not that i want to advocate for you to read this silly article, i did  
find it a diversion that in the Sunday Times today a father named  
Matt Rudd seems to have put the old "my five year old could have..."  
excuse to the test and in the process has named a whole new category  
of work, which might otherwise be 'relational aesthetics' oriented:

"Conceptual Art That Requires Participation (or CARP for short). CARP  
is where you and me, hoi polloi, become part of the work. It’s Antony  
Gormley’s Blind Light at the Hayward last year: a glass room full of  
dry smoke and snogging teenagers, described by one friend, who got  
it, as “a disorientating journey into an uncomfortable part of the  
human psyche” and by another, who probably didn’t get it, as “really  
cool”. It’s the fabulous Telectroscope, which enabled New Yorkers and  
Londoners to gawp at each other all summer. It’s people running  
around art galleries and standing on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth."
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/ 
visual_arts/article5002284.ece
 From The Sunday Times
October 26, 2008

not to wring hands, but seriously, it's a bit of an uphill battle  
trying to help the mainstream media understand why what curators  
think is art is worth writing about and not just complaining about.  
he couldn't even be bothered to name the other artists whose work he  
cites. sigh.
jon, where's the platform for our rich and thoughtful discourse? we  
have to create that too i suppose.
;-)
sarah



On 25 Oct 2008, at 07:16, Jon Ippolito wrote:
>
>
> We have the tools. We have the savvy. We know that networked  
> culture isn't just a popularity contest (sorry, Andrew Keen) but a  
> broad swathe of interconnected and overlapping subcultures, of  
> which hundreds easily dwarf the contemporary art world's
> inbred audience. And we've evolved a rich and thoughtful discourse  
> we can use to frame the work we think is important.
>
> Posting about new media art to public forums like the Guardian blog  
> will help. If it's more informed dialogue you're interested in, try  
> ThoughtMesh (http://thoughtmesh.net). I will post more about this  
> publication tool in a separate post, but
> suffice to say that it's designed to link authors--especially  
> across seemingly unrelated fields--who share common themes.
>
> So by all means, stir up passions and plot strategies on lists like  
> CRUMB. But also look for allies beyond the curators and critics who  
> are the gatekeepers of art's enclave.
>
> jon