net.sauna log file September 9th, 1997, 1 pm-3.30 pm.
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net.sauna log file September 9th, 1997, 1 pm-3.30 pm.
Andreas Broeckman & Tapio Mäkelä onConstruction of dialogic spaces |
HHeater: Hello abroeck: Hi tapio, thanks for the invitation. This sauna is hot from the cooling system it seems... HHeater: Thanks, Andreas, for joining a sauna session. abroeck: We will need a drink at some point. HHeater: As you can notice, besides burning wood, electricity steams to heat the atmosphere, also bodies do that. Yes, a drink in deed. How do you feel about this space? It is quiet, and warm in here. abroeck: It is nice to be away from the crowds, though i still have a clear sense of stuff happening around us, lots of background noise... HHeater: Yes, and occasional voyeurs at the window. abroeck: I want to be in the woods somewhere, on a lake... HHeater: A swim after a session would be lovely. abroeck: Yep. HHeater: I would like to ask you to imagine a few things. abroeck: Go ahead. HHeater: As you have organized several events where people meet (conferences, exhibitions, etc.) - how would you imagine a desirable mode of interaction between people? abroeck: That's too broad as a question. HHeater: Heater opens the door for a minute, it is getting very corpohot here. abroeck: There are different functions which a meeting can have, one directed more at the group interaction, one at working together, another one at generating something for the public. HHeater: Let´s analyze those situations.... Like the idea of an exhibition. There has been a lot of talk about moving from representations towards communication; how would you envisage more communication in an exhibition environment, for instance? abroeck: For me the communication within the group is always most important, because only if that works, then the work and the public presentation will be good and worthwhile. HHeater: So, we are talking about a group that works well together to produce something worthwile. Then, how to make that possible in moments like DEAF, Ars Electronica, etc... How to allow moments, when a few people can generate thoughts together - in coroporeal space? *** Mode change "+o HHeater" on #private_net.sauna by BALD abroeck: I think that exhibition and festivals are generally not the best places to do this kind of thing, and we are beginning to learn from the experience of the last years. There are now more workshops and smaller meetings that we are initiating - like the radio & internet workshop we did in February, or the deep europe workshop in Kassel in the summer. That's why i think it was such a pity that i could not come to Polar circuit, and you should have come to deep europe ... )-; HHeater: ... A real pity that I could not be at the Deep Europe meeting.... Do you think that we are parts of an economy, where the spectacle, an event conditioned through visibility in the "old" media, sets the terms on what forms for production are possible? If so, have you thought of strategies how to change the situation? abroeck: There is certainly an 'economical' environment in which our work is taking place and which is determining it to some degree. The fact that we can be here in Linz, sit in this sauna, the fact that the remote c group could do their project - all that is framed by the institutional background. *** L16Bot (r2d2@L16.FI) has joined channel #private_net.sauna abroeck: But i am thinking about whether we should be looking at these particular frameworks in the way that we are, or whether there should not be a clearer definition of the different areas of practice - what does it mean that the collaborative work of the groups in the open x is being turned into a public spectacle here? How much of this work would happen if we were not (physically) here? *** Mode change "+o L16Bot" on #private_net.sauna by BALD *** Mode change "+nt" on #private_net.sauna by L16Bot HHeater: In the spectacle, the moment of communication is usually very brief. But luckily, the net media can extend those short moments into longer dialogues that take place after the contact. So, physical contact is crucial, but the difficulty is mainly arranging working environments based on physical contact. abroeck: Why is there such a need to 'see the artists work', to observe people sitting and working on computers? HHeater: I think there is a need to meet the people, to talk with the people who work with art, media etc. abroeck: Do you have positive experiences with these kinds of 'physical contact' situations? HHeater: Yes... abroeck: I do too ... what I am trying to get at is whether there is a new way of 'looking at art' or perceiving art, and therefore also an new type of art, that we are observing here (or is this maybe Fluxus all over again?). HHeater: For instance, last week we were working within the Attila built Parasite, an airship space where we had a media lab in the city space of Helsinki. LOTS of people came to talk with us, not so much to see and hear mediated products. Again, it was about "coming out" from the usual settings, where the authors are invisible, unreachable. - I think not Fluxus. Why? Because in Fluxus, it was still hyper THEATER, where the situated event was the "Work of art". abroeck: I think that participation is a very important aspect. The problem with participation is that the expectations and possibilities on the part of the different people have to match somehow in order to work. HHeater: I think there are series of performative acts that are open to invite people to comment at a later stage... There is the problem of participation too: only a few people can engage in the same process still having a subjective position in the process... abroeck: How is an art space like the festival defined and how does it frame what can happen there? HHeater: I think the expectations of people are results of a long history of ecucation into becoming cultural consumers::: but for media, there are other expectations. We are in a cross fire. abroeck: Numbers of visitors are very often not a problem when you have a sufficiently diffused event, temporarily and spatially. - Cross fire indeed. HHeater: From the art side, a semi religious visually oriented experience is expected, from the media side, programming or new technical tricks are being craved for... abroeck: What often leads to bad art and spectacular events are those that serves the expectations that you describe. HHeater: But also, let´s face it, what ever is done in these environments can create new kinds of ways of experience, looking, and interaction. This is something I would like to engage with in very concrete, outspoken terms. abroeck: I like to see this from the perspective of the people actually involved, like a spiral moving outwards: only if there is a good energy flow at the centre, then there will be good things happening further outside. HHeater: This deals with allowing groups of people to work together intensively, over geography and time. abroeck: And I feel it is for the nuclei of groups of practitioners to define these processes to some degree, creating open field where new forms of interaction and agency can develop. HHeater: I agree. Now, to these conditions... abroeck: Yes,continuity is important, and that implies a level of commitment which is sometimes swamped by the degree of distraction with which we are all faced at the moment. HHeater: I think one of the problems has been the national framework: doing events IN Austria, IN Finland, IN EU, IN Nordic Countries: different funding systems determine the outcome. Also the speed, the mediamania, has created a sense of urgency, of a need to be everywhere at once, in corporeal and net space. We need strategies of how to stop time. HHeater: Sauna is now HOT. abroeck: For me,connected to that, is that we somehow need a reassesment of our sense of place, of locatedness. how does our work relate to a certain territory, and in how far are we 'free elements' that can be made operational in different places all the time. What does it mean that many of us are travelling to see places, things, give and hear lectures, do projects, all over, much of the time now? HHeater: Very much so, and also sense of belonging, commitment. But this requires a lot from an individual; it is also a personal question (people you live with, every day life, activities... I am interested in the aspects of nomadism, but yet belonging to different localities (not just wandering, which, as cultural media tourism, is rather vague as such)... I think we are in a process of creating several translocal, cross-cultural platforms. abroeck: There was an interesting exchange about such questions of territoriality and place in the deep europe workshop; Branka came up with a wonderful description of a 'translocal feeling of place', saying that deep europe, that imaginary space at which our network community converges, that topological stratum - it exists, she wrote,it is where she is locally, and where there is the *potential* of connecting spiritually and technically. HHeater: Translocal feeling of place... I like that. However, there is another side to this. I also feel dislocation, when I am not there, when for economical or other non-translocal reasons, it is impossible to join a meeting. Being translocal is now a priviledge, and the task is to make it an every day life possibility. You, I guess, know what it feels like when you are behind in all e-mail exchanges, this and that project arrangment etc. I feel almost very temtping to leave the current local (Helsinki) completely behind, it being very troublesome. BUT, then, one locality to visit for you would be gone. So in a sense we are visiting each other´s environments, but have not yet been able to truly create spaces which are not dependent on each locality. abroeck: I think i know what you mean, though I cannot fully agree. I think I am more interested in the local than in the translocal - the translocal is a tool, a condition of the local. HHeater: To elaborate a bit more, all meetings are based on the local, often national frameworks of funding and making events. We are only visitors (which maybe gives the enjoyment of not having to deal with difficulties). A space which would be translocal is a self-sustained economical, cross cultural framework that can take place in different locations. Now... how to create this kind of independence? This is linked to some thoughts I wrote in connection with name.space, the need to create independent income to create translocal environments. abroeck: I feel it is not without danger to embrace this sense of nomadism as a good way of living - an assesment which has a lot to do with the fact thatI have a home where I spend too little time and that I have the experience of intense 'placedness´ 'which were the best, most enjoyable months of my life, on that level. which means that I would rather meet you at your or my home, than create a place where we a both 'translocal' and lost. How do you envisage a translocal living environment? HHeater: I agree with your comments on nomadism versus sense of home. But not with translocal and "lost". The quite popular theorizing of nomadism includes the non-connectednes, the "freedom". Being translocal means being home in several places at once. I think you are doing that (Rotterdam, Berlin), Geert is doing that, and so on. But how to create that as a condition for a wider group of people? Nettime meetings in a sense incorporate that idea, what do you think? abroeck: But my situation between Rotterdam and Berlin was a problem so long as I was splitting my time half/half; it was not a feasible living situation. The emotional cost of living that way is very high. for me the question is rather how to put something like the Syndicate or other translocal communities in the position to work together more consistently and actually have a community life; the mailing list keeps us in touch, but we enjoy the meetings so much more. HHeater: So... Deep Europe, Polar Circuit . . .these different environments which are not framed by a necessity to produce products for a destined event but still create a feeling of being somewhere with some people - I think these are good starting points. Emotional costs: this already is quite rough with being net-connected; that locality comes with many commitments and tasks. So, I would be careful from one person point of view to be so translocal that the local becomes -parent... abroeck: But for me this is a question of creating tools that will *bridge* rather than replace the real meetings. HHeater: Yes... and creating these tools is about creating new Interfaces, which incorporates the work done through the media, and the moments shared in real time, like now. That is why I am very interested in the metaphors of space for exchanges, how people are assumably "meeting". The productive spaces are usually in between the programs, coffee brakes, bars, parties, where as the conferences and exhibitions are rather a camouflage, or a distant mirror... How do you feel about this? abroeck: Camouflage .. well, we are tactical media after all ... (-; HHeater: Kgb indeed. HHeater: (-:; now, meeting the so called larger public is another issue. What do you think about the relationship of media/art/events and the older, newspaper and tv media? What gets mediated, where does the communication slow down? abroeck: To come back to this question of exhibition vs. meeting ... as I said, they serve different functions, and in a way this kind of project is quite bad for an exhibition that is so clearly spectacle-oriented; but on the other hand, we might work on redefining this kind of events and turn them into someting where projects like these happen and the visitors learn to engage with projects. To be honest, I am interested in mass media only in so far as they can support the effort of raising and justifying the funding, and for creating public attention. Very rarely they do something meaningful in the projects that I am involved in. HHeater: I think this is about re-thinkin what an interface includes: it is, besides the organization and visualization of the content, the corporeal space with its information structures, the visitors, who each come with a baggage of previous user experience. abroeck: The slowing down of communication is very interesting, and i frequently think about returning to writing letters;but the mass media are much more about control and exclusion than about the homeopathy of communication. HHeater: And who are the people you want to invite? Arty people? Media, Tech people? Of course, identities and likings are very complex and mixed, but how to reach out of this space, to other realms of life? We should have this sauna for instance in the middle of Linz, on a market square, and invite people in. (Swimming pool needed). Slowing down the process of building meanings too... abroeck: Bringing the sauna to the market square is not something I recommend - there is a public sphere and communication going on that does not need to be doubled or enhanced in this way; I would rather - talking about *real life* - see what the requirements and the existing structures in a certain community are and stimulate discussions and exchange and communication in relation to those conditions. The sauna seems great in the context of the Ars Electronica, indeed! HHeater: Yes... the interaction locally should be about researching the local conditions and being part of it, rather than doing the artistic, anthropological move of jumping in, taking the act home and then riding off to the sunset... abroeck: To your question of who to invite - I think we have different interests and context at different times, so for some things I would only invite a couple of people, whereas in others I want all the children in town (like when we had Chico Macmurtrie's robots in Rotterdam recently. HHeater: Ooops, this is getting very good but the
sauna is quite hot. We have to save the log and let it burn to create more
heat for the next sauna bathers. To conclude, I would like to paste something
that I wrote while doing the last parts of this dialogue: In Media & Ethics last year, Pit Schultz said something about theory as ambient music, it is there but it comes in from the one ear and goes out from the other. The same goes for lot of the things produced for these events with a high speed; lacking concentration on the content, communication, and people´s possibility to create new work, thoughts, relationships. These are not exclusive, conferences and exhibitions have also their effects and interesting, unexpected sides. abroeck: But isn't what we are doing, this stop-and-go nomadism, that which you are now suggesting? HHeater: The emphasis could move towards appreciating communication at the core, leading towards more intense (and longer lasting), theory, processes, resulting in various forms. So, how to do the stop-and-stay? abroeck: But we also want to travel, we want to do the translocal thing too ... HHeater: Time for a media cool shower! And a beer. *** Signoff: abroeck (Leaving) |