Essay

It seems a rather logical contradictory to post my essay on a blog in which I have already divulged myself of reading almost every single one of my fellow classmates’ essays. But nonetheless, it also seems silly to me to lose my DP this far in the game. So, I will make use of my true devotion to the age of information and quotation and sap all the gathered information into a culmination of my ‘oh so unique’ essay. And then revel in the pleasure of the fact that I cannot be punished for an academic fault in a non-academia field. Namely, the blog.
Oh the joys of knowledge.

Critically discussing three blogs spanning across an entire globe, and in turn relating each to a common characteristic, will be the attempt of this essay. And how wonderfully close lie the themes of a Western blog to that of the ‘African’ blog. An African blog, (not complete without the popular African theme of the Big 5) discussing the ever dying children of their country, wooden pots and curios for sale with limited, if any connectivity to the web seems so banal and unimportant when I could be reading the Western bloggers interest in how some self indulgent celebrity just bought their 4th mansion in the Hampton’s. The same celebrity who advocates giving and helping the less fortunate by buying the wooden pots and curios. I suppose it is important to note that this complete generalization and nihilistic claim has absolutely no substance as I haven’t actually ever read such and such in any blog. But I am almost certain that if I looked, I could find the ever concerned blogger spending all day writing about how said celebrity should be doing something about poverty in this or that African country.
That’s a lovely Mac laptop you’re typing on concerned blogger.

The nihilism herein is not intended to criticise the act of blogging or the moral values and ideals of the bloggers. In actual fact, blogging spaces must certainly be commended for the ability of having created a practically free public domain in which -amongst others- strictly religious fools (I mean folks; Freudian slip for academic purposes) and atheists alike can create anything they please and then battle it out anonymously on the commentary. It definitely serves for entertainment and occasionally, enlightenment. I suppose that to some it may just come across as an easy way of having your say without any physical confrontation, and for others that is exactly its attraction.

Amongst its other various perks, it can include the creation of alternate identities. This brings us to our first website entitled ‘Second Life’. I’m not sure if this could be a South African, African or international blogging site as it could be considered as all three. I’m not sure if it could be considered a blogging space at all, but let’s appropriate and explore for the ongoing prospect of gaining knowledge.
Second Life is a virtual world in which one could literally create a second life or parallel universe. It is accessible to anyone and free of charge (except for the fees Rhodes pays- but it’s on appearance not a physical dent in my pocket, so hey.) It works much the same way in which a blog does. One creates a profile, (fictitious or real) and as evolution goes, it differs from the traditional writing blog in that it enables one to interact virtually with other users across the globe. It is currently the largest user-created 3D virtual community imagined and designed by its residents. Each person, depending on their geographical location, can create their part of the world which allows other people to visit it. So if (in my opinion) I literally create Grahamstown, South Africa, Africa as a tiny bubble in the sky, until someone with a different opinion and same location extends or changes that, everyone in the virtual community will experience it as destination: Grahamstown, tiny bubble in the sky. Besides for that fallacy, much the same as all blogs, the life you create and follow on Second Life could be completely fictitious or anonymous and as extravagant as you please. Think Sims on steroids. For further information on Second Life: Second Life Info

The second blogging space could pass as my international blog. It is another appropriated blogging space that does not fall completely within the confines of the traditional writing blog. It does involve text (mostly) but is orientated towards creating a more ‘personal’ space. The website is called ‘Postsecret’ and involves individuals physically posting postcards with their secrets on them to the editor of the blog, Frank Warren. Frank then picks the top secrets and posts them on the website every Sunday. The fascinating attraction about this website is that people can create and divulge any secret about themselves or others to the public in a creative manner. It is set up as this immaculate ‘personal’ space created just for you. You know- the one where the whole world can read your secret. Right. I suppose the morality of such a ‘blog’ is another matter for another time. But it certainly holds for a brilliantly interesting blog space. People can comment on each postcard, again, much the same as the traditional written blog. For further information on Postsecret: Postsecret blogspot

The third and last blog I have chosen is a South African written blog by a very opinionated lady. Laurian Clemence’s blog is entitled Mushy Peas on Toast and is an account of her ‘true’ everyday day-to-day. The blog has won many awards (yes, there are awards for blogging) of which these include: best new blog, most humorous blog, most original writing, 2nd place in SA blog-off etc etc. I believe that the reason she has won so many awards and why her blog is so successful is not her wonderfully sickening pink background (which I’m almost certain was a joke on her behalf) or her ‘pansy-ing’ around with boring topics. She makes observations of experiences she or friends have had and posts these on her blog. Relatively simple one might think. But I suppose the real success lies in her brutal honesty. Oh- and probably her down right potty mouth. Nonetheless, it is a brilliant read.

The common characteristic I have tried to highlight with this analysis is that all blogs have the potential to hold a secretive quality. They utilise mystery and illusion, perception and creation, alternate identities or universes and the expression thereof.
The relative theme noted in all the above mentioned blogs is also the potential for anonymity and the seeming authorship we have over our ‘creation’: our alternate life in Second Life, our endless creativity in Postsecret, and a true expression of ourselves in the everyday traditional blog such as Laurian Clemence’s devil-may-care one.
As much as these are subject to different ideas again, of morality, blogging is also seen as process of self-reflexivity, exercising desires and the ability to choose to stay anonymous throughout this whole process.
In conclusion, I’d say that blogging with web 2.0 is probably ranked up there as one of the best forms of expression around and it is certainly the most interactive, information sharing tool around.
And it’s free.
Who doesn’t love a bargain?

g07c2484

Race to Where?

Student Number: 607h0493

One of the main appeals of exploring the countless art blogs available is reading the assortment of comments and debates that are often triggered by them. The widespread and heated discussions about ‘race’ are impossible to ignore. Blogs open up a crucial dialogue on ‘race’ that seems to be drowned out in so many other societal spaces. Blogs are not sites for purely academic arguments, as each individual is allowed to express their own view regardless of their ‘qualifications’. In the comparisons and contrasts between a popular South African, African and International blog, it will be shown just how beneficial and well used this culture of blogging has become, and the important role it can play in a move to a post-race era.


Sir Tim Berners Lee invented the original World Wide Web (WWW), which runs as an application over the internet, and is a vast network of information. Web 2.0, an advancement on the possibilities of the WWW, makes the internet ubiquitous and allows individuals worldwide to, instantly and easily, access a wealth of frequently updated knowledge, such as the history of the internet itself. Social networking, made possible through Web 2.0, has become an important part of internet culture. Blogs which is an abbreviation of weblog is where one most typically comments on events in the form of a type of online ‘journal’. Blogs are one of the more popular options of the social networking phenomenon and offer huge potential for discussion and international recognition. For artists alone, the benefits of the ability to use the visual element of the internet to showcase their work and idea’s, internationally, at very little (or at no) cost, are immense. I chose the three particular sites as I wanted popular blogs which I knew would reach a large audience and thus showcase a variety of reader’s opinions too.


Artheat is a controversial and widely followed website that comments on the international art scene, but with a particular focus on the work of contemporary South African artists. The website is relatively young with an archive back to May 2006, yet it has a large number of blogs and links attached to it, offering the viewer an opening to the formerly exclusive art world. The opportunity to follow Artheat and the other blogs associated with it on social networking sites, such as twitter or facebook , increases its appeal and accessibility to a variety of viewers. Mixtape is an interesting assortment of visual and text based blogs, managed by Linda Stupart, a critic and artist based in Cape Town, with a large number of other members that collaborate regularly about a wide range of topics. The particular post that I chose was a review on Nicholas Hlobo’s exhibition, “Umtshotsho”, by Stupart entitled “Grey Carpets in Grahamstown”. What really captured my attention was the large amount of comments that the seemingly innocuous review received. Someone called ‘suckastick’ had initiated an angry back-and-forth racial debate through criticizing Artheat (and institutions such as Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town) for their seeming white monopolization. Ironically, s/he chose the literal white (text) on black (background) space of Mixtape and Artheat to discuss this. The 21 comments, that seem to have been posted in rapid succession, were undeniably more interesting and thought provoking than the blog post itself. In the use of pseudonyms or aliases such as ‘suckastick’, blogging allows people anonymity and thus more freedom to say what they might not otherwise. It is also interesting to note the issue of censorship that comes with blogging, as both Sloon and Stupart have control over which comments they allow. This can be seen in Sloon’s threat to delete a reader’s comment if the ‘polemic’ was not fixed. The debate had become too intense. It stands to reason that in a country with a history as troubled as South Africa’s, with roughly 350 years of colonialism and 50 years of apartheid, that impassioned debates such as this are vital. As Robert Sloon said, “I think it is a good idea for everyone to explore their prejudices”. Artists have always been social commentators and blogging can only accentuate the possibilities, and responsibilities, of that position.


AAchronym is an African blog that offers “Global African Arts with a focus on art-equity and cultural patrimony” written by S. Okwunodu Ogbechie, an Associate Professor of Art History. Ogbechie is the sole contributor to this blog, while the other two blogs are collaborations. Compared to Artheat, AAchronym is a much more internationally focused blog, seeming to look towards America more than the African continent itself. Despite AAchronym’s tagline. It is surely a comment on the growing globalization and resultant Diaspora, that Ogbechie is an African man living in California, USA. The global “Clustr Map” re-enforces this idea of a globalisation as the map pinpoints his readers to all over the world and also shows the world’s relatively recent interest in the African art market. Yet another factor that shows the true power and popularity of blogging worldwide is the application available to translate the blog into a language of the viewer’s choice. The specific post that I was interested in is about race inequalities in American Museums as it echoes the debate of Artheat in the need for change in institutions. In a direct contrast to Artheat however, nobody has commented on this post. Ogbechie himself barely comments on his own blog, as the article was taken from The Art Newspaper and written by Martha Lufkin. The fact that most of the blog posts on this site are originally from other sites is again different from the other two blogs. The small and rare amount of Ogbechie’s writing is of a more serious and formal tone than most blogs. After the African blog leaning towards issues of Race in America, I decided to examine an American blog and search for these issues.


Art Fag City is a very popular America art blog which provides “New York art news, reviews and gossip”, run by Paddy Johnson. The particular blog chosen is entitled Race Card and was written by a guest blogger and artist, Wayne Hodge. The blog post is a fascinating exploration of images used in politics in America which have strong racial implications through American history. Artheat’s ‘race’ debate is mirrored here, only to be furthered when politics is added into the mix too. The blog post was from 8 August 2008, when the arguments between Democrats and Republicans were even more intense than usual, with Barack Obama running for president. Yet the blog post debate of 10 comments dwindled off in the same manner as Artheat, the heated commentary went too far and was threatened with deletion. Further evidence of censorship on this blog can be seen in that no anonymous comments are allowed, which makes the commentators responsible, and therefore less likely, to air their views. It is interesting to note that on both Artheat and Art Fag City, the comments were rarely on the issue of the blog post, but rather on race, a topic obviously begging for and initiating heated dialogue. According to the statistics from the applications from the website, Art Fag city has 3127 readers and 2493 followers on Twitter. This speaks volumes about the attention this American site receives, compared to the 17 followers AAchronym has. Despite the large amount of followers, and the apparent issues about ‘race’ shown through the 10 fiery comments, there is very little result when one searches for blog posts related to racial relations in the art world.


While reading all three of these blogs I could not help be reminded of an interesting module I studied as a part of my Art History and Visual Culture course, led by Ruth Kerkham Simbao, entitled “Unpacking ‘Race’ ”. The course was not the expected lesson in ‘political correctness’. Instead, the in-depth and academic approach knocked all preconceptions and led one to be critical of the most seemingly innocent words, such as ‘white’ or ‘black’. Kwame Anthony Appiah, one of the authors on the modules weighty reading list, went into huge detail to convincingly prove the loaded ideology behind the terms themselves in In My Fathers House in the Philosophy of Culture. Appiah argues that ‘race’ is a “concept”: a social construct, based on arbitrary distinctions and is often used as a metaphor for culture (Appiah, 1992:34). In extreme summary, the white European man saw ‘blackness’ in direct contrast to his civilised and racially supreme ‘whiteness’ (Appiah, 1992:32). It is clear throughout all of the blogs mentioned in this essay, that the terms ‘white’ or ‘black’ are not used critically, or necessarily questioned as terms themselves, as Appiah discusses. It is interesting to note whilst reading the blogs, that regardless of place in the world, what is debated about by an elite group of academics is not what most individuals seem to think, or say. Blogs play an important role in providing a space for the non-academics to present their views, especially in the notoriously ‘clique-ish’ art world. Yet it is a pity that blogs have not yet been fully utilised to merge these two differing worlds together.


When one reads the blogs, and their comments, not only within South Africa with Apartheid or Africa and colonialism, but worldwide, it is apparent that ‘race’ as a concept, and thus ‘racism’, is still deeply embedded in society. There is a sore need for more dialogue in order to begin to resolve these issues. With the endless opportunities blogging opens for discourse, it is surprising that this has not yet been taken full advantage of, particularly by members of the art world. Each player in the art world has an equal responsibility and role to further this discourse and to face these issues head on. It is clear that blogging has the potential to provide the power to achieve this change.

Links for those of you Lost in the Ether.

For those of you who have been struggling with finding relevent websites here are somethings you may wish to consider. They are not all blogs but they may make use of Web 2.0 functionality or have specific reasons why as publications they work better online than in other media e.g. print or as a compliment to printed versions. Some of these sites are community specific, informal sites whilst others are more established.

South Africa

www.artheat.net
www.artsouthafrica.com
www.arttimes.co.za
ww2.mg.co.za/section/arts
www.news.artsmart.co.za
www.chimurenga.co.za
www.kaganof.com/kagablog/

Africa

www.africancolours.net
www.asai.co.za
www.africanpainters.blogspot.com

International

www.e-flux.com
www.artfagcity.com
www.myartspace.com/blog
www.artnewsblog.com
www.arttimesjournal.com
www.blog.art21.org
www.dvblog.org
www.northern.lights.mn

The list goes on .....