The Work

<i>iola</i>
Most institutions want to keep visitors within their own "space". What they don't take into consideration is that in the physical building people do not materialize in the doorway, they come through some mode of transportation -- walking, taxi, bus -- and from the "outside". The transition from "outside" to "inside" is metaphorical on-line and the advantage of linking would seem to be the ability to link in both directions. The advantage is that it creates a space of entering with the possibility of going elsewhere and that encourages return visits. The entrance has a use other than as an aesthetic decompression chamber.
When I first got on the Net, I thought Robbin Murphy was Tron. He had to be inside the network itself, intercepting communication before it reached anywhere else, processing it, tidying it up a bit, adding a strategic comment or two. I've since met him a few times, and I'm pretty sure he's analog. (http://www.artnetweb.com/ iola/journal/window/index.html--click on the top of the pyramid. What do you think?) We don't communicate too much, but I rely on him. Some email addresses I have my emailer automatically filter into the trash. I wish there was an agent that I could program to seek out Robbin Murphy posts. It's funny though, because almost as soon as I get to Murphy's site, I leave it. But I always come back.

At some point, I don't remember when exactly, I came through another "door." Maybe it was the Land discussion on Chalkboard or maybe it was the PORT: Navigating Digital Culture listserv. Or maybe it was the "Drift" project. It doesn't matter really. At any rate, there was this other stuff going on besides "information processing."

"Hypomnemata,
or middleground ... could also be considered as a form of "studio" for me where I work on projects and keep the information and material for those and future projects.... I am intentionally trying to avoid thinking in terms of 3-D modeling and have opted to start with the fourth dimension, time (or chronology in this case) in a very simple representation. Some of the projects within this platform investigate time further in terms of tempo, looping and rhythm using GIF animation and javascript."
There is "artwork" in Hypomnemata, but most of the obvious candidates are in the "short story" of his biography. They have become illustrations for a resume that attempts to give facts a trajectory. Murphy's online artwork, however--his net art, if you will--never strays very far from textual (re)sources, although I would say he is about equally interested in the interface--but truly equally; hardly ever for its own sake.

It is no surprise that the directory structure for this part of Tumbleweed is ../iola/journal. "Now, in fact, hypomnemata has a very precise meaning. It is a copybook, a notebook." (Foucault) Murphy's actual journals constitute the "Undergrowth."

"Undergrowth,
or background (blue) platform, which consists of journals from the past fifteen years I am converting to digital form and uploading. This will eventually include images and be a relational database where my past, or some kind of history, can be reconstituted."
In the end, I don't need an agent to find Murphy posts. That is what Tumbleweed is: a "personal curated" studio/archive of activity where the digital is real and inside/outside co-mingle. For me, it points toward the net art of the interfacer and the artificer.

One last thing. Tumbleweed is a work of process (as opposed to in progress). There is no neat map of all the entrances and exits. There are more than a few wayward links. The "spine" of this process is and is becoming "I-90 (i forgot)" the "long story," about which Murphy writes:

I started digging through my old work, which by this point had become dispersed and chaotic. Instead of ordering the chaos I decided to investigate the order within that chaos in light of what I had since discovered. I started digging horizontally, vertically and diagonally.
Sounds like a potential museum to me.

--Steve Dietz







 


[The screen is my line out
--and my line in.
--Melinda Rackham, Line

Robbin Murphy's Project Tumbleweed is a bit like visiting a large museum where lots is going on and the signage really only makes sense after you've been there a few times and are starting to become comfortable with things. To the first time visitor it can be a bit disorienting, but it's clear there's something there.
...
Built into the structure are the notions of point of view and perspective. That is, Murphy acknowledges and plays out multiple roles--and assumes the visitor will also be coming from different points of view, whether as surfer or critic, artist or player, archaeologist or diviner. The main structural way this is accommodated is by three "levels" (perspectives).
...
This is a significant project that museums would do well to steal as much as they can from.
--sd
"Curating (on) the Web"



"Drift" matters. It was made in response to the deaths of three close friends who died of AIDS ("Short Story"). It's clear that it matters. It makes a difference.



"Since I'm trying to avoid thinking in terms of exhibiting in the traditional gallery/museum sense the results will probably be too dispersed for any sort of curatorial treatment (including BLAST) but since I already have my own curatorial project in artnetweb I'm not concerned with traditional methods of art distribution. http://artnetweb.com/ projects/drift/drift.html (drift)"
--Robin Murphy
"Land," June 30, 1996 at 11:33:35

"'Dear Mr. Murphy:
I stumbled onto your web site very much by accident. I don't quite understand a large part of it, but it kept me busy for hours. I suppose then, I enjoyed it. :)
Good luck in your future,'
Rebecca Borish"
"Response," November 1997