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Maja Ciric
Beigetreten:
29 Okt 2006
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Dienstag, 31. Oktober 2006 23:15:49
inputs regarding the concept of the other in my practice number 2
As an independent curator I had a chance to curate two amazing projects: 1. www.mobile-studios.org and 2. http://www.htmlles.net/export2/
The partners from 1.Berlin and 2. Montreal were this strong other that allowed to the Balkans to represent themselves as equals. They helped us to develop a network of contacts in the region, but also too obtain the visibility outside of the region.
This partnerships allowed us to become visible online and within different networks they belong to.
Just look at these websites and see how cities are connected and thus how the boundaries are changed online.
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Maja Ciric
Beigetreten:
29 Okt 2006
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Dienstag, 31. Oktober 2006 23:42:06
avoiding gate-keepers
Both of these projects were based on the trans-national networking and very often avoided traditional gate-keepersor their cultural policy: People employed were independent and in the second project 4th wave feminism was the key word(women relaying on their individuality and creativity, women who often refuse to call themselves feminists because they are aware of the fact that the need for change should not be based on any kind of borders)
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Christopher Gordon
Beigetreten:
20 Feb 2006
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Dienstag, 07. November 2006 20:01:55
boundaries...
I'm not sure where this interesting exchange is going, but I wanted to throw in a few lateral thoughts.
1) I think that the semantics are in themselves quite revealing. Boundaries, borders, frontiers, limits, confines from their - mostly Latin - derivations all seems to incorporate the notion of putting a ring (hello CIRCLE!) around some identified point and protecting it at the edges, extremities from external incursions. So the 'gatekeeper' logic as already observed is very strong. Gate - Latin 'porta' has the same root as 'portus' or way in (port, harbour, haven etc) like the Greek derived 'embassy' or way in. But also the Latin 'limes' - used for the boundary or limit of the Empire comes indirectly from the Greek 'limen' which means port/harbour, i.e. safe haven. The Latin 'frons' from which comes front, frontier etc, has a secondary poetic meaning in Horace, Ovid etc. of garland or coronet, and we're back to circles again.
2) So yes, I agree with all that has gone before about artificial constructs. What I think the above reveals very clearly is that both the literal and metaphorical uses of the language of boundaries/limits is essentially linear, territorial and 2-dimensional. And lurking in there, more's the pity, is the 19th century nation state. Like it or not, and despite most of the political rhetoric, this is what the pan-European institutions are still struggling to deal with. What the technology and the internet have done, however, is to transform the accepted understandings from 2D to 3D where - give or take language - the borders have gone.
3) All of this is, of course, further confused by much that is happening in a 3D model also happening to be about trade, employment, economics etc. which governments and the EU in particular are still struggling to deal with in old-fashioned 2D 'pre-globalisation' models of practice. And on timescales that don't remotely match up to the accelerating realities.
4) A lot of the comment that I come across in virtual space seems to be happening at very different speeds in different art forms, although the trend may be for more and more creation to be taking place in cross-disciplinary modes. Visually and word based media clearly have the advantage, and set the pace. I remain far from convinced about some of what is claimed for musical collaborations via the internet etc., where I personally think there is often a huge critically unexamined confusion between process and product. Still, this partly refers back to Andreas' point about the 1980s role of cultural networks helping to build trust, which is right. Trust doesn't feature strongly in crazy artificial tokenistic EU funding schemes for culture that require 'Rentapartners' and then don't get decisions on applications till more than half way through the year. By which time anyone creative has moved on several ideas and possibly lost intrest in carrying out what is belatedly possible. The speed (potentially, anyway) of cooperation online simply shows up the dinosaur characteristics of well-meaning attempts to respond to what is out there. And yet these are the people many are suggesting should be formuating some 'cultural policy' for Europe?
OK, I said I didn't know where this was going...
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Violeta Vojvodic
Beigetreten:
08 Feb 2006
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Mittwoch, 08. November 2006 16:45:13
Re: inputs regarding the concet of the other in my practice number 1.
I find Maja's case very indicative: "... two groups were segregated, the Balkan and the West did not merge. After the workshop was over the list of emails was divided: one for the Balkans one for the Western Europe... " ... (in relation to West and East/ or in this case Balkan) talking about Internet - accessibility - online cooperation, one of the (often) employed term is "digital divide" between societies that “haves and have nots”, i.e., fast broadband, access to information, offer of rich and diverse on line content ... BUT, this was a case of "Human (driven) Divide"... seems to me that on one side we often face a lack of openness and willingness to "communicate" but on the other side a readiness to "cooperate" (motivated as Christopher so nicely put it by "artificial tokenistic (EU-or other) funding schemes" ... "digital divide" might be overcome by technologic, economic and educational means, but to overcome "Human (driven) Divide"... hmmm, that's a challenge
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