TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Wednesday, December 7, 2005

8:44 PM
Posted by jodi rose

BYO rocket!

Hope this isn't a mistake - trying to clear the air, and please don't email your criticism as I won't be publishing or engaging with any more of those comments - it's time to move on!!!!

from Charles' reply:

Thanks Jodi.

My points were really about the judging process, rather than your blog.
It's unfair to all participants to have two judges decide the outcome by
marking in a completely different range to the majority, and for worthy finalists to be rejected by a completely anonymous process, just as it's unfair for you to be subjected to personal abuse as a result.

Although I didn't award you my top points - largely because I felt we
were judging blogs in general, rather than arts-based blogs - given a
different set of criteria I might well have. As I wrote, you were in my
top three, and I can live with the results.

Charles

-----

Dear Charles,

thanks for your email and invitation to clear up some of the 'fun' around my blog win. I appreciate this opportunity to correct some basic misinformation and hopefully revise some of the assumptions being made.

To start with ownership of the blog, it is entirely independent, all my own work and is no way affiliated with, nor does it reflect the views of the ABC or the Australia Council for the Arts. It is not 'owned' by either of these organisations. I continue to write the blog regardless of how I am earning money at the time; the issue of funding is irrelevant to the blog.

I started the blog in 2002 on blogger.com after I was made redundant from my job at onetel (remember them!?) and decided to devote three months time and energy to realising my dream of travelling the world to record the sound of bridges. The blog was a way to record the journey and let people stay in touch with what I was up to - which is what it remains. This trip was funded privately and with no government or grant assistance.

Since then I have been lucky enough to create a successful career as an independent artist through a variety of means, including Australia Council funding. After being Artist in Residence at ABC Radio in 2004, I have also been commissioned to produce freelance radio programs and this supplements the sporadic fees I receive for performing at festivals, giving workshops, sometimes yes being 'unemployed', and now and then selling a CD. more on the art debate later...

The reason an address c/o the ABC appears listed somewhere is that it was the best place for me to pick up mail directly after the residency, when I was overseas for a few months. However I now have a PO box and will update these details when I find the site referred to.

Next, tackling the comments on what is or is not a blog.

Regarding criticism of the style and content of the blog - the look is designed to fit with the rest of the site, and is not from a template.
The content is about personal expression, and wether the writing is 'good' or not seems to miss the point about a blog being a unique voice. There is plenty of formulaic writing out there that follows the rules - how exciting to have access to so many other people writing in their own style and creating a new language of individual voices in this overmediated age.

According to blogger.com,

"A blog gives you your own voice on the web. It's a place to collect and share things that you find interesting- whether it's your political commentary, a personal diary, or links to web sites you want to remember.
Many people use a blog just to organize their own thoughts, while others command influential, worldwide audiences of thousands. Professional and amateur journalists use blogs to publish breaking news, while personal journalers reveal inner thoughts."

'Your own voice on the web' seems to be the crucial element here.
A blog is essentially a form of personal expression.
Having 'comments, rss feeds, trackbacks, categories/tags' etc does not make it more of a blog than something that is simply 'words on a page'.

In response to 'evil pundit' - I am aware this is not a full sentence, is there a blog style manual somewhere that must be referred to? - it is a very restrained fragment of my momentarily exasperated response to this ludicrous furore. (the rest of my comments are private)

Which brings us to the next point - a series of personal attacks. Having someone write and advise you to kill yourself is not fun.
In fact the level of vitriol and abuse in some of the emails I received has been a far greater shock than winning the competition in the first place. Which let me clarify, is as much a surprise to me as to anyone that it won.

I entered it in a spirit of fun, and am still completely bemused at both the result and the controversy it has caused.

There seems to be a double standard at work here, where 'people expect blogging should be a non-commercial activity, and then chastise you for not working'. Very strange.

Also, the fact that my art practice receives government funding does not invalidate or in any way affect the content, style or quality of my blog. The blog is part of a website which was very generously designed long before I was able to afford to pay for this.

There is a lively, critical and politically engaged, socially aware and highly sophisticated discourse informing Australian cultural and artistic practice - which sadly hasn't filtered through to the 'you artists have a hide, how dare you think you deserve any support (especially taxpayer funded)' brigade.

Start at http://www.realtimearts.net/ and go from there.

Comments on the blog being 'elitist' or too arty are a little disingenuous - surely if the competition is open to anyone, and the stated aim is to show that "any Australian can create a blog regardless of the topic and personal interest" then having a blog about bridges, art, philosophy and personal experiences is just as valid as having a blog about 'daily life' from any other perspective.

I am not by any means criticising the other blogs which are gorgeous, engaging and well written (and have all those fun things mine doesn't, like rss feed and search categories) but pointing out the anti-intellectual bias implicit in this kind of comment.

Why not an art blog? Art is part of life too.

Do we really need to have this discussion again, about the validity of art?

And for the record, the inherent assumption in some of the comments is that I've never worked a day in my life - or at least not in an 'honest job' which is ridiculous.

I'm as much 'an ordinary person' as the next person.

Brief biographical note:
Waitress 1993 - 1997
Call Centre Worker 1997 - 2001
Artist 1970 - ?

Finally, I would like to offer thanks to all the people who have written messages of support and encouragement, it's wonderful to be part of such a lively, interesting, generous and diverse community. Thank you.

And especially a HUGE thank you to the blog competition finalists, who are incredibly gracious, generous and wonderful in their comments and links - maybe those unnecessarily harsh critics could learn something about a healthy perspective and good sportsmanship from them!

I hope this clears up the facts, thanks again for the opportunity to respond to the misinformation.

Regards,
Jodi

-------

Hi Jodi,

I'm a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, and one of the judges of the best blog competition.

A good deal of fun seems to have erupted over your award, and I wonder if you would care to clear some things up.

According to this blog - http://www.observationdeck.org/weblogs/?p=1298#comments - your blog seems to belong to the ABC.
Can you say exactly who owns it, and how it was created.

It's also suggested that it was funded by a government grant.
Is that so?

Regards,

Charles Wright