Re: [-empyre-] why i surf net.art

[j.abbate@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au]

In message <p05111722b9511005e7a6@[202.45.99.201]> Adrian Miles <adrian.miles@uib.no>
 writes:
> hi all
> 
> just to lesson the image i've made of myself as the 
> free-surfing-in-the-gallery sorta thing. the reason i see surf a 
> net.art installation is to see if the content is or is not online. 
> this might be something like turning on a browser status bar to see 
> what the url is. whatever.
> 
> it's my academic bias. which i realise in lots of contexts is wrong. 
> but as an academic i think of all the presentations i've given of 
> work that is online the only times i don't show it live is when there 
> is not connection available. i just don't do the load off my hard 
> drive and let's pretend we're online sort of thing, because i'm a 
> network sorta theorist. i just really have this almost ethical thing 
> where if my work celebrates/advocates things liked networked writing 
> and video as empowering but i don't use it when i present, then well, 
> the claims are hollow.

hello Adrian

Am I detecting a faint nostalgia for the 2400 baud modem? Isn't the only difference the arbitrary imposition of an online speed limit that is going to change with the next technological advance anyway? I am interested in this phenomena: the often utopic rhetoric of so much new media work is negated by a somewhat purist adherence to, or fetishisation of, the current technological conditions. What say?

John Abbate