Re: [-empyre-] shared canvas annoyance, wikis, blogs.

[Adrian Miles <adrian.miles@uib.no>]

At 13:01 +0200 16/6/02, Jill Walker wrote:
> As someone who's sat and watched shared canvas performances in a 
> net.art cafe with projections on all the walls, I can say that this 
> stuff can be incredibly boring to watch. Wallpaper. Perhaps it can 
> also be fascinating. But I suspect the fascination is in the 
> participation and that perhaps performance is not the right word. I 
> think the collaboration between artists is wonderful but that the 
> artists are speaking (expressing) to each other, not to the 
> audience. Watching other people's MOO conversations without 
> participating is, likewise, deathly dull.

i think the first is different to the second.

the first is largely usually improvisational and without some context 
it is unintelligible in any meaningful way. you have to knw the rules 
of the game to begin to get it (try watching a sport, hurling comes 
to mind, where you don't know the rules and try to enjoy it same 
applies to modern art/music/writing etc. this applies to online 
performance work in particular where the context (and context is 
always important in improv.) is largley the network. can't see/don't 
know the rules, it's just wallpaper.

so its about making the audience knowledgable.

the second one (moos) is probably similar to the first. you need to 
the context of the convesation, some are worth listening, some 
arren't (much like hearing others dreams), but moos are about 
conversation so if you're not party to it, well, yes, it's not the 
point is it? :-)

cheers
adrian miles
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