On KiSS

KiSS, or the KIsekae Set System, was originally a popular Japanese cardboard doll game in which girls could play dress up by changing tabbed clothes on their paper dolls. Software was developed in 1991 enabling fans (read adolescent Japanese boys to elderly Japanese men) to create their own KiSS dolls. Digitizing the dolls changed it from an innocent Japanese girl game and put it into the realm of Japanese erotica. Many of the anime style characters are typical male fantasy fare -the school girl, the cheerleader, the nurse, the scantily clad hot cyborg assassin, etc. The KiSS program features transparent graphics and masking that allows the user to drag and drop (add or remove) various clothing or accessories onto a digital representation of a doll. The KiSS dolls became a phenomenon in the mid 1990's when the Internet made it possible for the masses to download the doll creation software and players (which are available for every platform). Rudimentary P2P file sharing allowed fans of the genre to share, and for most people collect, all the KiSS dolls that were being produced.

In his article "The Art of Kiss," Blackhawk (screen name) argues that the KiSS doll phenomenon has created a community of artists. This reflects some of the ideas presented in my previous posts on the consumer and producer being one in the same then what defines an artist? On the topic of high and low art, by definition, KiSS dolls are low art. They are mass culture, they are superficial kitsch. I will step down from the Ivory Tower that I sometimes visit to secede my argument that the creators of KiSS dolls are in fact undocumented, but are still artists. Many of them are expressing their creativity for the very first time and that should be commendable. In fact, anyone who makes something visual, beautiful or even remotely creative should be branded and hailed as an artist. I used to be offended by looseness of the word artist as it was applied almost at random or a marketing ploy (Subway sandwich assembly team wore the "Sandwich Artist" badge proudly). Rather that getting into endless arguments over semantics or making someone feel bad because the word "craft" is somehow negative -I will just declare that everyone is a fucking artist. Those of us who actually study and make "high" art just need to come up with a new name - we are supposed to be creative so it should not be that hard.

But I digress. There are still the moral issues that need to be examined behind the KiSS dolls. As previously mentioned the fans or hobbyists of the genre are predominantly male. The digitized KiSS dolls no longer share any of the controls that were in place in the original game. Most, but not all, of the KiSS dolls are of adult nature, you can remove tops to reveal breasts (or not) and you can remove bottoms to reveal pubic hair (or not). It is actually the "or nots" that bothers me. The fact that there is interest among men (young and old) to play dress up with virtual dolls that represent young and underage girls is for lack of better term, perverted. It is sexual fantasy whether it denotes erotic arousal or not. It is the subjectification of women and young girls. Find a new hobby or collection.

I am at an impass. I do not believe in censorship. In Helms vs. Mapplethorpe, I was rooting for Mapplethorpe. I thought Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" was a great work of art. I even think that Chris Ofili's work with elephant dung is thought provoking and stangely beautiful. KiSS dolls just seemed to have crossed that line for me. I don't think it should be banned, but the public should be aware of what it is.

Fluidities and Oppositions

Fluidities and Oppositions among Curators, Filter Feeders and Future Artists by Anne-Marie Schleiner takes a look at how the dynamic between net artists and curators are defining the net genre. By combining the current trends of globalization with the future fiction from cyberpunk literature, Anne-Marie attempts to predict the future role of the net artist (x, y and z!), the net curator, and the net audience.

In 1995, the Netscape IPO gave the Internet validity as a commodified resource and popularity among the mass culture. The initial question was "who will use this new medium to produce content for the masses?" The media industry was the obvious immediate answer -but turned out to be a non-inclusive answer as evidenced by both the failed AOL-Time Warner merger in particular, and the entire dot com era in general. There were the few artists who were early adapters of the technology, but lacking in both numbers and in support, their works did not make a very big splash in the relative ocean that is the Internet. The overlooked content creators were the masses themselves. Many of them learning to code themselves, were putting anything and everything online, with no filter, no censorship and no criteria.

In the past 5 years, there have been technological advances that have ushered in the Personal Publishing Revolution. Blogging, podcasting, photoblogging (flickr), moblogging (mobile phone cameras) and very soon, thanks to video-sharing technologies like bit-torrent, vbloging (video journals). These push button publishing tools have given the masses the ability to self-publish quickly and easily. With strength in numbers giving them the power to have their voices heard they are becoming the dominant force in content publishing. The masses, once regarded only as content consumers, are taking the role of content producers away from the media industry. People are becoming their own news source (journalism 2.0 blogs), movie directors, musicians, game designers, writers, critics, and (drum roll) -artists.

This may be perceived as a problem for both traditional net artists and the art establishment. If everyone is producing art for the web, what exactly defines a net artist? The masses are not only in control of creating and distributing their own content, but as filter feeders, they are curating their own shows. What happens to the traditional art institution that consists of brick and mortar galleries and museums, collectors (with real money), and educated curators?

Recently I was "offended" that an art historian dismissed my work, without ever having seen it, simply on the basis that all net art is not "high art." As my belief system (the extension of myself) was challenged I flamed back something to the effect of "her generation (old school) of art critics will eventually die and the new generation will validate my work." But devils advocate is a powerful force and I decided to find a viable adaptation of high and low art.

high art - a.k.a. fine art -"the universal transcendence, having withstood the test of time and representing the epitome of artistic achievement - the meticulous expression in fine materials of refined or noble sentiment, appreciation of the former depending on such things as intelligence, social standing, educated taste, and a willingness to be challenged."

low art - a.k.a. mass culture -"the shoddy manufacturing in inferior materials of superficial kitsch, simply catering to popular taste, unreflective acceptance of realism, and a certain "couch potato" mentality."

I believe that traditional net artists can often be found under the "high art" category. John Simon's 1997 "Every Icon" is an example of high art, and yes it is digital. A lot of net artist are blurring the lines between high art and low art because we are manipulating and exploring the same tools that are available to the masses, but our projects are being smothered by the excessive amount of content being produced by the personal publishing revolution.

Truth be told, maybe we do need the art establishment to be our filter feeders. Their credibility and resources will help amplify our voice so that we may make a bigger splash.

On Google Print

In December 2004, Google started the Google Print Library Project to digitize the entire collections of five research libraries: Oxford, Stanford, Harvard, Michigan, and the New York Public Library. Users are able to search for relevant content (using google's search algorithm -of course) in the entire content of the book. If the books are in the public domain users can read the entire book. If the book is still copyrighted then the user can only view a couple of pages at a time; usually the page you searched plus 2 pages before and after. A very recent security addition requires users to log in to google if the book is copyrighted (I was able to log in using my gmail name and password). Print.google already used cookies to make sure users were not doing anything dishonest (check your browsers cookie folder for print.google.com) like trying to see an entire book in one sitting. Cookies just identify the computer and not the individual person. Other copyright protections include disabling copy and pasting, disabling the save image function, and disabling printing.

With every new technology there are new hacks. Ironically, Aaron Boodman, a programmer from google wrote an extension for the fire fox browser (www.greasemonkeyed.com) that allows you to copy and paste the pages from google. A college student named Isometrick, another hacker, wrote code that manipulated print.google cookies so that you can see the entire text from a copyrighted book. The hack even created a complete pdf! He sent in his hack to google in hopes of getting hired, but only received a t-shirt and some pens. Hacking for Christ (still trying to figure out if they are being sarcastic) figured out how to hack the css of google.print to disable the transparent gif covering the page enabling users to copy the page image.

I can still take a screenshot using mac os x (shift-open apple-4) -not that I would want to.

I will edit and type more in the morning (its 2:30 am!)

On A Cyborg Manifesto -Donna Haraway

In "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," Donna Haraway argues that cyborgs are, in theory, the postmodern social feminist ideal because they are void of gender. Cyborgs, according to science fiction (as well as the definition that Haraway has adopted), are both simultaneously animal and machine. They do not come from organic families and therefore are not susceptible to labor or individuation (Marxism) or gender formation or the Oedipal complex (psychoanalysis). Haraway states, "the main problem with cyborgs is that they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism” Fortunately for her argument, offspring are often unfaithful to their origins and have a tendency to rebel. She goes on to say, "their (cyborgs) fathers are inessential." I am not against feminism. I thought I was all for it. It turns out that I just really don't understand it beyond "Patriarchy=Bad.” If anyone versed in feminism wants to sum it up in a comment - I am all ears.

The feminist lexicon - I think I may have missed this conversation.

At first I was intrigued by the use of Haraway’s usage of language. art)ficial, art)facts, object)fication and diff~culties really got me thinking about multiple meanings and root words. Incorpora-tion, justifica-tion, scient-ism, simul-taneously, natura-alize, analyt-ical, constitu-tion, epistemol-gical, com-munication, prob-lems, transforma-tions, televi-sions, educat-tion, and domin-ation. Hey, I am all for isms and skisms -we have lots of ologies in acadamia too. Idendty, possibilidies, disdnctions, subjecdvity, prevedng, primidve, wridng, dme, idndty, indmacy. Ok, I am at a loss. When did feminists start using "d" in place of "ti"? HELP! Anyone?