Hi Crowd!

Welcome to another episode of I-have-so-much-to-say-that-I-don't-know-where-to-start-so-I-don't-start-which-leads-to-even-more-to-say-and-even-more-backlog-and-i-desperately-want-to-find-a-better-way-to-process-it. It's funny how the "tools" that I previously relied on to help me with this, tech enabled mental vomit processing and distribution, kept "getting better" which ended up making them less functional and now I spend untold hours lamenting about things that were and why the now isn't. It's great. I hate it.

Many times in the last few months I've seen a comment which reminded me of something I wrote and I wanted to reference, in my head thinking I probably wrote a useful article or maybe a timely blog post about it, but upon further investigation realized that no, I only wrote a thread on some social media site about it, likely because I was feeling that when I wrote useful articles or timely blog posts no one read them. It's a funny thing, that. This is of course runs headlong into the other thing about which social media site you can or can't use today, because who owns it or who frequents it or who said what about it and if that directly signals something to people about anyone else using it.

I've come to terms with the fact that the Twitter I loved is dead, and will never return. I'm also very comfortable stating that X sucks and both enables/facilitates all kinds of bullshit. But there's also an artist community there which isn't anywhere else, and that complicates things. I spent many years screaming at people using Facebook for sensitive discussions and activist planning to go somewhere else, as that was the very worst place they could be having those conversations, and they all told me they would but the people they needed to talk to were only there. I thought that was bullshit at the time, but now I kind of weirdly understand it. That doesn't mean I'm comfortable or at peace with it.

I might as well take responsibility here that my tendency to add rambling preambles to everything almost certainly cuts down on the number of people willing to push past my navel gazing to get to what I'm actually trying to talk about. If you are still here and haven't deleted this or started looking for the unsubscribe button, that's you. Thanks.

One of my favorite things to do when I have the opportunity is scan people's bookshelves to see if they have something I've missed and should check out. Recently I was delighted to spot a copy of "Internet Art: The Online Clash of Culture and Commerce" a 2003 book by Julian Stallabrass which I'd never heard of but rushed to buy immediately. In my current circles of web3 & digital art this idea of a "clash of culture and commerce" feels like an incredibly current topic, and while I'm old and fought my way though the dot com and web 2.0 clashes of culture and commerce I'm always surprised by people talking about the current thing like it's the first time these questions have come up. So a 2003 book on the subject, which places it firmly before so many of the modern struggles absolutely seemed like something I needed to read.

And while the topic itself is worth a lot of discussion, the book kicks off with reference to one of the pioneers of what was then called net.art and I was delighted to see that jodi.com was still online, because of course I immediately checked. Of course, if you just clicked that link and didn't know what to expect you might argue about what "still online" means. For the newcomers, JODI is Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans - two European internet native artists who very very early on (their site launched in 1995) made the conscious decision not to use the web to show off their art, but to make the web itself their art. It became the medium, and it broke people's brains in the process.

Having your brain broken is still a delightful experience and I encourage everyone to find situations where it happens as often as possible. If you are like me, you'll find it inspiring and it makes you start thinking about what cool shit you can do too.

For better or worse I’ve always cared more about doing cool shit than making money. Of course sometimes (most times) the money is required for the cool shit, but that was always a means to an end, not the outcome. You could argue that’s worked both for and against me, and I could argue both positions myself as well. The ideal of course is making money doing cool shit, but the reality is those don’t always line up so perfectly. As I approach my 51st birthday and realizing I’m now very likely closer to death than birth, I’ve been thinking about this and wondering how people will think of me one day when I’m no longer around and of all the options, one of the most appealing to me is that someone sometime picks up a book and reads about some cool shit I did (or some cool shit I wrote) and thinks to themselves "that's some cool shit, it gives me an idea..."

When I was younger I really wanted to do all the cool shit myself, but these days I'm just as delighted seeing my friends doing the cool shit and celebrating their wins. So when I have the opportunity to shine a light or help people understand why this shit is cool, I jump at it. I guess I've kind of always played that role in one way or another, I mean that's sort of the job description for being a gallery curator or a running a record label, but I think I didn't really realize that's what I was doing at the time. Now I write about it, but as I lamented earlier... getting people to read is another issue all together.

A fun thing I’ve been personally wrestling with recently is feeling conflicted (bad) about not being invited to / asked about / consulted with about things that I don’t want to be go to / talk about / be consulted on - even though I’m probably ideally suited to do just that. And of course people probably know that if asked me I’d say no, so they just don’t ask, but damnit sometimes it’s nice to be given the opportunity to say no. I’m being cryptic sort of on purpose because I don’t want anyone to feel called out, but an example is recently a friend announced they’d accepted a new position at a company heading up ______. I was of course happy for them, they are perfect for the role. And had I been offered the role I certainly would have said no, it comes with a whole bunch of baggage and stress that I want nothing to do with. But… it did sort of sting a little that I hadn't been asked. So I didn’t get a job I don’t want, no big deal. But I’m left wondering if that’s because they knew I wouldn’t want it, or if they never even considered me. One of those is far worse than the other. And like my other personal struggles I have no real ideal solution for this, again it’s not like I wanted that job. It’s also not like I want people thinking “Sean probably needs a job” but it is nice to think maybe someone thought “You know who would be perfect for this? Sean. No way that would ever happen, but wow what an ideal perfect dream come true that would be!” 

It’s a delicate balance I guess.

Some housekeeping: I continue to not know what this list is. 10+ years on you think I'd have figured it out, but no. I am trying to get in the habit of sending interesting links to the telegram group which allows for easy tracking and threaded conversations, and there's a few people there to keep it interesting too. That doesn't mean I won't send links here, but that's far more timely. I moved my website and the new host, while cheaper, is more cumbersome so that's not going to be the easy brain dump place it might have once been. So I'm writing here. Tara and I have been thinking a lot about our somewhat dusty Interest Driven Life project, feeling like it's perhaps more relevant now than ever, and chewing on the idea of audio zines as a format... so perhaps there will be some interesting developments around that soon. Unrelated but also worth exploring, Tara has been doing Sit Spot Club for 15 months now!

I wrote 6 or 7 paragraphs about Mamdani and the Democrats and the chaos in the US right now and then decided no one needs another hot take on all this so I deleted it. You are welcome.

Hope you are having a lovely day.

-s