Talk:Netochka Nezvanova

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The list of Dostoevsky's works in his article links to this article. Did he write something called "Netochka Nezvanova" or not? Triped 16:58, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

Netochka Nezvanova was Dostoevsky's unfinished, 170 page, first novel. Netochka, the narrator, was an impoverished child who cannot remember anything of her life before she was nine. Sunray 22:47, 2005 Jan 3 (UTC)
Well, I think that should be stated in a separate article. 157.92.4.151 00:15, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
The above is right, this needs to be sorted. I'll create a new article called 'Netochka Nezvanova_Novel' or something to sort this out! --JDnCoke 17:53, 4 November 2006 (UTC)


about the various monikers, i suggest the addition of MASCHIN3NKUNST / MASK!N3NKUNZT as a pseudo (it was massively used in the email correspondence like a sort of "company name"). In parallel, i wouldn't list krop3rom among the pseudonyms since it has been used only once, for the CD publication "A9FF" (not being so clear if it was the project name or part of the title...)

also, i am going to create some subdivisions, such as historical periods (pre-nato software and music / nato period 1999-2001 / post-nato botanical memetics & ferrari obsessions...). other proposed sections:

  • cultural influences behind the project (tzara, neoism, laibach/NSK, front 242, hacker culture, ASCII art...)
  • influences on other artists: 242.pilots, the netochka nezvanova software by stub, dua42... could include also a list of artists loosely related to the NN group, such as hafler trio, fo.am, Anna Laforêt...

127.0.0.1 00:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)


Perhaps someone could add in the article where someone could purchase Neto's album krop3rom||a9ff

you could try here, but no garantees that this ordering page still works.. http://order.kagi.com/cgi-bin/r1.cgi?3WJ Irina666 19:27, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Krop3rom a9ff.gif

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BetacommandBot 03:51, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

The first sentence refers to nato.0+55 as "a set of QuickTime externals for Max/MSP" which is NOT understandable to a reader who is not an expert in the field. Wouldn't it be better to say something like "an audio-visual software"? More detailed information is available on the nato.0+55 page anyway. 213.103.148.194 (talk) 16:37, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality issues

While not advocating the vandalisation of this article, I notice that recent changes in the History segment are written in a slightly defamatory undertone. The article by Florian Cramer, that is given as source by an anonymous user (from IP 75.11.174.184 in San Diego, California), is actually much more moderate. As an example, Cramer speaks about nato as "an expensive video realtime processing" software, which is translated into "arbitrary high pricing" in this article. Not knowing the internal business organisation of Maschinenkunst, i couldnt tell how the pricing is more/less arbitrary than any other audiovisual software. This kind of writing shows hidden criticism which shouldnt appear in a wikipedia article.

Also, the present wikipedia article speaks about a "cumbersome process of buying", while i seem to remember that it used the very common Kagi system. So it was not different than any other software (except it required american buyers to have some sense of humour...).

Finally, terms such as "hyper aggressive" (introduced by another anonymous user from IP 75.11.160.37, San Diego, California) to describe NN's "business practices" sound like the writer has a too emotional approach on this subject. My conclusion: this article needs a more serious and neutral editorial board... ;) Irina666 (talk) 20:08, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

NOTE: The article has been written by Cycling74 employees, who have on innumerable occasions sabotaged, harassed and stolen NN's intellectual property, in particular NATO.0+55. The article is highly inaccurate, defamatory and, characteristic of Cycling74, contains material which violates NN's intellectual property rights.

Overall it betrays that unmistakable odour of deterministic occident 'thought'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 0f0003 (talk • contribs) 06:09, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Changes - Dec. 07

As somebody suggested, i changed the first sentence. This was the previous version:

Netochka Nezvanova is the persona-pseudonym used by the author(s) of nato.0+55+3d, a set of QuickTime externals for Max/MSP.

How could any normal, non-specialist reader understand this sentence? "persona-pseudonym" sounds like a neologism, i think "pseudonym", in conjunction with "author(s)", is clear enough. Also the second paragraph was a bit heavy-handed, full of terms such as "terrorized", "aggressive", "anti social"... take it easy, folks, it was just an art project !! ;) I basically tried to de-dramatize this part a bit.
The history section still is quite a mess, for instance the chronology is absolutely not clear.. The whole artistic development could be described more clearly, starting with the music productions, then audio software, web-software (nebula), then finally nato. --Irina666 (talk) 21:20, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The "aggressive" behaviour of NN is well documented, as are bullying tactics. "Anti-social" is a judgement. I would suggest that you not tone down the descriptions too much, but rather look for sources. Describe the behaviour, leave out the judgments. Sunray (talk) 08:00, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions for improval

I just added a section listing NNs musical activities, and here are some more comments about the article in general:

1. The opening paragraph is not well balanced in my opinion. It should state as clearly as possible what the NN persona is notable for. Element #1 is certainly the Nato software. Other elements are music productions, cutting-edge websites, =cw4t7abs software (including b1257+12 and nebula), mailing-list harassment, institutional position at STEIM... In regard to this range of activity (which has been proven notable by acceptance in academic institutions and international festivals), this paragraph puts too much weight on the "aggressive online behavior". It certainly needs to be mentioned, but it's only one among many different aspects, which have higher notabilty in terms of wikipedia standards.

2. The same can be said about the "History" section. Also, it actually doesn't tell the history very well, jumping from the mailing-list abuse to nato.0+55 (1999-2001) and then to Krop3rom (1997)... I suggest that the "History" should actually be broken down into chronological steps, for instance:

  • first phase: industrial music, krop3rom, cutting-edge websites (1995-1998); first wave of =cw4t7abs software, incl. b1257+12, nebula.. (1998-1999)
  • mailing-list harassment / internet-meme phenomenon (ca. 1997-2002)
  • nato.0+55 (active development: 1999-2001; active user scene: 2000-2002) - link to nato.0+55 article.
  • position at STEIM (2001-2003), music/theatre performances; 2005: re-appearance as Rebekah Wilson/Georghe Dan (2005-...)

3. Some assertions are either missing the facts, or are formulated in a misleading way:

  • «Disregarded by the community for openly neglecting netiquette» - obviously it was only _a part_ of the community, since NN had enough supporters to allow her to takeover the Syndicate list - see http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0111/msg00077.html
  • «gained some respect among the Internet art scene» - this sounds as if this "scene" was separated from the mailing list users, which is not the case: the users of the mailing-lists Nettime/Syndicate/Max-MSP etc were quite precisely what you could define as the "Internet art scene".
  • «specially during the production and release of the video processing software nato.0+55+3d» - the software was produced and released in 1999. A quick look at the list of nato workshops and events shows that it was in widespread use at least until the end of 2002. The sentence reads as if it had been some short-lived vaporware, which was definitely not the case.
  • «in constant fear of having their licenses revoked etc..» - to my knowledge, the only documented case of a nato license being "revoked" involved two cycling74 delvelopers, that NN suspected of reverse-engineering her software. As a matter of fact, most proprietary software licenses prohibit such use of the code, so I don't see how this implies an "unpredictable world view" or "subjected the users to despotism". Anyway, I think this article shouldn't take sides in the whole "Cycling vs Netochka" affair, as no reliable legal statement ever made it to the public.

I think it's useful to discuss here such things, separating hard facts from rumors and gossip, before working them into the article. Irina666 (talk) 18:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

PS: User:Fireface800, please let's not start an edit war here. It would be nice if you could comment your changes/reverts. Also please have a look at wikipedia's Biographies of living persons policy. Let's turn this into a serious encyclopedic article rather than a tabloid.

I agree with Irina666's suggestions. Please proceed with that. BTW, Fireface800 has also made some fine edits, so let's not fight, boys and girls. We should be able to work together on this. Sunray (talk) 04:03, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


Answer from Fireface800

While I am not advocating that the article on NN on wikipedia should be defamatory, it should still be transparent enough not to glorify the proceedings in retrospect and rewrite history in the way that NNs members have always wanted it to in their propaganda (to see what I mean, take a look at the article before the edits of 75.11.160.37).

- 1 and 2

While Nezvanova may have produced websites and music, to call them "cutting edge" is POV. One could also call them crude - equally POV. However, it is very obvious that the production of art-content such as music and software art takes a backseat to the "social experiments" that were a permanent attack on the nerves of global mailing list users, net artists, electronic musicians and others, and that its aggressive behaviour can also be seen as a dirty art-business practice for gathering attention. Hardly anyone has actually heard the pieces currently listed in the music section.

- 3

Florian Cramer in his article [[1]] compares NNs bullying strategies to the strategies of totalitarian cults. That NN was able to take over an entiThe re mailing list is no indication that the users of that list actually supported this. They may have simply given up. This is debatable, but I know of not a single person who was in favour of the strategies of bullying and personal attacks utilized on a constant basis, even after the active net presence had calmed down.

On top of that for many people nato.0+55+3d never materialized: Being on several of the infiltrated mailing lists at the time, I have also experienced the complicated negotiation processes with this group - it has to be said that a social experiment needs to end at a certain point when real people with real lives are at stake - the communication with Netochka became too problematic and the risk of buying the license to great. nato.0+55+3d can in my opinion not be seen as a working software product - the bubble of hope and esteem that was building for it despite the behaviour of integer before it was published burst once the surrounding circumstances became known. (That is what I tried to express by my wording that was unfortunately repeatedly deleted - I agree however we shouldn't create an edit war.)


I find the objection that I contributed rumors and gossip misguided and offensive. Now that the eternal bullying of these people on the web has stopped and we have the chance to speak the truth without being bombarded by a mass firing of personal attacks (that are permanently documented on global mailing list archives) we can finally reflect in the article the way it actually was - While NN was playing with information control, software cult and a 1984-like rewriting of history, there were actual people on the other end of this game that had completely different intentions and simply wanted to have nothing to do with all of this.

There seems to be a strange disconnection between the way that people who were exposed to and victimised on a daily basis for years and the way that some media theorists evaluate this project, who must have had a very different and far less intense point of contact obviously.

And all of this discussion has nothing to do with Cycling74 whatsoever.

Fireface800 (talk) 4:52, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Note: 14:03, 26 January 2008 (UTC) - I am going to stop worrying about this now, it's simply not worth all this trouble and my time, do whatever edits you want. Best Fireface800.


Answer from Irina666: Thanks a lot for taking the time to explain your position, it is really insightful. Although I have quite a different reading of the issue, I hope that the substractive addition of our POVs will result in a more neutral article. Also, when referring to "rumors and gossip" it wasn't your edits I had in mind, so please don't take that as an offense.
However, I admit that I globally disagree with your approach to the subject matter. You seem to magnify the importance of the mailing-list activity, while considering NNs music and software art as "a backseat". This personal judgement is contradicted by facts: Her software has received international awards. Her websites have been featured in notable design publications (72-dpi, Die Gestalten Verlag). Her software and music have met strong response from the academic field, represented by major institutions such as IRCAM or STEIM. I doubt that all this was the sole result of NNs mailing-list behaviour.

« the bubble of hope and esteem that was building for NATO despite the behaviour of integer before it was published burst once the surrounding circumstances became known (That is what I tried to express by my wording that was unfortunately repeatedly deleted ) »

As NN was bombing the lists since 1998, her particular mindset was already well known to most Nato users. It is true that at a certain point, many users felt disappointed that the software wasn't further developed nor maintained, while NN seemed to waste energy with pointless legal litigations. But your claim that it "cannot be seen as a working software product" is contradicted by facts: the existence of a very active user community through the years 2000-2002 is well documented (again, see the nato.0+55 article).

« There seems to be a strange disconnection between the way that people who were exposed to and victimised on a daily basis for years and the way that some media theorists evaluate this project »

This might be true, and doesn't come as a surprise, as critical reception of a cultural artifact often differs from the reaction of its contemporaries. You could say as well: «There seems to be a strange disconnection between the way that the people who were exposed to Cubist paintings at the 1913 Armory Show Exhibition and the way that some art historians evaluate this exhibition.» Generally, encyclopedies tend to give more weight to the latter. ;)
Talking about media theorists, it's interesting to note that even Inke Arns, who certainly "was exposed to and victimised on a daily basis for years" (since she was administrating the Syndicate mailing-list) still aknowledges the artistic value of NNs textual output, describing it as a "contemporary form of mail art" [2].

« Hardly anyone has actually heard the pieces currently listed in the music section. »

What is your point? For sure this is not mainstream music. However, NNs sound works have been performed at some of the major media art festivals (Transmediale, Ars Electronica). If you don't consider those festivals noteworthy, then please refrain from editing articles about electronic artists.
Adios. Irina666 (talk) 20:33, 26 January 2008 (UTC)



Answer from Fireface800: Thanks a lot for your reply! The internet continues to be a mysterious place!

Your (Irina666's) reply features several rhetorical formations (e.g. "encyclopedias tend to give more weight to the latter. ;)", "notable festivals" and "Adios" that seem to indicate through their attitude and perspective that you could in fact be a (former) member of this project. Of course, the talent in Rebekah Wilson or the programming talents behind nato.0+55+3d shall not be devalued in any way. The merits of festivals and publications need to be correctly represented.

I do wonder however if you have a suggestion how the behaviour that lead up to NNs "offical" success in 2000/2001 (followed by a change in policy) could receive a fair representation, which involved -

- including names and data of persons in public smear and harassment emails that are all searchable by google today

- selling software for a lot of money that effectively blocks control over one's computer and only runs when a network connection to the manufacturers site is live granting a license that can be revoked at any time

- creating web pages that included unspecified scripts searching through private data for not specified purposes (I am not talking about the "Self Portrait" from 2007 which seems rather tame in comparison).

- advocating its own software and production through countless spam messages on almost every media-arts mailing list, even hijacking some of them, and sending private emails to single users on top of that.

I don't really see how the reactions to this behaviour could possibly be subsumed under
«critical reception of a cultural artifact often differs from the reaction of its contemporaries».


«the existence of a very active user community through the years 2000-2002 is well documented»

Unfortunately, nobody seems to have documented the group of "not-users" who were very interested in the functionality that was promised and wanted to use nato.0+55+3d but did not because of NNs policies. I know of at least two academic institutions and one research institute which were interested in buying licenses for the software, but gave up after a very difficult exchange of emails - to much disappointment of students, researchers and academics.

«Her software and music have met strong response from the academic field, represented by major institutions such as IRCAM or STEIM.»

Nato.0+55+3d was indeed presented at IRCAM - at a workshop in October 2000 and also in the IRCAM Forum software publication, underlining its nature as a serious and usable Max/MSP external. To my knowledge however, IRCAM never "represented" or even presented any music of NN or showed any tendency of "strong response" to the musical output.
STEIM has a history of valueing achievements in media technology almost on an equal level as artistic ones. The presence of NN at STEIM is therefore not a clear indicator of the quality of NNs music. The presentations of NN at various media arts festivals are probably better characterised as performance art, and the installation presented at Ars Electronica in 2000 was advertised and described as "made with nato.0+55+3d" with no reference to music at all. The chamber music works appeared after 2001 - are they still part of NNs biography? There seems to be an obvious discontinuity in NNs identity that you noticed and mentioned as well.

The point is of course not to devalue NNs achievements. If Wikipedia is trying to be a serious platform the article however needs to hold water when put into a larger context. I agree that it should not transport advertisement/self-advertisement nor unjust defamation - which is especially difficult in this case, as that seems to be exactly what much of NNs own verbal output was centered around.

--Fireface800 (talk) 02:01, 27 January 2008 (UTC)


Answer from Irina666: This conversation starts to become more interesting than the article itself. Actually, this time I agree with most of your comments, but some of your statements still make me wonder about your intentions:

« the talent in Rebekah Wilson or the programming talents behind nato.0+55+3d shall not be devalued in any way »

Thanks for being so polite, but looking at your repeated edits (the latest being from 27th January, reverting Mr Sunrays revision), this seems to be precisely your agenda.

« Unfortunately, nobody seems to have documented the group of "not-users" who were very interested in the functionality that was promised and wanted to use nato.0+55+3d but did not because of NNs policies. »

Feel free to dedicate an article to the millions of "not-users of nato.0+55". However, it will be hardly possible here, since original research is strictly prohibited on Wikipedia.

« I know of at least two academic institutions and one research institute which were interested in buying licenses for the software, but gave up after a very difficult exchange of emails - to much disappointment of students, researchers and academics. »

That's certainly an interesting bit of information, but I cannot see how it would fundamentally affect the article. Does it say anything about the functionality of the software? Obviously not, rather about NNs dysfunctional marketing policy. In a way, it contradicts your understanding of NNs confrontational attitude as a mere "art-business practice". It rather indicates that at this point, the irrational logic of the NN persona was totally overpowering the group, so that the actual software sales became secondary.

« I do wonder however if you have a suggestion how the behaviour that lead up to NNs "offical" success in 2000/2001 (followed by a change in policy) could receive a fair representation »

My proposal, as outlined in the "suggestions for improval" above, is to dedicate one full section to NNs mailing-list campaigning, where the issue would be clearly described. Your other points, such as the software authentification system, should be adressed in the appropriate sections (to be created).
Regarding Steim, Ircam etc., I share your views. Actually you misunderstood my phrasing: I named those institutions as "representing" the academic field, not NNs music (however STEIM obviously endorsed her productions).
And PS: I am _not_ a former member of the project. I became acquainted with Nato years ago through my video work, and have always been interested in this software's "background". Irina666 (talk) 21:04, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Additional context and article criticism

The legend of NN is indeed akin to modern folklore, but that 'her' encapsulation in one woman (Rebekah Wilson) is almost considered fact, seems to me remarkable. That the NN project relied on the 'genius' artist myth to sustain its chief protagonist and simultaneously create the mystique behind its novel marketing ploy, to me seems undeniable. But to conclude that the work was of sole origin denies obvious circumstantial evidence. For example the 'soundhack' mailing list archives (1997, [3]) provide examples of dialogue between 'Wilson/loopcontrol at integer.net', '=cw4t7abs/antiorp at tezcat.com' and 'Krop3rom|a9ff' collaborator Andrew McKenzie (who became the owner for the network domain 'god-emil.dk', the infamous calling card of NN through the bulk of 'her' mailing-list posts).

I have followed the work of (NN) for many years, as 'her' list emails were consistently present across similar interest groups [art/music/philosophy/technology]. While the aforementioned Rebekah Wilson was notably involved in the project and has to some extent taken responsibility as the sole incarnation of 'NN' [4], the origin of '=cw4t7abs' appears to stem from the work of Gheorghe Dan, a programmer/poet/linguist based in Romania who is the current owner of http://www.0f0003.com/ and http://www.ggttctttat.com and who occasionally posts to forums under the pseudonym '0f0003 | maschinenkunst'. Gheorghe Dan released a paper under his own name for the 'Subtle Technologies Symposium' of 1996, entitled "Living in Limnos, Betwixt and Between: A Trans-Reality Balkan Odyssey" (released here,[5]) and published in full on Nettime-ro ([6]). This article could be considered a eulogy to NN - a poetic soliloquy to an abandoned existence, while another paper in collaboration with Alisa Andrasek of biothing [7] for ISEA2006, "Phylotic BodyScapes | Entheogenic Gardens: poly-scalar heterotopic" (found here, [8]) shares similar themes of manifesting a body within a technological framework - "germinating their multifarious seeds into a heterotopic multiverse of intricately entangled, real and irreal gardens patterned as phantasmagorical bodyscape". The stanza and syntax of Gheorghe Dan's writing is certainly similar to that of NN, and Dan's biography at [9] should confirm the connection.

Furthermore the most significant published article by NN for the MIT press journal 'Computer Music Journal' titled 'The Internet, A Musical Instrument in Perpetual Flux' (see, [10]) which details the award winning 'Nebula.m81', positions NN at an address 'c/o Babeltech A/S', a company based in Copenhagen, Denmark which specializes in network throttling applications [11], a very convenient connection for the resulting artistic product.

I am not attempting to deny the influence or efforts involved in NN's product, but the obvious anonymity of the project makes it difficult to assess the outright authorship of what can only be described as a dubious career. This article appears to fall under the spell of the vague myths and perceptions that the project originally set out to create, this is particularly obvious in the discussion over the validity of NN's later actions and responsibility to her clients, which from what I can tell were many.

I think everyone enjoys a controversial figure in some way, even as an irritant, but we should be cautious not to get too caught up with the character that this figure wants us to perceive. For many people NN went beyond playful irritation, and crossed the line with character assassinations, revoked licenses and general abuse of public forums. These abuses are well documented and similar assaults were fired back.

The fact that NN's dominance of a small niche of internet history ended almost as quickly as it started makes the legend all the more exciting, and in 'her' case fiction and fact are as intertwined as any good story. I think in the interest of Wikipedia these opposing forces need to be better clarified. 121.45.242.136 (talk) 20:35, 4 February 2008 (UTC) (dmotd)