From cclash@web.net Mon Aug 26 21:38:42 1996 Date: Mon, 26 Aug 96 21:03:38 -0400 (EDT) From: "Jocelyn J. Paquette Bob Ewing" To: ftp@etext.org Subject: Heartbeat @~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@ HEARTBEAT #2 a free weekly email exploration of late 1990s culture both on and off the Net. url: http://www.izad.com/cultureclash. published by Culture Clash Communications cclash@web.net @~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@ Straight From The Heart: by Bob Ewing We are all searching. A recent article in The Atlantic Monthly about megachurches slammed this thought home. Spiritual comfort and companionship is one goal but an equally old need is crying out; the need for community. Much has been written about the vanishing neighbourhoods and the various attempts to revive them. I participate in two versions of an online community; one a community of interest is visited by people throughout the province of Ontario who come together to discuss their opposition to Premier Mike Harris and his government. Ideas, tactics, actions resources are shared. This community is located on Web Networks. The second community is not as focused except that all its members read The Atlantic Monthly. Post and Riposte [http://www.theatlantic.com] is a community forum for discussing a wide range of issues in a friendly, yet, challenging way. In my organic world, I'm still looking but have noticed that, at least here in Thunder Bay, the shopping malls are serving one community function. They give people, who can at least buy a coffee, a place to gather and talk. I have found elements of a succesful community, a community garden, a obliging corner store, friendly neighbours and a few good friends. There is hope in all this. We can build community and we must if we are going to thrive. Action Plan: NIKE: HOT AIR OR A LEADER? In May 1995 a campaign started in Holland on sporting shoes and working conditions. The campaign is focused until now on sportswear manufacturer Nike, and production in Indonesia. The slogan is: Nike:fair Play? The campaign aims at informing people, especially youth, on working conditions of the women who work for the suppliers of Nike. We want to give people tools for action, like a solidarity fund and a petition. We want to have a dialogue with the involved multinational. We try to make a contribution on the discussion on the way arrangements on working conditions and codes of conduct can be implemented effectively. Nike is an American company, but almost all the shoes are produced outside the US. Nike doesn't produce for themselves. It's much cheaper to subcontract production to factories in Asian countries like Indonesia. For More information contact the Clean Clothes campaign via email: ccc@xs4all.nl Publisher's note: We've departed from our originally planned Star Trek segment for this issue. We have added a new title to our thirty years perspective on Star Trek; a look at community within the Star Trek universe. STAR TREK AND COMMUNITY: by JJ Paquette. Star Trek fans will understand that within the Star Trek universe notion of community is tangible and fragile thing. Community is defined as anything from a totalitarian regime to a sense of full acceptance of who and what we are. It is in this diversity that one could sense the vision that was and remains Roddenberry's. "Where no one has gone before" stands for the essence and complex whole of a world where the individual being is part of a complete and ongoing celebration of life in all its manifestations and diversity. As the Vulcan IDIC denotes, "Infinite Diversity, Infinite Complexity." Dr. Sevrin in "The Way to Eden" (TOS 1969) believed in the existence of a planet that would hold the answer to his understanding of community. Eden would provide the quintessential response to a world gone mad. Infected with a virulent bacillus strain, Sevrin, a once brilliant scientist, now a carrier of sythococcus novae, would take the small band of free thinkers to begin a community that would recognize the true meaning of freedom. Their symbol, hands outstretched, pointer and thumb touching in the shape of a triangle. The message, "WE REACH" understood by the stoic Spock who feels the isolation and need to belong and searches for and locates the mythical Eden. Assuring their right to relocate on the planet Sevrin arranges to disable the Enterprise long enough to allow them to transport to the surface of the planet. Arriving on Eden the seekers find only death. The plant life contains high levels of harmful acids. Disappointed the small group of idealists agrees to return to the ship but Sevrin bites into a piece of fruit and dies. His would be the final act in "freedom". As community we are forever linked with each other and our environment. It is in "The Inner Light" (TNG 1992) we experience the reliving of several generations in only minutes. Picard is hit with a nucleonic beam from a probe. Jean Luc now finds himself on the drought-stricken planet Kataan. Unaware of what has happened Kamin (Jean Luc) feels he should be some place on a space ship. Here in Kataan he is married and has two children with his wife Eline. They grow old together and take active part in the lives of their children. His daughter gives him a grandchild. In the end Picard assists in the growth and finally the last hope for the dying planet. They send up a probe with the memories and record of the community that was Kataan. Picard awakens back on the bridge of the Enterprise but now shares in the memories of those who lived centuries earlier in Kataan. Community, for Picard, our starship captain, has always meant family. We are told he felt a loss at not having had a family of his own. He takes pride in his nephew and feels that the family line is secure only to have this taken away when his brother and his nephew die in a fire in "Generations". While the storyline of "The Inner Light" shares the unconditional acceptance of Kamin and his beliefs of a starship we are made aware of the tolerance and opportunity shared with Kamin. Alexis in "Community"(DS9 1995) had a dream where technology and mechanical industry took a back seat to community. Diverting a group of colonists who believed they were on their way to a new colony for settlement find themselves on a plant that blocks the use of any systems. They must learn over the next ten years to make their own clothes, build the shelters and grow the food they need to survive. And survive they do till Sisko and O'Brien arrive looking to verify the readings of human life on the planet. Only to discover that the planet's inhabitants were living the life of settlers. They had succeeded in creating a community where the individual did not exist except for the group. Where punishment for disobeying the rules brought you to time in a box. This community's leader had one idea of what it meant to have a cohesive smooth working community and did not tolerate dissent. In the end Sisko is reached by Dax and Kira. O'Brien and Sisko return to the shuttle with Alexis and her son who is ready to defend her reasons and vision. The community itself recognizes that this is their home now and they refuse to leave. Infinite diversity infinite complexity attempts to arrive at a point where tolerance and awareness is part and parcel of the greater good. Where justice is not question of choice but of design. "Live long and prosper" NEXT issue " Commercialism and product recognition" THREE ARTISTS DISCUSS CYBERSPACE by Bob Ewing The Internet, Cyberspace, perhaps the mid-1990s two most hyped words. Claims and counterclaims circle the globe. The Internet is a network of computer networks and cyberspace is where the networking happens. I view cyberspace as a place of tremendous potential that is only just beginning to be realized. For this article I contacted a number of artists and asked if they would comment on what cyberspace means to them. Three agreed. Their words, which follow, are reproduced exactly as I downloaded them from my email folder. If you have email access and want to talk with the three artists who responded do it. From: ideasz@tinored.cu (Banco de Ideas Z) Reply-To: ideasz@tinored.cu Subject: interview.1 To: cclash@web.apc.org Well,I didn't know anything about cyberspace three years ago when a group of friends began the cultural project Banco de Ideas Z. And anything about computers neither. Some day I found an cuban american magazine with an article about The email: a tool for the poor peoples.The email sound exciting on the pages of the zine,but regarding that on this years the electronic networks haven't any promotion here,I didn't discovered any practical utility for this remote "device". By casualty,I meet one guy who is specialist on the email system of the Cuban Sciences Academy.He talked a lot about the email,and he gave us a login and password.But on this time we didn't know what can we do with the email,and resigned the use. Then,we discovered Internet and virtual reality, and the dream of the unlimited communication invaded our heads. Now,after August,we decided to begin to edit and transmit a weekly cultural bulletin. At the beginning we used a pocket modem because we haven't our own PC.With this kind of modem we can plug on many PC which belong to several cultural institutions. Now,with our PC,we edit the bulletin,the only one in Cuba dedicated to cultural matters and transmitted to 14 countries and stored on Internet thanks to the solidarity of a collective from NY. We made weekly four bulletins: one for international promotion of cuban culture,and the others dedicated to foster here(between the cuban networks users) some topics like gay and lesbian issues,AIDS cultural activism, green education,Internet inside,practically unkown on Cuba.These materials are extracted from several publications we get by barter. The "international" bulletin contains art exhibitions catalogues, commentaries,call for events and projects,information about cuban institutions,visual arts,literature,theater,video reviews,etc. As the cultural life here is so wide, we are now offering our knowledge to others centres and projects in order to edit their own bulletins. And we will send their materials to our usual readers. We are wishing to jump to WWWeb. We need the software for making the pages, so we will welcome every aid on this aspect. -------- Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 23:07:01 -0500 From: MB29@aol.com Message-ID: <960120230659_402342929@mail04.mail.aol.com> To: cclash@web.apc.org Subject: mail art cyberspace Bob--E-mail has served me as a networking tool--a means of getting information, principally, about mail art shows, fax art shows, and networking news. It's been useful in the sense that it's helped me find out about a few more opportunities to participate in shows than I would have had otherwise. I also used e-mail and Internet postings to advertise a mail art show I was organizing, and to advertise the opening of the show. I can't tell if it had an effect, though. I haven't yet tackled issues of sending visual art by e-mail or internet means, mostly because I don't have the equipment to do that. If you need to know any more, let me know. Jeff Bagato ---------- abell@linfield.edu Thanks Bob for reply. I work with e-mail mainly as a way to comunicate with other artists worldwide on philosophical, content and other issues. My other focus is the use of the fax machine to create interactive fax art installations. My last project was in fall 1994 "Enter the Electronic river" an installation at Renshaw Gallery, Linfield College. Interaction was through the fax machine, some e-mail. We had over 110 artists from 20 countries and 6 continents, with 4 additional interactive projects that developed from and with various participants. My next project will be in September this year, also at the same venue. It is entitled "Balanced on a point of equilibrium: techno-ambiance, megaliths and office machines" and will address the question of obsolescence. It will again be an international fax art installation directed by its participants. I will be providing the physical setting of megaliths, boulders, a circles of stones and fax machines which will receive/store/display images and texts directed to the theme. Let me know if any of this is of further interest to you. Perhaps some of the artists in your centre may be interested in participating in the project which will be in September. Thanks so much. Regards and greetings from Lilian A. Bell Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 11:36:27 -0800 (PST) From: Anthony Bell Subject: Re: artists and cyberspace To: As a cyber-neophyte I became interested in the interim technology of the fax machine as a way of interacting in cyber space because of its ease of use and access for those artists outside the western tech cultures. Many of these colleagues find it difficult even to access a fax machine, let alone have a modem and access to the web. What one can partake of in the cyber arts depsends largely on ones cash, institutional affiliation and technical know-how. Not every electronic artist has a modem, web access or email address. Our present linkage to the telephone connection (as well as some equipment incompatibility) also makes image transmission slow and expensive. The creative possibilities that draw me to the cyber medium include: 1. The possiblity of developing a philosophical and content based aesthetic that somehow represents the essence of the cyber environment, yet uses the simplest means possible- hardware and technique remain secondary 2. The desire to work in a space between "presence & absence" moving between the real and the virtual through interactivity and transformation 3. The ability to focus on a worldwide aesthetic dialog within the broadest cultural framework 4. The pursuit of a collective imagination to create boundary free works of image/text by multiple authors. Douglas Coupland in his book "Microserfs" notes that "this is the end of the age of authenticity," while Gyorgy Galantai of Artpool in Budapest, Hungary describes it as "a mass produced uniqueness." Roy Ascott from the UK speaks of "a conversation rather than a monologue." As to how cyberspace can be used as an art medium, I can only speak of my experiences with hybrid forms of tele-communication: we hijack hi-tech office equipment to create spontaneous transmissions for a shared consciousness and a new intellectual spirituality. The ability to alter the axis, use the ripple effect of coincidence and insert subversive ideas into the flow of image data results in a wonderful ambiance of electronic energy that resonates through a cyber art project. Bruce Breland, director of DAX-Digital Art Exchange feels that "the human capacity for rapture is simultaneously a desire for fulfillment and an invitation to anarchy." Perhaps I can summarize these actions as follows: 1. artists in various global locations start the process as "actors/spectators"--the abolition of time and place 2. The act of scanning occurs: digitizing electronic signals are the medium. Recorded reality is re-arranged, distorted and improvised 3. Image flows converge to a collection site. Artists and art objects are absent. The rawness of the visuals has the directness and freshness of the present 4.Separate images become a living electronic reality created by multiple minds 5. The fusion of near and far: form and content develop and visual resonance is transmitted back into the digital stream of thought for further transformations. Thanks so much Bob. With best regards, Lilian A. Bell couey@well.sf.ca.us >A question: please tell me something about >your work in cyberspace? My work in cyberspace includes projects I've organized as art works, and work for hire in which I focus on establishing cyber territories for artists and other marginalized people. Both types of work share similar goals; and in some ways I consider it all art, though it might also be defined in socio-political terms, or even just survival. The common thread is a commitment to the idea of cyberspace as a mass participatory medium. My work is predicated on the conception of communication structures as organic sculptural media; and an aesthetic of use an action. I came to cyberspace in 1985; at the time I was working with the artists' organization, ART COM, and we had decided to publish our art magazine on the WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link), a conferencing system that was accessible through packet network from 40 some countries. We were looking to cut production costs and increase distribution. What we found instead was a revelation: cyberspace was a many to many communications environment - a radical shift from both the mass media and from the tradition of fine art production. Another revelation was that we had broken out of the experimental art ghetto - not many artists had computers and modems at the time. ART COM, and a few individual artists who were online at the time, began to experiment with participatory art production. Our participants did not define themselves as artists - rather they were computer programmers, researchers, writers, radio talk show hosts - a diverse range of people who just happened to be interested and wealthy enough to buy the tools and explore what this new world might mean. My "art" work draws heavily from this experience: I organize online environments that invite public participation, and seek to cross over established communications barriers - particularly those raised between different cultural groups and socio-economic classes. To give you a more specific idea about this work, a list of projects & short descriptions follows: Virtual Cultures, 1990 A 2-system open-participation panel organized to explore the cultural applications of virtual reality, including computer networks; and to provide access to the Cyberthon conference to people who would otherwise be excluded. Virtual Country, 1990 A 2-system project in which virtual countries were collectively invented by everyone who responded. Communications Across Borders, 1991 Organized to initiate an international movement for reciprocal cultural communications via computer network, Communications Across Borders invited participants to devise solutions to unequitable network distribution as electronic sculpture. CAB was designed for Reflux, an art telecommunication project by Artur Matuck, in which a decentralized interchange of aesthetic discourses are sent through (tele)communications networks. Presented at the Sao Paulo Biennial. Cultures in Cyberspace, 1992 An open-participation virtual panel organized to address the impact of cyberspace on distinct cultural groups and vice versa. Initiated locally on 5 systems, in collaboration with George Baldwin, Anne Fallis, Randy Ross (American Indian Telecommunications); Phillip Bannigan & Sue Harris (ArtsNet); Judy Malloy & Eric S. Theise (The WELL), John Quarterman (USENET). Created for the 3rd International Symposium on Electronic Art. Imagining the Information Age, 1993 A project to broaden political discourse concerning the National Information Infrastructure, so that it includes the realities of lived experience, dreams, traditions, art and other modes of perception usually excluded from national policy making. 4 nodes create fictional Representatives who plan the future. Their discussion is carried via email list, which also serves as a document for the White House. Organized for Matrix: Women Networking, an exhibition of online works by women artists presented at Tomorrow's Realities, SIGGRAPH 93. Imagining the Information Age: Stories/Visions, 1994-96 An online project to connect disparate realities in the same city. 2 nodes, 1 at the ACM Multimedia Conference in San Francisco's downtown business center, and 1 at the San Francisco Digital Media Center, in the Mission district, a low income, predominantly Latino neighborhood, added stories and visions of the future to the same web site. http://www.well.com/user/couey/here.html The above projects have been organized as art events; I also work with projects that seek to develop sustainable systems of difference in cyberspace. These include: Arts Wire, an communications system for artists and arts organizations - an attempt to share information and build bridges across the borders of race, medium, and institutional status; setting up a web self publishing service for WELL users; training labor activists to use the Internet; working with local community networking projects. Anna Couey WWW SITES http://netaccess.on.ca/~alone/acp.html http://www.warhol.org/warhol http://www.woodwind.com/ccafe http://www.concourse.com/wwar/default.html http://www.artnet.org/iamfree http://www.cascade.net/kahlo.html Collaborating artist email addresses: ideasz@tinored.cu abell@linfield.edu MB29@aol.com Video Review: "Tap" This 1989 film starring Gregory Hines and co-starring Sammy Davis Jr. is fun. A solid soundtrack that keeps your toes tapping sets the pace. Hines,a dancer, who hung up his shoes and did time for a crime, committed to ease his fear of being poor, provides some electric movements. A good love story with a weak but workable sub-plot, Tap pleasures while it gives you something to ponder. Take the time to rent this one. Something to Think About: Rent and watch these two videos and ask yourself what they have in common and why were they made: "clerks", "kids". Feel free to drop us a note at cclash@web.net. World Wide Web: http://www.peacejam.org http://www.outpost.com http://www.oneworld.org/worldgoodwill/index.html http://www.urbanec@dove.mtx.net.au Books: Farley Mowat, Sea of Slaughter Piers Anthony, Being A Green Mother Kirkpatrick Sale, Dwellers In The Land Letters-To-The-Editor: Write us. cclash@web.net Submissions: We welcome poetry and short esssays on art, society, culture. Keep length to 1000