CalArts New Blog 24700

Screenshot of 24700

I haven't been doing much posting lately; there are things in the works, so I expect posting will go back to 2 or 3 times a week soon. In my own personal cyber life I've been doing some culling lately. Like most of the readers here I intentionally and inadvertently subscribe to blogs, email alerts, press offices of institutions, galleries, and dead tree publications. Unlike the metaphorical frog in a pot of water, I occasionally realize it's too much, and I'll cull my address from announcement lists and unsubscribe in my blog reader (I'm down to following about 25 bloggers, after cutting eight and adding two).

Since I'm a not-so-secret mafia member, I thought I'd point out 24700, CalArts entry into the blog-o-sphere. The school has been pretty consistent in jumping on trends once they've become well-worn paths. When I was TA for Tom Lawson, I managed to create the first website for a survey course in the history of the art department, dragging it into the 90's with my limited interweb skills. This gave students an opportunity to download the syllabus, reading assignments, upload homework, and receive and offer feedback.

I won't comment on the quality, since their just starting out and it's not evident the direction the blog will take. My sense is that blogs fall into broad typologies. There are amalgamators, those who troll the real world along with the web, and essentially post some combination of blurbs and links. In the art world, places like C-Monster, Art Fag City (and many others) post links and tidbits that align with their interests. I read one of these, as reading multiple re-posters produces an irritating echo effect (how many times do I need to read that Julius Schulman died?). Currently I get a weekly events email from CalArts, so reading about REDCAT events again and again and again and again is redundant.

Another potential challenge is in posting in a way that would be of interest to the targeted audience. I think LACMA's Unframed does a better than expected job of this, so I'm more willing to read a brief but entertaining post on Oceanic Art, which isn't a gallery I frequent on my visits to the museum. Perhaps 24700's intended audience are donors or potential students, so their posts might not be of interest, and the point is moot. Like LACMA, CalArts has to speak to an audience that's highly educated about one narrow slice of the arts while they may be oblivious about others. I can go on about institutional critiques; just don't ask me the difference between Javanese and Balinese gamelans. Scott Taylor from Public Affairs posted an interesting tidbit from the archives, and other posts come from left field.

Over the years, my personal preference in keeping a blog has been to create new content. That usually means looking at art and the social and political spaces of my environment, having an independent thought, and typing it up. Perhaps my CalArts-centric posts over the next week will give some idea of the quality of conversation I'm looking for.

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