It's kind of problematic. Yet whether it's spontaneous or carefully composed, communicating with a stranger is far more comfortable when mediated through e-mail, which provides a necessary, if illusory, distance. Most people feel out of their depth discussing contemporary art, and the elliptical nature of e-mail offers an informal yet intimate space for asking questions, not to mention the simple logistical fact that it's impossible to imagine artists willingly posting their phone numbers on their nameplates. E-mail permits them to respond at their own convenience. Of course, contact is one thing, and communication another.
True communication is contingent on having the recipient of the message reply.
Perhaps because the show was nearing its end, or maybe because I was a reporter soliciting information, I never heard from most of the artists I e-mailed. Ben Edwards, whose painting was mysteriously moved to the director's office, where it remained behind closed doors for the duration of the show, writes in an e-mail that he was initially thrilled by the idea. I hope the other artists in the show had a better experience with this than I did, but my feeling is that it was a good idea, but in the end people are more interested in seeing the big show than really thinking or talking about it. It's unrealistic to expect every piece of work to generate a response, yet the e-mail project does seem a refreshingly democratic alternative for a forum for discussion. Yet Rhizome is almost exclusively made up of people immersed in new media.