The European Cultural Backbone was founded as an initiative of 16 Trans-European Media Institutions. They baptize their baby with an extensive "We want Bandwidth" campaign, starting in a medium near you any minute. What to do with it and what to make with it?
Amsterdam & Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 12-14 March, 1999
The third Next 5 Minutes, an Amsterdam based conference on tactical communications culture, featuring do-it-yourself media, dissident art and electronic media activists from around the world, took place on the 12th, 13th and 14th of March 1999.
N5M3 archived festival website
ReadNext 5 Minutes: tactical media was a conference and exhibition that took
place at Amsterdam's Balie and Paradiso and at Rotterdam's
V2_Organisation from January 18th till January 21st 1996. The
conference was officially opened Thursday evening in Rotterdam with a
performance of the Critical Art Ensemble from Chicago about the matter
of media.
Activists are using the internet to fight large companies over ethical issues. Yet many major brand-owners lack a clear counter-strategy. Earlier this month a group of environmental activists staged a sit-in at Shell's London offices. Although Shell turned the power off and cut the phone lines, activist Roddy Mansfield broadcast the protest live to the internet and e-mailed the press, using a digital camera, laptop computer and mobile phone.
It's almost spring in Tokyo-
to pick up the dialogue between David and DeeDee as moderated by Geert on activist vs artist, corporation vs independent--
Shu Lea Cheang (born in Taiwan) is a multi-media artist, working within
the fields of net-based installation, social interface and film
production.
For many reasons, the 80's, years of the Mitterand socialist government, were years in which grass roots movements got institutionalized and traditional activism was "out". The logic of the Republic (everybody is equal without distinction) allied with traditional individualism and clanic behaviour ("la guerre des chapelles") forbid the emergence of non dominant/non normalized subjectivities. This tradition is still alive today. The 68 generation didn't feel necessary to pass on their knowledge to younger generations. From their point of view, they created new ways to go about the world by themselves, so should the new generations. The notion of alternative and activism became stigmatized. It wasn't a very tactical in those years to position oneself in terms of an alternative. As a result, by the beginning of the 90, the most visible part of the intellectuals and the grass roots movements seams to be lobotomized.
ReadNathalie Magnan is an artist and theoretician. She produced video essays for Paper Tiger TV, Deep Dish TV as well as for Canal+.
ReadThis debate will address some of the doubts that hard core activists have about the usefulness of art in a political context.
Geert Lovink wrote:
A gap is now in danger of getting bigger: old school video journalism, done by political activists, versus a thriving technology based network of media artists. Complaints about an 'eighties' style of amateurism of video works are on the rise. On the other hand, a depolitization of electronic arts is apparent as well. Or do we speak here about a mutual non-understanding? A return of the outworn difference between activist and artist? Can the concept of 'tactical media' present itself as a easy synthesis?
The avant-garde never gives up. And tactical media has produced (at least) three different theaters of operation to wage its struggle: media activism, pure tactical aesthetics, and net conceptualism. The first allows for "formal" net.art tactics (materialist, structural), the latter two allow for "real" net.art tactics (native presence, site-specificity).
ReadHow does digital work differ from its analogue forms?
Although developed for military and corporate purposes, digital technologies also create oportunites for working people. With these amazing tools, we are not only able to invent new aesthetic forms, but also can work in more satisfying ways. Above all, digital technologies can allow us to rediscover the dignity of artisan labour without losing the material benefits delivered by the analogue working methods of Fordism. Over the past two centuries, industrialisation has slowly replaced skilled craft labour with repetitive factory and office work. In the Fordist factory, even the pace of working can be determined by the speed of the assembly lines. For most of this century, people have grudgingly accepted the boring nature of their jobs. In return, they have been given enough wages to buy large amounts of goods and services produced by Fordist industrialisation. However, once their living standards are sufficient, most people also want to enjoy satisfaction in their work. They don't just want money, but also respect.
One of the major challenges facing citizen groups campaigning to prevent, minimize, limit or regulate socially-irresponsible or environment-degrading practices of transnational corporations is how to deal with the corporations' increasing call for 'dialogue' and 'cooperation'. Many transnational corporations say they have seen the error of their ways and have rectified their mistakes. Eager to do their best for 'our common future', they claim to be listen to their critics. Thus 'dialogues' with companies or industry organizations are frequently portrayed as the way ahead for citizen groups seeking corporate accountability, rather than 'confrontational' strategies such as boycotts. What are the dangers and limits of doing so?
It has been a preoccupation of mine in imagining the supermarket as a
locus for political assembly. Clearly, it has already overtaken
religious assembly. In the UK the big brand Supermarkets like TESCO and
SAINSBURY are principle organizers of daily life. The ritualized
relationship between customer and supermarket have been carefully
constructed and maintained to a degree that compares to the
construction of religious faith.
As new technologies make it possible to move more information faster than ever before, we are dazzled by the millions of gigabytes that move across the world in nanoseconds. We are infatuated by bandwidth, digital television by gadgets and gizmos. Yet we hardly ask questions about the quality of the information: what is it that we are communicating? Is it relevant? Will it make the world a better place? And does all this information add up to knowledge?
ReadFrom: Bruce Sterling <bruces {AT} well.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 22:59:27 -0600 (CST)
Sender: owner-nettime-l {AT} basis.Desk.nl
Key concepts: art movements, Internet, reputation economics, arts grants, Europe, Interfund
Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author, speaker, futurist and design instructor.
ReadWebcasting often is seen as an alternative for experiments which would not be able to get a licence for ethertransmissions. The difficulty projects and broadcasting initiatives encounter when trying to get legal airspace has caused a limited view of the possibilities of working within the ether as such. It is already clear that connections between networks like the internet and the ether can be most interesting, but this is of course not the only reason to have a look at the possibilities of broadcasting more closely. The ether is still the easiest way to reach large numbers of people fast. We should always be aware it is there when we need it.
ReadWe've had the camcorder revolution. It made making videoprograms
cheaper. Audio-equipment is affordable, so radiomaking is possible for
a large amount of people too. So for a long time already the masses are
potential mediaproducers. There were only minor successes in accessing
the broadcast channels both legally and illegally. But the efficient
one-to-many distribution system (radio and tv) are chocked, regulated,
hard to get access to. The Internet having the capacity for streaming
media seems to promise new possibilities. Boundless access, for anyone
making radio, and maybe in the near future TV. Some are pessimistic,
and see these channels soon closed and regulated as well. What will
this streaming media look like and who will be streaming?