[-empyre-] Re: empyre digest, Vol 1 #101 - 1 msg

[Christina McPhee <christina112@earthlink.net>]

on 4/17/02 7:01 PM, empyre-request@imap.cofa.unsw.edu.au at
empyre-request@imap.cofa.unsw.edu.au wrote:

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>  1. Re: Forward from ippolito re gift economy vs art market #1 (Melinda
> Rackham)
> 
> --__--__--
> 
> Message: 1
> From: "Melinda Rackham" <melinda@unsw.edu.au>
> To: <empyre@imap.cofa.unsw.edu.au>, <JIppolito@guggenheim.org>
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Forward from ippolito re gift economy vs art market #1
> Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 14:44:14 +1000
> Reply-To: empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> 
> a few things i want to add ..hope im not repeating what's been said on
> rhizome-raw (been on digest  for ages -dont have enuff time. )
> 
> john k wrote:
>> second, the only alternative that jon presents to the artist as far as
>> making a buck is, get a day job. here's a quote from the rhizome list,
> snip..
> 
>> third, how does jon expect good art to be produced in an artist's spare
>> time, if they are holding down a day job? does this mean that net art
>> should only consist of one-liners and the equivalent of a
>> "non-commercial advertising?"
> 
> i find it highhly ironic that in a country (the US) that prides itself as
> the champion of fredom of speech and democarcy on the planet, that this is a
> pretty standard attitude towards the arts..
> your practice is not supported by the culture and you do need to get a day
> job to survive unless you are a compliant art star manufactured by, or very
> very good at playing, the system (and playing the system then of course
> becomes your whole practice) .
> this ensures that artists can never devote thier full attention to thier
> practice, that diversity and critcal practice  remain marginal  - which is
> hardly different from regimes that are seen as fascist or dictatorial..
> which only approve, allow and promote a certain kind of art practice. it
> treats art as simply part of a commodity market ...in to its being just a
> saleable and squabbles over the sale price. in this system the person with
> the least resources, ie the artist , is the one that is exploited the most.
> (one could compare it to workers  in third world countries geting paid $2 a
> week pay to make thousands of $'s worth of commodities, whether they be
> persian carpets, nike runners or computer chips)  . its an approcah to
> culture based on fear and exclusion , not diversity and inclusion and its
> designed to maintain itself.
> 
> in countries which give a lot of government and indsutry and private support
> the arts and artsits - like netherlands, gernmany , finland -  artists are
> also critical about who recieves this support, etc etc, but the difference
> is that support for art is seen as a crucial part of every day life just
> like access to health + education services. we humans need art and artsits
> to be a heatlhy well informed tolerant and functioning society.
> 
> jon i wrote
>> Can't Internet artists have their cake and eat it too--sell their work and
>> still have it accessible online? The problem is, dealers who play by the
> rules
>> of property will want to offer collectors exclusive viewing rights.Even if
>> artists try to sell those rights themselves--say, by offering artonline via
>> subscription or pay per view schemes--they may find themselves in thesame
>> predicament as their dot-com predecessors. Seventy percent of adultscan't
> see
>> themselves paying for *any* form of online content.6 Conditioned byNapster,
>> free e-mail, and open source software, the general public has got itinto
>> their heads that the Internet is for everyone. And they're right.
> 
> once upon a time seventy percent of adults couldnt see themselves using
> electricty as it was too dangerous...
> 
> however we are as a culture really really really willing to pay for some
> things online...like porn and gambling .. perhpas if we make net.art illegal
> and get the surgeon general to decalre it addictive and dangerous as it
> promotes fantasy and anti-corporte and capital  tendancies with its
> cooperative nature,  there would be would a long line of people handing out
> thier creidt card to get thier daily hit of it...
> 
> the reaons people started making net art..to connect on a network and route
> around the censorship of the instutional and corporate world, means that
> they (museums) will never want to treat it seriously - its still in
> opposition to thier structure.
> net.art doesnt need them to be stamped as approved, to be shown, to be
> affective. (unless of course you make design net .art..:) i get email from
> people who come accross my work online and its very gratifying as they have
> searched it out, spent time with it  and enjoyed it , not spent 3 seconds
> clicking the mouse twice in a museum where there are a bunch of people
> watching them and waiting their turn at it....
> 
> re copyrite  - artists do have power and choice here.. like  the artists who
> took thier
> work offline at the ZKM  net.condition opening a few years ago, so that the
> special guest viewers at the opening just got 404 errors on thier sites..
> to protest over thier appalling rate of payment as artits when everyone
> else - including tech and progammers and curators where very well paid.
> yesterday i got qa request from a show  asking me to send my online work to
> them on rom..(they have no money , they are poor instution, thier internet
> connections are bad..etc etc)  once upon a time i would have done it
> because i wanted my work to be as availabe as possible in every country in
> the world.., but im just not prepared to now , i wont provide content to an
> organistation where everyone else gets paid without a licence fee or an
> exhibition fee or nice publication etc...  this is  the only way i can think
> of to alter how curators and instutions work - by keep stating what is not
> acceptable, that artists dont work for free.
> 
> melinda
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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