To: nettime-l
Subject:
one thing that hasn’t come up in this discussion is history — that is, the history of rhizome. for various reasons, i viewed this all from a safe and 100% uninvolved distance, so my memory is probably off when it comes to details. mark tribe and/or other rhizomatics are free to correct me, of course.
mark and a few others ‘founded’ rhizome soon after he moved from berlin to NYC, in the spring of ‘96. i’m not exactly sure what founding rhizome actually involved, other than running a mailing list or two.
on those lists, there was quite a bit of kvetching about the lack of state support for the arts in the US, which led people to suggest some sort of one-for-all, all-for-one collectivization. out of that, through the machinations of mark and a few others, was borne a dotcom by the name of stockobjects, which set out to take these vague ramblings and turn them into a business. the ‘model’ was sumarized in a WiReD article thus:
Artists initially submit their work under either an exclusive or nonexclusive agreement, and get no money until sale. The exclusive model entitles the artist to 50 percent of the royalties when an object is purchased, but the nonexclusive option offers only 25 percent — which, at US$25 for a stock photo, could be negligible.
Users can sift through the site’s library according to criteria such as subject matter or rubrics like “Dreams” and “Competition.” For a 25 for a simple image to $120 or higher for animations and applets. Non-subscribers pay double the price, but [COO Garnet] Heraman is quick to note that all pricing is tentative until they can “explore what pricing is possible” after the launch.
stockobjects got some funding; a WiReD article from sept 97 mentions 8M rings a bell, but i can’t back that up). anyway, with the establishment of stock-objects, rhizome mutated from a mailing list into a full-fledged in-house tax shelter. that was when it began actually hiring people.
dotcoms being what they were, stockobjects’ finances began to fray, and through a messy process mark separated from stockobjects and, i think, took rhizome with him. various rhizomatics took to wagging their fingers and earnestly hectoring people about how ‘it’s rhizome dot ORG now, NOT rhizome dot COM…’ as if people hadn’t chuckled at the choice of ‘.com’ to begin with.
anyway, i suppose a lot has happened since then, but it’s hard to imagine what the hell rhizome could possibly have done to justify burning through 444,000 in FY 2001–2002. and i’m not sure i’d entirely believe what various rhizomatics say: for example, francis whang (director of technology) talks about ‘massive hosting fees,’ but the FY 2000 tax forms say hosting cost $5,568 that year. and sinced rhizome’s been trying to sell people on rhizome as a hosting service, clearly they view this as, as the saying goes, ‘a profit center.’ that cost may well have gone up since then, but i’d be very surprised indeed if it’s outstripped legal fees, which were FIVE TIMES that figure in the same year. crikey.
cheers, t
‘therefore, all this chatter about sociality and community is partly inherited hypocrisy and partly studied perfidy.’ —kierkegaard