A hundred comments extracted from a discussion on the Netbehaviour.org list about the We Wont Fly For Art project.

1) This is too challenging. Artists will always choose their careers over the planet's safety.

A crowd of things all crowding in. Just typing those 7 words, the things gather and strain to muscle their way into my meagre 16 bits of consciousness. Before I sat down at my laptop they were in a holding pattern, cycling courteously, in turn, into conscious view but now they are in a bundle, to be first, to be identified, introduced and allowed to make their way to more permanent space. They know what its like. The first thing is given 30 seconds to introduce itself the next takes 2 minutes and before you know it you are into a full debate before half the things have even got named.

When I first became interested and aware of digital art and Net art etcetera, (etcetera being not just shorthand for everything else, but a sign that I can't recall all the various monikers that have been used to describe them) I was working as a Technical Communicator for Marconi. I was writing the manuals for the electronic bits and pieces that fitted into neat boxes and were installed to make the Internet. I used to say that we should be more involved with every aspect of understanding the Internet, because we WERE the Internet!

recently i posted about an internet blackout protest against section 92a, a proposed nz law that would have forced ISPs to take down a web site on accusation of copyright infringment, no proof required. this week, the nz government scrapped it - following organised protest & lack of industry support.

last nite i went to an evening of Projection Performance by Bruce McClure @ the Nightingale, an alternative experimental Media Arts space run by Christy LeMaster. McClure is in Chicago performing wit Throbbing Gristle this weekend

over the last 6 months or so i've been working on a new site for the magdalena aotearoa trust, & at easter we launched it (& now i'm madly trying to fix the bits that aren't quite working right!!!). the main impetus for the new site was that i'd been searching for a suitable open source online membership database application, which i finally found in CiviCRM. CiviCRM integrates with Drupal (or Joomla!

For 6 months we will not take an aeroplane for the sake of art. For the next 6 months we will find other ways to visit and participate in exhibitions, fairs, conferences, meetings, residencies. We will not fly for inspiration, nor to appreciate, buy or sell art.

Following the appalling "Kreativwirtschaft" symposium in Linz, I was all the more interested when I started seeing announcements about the "Creative Cities" symposium organized by Armin Medosch and Ina Zwerger in Vienna. Since I was able to go, this time I was not disappointed.

I completely understand that not everyone has the same technical knowledge as myself. I do not expect that everyone knows how to use Power Point, knows what PDFs are, or even knows how to turn on a computer. But something that really urkes me is when speakers put on an overly dramatic public display of damsel in distress behavior trying to get a computer working during public lectures. And even more so when the talk is supposed to be about the opposite…

A bowl of porridge next to my laptop, i entered Upstage for Are You There? a presentation as part of the Performing Presence conference at Exeter.

- i join the stage as anonymous audience member for extended convivial exchange between old international friends
- long long friendly introduction with personal revelation- some things hidden/revealed
- first, its private conversation - just written text, no audio
- then spoken using computer voices