Mez

Interview by Simon Mills

SM: I’m interested in how you perceive artists and critics practice has changed over the past 10 years with regard to new media. 10 years ago there seemed an awful lot of hype surrounding techno-culture although not too much interest from the establishment. What is your perception of that era? In what ways do you think things have changed since then?

in.short:

[t]was.a.decade.full.of.hype[r]d.change

ie:

>>the term new media is [still.in.my.burnt.out.net.art.consciousness] partially contentious + doesn’t fully n.compass the fever [1995+] bright end of the collaborative juggernau[gh]t[y] that typified the gradual coalescence of the net.art//digital//lectronic art//web.art ends.of.the.[memory]genre.stick. i’ll use net.worked art instead as this term seems 2 n.compass the s.sence/kernel of this initial f[ormulation]ervour ?

>>in regards 2: "10 years ago there seemed an awful lot of hype surrounding techno-culture although not too much interest from the establishment" – i’d agree that the fetishisation of [digital.creative] techne did seem particularly rife thru-out the past decade, but that this hype was largely removed from the reality of grass-roots art practice//genre formulations. There were, how.eva, people who have [ab]used this hype 2 co-opt net.worked art into a type of individualistically-based career perpetuation + [ironically] it’s these "artists" that now make up heavily institutionalised art power structures via their adoption of leadership//directorships of arts orgs/academic positions + attachement 2 media organisations, seemingly content 2 b.come regulators/moderators or critiquer//history constructors via sta[tic]nctioned avenues. in oz, an n.teresting proportion of these artist-turn-canonistic-fodder-power-maintainers have been women.

>>the general state of net.worked art @ present x.ists as a diffused + diverse echo of the a4mentioned primary gestation time. there are still some wonderful tendrils//variations morphing as mobile, real-time generative + n.tegrative media/data-base projects. old skool is dead + purr.petually alive; washing thru retro-mythologies of the net.worked arts sphere + pre.m.pting waves of the next. + the next. wot threatens new concept[ualisat]ions + fresh artistic manifestations is the threat of global conservatism that is shutting [d]o[wn]ff the ability 4 practitioners 2 experiment or have the creative freedom 2 x.press + produce works not mainstream enuff 2 b considered "acceptable" [ie content-dependant works or works not made to translate well 2 a bald gallery setting (see: http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v03/i03/Breeze/craft_or_network.html)].

Un4tunatey, the supportive networks that allow 4 the conditions that this type of work needs 4 it’s creation have been largely [funding_wise+politically] severed since the global turn 2wards civil liberty thwarting + quasi-fascist western governance.

SM: I’m interested in your perception of artists becoming academics or media organisation directors etc and then using their position to create an idiosyncratic history. It indicates to me that you think that traditional lines of authority are coming into play online as well as offline. Isn’t this what one might expect from any activity that enters the artistic milieu?

in relation 2 offline powa structures seeping in2 online functioning, it really does de[e]p.end on wot yr definition of wot b.ing online n.tails. in the case of history_creation, there r several 1nce_functioning online practitioners that have allowed themselves 2 b co_opted in2 an economic/power_based institutionalisted perspective. in short: this type of re-w[ire]riting data bundles/info clusters is s.sentially how history is generally created: versions + post_hoc reasonings abound… the formulation of any m.mergent genre faces that predicated time packet where the historical loading manifests from/in parallel with a type of creative m.petus + the annalist chooses 2 opt 4 the most tangible version/d.finition…i do consider it somewot saddening 2 see people 1nce m.mersed in + d.voted 2 net.worked cultures//realities slipping back in2 a rigidly d.fined ego//reality_structure//orientation. powa is a seductive i[a]llusion_fulfilment….

SM: I wanted to ask you a bit about your perception of network culture. Network culture is obviously extremely significant to you. Have you seen it change much over the last 10 years? The recent development and popularity of Social Software (in the Web 2.0 sense) is being touted by some as a change of some significance to how people network. Do you share this view?

...i sense the presence of delicious pockets of potentiality in many elements of the new folksonomy type of networked engagement [born from significant change within net.worked culture] mostly by those groups/persons who seem keen 2 let new types of net.wurk formulations [ie via the Social Software//Semantic Web] flower into something that may eclipse current net//web function[ing] [ie search-based monopoly of directed infomatics morphing towards a dispersed/n.clusive user-directed info_metamatic, constructed through social tagging//flagging ie true use of the rhizomatic paradigm].

those [flickr/rss/del.icio.us/wiki/blogs etc] users who seek to expand communicative//data_driven interactions allow for a type of server_sided remixing of previously static/mono_based organisational_fragmentations that now can blend effortlessly into everyday users//usage [think of information absorption via col(aboration)lusion].

SM: What is the inspiration and origin of the mezangelle language you write with? How does it connect with the style of writing that Alan Sondheim calls codework? 

my "mezangelle" style of writing//textual construction [that has at its original base email dialogues and network exchanges] underpins all my net.wurks, even the more m.mage n.tensive versions…the language is definitely malleable via the fluctuation of the surrounding net.wurk components that create the building_blocks of the wurk itself + is constantly evolving. the format n.nitialized from a series of emailed collaborative pieces carried out with m@ on the 7-11 mailing list from 96 onwards. at the time, I was into switching avatarian cloaks [the most regular b.ing _ms post modemism_ which is another d.fining criteria of my net.works [net.wurks]. my particular ‘angle’ was to take various information text tracts and ‘mangle’ them through free/multi-word associative techniques + repost them – hence the term, mezangelle. these mezangelled wurks include a strong underlying symbolic + reappropriated literal use of programmic architecture [ie shell based emulation + a strategic stripping of conventions associated with actual code construction] within soft.programming//social// poetic-engineering perspectives.

this technique has developed since/with[in] computer code conventions + regular chat/email iconographs contributing to its f[pr]o[g]r[ession]mulation; this is similar 2 the emphasis/construction of codework that artists such as Alan Sondheim produce, tho alan’s work has a heightened n.trospective m.mediacy that my wurk tends to lack.

....my language use is more a [crucial] by-product of responding to data fluctuations swirling thru the niche of the net which i inhabit + which act as partial n.spiration…...strands of reoccurring n.fomatics or//+ occurrences involving surrounding n.tities…...the selection of n.cidents + stylistics that n.form mezangelle vary according 2 which languages// net.s[o]c[_net]ripting formulas//creative n.fluences i’m manipulating/absorbing at that time. most people who r exposed to these wurks don’t have a clue about this underlying format//structure, which is more than ok as i try to cater for englishophiles as well in that the english component is decipherable to the point of regular poetic comprehension.

SM: So would you say your inspiration for developing Mezangelle was more poetic or technical? I’m interested in how you situate it within a broader context. As the networks and type of content have changed over the past 10 years has Mezangelle also changed (upgraded), if so how?

i don’t think I could pin.point poetry or techne as a primary markers for the development of mezangelle…my prime n.spiration was reality_shifting…of constructing a new m[c]o[mmunication]dality + m.bracing net.worked shifts + m.mergent practices in the online medium:

“i. am. stained. with. repetition.

[re.peat]
::the chip.mark of the net.
::][kulture][work::abbreviated strokes::sampling::a][scii][graffiti::code
langues::bass.house::jung][le][mantras
.all .][t][h][r][ive .in .he][a][re…..”

i’m currently constructing within the potential of the arena of social_networks . . . i started 2 n.tegrate my netwurked dispersal forms with[in] soc_nets/blogs a while back [see: http://netwurker.livejournal.com + http://netwurker.blogspot.com 4 eg] – these have s.sentially replaced my listerv participation since the crackdown//mainstreaming of multilogging [think of the (heavily) c(ensored)losed + n.terbred mailing lists such as nettime, empyre & fibreculture for egs]. mezangelle has now x.tend[progress]ed 2wards a faux.soc_net project setting, tentatively n.titled _feralC_...its basically a wiki that described the notion of n.tities [they have various terms a(t)t(he)m(oment): such as infomorphics, dataphasics etc] who rewrite previously held assumptions regarding basic biological//structure formation, such as having senses replaced//n.hanced [ie eye_site, reduced tendon growth in 4 legged dependent movers, etc] + r reared via electronic social codings…how would technological-[social-network/folksonomy]raised children behave/manifest? driving l.ements of the wurk[s] r:

>>fracturing of identity perceptions [ie the n.dividual as geocentric//as txt-m.mersed//as soc_netter] 2 allow 4 a reassessment of definitions of self, of how we meld with techne or use communication channels that r currently m.ployed in a narrowband purr.spe[nvironment.non.a]ctive.

>>reassessing notions of closed identity in order 2 readdress social conditioning that allows for these identities 2 b [ab]used hierarchically, in power based stratified structures.

>>an n.trinsic re.writing of distinctions//canons//standards 2 produce questions like: if every1 is a producer/aggregator/n.former, where does the notion of a art_author-auteur lie? + wot ids or creations/clusters will result?

… so far i’m developing the identities, terminologies + n.frastructure….the wurk is currently gestating in a faux_wiki setup documenting//linking 2 profiles created thru MySpace, YouTube, World of Warcraft inc the use of Ventrilo + Fraps, Second Life, delicious, tagcloud, friendster, flickr, orkut [oldskool;)]etc…..these profiles begin to reveal a hybrid language>mezangelle link. An x.tract//x.ample of some of the some of the terminologies involved:

data spur[t] – key concept of socialphrenia that connects information via central notations which engage soft.wear appropriate 2 the terminology employed. replaced googlism in the early 2020s. data spurring can be realised by individual stimulation of an account, or cooperatively through multistimulation [ie many accounts working together, such as via a friends list (MySpace) or link-rapidity (SlashDotting).

liecra – the practice of egostretching identification through several spurcadian outputs eg liecraing base MMO char development extended via accounting in2 MySpace or flickr. this aggregate of soc_net characteristics or x.tensions/spikes help shape a type of id_template. can also be employed to create a grand_mal type of identity construct or multi_face[t]d concept of a personality [schizoidal persona.tagging or info_printing].

accounting – process of creating accounts that sych with an alt-extension of base persona identifiers.

ego-tracing – replaces non-networked standards of incremental persona assessment and formation ie behavioural markers, emotional regulation or intellectual functioning.

…if u can imagine those terms housed with a wiki that x.plains the _feralC_ conditions + linked 2 various output from those n.tities it affects…i have no idea w[here]ot my ARG/wiki/faux.infomorph merge currently is [in terms of a definable art_form] or wot it w[on’t]ill b.come. this is the x.citing part – the id[n]e[us]a; the fusing of concept + [mixed.up.cruci(fied)bled]form. hopefully those i’ll n.vite along 4 the x.pressive.ride will be just as n.thused.