RE: [-empyre-] Thank you Hazel and Jim...

["Jim Andrews" <jim@vispo.com>]

It's been inspiring for me to participate with you Christina, Melinda, the many who wrote in to
Empyre, and Hazel and friends. Thank you all. This is really quite a rockin list.

My last note, check out http://www.cbchomedelivery.com which is a relatively ambitious broadband
news project from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

I bring this to your attention, in this forum on electronic poetry, mostly because of the
quality of the work at http://www.cbchomedelivery.com . But I wanted to mention a relation with
electronic poetry and digital art more broadly.

About a year ago, Nora Paul of the Institute for New Media at the University of Minneapolis
(http://www.inms.umn.edu/convenings/sensingthenews/overview.htm )invited me to a workshop they
held on interactive audio and video. I was curious as to why I was invited, because the INM is a
journalism think tank, and I'm not a journalist. But Nora pointed out that whether one is a
journalist or an artist or a teacher or an online merchant...if one is in a situation where one
has to communicate strongly and engagingly online, there is considerable common ground, common
questions, common issues. I learned a lot from the journalists there. They also invited Sue
Johnson, who has done some fine work such as 360degrees.org, which won a webby for net.art and
is a strong piece of journalism also. Her projects have a leading role in online journalism and
she is a terrific artist.

I'd also point out that when we look not so much at electronic poetry as storytelling (and
that's what the journalists primarily do) we see sites from the journalists and the movie makers
(as in www.donniedarko.com ) being at least every bit as 'in there' as what is coming from the
artists on the web interested in narrative. I think this is, in part, because journalists and
movie makers are used to and creative with synthesis of media and arts. They're not militantly
mono-media-minded. This is also true, broadly speaking, in the visual arts.

i think the transition from print to online work has posed different problems for writers than
for those more used to working in multiple media and arts simultaneously. This is a complex
thing that has various causes. the computer seems like a typewriter with its keyboard. this is
purely textual (except for those links) that you're reading now. and the 'integrity' and
'quality' of writing are notions that have grown up in isolation, largely, from other media. the
notion of 'quality' writing that is not strictly textual is still problematical. but of course
part of the whole excitement of online writing is we figure we'll fix that during our lifetimes.
in a big way. particularly given that the world is moving in these directions now anyway, rather
than it being strictly the concern of the avant garde as it was, largely, prior to widespread
use of computers.

also, writers are peculiarly well suited to new media synthesis with programming.

again, thanks all. it's been a gas. i look forward to other topics on empyre.

ja