Posted by Vuk Cosic on March 23, 1997 at 17:35:02:
'Beauty and the East'
A Nettime Conference
22nd and 23rd of May 1997
Ljudmila (Ljubljana Digital Media Lab, part of Open Society Institute
- Slovenia) is pleased to announce the Nettime May Conference entitled
'Beauty and the East' with the following co-ordinates:
dates: May 21arrivals
22-23 conference
location: Ljudmila, Prusnikova 74, Ljubljana, Slovenia
>>daily time line:
10.00 bus takes all participants to ljudmila
10.30 workshop / collaboration projects
13.00 break
15.00 panels
18.30 bus takes all to city center
19.00 dinner
21.00 evening events
>>The morning sessions are planned as extended media brunches
that combine collaborative workshops with presentations,
discussions, and performances of international experts and
practicioners along the topics of net.art, data recycling,
tactical media, private i, remote c, presence.
>>The afternoon panels are organized as moderated discussions
enriched by few blitz.statements by international expert-speakers.
The focus is on the stimulation of dialog rather than the
presentation of lectures. Participation is open and encouraged.
>>The topics of afternoon panels are:
DAY ONE - May 22
On-Line Publishing:
Push Media Planets, Collaborative Archives and Discourse Machines
The generation of content is context sensitive, people produce
information out of signals, groups define what people can produce,
tools make possible what groups can define and vice versa. A
critique of the net must include a critical analysis of its 'matter'
as a social and cultural product. With the rise of the web, the well
developed group structures around bbs, moo, mud, usenet became
almost invisible. Now, we are told that the web will vanish and only
media with broadcasting qualities will survive. I push therefore I
am. Surprisingly, the mailinglist was always a push media, as
sucessful and cost-effecitive as e-mail. The coming social
information architectures will need a more hybrid, time-based and
conceptual working/leisure environment which maps electronic
intersubjectivity based on our needs and not the imaginative,
inherent will of technique.
It is time that intellectuals rethink the relevance of their tools
in a wider radius than linguistics. The apperatus of discourse gets
extended today by new networks of power/knowledge which are still,
compared with the world of print, very unimportant. This makes place
for all kinds of experiments and the renovation of historical
concepts. In a mix of historical, empirical, and speculative
analysis we will try to map a likely and liked future of
'online-publishing,' beyond the static model of the web magazine (or
the preformatted net-radio on demand). How will our social interface
look like and how do we continue with our gift-economy?
chair persons: Geert Lovink, Pit Schultz
DAY TWO - May 23
Power Politics:
Virtual Europe, Ministate Thinking and the Construction of the Data
East
Within the development of aesthetics and politics of electronic media
since the late 80's 'East Europe' played a minor but spectacular
role. Today, driven by unified market forces the topology of cultures
in the east and west has to relate to new maps of global corporations
and media networks, down to the local resistance of bureaucracies,
institutions, and cultural initiatives. But it is not only 'the east'
that is forced to adapt, but 'the west' also having to face an inner
crisis within its imaginary cartographies. The construction of a
media map of Europe becomes indistinguishable from the image of a
chaotic, dangerous, and underdeveloped 'hinterland'. The fear of
heterogenity and change locates and produces the zones of conflict at
its periphery. Under the sign of ethnic and national cleansing grew a
the multiplicity of borders and microstates. 'Balkanization' becomes
the preferred horror scenario for all kinds of disintegration, and
economic, social, cultural, and political difference. The dream of
entering the EU-NATO zone is fading away. Is this the freedom people
dreamt of?
Culture has yet no answer to this imminent crisis. The only thing
institutions can come up with, is a weak and cheap remake of well
known slogans, taken from yesterday's social movements and art groups
(and their media). This includes the quasi-neutral, engaged but
professional PC attitude of the NGOs that remained as political
forces. The rest is popular revolt, armed despair or armchair
criticism. Is an predefined 'open society' the best of all possible
options? How long can we support minimal politics and the (justified)
desire for conformity? What double role does 'The Net' plays within
this configuration?
chair persons: Inke Arns, Oliver Marchart
>>The evening events in the club K4 are reserved for the
>>theory-performances of
a) Critical Art Ensemble
b) Peter Lamborn Wilson
c) featuring special guest
>>Contributions as abstracts and short articles will appear in zkp4 >>The conference works in friendly collaboration with >>Hosted by Ljudmila (Ljubljana Digital Media Lab, Open Society >>For information on travel and particpation, please check the C H E C K E D Y O U R S C H E D U L E ? L J U B L J A N A M A Y
nettime's newspaper, 32 p, rotation print, in many copies on
different conferences in 1997. please send all submissions to
March the 13th see also news://news.thing.at/alt.nettime
Radio Student, Hotel Baclava and Restauration Bagatel
>>Institute) Organizing Committee: Vuk Cosic
>>Lovink
website http://www.ljudmila.org/~vuk/nettime/ (in few days)
and look for the application form. Or contact
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