Re: <nettime> One year After Rhizome

[Rachel Greene <rachel@rhizome.org>]

Hi -- Rhizome is not part of the New Museum: there was no merger between
the organizations. We are affiliated entities. The New Museum has no legal
responsibility for the ArtBase: Rhizome.org, a small nonprofit that raises
its own monies, still has these responsibilities. Because the New Museum
believes in the mission and programs of Rhizome, in our staff (chiefly
Francis Hwang and me) and in the idea of art communities, they give us
some administrative and development support as well as an office in their
building.

Rhizome has changed from what it used to be: as have net art and the
internet. The question as I see it is -- now that the floodgates have
opened and the field has opened up, will enthusiasts and participants
embrace the diversity and volume that comes with this moment or will they
lapse into nostalgia for times past, nostalgia that devalues what is
happening now?

Perhaps many will prefer to participate in the field via smaller, more
specialized forums such as Betacity. There is no right or wrong way to
consume net art or to participate in its culture, but there are
preferences. Rhizome the organization (the small arm that administers
various programs for the thousands of Rhizome readers and participants
from 100 countries) believes in letting the use and content of Rhizome
change with the ranks and numbers of subscribers and members. And if you
think that there aren't good writers publishing on Rhizome I think you may
have a particular set of authors in your mind who qualify to shape
discourse. Perhaps you don't appreciate the diverse minds contributing to
Rhizome but I would encourage you to read more closely... and you always
have new forums such as Betacity or Cream.

Also, there are plans to do more curating out of the ArtBase in the next
year (2004-2005). We will also be developing online tools that make it
easy for Rhizome subscribers to curate their own exhibitions, or more
simply, create manifestations of groups of works based on preferences,
whims, interests.

Finally, a new audit will be posted on our web site in the next couple of
weeks. Feel free to examine our spending in more detail.


-- Rachel Greene



#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net