About Spaces.org

• For details on sending texts and image files see the [HOWTO] page.
• For details on the history of this site see the [history] page.
• For distribution licence see the [license] page.
• For details on design criteria see the [design] page.

Site Policies

• First, it is free.

Therefore there is no contract, and there are no obligations. The site is mutable. You can request corrections and changes at any time. Anything you see on the index page will go away in a month or so anyway.

Some additional things to be taken for granted..

• The focus is Chicago alternative visual art.
• The focus is on groups, not individuals.
• There ain't no ads (but I'll consider any substantial offer).
• The sort-of white-walls design remains.
• We don't keep old index files or images.
• E-mail is the most viable connection to us.
• 90 percent of artists use MACs.
• 90 percent of viewers use PCs.

(Updated March 2004) This site was a gift from Counterpoint Networking Inc for seven years. Late in 2003 Spaces.org and a number of other domains moved to a virtual server in California, under the name (which shows up in some email) of Mylar. In March of 2004 we moved to Texas: bigger, faster. Now called Rayon or Mylar or some such substance. It is still digital-surplus gift-ware, thanks to Kees and Outflux.

Spaces.org had been used for five years (1996 - 2000) to promote the Uncomfortable Spaces galleries in Chicago. In 2000, with the closing of Beret International, the end came to ten years of Uncomfortable Spaces galleries in Chicago. The name "Spaces" remains in use. We started listing other galleries in 1999, after Tough Gallery closed.

I continue to run Spaces.org as a matter of passing a favor, not for hits or patronage. I don't get funds, better part-time-teaching gigs, a fulltime job, or any sort of other work, appreciation, respect, or honor. I've only added my name as a mailto-link in the last year.

I have continued to run this site because I feel that surplus resources ought to be freely re-distributed rather than hoarded, if this can be done effectively. If people get disinterested in posting shows at Spaces.org, I can always close it.

Anyway, if you are starting up a gallery, have a gallery, are an alternative gallery, even if you are a gallery with a website already, and want to list openings on the Spaces.org index page, go read the [HowTo] page first.

Purposes of this site

Ok, the original goals of this website were...

• To promote the US galleries They ended in 2000, but other, similar, and even stranger galleries have taken up the website space. This continues as a goal, or as a service.

• To provide a visual and verbal archive Currently only written material is being [archived] - FGA, Rants, Gravy, four year's worth of [OtherGroup] discussions added recently, a couple of years worth of weekly [openings].

• To comment on Chicago's internet art resources This was represented by the [Chicago] pages. These came to a standstill in 2002. Equivalent information is available at [the Org] pages.

• To create a model of a fast, compact, and downward compatible site This remains in the foreground, and should be seen as a visual critique of the state of the art: I still trim and reduce colors of posted images, type all the html "code" (as some people call it) by hand so that I know where the bottlenecks are, and often test against four browsers.

There are some design criteria listed [here] and there is a set of pages dealing specifically with website [design] and maintenance elsewhere.

About the spaces.org site

• We received 1,021,447 file hits in 2003. The number of file hits have doubled every year since 1996, and leveled off two years ago.

• We are listed with almost every national search engine, without any effort on our part.

• The Chicago page traditionally has gotten the most hits. It was created as a response to the unbelievable stuff I saw on the web six years ago: art organizations in Chicago without a single link pointing to anything in Chicago on their web page.

• We carry a weekly list of [openings], scammed from the Chicago Reader on-line listings, and compiled by an automated script.

• We provided a forum for Gravy magazine, now at their [own] website.

• We archived Michael Bulka's Midnight Rants, and Pedro Velez' FGA.

• We carried the CACA pages while they took 9 months to design a banner. Caca has a fast site now at [this] location.

• We also carried the pages of the [CPAG], and a few individual artists dating back to the Uncomfortable Spaces days.

• We continued to carry an archive of reviews, pages, and images from the Uncomfortable Spaces Galleries.

• We started [ChicagoArt.Net] in 2000. ChicagoArt.Net sends email Announcements of art openings and events.

• Keri butler's [FYI] weekly broadcast listserv has run from here since June 2002.

• At the end of 2002 we started a website for the [Other Group] as a listserv and archive.

• In March 2003 we started a database of visual art [resources] under the name of "ChicagoArt.ORG" -- the org.

Who we are

The engines in the boiler room are designed and maintained by Jno Cook of Aesthetic Investigations, and Kees Cook of Outflux Net. Outflux Net does internet consulting and programming design (PHP, Perl, MySQL, C). Aesthetic Investigation does conceptionally nothing.

I am the janitor for Spaces.org, GravyMagazine.com, Chicagoart.net, OtherGroup.Net, and a few other sites. Spaces.org is not my website; mine is at [http://jnocook.net].

ss/jno