dumb down the art, as the needs of a wide
audience become the primary issues in the creation of the work.  i'm not
changing my philosophy on this, i'm just trying a different approach to
see what happens.  i discovered that the one project i did that was
easily accessable, "the great game," enjoyed a level of exposure in
orders of magnitude greater than my other work. partly it was the
context and partly it was the simple fact that it was easy to get at, no
downloads, no fancy gear. the extent to which "TGG" was publicly
received was far, far beyond my expectations. i discovered that complete
strangers who i'd met in a bar or whatever, who had no connection to my
world, had seen the work. and had gone back multiple times. nothing like
a free add in the new york times to drive yer hit count through the
roof.

> the talk such as it is on the subject, is about adequate or fair
> > compensation, and the problem as i see it, is that the perception of the
> > general public is that net art doesn't take much time.
> 
> Well yes - that's the consumer mindset about computer use.
> ...He goes out with his coffee table all over the region
> ...Not very realistic.

sure that HP add is unrealistic but thats how personal computers have
been sold since day one. eventually the possesors of the truth will hit
a critical mass where the points you outline are understood in the
culture to be false. well, lets hope.

j