A team of students in COMM2320 - Media Industries at RMIT University, Melbourne chose the following topic for their research project: "How well do various Internet-based media exploit the affordances of the Internet, and what recommendations might be made to media practitioners who seek to utilise the full potential of the Internet as a medium and as a distribution entity?" I was contacted by one of the team members, Laura Lancaster, about being interviewed. I agreed to participate. The following case study is published on their project wiki. Laura's post-project self-assessment is on her own weblog.
I answered Laura's questions via email on June 5, 2006, and the interview itself is basically an unrevised, unedited, first-thought first draft with several typos and sentences in need of a little straightening out.
Chris Ashley - A Case Study (link)
I think a vast component of what the Internet affords greatly benefits the creative media but in particularly independent artists. The independent creative media are able to exploit the affordances of the Internet to gain recognition, distribution and commercial/critical success. In contrast to pre-existing mediums, the Internet is especially valuable to the independent creative media who find they are able to fully exploit it within their personal confines. The Internet has become a solution to the many problems this minority has faced before, including lack of recognition, high cost of exhibition and distribution and many more. Though large and leading creative media companies have fully exploited the affordances the Internet has to offer, it seems independent practitioners are finally not being left behind and are able to utilise the affordances without their previous limitations. Whether consciously or inadvertently, independent creative media practitioners have found ways to exploit this medium and gain opportunities that would previously not been available to them. For these people, the Internet offers what no medium before it has.
I researched a visual artist, Chris Ashley, who furthered his artistic career by starting a blog on which he displays his art. As you can see his blog, entitled Look, See contains many abstract coloured drawings in hand-coded HTML tables. He also writes a lot of commentary about other artist, including other online visual arts bloggers. I chose Chris as I thought he has exemplified our research by utilizing the affordances we’ve identified practically. The blog is a great example as it is a tremendous tool that is often overlooked, although it is exemplar of what the Internet affords to its users. What’s amazing about Chris is that he is one of the few emerging artists who is using the weblog unconventionally. Traditionally, blogs area a publishing medium, with ‘diary-like’ qualities in which individuals can create a personal space to express ideas and opinions. Recently, the role of the blog has changed, and has been used for other purposes: as a knowledge management tool, primarily to make money. These aspects are only just being realized. Chris Ashley uses his blog to promote and advertise his art, and also uses its social aspect of linking and commenting to gain contacts and to communicate with people with similar interests. In an interview we conducted with him he stated:
"Most art-focused weblogs are not a tool for an art form; in fact; the most common use of a weblog in the art community fill some pretty obvioius functions that are basically time extentions of print-based publishing: commentary, reviews, news, promotion, gossip, and pictures. A second common function of weblogs among artists are for studio views – showcasing work in progress or finished, installation views, a kind of window into the artist’s working world"
"And I think what sets my weblog apart is that it has not been a place to merely talk about or link to other art. The images are not incidental to my weblog. My weblog has become an art practice, and it is one part of my overall art practice."
One of the key affordances of the Internet is that it is a network and in this sense Chris Ashley’s blog is extremely successful. It has become a way for him to gain contacts he would otherwise not have. In our interview with him he expressed in his ‘pre-blog’ days he found it very difficult to gain contacts in the artistic world, but since he started his blog he now has countless contacts and is in touch with people that share common interests. This is a result of the power of the blog as a tool that can be commented on and linked to as well as commented and linked from. In an interview we conducted with Chris he emphasised the importance of the blog as a network:
"My consistent and long-term online presence has brought me some attention and opportunities"
"As with any other popular weblog, the attention consists of and is promoted primarily by links from other over time to my weblog; without that there would be no traffic beyond the handful of friends and acquaintances who might check-in anyway. Without other people linking to me and commenting on my work there wouldn’t be as much recognition, although by now I also get a tremendous number of hits daily from search engines, too"
Another reason why the blog as a medium can exploited so tremendously is that it is essentially free. If you have something to say or something to show you can do it at a no cost. This is how the Internet differs so greatly from other mediums. Users have the ability to exhibit and display their work for free to an enormous audience. The blog is also exemplar of how the Internet is used as a personalized space. Bloggers are able to make it fashion it as they wish, and more importantly have full control of the content. Again what is successful about Ashley’s blog is the way he has taking this idea further to benefit his career:
"I have long thought of my weblog as a studio, a gallery, an archive, a study, and a library. It is part of my art practice. Much of the contents of my weblog are not about art; the content is the art. The weblog is a tool to sustain and improve my own practice"
If you are looking to exploit what the Internet offers for your various personal benefits whether they be artistic or commercial you need not look any further than the weblog.
Chris Ashley: Complete Interview
1) Your blog is somewhat unconventional in terms of the earlier purposes of a weblog (i.e diary-like confessions, personal opinions). Do you see blogs as having specific conventions or restrictions?
I’m not sure that the original purpose of weblogs was for diary-like confessions. Weblogs- not just web-based writing in a daily or serial format, but writing done for and in an actual weblog application- originally gained hold in the tech world during the late 90’s dotcom world, specifically through an application called Manila developed by a small company called Userland.
Early on, weblogs were very tech-centric; they were used primarily for listing and linking to tech and general news, very brief commenting or editorializing, news and updates. In some ways a weblog was a one-person message board that both acted independently of and referenced other one-person message boards. Weblogs also began to fill a social function during these rather heady and intense times, when tech companies were popping up like crazy and scores of people moved around the country to these new companies. Small communities would develop around a ring of weblogs that might emerge out of a circle of friends or co-workers, and the weblogs would be full of information concerning the logistics of work and social life, inside jokes, and, increasingly and inevitably, I think, personal information. One started to note several strains of writing: opinion pieces, diaristic writing, journalism-like writing, jokes and pranks. Much of the writing in early weblogs, perhaps until 2001 or so, was still tech- and business-centric, and there was a lot more focus sense there were so few weblogs.
A fairly natural outgrowth of the tech-centricism of weblogs was an interest in the use of weblog in education, both as sources of information and dialogue about educational technology in general, and as tools themselves for teaching in learning in K-12 and higher education. Early on a number of educational technology weblogs emerged, including mine at UC Berkeley; the original purpose of my weblog, begun in March 2000 was to explore it as a tool for schools (I had just come out of teaching elementary school and began work at UC Berkeley on a technology-based K-12 outreach project).
As an artist, however, it wasn’t long, sometime in late 2000, before I first began to use my weblog as a place to research and talk about visual art, but very soon after I began to think of it as a place for my own art, and this is when I stumbled on using HTML to make browser-based images out of colored table cells, a really dumb, obvious, crude, not terribly flexible medium; I call them HTML drawings, other people call them HTML paintings- I don’t really care what they’re called. After a year and a half or more my weblog began to increasingly be art-focused, and beginning in July 2002, I think, my focus shifted nearly exclusively to art. And I think what set my weblog apart is that it has not been a place to merely talk about or link to other art. The images are not incidental to my weblog. My weblog has become an art practice, and it is one part of my overall art practice (I’m a painter). Most art-focused weblogs are not a tool for an art form; in fact; the most common use of a weblog in the art community fill some pretty obvious functions that are basically more timely extensions of print-based publishing: commentary, reviews, news, promotion, gossip, and pictures. A second common function of weblogs among artists are for studio views- showcasing work in progress or finished, installation views, a kind of window into the artist’s working world.
So, now having set a little context, you ask if I “see blogs as having specific conventions or restrictions?” I’m not sure of the usefulness of this question, because now weblogging is so broad that having expectations or upholding standards across a general population of webloggers seems no easier to apply to the online world than it is to offline writing: some people are clear, diligent, thoughtful writers, and most people simply aren’t. That’s just the way it is.
One convention includes more compact writing: shorter paragraphs which allows scanning and supports the readers quicker, easier grasp of contents and weight. Certainly, there is the convention of the reverse chronological structure of a weblog. And there is the convention of linking: quoting something and linking to the source as a reference; hyperlinking embedded in text; the use of linking as a compliment or validation; the use of linking to generate traffic, increase search engine results. An important convention is that as a reader of a weblog I expect content to be fresh; rarely updated weblogs lose their readers quickly. In my case visitors know that everyday there is a new drawing on my weblog. They know that it is live. A weblog is a living thing, in that sense, and many weblogs, though not all, seem to have a limited shelf-life.
Another convention is the ability for readers to comment on weblogs they read. Some weblogs get lot of this kind of activity and little communities build around them. After a few attempts I made a decision early on that I did not want any commenting or a guestbook- I prefer more one-to-one interactions, I don’t really have time to keep up with comments, and having been in the position of moderator for other online forums I know from experience that it is something I no longer want to do, ever.
When I think of restrictions I first think of the various weblog applications and the kinds of functions they support: drafting; timed-publishing; ease of posting images; ease of modifying templates; and so on. I don’t think this is what you’re asking about. As far as the restrictions of a weblog as publishing medium, well, my expectations are realistic. What is a weblog supposed to do or be? That’s up to the weblogger, I think. If you want to be some kind writer, or want to post photos, or you want to run a news and information source for some purpose, then it’s quite possible and easy do so: identify your audience, do what you do with this audience in mind, do it regularly, link to others, keep up with your email correspondence, be nice and courteous, give credit where credit is due.
2) How has exhibiting your art for free affected your career in terms of recognition and promotion?
My consistent and long-term online presence has brought me some attention and opportunities. I assume that there is some quality to what I’m doing on the weblog- something that is attractive or interesting to others- that is that causes this. As with any other popular weblog, the attention consists of and is promoted primarily by links from others over time to my weblog; without that there would be no traffic beyond the handful of friends and acquaintances who might check-in anyway. Without other people linking to me and commenting on my work there wouldn’t be as much recognition, although by now I also get a tremendous number of hits daily from search engines, too.
Opportunities come in a couple of ways- seemingly out of the blue and through relationships. For example, a few opportunities seem to have come to me out of the blue- someone contacts me and offers an opportunity, and it turns out that they have been watching what I’ve been doing for some times, and that they have been aware because of links to me, so they know that others are paying attention; this implies some kind of reputation. For example, I was on a panel at the New Museum in New York, Blogging and the Arts, last spring- that invitation came out of the blue. The invitation to show in Richmond, VA at 1708 Gallery, which just closed May 27, also came out of out of nowhere from my point of view because I wasn’t aware that the curators of that show had been looking at my weblog.
On the other hand, probably a better way of having opportunities occur is correspondence beyond the weblog- several people who are aware of my weblog and who have written have become regular correspondents- friends- and those relationships are very important. Just to be clear, yes, they have been important in that opportunities have come out of those relationships, but much more important is the relationship itself; the weblog is part of it, a part of being available, being within someone’s field of vision, but the more personal contact- email and occasionally phone, is really a more fruitful way to make things happen. For example, and opportunity to show in Philadelphia last October came about both through my presence as a weblogger and through a relationship via email that developed after someone contacted me about the weblog and we began corresponding.
3) What other aspects of your blog do you find beneficial?
The most beneficial thing to me, which I have written about a fair amount, is that it is a tool that forces me to do something everyday, and that the tool, the weblog, has become for me a studio, and exhibition space, and an archive. Pulling a quote from my introduction for an online panel from the –empyre- mailing list last June, I wrote:
In the past three years my weblog has become my studio, an exhibition space, and an archive. I show work everyday, seven days a week. The idea of an audience, no matter how small, motivates me. I have total control over showing the work, storing it, and saying what I want about it in public. The archive aspect is important- I can easily go back through my work and compare various bodies of work.
Read the complete intro
4) How has being online assisted you in coming into contact with other visual art bloggers with common interests?
For a long time, in the early days of weblogging, perhaps up until 2003 or 2004, there were very very few visual arts webloggers. Eventually search engines and RSS feeds and other tools helped people with common interests find each other.
5) Do you find it important for artists to be in communication with people that share common interests? Is belonging to a group important to you artistically?
Maybe it’s just my personality, but belonging to group is not important, and may not be such a good thing for the art. A few good trusted relationships, are invaluable. It is important for an artist- and anyone in any field- to be able to talk to with others with whom one shares a common language, history, or outlook. As you know, I’m sure, all people tend to towards birds of a feather. It’s important to have another pair of eyes looking at your work, to have someone asking tough questions, who has another point of view. It is also important, perhaps more important, to be in the position of having to do the same for another artist, to get outside of one’s own expectations and to try to experience and articulate what one sees in someone else’s work.
6) How does your artistic career compare between now and your pre-blogging days?
After living and struggling with the artist’s life for many years in my twenties and early thirties I decided to be a productive citizen and teach elementary school. During my ten years involvement in the schools art became something put way on the back burner, at times so far back the burner was off and it was off the stove. Restructuring my life to re-establish my art practice as the center of my life as much as possible while still working, coincided with uses of technology over the past six years. The use of the web, my weblog, and email come pretty naturally to me, and I can’t imagine having accomplished much art career-wise without these tools. I think I’m a better writer than a extemporaneous speaker, and I can be a little shy and take time to form relationships. Establishing relationships that come from my other strengths are a big bonus for me. Other people who are very good a face-to-face right from the start, who don’t mind telephones, who are naturally at ease with others don’t understand that well. These tools allow me to establish a presence and some relationships more easily. My discomfort with schmoozing was always a handicap to my art career when I was younger.
7) If you didn’t have a blog, would you continue utilizing the internet to benefit your artistic career, and if so how?
Yeah, sure- if you don’t have a web site you don’t really exist, right? Without the weblog I would work harder at a regular web presence. Because of my weblog I feel like I don’t have to worry about that so much. And email is an essential tool- make polite inquiries of others, send brief email compliments- “I just wanted to say that I like that new painting you posted”-, say thank you, and be understanding when someone doesn’t reply right away. Build a mailing list using every email you can and use it to announce shows, events, the completion of a new body of work, web site updates, etc. One way to establish a presence and relationships would be to participate in discussions on other people’s weblogs- that can lead to personal contacts.
Here’s what I would never do- I would never, ever use one of those web sites where artists register and post their work, like it’s some kind of art community, you know these places where artists post their work fishing for sales. Sorry, those are rinky dink. You have no control over who you area associated with, and you have no control over the look of the web site.
8) You have said that HTML is an extremely limiting medium for making images and that these limitations can be immensely freeing. What are the major limitations you have identified and how have these been beneficial?
Excerpt from - https://mail.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/2005-June/msg00008.html:
HTML is a really limiting medium: all right angles; flat hard surfaces and edges; limited color with uniform intensity; the size of a browser window on a common monitor. And just about every time I've thought, "OK, I've done this long enough, time to stop," I find some little twist I want to try out. I just keep getting more comfortable with the medium and keep pushing it to be more painterly. And I think the fact that I do approach this as a painter has made the images much more expressive than they sound on paper.
Sometimes when you find the rules in which you’re operating, and there’s no way around them, you realize that having all of those other choices taken away is a good thing. You don’t have to think about them anymore. You make do with what you have, and you find lots of different ways of using those simple means. It’s very freeing because you already know what’s not possible, so fine, and you end up pushing what you have to find what is absolutely possible.
9) Do you believe the benefits blogging are only now being fully recognized?
Well, I think there are benefits that many people will never realize because they are too busy thinking about how weblogs are the new journalism and how they can make money off of it. Or even worse, that thanks to the popular press weblogs are misunderstood as simply places for overly sensitive dramatic personalities to attempt to get attention.
Excerpt from - http://www.artblog.net/?name=2006-04-03-16-09-panel:
I'm a long time weblogger (not blogger)- began in March 2000. One of the things that always annoys me about the discussion about art and weblogs is the focus on things external to art practice- the market, criticism and art journalism, the social aspects of the art world, gossip, etc.
Here's the thing I want to hear artists talk about- why do you do what you do (weblog), and what has it done for your art? Forget about all the rest of what most weblogs are about- what are you documenting; what are you learning and thinking about through you're writing, photos, and linking; how are you assembling ideas and knowledge about your work and yourself over time in the weblog as a kind of learning portfolio? How do you use the archive that you are building up- do you reflect back on your activities, do you look over your archives, do you have a goal for building creating a body of work or ideas for which your weblog is an integral tool? What are you and your work getting out of it?
I have long thought of my weblog as a studio, a gallery, an archive, a study, and a library. It is part of my art practice. Much of the contents of my weblog are not about art; the content is the art. The weblog is a tool to sustain and improve my own practice.
I also think a weblog can be a good way to form relationships and create discussion. It's very grassrootsy. I have found great value in that. But to expect a weblog to change an artworld largely driven by money, a world that, at the higher stakes level, increasingly seems to be turning into one of entertainment and social privilege, is hoping for a lot. The idea that weblogs in the hands of people with "truer artistic intentions" or whatever will change the artworld seems naive to me. Rich and/or socially connected will also use the same tools to continue what is in effect the Society Page. Witness Artforum's Diary.
Writing on weblogs has to reach a point of achieving validity as informed, authoritative, well-written, and accepted. There is no system for this yet- no editing, no publisher's stamp, no peer-reviewed process, and even very little of the kind of approval that lots of people understand: advertising dollars.
As you can see, I think they have tremendous potential for individual, small group, and special interest research and documentation. The other uses that many hope for them, as money makers, smells like business as usual to me. The can be tremendously useful for getting news out in a timely way that would not ordinarily get reported- in the US we are seeing that with a few weblogs focusing on politics and government, like [Dailykos.org http://www.dailykos.com/].
10) Do you see any further advances being made in visual art blogging? In terms of new media do you think the future is promising for independent artists?
I see a bright future for arts writing, for sure. One can already see that happening. But most of that art writing is about fairly regular art forms, especially that with commercial potential. Most art magazines are big luxury items with lots of ads and very little content. I can read an art weblog and get almost nothing but content- Roberta Fallon & Libby Rosof (http://www.fallonandrosof.com/artblog.html) do an amazing job of covering the Philadelphia scene.
As far as weblogs as an art form, or a tool centrally to an art form, it’s hard for me to say. There are few people using weblogs in a way central to an art practice, and much technology-based art is still being made mostly for other artists, it seems. It’s hard to imagine a crossover to a more general audience, especially when one is competing with video games, special effects, pop music, etc. Perhaps that’s why so much technology-based art references those things, too- so they can compete. I don’t see the point in anyone trying to make more HTML drawings; it’s a small area to mine. And I’m about making images that appeal to people- I’m not a programmer and I don’t make interactive, or web-based, or net art, or whatever it’s called. Artists will be posting photos and video and audio and manipulated images, and will build sites and environments for the web. Tom Moody regularly posts animated GIFs and music to his weblog. Just today I received an email from jimpunk announcing (http://dvblogh4ck.blogspot.com/), which carries hacked Quicktime videos from (http://dvblog.org/).
What do you mean by “independent artists?” Does that mean someone not affiliated with a gallery? If so, there are way more independent artists than there are non-independent artists (I don’t know what to call them- dependent, affiliated, sanctioned, professional, official?). There are many art worlds and many different communities. There is a huge, barely known art world of programmers, web designers, people using audio and video and performance, all kinds of image makers, etc. Most artists don’t become non-independent artists. They either get into academia or get day jobs and continue doing what they do. Some artists using technology are getting shown and sold, but it seems to me that the commodity being sold still has to have the aura of being a valuable object to it. That’s pretty hard to say about a colorful abstract image that is made of code and doesn’t’ really exist, or an animated GIF projected on a wall, or an interactive web site.
Retrieved from "http://media.rmit.edu.au/students/projects/wiki/index.php/Affordances_commercial"
Perhaps one approach an artist might take is sheer commitment. One might make painted images that are so highly crafted, detailed, and labor intensive, that so earnestly suggest every pore and thread, that the message is simply, "I believe, and I care. Look at this. It is important." To do this, the artist lives with images so intensely that they become familiar and internal, alive and emotional. Maybe the viewer picks up on this, and maybe it becomes part of the viewer's experience.
