Is a BLOG just a digital form of exhibitionism?

For me this BLOG is also an experiment. I am the one who is typing texts. A kind of one-way communication. In the last years I did do a lot on different forums and yahoo-groups (actually run a few of my own which you can access through www.iuoma.org if you want to). In the forums and groups the reactions are direct. All reactions have the same status as the original message. There is only a moderator who 'controls', or lets things go as time passes by.

On these groups there tends to be a lively discussion (or sometimes a deadly mixture where the group just doesn't work). In this BLOG only comments can be placed, in which the readers can react to what I write, but the comments are somehow hidden.

The first comment was placed (thanks Roy Arenella!), and I even made the URL of my BLOG available at my site. I will see if more comments come in. Are people actually interested in what I write That is the essence of a BLOG. The one that starts it, thinks the words (and links and/or images) are interesting for others. Is this also how I function? At least these comments make some kind of interaction possible.

I will discover soon enough. I enjoy the structure of a BLOG. People can go through my thoughts in a structured way. Actually I am structuring my thoughts here as well, and already discovered that I can archive things easily in files as well.

So the experiment continues and I will see how it goes.

I also experimented at the www.nervousness.org forum, but somehow I didn't felt welcome there. Maybe also because of the attitude I had there. But it must be a mixture of factors. Mail-art is something that is seen by lots of people in a different way. Some consider it as an art-form, some just as a therapy, or real craftswork. Ken FRiedman was the one who compared it to a boy scouts club, but actually was attacked by others for this as well (read the interview that I have online).

So who is to say what mail-art actually is. The defenition changes over the years, and most oldies in the network don't like that.

Ruud

links about my activities

If someone stumbles on this BLOG it is easy for him/her to find out more about me. First of all I have been updating the site at WWW.IUOMA.ORG since 1996, and that gives lots of details, interviews, biography, etc... Lots of details for those who like to know who they are dealing with. Also recently a part of my privat activities got public at THE FLUXUS HEIDELBERG CENTER. SO enought to go through.

This BLOG is merely an experiment to put some of my thoughts online as well. What will happen to these files isn't sure. I know I like to put texts about my views online. So I guess you have to puit up with that.

Comments are possible at this BLOG, so that is actually the most interesting part of it all. Who reads this and what do they think of my ramblings.....?

Ruud

The Museum of Temporary Art - exhibits 101-200

Sometimes there are these wonderful surprises in the mail-box. I remember sending a rubberstamp of the TAM Rubberstamp Archive to the Museum of temporary Art in Tübingen, Germany. The stamp got published on their website, and to my surprise today I received a beautiful colour-catalogue from the Museum. Great work they did there. Wonderful lay-out, and honored to receive the document. Will be a great addition to the TAM Archive.

Ruud

Provoking Mail-Art

The last months, actually years, I haven't sent out that much mail-art at all. Only specific addresses (personal friends) get a lot of mail, and the mail-art I still get in (mostly from newcomers who are looking for new contacts) rarely provokes me to react. I not looking for new penpals.

Sometimes there are exceptions though. Provoking Mail-Art arrives in my P.O. Box and my mind starts to think about possible ways to react. That is mostly the start of an adventure, a piece of mail-art that gets out.

Seems I have seen too much, so I am not that easily provoked to react. Some new mail-artist actually like to provoke, but when it is too obvious, the result is mostly negative.

It is a pitty. But art attracts me more the last years than mail-art...... Most close friends know, since I have painted a lot these last years.

Ruud

Everybody has one

What does everybody have? I didn't know everybody was using the Internet. But anyway, a lot of data is put online, and I sometimes wonder who is reading it all. Does everybody have something to say? I am not sure.