Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:06:32 +0200
From: "Klaudio Stefancic" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: <nettime> [Peraicogram x3]: Re: [spectre] Klaudio Stefancic:
        New Media Art in Croatia


dear ana,

please allow me several clarifications on my text 'New Media New Networks':

On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 6:04 PM, Ana Peraica <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

               [digested @ nettime -- mod(tb)]

 Ana Peraica <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
     Re: <nettime> [spectre] Klaudio Stefancic: New Media Art in Croatia
     Re: <nettime> [spectre] Klaudio Stefancic: New Media Art in Croatia
     Re: <nettime> [spectre] Klaudio Stefancic: New Media Art in Croatia

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 Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:11:50 +0200
 From: Ana Peraica <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
 Subject: Re: <nettime> [spectre] Klaudio Stefancic: New Media Art in Croatia

 Zeljko,

 reading your text I read out the authorial speech "write the text" (in
 about 10 places) /// quoting ///.

 Are you comissioning a text you already have a content by yourself?
 Well, i am not a secretary, but I might need one (any BA is ok)...

 I think my interpretation of Klaudio's perspective was clear,
 I am sorry if you fail to agree or comprehend.

 Mentioned networks are actually only nationally funded... There are much
 more of places than mentioned and there are also events (previous to those
 mentioned) which are not under the Soros or Ministry of culture fund.

 maybe so - you are free to do so in your own way and your own summaries

 //q//

if I remember correctly you had significantly more appealing contexts to do so
 in commisions to promote "Croatian" media art and culture
 (at least through ECF's project, writing in Springerin, NSK/Inke's web
 project...).

 Not a tourist agency, and also i cannot read any arts, especially not
 media, in the context of The Nation.

I would like to point out that Mi2, Arkzin, Media Scape or
International Festival of New Film in Split also qualify as
international ('glocal') networks: cofounder of Media Scape is German
artist Heiko Daxl; Dutch and German hackers are active members of BBS
by Zamir; Igor Markovi? participated at the meeting 'net.art per se'
in 1996 etc. Also, the networks are financed from international funds,
advisors and activists are participating in exchange programmes etc.
At least they are perceived as international by the dominant culture
of the period. In spite of that, these networks are not a part of
(european) newmedia 'mainstream'.

 There was a great exhibition Slike Prostora (Zvone was curating in Split),
 there is a great underwater production lab by Ivo Dekovic's on Rt Razanj
merging each year students from Aachen and Split. And nearby there is also a

 I agree it is a great pitty that Zvone's work was not visible in Croatia and
 that Ivo Dekovic did not work with curators/writers to promote those
 experiments.

 there are annual exhibitions of works from the workshop in Razanj held
 in Zagreb and Zvone is regularly exhibiting in Split (Adria Art
 Annale...) his work was presented regularly especially Diocletian's
 palace he is working on for more than 15 years (magazine Dispet, various
 exhibitions)...

 So it reads nicely that the workshop exists since 1996 on the Island
 Razanj and has been shown in Zagreb:
 http://www.culturenet.hr/v1/hrvatski/infoservisread.asp?id=6561

I have pointed out precisely the activities of the mentioned networks
for two most important reasons. First of all, I think that it was
owing to their continuous activity over an extended period of time
that new media art and culture were promoted in Croatia. At one point,
however, their activities transcended organizing exhibitions and
therefore, along the lines of utopian 'promises of technology', the
networks involved into social and political activities of the broader
scope: Zamir offered an alternative line of communication; Arkzin
offered criticism of the regime; Mi2 started diagnosing social changes
caused by the appearance of digital technologies; Media Scape offered
a remedy for museum and gallery system and UMAS for art education and
International Festival of New Film, whereas the accompanying new media
exhibitions were a corrective for cinematic culture and art culture in
Split. This brings us to the second reason, which has to do with the
level of influence of individual networks on society. To express it in
terms of cultural theory, the circulation of production and
consumption circle of 'new media cultural objects' was in case of
these networks the most prominent.

 But the real problem might be that these two scenes (the capital and the
  "summer international" city of Split are not connected.

 Indeed WHAT WOULD BE ZAGREB if it wouldn't be a CAPITAL of a 4 million
 people country??? A small administrative center without any particular
 culture or history...

 Initiatives as Otokultivator (cultivating an island?) and Splitconnect
 as well as presence of artists from Split are showing this...

 First of all "cultivating an island" that has a been cultivated since an
 ancient Greek times and was a city bigger than Zagreb during most of the
 history sounds really weird, second Zidar Betonsky/UZGON was already on
 the island installing the workshop, but as well there were workshops by
 Senko Karuza/.

 The second "making Split media literate" with Split Connect is also
 weird as it had international exhibitions of new media years in advance
 to the opening of MAMA, as well as labs around Zvone Bakotin, the first
 of which was connected to Feral Tribune.

As regards the artists I have left out, I should mention that it is
impossible, in reviews such as mine, not to leave somebody out.
However, omission of the artists you mentioned (Bakotin, Kuzmanovic)
is not an accidental one. For one, the method I have used, in order to
be at all able to produce consistent meaning, has to abstract its
subject to a certain level, which in this case means that I have
omitted the artists you mentioned for a reason. Namely, in my opinion,
their influence on the networks I tackled was not that significant.
Furthermore, since both of them were featured in an overview of media
art history in Croatia by Darko Fritz (oops, yet another national
overview of media art!), my aim was to bring the artists which were
left out in his overview into the spotlight.

Unfortunately, I am not very fond of polemics and therefore this is my
last contribution to this topic.

 But both have a sense of colonial relationship of The Capital towards
 its coast as a "summer place"...
 <...>

--
klaudio
www.galerijagalzenica.info
www.kiberdzezva.blogspot.com


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