Cultural Exchange via Internet - Opportunities and Strategies Forum of the House of World Cultures, Berlin
1998    1999:		[ 1 ]    2    3    4	deutsch  |  español
		Insights into the Debate: 31 March - 9 May 1999 Access to the quoted postings Members of the mailing list: with a click on the annotations you open an email-window with the respective command (Message-ID) for retrieving the quoted contribution. Immediately after sending the message you will receive the text via email. If you are not a member of the list, this doesn't work, unfortunately. But there is a way to access the email archives to read and search by keywords. To subscribe: see modalities - or send an email to join-forum1@hkw.kbx.de. From 31 March to 9 May 1999, 35 people have been involved in the debate with a total of 68 contributions. Here, the most important topics of the discussion are summarized: In his opening mail, Hans-Georg Knopp, Director of the House of World Cultures, noted the further support of the forum by the Association of Friends of the HWC and underlined that the HWC would like to more strongly integrate the cultural exchange via Internet in its future work. 1) Gerhard Haupt, project director of the forum, called attention to the intermediate evaluation of the first phase of the debate as a basis for the continued discussion. 2) Webspace for Cultural Contents In response to Olu Oguibeâs announcement that he must take his website off the server 3), there came numerous offers of help and advice as to free hosting. Juan José Díaz Infante said that providers like Compuserve, Geocities, Star Media, etc., are in constant demand of such things. "They are eager to have someone with free organized content willing to publish it for free." 4) Sam noted the pooling of resources in many social movement sites as an example worthy of imitation. There, for a small amount of money, those involved receive webspace on servers which are controlled and administered by individual members of the group. "It is a shame that this sort of collaborative/collective working togetherness does not occur in the arts/culture circles." 5) Exchange about Technical Aspects Stemming from Oguibeâs mail 3) the exchange beginning last year about the vulnerability of digital information and the possibilities of securing data, continued. A few members, however, found these debates too technical. Pedro Meyer rejected this critique: "To express disdain about technical issues ... is to dismiss that today content is more than ever part of the form, and viceversa. The cultural manifestations and transformations are happening at such a speed that one can hardly imagine their ramifications based on past experiences." A forum such as this one, "is precisely the place to discuss, evaluate and be critical of all that is happening, INCLUDING all matters that are technical, precisely because they have a deep impact on all that we are interested in doing ..." 6) Speaking up for "Others" on the Net Olu Oguibe asked for opinions on a topic that he is concerned with: "that of speaking up for 'others' on the net, by which I mean the practice of political or social activism through the network, especially when the cause is in behalf of contigencies who have no net-presence themselves". 3) Here, Ricardo Basbaum made the following differentiation: "When the argument involves a political problem, it is part of its nature to be a collective issue. Impossible not to speak in the plural, as the proper arena for these questions is the public debate. ... MY political preoccupations only make sense if they are put into a social perspective. ... But if the discussion is set around problems on art, however, the scene is configured quite diferently. As an artist engaged on problems around contemporary art practice and language, I frequently see MYSELF quite isolated from my collegues: should I state MY preoccupations as MINE or as OURS? ... If I speak through MY artwork am I a 'collective subject' (US) or just a singularity (ME)?" 7) Internet as a Cultural Tool Stephen Roberts triggered strong opposition when he wrote that he doesnât see the Internet as a cultural tool, because it is more a medium for making money than for education, and that it is full of pornography and advertisements. 8) Tom Vincent answered that, everyone on this list considers themselves "educated" enough "to live through a bombardment of ads and porn sites and biased news reports, and still be able to judge what is important in life." The Web is a mirror of what humans are, and "a lot of it is very ugly". We knew this all along, but now we can see it plainer and clearer than ever. "Helped by mass communication and 'education', the percentage of people who are equipped to choose, to decide what's good and what's not good, is greater now than it has ever been, and the web in some ways contributes to that." 9) Pedro Meyer made clear to Roberts the advantages of the Internet using this forum as an example. Without the Internet, he could have hardly written his opinion to people that he doesnât know, nor receive answers. "We are creating a 'culture' about the internet as we move along. Just by creating this dialogue..." 10) Networking Gerhard Haupt stressed the meaning of networking, and suggested analyzing this more closely in the forum, as well as exchanging related experiences. Thereby, last yearâs critique from José Tlatelpas should be considered: that the discussion concentrates on the contacts between the "Western World" and the "South" and doesnât include enough about the interaction between Africa and Latin America or between Asia and "Native America", for example. 11) Kim Machan set one example of networking, in that she reported on her experiences as director of the 1st Festival of Multimedia Arts Asia Pacific (MAAP) as well as on the preparations for the event this year, to which she invited participants from the Asia/Pacific region. 12) Internet Exhibition Britta Erickson brought the Internet exhibition she had already suggested last year into the discussion again: "The exhibition would be about the role of the internet as a facilitator of cultural exchange. ... First, I would divide it into two parts. Throughout the forum, there have been two major streams of discussion. One involves cultural communication by people who are highly aware of the force of the internet and who strive to make use of that force. The other stream concerns a perceived rapid globalization of culture and its effects on cultures who are not involved directly with internet use." She named four possible emphases for the exhibition.13) A few participants received the idea with great enthusiasm, and were ready to cooperate. Robert Bernell offered to take over the technical details as well as the set up of the site, as long as a sponsor banner linked to his online magazine "Chinese Type Contemporary Art" appeared on the front page of the site. 14) Joana Breidenbach had concentrated on the theme of "Globalization" already in her postings from last year. Now, she listed a number of concepts "relevant to the study of globalized culture (from an anthropological perspective)", which could be useful for the exhibition. 15) Other participants expressed objections or criticism. Juan José Díaz Infante claimed that such a concept is "too broad to really come together." The exhibition would be too large, and technically barely feasible. He wouldnât, however, discard the possibility of making a creative project out of our forum. 16) Pedro Meyer noted a "cultural divide" between artists and the "cultural establishment (curators, critics, et al)". He suggested, "... how about trying to establish first if there is the ART out there, that you are ... trying to 'organize'. And once that you have that firmly in place, then go about finding out what the artists themselves have in mind, rather than trying to put together the whole thing back to front, going on the as of yet unproven assumption, that there is this mass of art just waiting to be plucked by your curatorial expertise." 17) Erickson replied that there are many different ways to go about this, and sometimes an idea can be best made clear through an exhibition. She explained again why she believes the Internet exhibition to be important. 18) In a further posting, however, she announced her withdrawal from this project. 19) Artists - Curators - Art System The discussion about the Internet exhibit was also about the relationship between artists and curators itself. Francisco Córdoba asked what other artists involved in the forum think about the exhibition. "... do we have the right to be in being members of this forum or should we wait for the 'approval' to exhibit from an 'expert(s)'?" The forum would keep the "distance between the 'experts' and the 'rest' if we as artists do not speak up". Córdoba referred once again to a document from UNESCO on the status of the artist. 20) By this he meant the "Final Declaration of the World Congress on the Implementation of the Recommendation Concerning the Status of the Artist", published in June 1997. Gerhard Haupt presented more exact information on this, as well as the link to the UNESCO database. He made the text accessible via email.21) Leandro Katz expressed himself on the dichotomy of artist - curator. He emphasized that the power-position of the curator of a project, especially in relation to political art "is particularly malicious when such a project attempts to historicize the work of living artists and their relationship to a political moment of recent times". 22) With respect to the mail from Córdoba, Juan José Díaz Infante wrote that, with the majority of todayâs large art events, the curator has unfortunately become more important than the artist. Therefore, many artists are becoming curators themselves. The curator is necessary, due to the fact that one canât show everything one is offered. However, it is problematic when the curator follows political criteria which interfere with the freedom of art. 23) Project Presentations, Information Exchange A fundamental aspect of the forum is that projects can be introduced and information can be exchanged: •  Tom Vincent asked for information for the exhibition and events calendar by InterCommunication, a magazine published in Japan for media art. 24) •  Jenny Millea referred him to the Australian events on the site from Australia's Cultural Network, of which she is editor. 25) •  Frank Vázquez presented "Arte Cubano". 26) His complaint about the impersonal addresses at Geocities was answered by Tom Vincent with a tip about the free service from V3, where one can set up his or her own URL, via which the user will be transferred to the existing site. 27) •  Abelardo Mena introduced "Rayuela", a project for Cuban, Latin American and Caribbean arts and cultures, and asked for link suggestions. 28) •  Xavier Cortada invited everyone to participate in a collaborative art project in his webstudio. 29) •  A mail from Bruno Wilhelm Speck told about a Net forum "Hightech and Macumba", presented by the Goethe-Institut São Paulo 30) •  Tom Vincent mentioned the "First South Asia Internet Workshop For Rural Infrastructure", and forwarded an article by Madanmohan Rao with interesting information on the situation of the Internet in South Asia. 31) •  Davis O. Nejo from Cross Cultural Communication reacted to a critique from Olu Oguibe 32) regarding the exhibition "Afromedi@rt" and its materialization, and while doing so he more clearly explained the project with media art from Africa and the African diaspora. 34) 33) In his response, Oguibe wrote how and in which context he sees presentations of works from this artist appropriate. 34) Concern for African Art dele jegede asked urgently that attention be given to "the devastating effects of a predatory Western culture on the arts of Africa", whereby he meant above all the theft of art treasures. 35) Manfred Ewel, former Director of the Goethe-Institute in Tanzania, agreed with him on numerous points, but noted that this topic doesnât necessarily have to do with the Internet. He therefore asked if one couldnât open a kind of sub-forum. 36) Summary: Gerhard Haupt
1998    1999:		[ 1 ]    2    3    4
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back		Forum of the House of World Cultures, Berlin, on the use of Internet in the cultural exchange with and between Africa, Asia/Pacific and Latin America. 1998 / 2000 Project direction: Gerhard Haupt - haupt@uinic.de