Johnny Boy : What is different now?

JB : Now you seem to be very active again. Are there any differences in your approach to networking between your activity in the '80s and '90s and now?

RJ : The differences in approach and activity lies mostly in the intergration of Internet in our daily life. The snail-mail is still slow but essential to the mail-art network. It seems the mail-artists that were so against the Internet gradually saw that they can use the new communication-tools to their advantage. A lot of old-times joined in on the IUOMA platform (see: http://iuoma-network.ning.com/ ) that I started only a year ago (on November 13th 2008). Soon it will exist only one year and already it has 710+ members online. Also newcomers that through Internet discover the mail-art network and love the idea of exchanging art from artist to artist. The essence of networking has not really changed. Only projects can be done on different communication-platforms as well. Paper documentations are replaced by digital websites. Magazines are replaced by blogs with more participants. Even my old TAM-Bulletin (with news about mail-art projets that circulated in the 80-ies and 90-ies) is replaced by a blog with mail-art projects (see: http://mailartprojects.blogspot.com/ ) where 96 authors write and publish the mail-art projects. It has 60+ visits each days and distributes the mail-art projects information with only one click worldwide.

Carly Toyzan: I wonder, how did mail artists network before the Internet?

1. Magazines. There were many. Now almost none. One of these magazines I started myself, the TAM Bulletin. It run for several years and also was available in digital format.
See also: http://www.iuoma.org/tambulhi.html

2. Pass and add on projects. Each mail-artists adds his art and address and passes this on. That way the amount of address cumulates and is circulated. When someone makes a few copies of such a paper and distributes. It speeds up things even more

3. Addresslist that were used by the older generations were published in catalogues.

4. The Xerox machine helps to distribute information. Nowadays people just copy and paste. (And e-mail to a large senderlist)

5. Network is a lot of work. Distribution costed more energy and postage....... Some projects were meant to expand the network. I did a socio-project which even run out of hand. I asked 25 people to copy a 'controlled' chain-letter. Add your name and send it to howmany neames you want. Send me the namelist of the people who will receive the list. This expanded and brought me over 3000 addresses. To document such an event was very difficult. But I did try.

just a few ideas.....
another sample of early networking: one page out of the TAM-bulletin with some historic projects.