NEWSgrist: *Virtual Art From Illusion to Immersion* Vol.4,
no.1 (Jan. 13, 2003)
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NEWSgrist
where spin is art
{bi-weekly news digest}
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Vol. 4, no.1 (Jan.
12, 2003)
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CONTENTS:
- *Splash* Oliver Grau’s Virtual Art
- *Thing Shutdown*
NYFA follow up
- *Url/s* Knit++ on turbulence
- *Quote/s* High dudgeon; Blazing star
- *Ada Boy*
Eyebeam gets curator
- *FACT Is...*
Liverpool’s FACT Center launches
- *Green
Machines* Jonah Brucker-Cohen on eco-tech
- *Rite Attitude* David Frankel on Art-Rite
[excerpt]
-
*Traffick* Matt Mirapaul on concert bootlegs
- *Classified* Sublets: Williamsburg + DUMBO
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*Splash* http://newsgrist.net
VIRTUAL ART
From Illusion to Immersion
by Oliver Grau
A Leonardo Book published by MIT Press
January 2003, ISBN 0-262-07241-6
"Equally at home in art history, media history, and
new media
art, Grau situates immersive image spaces of new media
within
a rich historical landscape. A must-read for anyone
interested
in new media, visual culture, art history, cinema, and all
other
fields that use virtual images."
-- Lev Manovich, author of The Language of New Media
Going beyond technical and ahistorical views of media art,
Oliver Grau analyzes what is really new in media art by
focusing
on recent work against the backdrop of historic
developments.
Although many people view virtual and mixed realities -
images
of art and science - as a totally new phenomenon, it has
its
foundations in an unrecognized history of immersive
images.
The search for illusionary visual space can be traced back
to
antiquity. Oliver Grau shows how virtual art fits into the
art
history of illusion and immersion and shows how each epoch
used the technical means available to produce maximum
illusion from Pompeii’s Villa dei Misteri via baroque
frescoes,
panoramas, immersive cinema to the CAVE.
this splash page is archived at:
http://www.newsgrist.net/Splash_Grau.html
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*Thing Shutdown*
follow-up:
NYFA Current, January 8, 2003
NTT/Verio Terminates thing.net After Dow Chemical
Corporation Threatens Legal
Action against Yes Men Parody
Shutting Down an Entire
Artists Network over an Unresolved
Complaint about One Site Sets
a Worrisome Precedent for
Corporate Control over the
Work of Artists
NEW YORK CITY, NY -- In the
contemporary Internet climate
of consolidation, it is
increasingly difficult for artists and arts
organizations to find a safe
harbor where they are free to create
and where what they create is
protected from the limitations and
chilling effects of Internet
filters, server content restrictions,
and corporate dominance.
The legendary THE THING has been an Internet Presence
Provider for activist and arts organizations
primarily in the New
York area for ten years. It
hosts arts and activist groups and
publications including P.S.1
Contemporary Art Center;
ARTFORUM; Mabou Mines;
Willoughby Sharp Gallery;
ZINGMAGAZINE; JOURNAL OF
CONTEMPORARY ART; and
Tenant.net. Among many others,
artists and projects associated
with thing.net have included
Sawad Brooks, Heath Bunting, Vuk
Cosic, etoy, John Klima, Jenny
Marketou, Mariko Mori, Prema
Murty, Mark Napier, Joseph
Nechvatal, Phil Niblock, Daniel
Pflumm, Francesca da Rimini,
Beat Streuli, and Beth Stryker. It
also offers dial-up access;
authoring and design services; arts-
oriented newsletters, and online
conversation spaces. Vistors
can log on as a guest and visit
discussions such as
undercurrents: a forum about the
interrelations of cyber-
feminism, new technologies and
globalization, moderated by
Irina Aristahrkova, Maria
Fernandez, Coco Fusco, and Faith
Wilding.
But in December, after receiving legal threats from the
Dow
Chemical Corporation, thing.net's
Internet access provider,
NTT/Verio, temporarily shut of
all the sites which thing.net
hosts and subsequently gave
notice that it will unilaterally
terminate thing.net's contract
on February 28.
full article: http://www.nyfa.org/nyfa_current.asp?id=105&fid=6&sid=17#news2
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*Url/s*
Knit++
http://www.turbulence.org/Works/Knit%2B%2B/index.htm
by xurban_collective
a new Turbulence commission
with funds from The Jerome Foundation
Knit++ is a collective_process_project based on the
concept
of interlocking loops that form non-hierarchical distribution
patterns of people and places.
The generic ideas of
sewing_knitting_ weaving become
the artists' model for
'surveying territory' in
opposition to colonization of domestic
/public sphere. [Explorer 5+ and
Netscape 6+ only]
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*Quote/s*
1)
HIGH DUDGEON (10):
“The Whitney Biennial stinted on painting, ignored the
New York establishment and concentrated on utopian
architecture, rock 'n' roll, the Internet, sound art,
comics
and televangelism. Predictably, critical hissy fits
followed.
But whatever its flaws the show, like the kids in it, was
alright."
-- HOLLAND COTTER, 10 Moments in Art
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/29/arts/design/29COTT.html
"Edit provided a lot of the
spark," Robinson says now, "and Josh
and I did a lot of the carrying.
Edit was our blazing star. She was
an immigrant, she knew no
boundaries. . . . She could make
something out of nothing." That
may seem like a double-edged
compliment, but I don't think he
means it that way: Making
something out of nothing, after
all, is what artists do
themselves. “
--Walter Robinson on Edit DeAk,
Artforum (see *Rite Attitude*)
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*Ada Boy*
EYEBEAM GETS CURATOR
Artnet Mag, 1/7/03
http://www.artnet.com/magazine/news/artnetnews2/artnetnews1-7-03.asp?C=1
Eyebeam, the digital arts center headquartered in New
York's
Chelsea art district, has announced the appointment of
Benjamin Weil as its curatorial chair. Weil, cofounder of
the
now-defunct ada 'web art website, [sic] has been curator
of
media arts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art since
2000 (a post he'll continue to hold through June 2003).
[NG note: go to ada ‘web]: http://adaweb.walkerart.org/home.shtml
info: http://adaweb.walkerart.org/nota/messages/read_ada.html
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*FACT Is...*
FACT launches
1/9/03
http://www.rhizome.org/object.rhiz?13983
The 10 million centre for film, art and creative
technology will
present an international programme of film, video and new
media work in a variety of state-of-the-art spaces,
including
cinemas and galleries. Liverpool based FACT will also
house
research, support and production facilities for artists
working
with new media and emerging media technologies.
FACT
http://www.fact.co.uk/home/home.htm
The UK's newest centre for film, art and creative
technology,
The FACT Centre: http://www.fact.co.uk/centre/centre1.htm
opens to the public on 22 February 2003. It's been seven
years
in the making. It cost 10m to develop, build and equip.
It's the
first purpose-built arts project in Liverpool for over 60
years
and it's opening in the New Year!
For more than a decade FACT has operated as a pioneering
agency in the exhibition, support and development of
artists'
film and video and new media projects in the UK. From our
Liverpool base we have commissioned more than 100 projects
by British and international artists. Many of these
projects have
been showcased within the biennial VIDEO POSITIVE
http://www.fact.co.uk/vp/vp1.htm event and other significant
exhibitions organised by FACT, introducing north-west and
UK
audiences to high quality projects from across the globe.
But FACT is a lot more than a commissioning agency. Our
groundbreaking COLLABORATION PROGRAMME http://www.fact.co.uk/collab/collab1.htm
has established creative partnerships between artists and
hundreds of individuals and groups throughout Liverpool
and
the north-west. MITES [The Moving Image Touring &
Exhibition
Service] http://www.fact.co.uk/www.mites.org.uk/index.htm,
established by FACT in 1992, provides specialist resources
and support to artists and exhibitors working with the
moving
image and new media technologies. The training programme
offers expert tuition and professional development
opportunities to a wide range of artists and individuals
working
in new media and visual culture. Our facility has enabled
dozens
of UK galleries to present work to the highest possible
standard
and upgrade the exhibition experience of their audiences.
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*Green Machines*
New Media Meets the Environment
http://www.greenmuseum.org/c/new_media/#
by Jonah Brucker-Cohen
Research Fellow, Media Lab
Europe, Dublin, Ireland
http://www.medialabeurope.org/people/j-brucker-cohen/index.htm
Introduction
The environment is a tricky subject when it comes to
technology. From trash eating genetically engineered
organisms to plastic bags that
biodegrade, advances in
technology are curbing threats
against our environment while
simultaneously making us wary of
their impact. Within the art
world, environmental concerns
have long been prevalent topics
for creative expression. As
technological art practices gain
mainstream acceptance through
the Internet and networked
society, artists are questioning
how our physical and digital
lives interact. The natural
world has become the perfect antidote
for false expectations of technological utopia.
From early eco-art such as Robert Smithson's "Spiral
Jetty" or
Christo's wrapped islands, there has been a challenge to
both
display the natural beauty of
our environment while
simultaneously critiquing its
use. Fusing technology with
ecological art unearths
questions relating to how technology can
illuminate environmental issues.
What is technology's role in
preserving nature? How does
questioning reality - either virtual
or real - help us improve our relationship with the
natural world?
How can technology enable
communication about ecological
conservation between people over distance?
Digital =
Dirty
As we become more digitally active in a networked society,
there is a tendency to think
that digital equals clean. With
omputers we eliminate the need
for paper, cataloging systems,
and our offices and homes become
more streamlined. Subverting
this notion are artists who
change our relationship to the digital
objects we consume and interact
with everyday.
Looking at environmental
pollutants in home computers and
distributed networks, Australian
research scientist and techno-
artist, Natalie Jerimijenko's
work challenges our assumptions
about the cleanliness of
"digital lifestyles". Her project,
"Stump" http://cat.nyu.edu/natalie/projectdatabase/ infiltrates
your computer's printer queue
keeping track of how many pages
you've printed. As time goes by,
the software agent prints out a
tree ring representing how much
of a tree you've consumed. In
her work, "Bang Bang",
Jerimijenko set up webcams at specific
environmental sites where data
collected from the site triggers
the camera to take video clips.
For example, a camera resting
at New York's Fresh Kills
landfill is activated by a radioactivity
threshold meter. Similarly, she
attached a crude Co2 meter to
the serial port so that virtual
trees on the desktop grow in
proportion to Co2 readings in
the room.
Also starting on the home front,
Irish designer Philip Phelan's
Co2nvertweb http://www.co2nvert.com/ project features
working prototypes of innovative
eco-conscious modifications
to existing home appliances.
Focusing on the individual rather
than national responsibility,
his work uses technology as an
empowering tool for social
environmental protest. The "Snobby
Toaster" makes a fuss over
the type of energy it consumes while
the "Weather Socket"
allows us to see if the energy we are
lugging into is coming from
wind, solar, or fossil fuel sources.
Co2nvert's main goal is to have
a monthly "Emissions Bill",
breaking down each household's
global pollutant contribution. By
changing our everyday power
consumption habits through simple
interaction design, Phelan's
work highlights the natural
resources we often take for
granted.
Natural vs. Artificial
As technology gains ubiquity in our everyday lives,
natural and
artificial begin to blur.
Artists are looking at how we can create
hybrid spaces where digital and
analog worlds can exist in
tandem within a sustainable
architecture. Located in the hills of
Scotland, MAKROLAB http://makrolab.ljudmila.org/ functions
as a fully autonomous research,
communications, housing and
creative unit. Its premise is
built on the idea that sustainable
architecture can fuse with
digital practice to provide a haven for
collaboration within a
self-contained shell. Since our connected
ives require more infrastructure
everyday, the MAKROLAB
project proves that our digital
lives can exist in a resource-free
world where reliance on ourselves is the only
option.
Building a sustainable ecosystem within the
computer, The Bank
of Time http://www.thebankoftime.com/ is a screensaver that
uses idle time to grow virtual plants on the desktop.
This simple
project gives nature a dependency on virtual
activities where
only when we take a break from using computers will
growth
occur. Despite the fact that the plants are
"virtual", the project
illuminates the struggle for balance between
interacting with
both natural and artificial worlds.
Reaction to Ecological Disasters
Technological art practices tend to be more accessible to
a
mass audience since they often have a networked component.
As ecological disasters hit, artists respond by creating
environmentally conscious works
that highlight and frame these
events as global phenomena.
Reacting to a Russian tanker's
major oil spill of the coast of
Japan, digital artist, Maki Ueda
created "Spilt Oil
Project" http://home.wanadoo.nl/makiueda/oil/index-e.html
Taking photos of the effected
areas, Ueda then printed them on
large pieces of fabric and
placed them in pattern formations on
beaches along the southern coast
of Japan. The accompanying
website features a map of Japan
with flags representing the
beaches where the fabric was
displayed along with the effected
areas from the spill.
Similarly, reacting to the disposal of hazardous
waste, "Ocean
Landmark" http://www.nyu.edu/classes/beaumont/collaboration/
by NYC based artist, Betty Beaumont is an
interactive 3D
rendering of an ecological art project. In 1980,
Beaumont
dumped 500 tons of processed coal-waste into the
sea, 40
miles from the New York Harbor to create a new
underwater
ecosystem that would create a "fish
haven". The technological
realization of this project exists as a VRML world
that recreates
the experience of the blocks falling onto the sea
floor.
Digital Representations of Nature
As technological art practices shift from screen-based to
physical installations the
potential for ecological art becomes
more varied. By both using natural
landscapes and animals from
a particular environment, art
can flourish by being not-only site-
specific but also ecologically
sensitive. New York based artist,
John Klima's project, Terrain
Machine http://www.cityarts.com/langlois/teramachine.html
is an analog mechanical device
interfaced to a computer that
creates a physical recreation of
the Earth's surface. A
continuation of his
"Earth" simulation, an interactive geo-
spatial visualization system
that takes real-time satellite data
from the Internet and maps it
onto a 3D model of the Earth's
surface, "Terrain
Machine" looks at how we can represent
ecological data in physical form.
Instead of data visualization through networks, Celeste
Boursier-Mougenot and Alan
Lockwood's installation "From Here
to Ear" http://www.spiral.org/oldsite/mougenot.html creates a
hybrid space between natural and
artificial environments. The
project features 40 zebra
finches which are let loose in a space
rigged with hanging harpsichord
strings and coat hangers all
connected to an audio system. As
the audience enters the
space, the birds move and perch
on different structures which
trigger unique ambient sound
patterns.
Conclusions
As we move closer to digital ubiquity, there is a fear of leaving
ehind the natural world. Before
we attempt to preserve our
natural habitat, we must first
be aware of how we are affecting it.
By creating work that
illuminates how our technological
existence directly relates to
environmental responsibilities,
artists are shifting the
importance of eco-consciousness from a
global to a personal level.
Technology aids not only the
dissemination of information and
meaning across distance and
time, but also allows for
insight into the hybridization of the
natural and artificial. These
works are meant as a starting point
for understanding the increasing
importance of exploring how
ecological practices and
technological innovation must exist as
symbiotic entities to ensure a
sustainable future.
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*Rite Attitude*
The Rite Stuff - David Frankel on Art-Rite
[page 1, excerpted]
Art Forum - January Issue
http://www.artforum.com/inprint/id=3961
We were riding on the absurdity of the situation--that we
were
three nobodies, had no money, had no fame, and didn't know
anybody in the art world. But it was perfect--we
were totally free.
Edit deAk, 1974
EDIT DEAK AND WALTER ROBINSON may shudder to hear it,
but talking to them recently
about Art-Rite I accidentally
thought of that old movie in
which Judy Garland and Mickey
Rooney, teenaged and rural,
stage a Broadway-type musical in a
barn: "Hey kids, let's put
on a show!" But since the magazine
deAk and Robinson published and edited, and wrote and
designed and typeset and
distributed, out of their downtown-
Manhattan lofts between 1973 and
1978 was so open,
emocratic, and fresh-faced, they
may think the parallel fine, or
at least poetic justice: They
and a third editor, Joshua Cohn,
staged an exhilarating deconstruction (if an exhilarating
deconstruction isn't a contradiction in terms) not only of
art
but of art writing, so they must take what they get.
In any case:
Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney could really dance.
"An important aspect of Art-Rite," says deAk
today, "was a
whole new tone and attitude. It was unheard of to have a
sense
of humor at the time, or not to
be talking about the problem' of
art--the problem of this, the
problem of that. A few years later
the punk magazines came along,
and I realized that's what I'd
wanted--I loved those fanzines.
That's not what we were, we
were much more formalist, but we
were a very different sound
than what was around us."
The fanzine image carries, since Art-Rite had a loving
relation-
ship with the art world and
particularly with its own generation.
Distributed free, it was
"given away," according to an undated
grant application, "in
recognition of the community which
nurtures it." The
application goes on to describe the
magazine's "close
relationship with the art community" and its
reflection of "the younger generation's
view. . . For its collective
audience, Art-Rite represents a
restless but friendly, constantly
evolving entity." In a
statement deAk and Robinson wrote for
Studio Internationalin 1976, the
editors admitted to "some
nasty comments about a few major
artists," but those artists
"were famous and successful
and because they were safe we
couldn't hurt them and since we
spent the rest of our life
defending babies we had to
attack someplace." Even when the
magazine went negative it did it amicably.
DEAK, ROBINSON, AND COHN MET in 1972, when they were
all in their early twenties and
the three of them took an art-
criticism class taught by Brian
O'Doherty at Barnard College in
New York. Under another hat
O'Doherty was the editor of Art in
America, which he wanted to make
new, and he liked to ask his
strongest students to write for
it. He extended this invitation to
Cohn, Robinson, and finally deAk, whom, however, it
puzzled: "I
thought, Aestheticism must be in
trouble if they want baby
blood--I mean, what do we know?
We were in the last year of
undergraduate work. I had come
from Budapest, didn't even
speak English when I started
school. We started giggling; there
must be some weird void--what's
wrong with the system that
they want us?" She and the pair she still calls
"the boys" did
write for O'Doherty, but they also began to fantasize
about
producing a magazine of their
own, perhaps as a newsprint insert
in Art in
America--"piggybacking on the establishment, having
the establishment distribute the
enemy, our voice. This was the
period when people talked about
things like that." The insert
idea died but the larger idea
stuck, and to make it happen they
enrolled in the Whitney Museum's
Independent Study Program,
for which they proposed to
publish a magazine as their class
project. Robinson meanwhile had
gotten a job as a typesetter
and designer for a Jewish weekly
newspaper, and, he says, "We
stole all the type from there
until they caught me and I got
fired." And that's how Art-Rite began.
O'Doherty is distinguished and worldly, but he gets a
little
mushy about the Art-Rite
editors: "They were three extra-
ordinarily gifted people. I
never quite saw them as students
because they were pretty well
grown up—the personalities were
very rich. Josh had the makings
of a very gifted writer, and he
was a delight. Mike [Robinson]
was multitalented: He had
eloquence, brilliant descriptive gifts, he was a fine
critic, and he
was going to be a really fine artist. Edit was a genius of
sorts.
She had something I was very sympathetic to: the enigmas
of
Eastern Europe, which at times mirror and superimpose on
our
own Irish enigmas. The terms of mind you're familiar with
as an
Irishman established a sympathy between me and Edit. She
was
the most extraordinary student I ever had."
Read through Art-Rite, though,
and I doubt you'll find an essay
that you'll think has the depth
or ambition of O'Doherty's "Inside
the White Cube." The
magazine had a different purpose, sociable,
sharp, in touch; its strengths
were collective and magpie, not the
magisterial grand recit but the
agglomerative ground-level view.
Asked to name a highlight of
Art-Rite's run, deAk and Robinson
independently choose the same issue:
no. 14, dated winter
'76/'77. One of several focusing
on a single art form (per-
formance, video, painting), no.
14 examines the artist's book.
[cont'd...] http://www.artforum.com/inprint/id=3961
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*Traffick*
They Buy all the Albums, but Trade Concert Bootlegs
By MATTHEW MIRAPAUL
ARTS ONLINE, NYTimes 1/6/03
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/06/arts/music/06ARTS.html?pagewanted=all&position=top
Marc Daniel added 1,400 albums to his compact disc
collection
last year. But he is not waging a campaign to reverse the
music
industry's declining sales. Almost all the titles he
acquired, by
groups like the Grateful Dead
and U2, were live concert
recordings that were never
officially released. Nor did he buy
them in record shops. Instead,
he used the Internet to trade for
them,
swapping copies of his discs for recordings he desired.
He said his CD trading with its
questionable legality and
exhilarating musical payoff was
like "a coke run without any
drugs."
Mr. Daniel, 51, a property manager in Mount Vernon, Wash.,
is
addicted to music trading, and
he is hardly alone. With a
minimum of online searching,
fans of virtually any band from
arena-filling superstars to
cult-worshiped club acts, can find a
Web site or electronic mailing
list to feed a habit for live CD's.
Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen?
No problem. Illicit recordings,
or bootlegs, of their concerts
circulate soon after the last car
leaves the parking lot. But a
show by the singer-songwriter Dirk
Hamilton or the electronica
musician Luke Vibert? Also no
sweat. In the music world,
you're nobody until somebody loves
you enough to want your
bootlegs.
While the Grateful Dead, Pearl Jam and other bands allow
their
shows to be recorded and freely exchanged, many do not.
Trafficking in unauthorized sound recordings is a
violation of
federal copyright law as well as a felony in more than 30
states.
Yet online traders don't seem troubled. Mr. Daniel said he copies
about 90 discs a day to fulfill trades he has
arranged. It's all
about bliss. "I don't feel like a
criminal," he said. "What I'm
doing is bringing joy to people and bringing joy to
me."
Bootlegs are unauthorized
recordings, mostly of live per-
formances, that were never meant
to be released by musicians
and their labels. Bootleg CD's
are different from counterfeit
CD's, which are illegitimate
copies of official releases. There are
markets for both.
Just as online song-file sharing
has challenged how the music
industry sells its tunes, so too
is digital technology altering the
way fans get their hands on
bootleg CD's. Although bootlegs,
usually costing $20 to $30 a
disc, can still be found in record
stores, it is cheaper and
simpler to get them online. Many new
computers have built-in CD
recording devices burners and
some blank discs cost less than
50 cents apiece. Because the
Internet enables a band's fans
to congregate in one virtual spot,
traders connect easily and make
exchanges with a few e-mail
messages and a couple of stamps.
Bootleg trading is not as widespread as Internet file
sharing,
however, and it does not provoke as much concern from the
music industry, which worries more about piracy, as when
counterfeit CD's and song-file downloads cut into the
sales of
official releases.
Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry
Association
of America, said the association cannot determine how much
bootlegging occurs. But, he said, "the piracy problem
is
obviously a lot larger in scope, both in the physical
world and
online, because more people are
trading and pirating best-
selling discs than bootlegs
of live concerts."
This explains why the association has not been especially
aggressive in clamping down on
bootleg trading. There are
practical considerations, too.
Musicians must object to specific
live recordings before the
association will step in. While some
artists might grouse about
retailers who profit from selling their
bootlegs, online trades rarely
involve money. Artists who
prosecute individual fans for
merely indulging in music beyond
their official CD's would be
about as cool as a Guy Lombardo
record.
Traders argue that they are performing a public service by
undercutting commercial
bootlegs. A Philadelphia trader said he
used to buy bootleg CD's in
stores but started an online mailing
list for Rolling Stones concerts
that now has 1,700 subscribers.
"Once you see that you can
trade for the thing for 10 cents a
disc," he said, "why
waste your money?"
Even in cases where bands do not sanction live recordings,
traders rationalize their actions. First and foremost,
they say,
they do not cost the musicians
any sales because they already
own all their favorite band's
official albums. More important, they
argue that they are documenting musical history.
The Philadelphia trader, who has 733 Stones concerts in
his
collection, said, "Just preserving that legacy, that
40 years of
music, that's the most important
thing to us." For instance, he
said that "L.A.
Friday," a bootleg of a 1975 Stones concert, was
more vivid than "Love You Live,"
the band's official concert album
of that time.
Clear sound and glitch-free recordings are just as
important to
bootleg traders as performance
quality. Shows are traded by
mail rather than over the
Internet as MP3 files to assure the
highest possible fidelity.
Online traders shun poorly recorded
discs and passionately debate
the merits of recordings of the
same show made by different
people. To come up with the best
possible version of a concert,
some traders blend recordings
from more than one source, using
software to cover rough spots,
then distribute it to their
group. Because the copies are digital
duplicates, they do not accrue
layers of hiss like recordings on
audio cassettes.
Online traders are not hard to find. For instance, a
search of the
Groups section of yahoo.com
yields more than 400 clubs
devoted to music trading,
authorized and unauthorized. And
some collectors list the
concerts they own and the ones they
are seeking on their own Web
sites.
Initiating a trade usually requires no more effort than
sending a
request to another trader with a list of what's in one's
own
collection. Beginners with
nothing to swap can offer to send
blank discs with return postage.
Some groups set up trading "trees": a source
sends copies of a
concert to two or three traders, who in turn send them to
two or
three others, and so on. Variations of this system include
a
"vine" whereby a disc passes from trader
to trader, being copied
at each stage. Some traders also create Web sites from which
cover graphics and track listings can be downloaded
and printed.
The Internet has quickened the trading process. In the
days
before e-mail, traders would
respond by mail to classified ads in
music magazines. A trader
outside Philadelphia who founded an
electronic mailing list for
Pearl Jam shows said, "Before, it took
weeks if not months," but
now it's so fast that recordings of four
December shows by Pearl Jam have
already been distributed to
hundreds of collectors.
Mr. Daniel admits that he has
yet to listen to every minute of
every CD in his collection. But
he continues to trade at a
feverish rate. Last week, he
gained a new rationale for his
obsession. A musician told him
he had stopped drinking on
stage when he realized that all
his performances were being
circulated. Mr. Daniel said,
"It causes them to play better