Syndicate: Intro for JUNCTION reader

[Inke Arns <inke@berlin.snafu.de>]

Dear friends,

this is the editorial/introduction for the JUNCTION SKOPJE reader
(Syndicate Publication Series 002).

Best wishes,

Inke

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Junction Skopje: The 1997 - 1998 Edition
Syndicate Publication Series 002


Editorial by Inke Arns

For almost two and half years now the Syndicate mailing list has been the
most important means of communication for the members of the
V2_East/Syndicate network. V2_East/ Syndicate is a translocal network of
people and institutions who are involved in media culture and media art in
Europe and who want to create an infrastructure for projects and
cooperations. In the winter of 1995/96, the Rotterdam-based V2_Organisation
launched its 'V2_East' initiative, dedicated to enabling and enhancing
contacts and cooperations bet-ween people interested in media art and media
culture in Europe. The most important result of the V2_East initiative has
been the formation of the 'Syndicate' network. The name came from a comment
that Vladimir Muzhesky from Kiev made during the initial V2_East meeting at
the end of the Next 5 Minutes conference in Rotterdam in January 1996:
'Individually, we are rather weak when it comes to negotiating with funding
bodies and governments about support for new media and electronic art
projects. However, if we could join up and form something like a syndicate,
then we would be able to speak with one voice when it is strategically
necessary, and become more powerful than we are now.' 

Since its first meeting with 30 participants from a dozen east- and west
european countries, the V2_East/Syndicate network has been growing
continuously. Today, in the autumn of 1998, there are more than 300
participants from 32 European and 7 non-European countries. The network
which originally started out as an 'East-West initiative' almost three
years ago, has since reached a stage where those symbolically laden terms
mean less and less. With its mailing list <syndicate@aec.at>, website
<http://www.v2.nl/east/> and regular meetings, the Syndicate is becoming an
important tool for fostering ties within the media art community and a
platform for discussing the changing role of media culture in the 'new
Europe'. Over the past two and half years, we met regularly in the context
of festivals and conferences, like at the DEAF festival in Rotterdam
(V2_East Meeting on Documentation and Archives of Media Art in Eastern,
Central and South-Eastern Europe, September 96), the Video Positive
festival in Liverpool (LEAF, April 97), the documenta X in Kassel (Deep_
Europe @ Hybrid WorkSpace, August 97), the ars electronica in Linz
(Net.Shop, Septem-ber 97), the ostranenie 97 festival at the Bauhaus in
Dessau (November 97), or the Pyramedia meeting in Tirana, Albania (May 98).

After the success of the first Syndicate reader (DEEP_EUROPE: The 1996 -
1997 edition, October 1997, 140 pages, completely sold out), which covered
the activities of the Syndicate network from January 1996 - October 1997,
and which was published on the occasion of the ostranenie 97 festival at
the Bauhaus Dessau in November 1997, we are continuing to work on the
Syndicate Publication Series (SPS). The idea for producing a second
Syndicate reader came up in May 1998 during the Piramedia Syndicate meeting
which took place in Tirana, Albania. JUNCTION SKOPJE. The 1997 - 1998
Edition (Syndicate Publication Series 002) consists of a selection of
essays, reports and articles that were posted on the Syndicate mailing list
between October 1997 and August 1998, thus documenting Syndicate related
activities since the publication of the last reader.

In the JUNCTION SKOPJE reader, you will find four sections: SYNDICATE
ACTIVITIES, quite obviously, covers activities directly related to the
Syndicate network, including exciting documents on Syndicate performance
activities during the Shaking Hands & Making Conflicts conference in
Stockholm, Sweden (April 1998), reports on the Piramedia Meeting in Tirana,
Albania (May 1998), and reflections on related activities like the Crossing
Over +++ festival in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia (July 1998) and the Virtual
Revolutions workshops, a series of 4 fluid residencies for media artists
and writers across Europe (Sofia/BG; Rotterdam/NL, Tornio/FI and
Salford/UK). The section MEDIA/ART CRITIQUE, TXT CONTRIBUTIONS includes
essays, discussion threads, conference contributions and polemics covering
a wide variety of themes such as the Amsterdam Agenda resulting from the
P2P conference in Amsterdam/Rotterdam, NL, media cultures in Bulgaria,
Poland, the UK, Russia, Croatia, and the Baltic Cyber-Corridor, and
in-depth reflections on mutant geographies between Brazil, France, and
Slovakia. TRAVEL & CONFERENCE REPORTS comprises personal reflections on
media workshops in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, and in Kiev, Ukraine, a conference
in Cluj, Romania, the WhoByFire #1 symposium in Dunaújváros, Hungary, a
report on major Tasmanian interests in Deep_Europe, on cosmonauts in
Ljubljana, Slovenia, and a personal travelogue through the East European
media art scene with stop-overs in 1989 (Lodz, PL), 1993 (Bucharest, RO),
and 1996 (Sofia, BG). And finally, the fourth section, entitled PEOPLE &
ACTIONS, sheds some bright light on people and projects, ranging from
Moscowâ??s notorious Radek crew to the Novi Sad-based Apsolutno association,
interviewed on various occasions. The variety of the topics included in
JUNCTION SKOPJE does not represent a coherent body, but rather its
opposite: the contributions critically reflect a complex and heterogenous
terrain, thus pointing to the diversity of the translocal formation called
the Syndicate network.

Since January 1996, Andreas Broeckmann is producing the V2_East/Syndicate
Newsletter on a monthly basis. The Newsletter, which is being distributed
via the Syndicate mailing list, contains informations about upcoming
events, projects and ideas that are interesting in relation to the
Syndicate network. Included here is a condensed version of Andreasâ??
introductions to the Newsletters from September 1997 - August 1998. Reading
the introductions again, I found that they reflect in the best possible way
the various activities of the Syndicate network and its various spin-off
structures, the development of long term Syndicate projects as well as
spontaneous reactions to part-time spamming on the mailing list...

Whatâ??s new? In this edition, you will also find Notes on Contributors,
providing short biographical information about the people who contributed
texts to JUNCTION SKOPJE. JUNCTION SKOPJE, as well as DEEP_EUROPE, will
shortly be made available online. Watch the V2_East/Syndicate website!

Some texts were initially crossposted from Rhizome <www.rhizome.com>,
others were originally posted on the Nettime mailing list
<www.desk.nl/~nettime>. According to our policy, we have done only minor
editing to the texts, correcting typographical mistakes and adding up-dated
e-mail and web addresses where we know them. Thanks to Adele Eisenstein,
Lisa Haskel and Stephen Kovats for supporting the proofreading.

The second Syndicate reader (Syndicate Publication Series 002) is published
on the occasion of the Junction/Syndicate Meeting, Skopje/MK (2 - 4 October
1998), held during the Skopje Electronic Arts Fair â??98 - Communing (2 - 9
October 1998), organized by the Center for Computer Arts which acts within
the framework of the Soros Center for Contemporary Arts - Skopje, Macedonia. 

JUNCTION SKOPJE is produced in Skopje, Macedonia, with kind support from
the Soros Center of Contemporary Art - Skopje. A big thank you to Nebojsa
Vilic and Melentie Pandilovski!

Berlin, 12 September 1998


V2_East/Syndicate <http://www.v2.nl/east>
Syndicate Mail Archive <http://www.v2.nl/mail/v2east/>



i n k e . a r n s __________________________ b e r l i n ___
49.(0)30.3136678 | inke@berlin.snafu.de | http://www.v2.nl/~arns/