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BALTIC
SEA MEDIA SPACE & NET.RADIO
October 31 - November 4, 1999
Co-ordinator: e-lab, Riga, Rasa Smite <rasa@parks.lv>
http://re-lab.net
The meeting of New Media initiatives from the Baltic Sea Countries
(and beyond) will be structured to concentrate on developing media
arts' exchange and exploring networking possibilities in this region;
with the aim: to establish Baltic Sea Media Space - network and
virtual platform for collaboration.
The workshop on cultural politics will concentrate on the topics
of 'micro-cultures' and 'sovereign / minor media'; including the
issues about the importance to create the networks for independent
new media and micro cultural initiatives in order to create independent
infrastructures and to co-operate in getting the funding (Interfund
as option).
The more practical part will consist of live net.radio/streaming
audio web-casting sessions and the planning of an Xchange net.radio
meeting in August, 2000 in Riga. The workshop will be closed on
November 4, with the party in the Meteori bookshop.
Escape from
Marginality!
Eric Kluitenberg, <epk@xs4all.nl>
From November
25th 1999 onwards Tallinn will host the third Interstanding
conference on networked culture, after earlier editions in 1995
and 1997.
At the verge of the Y2K bug, Interstanding intends to go "Beyond
the Edge"
(as the title of the event declares), to attempt an escape from
marginality. In many ways the Baltic countries are states at the
edge; on
the edge of the European Union, knocking on the door to get in,
on the edge
of a new networked economy, at the edge of the Russian Federation,
beyond
the edge of the former Soviet Union, at the edge of history, in
the deep
northern edge of Europe...
The third Interstanding
will not be an exercise in self-pity. It rather
seeks to question the meaning of the edge-concept: Does it really
apply in
the age of global information and communication? Does it apply in
a world
dominated by global economics and politics? And where is the space
for
alternatives?
-> Alternative life-styles, alternative economics (gift economies,
virtual
money generators), alternative cultures (translocal and trans-historical),
alternative sex, alternative love, alternative peace, alternative
states
(of being), alternative soundings and alternative visuality.
Should we no
longer ask about the "where" anymore, and move beyond
the edge
of the borders that used to confine our existence, because they
have become
meaningless?
Is this the
radical program net.culture should pursue?
Critical cultural
activity has always identified itself with an existence
at the edge of society, but that position has become increasingly
dubious.
Increasingly we seem to be living in a society without clear and
fixed
boundaries: A globally interconnected economic and social system
with
constantly shifting borders.
Our time seems
to be one of limitless possibility. Ideas and money travel
at the speed of light through virtual networks, and capital can
accumulate
in boundless quantities.
Our time also
seems to be one of limitless brutality and violence (Rwanda /
Kosovo). A time of limitless political transformation, where empires
disintegrate without a clear reason (SU). A time also where new
economies
collapse even more quickly than they emerged (Asian Tigers). Where
the
dream of independent economic success is bought away overnight by
foreign
investors (Estonia and other newly 'emerging states').
The boundaries
of society have become so fluid and open that any attempt to
define what exists 'inside' and 'outside' of the social framework
becomes
irrelevant. The edge of culture can quickly be turned around into
a
profitable mainstream trend. The outsider becomes the trend-setter,
the
oblique the eccentric, the perverted the exclusive. Otherness is
embraced
as a market opportunity. Meanwhile, authoritarian politics implode,
but
re-emerge shortly after as if nothing ever happened (Juganov).
The role of
the avantgarde artist, finally, becomes a tragic joke. The
advertisement industries have long understood the shock of the new,
and
make art look retrograde. The utopian visionaries have become entrenched
in
an increasingly self-referential art-scene that propagates itself
through
exclusive coffee-table books and glossy international art-zines.
So, where is
the edge?
The third Interstanding
"Beyond the Edge", should be understood as an
attempt to get away from the clichés of what supposedly constitutes
the
edge in culture, in social live and in politics (be it regional
or
international). By leaving behind the false oppositions between
"system"
and "opposition", between mainstream and so-called sub-culture,
it could
also be an attempt to escape both repressive systems as well as
a marginal
existence 'at the edge'.
The aim is to
map out a new territory of culture, social live and power
that reveals new opportunities and new discontinuities for critical
cultural activity; inside society, as well as in the shifting
constellations of the international community.
Net.radio has
been one new field of experience, where the edge seemingly
has begun to erode. With virtually no money Xchange became an extensive,
hyper-active network of audio-artists almost around the globe. In
the
process Xchange also became a world-famous example of a new type
of
cultural sphere that is no longer bothered by the clichés
of main-stream
nor counter -culture. In the net era the utopian idea that "everyone
can be
a sender", not just a listener, was seized upon for an exciting
adventure
into acoustic space. It revealed a spatiality that radio has never
been
able to uncover. An acoustic space of sounds, music and conversation
that
Brecht could only dream about when he wrote his radio theory in
the late
20s.
Is there really
no edge anymore, to where the marginalised are relegated??
Nothing is really self-evident, least of all the battle for Bandwidth
For
All. But the networked acoustic space is an important new territory,
that
calls for further exploration, beyond the final frontier!
From the slogan factory:
It is necessary
to map the new minefields,
to avoid treading on a misplaced shell....
Eric Kluitenberg
Amsterdam, July 1999
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