Ricardo Bello on Fri, 1 Nov 2002 23:36:12 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> Cyborg Festival II Phase |
Cyborg Festival first phase is over. The links are there, anyone visiting our website can take a look and check them out. We are just a small group, living in a farm near Caracas that had no use, so far, for printed newspapers, radio or TV. We sent out invitations these last few weeks using only CMCīs: e-zines, mailing lists and BBS. We receive submissions from many countries: Australia, Canada, Germany and Holland, France, Argentina, and others. The more dedicated and serious Venezuelan digital artists are there, but you canīt trust us on that point, go to the links. See whatīs going on in Ernesto Leonīs mind or in Yucef Merhiīs, an artist who hacked Caracas Museum of Contemporary Artīs website and took it away from them to show his work. In this second phase we must start to think, starting with the experience of what happened this past few weeks. The first thought would be there are no reasons for those categories: Net Art, Communication or Virtual Communities. What I thought to be an excellent art website, was a communication one, and viceversa. It all belong to one category: the ability to communicate; one urge, the will to power in the Nietzschean sense, the will to create and express yourself and get in touch with others, no restrain whatsoever unless it refers to your technical ability. I just finished Thomas L. Friedmanīs new book: Longitudes and Attitudes. Exploring the World After September 11, and he is right in several ways. The end of the Cold War opened the door to a globalization system build around three balances that affect one another, and one of them, the newest and most radical of all, is the balance between individuals and nation-states. No artist needs today the support of a powerful Minister in his home country, especially if he or she lives in the South. The mediation between artists and society escapes completely the responsibility of the State, competent government agencies or Museums alike, although sometimes they can help. It all revolves around a personal choice, the will to communicate and the decision to listen and see, even against our most cherished beliefs. We are opening up a conference at our website www.cyborgfestival.com -, in case anybody feels the need to talk about or raise such or other issues. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net