[Nettime-bold] Re: RHIZOME_RAW: FLTR 1.0 <double-minded version>

[Nmherman@aol.com]

In a message dated 10/30/2001 1:29:23 AM Central Standard Time, curt@lab404.com writes:


> I can't specifically say who I'm dissing.  I'm not exactly sure why, 
> but evidently it's taboo.  You know the rules.


In all this great world, down thru time, people have had to name names.  Take John Ehrlichman for example, John Dean, CREEP, and H.R. Haldeman.  

Or in poesy, observe who Byron dissed:

"Thou shalt not worship Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey;
Because the first is crazed beyond all hope,
The second drunk, the third so quaint and drouthy."

Socrates felt it necessary to dis Anytus.

There's always the warm fuzzy dis, like how the Beatles dissed anyone with short hair from the get-go.  But even Lennon himself wandered into the "dangerous" dis when he said "we're bigger than Jesus."  I myself have dissed Yoko Ono, even though I like the song "Oh Yoko" and the movie "Rushmore", but if push came to shove I'd dis Bill Murray if he refused to comment on Genius 2000.

Then there's the dis on principle, like if someone plagiarizes you.  What good does it do if you don't name their name?  Zero.  

I've noticed nn dis Andreas Broeckman a few times.  I named David Ross for dissin and who knows I might do it again.  He sells Damien Hirst now, and even though I've never dissed Damien before I think he's a Saatchi-type nineties-boy.  I don't think he's done a single work that can hold a candle to http://www.geocities.com/genius-2000/SFMOMA82700.html, but he obviously don't even read this list so who cares.

But naming names isn't the only way to express one's self.  One can dis institutions, styles, tendencies, proclivities, and so forth.  One can even dis abstractions like "the Occident."  I've dissed the Walker Art Center New Media Initiatives program, but the Walker is mine to dis by birth-county (Hennepin), and for precedent observe the rancor between architect Ralph Rapson and the Walker Planning Committee.  Dissing is almost as democratic a virtue as voting or satire.

Dissing a technique like oil or ascii can be tricky.  I've made some nice ascii myself on occasion, usually just to make shapes in an email like: 

7    7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7
7    7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7
7    7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7
7    7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7
7    7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7
7    7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7   7

I do this to show how the number seven can express the rough outer hide of a shark.

A lot of code-oriented ascii I don't understand so I don't really say one way or t'other.  I'd have to start making my own:

010001010101 a>if world at war enter
<B>Genius <courier>
          <C> loop back to 2000 <&&&>a>if world at war enter
<B>Genius <courier>
          <C> loop back to 2000 <&&&>0000101010101a>if world at war enter
<B>Genius <courier>
          <C> loop back to 2000 <&&&>010101010010101a>if world at war enter
<B>Genius <courier>
          <C> loop back to 2000 <&&&>

In closing, I would like to state most seriously that taboo is the enforcer of myth, and myth can kill.  I worry about what my next-door neighbor's great-granddaughter will think of me, not about the sensitivities of contempo-intellects.

Incidentally, G2K and nn are the real taboos, the reasons people get kicked off lists and issue threats to ddos sites.  Once these two get past the doubters and haters (viz. Unferth in Beowulf) the taboo-haze will lift.  

Just to show I sleep in my self-made bed, twhid seems to hate anyone even "associated" [!!!!!!!!] with Max Herman Genius 2000.  That's artistic careerism and herd-thinking at work.  It's also healthy normal artistic dispute.  Grrrrr.

Naming names means you play for keeps, so be careful.  Sleep on a name-dis, at least one night, before you go with it.  If it's right you can tell.

Max 

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