<chapter>
<title>Deep Europe</title>
<desc>...</desc>
<mails>
<mail>
<nbr>0.0</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] new mailing list: SPECTRE :info</subject>
<from>Andreas Broeckmann</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Fri, 7 Sep 2001 17:47:48 +0200</date>
<content>[folks: if you are interested in subscribing to this list, please, follow
the instructions below; as we are expecting quite a lot of initial
requests, please, give us some time to process everything; greetings,
andreas &amp; inke]

SPECTRE is an open, unmoderated mailing list for media art and culture in
Deep Europe.

Initiated in August 2001, SPECTRE offers a channel for practical
information exchange concerning events, projects and initiatives organized
within the field of media culture, and hosts discussions and critical
commentary about the development of art, culture and politics in and beyond
Europe. Deep Europe is not a particular territory, but is based on an
attitude and experience of layered identities and histories - ubiquitous in
Europe, yet in no way restricted by its topographical borders.

SPECTRE is a channel for people involved in old and new media in art and
culture. Importantly, many people on this list know each other personally.
SPECTRE aims to facilitate real-life meetings and favours real face-to-face
(screen-to-screen) cooperation, test-bed experiences and environments to
provoke querying of issues of cultural identity/identification and
difference (translatable as well as untranslatable or irreducible).

WHAT IS (A) SPECTRE?

1. "There's a spectre haunting Europe ..." (K. Marx/F. Engels)

2. S.P.E.C.T.R.E.: Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism,
Revenge and Extortion (James Bond 007 movies)

3. spektr was a module of the MIR space station focussing on the research of
micro gravity

4. Les Spectres de Marx (J. Derrida)

5. Craig Baldwin's latest movie: Spectres of the Spectrum (2000)

6. to be continued...

NETIQUETTE ON SPECTRE:

- no HTML, no attachments, messages &lt; 40K
- meaningful discussions require mutual respect
- self-advertise with care!

SUBSCRIPTION POLICY:

SPECTRE is initially hosted by Inke Arns &lt;inke@snafu.de&gt; and Andreas
Broeckmann &lt;abroeck@transmediale.de&gt;. Requests for subscription have to be
approved by hosts. Subscriptions may be terminated or suspended in the case of
persistent violation of netiquette. Should this happen, the list will be
informed. The list archives are publicly available, so SPECTRE can also be
consulted and followed by people who are not subscribed.

*Subscribe
http://post.openoffice.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

or mail to: spectre-request@mikrolisten.de
subject=subscribe

*Unsubscribe
mail to: spectre-request@mikrolisten.de
subject=unsubscribe</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>1.0</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] RE: new mailing list: SPECTRE :info</subject>
<from>Andreas Broeckmann</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Sun, 09 Sep 2001 19:43:53 +0200 (CEST)</date>
<content>dear anna,

thanks for your message.

Zitiere anna balint &lt;epistolaris@freemail.hu&gt;:

&gt; dear Andreas and Inke,
&gt; 
&gt; I was offline a for a couple of days I see now that your initiatives
&gt; are. I
&gt; regret tremendously that you decided not to collaborate anymore with
&gt; the
&gt; syndicate list, and you preferred to start a new list, but anyway I wish
&gt; you
&gt; many success.
&gt; Meanwhile I saw that you based your new mailing list on the notion of
&gt; deep
&gt; europe, a term which I invented in 1996. I insist that you mention in
&gt; your
&gt; announcing letter this fact: 'deep europe, a notion coined by anna
&gt; balint
&gt; 1996'. I will have to publish in all media forums my article from
&gt; 1996,
&gt; everywhere where you announced the new list - which given the
&gt; circumstances
&gt; will deepen the crisis and will even mor differentiate the opinions. But
&gt; I
&gt; can't agree that you appropriate my term and you base a discussion forum
&gt; on
&gt; it without giving a proper credit for it. Andreas, you heard the term
&gt; deep
&gt; europe from Geert Lovink, with whom I was discussing my idea in 1996,
&gt; please
&gt; clarify this.
&gt; greetings,
&gt; Anna
&gt; 

the term came up in discussion with geert in 1996/97 when we were preparing the 
syndicate workshop for documenta x in 1997; it is quite possible that geert 
brought it up, and i am happy to assume that the term came from anna originally. 
it is a bit odd that you never felt the need to point this out in the last 5 
years when this term has been used also in other publications (like my text in 
the ostranenie 97 catalogue), but i see no reason why you should not be credited 
for 'inventing' it. it's a useful and strong metaphor! (is your own 
interpretation closer to the one that equates Deep Europe with eastern europe, or 
do you follow the interpretation formulated by luchezar, referring to the depth 
of layered identities which can be found any where in the continent, and beyond?) 
i look forward to reading your text from 1996.

best regards,
-a</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>2.0</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] RE: new mailing list: SPECTRE :info</subject>
<from>Andreas Broeckmann</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Sun, 09 Sep 2001 21:52:53 +0200 (CEST)</date>
<content>dear anna,

Zitiere anna balint &lt;epistolaris@freemail.hu&gt;:

&gt; Dear Andreas,
&gt; I can admit that it was the mistake of Geert Lovink that he has omitted
&gt; to
&gt; mention where the term comes from. When you made a statement that the
&gt; words
&gt; deep europe was coined by Luchezar Boyadiev I immediatley notified
&gt; you, please chack your private mail. 

i don't archive my mail, so i will have to take your word for it.

&gt; The Hyprid Workspace workshop was prepared
&gt; not earlier than 1997, when the idea and possibility of the Hybrid
&gt; Workspace first appeared.

geert and i first talked about the hws workshop that winter, i don't recall the 
exact dates. i have no reason to dispute that the term deep europe came from you.

&gt; I find terrible that after you left the syndicate list, you base a new
&gt; mailing list exactly on my concept. Why not find a concept of your own
&gt; for this purpose?  

why? it is a very appropriate concept which we are very happy to use? i find it 
very odd that you would claim an exclusive right to sth that has been in 
discussion left, right and center for 4 years now ... you should look at this 
appropriation with pride, if you have to.

&gt;You could read first my deep europe text on the syndicate
&gt; list, if you would be subscribed.

maybe you can send it to me anyway?

greetings,
-a</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>3.0</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] RE: new mailing list: SPECTRE :info</subject>
<from>Andreas Broeckmann</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Mon, 10 Sep 2001 10:27:05 +0200</date>
<content>dear anna,

&gt;how could I be proud of my work if you don't give a credit for it?

you are being given credit for it now. you should be proud of it anyway -
there are many things that many people do and never get credited for. it's
called history.

&gt;And you say that Luchezar Boyadiev has coined the term deep europe?

no, if you reread my mail you will see that i wrote that he offered an
*interpretation*. i look forward to your own definition.

&gt;I am sorry if
&gt;Geert Lovink hided my text from you for five years, I would have never
&gt;guessed that he proceeds this way.

i don't see why it should be geert's resposibility to post your text, and
why you have not felt the necessity to do this yourself?

&gt;I have immediately notified your when you
&gt;first pointed publically for the term a wrong origin. I will publish the
&gt;text first on the syndicate list, where it should belong. You can use the
&gt;term of course, as a stated before, I just ask that you mention that I
&gt;coined it.

the term deep europe was coined by anna balint. it was passed on by geert
lovink. it was used by andreas broeckmann and inke arns. it was interpreted
by luchezar boyadjiev. it was used more by sally jane norman, iliyana
nedkova, nina czegledy, edi muka, and many others. it is a piece of
language and cannot be controlled. it was coined by anna balint in 1996.

regards,
-a</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>3.1</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] "Deep Europe" is really deep?</subject>
<from>Pasztor Erika Katalina</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Mon, 10 Sep 2001 11:48:20 +0200</date>
<content>Dear Anna, dear Andreas, and dear all, who are involved,
I was lurking on the syndicate list for years, I never dared to send a letter.
Well, I never had any special reason to do so. But now I have to write a
comment on "Deep Europe" and its copyright problem of Anna.

"Deep Europe" is only a flat slogen in my opinion .
(Except Anna I guess not so many of you follow the developments of the
political situation in Hungary, which is a kind of illuminating story of how
modern political marketing-communication (and media!) can sell about 5 million
Hungarians down the river.... with fine tuned slogans.)

There is a lot at stake at the election 2002: if the Rights (the Guys) win,
than Hungary will be conserved into a society what is an interesting mixture of
network capitalism and new-feudalism spilled professional political Public
Relation sauce on it. The national identity ("the national copyrigths") begins
to awake again but now it is assited by the active service of marketing and
management sciences. Philip Kotler's excellent and energetic students' rhetoric
feeds losers of the society with slogans and kitschy shows: national identity
becomes more important for the "folks" than the parliament controll of the
butget what The Guys spend on it. "Hungary - what you hide in your heart",
"Memory becomes Hope": politics are full of pink emotions nowadays around here.
(The sweet-gloomy-funny thing is that all the slogens of the government are
"invented" by the "Happy End PR Agency" :-)

"Deep Europe" - is nothing more than a slogan, invented by Anna or Gert, who
cares. Slogans kill meaning, slogans are the effective power of our media and
Public Relation culture. Slogans has a function to be obscure to understand as
many ways as many people gets it.

"Deep Europe" means nothing without context - and the context is created by
physical and intelectual activity of people in time: the context is a process
in space and time. Although The Guys introduced successful PR slogans into
politics, only the context shows the real meaning.

"the past just has been started" in Hungary (I do not know who said it,
sorry... probably I read it in the Narancs - a liberal weekly) - why should we
start it Anna, too? I hope we can kill off slogans and their
copyright-arguments in case of starting to think in - as distinct and exact
terms as it possible. Anybody who cares, should see further and deeper than
"who owns the copyrights of Deep Europe".

Sorry for my poor English mistakes what may confuses the transmission of the
core message-:)
Yours truly,

Erika Katalina Pasztor
media artist&amp;designer, DLA student of Intermedia Dep., MKE
founder and editor of Hungarian ArchitectForum (Epiteszforum) Online</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>3.2</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] RE: "Deep Europe" is really deep?</subject>
<from>anna balint</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Mon, 10 Sep 2001 12:59:43 +0200</date>
<content>Dear Erika,
maybe not many people care about slogans, but I do: if once for a term is
given a history, I feel better if that history is correct. In my view it
must have been important, if once it gave inspiration for so many people.
For me the most funny and ironic is that all this discussion is going on out
of its syndicate contexts. I was always happy to give and I am glad if
people use the term I invented, and naturally I don't copyright the term, I
say that I coined it. If you are curious to my context and my
interpretation, please subscribe to the syndicate list. Now there is a
discussion about ascii art definitions, when I feel it will be appropriate I
will publish my text.
greetings,
Anna Balint</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>3.3</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] Deep Europe? Deep troubles! with the "authors"</subject>
<from>ana peraica</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Mon, 10 Sep 2001 13:31:00 +0200</date>
<content>Dear all,

I had problems deleting boring Syndicate mailings last months and then
illiterate (Syndicate) mailings / attachments. I have a pain in my finger
that I use for the Delete type.

Just few minutes ago I recieved an e-mail, one of the most beautiful e-mails
from the old Syndicate list - asking is someone is still there. It looks
like a child entering to the village abandoned. The list still exists, but
emptied, evacuated. The person knows not that there was a war. As seems,
right now, there is an abandoned territory, one refugee camp and one new
self-proclaimed republic. I saw that scenario, and I know those arguings
right now... of who was the first calling on the  of independency in 1968,
of who spoken, who wrote.

Sides are chosen. And now we don't have a Red Cross that will locate people
we need to. I still don't know who is where as there are only few names
posting. How can I find people whose e-mails I like? The war happened.

And now the discussion is on inheritage. We are dividing names, history,
terms...

About terms, I am not fascinated anyhow. It is like the Humpty Dumpty from
the Alice in Wonderland who coincides terms, and with the exclamation of the
White Knife 'I invented it'. So what????

(BRACKET NOTE - But it makes me to think, do I need to protect my terms as
'Soros realism' in arts? Where do I need to go for that? Ok, I tell you - I
invented a term Soros-realism I find crucial in interpretation of the
artworks of nineties and last few years of this century, and it referrs to
the arts of politically founded melancholia and pittiness, that has a
connection to the socrealism of engaged art. It provides a reading of one
narrative continously and gives a differentia specifica to the art of
activism on the West. I find it ingenious, I am so delighted that every day
I wake up and thing - how clever I am when I manage to invent such a thing.
I feel so good, I love myself more since I done it. And I find myself more
beautiful, thinking - one day if this continues I will get the Miss Europe
prize. I am so clever and so beautiful since then. I am a witch. I knew it
is going to happen. I wrote a text Unsubscribe! and I should have done it
then. Why I didn't follow my intuition? Doesn't matter, I am so clever and
so beautiful. I am a princess of the cleverness and beauty and witchcraft.
When I recieve too many stupid e-mails I just go to the bathroom to see
something nice, and I exclamate 'Soros Realism!!! Yes, Yes!'. So, please, if
someone hears anyone else telling it without my name in reference, please -
slam him in the face for my own dignity. You are my friends anyhow... And I
will protect words you told, and wrote, to me. Please just put them bold, so
I know which one you want to keep for your own creme against time, for your
own grave. On my it is going to be written: A. P. (1972 - ...) THE INVENTOR
of the term Soros-realism. It would be ME, ME, ME. It is I; I, I, I who
invented it. It belongs to me and I carry it to my grave! Everyone who
invented a term should write right now! On the graveyard we'll have terms
and ideas. Terms should keep us to tell we are immortal no matter we are
under the face of the earth.)

But, if you find this stupid (mast.., fu...) that I have a certain erotic
effects to my own terms - please ignore, I was joking. Soros realism was
invented by artists, and Soros, and Stalin, and Lenin. But that topic is
erotic too (mmmm.... nice!), nothing is erotic as those names...

'Deep Europe' is invented by those who were digging, in a certain sense.
Diging what? Diging who? Diging under who?
Otherwise people call it East, living on the surface. But who invented
East - West - South - North?

How can one write providing references...  Weather (ref. anonym. since
Aristotle On metereology) in Croatia (inv. Zvonimir, ref. Pavelic, ref.
Tudjman) is sublime (inv Aristotle, ref/bold. Kant, ref Bataille...) today
(ref. fuck who invented today?), rain (ref God?, ref Aristotle ibid) falls
(ref. Archimed, ref Newton...), writing (ref Arabians) to you (ref. Syndicat
e) an e-mail (ref. ref. ref. ref.....).
Deep Europe? Deep troubles! Andreas vs "Anna", Syndicate vs (Syndicate) vs
((((Syndicate, ref (((Syndicate), ref ((Syndicate) ref (Syndicate))).

Who invented "Syndicate" (Marx?), who invented NN, Andreas, Anna? When do
you need to start with the intellectual property? It is destroying text, it
is destroying communication, it is self-referrent at the end. And in the
reference I can only write terms as - copyright, brand. It is boring as NN
was boring. Boooooring, the worst that can be.

Who has a copyright, which brand is this piece of activism? Now what is the
original Syndicate - copyright, brand?????  Seems this is the original
discussion, covered by the terms. Tell it loudly! There are three lists, one
is empty, one is Intenger's, one is elite. One interpetation what is/was
Syndicate is its original address, the second - name, the third - people.
Or, this is a discussion on factory, brand and quality?

best,
Ana</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>3.4</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] RE: Deep Europe? Deep troubles! with the "authors"</subject>
<from>anna balint</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Mon, 10 Sep 2001 15:13:00 +0200</date>
<content>Dear Ana,

as a researcher the main and very important questions I am fascinated about
are who, when, what did, organized, wrote, said, how idea circulates. I
confess repentingly that I spend weeks thinking about who for example
Dionysos Aeropagitos was, what and when did he write. Or for instance I
spend months to compile a Robert Filliou bibliography and I am happy to find
under any cicumstances a fragment of his. If once he influences the whole
media art scene, I am curious to find any detail of his work, and I try to
go back to the most authentic sources.

This fascination made me also to subscribe to the Syndicate list. I find
more than fascinating how the individual, the private interacts with public,
how one individual influences the other, how authors can grab contemporary
spirituality, how collaboration takes place. If many terms are invented, I
wish to know who, and when invented them, myself I never use for example the
word 'intermedia' without thinking to Dick Higgins. He has coined it, and
with this word and his way of thinking still influences the whole art scene.
I like to be aware of that, and I like to handle with care and in a
responsible way terms. That's part of my ars poetica if you like.

I am honoured if I can be in touch with authors and I can follow their works
as they arrive unmoderated to a mailing list. I find interesting the way 60
people left the syndicate list, and feel more comfortable with less
information to deal with on a new, restricted mailing list, though I see
here many problems - that of the syndicate archive for example - which still
waits to be discussed and solved.

Syndicate list is not integer's list, it stays for those people interested
in East-West media art contacts and in contemporary media art theory who
don't find too difficult to not open, delete, archive, read or enjoy the
mail coming from artists, organizers, curators from East and West Europe and
who care about the public space of the list. There are subscribers, readers
and contributors, Claudia Westerman and Jaka Zeleznicar build a web page for
the list, and we are all considering ways for organizing the incoming mail
through self moderation, bureau automatism, perhaps a digest for
announcements and theoretical texts.

greetings,
Anna</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>3.5</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] Syndicate (ref. Broeckman, Arns, Kluitenberg, Benson, Pandilevski...)</subject>
<from>ana peraica</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Mon, 10 Sep 2001 18:09:48 +0200</date>
<content>Dear "Anna",

The problem of the circulation of ideas, and tracing of them is today quite
hard. Circle is replaced by the more dimensional bowls, explosions, curves.
Tracing (of authors, of e-mails, of people...) is also hard. Linearity is
impossible. For that one should have at least continous space or time.

Once I done an exhibition project completely based on gossiping, it was on
the Oreste show in Venice, on Biennale (I hope you will not take this as a
self-promotion I don't intend to do among people that know my work and
ideas). It was the same obscure idea that lead me, that things are running
out of the documentation, catalogues, newspaper's reports or critiques. That
information is spoiling.

Then, as the problem of redundancy happened to me (and somehow I expected
and calculated on that phenomenon), as every name would invite in mind
another one, at least those of love affairs related, and each topic and
reference another one, and we know it from the hypertexts that it is - real, I decided
not to border anymore.

I am, myself, more considered with the streaming ideas than on linking them
endlessly in any case even in .html (and that is why I never use footnotes,
so what? - McLuhan never give his due respect to anyone before, hardly
mentioning any other name, and that does not make him less fair writer).
Only bad writers need to plug in the theory into someone elses, as the
theory they plugged in will save them from the critique. Only desperate
souls need to say - you didn't make a reference on me.

Reading according to names reminds me on the old time investigations... 'I
read complete Hegel' - do you think Hegel is the one that is interesting or
the world of his ideas. I know, it is a matter of the original thinking and
hypercitation, when the author becomes the 'author', and a person becomes a
kind of - it, a book, and turning back to their original existence on this
planet is also an interesting point, but reading Hegel so deeply one can
only become Hegel. Moreover he is dead, so becoming a dead person is not
some erotic idea...

What do you get willing to pay attention to dead ideas (and what worse can
be than a dead idea?), and making your own a cornerstone for the graveyard?
That is nercophilic, and more - nomenophilia is the worst deadness of the
dead. Nomen est amen! Name does exist separately from the named... That is a
point of buirocracy. Even alive authors don't like to live only in the
brackets (((((as they are claustrophobic)))))).

Why do you go back and did you really find important branding of thoughts?
Authenticity in the Internet age???? Don't you find yourself doing a kind of
Sizif's job. Why didn't you post that text, why are you bordered with
copyrights, authenticity, and invention of small notions such the one of
deep europe is. Copy-left it, we done it on the Syndicate not egoistically,
and now you protect your own rights? And you were, as you say, reading it?
Why do you border with words, dots, commas... What do you want to say is
important, not how you designed it. We all know who told what, we are not
illiterate so much to think that things might be so original...

I understand the term Deep Europe, but not like you. I don't like it, i feel
referring to the  d e e p   s h i t  and i wouldn't like to enter deeper in
that part of the Europe, as I was already too deep. That means 'your' term
is for me frightening, not challenging on thinking. It makes me to run
away....

Unfortunately in your e-mail I saw more the problem of the originallity of
the name Syndicate, not the problem of Deep Europe, as - sorry on a note -
Syndicate meant more than one term, and it made many of terms to be coined.
Actually why, when you feel so related to authenticity don't face the fact
you lost the Syndicate of the Syndicate? You quoted the name with no
content?

If you were consistent, you would have to write Syndicate (ref.Broeckman,
Arns, Kluitenberg, Lovink, Benson, Harger, Pandilevski, Zivanovic... and
around hundreds of more?) in the head of every e-mail on that bracket list
(the quote, the reference to the Syndicate). And pay attention to the order,
use alphabetically, it is better, there was no hierarchy of me - myself
and - I!.

Who the fuck invented friends !!!???? (cough, ref. M. Benson)

best,
ana</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>3.6</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] Syndicate (ref. Broeckman, Arns, Kluitenberg, Benson,
 Pandilevski...)</subject>
<from>w.p.</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Mon, 10 Sep 2001 19:55:46 +0200</date>
<content>&gt;
&gt;
&gt; ______________________________________________
&gt; SPECTRE list for media culture in All Europe</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>3.5-p.114-2</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] Deep Europe</subject>
<from>Bruce Sterling</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Mon, 10 Sep 2001 11:01:43 -0500</date>
<content>&gt; the term deep europe was coined by anna balint. it was passed on by geert
&gt; lovink. it was used by andreas broeckmann and inke arns. it was interpreted
&gt; by luchezar boyadjiev. it was used more by sally jane norman, iliyana
&gt; nedkova, nina czegledy, edi muka, and many others. it is a piece of
&gt; language and cannot be controlled. it was coined by anna balint in 1996.
&gt; 
*Hey, "Deep Europe" has even been in the WIRED magazine "Jargon File."
Trust me, all hope of control is lost.

bruces

*If you enjoy seeing net.english under construction, check this out:

http://www.logophilia.com/WordSpy/topwords.html</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>4.0</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] Re:[spect] list info</subject>
<from>Janos Sugar</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Tue, 28 Aug 2001 18:36:46 +0200</date>
<content>what about this:

SPECTRE concentrates on the artistic and political situations of Eastern=
 Europe to foster links of communication and collaboration among media art=
 communities throughout the continent.  This network connects artists,=
 activists, theorists, and media producers from 28 European countries=
 through both online and offline venues, embodying the tensions and=
 conjunctions arising from the cultural, geographic, and economic remapping=
 of Europe. =20

(slightly modified version of Jordan Crandall's column _ European net=
 communities_ published in Artforum, March 1998, p. 20)</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>4.1</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] Re:[spect] list info</subject>
<from>Inke Arns</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Tue, 28 Aug 2001 22:44:16 +0200</date>
<content>At 18:36 28.08.01 +0200, Janos Sugar wrote:
&gt;what about this:
&gt;
&gt;SPECTRE concentrates on the artistic and political situations of Eastern
Europe to 

nope. ;). why should spectre concentrate on situations in eastern europe? i
have to admit that I am as much interested in western "situations" as i am
in northern, eastern or southern ones. Madrid, Warsaw, Stockholm, Budapest,
Lisbon, Moscow, Berlin, Tirana, Marseille, Ljubljana, Genua, Bratislava,
Sheffield, Lodz, Linz, Tblissi ... 

&gt;foster links of communication and collaboration among media art
communities &gt;throughout the continent.  

i like "throughout the continent" though.

perhaps we should really leave of the notion of "deep europe" and rather
simply call it "europe", or "the continent", although "continent" might
sound as if you were speaking from a GB perspective (I was once invited to
a panel discussion in GB where i was supposed to give a "continental view"
on the media art education situation in GB... i told the audience that i
was "amused" ;)

the advantage of "deep europe" would be that it does not really designate a
geographic territory, but rather a state of mind, a kind of openness, or a
special way of joining different/separate entities together ...

&gt;This network connects artists, activists, theorists, and media producers
from 28 &gt;European countries through both online and offline venues,
embodying the tensions &gt;and conjunctions arising from the cultural,
geographic, and economic remapping of &gt;Europe.  

too much focus on "tension", and, more importantly: like this it all sounds
like a "finished" project. I think it should be kept more open.

&gt;(slightly modified version of Jordan Crandall's column _ European net
communities_ published in Artforum, March 1998, p. 20)

?

greetings,
inke
- mostly offline 2-21 Sep 2001
- http://www.v2.nl/~arns/</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>4.2</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] Re:[spect] list info</subject>
<from>geert lovink</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Wed, 29 Aug 2001 09:28:20 +1000</date>
<content>Hi all,

concerning announcements. I am not so much against them and I think that are
not exactly creating a environment in which an interesting
discussion/exchange will occur. I am not saying that Spectre should have
less announcements. I personally find them secondary and not all that
interesting. Necessary and but not vital for a list. I understand that
Annick and Eric as media professionals need this info but that can't all be
it. I like the idea of a quiet list but I would rather say a quality list,
with surprises and necessary differences. The silence related to the crisis
in Macedonia really worried me.

I do think that Spectre should not just be Syndicate 2.0 or even worse, 1.1.
Something went wrong and that something needs to analyzed. Just to continue
doesn't make sense to me and has the danger of repetition in it. Why not
change a few basic parameter or has everyone turned conservative in terms of
list culture and the everyday? I still like the ideas of a web-based
conferencing system a la slashdot which Amy Alexander proposed. I think
that's gonna be really necessary at some point and I don't see why we can't
develop such a thing. It's really not all that difficult anymore. Look what
www.autonomedia.org has done with their portal.

Best, Geert</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>4.3</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] list info + ars meeting</subject>
<from>honor</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Wed, 29 Aug 2001 11:34:51 +0100</date>
<content>hi,

janos wrote:

&gt; &gt;SPECTRE concentrates on the artistic and political situations of Eastern 
&gt; Europe to foster links of &gt;communication and collaboration among media 
&gt; art communities throughout the continent.  This &gt;network connects 
&gt; artists, activists, theorists, and media producers from 28 European 
&gt; countries &gt;through both online and offline venues, embodying the tensions 
&gt; and conjunctions arising from the &gt;cultural, geographic, and economic 
&gt; remapping of Europe.

well, this is just a personal point of view, but i found this definition 
quite prescriptive and a bit restrictive.  i'm not sure its accurate to say 
that we only concentrate on 'eastern european' situations, and given the 
progress the syndicate made in trying to break down territorial 
distinctions of identity, i feel that using terminology such as the above 
might be regressive.

also, if members of [ spectre ] are from one of '28 european countries', 
that counts me out already.  is it necessary to be _from_ one of 28 
european countrries, in order to contribute to the list in some way?
anyway ....

regarding a meeting in linz - do we still want to do this?

who is available around lunchtime on tuesday 4 september (sometime between 
1200 - 1400)?
shall we stick with the brucknerhaus bistro?  i think that's the easiest 
location myself.  they always have lots of tables set up in the 
brucknerhaus, just near the bistro so this seems to be a sensible option.

so let's have a textual show of hands - who can come at this time?
if this isn't a good time, feel free to suggest another time.

best

honor</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>5.0</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] Re:[spect] list info</subject>
<from>David Whittle</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Wed, 29 Aug 2001 10:37:04 +0100</date>
<content>Inke wrote:

&gt;&gt;SPECTRE concentrates on the artistic and political situations of Eastern
&gt;Europe to
&gt;
&gt;nope. ;). why should spectre concentrate on situations in eastern europe? i
&gt;have to admit that I am as much interested in western "situations" as i am
&gt;in northern, eastern or southern ones. Madrid, Warsaw, Stockholm, Budapest,
&gt;Lisbon, Moscow, Berlin, Tirana, Marseille, Ljubljana, Genua, Bratislava,
&gt;Sheffield, Lodz, Linz, Tblissi ...

I second that absolutely!

&gt;
&gt;&gt;foster links of communication and collaboration among media art
&gt;communities &gt;throughout the continent.
&gt;
&gt;i like "throughout the continent" though
&gt;perhaps we should really leave of the notion of "deep europe" and rather
&gt;simply call it "europe", or "the continent", although "continent" might
&gt;sound as if you were speaking from a GB perspective (I was once invited to
&gt;a panel discussion in GB where i was supposed to give a "continental view"
&gt;on the media art education situation in GB... i told the audience that i
&gt;was "amused" ;)

you don't say!  I vote (again) for 'deep europe' for the reasons Honor
outlined, and for the resonances you mention below.

&gt;
&gt;the advantage of "deep europe" would be that it does not really designate a
&gt;geographic territory, but rather a state of mind, a kind of openness, or a
&gt;special way of joining different/separate entities together ...
&gt;&gt;This network connects artists, activists, theorists, and media producers
&gt;from 28 &gt;European countries through both online and offline venues,
&gt;embodying the tensions &gt;and conjunctions arising from the cultural,
&gt;geographic, and economic remapping of &gt;Europe.
&gt;
&gt;too much focus on "tension", and, more importantly: like this it all sounds
&gt;like a "finished" project. I think it should be kept more open.

Yes. Also, for me the problem with this and the previous formulation is
that 'trajectory' or 'remapping' implies a relationship with the
'transition studies' industry, as well as, perhaps at a further remove, a
particular narrative of 'development'.  We should be open to every possible
perspective on current situations, including going backwards and standing
still...

pretty much sitting still,

D.</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>6.0</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] DEEP EUROPE AND DISPLACED IDENTITIES</subject>
<from>tamar s</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Tue, 20 Nov 2001 16:30:57 +0200</date>
<content>DEEP EUROPE AND DISPLACED IDENTITIES

 A silent voice comes to life triggered by the deep Europe concepts to
comment about its identity.  I speak from an immigrant country, my ancestors
came from Poland, I have friends whose origins are from all over the globe.
I leave in a mixed village by the sea where Moslems, Christians and Jews
leave together. 15 minutes from Tel-Aviv, Israel. The Muasine 6 Muslim
narrator, prays 5 times a day, this sound is overwhelming and punctuates the
days.

I cook Arab food with recipes I get from a woman I know at the local market,
mixed with Eastern European recipes I have from home. The language of my
trade is English, my syntax is weird, but my sense of poetry comes from the
bible, which is written in my mother tongue.

Life hazards, due to local terrorism attacks, is being reported dail
y on tv, Our sense of a safe geographic map had shrunken during the last year,
but my real window is window's nt. The internet had always served as a
strong displacement tool, through which my displaced identity found fellow
voices that shared and enhanced my new media enthusiasm.

Internet communities like real life communities are always trying to
define an `other`, a bad guy, in order to map their boundaries. I find the lost of
boundaries thrilling. My web sites design, net.art projects and interactive
installations I dream up, trying hard to realize in a place where the
infrastructure for such a venture is scarce, are all strengthened by info
bubbles the travel through my mailbox, for I'm an artist who found the
virtual reflections a hell of a place to be.

 Tamar Schori</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>6.1</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] DEEP EUROPE AND DISPLACED IDENTITIES</subject>
<from>KINGA ARAYA</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Tue, 20 Nov 2001 12:23:17 -0500 (EST)</date>
<content>Tamar,
Great inspiring message. I hope to see some of your artwroks somewhere (in
Canada?).
Take care,
Kinga (the 'other' displaced 0/1...)</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>7.0</nbr>
<subject>&lt;nettime&gt; Report from Albania</subject>
<from>Geert Lovink</from>
<to>nettime-l@desk.nl</to>
<date>Thu, 11 Jun 1998 23:15:45 +0200 (MET DST)</date>
<content>Culture after the Final Breakdown
A Report from Tirana, Albania
By Geert Lovink

As expected, Tirana offers much more reality than one can cope with. My
first encounter was overwhelming and confronting. As Europe's poorest
country, deeply Balkan and the most isolated communist regime for decades,
the rythms must have been slow here in this former outpost of the Ottoman
empire. Ismail Kadare, Albania's current national writer in exile, is
trying to find excuses for this historical inertia. But for Kadare
slowness does not equal backwardness. As he writes in Printemps Albanais,
his report of the 1990 events, "slowness can reveal, as under an
unpenetrable armor, ripeness and the inner light." This must be for
connoisseurs. Tirana in late spring of 1998 gives a rather different
impression--a steamy, grimy intensely balkan 'summer in the city' feeling
combined with the sense that the entire country is struggling to get back
to or? move on to normal. The country is visibly recovering from the
total breakdown of March 1997, which can be seen its Pointe Omega, the new
year zero. In that sense Kadare is right: Albania's "1989" is just over
one year old and the world should take this cultural delay into account.
 
Did Jean Baudrillard ever witness the violent aspects of a concrete,
massive, sudden, social implosion? I wonder. Baudrillard, who played so
with the model of the implosion, must have sensed something in this
direction, but his style is too linear, one-dimensional to describe the
multi-layered realities of the balkans. French language games are fading
out now because actual history-in-the-making can easily do without such
concepts (and intellectuals all together). It is not even about media. In
Albania, the slow decay from within (even more disastrous than elsewhere),
combined with a collective frustration over missing the historical wave of
1989, finally turned into an explosion of violent disinterest and despair.
It is tempting to speak of "post apocalyptic zones." But this is merely
postmodern rethoric. Which contemporary philosopher is studying the case
of Albania? The country is hardly ever mentioned by journalists. Robert
Kaplan's widely acknowledged 'Balkan Ghosts' (1993) and "The End of the
Earth" (1996) travelogues through the world's abandoned places, rust belts
and war zones. These books are a usefull starting point but they do not go
beyond mere description. Kaplan lacks a theoretical framework that could
match the conservative agenda of culturalists like Samuel P. Huntington.
In what terms should the situation outside the Fortresses be described ? 
Do we only speak in terms of "exclusion"? Or would you prefer an "exotic"
view on the pitoresque Balkan, like in Tintin's album "King Ottokar's 
Sceptre"?

What puzzled me most about Albania is its delayed, but primal drive to
(self)destruction. The roads are in the worst possible condition,
sometimes not even existing. Many places lack electricity and running
water, not to mention destroyed schools, dilapidated buildings. What is
this hatred towards anything public? And there is still no comprehensive
analysis of the 'events' of March 1997. The dry overview of Miranda
Vickers and James Pettifer ('Albania', New York University Press, 1997),
stops in late 1996 and carries a now ironical, perhaps then too optimistic
undertitle: "From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity." We should now read it
backwards. That's dialectics these days. The old one step forwards, two
steps back--no synthesis in sight. What we can see is tragic, ultra-modern
history in the making, monitored by brand new Euro-cops of the West
European Union, half-hearted Italian neo-colonialism to prevent mass
escape from the ruined country and plenty of wild electronic media,
pirated software, even a tiny bit of Internet, provided by the UN and
Soros, via satellites and radio links.

Seen from the dusty, crowded streets of Tirana, filled with its notorious
stolen Mercedes cars, Kosova seems a very distant place, despite all the
refugees that are now flooding in to the Northern Albania. The Nole
government is certainly concerned with the worsening situation, so are all
Albanians. But they lack any military option: their army is a joke
compared to the well-armed and experienced Yugoslav army with its
para-military units. Albania can only call for more foreign involvement,
not only in Kosova, but for itself.  There is a big need for a capital,
infrastructure and human resources from NATO, EU, Soros and other NGOs. Or
from Rome, Athens, Istanbul, Saudi Arabia. It actually does not matter
where it comes from. At least, that's the impression. It is the time of
reconstruction and 'development'.  That's the big picture--on a more
personal level, daily life goes on..cafe society--thousands of Albanians
on the streets and terraces of hastily and illegally erected cafes whiling
away the time.

So here we are--the first ever new media arts event in Albania,
"Pyramedia", organized by the "Syndicate" network, a mailinglist of small
institutions and individuals from both ex Western and Eastern Europe (for
a report, see Andreas Broeckmann in the Syndicate web archive).  A small
group of 10-20 dedicated Albanian artists, teachers and students have
shown up to attend the three days of screenings and presentations. Edi
Muka, who is teaching contemporary arts (video, installations, etc.) at
the Tirana Arts Academy is the driving force behind many of these events.
I interviewed him twice, at the V2-DEAF festival, September 1996 in
Rotterdam and after the fall of Berisha, in July 97 during "Deep Europe"
(Hybrid Workspace, Documenta X). This time, I spoke with him on the
terrace of Donika Bardha's Gallery XXI, Tirana's first commercial modern
art gallery, opened last March, a green (and clean) oasis close to the
central Skanderbeg square and surrounded by a decent cafe and restaurant.
This quasi-privatised corner of the pavement has palm trees and a
fountain. Edi Muka is cool--his dress, sunglasses, the way he's got things
in control (except when the lamp of the videobeam breaks, a major
catastrophe which happened twice...). Edi Muka is well informed, not only
about arts and culture, but about politics and media as well. After he
returned from Italy, where he fled in the early nineties, he worked with
foreign journalists and in the field of "independant media"  and their
Western support organizations. 

According to Muka, Tirana will sooner or later feel the impact of the
influx of refugees in the North. But for the time being it is still
recovering from the "anarchy" of March 97, the few days when the state
lost its monopoly on violence. Shortly after the incident, a commission of
all the political parties represented in Parliament was formed to
reconstruct and study the events. But within a few months, controversy
between the members broke out and the final report is still pending. So
the cause of all the destruction remains vague.  Can it be reduced to a
plot or conspiracy? According to Muka, Berisha at a certain point decided
to let everything go when he found out that he could not use the army to
attack the city of Vlora. "He defends himself now by saying that he had to
arm the members of his party in order to defend them. Maybe I am wrong. 
No one knows how reliable the data of this commission is. But a fact is
that most of the townhalls were set on fire. There was a lot of corruption
under the Berisha government, illegal deals regarding privatization and
real estate. A lot of them were done in favour of Berisha's Democratic
Party members. So this was a good chance to wipe out the evidence. In
Vlora people initially burned the police office and the secret police
headquarters.  But the burning of townhalls came later."
Culture lost too.  Museums were looted, even worse than in 1992. Churches
too. Most of all it blocked a process, several years of gradual progress.
For example, after March 1997 students did not come to school anymore. It
was impossible to get them back to the classroom. "If you see such a
destruction happening around you, after seven years of supposed
'democracy', the already strong desire of Albanians to leave the country
grew ten times." 

Since December 1997, things have apparently changed for the better. Edi's
students returned to their classes and a number of cultural events took
place. In October 1997, eleven artists participated in 'Reorientation',
an exhibit in a ruined factory, outside of town, curated by Muka. 
The show was mainly installations, referring to the state of ruin and 
was considered a turning point. Gezim Qendro, now the director of 
the National Gallery, participated, along with Edi Hila, one of Albania's 
modern post-1990 painters, and some young artists. 

Edi Muka: "Despite the fact that it took place in a part which is full of
guns, a lot of people showed up.  They were eager to see something
different." Another landmark was Albania's participation in Ostranenie,
the ex-East media arts festival which took place for the third time in
Dessau in november 1997. Albanian video artworks were screened there for
the first time. Also, an annual visual arts competition took place. Muka:
"In the past, everybody just hung some artworks on the wall of the
National Gallery, no curatorial work, no critics, just a big chaos. This
time there was some selection. But there was still a lack of the ability
to experience things. There were only few who reflected on what had
happened in 1997. I don't think this is normal. There is the tendency to
escape, the young generation leaves the country and the old ones do it in
their way. I concentrated my work on a group of young artists, students
who do reflect on the situation. In February,1998, a first show with them
followed in the renovated gallery of the Academy of Art. It was really
good and a large audience showed up. I gave some lectures about
ready-mades and abstraction, which is still not very known here. Students
have difficulties understanding what happened historically and
epistimologically." And Galeria XXI opened, which is trying to promote the
art market in Albania because there is no such thing.

The early revival is evident in other fields as well. The 'Days of New
Music' program a few months ago tried to open up the traditional Albanian
folk music and elaborate it in a 'modern' way. A proposal to build and
staff a new National Theater was approved. But there is still no decision
on the future of the "International Cultural Center" the enormous white
pyramid once the Enver Hoxha Memorial Museum. In its most recent
reincarnation, it is used for the Italian "Levante" trade fair, displaying
trash consumer goods.

All this is now in Edi Rama's hands, the brand new Minister of Culture. 
Rama, 34, is an experimental artist who played an important role in the
student movement of 1990 and worked and exhibited abroad. His story is
telling--In 1996, he was beaten up by Berisha supporters and he then moved
to Paris where he lived in exile. This spring, when he returned to Tirana
for his father's funeral, he was invited to replace Arta Dade, then
Minister of Culture, who lacked any vision on revitaliziing
culture-in-ruins with little or no budget. Rama immediately agreed. His
first action was a radical reorganization of the ministry, the first one
ever in fifty years.  Edi Muka has known Rama for years. "He is a
charismatic person with a lot of ideas, even though he might not have much
experience with administration. He has already left some marks." 

I managed to get an appointment with Rama on the fourth floor of the
former Central Committee building. Edi Rama: "I inherited an institution
still based in the old structures. It is also important to change the
physical aspect of the building. It was not functional and there was a lot
of dust that needed to be cleaned." Rama would not say how much money he
can freely spend. Rama: "The budget is low, but even that is misused.  So
the first step is to create projects that will make a decent use of the
budget possible. Only after that, we can increase pressure on the
Ministery of Finance and start to approach NGOs." 

Where are your priorities, in film, visual arts, media?  Rama: "Until now,
the ministery worked as a sponsor of cultural ghettoization. It supported
our self-complimentory attitude towards history and the related
institutions that we inherited from the past. The Writers Union, in fact
all cultural institutions--these old structures are not anymore a threat
towards democracy, but they are a obstacle." 
 
Do you see a growing divide between the low-brow media culture
and the elite high culture?

Rama: "If I can make a comparison. During the Communist period we were
living in a Jurrasic Park. Now the dinosaurs have disappeared but we are
still in a park where anything can happen. You never know from where the
danger is coming from. In that respec, things are very disordered. The new
media situation is like a jungle. But I am convinced that the only support
we can give to these newcomers is freedom. With the possibility to
express yourself in a free space will also come a need to learn and how to
deal with this space. Nowadays, here, people are convinced that freedom is
much more difficult than isolation. To administrate freedom means to
administrate yourself. During the time that you had to pass on the shelf
of totalitarism, you were administrated by someone else. You were not an
individual. There was no responsability and no anxiety. In freedom, all
these elements become part of you."

When asked about all those leaving the country, Edi Rama is sending out a
permanent invitation to all Albanians to do something for this country.
"But it is pretty hard to make invitations because you cannot offer any
guarantees. The problem with this community has been that it always worked
against its own future. The most paralyzed were the young generations. 
They were marginalized by the gods of politics and culture. The big
challenge now is to listen more carefull to their needs in order to make
them feel at home in their own country. To a certain age every Albanian is
a refugee in his own country. It is felt as a transit station." 

You are not member of a political party. Is it more or less difficult 
than you expected? 

Edi Rama: "I do not need to operate in a political field because
my power is not of a political power but a cultural power."

Until now, local Soros Foundation officials have not felt the urgency to
open a "Soros Center for Contemporary Art." This might change soon. Like
in other countries, the leading 'civil society' intellectuals, mainly
writers, were not so sensitive to contemporary art forms let alone
'electronic art'. But there is another, underlying reason for the low
priority status of new culture. Understandibly, human right violations,
food aid and the basic restoration of law and order take highest priority
with Western governments and NGOs. But with this comes a very specific,
subconcious, definition of 'democratic culture', a formalistic,
instrumental and legalistic approach which defines democracy according to
its institutional structures, not to its actual lively elements. We can
see a similar problem in the field of 'independant media'. What counts is
the primacy of frameworks, not initiatives or individual modes of mediated
expression.

Edi Muka: "We can see a standardized way of thinking within these NGOs.
They are working according to pre-established models, without paying too
much attention to the local requests. It is definetely important what they
are doing, to promote NGOs that develop democracy. But what is desperately
needed in Albania is a "cultural revolution." A large program to reach all
generations, not only the young. Let's take one example. The main support
for translations comes of course from the Soros foundation. They are now
mainly doing philosophical books from the fifties and sixties (Nietzsche,
Sartre, Camus...) and literature." Contemporary books on visual arts,
media and cultural politics are a first requirement in order to spread a
comprehensive understanding of the new (media) techonologies, their
internal logic, history and potential. And this counts for many fields in
culture. Otherwise, the existing devide between Western commercial media
trash and post-communistic and nationalistic state-sponsored, folklorism
will establish itself, leaving little or no room for contemporary forms of
expression.

According to Edi Muka, staying in cafes all day long is nonsense--artists
spaces should be created, giving people the possibility to prove
themselves. Step by step this will bring the attention to Albania and will
take away the desire to leave the country. International exchange also
plays an important role in this. Soon, Soros won't be the only source of
money. Pro Helvetia (Swiss) is coming, a French Institute will be
established and perhaps also a German Goethe Institute. Regional exchange
should also increase to avoid ethnic tensions like those experienced with
neighboring Macedonia. Muka: "The tendency should be to find common
points, as citizens of the world, not as ethnic Albanians." 

What is striking is the absence of discourse. There is no Albanian art
magazine. Before 1990, art critics were politicized and condemned in the
early nineties. Within the discipline of art history, political aims
had taken precedence over professional standards. The National Gallery has
taken the initiative to start an art magazine and the first issue is due
to come out soon. Then there is the magazine Perpjekja (Endeavour), a
quarterly cultural journal, edited by Fatos Lubonja. An english anthology
appeared in 1997, edited by Fatos Lubonja and John Hodgson. It takes a
critical approach to developments in Albania and runs translations that
deal with issues common to other former Eastern European countries. A
structure needs to be created to train art historians, critics and
curators. Muka: "What I am doing now is teaching students to write down
their ideas, to arrange a space. But that is not enough. Now it is time to
build the educational programs." A year after the total implosion,
everything beyond boredom and escape seems possible, first of all a second
Piramedia. 

Syndicate: Andreas Broeckmann, A short Piramedia report
http://www.v2.nl/mail/v2east/0741.html

A copy of the Perpjekja/Endavour anthology may be obtained from: John
Hodgson, 30, Green End, Granborough, Buckingham, MK18 3TN, England.

Edi Muka: kiko41 {AT} hotmail.com, tel/fax +355 5222752.
</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>8.0</nbr>
<subject>&lt;nettime&gt; The Politics of Cultural Memory</subject>
<from>Eric Kluitenberg</from>
<to>nettime-l@bbs.thing.net</to>
<date>Wed, 21 Jul 1999 18:43:28 +0100</date>
<content>Dear nettimers,

This rather long text is the extension of a lecture I presented in Tirana
(Piramedia), Tallinn (ACTION - REFLECTION) and Prague (Translocation). 
Because of the enormous scope of the topic I opted for a rather personal
approach. The text will be published in the forthcoming book MEDIA ˇ
REVOLUTION, edited by Stephen Kovats, Edition Bauhaus #6, published by the
Campus Verlag (Frankfurt a/M &amp; New York), and is due for release as a
biligual german/english edition on October 11, 1999. It will be
accompanied by the ostranenie 99 CD ROM. 

hope it is of interest to a few of you

eric

___________________
The Politics of Cultural Memory

	Upon her spoon this motto
	wonderfully designed:
	"Violence completes the partial mind." [0]

Identity, Belonging and Necessity

A visit I made to Tirana (Albania) in April 1998 marked the start of a
personal investigation. An investigation into a complicated field,
somewhere between cultural memory and politics. What I wanted to do is to
sketch out and map a territory of identity, memory, politics, and media. 
The need for this was primarily of a personal nature. There was no
expectation that I would be able to get any kind of complete understanding
of what the relationship of politics and cultural memory entails.
Certainly not beyond the excellent writings that have been produced
already in this area, most of whom I am quite ignorant of. Yet, feeling
the need to do this, if only for myself, seemed enough of an incentive.
Since everyone's experience is always different and specific, my findings
might even be useful for others grappling with the same questions I wanted
to map out. 

My need for this investigation originated from an unresolved dilemma. 
Writing this in July 1999, the dilemma, obviously, remains unresolved,
though it still strikes me as something dramatic. One of those crucial
experiences you would have gladly dispensed with. 

This particular story starts in Tallinn in 1995. I was invited to help put
together a conference on the social and cultural impact of digital media
and networking technologies on the Baltic states, called "Interstanding -
Understanding Interactivity". The aim of the event was to go beyond the
economic and technological perspectives, and develop something of a
critical cultural and social point of view. 

We were at the end of the second day of the three-day conference. The
topic was "Community and Identity in the Global Infosphere", and a host of
speakers was dealing with ways of reconstructing identity and the social
sphere in the realm of digital media. At some point the sys-op of the
ZAMIR peace network from the former Yugoslavia (who happened to be present
in the audience)  grabbed the microphone and made a short, clear, and
rather devastating comment: 

"We've been talking all day about identity issues now, and their value.
Our recent experiences, however, have taught us that nothing sets people
more apart than identity!" 

I had, as I still have, no answer to this objection. It couldn't have
pinpointed the dilemma more clearly. The idea we had started from was to
question what two simultaneous extraordinary transformations meant for a
country like Estonia. On the one hand Estonia was contained in a process
of re-inventing its national identity, a few years after breaking free
from the former Soviet Empire and Russian rule. At the same time Estonia
had entered the information era overnight, depending for its economic
survival on a networked international economy that undermined the very
notions of national sovereignty it had just retained. The notion of a
national Estonian identity is deeply problematic, if only because of the
large Russian minority within its borders, which comprises one third of
the overall population of the country. 

The reconstitution of national identity is a fundamental dilemma that pops
up again and again in the aftermath of the revolutionary changes that have
taken places in the former 'East'. Identity is belonging, and a basic
sense of belonging to me seems indispensable for any kind of social
structure to be able to function, for any kind of social cohesion to
emerge. The refusal of the identity question in name of a universal
ideology (modernism) or materialist system (neo-liberalism), inevitably
leads to a reactionary response. Identity forges connection, but it is
simultaneously also a principle of separation. This principle of
separation is at the heart of the dilemma we suddenly saw ourselves faced
with that afternoon in Tallinn. 
Deep Europe

Europe is a container of identities. A sedimental layering of cultures
past and present, in permanent flux between moments of crisis and tragic
sublimity. In this shifting landscape the dilemmas of identity can turn
into drama, especially in those regions where Europe is at its 'deepest',
i.e. where most identities overlap (and collide). This sedimentary image
of the cultural map of Europe derives from the concept of Deep Europe, as
put forward by the Bulgarian artist Luchezar Boyadijev. Boyadijev provides
a highly original reading of post-wall Europe. 

In Boyadijev's explanation of 'Deep Europe', "the notion is a metaphor
which could be problematic. In the logic of this metaphor, deepness or
depth is where there are a lot of overlapping identities of various
people.  Overlapping in terms of claims over certain historical past, or
certain events or certain historical figures or even territories in some
cases. It could also be claims over language or alphabet, it could be
anything.  Europe is deepest, where there are a lot of overlapping
identities." 

The formation of identity is a fundamentally dynamic process. It is also
subject to manipulation. The construction of identity refers to a reading
of the past that can be subjective, incomplete. Sometimes it is linked to
clear interests of a group. It is often difficult to fully substantiate
the claims made in this formation process. Identity, therefore, is not
just belonging, it is clearly also politics. 

Identity and memory are connected. Identity at the very least means to
remember one's origins. If memory belongs to a group, a time, a region, a
nation or any other larger structure, it immediately becomes deeply
political. Cultural memory is crucial in the formation of an identity that
transcends the merely personal. Cultural memory is not just museums, books
and monuments. Cultural Memory rather is politics pur sang! 
Cultural Memory and Collective Identity

The Estonian philosopher Hasso Krull once remarked in one of his lectures
that "history is a machine going nowhere". Though he might be right, the
idea does not seem very useful to the formation of any particular kind of
social order (such as a nation state). Krull's contention will therefore
not be likely to gain much approval amongst politicians, whatever their
sign may be. It is more interesting for any kind of politics to create a
meaningful context, both for the present as well as the past. 

This meaningful context can best be understood as a narrative, a way in
which material objects, events, documents and descriptions are linked
together into a coherent narration of past and present. This narration
conveys to its audience how the present derives from the past, and how the
signs that structure and signify the world around them, bear witness to
this inextricable connection between past and present. What the objects of
the past tell their audience is the necessary state of things in the
present. A society doesn't just exist, it is an emergent property of a
multitude of events that have shaped its current state. Its members are
never alone or alienated, rather, they are interwoven in the very
historical fabric of that society, which shapes their perceptions and
values as much as their immediate physical and social environment. 

The objects belonging to the cultural heritage of a given society are
never isolated bodies in a decontextualised hyperspace, nor are they
self-contained objects in a post-historical era. Their symbolic
significance is not contained so much in their artistic or aesthetic
qualities as such, but rather in the degree to which they are part of a
convincing narrative that binds the object and the viewer together in a
shared system of beliefs. What the object and the audience tell each other
is that their inalienable connection testifies to a continuity, which
transcends the limitations of the merely individual, in time (history) as
well as in space (a people). 

That is, if you believe in it. 

There are various ways to describe this function. The Egyptologist Jan
Assmann speaks of cultural memory as a connective structure founding group
identity through ritual and a textual coherence [1]. He explains that the
past is never remembered for its own sake. Its main functions are to
create a sense of continuity and to act as a motor for development. The
present is situated at the end of a collective path as meaningful,
necessary and unalterable. Assman defines such cultural narratives as
'mytho-motorics'.  They motivate development and change by presenting the
present as a deficient reflection of a heroic mythological past. A past
which should be restored for the future. 

What this view implies is that cultural memory acts beyond the founding of
group identity and continuity of present and past, into the future. It
presents a particular view of the future as necessary, and provides
direction for collective action in the present to move towards it. The
goal is to recapture and restore the ideals which have been lost in the
deficient imperfections of present day-life. Ideals that can be retained
through collective action, whether this be in the form of ritual or rather
through revolutionary change. 

Cultural memory in a living culture is never fixed. It involves a constant
reinterpretation of the present in terms of the past to decide on possible
actions for the future. Meaning can shift and rituals can take on
different forms. Rather than being fixed in an anthropological text book,
the cultural memory of living cultures is suspect to manipulation. Since
the definition of cultural memory depends on a continuous exchange between
the memory objects of a given culture and their interpretation by its
members, it is however difficult to reveal the outcome as fraud. Cultural
memory simply is the outcome of this interplay. It is the process that
counts, and not its arbitrary fixation. 

The definition of identity that results from this memory construction,
therefore is deeply imaginary. Benedict Anderson has convincingly argued
that "all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face
contact are imagined." Imagined because they deal with how people imagine
themselves and one another. Today almost all communities people belong to,
are too large to allow for direct face to face contact between all its
members. Therefore the modes of imagination employed to imagine one's
community must somehow be organised via an inbetween mechanism or
apparatus (i.e. media in the broadest sense of the word). 

The set of values and ideas that binds people together in a community
necessarily have to become mediated values and ideas. There is nothing new
in this, nor is it something pertaining specifically to the formation of
the nation state. Someone argued with me after a lecture about this topic
that if you would have asked a random inhabitant of Western Europe in the
late medieval times to define her or his identity, the most likely
response would have been; "Christian", clearly illustrating a grand
transnational identity-structure. Even more so, the measure of control
over the media that dominated identity discourse then and now is probably
quite comparable. The era of electronic media does, however, introduce a
new dimension of speed to this process; a fatal acceleration towards the
immediate. 
Location of Memory: 

Where is the memory of a culture, of a society located?  Principally in
the memory objects that hold the traces of the past. As noted before, in a
living culture this location is fluid and dynamic.  Memory is stored both
in material and immaterial forms. 

A seemingly stable container of cultural memory is the built environment. 
The streets of cities and villages, the architecture of the buildings, the
artefacts that inhabit the living space, they all testify to the
persistence of a culture's and a societies' memory. It was hardly a
surprise, in retrospect, that an ahistorical, or maybe better
anti-historical, cultural movement such as the Italian Futurists hailed
the virtues of war to destroy the stifling remains of moulded, bankrupt
and corrupted cultural history. The explosive beauty of the modern war
machine, ecstatically embraced as a relentlessly powerful tool to break
the chains of a suffocating cultural past. 

The monument as a physical embodiment of community memory, has, of course,
always been a focal point for the struggles over cultural memory. 

Cultural memory is also contained in immaterial form. First of all in
language, both in spoken language as well as in its written forms. Orality
and speech seem to be imbued with a much more subtle connection to
history.  Speech, through accent and choice of words is usually connected
to a regional origin. Accent and dialect are the regional containers of
cultural memory par excellence, they are as much part of the narration of
past and present, as the stories they convey. It would be interesting to
question if the concept of a nation state is conceivable at all without a
writing system? 

Like the monument, language is an embodiment of community memory, albeit
an immaterial one. Language has often become the battle ground for
cultural and political conflicts. In part these conflicts revolve around
the suppression of a local language or dialect to facilitate the
superimposition of a new dominant cultural system. There are also other
more hidden forms of assimilation and resistance that can become the
object of such clashes. 

In Estonia, for instance, the suppression of the Estonian language was
quite overt during the Soviet occupation of the country. The Estonian
language was stripped of its official use-value and relegated to the
personal realm. Russian as the new state language (i.e. the language of
bureaucracy) took its place. But exactly through this shift from public
life to the personal sphere, the threatened national identity and the
personal identification of the Estonians became deeply associated with the
use of the Estonian language. For them it was particularly shocking that
Estonian officials of the Soviet system started to 'Russify' the Estonian
language by importing alien language structures from the Russian language
into Estonian. One such example was the introductory phrase most Russians
would use, saying "I am X, son of Y", which was then also used by these
officials when they introduced themselves in Estonian. By most Estonians
these subtle modifications of their native language, were felt as a
particularly direct assault on the sovereignty of this last personal
sphere. 

Music is another strong container of culturally specific memory
structures, like rhyme, its formal characteristics ensure a pertinence
from one generation to the next beyond and outside of a writing system. In
a larger sense, aesthetic and formal design principles are the immaterial
principles that structure the awareness of the viewer about the cultural
significance of individual objects, even if no explicit story is connected
to them.  Obviously there are countless art objects and use objects that
physically embody these principles, but it seems that their "narration"
determines their meaning in a living culture. Cultural memory in these
instances is located principally in our heads, rather than in the memory
objects themselves. 

Today, this memory function is increasingly organised via the media
system, of print, electric, electronic and digital media. This media
system has become increasingly integrated, both through technological
developments (such as digitalisation), and because of economic integration
(mergers and concentration in the media-industries). This integrated media
system internalises the main functions of cultural memory, it becomes its
principal 'location'. It acts as a documentation system, of current as
well as past events. The latter by making use of continuous references to
that past with historical media documents. The integrated media-space also
acts as a system of symbolic representation; of individuals that represent
power (political leadership) or spiritual values (religious leaders), or
simply by setting an artistic or interpretative agenda. 

What the media system is particularly good at is the creation of
collective narratives. TV so far champions this function as Marshall
McLuhan already rightfully observed in the mid-sixties, reflecting on the
TV coverage of the Kennedy funeral.  McLuhan writes: "Kennedy was an
excellent TV image. With TV, Kennedy found it natural to involve the
nation in the office of the Presidency, both as an operation and as an
image. TV reaches out for the corporate attributes of office. Potentially,
it can transform the Presidency into a monarchistic dynasty. A merely
elective Presidency scarcely affords the depth of dedication and
commitment demanded by the TV form." [2] (...)"Perhaps it was the Kennedy
funeral that most strongly impressed the audience with the power of TV to
invest an occasion with the character of corporate participation. No
national event except in sports has ever had such coverage or such an
audience. It revealed the unrivalled power of TV to achieve involvement in
a complex process. The funeral as a corporate process caused even the
image of sport to pale and dwindle into punny proportions. The Kennedy
funeral, in short, manifested the power of TV to involve an entire
population in a ritual process." [3]

Quite recently this enormous power of TV to integrate a public of billions
into a collective act of cognitive processing in depth was again
strikingly illustrated. First by the televised wedding of Princess Diana,
but most of all by the almost global live coverage of her funeral,
following her tragic death. In the process of the televisual rendition of
a royal fairy tale-turned-nightmare, Princess Di became a purely
symbolical embodiment of community values and aspirations, making her no
more real than Delacroix's liberty, leading the people. 
Commodification of cultural memory in the information age

The European Union has identified Europe's cultural heritage as its
greatest 'info-asset' for the information economy of the future. It has
engaged in a scheme for offering multimedia access to Europe's cultural
heritage as a business opportunity. Given that the core of the future
information economy is information goods, and given that there is a
particular interest in rich "content" for the information and
communication structures of the "emerging information society", the EU has
declared the commercial exploitation of multi-media access to the cultural
heritage of Europe the highest aim of its funding programs in this field. 

Through a "Memorandum of Understanding" and the establishment of
"co-operation frameworks" such as MEDICI (Multi Media Access to Europe's
Cultural Heritage), this new market sector (cultural content industries)
is actively encouraged. The notion of culture as public domain does not
seem to have been a consideration when these policies were developed. Even
less so does this policy-framework open up any spaces for critical debate. 

This failed opportunity may in part be understood as a reluctance on the
part of the European Union to give itself a cultural definition, given the
great diversity of cultural identities within its (expanding) territory.
It is, however, problematic that in a period of European integration, the
EU is not willing or able to create a space for critical debate about the
urgent questions of the new cultural formations in Europe. Together with
the lack of democratic substance the European Union has become an abstract
and alienated technocratic and bureaucratic structure, that affords little
opportunity for identification to its 'citizens'. 
Uncritical Regionalism

Boris Groys has pointed out a more subtle form of commodification of
cultural memory. It starts with a strong anti-modern resentment, which is
particularly notable in the countries of the "former East" of Europe.
Groys notes that modern art does indeed negate the old cultural identities
and their perceived historical unicity, originality and authenticity. The
defenders of national identity do not appreciate that, but also the
"international visitor of the virtual museum of identities", who has no
wish to be confused by ambiguous signs, has no appreciation for it. 

This postmodern cultural tourist, lost in the decontextualised societies
of spectacles and ubiquitous consumerism, is looking for a lost cultural
authenticity which she/he hopes to find in the revival of pre-modern
identity and sentiment, particularly in 'the former East'. "The global,
postmodern, flâneur, lacking a clear definition of identity, is certainly
sceptical about any claim to a universal truth. But it is exactly this
fundamental scepticism that allows the acceptance of any other point of
view, as long as it understands itself as regional and does not claim
universal validity", Groys writes. This attitude results in an unpleasant
complicity of a reactionary regionalism and the international cultural
tourist industry, where even certain cultural fundamentalisms are
uncritically accepted, as long as they manifest their claims to an
absolute truth on a regional plane. [4]

Although Groys acknowledges the museum as a typically modern institution,
isolating objects from the specific historical and socio-political context
in which they operate, the "museified gaze" of the repressive politics of
identity and the international cultural tourist are for him bound together
with the museum into a single system. Certain specified memory-objects are
charged with meaning by these actors, much in the same way as the museum
carefully enacts their display into a coherent narration, to create the
deeply desired illusion of a stable identity. The regional fundamentalist'
dictator is thus seen as a somewhat hyper active, but nonetheless
sympathetic kind of curator. [5] A last defence outpost of difference in
an ocean of negated signs. 

Perversion of memory
"Nobody, either now or in the future, has the right to beat you!" 

In the Balkans, where Europe is at its deepest, the battles over identity
and memory are the most severe. The clashes over history, territory,
belonging, language and religious identity have a traditionally violent
character and are linked with some of most tragic chapters of European
history. In the wake of European integration and the emergence of
globalisation the regional fundamentalist wars seem to have reached an
unprecedented level of intensity and destructiveness. 

In March 1989, the Slovenian art collective NSK (Neue Slovenische Kunst) /
Laibach staged a chilling performance in Belgrade, called "Lecture", which
was to pre-figure the terrible events to follow. The performance also
revealed the dangerous character of one of the most sad perversions of
cultural memory of recent history. In the NSK 'lecture' parts of
appropriated speeches by the nationalist Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic,
Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbles, and the architect of British
pre-worldwar II appeasement politics Richard Chamberlain, provided the
elements of an explosive mixture. 

Three months later, Slobodan Milosevic would speak in almost the exact
same words on Kosovo Polje, the Field of Black Birds, commemorating the
600th anniversary of the Serbs' defeat at the hands of the Ottoman Turk
Empire in 1389 on that very "field of black birds". [6] At this occasion
Milosevic used his famous words 'nobody has the right to beat you',
referring to the growing animosities between the Serb and Albanian
population of Kosovo. 

Both ethnic groups disputed their contesting historical claims over the
territory of Kosovo. The Serbs stressed their long lived cultural roots in
the Kosovar soil, exemplified by the many cultural heritage sites
consisting of medieval churches, monasteries and Serbian dominated cities
and villages. The Albanians on their part stressed their decendance of the
ancient Illyrians, a people who are believed to have occupied the Balkans
some time before the ancient Greeks - and 1,000 years before the Slavs. 

In the nationalist rhetoric of the Milosevic regime the cultural heritage
sites of Kosovo, such as the famous monastries of Zica, Decani, and
Vansjka, were functionalised to serve a sinister political program. Kosovo
was declared the cradle of Serbian culture and the Serbian nation, a
theory that had been very popular since the days of the Serbian
nationalist of the late 19th century. It had been this nationalist
movement that managed to shake of Ottoman rule finally in 1878, after 500
years of occupation. By portraying the cradle of the proud Serbian nation
under threat, the right and the need for its territorial defence and
ethnic purification was created by the Milosevic regime. 

In the ten years this regime has ruled the remains of the former
Yugoslavia, it never failed to recognise the importance of the media and
the TV in particular. Perhaps Milosevic had read McLuhan with more than an
absent minded interest. He and his advisors knew very well how the TV
could be employed to create the collective narratives needed to justify
his nationalist and ethnically hyper-violent politics, and how to motivate
the Serbian people to engage in action. 

TV according to McLuhan is a cold medium, it involves in deep cognitive
processing, but does not excite the viewer. If this is true, then the
motivation of the viewer towards action of required more than the simple
exposure to a blatant political message. Goebbles already noted that
propaganda requires the creation of an 'optimum anxiety level'; a feeling
of threat and unrest that should, however, not transgress the boundaries
of panic. 

In Serbia the feeling of constant threat was created by the Milosevic
regime in various ways. On state-television a relentless campaign, using
the horrific images of forced baptism of orthodox Serbs in Croatian
worldwar II death camps hammered home the message of the luring dangers
next door. The reports of international criticism reinforced the feelings
of being under siege of practically the rest of the world, while mythic
stories of the partisan achievements helped to boost moral. In this
gruesome media-mix the evening news became the focal point of a national
mania, a nation wide brainwash that slowly but surely prepared the grounds
for war. 

When considering the various contesting claims about history, territory,
language and religion, within the terrain of the former Yugoslavia, the
current two dimensional maps of the international 'peace' brokering
agencies seem hopelessly beside the point. When these claims, Croatian,
Serbian, Muslim, (or possibly even Austro Hungarian), are projected
individually onto this terrain, virtually identical maps emerge. Each of
these maps would more or less cover the entire terrain of the former
Yugoslavia. This layering of contesting claims and identities over the
disputed territory is what constitutes the depth of the Balkans and marks
its tragedy. Only a three-dimensional map of the terrain of the former
Yugoslavia can therefore properly explain the complexity of its cultural
history. It is also clear, therefore, that within the current
two-dimensional logic of the international peace-brokering agencies, the
conflicts on the Balkans cannot be resolved. 

Access to cultural memory and participatory identity construction
In his book "The Rise of the Network Society", Manuel Castells, analyses
the rise of two diverging spatial logics. One of these spatial logics is
close to what we customarily think of when considering the concept of
physical space. Castells calls it the 'space of place'. In this spatial
logic, experience is located in an embodied existence, here and now. But
this experience is heightened, and to some extent estranged, by the
emergence of a second spatial logic, which, although connected to the
first, seems to evolve outside of the control of the vast majority of the
earth's inhabitants; the 'space of flows'. The space of flows consists of
the countless disembodied informational and economic interactions within
the world's information and communication networks, and is quickly
becoming the prime locus of economic power and material wealth. 

Given the profound impact the new configurations of the space of flows
increasingly will have on most peoples lives, Castells is deeply concerned
about the divergence of these two spatial logics. During the preparatory
discussions for the program of the third Next 5 Minutes conference on
Tactical Media in Amsterdam (march 1999), David Garcia, one of the
co-editors on our team felt the need to respond to Castells' call for
action.  Garcia: (...) I believe we must create a more consciously
dialectical relationship between these two realms, (which Manuel Castells
describes as the Space of Flows and the Space of Place) because (with
Castells) if they are allowed to diverge to widely, if cultural and
physical bridges are not built between these two spatial logic's we may be
heading (we may already be there) towards life in two parallel universes
"whose times cannot meet because they are warped into different dimensions
of hyper space".  (...) I believe that one such bridge or entry point may
lie in notions of reclaiming memory through re-imagining the public
monument. I still believe that any broad discussion about the public
domain can not be separated from the physical embodiments of community
memory in the form of public monuments. "The model here is that of the
city (the polis) in classical antiquity, and the stress is the memorable
action of the citizen, as it publicly endures in narrative". 

Public narrative is an activating principle. Memory is never constructed
solely for its own sake: It structures the relationship between past and
present to formulate a plan for future action. Disputes about public
narratives, in the Space of Place are traditionally negotiated
non-violently through democratic participation, both in the act of
creating memory and the formulation of plans for future action, as well as
their continuous revision. The new networked space of flows requires a
similar democratic participation, or public access. 

More importantly, the new space of networked communications still holds a
promise and a more profound potential for public participation than the
accustomed modes of participatory decision making. It transcends the
limitations of the regional focus of the embodied space of place, but it
also decenters the media control over the completely centralised
structures of broadcast media (radio and TV). Paradoxically the new Space
of Flows simultaneously holds the potential of absolute transparency,
making every single operation within the informational environment
perfectly traceable.  At which point it threatens to become a space of
absolute control and observation - the ultimate instrument of
authoritarianism. 

The decentralised media and communications model that the Internet
introduced in the beginning of the nineties, is dissipating quickly under
the pressures of commercialisation, and (even worse) government control
over 'harmful content'. Still the best chance for avoiding the dangerous
manipulation of memory by an increasingly sophisticated medialised
propaganda machine, is the radical opening of the media-landscape for a
multiplicity of uses. This consciously opened mediascape will constitute
an integrated electronic space of flows, where countless people will
engage in the participatory construction of memories and identities,
simply by creating their own heterogeneous messages... 

Momentarily, three competing models for the future media landscape
circulate; a model of complete centralised control, countered by the model
of complete privatisation and market regulation, and thirdly the model of
the networked public sphere. None of these models are self-evident or
inevitable outcomes of the current phase of transformation the networked
communication system is going through. Their instigation is a matter of
choice, of clear real-world interests, and of policy. These choices are
part of a fundamental political struggle, whose outcome will determine
whether the new space of flows will be as experientally empty as the
technocratic structures of the EU, or whether it can offer the spaces of
identification and multiplicity that Europe as a whole at least, so
blatantly lacks at the moment. 

Epilogue: Liberate the wires - Free the ether - Give us Bandwidth! 

Bandwidth is a technical term. It refers to the information transfer rate
of an electronic communications system. In social and political terms it
embodies the question of access to the international communications
networks, in particular to digital networks such as the Internet. 

The Bandwidth Campaign, which was held as part of the Hybrid Workspace
temporary media laboratory at documenta X in Kassel, centred on the demand
for a more equal distribution of bandwidth across the earth and within
society. It made a radical demand for the creation of structures for
public bandwidth to accommodate a host of participatory functions. In the
best traditions of the modern art of political propaganda a set of
unambiguous slogans was created. A selection of these slogans completes my
journey for now... 

Bandwidth is the power to speak

Bandwidth is the ability to assert yourself

Bandwidth is the Power of Access

Access to information and communication should be a fundamental democratic
right, for all citizens of the world

We want bandwidth now! 

---- Notes:  ----

0 - distilled from the song "War" by Henry Cow (Anthony Moore / Peter
Belgvad), 1974.
1 - I paraphrase Volker Grassmuck here from his text "The Living Museum",
which has been an invaluable source of references. The text can be found
at: http://www.race.u-tokyo.ac.jp/RACE/TGM/Texts/Museum/museum.html
Grassmuck refers in his text to: Jan Assmann, "Das kulturelle Gedächtnis.
Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen", Beck,
München, 1997.
2  - Marshall McLuhan, "Understanding Media - The Extensions of Man", 1964,
cited from Routledge, London, 1994, p. 336
3 -  ibid, p. 337
4 -  Boris Groys, "Logik der Sammlung", Carl Hanser Verlag, München, 1997,
pp. 52-53.
5 -  ibid, p. 54
6 - "Kosovo" in Serbian means "black bird"
Eric Kluitenberg,
Amsterdam, July 1999.</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>9.0</nbr>
<subject>nettime: report from belgrad</subject>
<from>Geert Lovink</from>
<to>nettime-l@desk.nl</to>
<date>Tue, 26 Nov 1996 09:16:53 +0100 (MET)</date>
<content>&gt;From drazen {AT} opennet.org Mon Nov 25 23:36:58 1996

Time for justice!

The second round of municipal elections in Serbia turned out in something
nobody could expect. After triumphal victory on the federal level for ruling
party and its satellites, local municipal elections in their second (and it
should be) final round showed totally different picture. In 15 of 18 major
sites in Serbia ruling party of Slobodan Milosevich suffered great losses,
and opposition coalition "Together" took vast majority of votes. In some
cities, like Belgrade, opposition took more then 90% of votes and it turned
out to be disastrous debacle for Slobodan Milosevich. The results of
elections imply that the opposition should take total control of all major
industrial cities in Serbia.

So, after urban population showed its will, the ruling party and its
infrastructure of corrupt judges and courts has denied the results of
elections, due to "irregularities". So they cancelled results of elections
in almost all places where they were in minority and called for a third
round that should take place on Wednesday. (For example in Belgrade
opposition took 70 mandates of 120, but after "legal intervention" the
number was lowered to 27!)

All that caused revolt of people all around Serbia, so huge protests on the
streets of cities started. Today is the sixth day of protests, and only in
Belgrade more then 200 000 people protested for more then six hours in a
very cold winter day. Every day at 15:00  protests start, and people
peacefully express their claims so that their will should be respected.
Today students from Belgrade University entered into the protest and claimed
that they will not go back to classrooms until the government does not obey
the results of elections.

The radio B92 is the only electronic independent medium in Belgrade and is
the only source of reliable information. During regular protest routine,
demonstrants go every day in front of regime's TV station and newspapers and
express their revolt and at the end of march they come in front of B92 and
show their gratitude for the incredible effort and enthusiasm of B92
journalists.  
On several occasions we expected that police will step in and close the
radio (as well as its Internet department) but happily we are operational so
far.

Nobody could predict how and when this will end. Both sides are firmly on
their standpoints. People want justice for their free political will and
Milosevich does not want to lose even tiny bit of its ruling power. Until
now everything went without incidents, and everybody expects it will stay
that way. But, the tension is rising every day, as well as the number of
demonstants on the streets.

Hopping that justice will win in the end 
Drazen Pantic</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>9.1</nbr>
<subject>Re: nettime: report from belgrad</subject>
<from>Armin Medosch</from>
<to>nettime-l@desk.nl</to>
<date>Tue, 26 Nov 1996 15:13:27 +0100</date>
<content>Hello nettimers,

I am really glad about this report from Belgrade, especially since the
big german newspapers donŤt write about it. 

Today in "Sueddeutsche Zeitung", which is the biggest "quality"
newspaper in Germany there was only a ten line article. Titled "Biggest
demonstrations against Milosevic since 1991" it writes in a very vague
way about the whole thing, letting it look like some students
demonstrations. Also the manipulation of election results by the
government are not reported as fact but as "said to be". On the same
page there is a rather big article about former Turkish President Ylmaz
being beaten on his nose in Hungary. For me this shows that "Western
Democratic Media" are not really that democratic or that free, but
rather selective. Disinformation can also be created by focusing on some
topics and on others not. I donŤt understand, why big Western media like
Sueddeutsche Zeitung donŤt report in big style about the struggle of
Serbian people against anit-democrat powers, but probably they have some
reason. Also the media in Germany didnŤt complain much about Tudjman
ignoring/suppressing the results of the Zagreb elections.
So maybe the reason is that the Germans want the Serbians always look
like the bad guys. A self-conscious peopleŤs revolt doesnŤt fit into
that picture maybe. Or there are any strange deals with Milosevic behind
the scene. 

The same journal Sueddeutsche Zeitung also didnŤt report any background
information about the riots in Indonesia that summer. All you got to
know was, that there is an opposition and ther was some fighting, how
many people were injured or killed and taken to prison and that most of
them (?!?) were released from jail a few days later. But it was never
told that the father of the opposition leader was a democratically
elected President who was overthrown by a military coup by the now still
governing dictator and that this action was supported by the CIA and
could happen while the world was fixated on the war in Palaestina in 67
(source: Noam Chomsky, Power and Economy). Without this background
nobody could know how bad it was for the opposition that the daughter of
the former president can now not be a candidate for the elections next
year in Indonesia because she was removed from the head of the only
opposition party through this government intervention. At the same time
Indonesia is considered a "very interesting market" and German companies
like Telekom and Siemens are doing very good business there. The German
state itself sold between 20 and 30 military landing boats (from former
East German Navy) to Indonesia. These boats are ideally fitting for
invasions of Islands like East-Timor (but this is not the only
suppressed region in Indonesia) because they can call at sandy beaches
and spit out light tanks and armed troops trhough a front hatch. Also
these boats are extremely fast, making 60 knots. When the German
Government was attacked by (not too many) journalists about the sale of
these boats they defended themselves by saying that all weapons were
dismantled from the boats. Anyway its easy to install new weapons and
better ones then the outdated east german/russian rocket throwers. 

So what Chomsky says in "Power and Economy", that bringing democracy to
the world is not really the goal of the West, can be found true in the
case of Indonesia. It seems to be more interesting for the West to have
a strange kind of "stability" even if this means to support totalitarian
regimes, because this stability - which is often a stability of
graveyards - protects Western investments. The role of media - and not
just the real cheap mass media but also the so called quality newspapers
- seems to be to find excuses for the acting of governments and
multinationals and to spread disinformation by leading the attention of
people in the own country to other topics at a given moment.         

These are examples for information controll, not totalitarian controll
but self controll of capitalist newspapers (or is there a state
influence that we cant see). It is something that makes me very angry
for a long time also because it is so hard to proof how these things are
done purposely. Without well recherched backgrounds it often stays very
nebulous what is really going on. So I have no clue why German mass
media are not reporting about what happens in Serbia right now. Maybe
somebody can help me.  

Armin Medosch</content>
</mail>
<mail>
<nbr>10.0</nbr>
<subject>[spectre] where is deep europe?</subject>
<from>Andreas Broeckmann</from>
<to>spectre@mikrolisten.de</to>
<date>Thu, 15 Nov 2001 13:57:29 +0200</date>
<content>here is an excerpt from a text that i wrote in 1997 for the third
ostranenie catalogue; i think it clarifies at least my understanding of the
notion 'deep europe':
For the Syndicate workshop at the Hybrid WorkSpace during the documenta X
in Kassel we chose the title "Deep Europe". We were looking for a term that
was neither East- nor West-specific, that carried some of the historical
baggage of the notion of Europe, and that was at the same time strange
enough to be easily understood as ironic. It was an experimental title that
turned out to be an interesting focus for thinking about the context of our
work. In the end, Luchezar Boyadijev's (Sofia) reading of 'Deep Europe' was
accepted by most participants: 'The notion is a metaphor which could be
problematic. In the logic of this metaphor, deepness or depth is where
there are a lot of overlapping identities of various people. Overlapping in
terms of claims over certain historical past, or certain events or certain
historical figures or even territories in some cases. It could also be
claims over language or alphabet, it could be anything. Europe is deepest,
where there are a lot of overlapping identities.'

This mapping of culture and of the depth of identities onto the mental and
physical geography stands not in contradiction to, but is a condition of
the work that is being done in electronically networked translocal
environments equipped with all sorts of telematic gear. After the workshop,
Branka Milicic Davic wrote: 'what is deep europe? is it real? is it safe?
my answer is - yes. deep europe is real. it exists. i do not need visa to
be there, i do not need an invitation letter to be there, i can simply sit
and think and i am there - in the land without borders, policemen,
elections, president, government.... where no radio or TV station will be
banned... whose citizens are speaking different languages without shame...
and lot more. deep europe is my homeland, my private mental space, which i
share with others. deep europe recognizes words like exchanging, sharing,
growing. and that's why i believe deep europe exists. because i went there,
and i can go there whenever i wish. to exchange, share, grow and
understand.'

On the surface, the Syndicate is an informal network and an 'intercom'
system for people in the media art community in Europe and beyond. At the
same time, this inter-communication effects a re-mapping of cultural and
mental territories that transcends the political, religious and territorial
separations which we regard as a temporary nuisance, rather than as the
last word on this imagined continent/container. Lisa Haskel (London)
concludes her Deep European 'letter from home': 'So perhaps, this is what
Deep Europe is all about. Not a political position, a utopia or a
manifesto, but rather a digging, excavating, tunnelling process toward
greater understanding and connection, but which fully recognises different
starting points and possible directions: a collaborative process with a
shared desire for making connection. There may be hold-ups and some
frustrations, quite a bit of hard work is required, but we can perhaps be
aided by some machinery. The result is a channel for exchange for use by
both ourselves and others with common aims and interests.'

http://www.v2.nl/east/archive/deep_europe/</content>
</mail>
</mails>
</chapter>