Re: [-empyre-] clarifying: a reply...

[Henry Warwick <henry.warwick@sbcglobal.net>]

On Jun 8, 2005, at 9:36 PM, //jonCates wrote:

> + that for reasons that are fairly unclear to me there seems to be a 
> social performance of culture clash going on wherein blogging is being 
> positioned as fundamentally {different|separated} from participating 
> in lists. perhaps this supposed + i think relatively ungrounded 
> distinction started b/c of posts on this list

Hi Jon.

I don't think that the distinction between lists and blogs is at all 
ungrounded.

Personally I prefer lists. I open my mail client and bingo - all the 
conversation is in one place and sorted by the date of its arrival, and 
identified by its provenance.

I'm presently on several lists, most of which I lurk upon:

OxFF list
kFor list
exiles list
meanwhile list
empyre list
humanist discussion group list
CoFD list

and a few others that have much lower traffic.

Now, if each of these were a blog or a Bulletin Board or a Forum, I 
would have to open up my browser, load each page, look to see what's 
the latest statements and threads (more clicking and loading pages), 
determine if I want to read it (more clicking and loading pages) and 
maintain a "background" memory of where I am in the hierarchy of the 
site's logic tree.

Which, given the sheer number of posts I plow through every day, would 
make hitting all those blogs and forae a truly tedious time burner. I 
can walk to the corner to get my news, or I can turn on the radio and 
get it as it happens. I prefer the radio.

Frankly, I prefer lists, because I'm lazy. I like having things sent to 
me. Digging up a URL - heck - just REMEMBERING to go dig up a URL is a 
pain in the ass. A list removes that responsibility, and provides data 
in a replica of a familiar low context format: the letter. If I find a 
list less than useful or interesting, I can always unsubscribe.

Now, with the folks featured here this month, clearly a blog system 
makes much more sense as an avenue of expression. But I don't think one 
can say that making a distinction between blogging and lists is 
ungrounded.

Furthermore, I see the discussion on empyre as basically an extended 
argument (I mean that in a more classical / programmatic sense, of an 
argument being a series of statements put forth in which one idea 
follows another logically towards a conclusion, or to establish ideas 
or evaluate other ideas) where the conclusion or evaluation is 
performative: what we do on the list is what makes the list continue, 
and that continuance is the conclusion of the list itself as a social 
object. Hence the evaluation also becomes performative: a dance of 
fingers on the keyboard...

The format of the list as an information system, has a number of 
shortcomings, but at the same time, a number of advantages, some of 
which I outlined above, and I believe sets the list wholly apart from 
the blog.

I would like to see some greater sense of critical analysis in the 
discussion here regarding what is the artistic use of the blog vs. 
"other" uses (online diaries, etc.) Also, a discussion of the 
(un)conscious underpinnings of this art (dependence on fossil fuels, 
resource extraction, geography as a class "formant", integration of 
technology as a social object, etc.) and how these issues are expressed 
or repressed in the works of the artists presented.

best to all,

HW


Note to all, especially my friends here I know off list: Both of my 
computers (G4 powerbook and G3 Yosemite) suffered catastrophic failures 
within 10 days of each other about 6 weeks ago - I lost many gigabytes 
of data and art work. (The main machine died - murdered by a clumsy 
housekeeper at a hotel - and the second was the "back up", and it died 
- motherboard and HD fry up - before I could set up another back up 
machine or disk array... I lost ALL of my completed FCP files, 2 CDs of 
music and an entire imaging series...) I'm in the process of acquiring 
a new machine, (HP P4 3.2gHz tower) and while I am completely 
re-assessing my relationship with computer technology, today I have to 
return the machine I'm writing this on (g3 beige), so my access to this 
list (and email and the internet in general) will be variable / minimal 
for a while.

So if I don't reply for a while, please understand...