LabforCulture rozmawia z Martą Peirano i José Luis de Vicente, którzy w 2003 roku uczestniczyli w zakładaniu ważnego, grupowego, hiszpańskiego bloga Elastico. Gdy w Hiszpanii blogosfera wciąż była w powijakach, blogerzy z Elastico zaczęli pisać o prawach własności cyfrowej, sztuce cyfrowej, grach video i multimediach.

Dziś cała czwórka jest wpływowymi twórcami kultury działającymi na własny rachunek, a co się z tym wiąże, rzadziej udzielają się na blogu, skłaniając ku dłuższym wypowiedziom takim jak felietony czy eseje niż krótkim notkom. Dysponując bardziej ograniczonym czasem niż kiedyś, krótkie wiadomości i aktualności publikują na Facebooku lub Twitterze.

Poniższy wywiad z Martą Peirano (MP) & José Luis de Vicente (JL) został przeprowadzonyza pośrednictwem czatu na Skype 11 czerwca 2009 roku przez Annette Wolfsberger.

One of my first questions is this: when you started with Elastico, was there a specific reason or thing that initiated it? Did you start together, collaboratively, or did one of you initiate it, and the other(s) followed?

JL: Ladies first.
MP: It will be interesting to see if we agree on that one! There were mainly two reasons: the first one was that we four – Antonio Córdoba, Nacho Escolar, Jose Luis (JL) and myself – had known each other for quite some time and wanted to do something together. If I am not mistaken, we were all writing for the same newspaper at the time. Antonio and JL went to university together; Nacho and I were basically dating. We met around the digital journalism congress, right JL? We all agreed there was a need for a new kind of journalism regarding a number of interesting topics.

Thus a blog was born... When you started, were there many blogs at that time in Spain?

JL: Actually we met in February 2001 and we didn’t start Elastico until October 03. Both Nacho and Marta already had their own blogs.
MP: We wanted to move digital culture from technology sections to culture ones. And change the way the traditional media was dealing with issues like P2P or video games.
JL: Yes, that was very important for us! I think it also worked so well because we were friends and interested in a loose set of topics related to culture and tech[nology] in different ways.

And that would have probably been very difficult within the newspaper… Were you all working for the cultural department of the newspaper?

MP: It was a constant fight! And no, no! We were all in technology! Back then, everything related to ‘The Internet’ was tied to technology.
JL: Actually, that has always been a great fight. We always had to justify that these were cultural topics, not tech[nology] topics. Me and Marta were the people doing culture topics on the tech sections; Antonio also…Nacho was more into digital culture, apart from digital politics and rights.

Sounds like an interesting mix. Have the four of you been working together since then? And has your focus shifted strongly since the beginning?

JL: Not exactly. Our personal careers have gone in different directions. They always were intended to, since we had different backgrounds. Nacho has been a newspaper director; he is now a columnist and opinion writer. Marta directed the culture section of a newspaper until recently, and now is writing books. Antonio is at the university, finished his thesis and is teaching, and I have worked mostly as a curator.

Wow, they all seem like very successful careers!

MP: Well…
JL: I think only Marta and Nacho were the real journalists and I think Marta is really a writer, only she doesn’t know ;)
MP: The fact that we always intended to do very different things was one of the reasons why Elastico existed in the first place: very different people connected to the same topics.

So you had different viewpoints?

JL: I think Elastico existed because we were friends having interesting conversations about similar topics; things that have interested us through the years include digital rights, copyleft, digital art, video games, digital film, music videos, literature... Not all of us were interested in all of them, but together we covered a broad spectrum. Marta and Antonio were stronger in literature, Marta and me in digital art.
MP: It was the variety of our personal backgrounds and ambitions that made it exciting and dynamic.

Was there anything like it in Spain when you started?

MP: I am pretty sure there was not!
JL: There was nothing like it, both in topics and in tone! We always made it very accessible. We wanted to reach everybody – not only people in specific fields and that, I believe, made it influential.

So it was also a question of making digital culture (or e-culture) more accessible...

JL: For me, absolutely! No one was writing in Spanish about that combination of topics.

...and show its relevance to the broader cultural field?

MP: I would say that, yes. But also to introduce a new approach to the way media dealt with these topics. Very good examples would be:

• Linux is for computer engineers.
• Video games make children violent.
• P2P is piracy.
• Copyleft is for losers.

JL: Contemporary art is relevant!

MP: Yap, I guess we could go on forever XDDDDD (1)
JL: I hate the [fact that] writing in art criticism, for instance, is absolutely self referential. We didn’t want to do that!

You said Elastico was becoming relevant. How could you feel that? Feedback, audience, references in other media?

JL: Well personally, one of the most rewarding experiences in the last few years is coming across people who tell me that Elastico was very influential for them. People like artists, art collectives, curator collectives or other bloggers. In 2003, the Spanish blogosphere was blooming – and we had just arrived two years earlier than most! Also, because we were very didactic, we were opening up references and ideas that still had not broken in the cultural debate in Spain.
MP: True! Also we got used to reading our own texts copy-pasted in national newspapers in the cultural sections! That was both infuriating and flattering, of course.
JL: Then in 2005 we organised an event in Barcelona called Copyfight, which definitely marked a transitional point, I believe, in the public discussion around copyright in Spain.

So you were just ahead of everyone both off- and online. You must have had quite a community by then. Was it an active one?

JL: One thing for us is that we have never been in the same city. Marta and Nacho [lived in the same city for] some time, but then Marta was abroad for a long time, so we see each other very little. Now, for example, I am based in Barcelona and Marta in Madrid. This means that any sense of community for us has been mostly a dispersed, fluid one. I think it was also a way of brainstorming in public.

So it mainly is (or was) a platform for you to exchange with each other, a kind of semi-public conversation?

MP: Absolutely, I think one of the reasons why Elastico was fun was precisely because we used it as a conversation tool for the four of us.
JL: I am very interested in the idea of ‘transparent research’. It was a conversation between the four of us, yes, but everyone was invited.
MP: That led to very funny discussions within our own blog – always interesting though and totally open.

So currently, is it still the four of you, or have others joined in, or has anyone left?

JL: Well, it’s very dispersed right now. I would say there is still something of the four of us, but it is not happening on elastico.net. More in the conversation between the different blogs, and other means like Twitter, Facebook… it depends. Nacho and me are active on Twitter, Marta and Antonio not so much. Marta is very active on her blog: http://lapetiteclaudine.com
MP: My blog – I can say this proudly – was the first of all our blogs!
JL: Also, Marta commissioned me last year to do a weekly section on her newspaper and for me that was really the Elastico spirit!

Would you say that your blog was a tool, its peak is over, and you continue experimenting with other tools to communicate & disseminate within and beyond your group?

JL: It’s a community, really. I prefer describing it as a family – for me, Marta and Nacho and Antonio are more family than anything else.
MP: It is true that we are all very, intensely busy, and that reflects badly on our blogs.
JL: Yes, we don’t work that hard anymore on the blogs because we are awfully busy
and it’s a shame.

So your blogging is not very directly linked to the jobs you’re doing now?

JL: In my case it is, it always has been. In Nacho’s case also.
MP: Though I think our engineering in Spanish culture is more apparent now.
JL: Exactly. Marta defined it perfectly – we are blogging less, but our influence in culture is way bigger.

Has the Elastico clan taken over culture in Spain?

MP: Nacho has launched and directed the last national newspaper in Spain; JL is redefining digital culture in Spanish institutions and Antonio is probably writing the next most influential novel in Spanish since Bolaño.

So you could say that, with the blog, you achieved your aim... getting technology out into culture!

MP: XDDDD (1)
JL: Well, this may sound incredibly pompous and pretentious. It was not something so big, honestly, but our professional careers were taking off as we were getting to our mid thirties... and the net is changing, it always is.

That poses an interesting question: what will you do with Elastico? Leave it as it stands and archive it?

JL: I have a very clear idea now. I used to be anxious about not updating it, not putting enough time into it. But now, I very clearly believe that the architecture of the conversation online has changed. You can say something once a month and still be heard. I have been doing it and it works!

So it’s not so much about frequency anymore?

JL: Well, people know about it because of Twitter, RTing (2), Facebook, RSS... so blogs are no longer diaries.
MP: I think what JL means is that updating not so often is not an issue anymore since RSS and Twitter.
JL: Blogs are now the place where you post long pieces that don’t fit anywhere else. Blogs are your notebooks of essays and it’s perfectly fine. Something, for instance, that I don’t want to do anymore is blogging about what other people are saying somewhere else. Now I only want to blog original content to contribute to the conversation.

Rather than filter...

JL: Yes, there are way better filters now as someone said, my favourite blogs now are my friend’s Delicious feeds.

Have you seen the (cultural) blogging scene in Spain change a lot since you started (e.g. blogging having become a recognised strand of journalism)?

JL: Uff, that is always tough to say: all newspapers produce blogs; writers have blogs; blogs have become way more mainstream, of course, but most of those do not engage in the conversation.
MP: It has also become the new form of column,
JL: in our conversation at least,
MP: which is interesting now that journalism is more opinionated than ever.

So what about you, JL. Do you also have your own active blog?

MP: She got you there!
JL: Not really, when I want to say something I use Elastico. Also I am having a lot of fun on Twitter.
MP: He is a Twittermaniac, though!

But you prefer not to use it anymore, Marta? And rather retreat to your own blog?

JL: She is a star on her own!
MP: I was very active for quite some time in both and then the increasing amount of work made it impossible for me to write for both.
JL: But she got her book deal through her blog.
MP: Also, when I joined the newspaper it became impossible to write at all!

But you’re not really integrating the Twitter feed into Elastico, JL?

JL: No, because honestly I don’t believe in reading Twitter asynchronously! I think you have to do it in real time. I think Twitter is more like a cafe conversation, blogging more like a newspaper.
MP: Well what we are not saying here is that I used to take care of the say insides of all our blogs and haven’t been gardening that part for quite a long time. It is like the bad weeds have taken over our house.
JL: But we are renovating soon because we are moving technology...
MP: Yap and now, facing the cleaning of both my blog and Elastico feels like a titanic effort!
JL: At the same time I wonder if most people reading are not doing it through RSS, which means they only get the text and images of the entries and not the rest?
MP: And it would be necessary to include new features like Twitter box and more flexible formats that would allow us to be more prolific.
JL: I don’t really know...

Does Elastico still feel like something you want to keep alive or has it become more like an obligation?

MP: Both Nacho and JL have entered the ‘media on the run’ format. That is to say, posting through their Blackberries, etc. I think we have to adapt Elastico to that new reality if we want to resuscitate it properly!
JL: No, it does not feel like an obligation! It’s definitely something I want to keep alive because:

1. It has a very good page rank, people looking for us get there many times.
2. It is an archive of a time of our lives, brings [back] many good memories.
3. It’s a useful tool, it reaches people.

MP: And what I think about the culture blogging scene in Spain has changed since we started: oh yes, very much indeed! I just don’t know if it is for the best XDDD

Has Elastico played a role in that transformation?

MP: About Elastico’s role in it, I am not sure...
JL: I am unable to answer this question. I feel myself belonging now to a more diffuse international network than to a Spanish scene.
MP: Yes, that is true for most of us!

Did you ever think about writing your blog in another language than Spanish?

JL: Although I still follow people in Spain, of course, like Juan Freire or zemos98 , this was ALWAYS an issue of discussion.
MP: We would have to compete with Regine! And that is a lost cause I am afraid.
JL: I will tell this story...

1. We met Regine when she was starting WMMNA,
2. we became friends,
3. she read Elastico,
4. we have been sort of colleagues since then.

We didn’t want to do it in English like Regine, because we believed we could have a more positive impact on our own community doing it in Spanish. In English, we would have been another culture blog. In Spanish it was a revulsive, in a way and I am proud of that!

Have you collaborated?

JL: Yes, many times. She even guest blogged on Elastico!

Were you ever thinking of running the blog as a full-time job?

MP: Si XDDD – hell, no!

I was asking because the Italians, like DigiCULT or Neural, decided to blog/publish bilingually.

JL: For me, it would have made way more sense professionally doing it in English. It would have been better for my career. But then, it would have been more of a job and it was never a job.
MP: Well, considering our premises… it would have been unproductive to write in English. We wanted to have an impact!

Would it have been a whole other thing to do it in English, and you’d have focused on other topics too?

MP: We wanted to change our fields of action in ways that were more adequate, and those were Spanish media and Spanish institutions!
JL: Mmm, I don’t know! I would have LOVED to do it bilingually, like Neural. But I would have needed two lives! I am a slow writer...

Is your readership also international? South American, for example?

JL: Yes, many South American readers!

Is that also reflected in the content?

JL: Not really...

Are there any other blogs you would recommend?

MP: Hmm, good question. There is nothing like Reg’s! That is just true. If this is to become a net, she would be Queen R!
JL: I am trying to suggest someone… I think my favourite bloggers are not in Europe now. And most of them are obsessive, focusing on single obscure topics, like Dan Hill of City Of Sound, Andrew Vande Moere of Information Aesthetics, Geoff Manaugh of BLDG|BLOG. And there is this guy I am enjoying a lot now called Chris Heathcote.
MP: I can’t think about anyone either – well, there is the UbuWeb of course!

Well, thanks a lot to both of you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to share your thoughts on these topics!

1. XDD, XDDDD or XDDDDD is a smiley often used in Spain. It can be 'translated' as :-)
2. RT stands for 'retweet' and means posting a message on Twitter already posted by someone else. It is similar to forwarding an e-mail.