A Practical Post

With so much written about the use of blogs as research tools, their place in the broad spectrum of research is unquestionable. I set up this blog a few years ago with the intention of exploring the intersections of visual art (particularly street art), interactive web applications, object interpretation and educational research. I have been following a few different art education related blogs, not specifically research oriented, and I have noticed a few overlapping characteristics that make them all frequent-reads that illicit further thought or interaction. First, the posts are short, digestable. Second, there is eye candy...pictures to keep me interested. Third, they are frequently posted, and the content is consistently related to the parent concept or thesis. So I have this nagging curiosity about why I feel the need to sporadically maintain this blog in spite of my knowledge of the "unofficial best-practices for blog readership". Furthermore, I question the effectiveness of this blog as a research tool. I never articulated a question (or questions) that I continue to pursue. I encounter issues in my practice that I question and seek to resolve through conversation and contemplation...but these posts don't necessarily read as practical questions. Looking at the few posts I have as a body of work, this blog seems like a handful of tangents. Like the found objects and photos I used to collect in graduate school. So the practical question I ask myself (and you, dear reader), should I post more, or abandon ship? Does this help anyone out there in their profession as art educators... or even me? Specifically, can this blog ever be considered a research blog?

Spam II

In a previous post, I complained about my blog being bombarded with spam. What I originally found to be a nuisance, I attempted to turn into a work of art via a related blog post. I had been fascinated by Duchamp and his contemporaries and the cut-up method. I decided that I would allow spam comments on the Duchamp post, since the spam exemplified the random nature of what I was attempting to express about Duchamp's work. Since the "blog spam" posting, I had remembered seeing the video work of artist/educator Juan Carlos Castro. His artistic take on internet spam takes an entirely different form. He has created a lovely short video you may enjoy when you click on this. I am looking for further artistic explorations of electronic junk/auto generated nonsense. If you know of any other artist working with this media, please share!