Syndicate: Invitation to join the Media Lounge (Please fill in the database)

[Geert Lovink <geert@xs4all.nl>]

Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 10:03:23 -0800 (PST)
From: lounge@waag.org
To: syndicate@aec.at
Subject: Invitation to join the Media Lounge

Greetings from the Lounge.

Please go to http://www.medialounge.net

We invite organizations active around the intersection of art, culture and
politics to join the Hybrid Media Lounge.

The Lounge will be an interactive web database and spinoff CD-Rom whose
purpose will be to graphically map, facilitate and strengthen
electronically-driven cultural networking in Europe.

The idea for the Lounge grew out of the Hybrid Workspace project at
Documenta X in Kassel, Germany, 1997. The group of institutions that
participated there serves as our beginning point in compiling the database.
We aim to record the activities and alliances of these and other European
cultural organizations that are linked in online-based ways and have a
stated motive other than profit.

If you represent such an organization, we hope you will contribute
information about it via the online response form at www.medialounge.net.
The response area closes Wednesday, January 20, so please visit it soon!
Participating entities may also electronically send us samples of their
work (further details at the web response site) and notify us of other
groups, organizations or networks that should be included on the list but
aren't yet.

We will post each organization's information on its own page in the
database. This page will contain contact information; information about the
projects, publications and events you tell us about; your organization's
explanation of its mission and philosophy; and names of other organizations
you tell us are in your network.

Using information provided by the organizations, we will attempt to map the
links and other relationships between them. We will also combine everyone's
data to see what trans-European patterns are revealed.

The database is being set up by the Society for Old and New Media in
Amsterdam. The website and "freeze" CD-Rom will be presented at the Next
Five Minutes conference, March 12 through 14, 1999, in Amsterdam and
Rotterdam. The database will be freely accessible on the web and will not
be sold.
The CD-Rom will be distributed by participating organizations as well as
with the book "New Media Culture in Europe." Organizations will be able to
apply for stacks of CD-Roms for free distribution in places where web
access and bandwidth is more problematic.

For more information you can contact the database editors at lounge@waag.org.

Best regards,

Laura Martz, Geert Lovink, Marleen Stikker
Society for Old and New Media, Amsterdam

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Hybrid Media Lounge
lounge@waag.org
www.medialounge.net

Editors: Laura Martz, Geert Lovink
Supervisor: Marleen Stikker
Design coordinator for website and CD-Rom: Mieke Gerritsen
Database coordinators: Bente van Bourgondien, Michael van Eeden
Producer: Philippe Taminiau
Designer: Janine Huizenga
Advisor: Thorsten Schilling