From: FRED TRUCK <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Saturday, 5 October 2013 08:20
To: Charlotte Frost <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: History of the Art Com Electronic Network
A Very Brief History of the Art Com Electronic Network (ACEN)
In 1984, during the holiday season, Carl Loeffler, CEO of an artistıs space
called Art Com, offered me the opportunity to work with him on starting a
computer network for artists. Eventually, we were joined by Anna Couey in
this project.
At the time, we all had computers, but we had no distribution means. Carl
found out about the Whole Earth Lectronic Link (WELL), and our means of
distribution was solved. We would provide the content and the basic
programming, and the WELL would distribute our material.
Since I was the only one with any programming experience, I became Systems
Engineer. This meant basically that I spent a lot of time learning how to
program UNIX and set up a menu-driven structure that would allow easy access
to content invented collectively by Carl, Anna and myself.
We recognized early on that the more participation we could generate, the
more users we would have coming back daily. At that time, at least,
continuing on the WELL was determined by the number of users you had
attracted.
The art we did was conceptual, as there was no means of doing good graphics
or pictures. Additionally, rather than having an ³artist² in control of the
content, we also realized early on that the content would come from users.
We would provide a structure or a setting in which participants could let
their imaginations run free.
As Howard Rheingold mentions, we did have a large-scale performance running
for at least 2 years call Das Casino. The key was a simple random number
generator I programmed which would generate where the ball on a roulette
wheel landed. Carl was the moderator, and he encouraged people to bet
CasinoBux. By the end of the performance, people were betting their houses,
their cars, their wivesanything imaginable. This environment that
encouraged interaction was the key to our success.
We also had other performances. One was called The Talk Show. It was like a
TV talk show, except that due to the lack of visuals, talk was all you got.
Another, even more successful performance was called Yer Lying. In this
event, we announced that no matter what you said, we (Carl and I) would
sayYer lying! So, when someone would sayMy name is Jim Brown, weıd say
³Yer Lying,² And of course, Jim Brown would be completely outraged. The
premise was very simplewe did what we said we were going to dobut people
misunderstood truth. They thought truth was some independent absolute, but
in fact, it was that we did what we said we would do.
ACEN was launched in 1986, and ran 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 13
years. It was in my experience, the longest run for an artistıs project.
This information is a huge condensation, so if you want more, please contact
me and I will put you in touch with others who were instrumental in the
project. Stanford has all the papers that have survived on ACEN. Darlene
Tong, art librarian at San Francisco State, can give you more information
there.
About me: Iım a media artist. Iıve worked in many different media. My work
in books is in the Museum of Modern Art, and I also have work in the Getty
and other private collections. I am currently involved in photography. I
have invented a new way to do anaglyph images. You can see my work on
Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32652998@N04/
I wish you the best in your work.
Fred Truck
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