Net neutrality

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

This is possibly the most disturbing news I read on the subject: apparently a consortium of telcos is planning a concerted effort to do away with our ability to go everywhere on the internet for the year 2012 or even 2010.

Bell Canada and TELUS (formerly owned by Verizon) employees officially confirm that by 2012 ISP's all over the globe will reduce Internet access to a TV-like subscription model, only offering access to a small standard amount of commercial sites and require extra fees for every other site you visit.

[youtube=425,350]t89WwcsOj9U[/youtube]

[Pachyderm]

Same old, same old.

Boils down to money. Everything does, eventually. There is always some soulless bastard who looks and thinks "How can I make money out of that?".

These are the people who run the companies and the countries. Then they buy some overpriced piece of shite, and say they are "liberal", because they are interested in art.

It's not art, it's a fucking unmade bed. Thank you Ms. Emin, you and your cheque can now go forth and multiply, while Chinless Twat stands pontificating...

[Opsa]

What's with all the cleavage? Is this for real?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

What's with all the cleavage? Is this for real?

I imagine it helps attract geeks to the cause. 

The info looks real enough though. 

[Griffin NoName]

It's not art, it's a fucking unmade bed. Thank you Ms. Emin, you and your cheque can now go forth and multiply, while Chinless Twat stands pontificating...

Hey Mr Elephantine One! Why have you got it in for Ms. Emin ?  I  thought she was rather interesting when Piers Morgan interviewed her

The info looks real enough though. 

Depends where it actually comes from, possibly inside their heads - like the boobs?

Meanwhile, over here, we are going to have all our phone conversations and internet data/traffic/email contents etc stored in one great database so the government can lose it.

I am getting increasingly glad I was born a long time ago and may not have to suffer much more modernism.

[Pachyderm]

The reason I dislike Ms. Emin and her ilk is that the talent lies not in the creation, but the selling. The emphasis has, in my opinion, shifted from the artist to the agent. Any old heap of crap can be "art", all you need is some waffly bullshit about "the inner struggle of Man", or "reflections on X,Y and Z", and Hey Presto, you are now a New British Artist.

Cutting a fish in two is not art, it's an anatomy lesson. An object of wonder, I will agree, but not as an installation piece.

Personally, I would prefer a return to the ability to actually create the art being the main attraction. Not making your bed does not qualify. I don't call myself an artist because I can't be arsed to re-arrange a duvet.

[Aggie]

Vive Shaw (they are likely in it as well, but then again, Jim Shaw is a feisty blaggart who might be adverse to this sort of thing).

Isn't this sort of thing similar to what AOL used to be back in the early days of the internet?

How costly / practical would it be for a rogue ISP to set up an unrestricted-access system parallel to these crooks (by satellite if necessary)?  I can't imagine people choosing to use this type of internet if any other option was available.

[Griffin NoName]

I always considered that AOL actually stole the user's computer (although in a sense all they did was steal if from Microsoft who had stolen it before them). Trying to rid customers machines of AOL could be a Mighty Task. Possibly they could be considered the forerunners of A-V software in that sense.

Realistically I cannot see the internet being claimed in the way described in the video. Pirate Radio springs to mind as a good role model for hi-jacking. I think a logical resitriction is more likely than a physical restriction. ISPs could gang up to supply limited access bundles by offering sticks and carrots (like say no spam, no viruses, not ever) and misleading the masses into believing nothing esle exists except Ebay. But then, I like conspiracy theories.

Pachy - I shall now give my lecture on Art.

Art only exists in the interaction of the viewer's mind and the object seen and occasionally the imagination of what the Artist may or may not have meant to portray. Thus everything is Art. If people choose to pay silly amounts of money and society deems that to indicate Good Art, then we are merely trapped in a false narrative. To that extent I agree with you. However being trapped in a false narrative says nothing about whether the Art is in fact Bad. My visit to Emin's garden shed was a seminal experience. That counts as Good Art for me. I do slight re-arrangements to the amazing range of items on and around my bed frequently throughout each day. Thus my own bed is a constant installation in motion. Emin's bed, being trapped in a moment of time, and in having certain similarities with my bed which we need not go into, is an important icon for me. Thus we can see, that for the individual, Good Art appears contextually.

As to slicing fish, I would encourage you to consider the whole rather than the split. An installation is not created in a vaccuum. When considering an installation one has to ask many questions to meet the Art. As for the Giant Slide, which was to be slidden on not merely gawped at, we can for example ask ourselves how did the fish get there? Is it possible to stick it back together again? Only by opening our minds in this way can we tap the true Art behind installations.

Finally, we must question the term installation. To what extent does installation imply a temporary state? It is usual for installations to appear in the public view in certain places at certain times. One tends to presume that they are then un-installed as they disappear from view after a period of time. We must consider how that period of time effects the nature of the artistic experience compared to the period of time that the individual spends interacting with the installation. We must consider the effect of a sum of money being paid which may dictate the permanency of installation and whether that then renders it a non-installation. To truly be an installation, must an installation be in a permanent transitory state between static appearances - rather akin to the classic 1950's-style London police box ?

Only when these questions have been eradicated and one is freed from guilt about lazy duvet habits can one hope to experience this type of Art as a profoundly moving example of Great New British Art by embracing the false narrative.

[beagle]

The reason I dislike Ms. Emin and her ilk is that the talent lies not in the creation, but the selling. The emphasis has, in my opinion, shifted from the artist to the agent. Any old heap of crap can be "art", all you need is some waffly bullshit about "the inner struggle of Man", or "reflections on X,Y and Z", and Hey Presto, you are now a New British Artist.

I'm with you on this one.  I like some modern art, but would swap everything produced in the last century and a bit for one Dürer or Leonardo (though I'd part reluctantly with some of the early Picassos).

Emin and Hirst are marketing geniuses, not artists, and having blasted us with mass produced modernity, what does Hirst spend the millions on? A huge, old-fashioned gothic country estate.


(Traditional Tory views are brought to you by Beagle(C) )

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Realistically I cannot see the internet being claimed in the way described in the video. Pirate Radio springs to mind as a good role model for hi-jacking. I think a logical resitriction is more likely than a physical restriction. ISPs could gang up to supply limited access bundles by offering sticks and carrots (like say no spam, no viruses, not ever) and misleading the masses into believing nothing esle exists except Ebay. But then, I like conspiracy theories.

The trick is that big ISPs can behave as jailers if they want; lets say an ISP A has a fairly big network including commercial servers, there is no significant cost for them to have internal traffic therefore they can offer that content in their cheapest package. Now, the moment a user tries to get out of that network they may receive a message saying that such traffic is not included in their plan because they can use authentication on their gateways. That wouldn't be a problem if a) there are other ISPs that allow you full access, but more importantly b) if ISP A doesn't require authentication for inbound traffic. I other words, an ISP can simply charge for the privilege to go in and go out of its network. Such move in an isolated way would spell doom for the ISP unless other large ISPs decide to do the same and have mutual agreements to let their pals go through for free or for a smaller fee.

That would be the end of the internet as we know it, it would imply that most of us wouldn't be able to reach the monastery unless we were on the Verizon network or paid the fee to access an external network (and such fee would be likely more expensive for foreign ISPs if available at all). That's why it is so alarming that the telcos are talking about it, in short, they are considering a concerted approach to split the internet in pieces!

[Pachyderm]

I can see why they might try to control t'Intarwebs this way, but I can't see it working. It is way too big already. Might have worked at the start, but now? With the volume of traffic on the information highway, and the nature of the hacker sub-culture? Can't see it.





I have no problem with Art. I like Art. Life would be sterile and dull without it. But I also reserve the right to not like some of it.

Art only exists in the interaction of the viewer's mind and the object seen and occasionally the imagination of what the Artist may or may not have meant to portray.

Fine. I accept that what I perceive and what others perceive will (should?) differ. I am a product of my education and experiences, the same as anybody else. Some of that is shared with others, but some is me alone.


Thus everything is Art.

Here, we disagree. I think that everything is art, but Art needs some creative input from the artist. I cannot paint, draw, or sculpt, but I recognise that to be able to so is a talent. Part of my appreciation of Art is based in the knowledge that I cannot produce an item such as the one I am looking at.


My visit to Emin's garden shed was a seminal experience. That counts as Good Art for me. I do slight re-arrangements to the amazing range of items on and around my bed frequently throughout each day. Thus my own bed is a constant installation in motion. Emin's bed, being trapped in a moment of time, and in having certain similarities with my bed which we need not go into, is an important icon for me. Thus we can see, that for the individual, Good Art appears contextually.

All well and good, and I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. Contextually, however, I still don't see it as Art, more as Poor Housekeeping and Creative Marketing.

As to slicing fish, I would encourage you to consider the whole rather than the split.

I would much rather consider the whole, still swimming.

Finally, we must question the term installation. To what extent does installation imply a temporary state? It is usual for installations to appear in the public view in certain places at certain times.

Fair point. Is a painting an installation? Because if so, the Mona Lisa is hardly going to be on temporary display. The same can be said of the Christ of Saint John of the Cross, or many others. There are statues from antiquity, still as vibrant and alive today as when they were put up thousands of years ago.

The temporariness, and as I see it, insecurity, of the YBA crowd is a major drawback. I just don't think that what they produce will last, despite the Saatchi's best efforts. I realise that Art reflects the time of it's creation, but does everything have to be MTV?  

I read somewhere about an "installation" which had got Lottery funding.  The piece consisted of the artist kicking a tin tray from a take-away restaurant, with curry sauce, up and down a High Street. In white boots. For an hour. Got thousands.

Marketing genius, most assuredly. Profoundly moving example of Great New British Art? Sadly, yes.

Total bollocks, and tragic waste of money? Indeed.

[Griffin NoName]

Marketing genius, most assuredly. Profoundly moving example of Great New British Art? Sadly, yes.

Total bollocks, and tragic waste of money? Indeed.

Which is what I was demonstrating with my pastiche Art Critique.

Thanks for joining in

We shoud have more conversations like this. It's an Art form.

[Opsa]

Hmmm... do we have a Fine Arts Review thread in here? We should. I can go on and on about art, too. Once I was at a party (it was the 80's and I edited an underground comic book) and someone asked me "What is art?" to which I replied "Can't you ask me something easier, like 'What is God?'". PS: New Arts thread here: http://toadfishmonastery.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=32&topic=1645.new#new

But back to subject, I am wondering if web bundling would affect public computer access, like libraries have. Would it be illegal to charge libraries to use the web? Or would they too, have limited access? In a way they do, anyway, since you can't go to- say Prawn sites (that guy cracked me up on the video: "Porn? Porn!") for example.

I like Aggie's idea about claiming a piratical space on teh Interwebz. Could that be done now, if we beat them to it?

[Pachyderm]

 

Griff, I'm always willing to tip in with my two pence worth.

The great thing about art (or, indeed, Art), is that it is so subjective.

I may know next to bugger all about it, but I know what I like...


*Normal service is resumed. Apologies to Zono.*

[Griffin NoName]

I like Aggie's idea about claiming a piratical space on teh Interwebz. Could that be done now, if we beat them to it?

Yes. Easily. But it could be done then too.

Not just hacking either  - find some relevant wiring, snip it, and patch yourself in.

While official ISPs could as Zono says enforce a legal zone, there would be no way of stopping illegal zones worldwide.

What would happen?  Several trillion zillion people get locked up for illegal access?

Possibly. It would make the Space Race meaningful.


WWOOOOPS cross posted with Pachy !