Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 18:54:42 -0400 (EDT) 
From: sphinx@fly.net
To: murph@artnetweb.com 
Subject: Hi


hey, Ive been thinking..... I dont want Theoria to be OUTSIDE of iola, I want it
to be inside iola.....or referred to through iola, whatever.... 

ok?


To: sphinx@fly.net From: murph@artnetweb.com Subject: Re: Hi Yes, you can bring Theoria under the ample skirts of iola... I haven't decided if the whole thing should be called iola, or iola should be something you enter. ResNova doesn't call the software a BBS, they call it an "information server" so maybe we can make an acronym out of iola... Information On Line Artnetweb...or something. Our job is to figure out how to integrate the "BBS" and the web. We have the capability of having people on the bbs from all over the world and that could generate some interesting content for the web that can be ported almost intact since it's all html. Not quite a MOO, people can't build online, but close.
Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 19:36:37 -0400 (EDT) From: sphinx@fly.net To: murph@artnetweb.com Subject: Re: Hi On Sun, 15 Oct 1995, murph the surf wrote: >Yes, you can bring Theoria under the ample skirts of iola... I didnt know it was a woman.....Maybe I should rethink this... What I DIDNT want was our two worlds apart and opposite each other unless it serves a purpose..... you know what I mean? >I haven't decided if the whole thing should be called iola, or iola should be >something you enter. ResNova doesn't call the software a BBS, they call it an >"information server" so maybe we can make an acronym out of iola... >Information On Line Artnetweb...or something. Can we have discussion on this? Give me some words to put through my karma manager.......... we can call it anything we want and then ..... Im so excited I could scream --
Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 19:59:23 -0400 (EDT) From: sphinx@fly.net To: murph@artnetweb.com Subject: Re: Hi >What makes you think iola is a woman? Maybe it's a kilt. right! I always lump to conclusions.. >Theoria could have many, many parts, like Osiris. Is he a member? >>Can we have discussion on this? Give me some words to put through my karma >>manager.......... >We could start the discussion on iola now, on the website. Maybe I'll start it with these messages...edited, of course. If people stumble on it they can join in. okey dokey,
To: sphinx@fly.net From: murph@artnetweb.com Subject: Re: Hi >Is he a member? Who, Osiris? Don't you know him?
Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 21:37:06 -0400 (EDT) From: sphinx@fly.net To: murph@artnetweb.com Subject: Re: Hi >>Is he a member? >Who, Osiris? Don't you know him? That was a joke ------- didnt he lose his penis? Do I always have to be so graphic penis = member
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 09:15:04 -0400 (EDT) From: sphinx@fly.net To: murph@artnetweb.com Subject: I've been thinking.... uh oh.... Some note of horror crept in for me when Remo drew that map of "territories".... nothing purposeful on his part.... but my heart froze for a second..... here we are, at the dawn of a new technology that, particularly for artists, can break down or at least ignore the arbitrary borders we have frantically erected for centuries: between countries (the one between the US and Canada, and its policing, for instance, are really laughable - I mean, except for Niagara Falls, you would never know you've crossed a border); ....also between science and art, construction and architecture, religion and health..... etc. ..and here we are, drawing circular worlds, with borders.. It reminds me of Flatlands, the geometry lesson, a closed system made up entirely of borders (each social class having a defined number of sides - the most-sided (almost circles) being high priests, and the lowest (women) being straight lines (dangerous, because when they turn towards you, you cant see them --- they are a point). Lots of domestic violence in Flatlands.... Here's what I think. I would like to think of a way to not think of the worlds, but to build on their possible LINKAGES. It is the LINK that is the process, and that fits with the art produced by this technology being more EXPERIENTIAL than TV, albeit virtual, we go THROUGH it instead of facing it like a dumb facade - this is what I was doing in my paintings, mocking that phenomenon : that mirroring is two-dimensional and absolute.... shoot, have to go..........interested to hear what you think...... how would you build with only the links ---- without the links becoming worlds themselves. or is this just semantics... sleep, I need more sleep....
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 09:22:41 -0400 (EDT) From: sphinx@fly.net To: murph@artnetweb.com Subject: Re: I've been thinking.... oh gosh, Ive got to go... but *** Flatlands, without the irony we bring to it from our birds eye view, is entirely claustrophobic. By the way, it has a wonderful chapter on The Art of Painting in Flatlands" which I should digitize.....
To: sphinx@fly.net From: murph@artnetweb.com Subject: Re: I've been thinking.... >here we are, at the dawn of a new technology that, particularly for artists, Where I grew up you knew immediately when you crossed the Canadian border (from eastern Washington) because "our" side had been totally decimated by smelters and clear-cutting and the old growth forest began again at the border. William Wiley once proposed to the prime minister of Canada that they erect huge fans at the border to blow the pollution back. I'm not sure that what technology does is tear down borders but rather makes them permiable and open. They're still there in the form of language and custom and history but I think we have the opportunity to use those borders creatively instead of politically. >....also between science and art, construction and architecture, religion >and health..... Interesting that the "two cultures" of art and science is a particularly modern phenomenon that previous europeans and most of the rest of the world would find laughable. That's why we have to go back and plod through Ruskin these days. >..and here we are, drawing circular worlds, with borders.. Well, it is helpful to draw bubble diagrams to visualize thinking to some extent. We just have to remember to do them in pencil and to see the internet as a pencil, not indelible ink. We also need to create a kind of digital palimpsest where traces remain as we overwrite the files. >It reminds me of Flatlands, I read Flatlands in college, I was interested in things like the golden section and mathematical games even though I'm a complete failure at math. I liked how form could be created from starting at one point and following or creating a path. I was much more interesting in my twenties. But at least now I've learned that there doesn't even need to be a starting "point" but that you simply can enter into the drift (or maybe you just acknowledge your presence in that flow). >Here's what I think. I would like to think of a way to not think of the worlds, Reading McLuhan again? But, yes, I agree with him in that it is the medium that's important right now and the message is created or communicated in light of the medium. Any painter should know that anyway. >how would you build with only the links ---- without the links becoming worlds themselves. You start dealing in metadata at that point, the arrangements of the links, the indexing. Maybe we shouldn't think in terms of links but in elision, which is an act of omission, most likely the idea of border. >sleep, I need more sleep.... And dreams, more dreams...

October 18, 1995 Dear Rob: Ive come in here thinking we can use it directly to communicate.....but if that's not what you had in mind,because I admit there is something more quaint and genteel about correspondence let me know, or because its indiscreet, or because....... just let me know ------

Today my contribution is via Salman Rushdie, from "Haroun and the Sea of Stories"... "He looked into the water and saw that it was made up of a thousand thousand thousand and one different currents, each one a different colour, weaving in and out of one another like a liquid tapestry of breathtaking complexity; and Iff explained that these were the Streams of Story, that each coloured strand represented and contained a single tale. Different parts of the Ocean contained different sorts of stories, and as all the stories that had ever been told and many that were still in the process of being invented could be found here, the Ocean of the Streams of Story was in fact the biggest library in the universe. And because the stories were held here in fluid form, they retained the ability to change, to become new versions of themselves, to join up with other stories and so become yet other stories; so that unlike a library of books, the Ocean of the Streams of Story was much more than a storeroom of yarns. It was not dead, but alive."

HELLO?


Date: Sun, 29 Oct 1995 06:46:49 -0500 (EST) From: sphinx@fly.net To: murph@artnetweb.com Subject: Re: hello hey, arent we going to continue our dialogue in iola? -A


murph

sphinx