While I won't debate the other points I do agree with Damian regarding the visibility issue of NZ artists, net artists, creatives, whatever label you'd like. As a former Online curator searching for new content to show, finding local content was extremely difficult. Searching Google with terms was daunting - TradeMe results, PDFs, and governmental notes would come up before anything of relevance. I learned to find artist sites instead by obscure links from other artist pages.
Hence the reasoning for a digital arts hub site (window.org.nz), which was successful in gaining visitors internationally, but less so in gathering together local shows, work, and artists into a community (or at least community noticeboard area, to use a less emotive term). So I still think a digital hub in some form would be a very useful idea. >From my perspective, it's less about having a website (free hosting and content management via Blogger or Google Pages gets you a site in literally 5 minutes), and more about allowing it to be found. Perhaps a crash course in 'optimising your site for Google' would turn the search engine into a hub instead of a more traditional Yahoo portal type approach. I also believe it creates something of a Catch 22 situation, where this visibility issue creates a lower profile for the digital space in general, which in term keeps the amount of work lower and frustrates artists experimenting with the medium for the first time. Cheers, Luke Munn http://www.werkhaus.co.nz/ http://www.myspace.com/theribbonmusic On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 8:33 AM, adam hyde <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sun, 2008-09-21 at 21:21 +0200, Damian Stewart wrote: >> hey ada, > > hi...ada-m replying ;) > >> >> i was talking yesterday to a semi-famous Austrian net/code artist, about >> New Zealand artists. i realised a know a lot of artists (in the traditional >> sense - painting and sculpture and whatnot) but that their work is >> practically invisible to the rest of the world because most of them don't >> have any kind of web presence. >> >> she was saying that there are a lot of people with money (eg in the US) who >> would love to have access to a pool of talented artists who are currently >> undiscovered - and why on earth don't these people have websites? we went >> on to talk about Austria and the Netherlands - the Austrian scene eg >> Farmersmanual got a real head-start because of government-sponsored web >> access > > no...fm got a 'headstart' because they were genuine innovators and > started before anyone else - and much of this was, in the beginning, on > offline media.... They did have net access from silver server but it was > shakey...I went to their studios in about 1998 and they had isdn > connections in their hallway that served the building and nearby > buildings - this was the innovation that silver server brought to vienna > and its a shame that it didnt pick up in other cities but as i remember > it, it was a commercial initiative and essentially a hack to get around > the fact that there was no infrastructure in the city...silver server > *might* have been supported by the city i cant be sure - but it was the > underlying attitude of fm and their out and out talent that made fm > amazing, not the network (remember that they released vinyl and cd etc > as their preferred medium at the time) > >> - in particular Farmersmanual were offered the use of streaming >> video technology virtually for free, at a time when this was incredibly >> expensive; the Dutch used to lead net-art because of the government >> sponsored XS4ALL service. >> > > hmmm...not really...XS4ALL was not government sponsored. I worked there > from 1999, it was never government sponsored. it was a culture full of > hackers that didnt know how to manage money and threw cash at anything > that they thought was a good idea. however they didnt necessarily throw > that at net art, they threw it at hacker culture. net.art in .nl, in my > opinion, got a start for many factors, part of this was that the squat > culture and xs4all, and de waag, dds, de balie were all part of a very > small scene...they all new each other, essentially through the squats > and many coming from the very active free radio culture that > existed...amsterdam at this time was something of a free media utopia > and that created an atmosphere and sub culture of media innovation...it > was just a natural hot spot and nothing to do with government > sponsorship, it was a historical legacy that stemmed mainly from illegal > but tolerated media experimentation (radio)...when the net came along > they jumped on it and exploited it as a natural extrapolation of that > experimentation...however the net wasnt freely provided by government > sponsorship...it was supplied in part by their crazy hackers mailing > floppy disks with dial up software to their mates, and by any other > means available > >> would a similar thing for NZ artists help gaining international >> recognition? in an election year, do you think we could convince some party >> to offer sponsorship of artists websites - covering at least hosting (which >> would be very, very cheap to implement) and at best web site development >> for those without web-knowledgeable friends...? > > the only thing that will get nz artists recognition is themselves. > government sponsorship will not help, infact if u get a government to > sponsor your site you must either be doing something wrong or you gotta > vote for the other guy cause their judgement is off the rails ;) ..its > not external money etc that gets people known, it is demonstrated > innovation and sometimes that is _inspite of_ the lack of resources > > i'm not advocating that 'artists need to be poor to make good art'. but > i am emphasising that a reliance on gov. funding is not the essential > ingredient to making good art or getting recognised...it has more to do > with the creative exchange of ideas and the passion to experiment > > adam > >> >> thoughts? >> >> d > -- > Adam Hyde > Founder FLOSS Manuals > http://www.flossmanuals.net > > _______________________________________________ > Ada_list mailing list > [email protected] > http://aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/ > _______________________________________________ Ada_list mailing list [email protected] http://aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/
