[aha] ashartonline

[Luca Lo Coco]

la cosa dei fake mi piace sempre di più...

"2 righe per contestualizzare...", per esempio? a cosa ti riferisci?

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "roberta buiani" <robb at yorku.ca>
To: "List on artistic activism and net culture" <aha at lists.ecn.org>
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2011 2:18 AM
Subject: Re: [aha] ashartonline


qui c'e' il tuo testo tradotto. pero' se posso suggerire, forse dovresti 
aggiungere un paio di righe per contestualizzare il lavoro (e magari 
possiamo mettere dei link alle pagine che citi).
a tutti coloro che masticano l'inglese: per favore controllate che la 
traduzione abbia un senso.
grazie

rb

------------
It was around 2005, when I found myself in one of those not-too-pleasant 
situations—whose outcome, as soon as they are over, often produces strong 
creative drives. I decided to buy a couple of contemporary arts magazines to 
find out who would be today’s Picassos. I was approaching the world of art 
with the same naïve spirit of a kid entering a park to play with his ball….

As soon as I opened what I thought was the most striking magazine, I was 
left semi-horrified by the huge amount of pages dedicated to the ads before 
I was even able to reach the first page really dedicated to the arts. This 
so-longed page appeared with a title –in capital letters—“Letters to the 
director.”Next to the title, a bold guy, portrayed in a photo that appeared 
to mimic one of those commemorative pictures of saints. A delicate purple 
line framed the picture, reminding me of the vestments of a saddened priest 
during lent. After reading the first few letters, I realized that I hadn’t 
found in them anything but the lessons of a bitter teacher who was 
mercilessly chastising his students.

I decided to keep browsing the magazine. I closed it half an hour later. I 
had opened it to look for art but I had only found the art market
At that point, I felt the urge to express my surprise. As a very natural 
reaction, I decided to project my frustration using the Net. I had no 
knowledge whatsoever of the medium, so I turned to my friend –a 
webmaster—for advice. My friend Giulio gave me www.ashartonline.com as a 
birthday present. I remember that I was so ignorant about HTML programming 
that in order to help him reproduce the site of the magazine, I handed him a 
sheet with some measurements in cm (taken form my computer screen):]

Even right now, I don’t know exactly why I decided to create a website to 
vent my frustrations. My approach was absolutely instinctive: I hadn’t heard 
of NetArt yet, nor had I heard of any other form of art online. However, I 
came out with this site, www.ashartonline.com, which was active between 
January and June. The site had a graphic design that resembled the platform 
it was imitating. “Ash” was missing two letters only “fl” to become 
“Flashart.” This was enough though to convey a different meaning brought up 
by the word “ash” in the domain. www.ashartonline.com was similar to 
www.flashartonline.com, not the same. A few little differences in the news, 
some corrections in some articles enacted the criticism. Furermore, there 
was a forum open to everybody. The project was doing rather well. People 
subscribing to it were increasing. Among the sections in the forum there was 
a part dedicated to “Letters to the director part two", a section dedicated 
to those who had received unpolite replies from the director (in the paper 
magazine). The replies in this section kept multiplying, until, I think, 
they really bothered the subject to whom they were addressed. However, what 
really triggered his reaction was the publication in three weeks of the “ash 
art diary”, a collection of email addresses of Italian artists, ctitics 
curators. It was possible to download the list for free. The website 
received hundreds of downloads in a few minutes.

On 31 July 2007, a bailiff, soaked with 40 C worth of sirocco from Palermo, 
knocked at my door and handed me a cute pile consisting of dozens of pages 
sent to me by the lawyers of the “super-director.” The judicial cause was 
starting. The obfuscation of the site and four-five years of hearings and 
documents followed. At the end, the final sentence condemned me to pay the 
legal expenses (The fee requested to make up for the damage was over 200,000 
euros!) Since I am not able to satisfy this fee, the “Director” insists that 
my belongings be confiscated. 18 May 2011 everything I own at my current 
residence were confiscated. My mom and brother want to kick me out.

If I was asked the question: “would you do it again?” I would reply without 
hesitation “absolutely.” at the end of the day I still believe in the 
“unadulterated” arts.

Luca Lo Coco


On May 22, 2011, at 6:59 PM, roberta buiani wrote:

>
> On May 22, 2011, at 6:42 PM, Luca Lo Coco wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> p.s: intanto se qualcuno fosse in grado di tradurre in inglese l'accaduto 
>> e mandarlo sulle altre mailing list internazionali, farebbe cosa 
>> gradita...
>
>
> stavo proprio facendo la traduzione in inglese per i miei amici :-) 
> ...appena ho finito vi mando copia e poi si diffonde a piu' non posso
>
> stavo pensando a come avevi inizialmente concepito il tuo intervento: come 
> una critica che colpisce su vari piani (quindi non solo il famigerato 
> politi, ma anche il sistema delle riviste d'arte stesse).  invece di 
> rivolgere i fake unidirezionalemente, si potrebbero diversificare 
> facendoli concentrare di volta in volta su diversi aspetti. quindi 
> sarebbero copie ma non proprio. il tutto chiaramente mantenendo uno stesso 
> template.
> sono d'accordo, qui ci vuole molta coordinazione, gente disposta a 
> collaborare e un po' di gente che ci aiuta a diffondere.
>
> rb
>
> ______
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> AHA at lists.ecn.org
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