Syndicate: About some other aspects of SEAFair '98

[Melentie Pandilovski <mpandil@soros.org.mk>]

Dear Syndicalists,

I am quite glad that many issues were raised these days regarding 
SEAFair 98, but also regarding the Syndicate, its future, the structure
of its meetings, etc.
I also found one of the more interesting questions raised to be the
presentation of Net Art projects on SEAFair and on the Festivals in
general. I think that many of us will have to try to answer this
question at some point, because the problem of presentation of Net Art
projects is grave and therefore will have to be treated accordingly. The
artists are of course the ones who really feel this so that I am not
surprised that the initiative comes from them (Tina and Igor). 
It is of course hard to find immediate solutions on these pressing
issues but I will in this respect try to give my views and try to
explain why certain things happened as they did and to point out to 
some perhaps less known circumstances prior to and during SEAFair '98
with the hope that it will clear up some things.

The exhibition part of SEAFair '98 was set in that particular way due to
many conceptual as well as technical circumstances. People organizing
shows, especially the ones curating them know that this is a work that
is highly dependent on compromises. Compromises which have a lot to do
with budget issues, organizing issues, contacts with other organizations,
venues, dates, etc. It was extremly difficult this time to find
sufficient funds to cover the travel, and stay for the Net-Artists (a
vast majority of which was from the West). These artists were invited to
come to the Festival but we could not simply cover their expenses.
I am really sorry about this and I hope to be able to do something more
about this theme in the future. The reason why there were not any
presentations of the Net Artists was that they could also not afford to
come to the Festival. The other selected Net-Artists that managed to
come (Igor Stromajer and Jaka Zeleznikar) could have presented their work
in the JUNCTION presentations. Igor didn't present b.ALT.ica but had a
really interesting presentation titled "The Story about Net Art".
We were successful in finding funds (through the Culture Link program of
the Open Society Institutes) for the Syndicalists (that is the
Syndicalists that came from the Eastern part of Europe).
We were also successful in bringing in the people that dealt with
Net-Linked Installations, and  VR.

In fact I agree with Igor Stromajer and find last years SEAFair edition
to be sheer poetry compared to this year's academism and syndicalism. 
It was really beautiful to see and hear last year the Net-Artists
speaking about their projects, the circumstances they were created in,
the context out of which they sprouted, the future development of the
projects, creating thus a very intimate atmosphere, and an immediate
relation with the audience. However, it is also true that SEAFair '97
was of course a very desired form of a festival by the artists. They
were in the absolute center of attention. There were no theoreticians
speaking, no Syndicalists dealing with a variety of issues, no
commercial presentations. An organizer may go on for some time with this
intimate form of a Festival but I fear that at some point the audience
will demand a change. 

Regarding the issue of the presentation of Net Art I couldn't agree more that 
separate spaces are necessary for the proper viewing of the projects. It is of course
true not only for Net Art but for electronic&media art in general. In fact, we
have been insisting on this issue since our first annual exhibition
"Image Box (Dec.1994 - Jan.1995), which took part in the Cultural Center
"Mala Stanica", where we had placed 17 gigantic installations in
completely separate spaces. In this case of course we didn't have any
sound or visual interference, and the artists were quite satisfied. We
had though problems of completely different nature. Namely, "Mala
Stanica" is in fact an old military warehouse with no infrastructure so
that we had to bring in electricity, heating, guards, movable toilets,
etc... We were confronted with almost same problems while preparing 3
exhibitions (with around 25 artists each) in Cifte Amam (Turkish Bath in
the oriental part of Skopje), or during our last annual exhibition in
the very interesting H'vzi Pashini Konaci.

Taking the organizational and other issues into account we decided to do SEAFair '97 
and  SEAFair '98  in the Museum of Contemporary Arts. But, as you cannot
have two goods in the same time the Museum building ( beeing a perfect
example of the 60-ies architecture with vast open spaces and large
windows) proved that in fact it is not suitable for presentation of
Net-Art projects in separate spaces. Also any attempt to divide 
the space would be very costly.

As far as the computers on pedestals, there was really no irony intended by me as a curator
or by SCCA - Skopje in general as the organizer, but it had to do more
with the idea to place the computers in a (Cyber)Cafe setting. The
Skopje Museum of Contemporary Arts has just a few months ago introduced
the Cafe, so we thought it would be a good opportunity to present the
projects (or place the computers) in that setting. Our second option was
to use the first floor, which was empty, but because of its vastness we
decided not to enter this adventure. The ground floor (except for the
quite large entrance) was not available due to the retrospective
exhibition of Lazar Licenovski, which was re-scheduled quite a few times
this year so that it was finally opened a week before SEAFair. This was
highly unfortunate, but Zoran Petrovski, the director of the Museum of
Contemporary Arts was kind enough to empty the new and beautiful bookshop
of the Museum of Contemporary Arts so that we could place Virtual
Aquarium the Net-Linked Installation of Andras Negyessy and Tamas Kovacs
in it. 
After I had decided on the location (the large entrance of teh Museum), 
together with Zoran Petrovski, there were 2 available practical options
regarding the computers. One was to put them on tables the other was 
to put them on pedestals. Because of practicality and not of ideology
after I decided to place the computer screens on pedestals.

On the other hand we found that another serious disadvantage of the
Museum of Contemporary Arts in Skopje are the very bad telephone
connections, which makes it a highly undesirable place to view Internet
projects. Because of this we were ready to invest into an ISDN line to
the Museum but this proved to be very difficult because of a prosaic
reason. Namely, we found out that this is not possible as the Museum is
connected with PCM device (as are many other users in Skopje) which
excludes the possibility of an ISDN line and makes possible a transfer of
only 9600Kb. This is of course terrible if you want to present Internet
projects. We were truly baffled with this situation but then Goran
Slakeski, our Internet Administrator and Chief Technician for the
project, got the idea of connecting the Museum to our office with a
radio connection (radio link which makes possible to connect two remote
places up to 16km distant from each other in the case that the two
antennas on the two parts of the city can "see" one another, in fact a
visual connection which would not be possible if for example some
building would be in the way).The Museum is located on the top of the
Skopje Fortress (Kale) so that this was helpful. After several attempts
we found two spaces (on the terrace and on the roof) from which we could
see the Museum. Also, the roof of the building where our office is
located could be seen from the Museum so that we thought we were saved.
But... because of some mysterious powers that were reigning
Skopje in this few days before SEAFair '98 this proved to be the main
nightmare of all of us (all respects to Goran  who didn't lose faith and
finally managed to do it). The effort that was put into this made it a
project with-in a project. 
Just as we were near the solution 4 hours before the opening of SEAFair
'98 the power supply of the Museum and of the surrounding neighborhoods
was cut short. The situation seemed pretty desperate as when calling the
Electrical Company they told me that they were working hard to restore
the power supply but didn't know when they would be able to correct the
defect. Frightening. 
Finally, our wishes were fulfilled and the electricity came back to us
about an hour and a half before the opening.
One thing following another the visit of the Turkish president Sulejman Demirel
practically blocked the whole city (Mark Dery, Lev Manovich, Nina
Czegledy, and the others who were coming from the airport to the Museum
were in fact on a very, very long ride). An additional difficulty was
that the Museum is only some meters away from and on the 
same street as the Turkish Embassy. This was a street that was certainly
very difficult to cross on the 2nd of October. The trip from the SCCA
Office to the Museum which shouldn't be longer than 5 minutes in this
case lasted more  than 45. I was my self blocked in one place for almost
half an hour. This made me a little late for the opening, but so were
the others. 

Finally, I would like to say for those that left earlier that the media
coverage which was poor the first few days (due mainly to the using of
equipment for the political rallies and campaigns we are witnessing these
days in Macedonia) picked up quite rapidly in the second half of the
duration of SEAFair. The Macedonian National TV and other private TV
Stations such as A1TV interviewed quite a few times the artists as well
as well as the organizers of SEFair '98.


Melentie