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Welcome to"Netshaker" Internet's first mail art cyberspace
electronic magazine, or "ezine" devoted entirely to mail art networking.
"Netshaker" is edited by Chuck Welch (aka. Crackerjack Kid) on a semi-regular
basis. Created as an off-shoot of Welch's "Netshaker Zine" this mail art
electronic zine came online January 1, 1994, intended then, and now to inform
and interconnect the worlds of international mail art and Internet's on-line
community of artists. These online issues of "Netshaker" are devoted to the
development of a Telenetlink between the mail art and Internet communities. All
queries and contributions may be sent to CrackerJack
Kid/Chuck Welch
email <[email protected]>
snailmail
19 Indian Hills Dr.
Circle Pines, MN 55014,
phone
612-785-9669.
Part 1: "East Block CorresponDANCE from Czechoslovakia"
Part 2: Notices: "Emailart's first Italian Website"
"Alt.Culture.Neoism - New Usenet Newsgroup Formed"
Part 3: "World Wide Websites Related to Mail Art"
Part 4: "Networker Telenetlink"
I think often of mail artist, teacher, mother, poet, Radana Parmová. Even now, years after Radana and I lost contact, long after the east block crumbled, I still open her envelopes and relive Ra's presence in letters from Ostrava, Czechoslovakia; scrawled pages of postcard portraits in the marketplace, excursion notes while biking, Ra at home nurturing her children. It was an East Block corresponDANCE via post, but now we've moved, addresses lost, changed partners - apart with time.
Letters from my hand to Ra are not in this file before me, or in my room, this space I call the Eternal Network Mail Art Archive. My active role in this correspondence triad was given in the dance, no record exists here except for what my partners may have saved. Ra's husband, Petr Sevcík is a doctor, a poet and philosopher, who wrote a text for me in July 1987, "Mail Art in Czechoslovakia." Both Ra and Pe's lines merge here, testament to a lively exchange that opened my perception of life in Czechoslovakia during the waning years of the Cold War.
Ra from Munchen (1989) "I am FOR THE FIRST TIME in the West Europe...imagine what it means? Here there is SO MUCH stuff in the shops - I don't need it, but my eyes are shocked and my mind is confused and tears fly out from the eyes when I must remember the great misery at us - and MORE in Poland, Russia...and more in the Africa, Latin America." PE: "In the 70's there is some new appearance in Czech art: artwork is accented as a medium of communication; and there is also a trend to "cheapness" or "democracy", a somewhat "modesty" in art as to the material as well as the expression. RA: (1-19-89) Here's an article from Czechoslovakian newspaper "Mlada Fronta"- it is THE FIRST mention about MAIL ART HERE IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA - the article is bad, there is my sign (RA) but somebody cut it terribly and all the changes are very NASTY..." PE: "Revolution is nice only on TV! Exhausting & exciting time in our country!" RE: (2-89) "Can you imagine that there is only one service with copy machine in all of Ostrava?!!! PE: "(In Czechoslovakia) it seems like mail-art is not very closely related to the nature of Czech artists. RE: Dear friend! Yesterday night I planned to write you, I re-read all your beautiful letters from 1982 on...It is worthy to save them all-because there are other "layers" of meanings IN TIME. This letter of mine is written IN TIME...My time doesn't belong to me. Sometimes it is unbearably ETERNAL. You know, I'm going on as an artist, but my activity is a somewhat invisible one, not seen by anybody, not read by anybody, But it is real ART. PE: "It is strange that the majority of Czech mail-artists send their works abroad for numerous exhibitions and at the same time they avoid any personal contact. Maybe they just need satisfying their vanity and feel no solitude to overcome." Re: We are not alone here: many people believe in future changes - see what is going on in Russia. The modest exhibition in the book shop with your & Segay/Nikonova's (Russian mail artists Serge Segay & Rea Nikonova) pieces are evidence of Gorby's spirit here. Plus the two short articles in papers they LET, they allowed to be printed." PE: "As to me, my mail-art is a way how to satisfy my inner compulsion to write; how to realize my effort for expressing myself, how to share my poetic effusion in an almost "anonymous" form." RE: (Dec. 1989)"I write slowly and painfully , dear friends in a distant America, where you cannot touch or smell or hear anything but echoes and see but colour pictures that make the heart beat more quickly." PE: "In Czechoslovakia there is really just a marginal interest about mail art. In fact, some twenty authors have been involved; people of various ages, both men and women (the oldest - Josef Slepicka, born 1915, a painter - autodidact) and various inclinations: poets, concept-artists, minimalists, painters as well as one theoretician. The majority of them don't know each other and actually there was never any tendency to become acquainted." RE: (March 2, 1990) "Immense thanks for your voice. You entered our home. I cried. Wait for a cassette from us soon." PE: "Mail art is coming to be a shelter for people who strive for universal understanding, or who want to make contact with the world - keeping in touch with somebody who lives so far from one's home-town. It may be an attempt how to fight with the Babylon confusion of languages, a somewhat naive and sincere attempt like an Esperanto, a somewhat artificial language for its own sake which could help to abolish borders." RE: (March 2, 1990) TIME: Something we want to catch and hold, but is liquid and I am anxious that this time we live becomes HISTORY and we grow old through all the historical events we do live in ... "And T.V.? - If everything was red/ or bad till November 1989, now everything is black/or white. I hate such black and white opinions and under-consciously I am afraid of."
Correspondences from Ra and Pe were glimpses into everyday life-the dialogue of reality. Throughout the 1980s Ra and Pe were certainly among the most active Czech correspondence artists in the eastern block. Their contributions to mail art in Czechoslovakia are recorded in published news accounts, in performances, poetry, and exhibitions. But I remember them mostly for their strong visions, compassionate voices, and gifts of art sown above the east/west ideo-chasms. My friends corresponDANCED through cold war borderlines, around the east block barriers into the heart of humanity.
In October 1995 I received the following email message from Umberto Principi announcing the new Italian mail art website MAGAM. Readers can access The Mail Art Gallery and Museum (MAGAM) at this URL: http://www.sapienza.it/magam
Dear Chuck,
Sorry for my english. I was a Cavellini's friend and I know the mail art in the 1980. Now I will create here in Italy a new WWW dedicated at Mail Art named Mail Art Gallery And Museum.
I am sure that the concept of mail art is very important for the net. In first time I will introduce artists as Cavellini, Ray Johnson, Ruggero Maggi, and others. I belive that is important to collaborate together for a biggest cultural change. When MAGAM is starting I send you own WWW address.
All my address are:
Contact address (Cramer): [email protected]
If this newsgroup is not yet available on your server. If you want to see alt.culture.neoism on your news server, it is advisable to ask your news administrator to add the group. Usually, the news administrator's address is [email protected] (e.g. [email protected] or whatever else) or [email protected].
The following information is a current listing on The Electronic Museum of Mail Art's "Emailart Directory"
Art Strike 1990-1993: "What Means This 'Art Strike': Social Movement and/or 'Bad Idea'?" text by Shawn Wilbur: http://ernie.bgsu.edu/~swilbur/Art_Strike.html
Dad@: http://www.kaapeli.fi/~best/dada1.htm
Fluxus Online: http://anansi.panix.com/fluxus/FluxusText.html
The Fluxus Indian Museum (FIM) It's "more fun than regular art and more art than regular fun" says "curator" Allen Bukoff:
http://www.fluxus.org/~museum
Mail Art History: Mailed Art 94, Uppsala: http://www.csd.uu.se/mailedart
Mail Art Theory: meticulously laid out by archivist and networker Guy Bleus: http://www.concentra.be/surfmap/artmap/bleus Neoism: The Seven by Nine Squares: http://fub46.zedat.fu-berlin.de:8080/~cantsin/ Rubberstamps: Kipper's Mail Art Gallery: http://www.enterprise.net/kiphome.html Surrealism Server: http//pharmdec.wustl.edu/juju/surr/surrealism.html Dudley Finds and the Fat City School of Finds Art: http://www.echonyc.com/~hwdarch John Hopkin's Networking Links: http://rvik.ismennt.is/~hopkins/networking.html Futurism: Joe De Marco and Bill Gaglione; http://pharmdec.wustl.edu/juju/surr/futurism/FUT-MENU.html Situationism: http://www.access.digex.net/~spud/SI/si.html Mark Bloch's new website (An illustrated biography of Ray Johnson) http://www.echonyc.com/~panman Byron Grush's website with emailart postcards: http://laotzu.art.niu.edu/~byron/grush.html Europe's first WWW Mail Art Gallery by SZtuka Fabryka (Belgian website): http://www.dma.be/p/amphion/kamers/sztuka/index.html KaMERS met Zicht-Amphion: A New Belgian website constructed by Wouter Vandenbroucke: http://www.dma.be/p/amphion/index.html New Italian mail art website created by Lia Garavini & Anna Boschi: http://queen.shiny.it/libreria/pub08/lia.htm New Mail Art Hot Spot: Gerardo Yepiz Mail Art Homepage: http://www.cicese.mx/~gyepiz/mailart.html New Artistamp Gallery created by Canadian pioneer of artistamp genre James Warren Felter. See Jas Cyberspace Museum at http://www.faximum.com/jas Artistamp gallery by Canadian artist Tom S. Thomas: http://matrix.infomatch.com/~thomast/artstamps.html Visit the Mail Art Networker Mario Lara and his Mail-Art Postcard Rack: http://home.minet.com/TheBoP/Postcards/PCRack.html Pas de Chance mail art home page: http://www.interlog.com/~ian/ "Some Zines: Alternative & Underground Artists' & Eccentric Magazines & Micropresses" An Exhibition of Zines at the Boise State University Student Art Gallery: http://diamond.idbsu.edu/~alex/tt.html
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Part 4: NETWORKER TELENETLINK THE MAIL ART CONGRESS BODY LEFT IN 1992/A
SPIRIT NETWORKS NOW/THE SPIRIT LIVES IN EVERYONE/WE MET-A-NETWORK INFANT/A
MEDIA-CHILD WAS BORN/TELENETLINK IS ITS NAME/IT LIVES IN NETLAND NOW/THE FUTURE
OF THE NETWORKER IS TELENETLINKED/MAIL ART IS EMAILART/FAXMAIL ART/EMBRACE THE
CHILD/TELENETLINK OPEN OBJECTIVES Objectives for a NETWORKER TELENETLINK are
open for your interaction. Possibilities??? Embrace the telematic medium and
explore its parameters, develop a local-global community, exchange cultural
communications, interconnect the parallel network worlds of mail art and
telematic art through INTERNET, the World Wide Web, Compuserve, America Online,
Bitnet, and other connected e-mail gateways, place networker archives on-line,
create emailart webpages, experiment with telematic technology, participate as a
FAXcilitator, exhibit, interact in public and private forums, merge media: mail
art and emailart, and enact networker ideals envisioned for the millennium.
CRACKERJACK KID SEND OBJECTIVES, STRATEGIES, E-VENTS, FAX PROJECTS, E-MAIL, TO
CrackerJack Kid/Chuck Welch
email
<[email protected]>
snailmail
19 Indian Hills Dr.
Circle
Pines, MN 55014,
phone 612-785-9669.
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