But, I've finally seen a way that online art really happens. While the folks in the new media set are theorizing and abstracting about interactivity and collaboration, the really juicy, gritty stuff is happening on mySpace.

A lot of the music that is intriguing me lately is French/Japanese/retro-sexual/hipster stuff via Momus: Hypo, ShoboShobo, o.lamm, etc., and these gals/guys all have mySpace pages. Now unlike the usual, 'hey-dude-you're-so-cool-add-me-to-your-friends-list' crap, visitors are posting cool images to the comments, creating little virtual galleries of hipness. Below is a selection of coolness [sorry for lack of credits, but you can find them through the links above.]

Somehow, I can't shake the feeling that this idea of the necessity of collaboration in the field of New Media is an obsolete remnant of earlier times when artists needed to collaborate with engineers/programmers/scientists *just to gain access to the equipment*. And because it was so hard to gain access to it, they never had the opportunity to learn or understand it fully in an artistic medium sort of way. Today, when I probably have more power and technology than all the devices used by artists throughout the 70's, right here in my little laptop, that collaboration isn't necessary anymore. Also, I can spend as much time as I want and/or need to understand this technology as my chosen medium.