Syndicate: Net.artists | words from the western lands

["jean-philippe halgand" <Pericles@insat.com>]

Posted from the western lands
Dear syndicalists, friends and net.artists
i followed with deep interest the last posts [syndicate of net.artists].
Reading the comments so far of Igor, Tina, Melinda, Melentie, Raivo, Honor
and others, it clearly appears that we all face the same problems wherever
we are and this in spite of all the generous efforts of some festival and
meetings organizers (not big hollywoodian machine-like festivals i mean). 
As i am no theorist, please accept that some of these reflexions might be a
bit personal and ...a bit long.

This year was supposed to be the year of recognition of  Net.art ( i read
this in some place -"some of my favourite websites are art" i think). Sounds
like burying a just-born child.
I won't debate here of what "Net.art" is supposed to be like  [it has been
done these last years by eminent specialists]  - even if i happen to regret
seing here and there the development of some orthodoxy or academia of some
sort.
Yet there is need for meeting people and exchanging, for works to be shown.

This raises a few questions.
What's the meaning of all these theme-park exhibitions or festivals around ?

Do artists have to make freely special works about -let's say infowar,
avatars,terror to name a few-, sometimes pay entry fees, to have their work
judged with hope to have it displayed in often unappropriate conditions ?
Mendicity.
Selling a better product than the fellow nearby ? Competition is really a
strange and dull thing. 
As Igor said rightly, showing websites in a festival doesn't cost anything
and it's money on the back of the artists. 
Quite a respectful  attitude isn't it ?

To be true, i feel a bit pessimistic about the future of "Net.art". If we
keep in mind that "Net.art" has much to do with language and intimacy, we
can just notice there is hardly a place for it in the realm of today's world
of art which becomes more and more spectacular. 
I doubt many of you have a lot money to buy up-to-date hard and softs and
have engineers or developers around to achieve such works we can see in new
media related fairs or institutions. Personaly it is not my case (this
reminds me of Robin Murphy's text "coping with technofatigue"). Somehow we
deal with an art of proxy and cheap to do. Copyleft, freeware. No need to
try making "Net.art" works some museum-worth pieces of art. It's nonsense.
"We're all in it for the money" Zappa once said.
Selling then "Net.art" works with private passwords to gogos ? It has
already been done.
Before being swept away while curators, critics and historians talk about
"Net.art" around a big table, time may have come for us to organize
ourselves better with wider networks.
Cultural emergencies ? Who knows.
That's what i think. What about you ?


A word from a Western Land to conclude
i am quite puzzled by your idea of the "west" or what it is supposed to be.
I live in France - not in Paris : in Bordeaux which is to say on the western
point of Eurasia.
Tell me if i am wrong but i have the impression that artists in northern and
eastern countries are much more socially integrated. 
I don't think of any state income but of the respect of persons and works.
It's not alike here. 
By the way, have you ever wondered why there are so few french net.artists
on the Nets ? 
Maybe there are none but...Isolation. No independant networks. No
"net.art"meetings or festivals where to meet each other or to meet the
public. No net.art scenes. No interest. No grants whatsoever.
You see the "garden of eden" isn't there either.

To read you
with my best regards

jean-philippe halgand

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