Email: Remixing the Dead

The art of letter writing is dying with email. A professorial colleague of mine who is always glued to her laptop says her hand starts to seriously hurt after handwriting a page of text. But what is born out of the ruins of the older print-centric, epistolary form is another user-friendly form of writing that still is not valued as much as it should be. Maybe that's because in the midst of spam, bureaucratic memos, and info updates, it's hard to focus on what is being conveyed in some of the more intellectually inclined missives that make their way into and out of the email box.

To protect the innocent I will not name names, but I am still going public with some short email exchanges I am having with active minds in the network. If there are others who follow suit, please email me so I can tune in.

Email from an artist friend:

I was just getting concerned that Professor VJ was quiet for so long after that great Artist's Aside but yesterday's post was equally interesting. I guess you were just readjusting to the altitude.

[blogger's note: the writer is referring to the altitude change from Hawaii to Colorado]

I like the ruminations on source. I think that you've brought me so far into the realm of 'creative ideas are remixed thoughts and memories' that I think it is worth trying to differentiate 'What isn't remixing?'

To which I respond:

You ask: "What isn't remixing?"

Given that my answer would itself be a remix, I will remain silent and not even think about it, the way I avoid thinking about my own death.

Although there is something in that last part of the sentence that makes me wonder.

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Metadata: net art, email, remix, letter writing, death