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The latest version of State of the blogosphere is out now by Technorati (who tracks 50 million blogs). I must admit that it is the first time I look at this and what really caught my eye is the language blogposts are written in:

One statistical thing that looks a bit weird is the difference between some of the languages since the last surveys. English goes from 34% (April) to 41% (May) and the ends at 39 % in June. But nonetheless I am surprised by the amount of non-english post, is this indicative of blogs and social software/web2.0 being the technology that finally restructures some of the hegemony we all thought the internet would do in the 90’ties? Of course one would have to do some research into what is actually written, how is it incorporated into everyday life, business and so on. But the numbers are impressive.
Speaking of hegemony I stumbled upon this today http://www.functionfeminism.com/. It is a guide to theory and artworks related to cyberfeminism – check out the timeline -awesome! I’m though missing the net.art generator by Cornelia Sollfrank, but since it has its primary authorizing context within net.art it is probably judged to geeky - sorry for the hegemony ;-)

In the January issue of Leonardo [Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology] Jean-Paul Fourmentraux has an article about the net art work Des_Frags. The software creates a mosaic of pictures you upload, and make them into one picture (the mosaic). The article is about the problem of determining where the *art* is in a project like this. The Artist Reynald Drouhin does not know a clue about programming so he teamed up with a bunch of people who knows this stuff. The problem is of course whether the artist is the sole artist or the programmers also should be credited with artistic contribution (not to mention the users, the programming language, the pictures that goes into the mosaic and so on). Fourmentraux reaches the conclusion that it is difficult to decide (gee) and therefore uses the standard definition that circulates in the net art community: it is impossible to demarcate the artistic elements, so it more or less comes down to who has an education as an artist and how has not. This is not what he writes though, he talks of an artistic “dispositif” = software, artistic decisions, programmers, users, the internet and so on. This is the same kind of thing that went into the definition of net.art in the beginning of the nineties, where the . signals that everything that goes on online can be understood as an artistic practice, in the way that Fluxus, Situationist International and not least Joseph Beuys “social plastic” conceptualizes art. I’ve been fond of this definition of art for along time, but felt uneasiness while reading the article. This is primarily due to the fact that the internet is filled with projects like Des_Frags, take for instance a look at the flickr toys page and you will find lots of projects exactly like Des_Frags, that newer would claim to be art in any way.
Should we then drop the category of art altogether, it is only used by artists that need public funding anyway? (This is ART – ok, then you can apply for funding). Usually I would not have a problem with this, if it was not for the fact that some of my favorite art is digital and online, so I would like to be able to distinguish between art and everything else online.
One way of doing this – very modernist though – would be to claim that the artist should have made everything her- or himself (idea+programming). This is the definition used when museums are fighting against each other about who has the original Rembrandt and not one painted by his students/co-workers under Rembrandts guidance. I admit it is not perfect - far from - but I will go for it rather than the dispositif, because it will include works such as entropy8zuper and rule out Des_Frags, these kind of toys I can find at flickr and other sites anyway.

In response to the official Danish cultural canon, the monthly newsletter Sunday Evening has gathered some people to make a canon of digital art works/culture. A colleague of mine Lisbeth Klastrup was invited to join, and I’m truly satisfied with her choice to include tagging in the canon. Overall the canon looks as it should most, of the usual choices are there. Actually I remember seeing a list in the mid nineties of the 10 best net art works and quite a lot of them are on the canon list as well – making me think that nothing happened I net art since or? – but there are two major works missing:

I cannot believe that Entropy8zuper not are on the list. Aureia Harvey is there – selected by Ida Engholm – but not to include her collaboration with Michael Zamyn is unbelievable, since the two of them as e8z have made the best net art ever in my opinion. The density and texture of their work, along with the play with interactivity – buzz word number one of the early net art scene – is awesome. The integration of their privat/public lives in the god love museum and their live performances plays along just fine with a lot of the themes in cyberculture.

Mouchette.org – just because it is Mouchette.