Thursday, June 25, 2009

FOLLOW UP: How we doin?

Based on the comments on the "3 Years of EBD" post, it seems like a consensus has been reached: Let's invite some new blood into the fold. I figure the best way to go about it is to either a) Let everyone at it. If you have someone in mind, you're welcome to invite them on your own accord. Or b) Submit your picks for our approval through some kind of voting process.
I'm willing to go with a, personally. I think being more casual about it is more interesting, and we can avoid endless back and forths that come with group emails.
Either way though, members are free to participate in the new members process or not.

I'm really not interested in trying to come to a consensus on what kind of people we should invite. I think the most important things to consider are more to do with their dedication to what they're doing. Any other considerations are up to each of us, individually.

-I'd also be into inviting people that might be more into straight blogging; News, links, posts about art/artists, about comics, film, youtube videos, etc., I think that'd be a nice mix. I have no idea who'd be into that, of course. Any volunteers?

What do you guys think?

38 comments:

Gaspard Pitiot said...

I don’t think people more into straight blogging would fit. I can make three posts a day with this sort of crap if you want, one with screenshots, one with a youtube video and one with random photos I took, it won’t take me more than 15egoistic minutes. I don’t know why we don’t use the EBD discussion group for those matters? It just looks shit on the blog. It Looks like "reality TV". I would like to formalistically and ostentatiously thank Zeke because when he invited me he introduced me to other duckers so I didn’t have on my first post “who the fuck are you?”, you may remeber what I'm talking about. So who the fuck is Matt Kish?

Jeffrey Meyer said...

???

Gaspard Pitiot said...

I didn’t write this for you Jeffrey. What I mean is I personally would prefer to invite artists who could position themselves, who would defend our stuff and who would have a personality of their own. I mean I asked you to come back Uland because I though your art was high standard and because I’d rather have a good enemy than a meaningless poser. We have no need to make polemic on things which aren’t related to us. With my interview I tried to show things which have interested me for quite some time (obviously some were not easy going). Obviously Sean’s interview was also an attempt to protect and defend his artist friends. I’m pretty sure Sean doesn’t mince his words because he wants to say to us that it does matter. When he wrote on Mano’s first post “who the fuck are you?” it wasn’t a warm welcome which was a shame because the way manosturbo used the language was peculiar and full of life, also it wasn’t casual, it worked on other dimensions. I gonna have pictures posted on Jonathan Canady’s blog and there will be a link to our blog, There was a link to EBD when I was interviewed, Each time I’ve interviewed people there were links to the blog and I commented on flicker so there would be more links. We need to give the feeling that this blog is a crossroad which leads to art we believe in. I’ll always defend the diversity of this blog and I’m happy that we are not all doing the same things. A Chinese artist (I don’t remember his name) did more than 10 posts a day on his blog to take the piss out of the way blogging could be shallow. What I mean is that we need people who are challenging and who think that what they’re doing matters.

Gaspard Pitiot said...

Yae I know why it was confusing Jeffrey : I wrote: “I don’t know why we don’t use the EBD discussion group for those matters? It just looks shit on the blog. It Looks like "reality TV".” I should have written "I don’t know why we don’t use the EBD discussion group to discuss the evolution of our blog? It just looks shit on the blog. It Looks like a reality TV program about the way bogging communities organise."

Human Mollusk said...

Dunno, last time everybody randomly invited people (myself included) it led to "new blood" that mostly never showed up at all. Why not ask people from the flickr pool? There's some great and obviously dedicated people there. I dig Derek Ballard's stuff.

Human Mollusk said...

Also, I agree with logoeme, I'd prefer to stick to the art. I mean it's great when people post other stuff once in a while but it should remain a side-dish IMO.

Anonymous said...

What I mean is if I spend three hours or more working on a picture I don’t want it to be presented as any “copy and paste post” which just expresses opinions. When I did the interviews I learnt many things which shouldn’t appear on the internet, gossips and etc… and I learnt the way artist organised and diverge. I mean Jeffrey, your post about Matt Kish was meaningful because he wrote a comment so he was inside our world. I’m happy that he’s going to post stuff . We can post video about what we like it’s ok, but not too many, we don’t need to advert too many things which are out of our reach. We have to think about interactions.
Logoeme.

Uland said...

Fufu- I think drawing from the EBD pool on Flickr is a great idea. You're right that some of the last invitees didn't participate much. I think if any of us want to invite people, that should be the first condition; if you're not into regular posting, it's not for you.
If you guys aren't into my "straight blogging" idea, that's fine. I wasn't suggesting that whoever did would not post stuff that wasn't related to our interests, or just randomly throw stuff out there. I just thought it would be cool to open up the EBD world a bit. We have, and still do, post things that are not just our art, from bits about artists we like, to music we're listening to, to film; if someone one of us knows would like to contribute to EBD in that way, I think that could be good.
It's probably a moot point anyhow; anybody who would be interested in doing that kind of blogging already is, somewhere else.
I think EBD can sometimes get a little insular is all.
I think that kind of content can coexist beside the more thorough content that Logoeme presents. I mean, they have this whole time.

Uland said...

I'm not sure I understand how it looks like shit to talk about these things on our blog. The Flickr group might be a better place to do this for practical reasons, but as far as how this "looks", I don't really care.
It looks like it's always looked here.
This blog has always sought to be a pretty open space. There is no message to control, or flag to wave. All we have to do is negotiate ways for all of us to meet in this space in a way that is comfortable, but also offers us a reason to participate. These reasons are going to be different for all of us and we have to make room for that. If we're not willing to make room, it probably means it's time for us to move on.
As all of us get more into our particular deals, it becomes harder and harder to maintain a group ethic. I think the way to sustain this place is to forego those efforts and open it up allow more casual approaches. None of us have the same aesthetic approach, none of us have the same motives or goals. There is crossover, sure, and that's where we can relate, but we can't be so precious about that.
EBD is for every member to post whatever they want to, and comment in any way they'd like to. If you're a huge dick, or you seem not to give a shit about any of it, you'll be asked to leave. I think that's all there is to it.

Gaspard Pitiot said...

Yea maybe we could post stuff from the EBD flicker pool. You can do that if you want to, Uland, you just have to ask the artists if they want to write a text or if they want links to their websites.

Gaspard Pitiot said...

Well my point is that readers of the blog don’t need to reed these. This blog has to be about art and I think it’s a shame to have readers reading about the way we organise when our purpose is to communicate about art. And after all the EBD discussion group is open to all. When Sean and his wife suggested the creation of the EBD discussion group it was aiming at opening a space inside which we would be able to write freely what we think. Apparently you don’t give a fuck. Maybe some of us are shy, may be everything cannot be said on the main page of the blog? It seems that you use the openness of blogs to control other people. BTW I’ve got a small dick. I can leave if you want. I never insulted you. You did. You’re a rude guy. So… why contemporary drawers are more contemporary?... Because they use rude language to exclude other artists. You asked me to leave. I did ask you to come back. Also you didn’t want to correct Frederic’s interview when you basically translated an antiracist statement for a racist statement, you though it didn’t matter. You think tolerance doesn’t matter.

Uland said...

I was not asking you to leave. But if you're going to respond like this, maybe that's best. Or you could calm the fuck down. I don't know if it's a language difference at work here, but you seem to overreact too often.
I don't know how to explain how you are misreading my comment. All I can suggest is that you reread it without thinking that everything is about you. If the subject is "we", or "us", the predicates are directed toward all of us, and even then, they are just suggestions about how I think things might work well. I am not the authority figure here.
The stuff about being a dick is something that has been written here many times. It's the only real rule we have here, and it's been in place long before you came aboard.
You really need to get over the stuff about Frederic's interview. I don't know why you want to use his name all the time.It's not yours. You are not his spokesperson. If he has a problem with the interview, he can tell me himself. I fixed the translation problem anyway- what more do you want from me?
And there is [b]no fucking way[/b] that people were going to read that mistranslation as being racist. You are actually suggesting that it would be perceived as French "racism" toward Americans? It is laughable. That you would even play that card in the hackneyed manner that it is so often played - to trump anything I might say, or to show how "intolerant" I am, is really fucking low and ignorant.

I care about this place being open to all of us, but I don't feel a need to tolerate someone who is seeking to apply his stringent personal desires onto the rest of us, up to an including the belief that you'd somehow have the onus to erase peoples' comments.
You have way too much invested in all of this.You still haven't gotten over the Frederic interview, in which you henpecked me over very minor translation errors, beside the one that Frederic wanted corrected. IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU.
The only message I gave to you was that you can use this place in the ways that you have been, but you cannot apply those expectations to everyone else. You need to make room. We all need to make room.
These comments [b]are just as open as the messageboard[/b].
I don't know if you are worried that people you want to impress are going to read this and think less of you. I wouldn't be surprised if that is what is motivating your henpeckery and your desire to control the appearance of this blog, but I think I speak for a number of us when I tell you that we don't really give a shit about that stuff.
We post our art, we post whatever we want to and we leave it up to everyone to make of it what they will. There is nothing to negotiate here except for very general expectations. A new one is to not act like a fucking lunatic.

Uland said...

Readers of the blog don't "need to" read anything. There is no distinction to be made there.

Aeron said...

Logœme, don't leave, you contribute a lot of great content on here. I'm sure between the language barrier, which is amazing to have someone who has English as a second language on here, and any preconceived ideas of what a group blog should be, can set things off in weird directions.

I think the best attitude to have here is that only we the contributing artists and maybe a handful of other artists are reading it. Not to say that is all who do read the blog, but just treat it like that.

SEAN said...

1. Keep the content to art, but go ahead & add little bits to your art post if they add to the piece. Like if there is a theme song to a piece or music you were listening to while working on it, or ideas with links that are relevant or artists who are inspiring.
2. I love these arguments but i have no idea what is going on here & have a sneaking suspicion that neither do Luke or Logoeme.
3. Luke is completely correct that I don't care about controlling certain elements of the blog. I personally love it when these giant arguments break out. It might look like reality TV, but when reality TV is done right, it's glorious. Anyone watch the first few seasons of The Surreal Life? MAN!
4. You are all racist & i hate you.
5. Mollusk Man has a good idea in looking in the FLICKR pool for new blood. I think also just seeing who wants to be on EBD might be a good way to go, instead of asking. It should be like the Masons, 2B1ASK1.

Gaspard Pitiot said...

I know you're right Aeron but as it seems to be about freedom of speach I'd like to write this to Uland. A mistake inside a translation is a mistake. It is disrespectful to the text you translated not to have corrected it. I needed tree comment to make you realise it was a mistake you even wrote it didn’t matter! You just ignored what I was telling as you often do. This is a good example to understand your strategy and the way you don’t care about people. And by the way the mistake would be perceived as racism you may laugh but it was. So it’s not a minor mistake it changes the content. You invited manosturbo on the blog then when he arrived you didn’t introduced him, you didn’t even give him a warm welcome. Sean was surprised so he asked him “who the fuck are you?” But manosturbo wanted to use the language in a “surrealist way” so he played with the confusion, and didn't say who he was. I was provocative with him so he would tell us who he was, he didn't. Then Aeron who’s always a good moderator said to us who he was. You didn’t write anything to welcome him not even “hello”. Then on his third post you just applied you “art criticism” as you call it and said to him you could easily walk away from his work!!! (His comics at first wasn’t readable and you dared say you understood that you could easily walk away from it.)That was your first comment on the posts your “friend” made. I don’t think he felt at ease. He even had to justify which was just horrible because obviously he wanted to use the language in a dreamy surrealist way, he needed to feel at ease, you didn’t make him feel at ease. He haven’t posted since. Then you went on my picture hug and you just did the same thing: you said you could easily walk away from my work. But it was just a humble picture: there was no need to think it had to be controversial or challenging. I hated that. Now you make a post about interior matters and you tell me that I wrote things which were not OK, you just said we could write anything we wanted, didn’t you ? So your post about interior concerns apparently do not tolerate everything and what I wrote was right: we cannot discuss everything here and maybe you made this ostensible post so everything cannot be discussed. I mean if you didn’t think the EBD discussion group was interesting you should have told it. I may remind you that there was a comment on the blog which was about the fact that we needed it. I deleted the comment on my picture because I thought you were in a difficult position and it was not good for you. It is quite fun that you deleted the blog where we had an argument about translation. So I’ll undo them soon. Also why are you always reminding that you were one of the first persons who posted on here? It seems that on one hand you write you’re just one of us and on the other hand the first persons here can write what ever they want but new comers should be careful about not being “fanatics”. Am I a “fanatic” when defend art I like. When I attacked contemporary drawing you didn’t defend it.

Gaspard Pitiot said...

And BTW I'm not arguing because I want to impressed people, I’m ashamed in a way and I don’t like this. But then where else could we do it?

SEAN said...

I'll add that i really value Logoeme's energy & enthusiasm on this blog. Having the interviews & the art & the consistency is nice, you quickly rose to being a key member of the group.

Gaspard Pitiot said...

Well Uland may be we should forget about all that. I like your stuff I think you liked mine (you wrote it I guess it’s true). All that just reminds me of artists of the twentieth century having arguments… And then they divided. But when they were all together their work was more fertile. Honestly, for example, who cares now if art has to be abstract or figurative?

Uland said...

Here are my final words on the subject:

About the Frederic interview:
Logoeme: It is not your text! That you feel you should have the authority to "correct" any one elses' text is infuriating. Offering suggestions is one thing, but to demand changes is absurd. Why do you think I didn't respond to it for a while?
The initial changes you demanded were a result of misunderstanding vernacular English. I explained it over and over again, but you would not leave it alone. The second correction was valid, and I made it. You must realize that you have no authority over any text unless you write it.
Your first mistake was to forget that, and your second was to interpret my unwillingness to cow to your demands as a personal slight against you: Now it's not about the precious text you've co-opted, it's about your precious feelings. You had no business approaching it in the way you did to begin with! I fixed the fucking mistake and you're still whining about it!
You're going to have to accept that your perceptions aren't going to rule the day. I am telling you with confidence that there is no way the mistranslation would've been construed as "racist". The question itself was tongue-in-cheek, playing with the idea that French people are hostile to Americans. It would be commonly viewed as jokey because no one would take that kind of stereotype seriously.
As far as Raymond goes, YOU CAN CHOOSE TO DEAL WITH HIM HOWEVER YOU LIKE. Many of us have had experiences with Ray in the past that were less than enjoyable. I believe Ray was asked to introduce himself, and he did not. I converse with Ray via email maybe once per month, and we talk about each others' work in the same tone I used in my comment. And guess what? If you didn't agree with it, or like it in general, you're free to speak up.
Some did, I remember, and I feel like I dealt with them appropriately.
I'm not interested in being a part of this blog if it means I have to bullshit people. If I feel I have criticisms to offer, I'm going to. That's all there is to it. The great thing about it all is that YOU DON"T HAVE TO AGREE. If the subject can't deal with it, I don't know what to do about that. Everything I offer is with full knowledge that my own work should be subject to criticism as well. I deserve it. Everyone does.

There just may be things going on between people that you don't have knowledge of, Logeome., and even if you do, you're in no position to tell any of us how to deal with one another. Seans' comment to Ray may have seemed hostile, but it was clearly a knowingly flippant way of dealing with him. Again, I don't think you understand vernacular , or street English. Believe me, Ray can handle that kind of thing.
I don't really value this kind of henpecking. I just don't see what the point is. I like how much you put into your posts, and am obviously interested enough in your subjects to put some thought into commenting on them. It doesn't mean I have to adore the work. We're not children.
If you feel embarrassed by all of this, then don't get these balls rolling. All of it seems to me to stem from your desire to impose your preferences. We all have preferences. We can either talk about them in a clear way and negotiate, or we can't.
You can either accept and make room for things going on here that you don't like and deal with differences in a relevant, respectful way, or you can't. Time to choose.
If you can't do it, I'll just choose to avoid interaction with you.

Anonymous said...

The text wasn’t mine. Yea right. Was it yours? So I had no right to say that the translation was disrespectful to the text. Right. Then you have the right to write whatever you want about what people said as long as they don’t speak English. Right. I understand. I don’t give a fuck about Mano I wanted as well to know who he was. But the way you criticised his work had exactly the same structure as when you criticised mine. I felt your attitude was condescending. So you though I asked you to cow to my demands and that, because you didn’t, I though it was a personal slight against me ? (I just wanted to help you to do it best.) Then, when you though this, you were condescending because I didn’t ask you to cow. You haven’t got more rights than I have about what people wrote. Making a respectful translation isn’t about cowing.

Anonymous said...

You wrote: “you're in no position to tell any of us how to deal with one another.”
I never told you how to deal with other people, did I? Then, are you in position to tell me how I should deal with you?

Jeffrey Meyer said...

Logoeme, my "???" was in response to your comment about my Matt Kish posting. I like his work, so I posted examples of it and suggested folks have a look at his site. He wasn't involved other than his gracious comments, and I felt posting examples of his stuff in a flattering context was sufficent enough and self-explanatory, so that's why there was no commentary or introduction by me or him.

I'm not sure if you thought he was a new member and just started posting things unexplained, or what. I think it'd be great if he contributed here, but that's not the issue -- I posted his work because I liked it and felt other members and readers here would as well.

And that, to me, is the purpose of this blog: INSPIRATION. I post here and read others' posts because I value what I see here, political and idealoical and aesthetic differences notwithstanding.

I wouldn't mind some "regular" blogging on the site either, frankly, as long as it's more or less in the same spirit as what we've got going on. Which is why I've posted the occasional batch of film screen-grabs, or posts refering to other artists, or book reviews or whatever... I think anything goes as long as we can interpret through the lens of the blog, which I think is fair to say is a pretty wide-angle view, which is a good thing. I mean, I've been obsessed with the Columbine shootings lately and was mulling the idea of a post about that -- I think it would have a lot to say about our relationship to art and our ideas about "outsiders" and so forth.

But I dunno...

Gaspard Pitiot said...

Uland: You said I had preferences. I have no preferences. I was open minded and liked tones of stuff. But now, I’m just trying to think about who rejected me, who didn’t say much, who argued with me, who were connected to my friends, who said “I’m going to make art with you”, and who is making art with me. Art critics do not interest me much. I just like to contextualise and encounter art. But as I realised that the art world was divided and petty I’ve decided I should position -may be not all the time actually, my cousin said what’s peculiar about art is that it’s vain. That’s fun.

Aeron said...

You should do that post, Jeffrey, I'm interested in reading it.

zeke said...

Yes, please do that post about Columbine Jeffrey and carry on with the film stills etc.

Uland said...

There is no reason to continue this debate, Logoeme. However this debate makes you feel, or whatever associations its creating in your mind is not really everybody elses' concern. At least that's what I think you're saying.
I'm going to chalk some of it up to misunderstanding, but the rest I'll just let sit.
It's about tone, more than anything else. You have no reason to feel a sense of propriety over my interview with Frederic, for instance. You have no reason to tell Sean he's not interacting correctly. You have no place erasing other peoples' comments.

It's one thing to disagree, but to assume everyone should adapt to your preference is just not going to work.
If you feel condescended towards, or on Raymonds' behalf, there is really nothing I can do about it. I don't think anything I wrote was out of line or mean spirited.I'm being honest, that it.

There are millions of things you could browse around for that you might deem incorrect. I'm sure there are many mistranslations out there. I suggest you take those on, if you really believe you have the authority to demand changes. Let's not forget that the first demand you made was not correct when you make your demands.
Where this sense of authority comes from, I don't know, but when dealing with me, you're going to have to restrain it if you want to communicate in any way.
Deal?

Anonymous said...

I didn’t write Sean wasn’t acting correctly, did I? Could you tell me where I said Sean wasn’t acting correctly? You wrote "Let's not forget that the first demand you made was not correct when you make your demands” https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6296718040957139322&postID=3172362068436992941 : Seriously you're pretending my demand wasn’t correct, you mean it wasn’t correct because I was friendly? Read the comments on Frederic’s post. You condescended when I tried to help you, I wrote you an email (after my picture hug) about this so we would have no explanation on a public space, you didn’t care. So we had a common story and you didn’t care about it; you were incapable to deal with emotional dimensions and understand that I had been offended and I wasn’t going to let you wave the flag of art criticism. I’m quite happy to know that you have rights on what Frederic is saying, I don’t. I never though I had. Is there someone here who can write: Any translator can translate the way they want and nobody has the right to discuss the translation: it is the propriety of the translator. Also I guess we are never going to discuss what some artists of the XXth century though about art criticism but I just let you know that I’m not going to applaud you. I don’t want to deal with you. I don’t know why art criticism should be more acceptable than insults.

Anonymous said...

And after all you may be unhappy because the first comment of this post was a sarcasm about your very ostensible and formalistic post “we should discuss how we invite new persons” and the fact that you’ve just invited someone without introducing him. BTW, I didn’t say I wasn’t OK with that.

Anonymous said...

BTW I perfectly understand the way people use non-formalistic English.

Jeffrey Meyer said...

Hey! It looks like Matt Kish *has* joined us -- looking forward to anything he has to offer. Would especially be interested in seeing some process-oriented posts, I know he and I exchanged a few brief emails about that but I never got around to posting anything here...

Welcome aboard, Matt.

Anonymous said...

Uland : truce ; you stay on your positions, I stay on mine. You perfectly know that if any of us surrender it will be humiliating for both of us. I must admit that some of your critiques were interesting “I enjoy entering into those safe spaces where extremes can be viewed from a distance » was also very reasonable. You’re very welcome to discuss anything on my posts.

Welcome Matt (I especially liked the purple and the green pictures of your on Jeffrey’s post.

Logoeme

Anonymous said...

BTW Uland Delude and delude oneself don't have the same meaning.
L.

Uland said...

Holy shit...
I'm not why you wouldn't believe me that the word, given the subject and predicate of the sentence, could not be understood in any other way to anyone familiar with vernacular English. There is no other subject in the sentence, so the word could not be applied to any other subject. Of course it might be to a native French speaker- I'm not sure because my French is limited- which is why I included the French text...

Gaspard Pitiot said...

No you're wrong.

Gaspard Pitiot said...

I had to ask here:

http://help.berberber.com/forum6/96665-two-little-questions.html

(when you posted the interview)And you were just saying crap. You made me waist too much time Uland.

(Mike): I am a native English speaker and I can confirm that your translation:
I don’t think so, at any rate not me, and I don’t think/feel that the French wake up in the morning saying « Fuck, I really hate those Americans! »
is correct.
I don't see how anybody, with an elementary knowledge of French, could have misunderstood this sentence, the meaning of which is very clear. The translation which you were given would only be correct if the French text had been: "je n'ai pas le même sentiment que les Français qui se réveillent..."

Jukka: First of all, the two verbs: "delude" and "delude oneself" are morphologically different (the first one is transitive while the latter is reflexive), which implies a difference in meaning as well.

"to delude" = 'leurrer quelqu'un'/ 'to deceive the mind or judgment of someone (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) or 'to mislead the mind or judgment of' (The Free Online Dictionary)

"delude oneself" = 'se leurrer', se faire des illusions, s'abuser'/ 'to deceive oneself, to be mistaken, to indulge in illusions'

Uland said...

YES THOSE TWO FORMS ARE DIFFERENT BUT THEY COULD NOT BE INTERPRETED DIFFERENTLY GIVEN THE SUBJECT OF THE SENTENCE.TO TRANSLATE IT IN ANY OTHER WAY WOULD SOUND CLUNKY AND AWKWARD AS IT AS USED SO COMMONLY IN VERNACULAR ENGLISH IN THE WAY I PRESENTED IT.

I HAVE ACKNOWLEDGED THE OTHER ERROR MANY,MANY TIMES.

I SUGGEST YOU DIRECT YOUR PASSION FOR PERFECT USE OF LANGUAGE TOWARD IMPROVING YOUR ENGLISH.

You're a common asshole, Gaspard. Nothing more.

Anonymous said...

You're a liar and an imbecile. But thank you, my English has improve: now, I know that delude and delude oneself are sometime the same.You are exeptional Uland, the most exeptional you are more exeptional than people who aren't as exeptional as you. Your English is far better than non-native speakers. You're coward.
L.