A Mail Art Interview
by Vittore Baroni
(this answer is part of an on-going Mail Art Interview with Ruud Jannssen)
VB: A lot of people approach Internet and electronic networking with a strictly utilitarian attitude, they are looking for finantial gains or sexual encounters or whatever. Others enjoy the possibility/power to chat with millions of people, but have nothing to say to them, so it's only a big waste of time and money: to me it is like those Hi-Fi freaks who own incredibly expensive stereo playback systems and use them to hear the same ten records, technology nerds into communication. I hope that some of the "golden rules" of mail art will find their way into the cyber-community, because what I see and read now regarding what's going on in the Net isn't always that free and open. I must first of all admit that I do not own yet a modem and I only used Internet a few times through the courtesy of a friendly neighbour who has an access and University pass-word. But I do read a lot about it in international magazines (Wired, .net and the like), so I know more or less what is going on, regarding my favourite subjects. I noticed a lot of resistance against the new media from old-time mail artists, expecially those who do not use a computer daily. I do not feel like that, I am really enthusiast about the possibilities of the new media, but I tend to be also realist: I will wait till there will be a Internet link also in my town (and by the way, even local phone calls in Italy may become very expensive if you do a long call, so using Internet for hours is not so cheap around here!), also I will wait till the jargon and hype surrounding the Net will have vanished a bit, when it will be just another common communication system added to the existing ones, then I will start doing my electronic projects, probably not leaving the postal medium abruptly but little by little. A book like Chuck Welch's Eternal Network I think can be of great help even to people who have never heard about mail art and will never practice mail art (or who are not interested in art altogether), as a sort of preliminary introduction to the spirit of free networking: it's something totally different to the tons of Guides for Internet surfing you find in every bookshop, because it is founded on over thirty years of intensive experiences in the field of free and open exchange-communication. It is a wealth of wisdom that you just can't sum up in a few words or even in a single book, but I believe a mail artist approach to Internet will always be much more free-and-easy than the approach of people who had no previous networking experiences. If mail art arrived where Internet is today, connecting the whole planet in a web of spiritual energy using a much cheaper medium, at the same time I believe strongly that Mail Art as a phenomenon has lost much of its significance now that Internet is spreading: it will be just anachronistic to continue using stamps bey nd a certain (and very near) point in time. Everything reaches a peak and then starts to drop, mail art probably had its peak in '92 with the Networker Congress thing, and now with the death of Ray Johnson the cycle is complete, the only thing that can be done is tell the whole history in a more complete way (like the books by Geza Perneczki, John Held, Chuck Welch are testifying), Museums and collectors can enter the scene and eat the remains. Those who where there for the excitement (& warmth & enlightenments) of it and not for the glory, will move on to better occupations. Of course it will take years and years for the big wave to pass completely and dry out, there is still an enormous amount of activity in mail art, and with Global Mail we also have something the Network always lacked (except maybe for the short life-span of Vile and a certain period of Umbrella) and always cried for, a magazine to act as a forum and reference point, a small but reliably solid island in the chaotic mailstrom. I do not intend to stop printing my own Arte Postale! magazine yet (at least three issues are planned for this winter, starting with a Baroni-Bleus collaboration), and there are still things that I need to do with the postal system, but I do not feel tied emotionally hands and feet to it: I am a networker at heart, and I use the more satisfying and more affordable instruments I can put my hands on, if I had the possibility to phone all around the world for almost nothing, I would use the phone, if I had a voice strong enough to get over the mountains, I would just scream and scream. Before year 3000 something better than Internet will be invented, and we will all be finally able to tele-transport ourselves P.K.Dick-style wherever we dream to go.
