CREATIVE NETWORKS
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7-11 – Net.Art Mailing List 7-11 was a mailing list for net.art initiatives that existed for a short period (in 1998) and focused less on announcements or discussions on art but more on creating and distributing it. 7-11 as agreed by Heath Bunting, one of its key founders, was all of the following, mentioned in the interview: a network for net.art, a mailing list for the net.artist community, a net.art project and subversive action. ‘7-11 was many things to many people, a shared space where people felt free to experiment’ (Bunting 2010). An important role in the development of network culture was assigned to those active artists who chose Internet and computers, bits and bites, new media and communication as the material for expressing their creative ideas in an aesthetic, artistic form. ‘The thing that separates art on the Internet from a simple artistic online presentation (publicity) is its self-referentiality, the fact that it is dealing with the specific features of the net’ (Baumgaertel 2001, 14). So-called net.artists explore the Internet as the medium and the material of their work. Not only is their work presented online, it can also be the art of desktop, Internet browser, software or programming. It can often be subversive and may be hacker art or art referencing hacker ethics. Net.artists also used ASCII graphic drawings frequently which can be inserted easily into an e-mail text. 7-11 was established in 1998 as a mailing list opposed to the Internet’s critical discourse platform – Nettime – which preferred serious discussions. The moderators of Nettime did not tolerate the outrageous campaigns of net.artists who instead of serious discussions sent in incomprehensible decorative or conceptual strains of text or self-propaganda, like announcements of their latest net.art works. The debating participants often had a hard time understanding that the ‘bread and the butter’ for artists is often an artwork or the process of creating art instead of thoughts formulated in a written form, thus such campaigns caused Nettime to start ‘filtering’ the messages. Being asked what the motivation was to initiate the 7-11 project, Bunting replied that it was exactly that: ‘being thrown off Netttime was the reason for setting up 7-11 with Jodi and Vuk [Cosic]. The breaking of 7’11 was the reason to start ‘american express’ [an other net.artist mailing list]. Also it was always intended that 7-11 would be temporary and be replaced quite soon. This was to keep people from forming little kingdoms like Nettime’. 7-11 was created as a net.art campaign for net.art and net.art only, where artists could express themselves freely and speak up occasionally by sending out different kinds of messages in a free form, in sign or ASCII graphics as well as information on their personal net.art projects or other net.art works and events. > > > > > > > > >
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ASCII graphics sent to the 7-11 mailing list (from the 7-11 archive).