[syndicate] Re: No Flesh Guaranteed - Internet net cult hit...

[Eduardo Navas]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eryk Salvaggio" <eryk at maine.rr.com>
To: "furtherfield" <info at furtherfield.org>; <syndicate at anart.no>
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 1:42 AM
Subject: [syndicate] Re: No Flesh Guaranteed - Internet net cult hit...


>
> This is a good question. Maybe you ought to do what I did with "September
> 11th, 2001" - I took it down. It's a dead link now; only visible to people
> who email me to ask to see it. This works in a lot of ways- 1, it covers
me
> for bandwidth costs, and 2, given the subject matter, it keeps the work
from
> being utilized for feeding "American Patriot" purposes, which was a huge
> problem for me personally after the NYT article and could otherwise
> contribute to GW Bush's vampiric rise to power on the backs of 3000 dead
> instead of acting as an actual memorial to actual people, which was the
> whole idea in the first place.
>
> I suppose, really, that reason 1 is part of why the Rhizome Artbase is
> something of a valuable service, but for now I'm still not convinced that
> the administrative problems with the artbase have been addressed, (which
> makes me wonder if they ever will be) so I won't be contributing that
piece
> to it. I also had some private investors interested in it, but I am wary
of
> that, too, for similar reasons.
>

See, how much control an artist might try to exercise over the distribution
of a work is rather interesting when it comes to net art.  I may sound old
school in this regard, but I still believe that once a work is presented for
cultural discourse, it is the responsibility of the artist to let it go.
The best the artist can do is write about her ideas of art practice in
relation to the work, but this will not stop anyone from reconsidering a
work with an unexpected or even oppositional point of view.

This is the price one pays when functioning in a world dependent on
mechanical reproduction -- hence why Benjamin so adamantly critiqued the
dangers that came along with film -- as used by the fascists, etcetera.  But
even he entered the game of mass disemmination when his work was published
by his most revered fans posthumously, and it is quite daunting to realize
how his writing has been used to fulfill agendas around the world.  Why
should an net artist be any different? Simply because the files can be taken
down from the server to show ones control?  At that point one is no better
than the fascists.

Eduardo Navas