On Sun, 14 May 2000, Patricia wrote:
> With all due respect, let's keep the stock tips on silicon
> investor and yahoo message boards.
OTOH, I would be very interested in economic models for artists and the
net. I was on a panel at a conference at the NYU Law School about "Free
Information in the Digital Environment" last month and there was a great
deal of talk about the need to think in terms of Law and Economics. I
spoke, quite naively, about Free Art but I learned a great deal since the
others included people like Richard Stallman, Lawrence Lessig, Pam
Samuelson, Eben Moglen, Jessica Litman, etc.
Needless to say, I've been attempting to be less naive about economies,
especially art and economics. I know Ken Friedman has posted lengthy
essays around this subject and I think I saved most of them. The
design theorist John Chris Jones sent me his new book from ellipsis, "The
Internet and Everyone" and I've found his chapter on flow diagrams
concerning automation very helpful as well as Jane Jacobs' "The Nature of
Economies" (The Modern Library).
I see several net-based art economic models being created, as well as all
of those that have failed over the past eight years. At the law conference
one speaker suggested we replace the concept of copyright with one of
reward, then imagine how that system might be created. I found that a very
helpful technique and very much like what Fluxus tried/tries to
do: imagine other ways of creating value other than the traditional
artmarket.
I contend that the most engaging art tends to be created when the
artist is working as closely as possible to a subsistance level, that is,
with a minimum of "imported" raw material as possible so that the need to
"export" (and be controlled by the market) is minimalized. Value is
created in the "processing" stage using natural resources
(eg: conceptualizing, craftsmanship). In other words, something like
Thoreau's "Walden" model.
Robbin
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://artnetweb.com/iola/
