[spectre] On Blogging 'inappropriate'? The Manipulation is the Message.
Lachlan Brown
lachlan@london.com
Wed, 05 Jun 2002 21:31:06 +0000
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lachlan Brown" <lachlan@london.com>
Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2002 21:28:32 +0000
To: empyre@imap.cofa.unsw.edu.au
Subject: On Blogging 'inappropriate'? The Manipulation is the Message.
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> Melinda,
>
> If the Blogg, the 'mass observation', witness and cultural analysis of
> millions of people worldwide has been termed 'inappropriate' then I think this *incident* requires a little *investigation*, followed by a _decisive_ *public
> intervention*, don't you? No point trying to pin the blame on the 'Spectre spooks'.
>
> The Blog is an expression of a deep stream in education and collective life:
> 'Mass Observation' organised in 'Cliques' or 'Collectives', bound by Uncanny Connectivities and clusterings that can lead to news travelling to every city
> and town, village and hamlet based on a set of communicative rules and codes that
> are really quite familiar but a distributive network that is hardly known let
> alone understood. The most highly connected among bloggers get opinion around
> the globe within minutes, the word enters other networks, workplace, school, community and other media of communication, phone networks, ftf, as well as
> local mass media chat (24 hours), and eventually advertising media. Only, however,
> if the word has veracity. Only if it gels with people's expectation of the news
> and their common experience, only if it illuminates the collective commonsense.
>
> Not if it readily mutates or degenerates through willful manipulation. In this
> case the meaning is the manipulation and the question raised usually a question
> about the motive, purpose and investment in the manipulation of the media and
> the message.
>
> There's a second generation transformation of your repetititon of the supposed
> 'inappropriate' tag applied to Blogs [the exact reference appears in the AoIR
> list in Jan-Feb where my intervention into bad practice in scholarship and
> industry was responded to by a query from a Cartographer of Internet who
> invited information on Blogs and Blogging] in Jill/Txt:
>
> ---excerpt---
> >
> > ">>>posted: 4/6/02 13:34
> >
> > guest on -empyre-
> > I'm going to be a guest on -empyre- for the next couple of weeks. -empyre- is
> > "an arena for the discussion of media arts practice"; a mailing list moderated
> > by Melinda Rackham. Melinda invites a new guest once or twice a month, which is
> > a great way of keeping the list active, interesting and thematically somewhat
> > coherent. It's great to have a chance to explore a topic or an artist's ideas
> > in some depth. Anyway, I've been invited to talk about blogging, which apparently
> > has been called "an inappropriate art form" - the idea of inappropriate art
> > is in itself stunning. In a couple of weeks time Adrian will be taking over,
> > talking about his vogs and the relation of video and blogging.>>>
>
> ---/excerpt---
>
> I see the original 'inappropriate media' of your post has elided into
> 'inappropriate art' in Jill/Txt, an idea disseminated through her audience as
> well as, now, through the audience of Empyre. This is curious. Let's see where
> this goes. The elision seems willful, to a purpose.
>
> Charles Ess is cited in parentheses in Jill/Txt and so is Christine Hine, both
> in the context of ethics and Internet. I therefore cc this message to them. One
> would hope they might lend their insight into ethical practice to a discussion
> on ethics among members of the art and media curator class.
>
> BTW, if anyone is interested, I invented the e-methodology where one develops
> an online publication as a way of approaching an ethnomethodology of WWW with 'difference engine' in 1994. It's a highly productive approach.
>
> I also have a web log I started in March 1993 (though it wasn't called 'web log'
> then it was called a diary) which I maintain until this day.
>
> My chums Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie really formed the genre with their
> travelogue A Hypertext Journal in March 1996 (we mixed approaches in April 96),
> the idea that one might open ones thoughts out onto the WWW was an unfamiliar
> one at the time and the idea that a range of emotions could be conveyed via distributed computing was very much in question. How times change.
>
> lachlan
>
>
> >
> >
> >bloggs were termed 'inappropriate' in a call for for papers for
> > conference/workshop which i have foirgotten the name of but i think it was
> > advertised on the spectre mailing list in the last few weeks..sorry - i dont
> > have the email any more..
> > m
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> > I find it unlikely that bloggs could be referred to as 'inappropriate media'
> > though there is some concern about bad practice in Internet scholarship and in the Industry at large. If there is indeed a question about Bloggs as 'inappropriate media' could you pass on the reference?
> >
> > Best
> >
> > Lachlan
> >
>
> > >
> > >
> > > -empyre- is pleased to introduce our guests for June - Jill Walker and
> > > Adrain Miles - who will be discussing the art and theory of hypertext,
> > > bloggs (which have been recently referred to as "inappropriate media
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Jill Walker is a researcher working on digital narratives and blogs, and a
> > > background in hypertext theory. Jill started blogging about five minutes
> > > after discovering what a weblog was, and cannot now imagine life without
> > > blogs. Her blog, jill/txt (http://cmc.uib.no/jill), serves both as a
> > > research tool, as a part of a community and as a creative outlet for
> > > thinking about the net outside of the rigid formalities of academia. Jill is
> > > mostly based at the University of Bergen in Norway, where she's currently
> > > completing a PhD, and she also lives in Melbourne quite often.
> > >
> > > Adrian Miles is a lecturer in new media and cinema studies at RMIT in
> > > Melbourne, Australia http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au and is researching the
> > > connections/intersections between cinema and hypertext for his Phd. Having
> > > taken film theory (Deleuze) into hypertext he is now taking hypertext into
> > > film via low bit rate interactive video sketches (vogs)
> > > http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog/ . Adrian is also a researcher in
> > > interactive video at Intermedia, a research lab at the Uni. of Bergen in
> > > Norway http://www.intermedia.uib.no
> > >
> > > Jill will kick off the discussion on hypertext and blogging, and Adrian
> > > will continue with video blogging and show some examples of this work in the
> > > send half of the month.
> > >
> > > _empyre_ admin.
>
> --
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Lachlan Brown
T(416) 826 6937
VM (416) 822 1123
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