III. the re:starting of the kfor list

recently the kfor list has re:started. as i wrote on the empyre listserv bax in 2004, the kfor listserv was formed when the LEV listserv (Live Experimental Video mailing list) ceased to [exist/operate]. Clay Chaplin (the former [admin/moderator] of LEV) said that the "LEV list has moved and been renamed." the movement + renaming of LEV formed the basis for the creation of kfor, a "Balkan network for video culture and media art". this reasons for the end of LEV + beginning of kfor are mini + incomplete as [screened from/filtered through] my limited [perspective/participation] but these language games are their own hyperthreaded txt adventures

Netochka Nezvanova, the developer of the Software Art projects nato.0+55 + 3d Modular + nebula.m81 ...aka "The most feared woman on the Internet" aka "nameless nobody" aka "integer" or in my Media Art Histories opinion 01 of the most important/influencial New Media Artists + Artware Developers of the turn of the 21rst Century or perhaps rather more simply Rebekah Wilson + Gheorghe Dan (?) Netochka Nezvanova was very active on LEV + then after the end of LEV on kfor. kfor felt like a platform designed for/by Netochka Nezvanova + featured her prominently in terms of contributions to the ongoing discourse that occurred/developed on the original kfor list. but over time Netochka Nezvanova herself started to lessen her activities. she hadn't released any Artware in years. she posted fewer messages. her once viciously amazing websites went dormant, expiring + being replaced w/nothing or simply placeholders, pretty vacant lots with cybersettlers/squaters posting for sale signs in the form of clip art + google ads... Netochka Nezvanova faded into the half-blue-half-grey light of lost CRTs illuminating the skies, all the colors of televisions tuned to dead channels in night, sunsets on classic Gibsonian descriptions of cyberspace on the turning away

bax then the criticalartware crew of which i am a founder, found ourselves in a conversation about these issues + missing our mysterious inspiration, Miss Netochka Nezvanova. so we conspired to try to trigger her to re:appear. or @ least, we aspired to acquire her most majestic achievement, the coveted nato.0+55 + 3d Modular audio-video plugin suite for Max/MSP. we (as Americans) had never been able to afford individual licenses of nato when it was commerically available b/c of the steep tariffs Netochka Nezvanova placed against United States citizens in the sale of her Software Art. excited + inspired by her performances of online identity we quickly formed a persona, a troll in sum ppl's perspective or more appropriately a B1FF. our B1FF's name was "My Soul Seeks Nato" + he was a young intern @ the Chicago office of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. we created an email address, a MySpace account + joined lists that we knew Netochka Nezvanova +/or her servants/customers from. we then started promiscuously asking for illegal/pirate copies of her most famous Artware, nato.0+55 3D Modular

our project was more successful then we had ever imagined as we began this in the fuzzy line between making a joke among ourselves, telegraphing that into an international discursive space online + conflating that joke w/as mini ongoing New Media Art + Media Art Histories projects as possible while also crafting My Soul Seeks Nato as a project in + of itself. @ 1rst we judged ourselves successful in that we received mini amazingly funny + ridiculous replies to our request. wonderfully, 01 reply came from fellow artist rene beekman, who generously provided to us w/his copy of nato.0+55 3D Modular as he didn't need it anymore + it had simply been gathering digital dust sitting unused + buried in deep in his directories. we were overjoyed. our joy was even more profound when Netochka Nezvanova herself replied to us. she engaged us in conversation, discussing the merits of our project + providing us w/much welcomed personal + artistic criticisms && witticisms. Netochka Nezvanova also then renewed her forgotten websites + online activity, @ least momentarily. less than a year later, both Rebekah Wilson + Gheorghe Dan would appear in person @ international New Media Art festivals + conferences (i.e. City of Women + Subtle Technologies respectively) + publicly claim their claims to the names of nameless nobodies

we, My Soul Seeks Nato, had provoked our inspiration Netochka Nezvanova to step out of the darknet + back into the Gibsonian light of international New Media Art networks