2006. Networking - The Net as Artwork
I haven't read anything by Bazzichelli yet, except excerpts, but I'm taking it 'on faith' that she's a major thinker on the subject of Net Art & the Net as Art. Predictably, for those who know me, I'm less interested in either of those possibilities than I am in just the Net as Net. Nonetheless, I'm honored to be mentioned in this book.
It's somewhat strange to have one's activities written about by someone in another country that one doesn't know personally. It's heartening to take this as evidence that one's activities aren't just disappearing in a void - but at the same time there's bound to be much lost in translation.
For example, in the above, it's stated that the Neoist Apartment Festivals were "in North America, Europe and Australia between 1980 and 1988" but the Australian festival was actually in 2000 & prior to the publishing of this book in 2006 there had been a festival as recently as 2004 (in Berlin).
Then the reader is told that "According to the Neoist tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE, "Neoism is an international prefix more than a suffix, without anything in between. Neoism does not exist, and it is a pure invention of its enemies, of the anti-neoists."" There's an endnote but the endnote doesn't provide an attribution of a source for this 'quote' so I leave it out here.
Now, that 'quote' is highly inaccurate. Given that this book was originally written in Italian & then translated into English & that I don't have the Italian version of it (which I wouldn't be able to read anyway) I don't know whether the original Italian quoting was so garbled, I don't know how much of the garbling to attribute to the translation.
My actual original quote was during a ceremony/performance at a place called Des Refusés in New York City in March, 1982, as part of the 5th International Neoist Apartment Festival. I defined Neoism more along the lines of "Neoism is a prefix & a suffix with nothing in between." As I recall, that got a good laugh. The point was that I was analyzing the word as a word & finding it to be functioning as an open set in which the prefix & the suffix are like opening & closing brackets. The meaning is completely changed in Bazzichelli's 'quote'.
As for the 2nd sentence of the 'quote', "Neoism does not exist, and is a pure invention of its enemies, of the anti-neoists" I never said that at all. The original quote is probably more along the lines of "Neoism does not exist, and is an invention of its enemies the anti-neoists." Close enough. That probably originated with a person calling themselves "Monty Cantsin" who may've also been John Berndt but may not've been.
I did use the name "Monty Cantsin" extensively for a long time & probably still do from time-to-time but I'd have to say that my time of primary interest in it was 1980 to 1985. After awhile, it seemed overused to me. Other collective identities such as Karen Eliot & Luther Blissett made things interesting again for awhile but now it's hard for me to care about collective identities anymore.
Aside from the lost-in-translation problem, there's the problem of some work getting promoted & discussed over & over again while other work, perhaps more appropriate to the broader subject under discussion, goes undernoticed. In this instance, in a book about networking, I would've been happy if Bazzichelli had mentioned B.U.T.N. (BalTimOre Underground Telephone Network), a mass media project done in the spirit of phone phreaking that I was a cofounder of & major participant in in BalTimOre from 1979 to 1981.
Furthermore, a discussion of my specific 'Mail Art' activities would've been great given that I corresponded with roughly 1,400 people. Mention of the Anonymous Family Reunion that I organized from 1996 to 1997 would've been great too. But how is Bazzichelli expected to know about all this? I'm sure she did a great job of knowing & delving into what she did.
Thank you, Tatiana Bazzichelli.
- tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE note, March 31, 2018E.V.
idioideo at verizon dot net
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Anti-Neoism page
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Audiography page
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Bibliography page
to my "Blaster" Al Ackerman index
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE BYOC page
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Censored or Rejected page
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Collaborations page
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE (d) compositions page
to Amir-ul Kafirs' Facebook page
to the "FLICKER" home-page for the alternative cinematic experience
to tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's GoodReads profile
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Haircuts page
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Home Tapers page
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE index page
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Instagram Poetry page
to a listing of tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's manifestations on the Internet Archive
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE as Interviewee index
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE as Interviewer index
to tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE'S Linked-In profile
to the mm index
to see an underdeveloped site re the N.A.A.M.C.P. (National Association for the Advancement of Multi-Colored Peoples)
to tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's Neoism page
to the DEFINITIVE Neoism/Anti-Neoism website
to the Philosopher's Union website
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE movie-making "Press: Criticism, Interviews, Reviews" home-page
to tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's Score Movies
to SMILEs
to find out more about why the S.P.C.S.M.E.F. (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Sea Monkeys by Experimental Filmmakers) is so important
to the "tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - Sprocket Scientist" home-page
to Psychic Weed's Twitter page
to tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's Vimeo index
to Vine movies relevant to tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE made by Ryan Broughman
to tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's presence in the Visual Music Village
for info on tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's tape/CD publishing label: WIdémoUTH
to a very small selection of tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's Writing