Syndicate: Igor Markovic: Belgrade via Vienna

[abroeck@v2.nl (andreas broeckmann)]

Subject: BOUNCE syndicate: Non-member submission from [igor.markovic@excite.com]
From: igor.markovic@excite.com
To: syndicate@aec.at
Subject: Belgrade via Vienna
Date: Wed, 03 Feb 1999 04:35:57 PST


dear all,

Pity that more of the syndicate member didn't came to Vienna - not so bad
conference and more then a good exhibition. I guess someone will send a more
detailed report about Translocation, perhaps people from Springerin.
What is more important - a small meeting of syndicate members took place
during the Translocation (usual suspects: Lucezar, Lisa, Edi, Katarina and
myself) and we discuss a possibilities of having a syndicate meeting in
Belgrade in April, parallel to the video festival organised by SCCA.
First of all, big thanks to Andreas for more then useful guidelines which
help us a lot in discussion.
The story is at the moment simple: Katarina will soon enough (probably this
week) send a letter of invitation to the list, with background of whole idea
and wait for the people to show interest to participate. After that CyberRex
people will start organisational things.
Provisionally dates are from 22 - 25 of April, and the site is CinemaRex in
Belgrade. There is no clear, as far as we know, financial source(s), but
somehow floating promise from SCCA in Belgrade that they have interest in
syndicate meeting. APEX was mentioned as a possibility, and some other
sources, but at the moment the most promising is still Uncle George.
Anyway, if everything from the financial side will be OK, the schedule might
look as follow:
22      arrival, welcoming party, night life (optional)
23-24   syndicate meeting, night life (optional)
25      public event, farewell party, night life (optional)
26      departure
The question of public event (if we decide to have one) is still open:
should it be on the Sunday, the last day, or the better idea is to say who
we are, where we are coming from and where&why we are going at the beginning
of meeting, so people will have more idea whit whom would like to get in
touch during our stay in Belgrade. Opinions?
Content was a bit trickier - Andreas propose that we might discuss life
after dead of SCCAs as we know them, but Lucezar came out with the idea that
he (and all of us) was alive before SCCAs, and he will also remain to work
after them, so is it a smart and productive idea to spend time, money and
energy on them? However, the whole idea of financing, as Inke couple of
times brought up, (but with a very little discussion) is very important to
all of us. Since, in accordance with globalisation processes foundations and
donors are very well inter-linked, they love to have some kind of
informational centre which will gave them information about the situation in
the country (or region) and about artists and their projects. Not to mention
possible financial partner for the whole country. Future CCAs will get in
such a constellation a lot of power, which is not necessary wrong, but
again, there is a possibility that this power will be in some cases misused.
On the other hand such a centres could be build from above (like Soros), or
from below, which, as we agreed, is a bit better idea. Further it's not only
the question of finance - all other kind of networking for other purposes is
a field for discussion. Let me just remind you for the VanGoghTV
presentation from Skopje, and their critique of current hype about new media
networks on all fields of activities. Also, the question of post-West
cultural colonialism and/or imperialism was mentioned as a possibility in
such a structure.
Also, Next 5 Minutes will have as one of the topics post-governmental
organisations, which will probably brought up a lot of new ideas and
thoughts, so we will have a plenty to discuss.
To make a long story short, after a while we came to the working title
'Supporting structures', a broad enough topic for different kind of
discussions and presentations, including the future of SCCA centres,
artistic (in)formal structures, possibility of 'intellectual LETS' and all
other things.
The most important things, and I guess Lisa will add more thoughts about it,
is a question of representation, and how to avoid possibilities of
instrumentalisation of our meeting. After all, situation in Kosovo is not
going to be better then now, and our gathering is, like it or not, somehow
political statement. So, we have to be very, very careful in explaining why
we choose Belgrade, who is financing the whole project, and last but not
least who we are. The similar discussion took part during the Beauty and the
East concerning nettime, and Pit Schultz if I remember correctly, said
something like we don't want journalist to interfere our business.  But,
journalist and media *will* cover the whole event, and if will not have a
clear and, perhaps for the first time, quite unique position, there is a
good chance for a lot of misunderstandings.  I would love to see more
opinions on that, cause for me that is one of the crucial things we should
be concerned.
If I missed to mention something important from Vienna, honest apology to
all.

ciao
igor




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