Some links — very different btw — with somewhat web 2.0 related stuff:
http://sioc-project.org/
http://www.peopleaggregator.net/
http://structuredblogging.org/
http://www.newsvine.com/
http://www.blogdigger.com
http://itags.net/index.php/Main_Page
http://www.ourmedia.org/
http://www.digg.com/
http://www.techmeme.com/
http://wink.com/

And a very interesting small study of tagging here: http://itags.net/index.php/Study_of_tagging_with_bloggers”

Picked up the current issue of thee Irish magazine on contemporary arts Circa (Online stuff here: http://www.recirca.com. And come across a very interesting interview with of San Diego-based art historian Grant Kester — had never heard of him. His work deals mainly with collaboration in the arts. It seems he has a much more interesting view on the state of contemporary art than Jacques Ranciere — or no, more precise, might have an answer to some problematic point in Ranciere’s theories. Good links from his university homepage: http://digitalarts.ucsd.edu/~gkester/.

I’ve been spending (losing?) time the last three days by looking at various projects that one could call ‘web 2.0’, or, more precise (?) websites & softwares that try to use (cash in?) on the power of social networking. Mostly it’s applications that provide users with some sort of wiki- blogging, FOAF-networking, and/or tagging functionality — a particular blend (melange) of it, plus a nice (?) interface designed to appeal to a certain userbase. Or hoping to find a user-base. Some of them, I’d say, are nice & will succeed to find that user-base, others come across to me as a commercial wager that can either succeed (like MySpace) or be forgotten. Some are closer to the idea of the Semantic Web, others hope that order (or usability) will emerge from the ‘multitude’.

On a personal level — speaking about this particular user: me — I haven’t seen a project that I would use regularly myself. I might sometimes use delicious, upload photos to Flickr and I have an account on Technorati (that I do not use) — but all three services are in no way necessary. I could do without. This probably posits myself as an old-skool internet-user, generation 1994. If I need wiki-functionality, I’ll use a wiki myself. (Btw my provider has set one up for every user). I can publish using ftp, html &c. Of course I enjoy the functionalities that are available now. Yet most on them strike me as ‘not designed for me’.

It’s not that I am content with whatever there is: I would really like to see a better (= more aesthetically appealing) interface for reading RSS-feeds. A better way of organizing the feeds. And I love to see better content, especially for news & background to the news.

(Not reading newspapers every day, and skipping a few days of newspaper reading last week I missed that the chess-match between Kramnik and Topalov had started! I was extremely annoyed: I like to follow that, but it’s below (or above) the radar of all the web-sources I’m bound to check. I wonder if social networking would have helped here. Chess won’t pop-up that easily in my profile.) (Just to say that — I think — there will always be a need for ‘general interest’-publications = newspapers, and for human editors next to software-channeled editors).

Software-channeled (software/computer/algorithm) newsservices like Digg and Newsvine can work. Mankind has been experimenting with these sort of concepts for ten years now (chuck a lot of stories in a database, let users vote, analyze the voting and the user-behavior & then deliver the personalized content to the user). But I’m utterly unimpressed with both Digg and Newsvine. Not enough content and no content that has my interest.

And wrt Technorati. I hardly feel tempted to explore all the different functionalities (though I’d say the search engine and the tags work quite well). I’m not interested in my ranking (don’t think I’m ranked, did I ‘claim’ my blog at all?) And what keeps me from using it, is the feeling/impression that every action I perform there is part of a huge datamining-experiment. It’s mostly a ‘feeling’ — though it is a huge datamining experiment, but Google is as well & I use Google without too many second thoughts. (We’re not going to escape datamining. The question is: who is doing it, on what grounds, what is done with the data).

I’m also not so much into social networking: I like to write & read. Let’s say — radically — : it’s the texts, the content, that weaves the web; not the functionalities of the software. I’m happy if I can give my attention to that.

Wrt to attention: I still have to order the (new) Richard Lanham book about the economy of attention. And it seems Roseanne Stone said some important things about this in her lecture at the crossmedia-week, referring that we live in a ‘partial attention’ state of mind. That’s not multitasking anymore: we’re continuously partially paying attention to lots of things. Research learns that this leads to enormous stress. We know that, but what captured my attention is the apparent difference between multitasking and partial attention. Found on http://www.uzy.nl/2006/09/28/picnic-06-dag-2/. Will check for a more elaborate reference.

Maybe the disappointed, irritated tone of this entry is to be traced back to ‘too much browsing around’ and too little concentration.

Bewolkt, een paar sputters van een bui, harde zuidenwind, maar nog warm genoeg om in korte broek te rijden. Ditmaal het andere deel van Ligne 38 gereden (tussen Melen en Jupille, waar het uitkomt op de top van de Cote de Trixhe/Thier Goreu — fijn rijden), plus weer een stel klims die ik eerder had laten liggen: de Rue de Lonneu, klim bij Heuseux, de lange klim naar Bellaire en de Vielle Voie de Bellaire. De Bois de Beyne is nog steeds afgesloten. Kanne – Lanaye – Lixhe – Vise – Lorette – Dalhem – St. Andre – Rue de Lonneu – Bolland – Cerexhe – Melen – Ligne 38 (Micheroux – Fleron – Beyne – Jupille) – Thier Goreu – Jupille – Bellaire – Vielle Voie de Bellaire – Bellaire – La Motte – Cheratte – Sarolay – Hermalle ss Argenteau – kanaal – Kanne

Do I have any readers in the United States? Anyway, if you’re living on the east coast this month is your chance to hear the music of the various groups of the N Collective http://n-collective.com/, like SKIF++, MoHa, Office-R(6), etc. About the most interesting sounds & compositional & improvisation concepts in contemporary music (well, I think). Very warmly recommended.

Here’s the tour schedule:

The program:
* Oct 6-7 Sonic Circuits Festival, Washington DC
Groups: USA/USB, MoHa!, SKIF++, DB, Office-R(6), Pho, 5.1 surround compositions by Robert van Heumen & Jeff Carey
Website & schedule: http://www.dc-soniccircuits.org/index.html / http://www.n-event.net/
* Oct 7 Sonic Circuits Festival, Washington DC
lecture Robert van Heumen (STEIM/LiSa) – 3pm at the Warehouse Screening Room
* Oct 10, Flywheel, Easthampton MA
Groups: SKIF++, USA/USB, DB
Website & schedule: http://www.flywheelarts.org/
* Oct 12, The Tank, NYC – 10:00PM
Groups: SKIF++, DB, MoHa!
Website & schedule: http://www.thetanknyc.org/
* Oct 13, ITP / New York University (NYU), NYC
lecture Robert van Heumen (STEIM/LiSa) & Jeff Carey (Super Collider) from 12 – 1:15PM at ITP, 721 Broadway (at Waverly Place), 4th floor
* Oct 13, Diapason Gallery, NYC – 8:30PM
Groups: SKIF++, DB, USA/USB, 5.1 surround compositions by Robert van Heumen & Jeff Carey
Website & schedule: http://www.diapasongallery.org/
* Oct 14, Redroom, Baltimore – 8:30PM
Groups: SKIF++, MoHa!
Website & schedule: http://www.redroom.org/
* Oct 15, St. John’s Church, Baltimore – 8:00PM
Groups: SKIF++
Website & schedule: http://www.stjohnsbaltimore.org/CRP.htm
* Oct 16, University of Maryland (UMBC), Baltimore
lecture Robert van Heumen (STEIM/LiSa), Bas van Koolwijk (MAX/Msp/Jitter) & Jeff Carey (Super Collider) – time and place to be announced

Een fijn zaterdagmiddagtochtje. Opnieuw een stel weggetjes en klims gereden die ik eerder had gemist. Eindelijk, dankzij meenemen van de kaart, de weg tussen Wandre/Xhavee en La Motte gevonden: daar staat een verkeersbord ‘doodlopende weg’ namelijk. Wie dat negeert vindt, na linksafslaan (rechtdoor wordt erg onverhard), een mooi, afgesloten, bosweggetje. Verder maar ‘wat aan’ gereden. Uiteindelijk van het fort van Battice tot aan Hombourg over het sintelpad van de ‘Ligne 38’ (een opgeheven spoorweg) gereden — toch redelijk goed te doen met de racefiets en het is wel een ervaring om zo’n lang stuk helemaal in een soort groene corridor te rijden. Schitterend weer, 23 graden, zuidenwind, zonnig. Kanne – Lanaye – Maas – sluis Vise – kanaal (oostzijde) – Hermalle – Sarolay – Cheratte – Housse – Wandre – La Motte – Queu du Bois – Retinne – Melen – Bolland – Charneux (extra klim) – La Minerie – Thimister – Stockis – Battice – Ligne 38 – Aubel – Hombourg – Teuven – Slenaken – Schilberg – St. Martensvoeren – Gravensvoeren – Moelingen – Lixhe – Maas – Lanaye – Kanne

Nog altijd schitterend weer. 23 graden, ‘bit overcast’ maar ook zon. En wat zijn er nog veel ‘circulation locale’-wegen waar ik toch nog niet ben geweest — vooral in de omgeving van Charneux en Battice. Kanne – Eben – Halembaye – Haccourt – Hermalle ss Argenteau – Wixhou – Richelle – Dalhem – St. Andre – Rue Fontaine – 2x klim richting weg naar Battice – Bouxhou – Battice – Thimister – La Minerie – Rossenfosse – Val Dieu – Afnay – Warsage – Gravensvoeren – Moelingen – Lixhe – Lanaye – Kanne

This comes as a real shock. Last week the young Dutch poet/blogger/thinker — I don’t know what I should call him — Jeroen Mettes ‘stepped out of this life, voluntarily’: http://n30.nl/2006/09/blog-post.html. I missed that it had happened, not having visited his blog, or one of the other Dutch blogs on poetry for a week and a half. I never met Jeroen Mettes, never e-mailed him, never left comments on his blog — yet I always read what he wrote with more than great interest. I knew him by his written words only. He was an ‘original voice’, a voice, that made me long for the future of literature, a future that his words, his poetics, I imagined, might shape.

Especially since the Upgrade night I have the feeling that I am really missing out on something.

First by skipping all of the crossmedia festival that’s now on at the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam — okay, the programme is quite ‘American’, commercial, focussed on “the creative industries’, but amongst so much one could pick out the good bits & I’m sure I would’ve met many people I know.

Secondly be skipping the Re:visie exhibition & performances at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht — with a.o. Telcosystems and Bas van Koolwijk + Staalplaat Systems on saturday 30th. The exhibition is still on till the 8th, so who knows…

Thirdly, the Amsterdam Underground Festival: — but I might be there on sunday, and see Federico — who’s also doing some stuff there: http://www.amsterdamunderground.nl/und/.

But I really have to write, write, write, in my studio at the Jan van Eyck.,

http://www.revisie.org
http://www.crossmediaweek.com
http://picnic06.typepad.com/
http://www.amsterdamunderground.nl/und/

Wrt “the creative industries”: there’s some sort of an ugly hype around that word. The creative industries as saviours of the economy, the city etc. (There was this influential book about how creative industries and artists are necessary for the blooming of inner cities, The Creative Class? I mostly immedialtely forget about that sort of stuff, but even I got the queries in my mailbox from researchers stating that I belonged to the creative class and that therefore they’d like to ask me some questions. It was proper academic research yet I hit ‘delete’.)

I prefer not to look at the ‘marketing’ side, the self-advertisement, the lobbying, the self-promotion, the politics that are going on in order to get to the big European funding, or get in the big investors. I honestly also do not see what would be so different now. Of course we have design, we have innovation, we have technological research, we have the arts, we have entertainment-development. But we have always had that. The difference might rather be that where innovative research took a time span of thirty years, fifty years, they’d now take a time span of ten years…to look ahead. (That at least is what I heard an old aerospace engineer state at the ASCA-conference last june). I am not interested in business models. I am interested in use.

Btw: the arts do not belong to the ‘creative industries’ — although they are closely related, might operate in the same field, use the same sources and even work in the same labs. What the arts aim at is the reverse of what the creative industries would like to produce. The creative industries might think that they are close to the ‘spirit of innovation’ of the arts, but good art does not aim at usable, clearly defined results.

That said I must stress that I do not believe there is some sort of pure art. Neither is there a clear-cut boundary between the arts & the creative industries. There should be no clear-cut boundary, not even in theory. There is cross-pollination (sp?), collaboration, adaption, sabotage ;-) — and the products of the creative industry migth be very aesthetically pleasing, as art can be. The difference is in the way of applying, in the application. Theoretically the difference is an ‘ideal’ one, one that does not exist in reality. (Cf. Dewey).

Maybe I shouldn’t say too much about these issues. It’s a bit the same with the web2.0-stuff. I am not interested in the hype, not interested in deconstructing the hype. (The investors that hope/hoped to make money by selling their social network-thingie — bought from a small group of software developers — to either Google of Yahoo. The investors of Yahoo and Google, only there to make money. It’s about huge virtual money-transfers, about trust in the future ‘inscripted’ in stocks &c. And that still is a world I am not able to get. Which is to say that I understand how it functions, yet my frame of mind finds it — (in the way it is currently ‘organized’) — so utterly perverse, so ‘full of shit’, so far from what I would see as going toward a good society, that I (emotionally) can only wish it to collapse as soon as possible).

(Note: I’m not so much against single ‘citizens’ investing money in a project or industry, or a person honestly investing money in Google because he likes it, and hopes that it will develop further because it’s a good change of the world. But the big investors are in it for money and run when they’ve collected their “share”. It’s the same sort of ‘not getting it’ as that I honestly, emotionally do not understand how somebody can ever earn enough money to own a superexpensive car (though rationally I get it).)

So I leave that aside and look at the bright side, the open source side ;-)

Anyway, to stop ranting: what I am interested in is in how and why people use the tools and functionalities that have become available to them, how and why they adapt and change them, how they flock to them and how and why they abandon them.

Wednesday-night four (ex)-students/artists presented their works at Amsterdam’s Upgrade: Dragana Antic, Jonas Vorwerk, Ralf Baecker and Daan Brinkmann. Very good work from all four of them. Very good. Yet, both Kristina Andersen and me were missing something… grittyness maybe?

(Kristina, Aadjan van der Helm and me were the panel. Felt a bit strange with Matthew Fuller, Florian Cramer, Eric Kluitenberg, Josephine Bosma, Richard de Boer, Tanya Gorucheva, Anne Nigten, Michael Murtaugh, and who am I forgetting? in the public. And I felt I wasn’t very sharp).

Apparently we’ve come at a point were ‘we’ (well, art students & artists working in the interactive field) know very well how to make installations that are working smooth, are reactive, are intuitively pulling you into the world (or game), and are ‘nice’ to interact with. We know how to do it, what works and what doesn’t. It is as if we have figured out the ‘aesthetics of interaction’. That leads to the question, ‘why?’ (why this work?), what does it do? and why is that important, what’s it “saying” or doing to me — what does that experience mean, what does it “say”, or critize, “complexify” or clarify, waht does it change, what does it ‘estrange’ (Dragana Antic was very much inspired by the Russian Formalists’ idea of ostranenie).

Is there a “way out” of just “nice interaction” for these sort of works? (Or could that also be enough — I guess that depend on what one expects of art…). I had the feeling that however great the works presented were, they seemed to be lacking a strong answer to those questions. There is definitely something of an answer in Dragana Antic work (maybe more in her theory than in the installation itself — though I should be careful with that, I did not spend that many minutes inside it). Ralf Baecker seems to work in another direction — landscapes carved out by a milling machine on the basis of search queries typed into a German search engine (and the project that he is working on now — he told me about it afterwards — makes me very curious).

I do not have an answer ready. (Though, if I had a hardcore theory about what good art is, and what bad art, based on — for instance — an Adorno-inspired avant-garde programme, I could come up with some readymade answers… But that’s not my style). I’ll be thinking about it…

Dragana Antic: http://pzwart2.wdka.hro.nl/~dantic/D/F/main.html
Jonas Vorwerk: http://www.beatnologic.com/site/homepage.php
Ralf Baecker: http://www.no-surprises.de/
Daan Brinkmann: http://www.daanbrinkman.nl/ (offline now?)