Nikola Tosic

I do not remember when was my first time on Rhizome. It must have been
around a decade ago (late 90s?).

I remember Rhizome was funded back then. At some point they lost the
funding, or something like that, and they decided to make it
commercial. I emailed one of the people who ran it - do not know the
name - and offered to organize outsourcing in Serbia. I think they
said they needed something like 50.000 USD for programming and I said
that could be done for 5.000 USD easily. They did not accept (!).

I guess they could not fire their current programmers who might have
been their friends or something.

Anyway Rhizome always felt unresponsive and distant. To me, it is like
trying to be friends with a most popular girl in the school or
something. Clearly one feels one has to be friends with them (which
already is kind of weird) and then once you get this feeling you also
realize that this is not easy to achieve.

This is how I always felt about this site. Kind of snobbish. That is
the first impression.

Maybe I am just insecure and antisocial. These two characteristics do
fit an Internet nerd profile for sure.

I really got upset over Brian Droitcour’s work. Brian is a
Russian-English translator employed by Rhizome to write about art and
he pretty much invents and colors stuff up the way he wants. He wrote
about my work without checking with me, basing it either on his
imagination or stuff he overheard while being my guest, and published
it. Rhizome did not care to take it off.

To me Rhizome is no different than someone’s blogspot. It is fun for
them but it is not an objective source of information. It always felt
that way.

But art is corrupt and art websites are the crown of this corruption.
Do nothing and pretend you do something - add no real value but create
the impression of value. Impression of value best maintained by
aggressive yet closed social cliques. Hire cheap low quality well
motivated labor (preferably friends who can dress and act the role).

After a decade with Rhizome I fail to see the value. If one of their
friends can ruin your image with one article then what is the point of
being featured in their blog or being the database. All these
functions are kind of useless if their essential attitude towards
understanding of art and people who make it or appreciate it is
faulty. If the entire system is based on who is friends with whom than
fuck it.

Rhizome still hosts my art BrianDroitcour.com -
http://www.rhizome.org/object.php?o=49208&m=1004517

I am still in the process of looking for a lawyer to sue Rhizome.