<nettime> Appropriation^4

[Michael Mandiberg <Michael@Mandiberg.com>]

-- 
Today something exciting and out of the ordinary, but not entirely 
unexpected happened.  Today not one but two different people created 
appropriations of my two new sites AfterWalkerEvans.com and 
AfterSherrieLevine.com.  First I received a press release from Badur 
Ramji informing me of his site AfterMichaelMandiberg which is up at 
http://www.scream.ca.  He saw a review on wired 
(http://www.wirednews.com/news/culture/0,1284,43902,00.html) and his 
response was to build his site, to ask "Should digital expressionism 
also be an open source platform?"  His site uses a screen shot of 
AfterWalkerEvans.com as its image, and has a compressed zip archive 
of the entirety of both of my two sites for download and posting.

Next, I recieved a press release from Kendall Bruns announcing his 
new site http://AfterMichaelMandiberg.com.  I had previously received 
an email notifying me that he purchased the domain name, though at 
that time it was undeveloped.  Kendall's site takes a slightly 
different approach, nearly exactly mirroring my sites, altering only 
the initial statement, where he inserts himself into the chain of 
appropriation.

I think it is totally appropriate, and a lot of fun.  I had hoped 
someone would come up with a rejoinder of the sort, as the site is 
somewhat begging for it.  Each repetition creates a new authentic 
object; each repetition creates a new fake that is one step more 
devoid of any (fallacious) real expression.  Each step is one more 
iteration of this experiement at the cost of Walker Evans, Sherrie 
Levine, and now myself.  I place myself with them in all seriousness, 
and at the same time aware of how absurd that statement is.  This is 
why I am doing this.  To experience that liminal moment.

Michael




Their press releases are available at:
http://www.AfterWalkerEvans.com/ramji.html
http://www.AfterWalkerEvans.com/bruns.html

The sites:
http://www.AfterWalkerEvans.com
http://www.AfterSherrieLevine.com
http://AfterMichaelMandiberg.com
http://www.scream.ca

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