The Thing History - Jerome Joy website

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!!THE THING / Net Communities The legendary THE THING has been a 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; NETTIME; and Tenant.net. Among many others, artists and projects associated with thing.net have included Sawad Brooks, Heath Bunting, Cercle Ramo Nash, Vuk Cosic, etoy, GH Hovagimyan (who did his first computer piece with thing.net before the web in 1993: [BKPC\|http://nujus.net/gh_04/gallery6.html]), 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. {br}{br} '''THING STAFF (01/2000)''' [http://joy.nujus.net/files/articles/TheThing/thingstaff012000_.jpg\|http://joy.nujus.net/files/articles/TheThing/thingstaff012000.jpg] '''THING COMMUNICATOR (2001)''' [http://joy.nujus.net/files/articles/TheThing/thingcommunicator2001_.jpg\|http://joy.nujus.net/files/articles/TheThing/thingcommunicator2001.jpg] '''THE THING LLC (2005)''' [http://joy.nujus.net/files/articles/TheThing/thingnet2005_.jpg\|http://joy.nujus.net/files/articles/TheThing/thingnet2005.jpg] In the beginning of the 1990s, three initiatives were developed concomitantly that aimed at exploring the possibilities of the then nascent online world for the development of a conversation about art as well as an investigation of new forms of art-making (Echo, The Thing, and Artswire). THE THING was a electronic bulletin board system that all sought to foster the building of a strong cultural community. THE THING elected to fully focus on the arts, quickly developing nodes in Germany, where its founder, Wolfgang Staehle, had strong ties. As technology evolved, THE THING was in fact the first attempt at creating an international art community online. That was before the Internet -and the Web - became accessible beyond the scientific and military communities. The fact that Staehle and his team offer Web-hosting and eventual technical assistance to their peers has made THE THING a place of choice for artists to host their pages. This means that anyone accessing the Web site has an opportunity to check a growing number of artists' projects at once. However, in that kind of economy, artists either have to know how to build their pages on their own or pay for technical support. Moreover, as the Web becomes increasingly organized with the advent of "portal" pages, it is increasingly clear that the model to follow is the one of aggregation and personalization, with some guide-like features. ''It was a seminal experience. The first time I could really engage in a reflection about art, its social function, its capacity to possibly represent the world, not just as an image, but also as a set of parameters to understand the world. I think Wolfgang Staehle was definitely a visionary in that sense that he got immediately the incredible power of a community-building instrument that went beyond the notion of geographicallocale. He wanted a "Mudd Club" (1), or a Cedar Tavern (2) of the 1990's, a place where people from all over the place could meet, and have those long discussions that they did not necessarily have in bars or clubs, any more. THE THING was also a collective of people, a loose-ended group of people, artists, critics, curators, thinkers of all sorts, all of which saw the collapse of the art market in the late 1980's as an opportunity to reinvent the art world, or at least a moment when new ideas could be pushed forward, when there was so little money, and so much time! THE THING definitely helped me explore the idea of artivism, of a mean to empower the idea of art over the idea of commodity, the importance of gesture and process opposed to the one of product. In that sense it was a grounding moment.'' (Interview of Benjamin Weil, April 2002) ( http://www.noemalab.org/sections/specials/net_art_bioart/weil.html ) {br}{br} ''''__Presentation of THE THING (on post.thing.net)__'''' '''THE THING is a non-profit organization committed to the development of new media culture, information technology, and social activism.''' '''At its core, THE THING is a social network, made up of individuals from diverse backgrounds with a wide range of expert knowledge. From this social hub, THE THING has built an exceptional array of programs and initiatives, in both technological and cultural networks. During its first five years, became widely recognized as one of the founding and leading online centers for new media culture. Its activities include hosting artists' projects and mailing lists as well as publishing cultural criticism. (...) THE THING has also organized many events and symposia on such topics as the state of new media arts, the preservation of online privacy, artistic innovations in robotics, and the possibilities of community empowerment through wireless technologies.''' '''THE THING's multimedia lab has regularly hosted a variety of artists, including Vuk Cosic, Sebastian Luetgert, Nick Crowe, Prema Murty, Daniel Pflumm, Heath Bunnting, Beat Streuli and Mariko Mori. THE THING has also organized many events and symposia on such topics as the state of new media arts, intellectual property, the preservation of online privacy, artistic innovations in robotics, and the possibilities of community empowerment through wireless technologies.''' '''THE THING has been generously supported by the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and thing.net communications.''' {br}{br}{br}{br}
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