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Wolfgang, I'm particularly interested in *your* intentions and memories
and in fact checking the research I've done so far. For example:
One of the first specifically art-orientated
online discussion arena was established by the artist Wolfgang Staehle in
New
York. Staehle had turned to the artist and critic known as Blackhawkı
with the
idea of creating an electronic Joseph Beuys-inspired social sculpture.
Together
they devised a BBS-based discussion group working out the administration
and
eventually getting a number of other soon-to-be pioneering digital arts
figures
(including the artist Julia Scher, the curator Benjamin Weil and the
artist and
theorist Jordan Crandall) on board too. Among those in the know, the Thing
was
popularly received and in 1995, (in its new web-based form and with
European
nodes to its network), it was presented as an artwork at Ars Electronica.
By
this stage, it had been overhauled to also provide hosting services to
artists
who could present their work on the site, instigate further artistic
projects
and collaborations, as well as take part in the on-going rigorous art
discussion
the list had become known for. Of central importance to the Thing was their
mission to carve out new territory for creative and critical thinking and
making. Those involved wanted to discover not just new places to
congregate and
debate ideas but new ways of working that might entirely bypass some of the
restrictive and or commercial systems of the art world. By showing work
online,
artists might not just escape the need for an art gallery, but they might
also
create artworks that undermine the entire logic of owning and collecting
art.
Indeed some list founders quite explicitly sought to distance themselves
from the
commercial art world. The Thingıs Wolfgang Staehle notes: [t]he Eighties
had
been party time in the New York art world, but that was over. Everybody
got
back into their studios and was looking after their careers. So I had the
idea
to set up a social network for artists using this technologyı. (Staehle, W.
quoted in Haden-Guest, A. (2013) 'Do You Digit? The Story of Online Art' on
Spearıs Tuesday, 28th May 2013:
http://www.spearswms.com/corporate/about-us/
And
Lists and portals were not simply discussion spaces, but more like hybrid
studio/galleries
where all manner of activity could unfold. For example, projects like The
Thing were hives of
politically-engaged art practice. The Thing became well-known for
supporting online
conceptual art activities that were soon known as Internet art (or net
art) as
well as for hosting many controversial art projects. In fact the Thing has
been
shut down a number of times by Verio its Internet Service Provider
precisely
because of its involvement with this kind of activist art. The Electornic
Disturbance Theatre is an activist art group originally comprising Ricardo
Dominguez, Stefan Wray, Brett Stalbaum and Carmin Karasic. It was
inspired by the US Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and the Zapatista
activism of Chiapas, Mexico, and its founders sought to use contemporary
technologies for activism and disruption. Hosted by the Thing, a lot of
their
actions are built around a core piece of programming called FloodNet which
hacks into websites and, if used by many people at the same time, rapidly
repeats a demand for the site to load which results instead in it crashing.
Essentially this creates a virtual sit-inı as the normal operation of the
website
is disrupted the same way people occupying an real-world thoroughfare will
upset normal services. This type of activity is known variously as
electronic
civil disobedienceı and hacktivismı. The Electronic Disturbance Theatre
would
direct the FloodNet software towards oppressive organizations, including
the
Mexican Government, who in the mid-1990s were being accused of covering
for the
perpetrators of a massacre in the village of Acteal, Chiapas. Although it
was
actually over subsequent uses of FloodNet (for example with relation to the
eToy dispute) and other Electronic Disturbance Theatre operations that saw
the
Thing immobilized by its service provider.
Likewise, in 2002 the Thing hosted the Yes Menıs parody site
dowchemical.com. The Yes Men are a
creative activist group founded by duo Jacque Servin and Igor Vamos
(though they often rely on an extended support network ofpeople who also
can lay claim to the groupıs title). Their aim has also been to
make tactical use of media in a critique of corporate culture and to raise
awareness of issues such as climate change. Key to their approach is the
infiltration of legitimate media channels. For example in 2009 to coincide
with
the United Nations Climate Change Conference they produced and distributed
a
special edition of the New York Post. It contained a number of articles
exposing how little governments were doing to safeguard against future
climate-related disaster. Though the Yes Menıs work was well-known by this
time, thousands of New Yorkers took the paper for a legitimate New York
Post
publication. Another way they managed to sneak into the frame with
mainstream
media has been by creating websites that seamlessly replicate corporate
originals. In the early 2000s they did this with the Dow Chemical Company.
In
1984 a gas leak at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India killed around
4,000
people and seriously affected thousands more (many of whom have since died
or
suffered horrific side-effects). As owners of Union Carbide, Dow had been
called upon by the public to take responsibility for the disaster and
provide
adequate support for all those affected. In late 2002 the Yes Men sent out
a
press release linked to their own version of Dowıs website in which the
corporation appeared to be being more transparent about their practices.
The
day after the press release was issued, Verio, suspended all of the Yes
Menıs
operations including such websites which were hosted by the Thing. In a
post
to the Nettime mailing list on 5th December 2002 Jacques Servin (aka
Andy Bichlbaum) stated:
'Some interesting follow-up on that release from the day before yesterday
(pasted
below)..... It turns out that Dow sent Verio a DMCA notice over
Dow-Chemical.com (I can send you a copy if you like), and Verio then
proceeded
to shut down not only Dow-Chemical.com, but the entire Thing.net network,
hosting of course innumerable activist, artist, and other websites and
bulletin
boards.ı (Bichlbaum, A. (Thursday 5th December 2002) Dow and Verio
shut down thing.net, rtmark.com, theyesmen.org, dow-chemical.com, etc. etc.
etc.ı, Nettime: http://rtmark.com/more/articles/downettimepost.html)
The Thing was soon back up again and it wasnıt long before the issue was
resolved.It turned out that the Yes Men had originally registered the
domain name of
their spoof site to James Parker, the son of Dow's then CEO.
So after having to carefully and swiftly disassociate themselves from this
parody
website and press release, in order to get the site removed, the Parker
family
had to claim it after all.
>>>>>>
And finally Wolfgang, What did *you* think were key moments in the history
of the the Thing?
All the best
Charlotte
On 11/10/2013 18:27, "w" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>hi,
>
>i posted a brief reply on the fb page:
>
>Thing: Charlotte, for your research you can look at http://old.thing.net
>(there is an the archive at of some early bbs threads) and then there is
>http://bbs.thing.net which was THE THING place/url from 1997 until 2005.
>The original BBS ran from 1991 until 1995. A part of it was recently
>restored by Ben Fido-Radin and exhibited at the New Museum's "1993"
>show: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hlehto/8564734382/lightbox/
>
>best regards,
>
>wolfgang
>
>
>
>On Fri, 2013-10-11 at 16:50 +0800, Charlotte Frost wrote:
>> Hi Wolfgang, GH,
>>
>>
>> This month, over on the New Media Curating discussion list, I've been
>> hosting a discussion on the history of online art discussion
>> spaces/communities. There's been lots of debate about which was the
>> first platform using internet technologies to host art making/talking
>> and I'm trying to build an archive though the list of old and new
>> commentary and examples of BBS and lists on art. For example, we've
>> had people reposting iconic texts or providing new accounts of their
>> experience of lists.
>>
>>
>> I posted to your Thing Facebook page but I thought I'd email as I'd
>> love to have Thing represented. Could you either provide a potted
>> history of the founding of the Thing, or share some links to places
>> you've discussed it in the past? And maybe send on some important
>> posts from over the years?
>>
>>
>> To make taking part easy, I'm suggesting that if following the
>> discussion is too much you just reply to me and I can forward your
>> answers onto the list (with your permission). Your you can write a
>> response on the Facebook page and I'll pass on the link?
>>
>>
>> The discussion is
>> here: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=new-media-curating
>>
>>
>> My first post to the list is
>> here:
>>https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=new-media-curating;262b7d9
>>4.1310
>>
>>
>> And a recent Facebook thread on Luther Blissett is
>> here: http://buff.ly/18GHzoa
>>
>>
>> Hope to hear from you soon
>>
>>
>> Charlotte
>
>
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