The copying of rhizome's artbase

[anna balint]

i tried to download the last days what i could from the rhizome artbase
-cloned works are much fewer than the links-
but my platfor is not sufficient to see much of it, 
and besides access  but preservation of the works and software to start them.
as for copying the whole artbase... i would be happy enough if
somebody who paid already would provide me his or her login and password
to access the artbase only - i need it for research.

as general critique of the artbase i can say that is not much more but a list,  
and the works, it provides poor index, and poor, and mainly technical background 
information.
i have much different experience with organizing living archives and a broader view,  
- i found the orang archives much better in this respect.

as for the membership fee: it is much question of convinction, and an environment
where so many people feel comfortable.
at one hand there is the commercialisation of something of an essentially 
transcendent quality called in anthropololgy rites sociatives and its embedding
it in a hierarchical organisational form - rhizome is a non profit organisation 
running as the initiative of several people, not a society for instance, and they 
base participation from now on money. from here the appropiation of a collaborative 
work and culture is just a very small step. if the artbase would be the result
of a long research of several individuals, if they would have paid for the works...
but to sell the subscription not to a news service, but to a collaborative 
mailinglist, and leave the net art news for free is very strange...   
meta's argument is very strong also: either there a business aspect valid for all 
parts, or there is volontary contribution free of monatary value and in many case 
even free of the expections of the audience. why would be the work of the rhizome 
stuff paid and all other efforts volontary?
those five bucks though seem to be an insignificant sum, its is and exclusive 
category for many people. 
at the other hand there are probably practical reasons to push the 
membership fee. though i can hardly imagine that even alternative and independent
initiatives is the US have to be commercial to a point,
they have to run the webspace, and they have other quite consistent costs and 
invesments in the equipment, environment,and it seems that the net.pessimism
have cut them of all funds. 
we, at the syndicate choose another way: though we do not affiliate to
any institution, we are the guest of anart in Norway. Anart never had
any expecation towards us, there is no pressure on us of any kind
from their part, on the contrary, they supported us and they are providing us
with the best service possible.
the list is informal, we did not organize ourselves in any official form, 
and that means also that we did not even came to the possiblity to apply for any
funds.

i stated before that on the long run, to concentrate on one artbase, 
or even a few is just the wrong strategy. every cultural item that 
survived longer periods is rescued due to the multiplicity of the
copies. according to the coverage capacity of the old media, scorings, 
manuscripts, books were made in many copies in order to reach
wide audience, whereas nowadays everybody can access all information
if it is displayed on a single server. it is said that every year 70%
of the data on the net disappers. the wayback machine that runs in
the US looks up previous variants of a webpage only if that information
and that space still exist.

i said previously as well, that i would be ready to run a syndicate
archives. all that i need some reliable webspace, some help from people who
know softwares much better than i do, and a desk where i can set up and try
all platforms.

greetings,
anna