partial response

[Alan Sondheim]

first, excuse me; I'm exhausted and just got in from a trip.

UD was started as a mode of presenting work on Nettime that otherwise
would be lost. Nettime has not been particularly favorable towards textual
work; it is heavily moderated, and UD is a way to present work to a large
international audience.

second, I do think the To: would be useful, not only for context, but for
origin. I also think the work of very often of extremely high quality and
exists independently of its originating list.

third, I feel that the list has changed; as I wrote in a recent piece,
pure codework, such as it is, if it is, is relatively limited, but there
newer directions coming along all the time - directions that, at least for
me, and I am not speaking for anyone else - are brilliant and exciting and
deserving of a wide audience.

fourth, already calling it 'UD' is a form of reification of course; in
fact, UD and these lists aren't ever that important - they're more like
informal presentations, conversations, distribution modes. if someone does
object to being included, we take the work out; of course so far that has
been after the fact, and perhaps we should ask for permission first. but
we have tried to keep this a fluid thing, not a thing at all, but a
fluidity, and the more restricted it gets, the more it will lose its
flavor.

fifth, of course I've had back-channel comments that have been highly
favorable re UD, but that's not the point. the point, for me, is dissemin-
ation of exciting work to audiences greater than our usual; most of
nettime isn't so oriented towards codework, so this has been somewhat of
an opportunity for which I'm grateful.

please note I'm only speaking for myself; I'm not the primary editor and
am not speaking for the others -

Alan

http://www.asondheim.org/ http://www.asondheim.org/portal/
http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt
older http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html
Trace projects http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm