[spectre] Belgrade Tourist Info Point, 13 - 15 dec. 2006 @ De Balie, Amsterdam / Domoladine, Belgrade, program and announcement

Eric Kluitenberg epk at xs4all.nl
Tue Dec 12 23:17:35 CET 2006


dear Spectrites,

As part of the three day program "A Rough Guide to Belgrade", at De  
Balie, Centre for Culture and Politics in Amsterdam, Vladimir Jeric  
will be hosting his Belgrade Tourist Info Point in the bar / foyer  
space of De Balie. A walk-in installation and live streaming project,  
creating a semi-permanent link up with the Domoladine culture centre  
in belgrade and the internet. Please find the program below.

Exact addresses of Live streams will be announced on the website of  
the project - please check:
http://a-rough-guide.net/en/belgrade_tourist_info_point

For Balie live streams of the Tourist Info Point and other parts of  
the Rough Guide to belgrade progra,:
http://www.debalie.nl/live

Porgram overview of the project as a whole:
http://a-rough-guide.net/

enjoy!
eric

-------------------------

FWD - Announcement:

> From:  Vladimir Jeric
> Date: December 12, 2006 12:49:08 GMT+01:00
> Subject: Belgrade Tourist Info Point program and announcement

dear all,

here is a small program we run @amsterdam these days attached.
there is also a small website emerging at the address
http://a-rough-guide.net/en/belgrade_tourist_info_point (powered by
slobodnakultura.org).

you may even join, if you have some internet, skype and camera
installed and nothing better to do. just search for "a-rough-guide"  
skype
username.

all the best,
vlidi.

---------

"Only the unemployed can travel without being the tourists."
Marko Ko_nik, OPERABIL, video lecture/performance

BELGRADE TOURIST INFO
13 - 15 December, 2006
http://a-rough-guide.net/en/belgrade_tourist_info_point

The liminal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminality) state of Belgrade
today can not be perceived easily and without a prior knowledge of  
the history of this dynamic place. The aim of this program is to rely  
both on the presentation of the works and initiatives already  
existing and the possible perspective of the networked society of  
tomorrow in which Belgrade as a node will search for it's position  
and orientation. This program would not be a traditional presentation  
- it will rather be an occasion to communicate, remix the past and  
speculate the future.

It consists of the following modules, which can be re-ordered,  
excluded or remixed according to the occasion, aim and technical  
conditions at hand.

1. BELGRADE TOURIST INFO POINT (De Balie, bar)
1.1 WELKOM...
1.2 BELGRADE @FLICKR
1.3 VIDEO LINK PRESENTATIONS
1.4 CC LOUNGE
2. CLIPBOARD 2.0 (De Balie, bar)
3. SMALL TALK
4. RGTB/BTI web site

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
----------------------------

1. BELGRADE TOURIST INFO POINT

This communication tool consists of a camera/computer/video beam/ 
broadband system placed in De Balie (a cafe/bar downstairs) and the  
complementary system placed in Dom Omladine (Maverick cafe on the 1st  
floor).

Why bar? Bars and cafes are the things one remembers after a short  
visit to a new environment, a places where you can have a short rest  
and refreshment or just ask around for the direction, a person or the  
place. Where you can start conversation with strangers with  
unpredictable results. Spaces to quietly meet with someone or to have  
a loud party with your friends. Places to incidentally make the deal  
of your life, or to get robbed. Some people sit alone in cafes, read  
or contemplate. No two bars are the same. All the bars are the same.


1.1 WELKOM... (during all 3 days)
http://a-rough-guide.net/en/belgrade_tourist_info_point/welkom

The cameras should be oriented to look trough the windows viewing  
Leidseplain in De Balie's bar (which from the right angle can look  
like your usual gezellig Amsterdam bar), and trough the big windows  
in Dom Omladine, which from the right angle can show the bit of a  
cityscape. The angle should be wide, covering as many tables and  
guests as possible, yet allowing somebody to approach and to be in  
the close-up if one decides to do so. The observers should not see  
themselves in the monitor or the frame, just the other side.  
Gradually they should realize that they are also being observed. It  
is not the aim to produce the feeling of uneasiness when somebody  
realizes that is being monitored by the people s/he does not know,  
rather the factor of randomness and the incidental encounters, eye  
gaze towards the camera in a frame of two, that split second of the  
awareness of the other side watching is what is of interest here.

There might be the opportunity to view both streams side by side at  
the project's site, a-rough-guide.net.


1.2 BELGRADE @FLICKR (during all 3 days)
http://a-rough-guide.net/en/belgrade_tourist_info_point/belgrade_flickr

On another display, five video beams will project on the five windows  
on the 1st floor of De Balie, and there will be occasionally a  
screening of photo stream/slide show of Flickr images with beograd/ 
belgrade tags. There are about 15 000 images tagged this way so far,  
and, if nothing, the results will be really unpredictable... The idea  
is to let observers lead the approach in determining, or interpreting  
the space - I guess a lot of the images were being shot and uploaded  
by foreigners who visited Belgrade - tourists, in a way - and to let  
the observers around central Amsterdam to become another circle of  
observers, who are offered an already randomized, personal and  
"filtered" view of the city, but no framework or key to interpret the  
images.


1.3 VIDEO LINK - SLOBODNAKULTURA.ORG, CREATIVE COMMONS SERBIA (15.12,  
19:00)

This same video platform as in WELKOM program will be used for some  
"remote" presentations and possible discussions. In this occasion we  
want to present the activities of slobodnakultura.org this way, but  
the platform can be expanded to present more and provide discussion  
about different issues with other content producers, artists and  
activists.

On De Balie side there will be Paul Keller (Creative Commons NL  
Project Lead) to share the experiences from Netherlands with emerging  
Serbian initiative. This would correspond to the additional Creative  
Commons events in the program (a rough-guide.net web site, CC lounge)  
and may be of a real and practical help to members of  
slobodnakultura.org.

Slobodnakultura.org is a meta - organization, a collective consisting  
of different organizations and individuals with more then 100  
members. The lowest common denominator of all the parties involved is  
free culture (slobodna kultura). The organization just got the  
permission from Creative Commons International for localization and  
porting of CC licenses into Serbian law. This is perceived as very  
important for the community and the society as a whole.

1.4 CC LOUNGE (during all 3 days)
http://a-rough-guide.net/en/belgrade_tourist_info_point/cc_lounge

Creative Commons Lounge was developed some time ago, while attending  
meetings and panels organized by slobodnakultura.org and similar  
initiatives. Wherever there is a meeting or a conference of some  
kind, there is a cafe or bar nearby or attached to the venue where  
people take their time to rest, relax, think things over or just have  
a private conversation over coffee. Additional reason to develop the  
program was to offer cafe owners a worry-free and copyright-free  
music selection, in exchange for the possibility to distribute flyers  
and brochures explaining the guests what they are listening and the  
basics of Creative Commons initiative. All that in hope that it will  
popularize the very concept of "some rights reserved" approach  
further. De Balie's bar will be transformed during the days of the  
presentation into a CC Lounge place, by playing already selected CC  
music and distributing purpose-made flyers in Serbian, according to  
the audience expected. The music should not be too loud, and should  
not prevent the regular small talk/conversation in the bar.

2. CLIPBOARD 2.0 - live from de balie (geert lovink: TBA, eric  
kluitenberg/vladimir jeri_ vlidi: 14.12, 15:00, paul keller: 15.12.  
18:00)
audio stream/podcast
http://a-rough-guide.net/en/belgrade_tourist_info_point/ 
clipboard_2_0_live_from_de_balie

A debut of original CLIPBOARD broadcast/podcast series was in  
Amsterdam, April 2005, during De Appel's Radiodays program. Now there  
comes a sequel with the same participants from Amsterdam theoretical/ 
network cultures/activist scene, but from another location, De Balie,  
and with slightly different set of topics/questions and a different  
moment-in-time angle. Interesting turnover is that the author of the  
Clipboard series of interviews will be interviewed by Eric  
Kluitenberg this time.

It will be streamed as a live conversation and archived for podcast,  
because the situation of "going live" gives different "feel" and  
atmosphere then a "record/edit" one, for both the participants and  
listeners. Formulations and articulations seem to differ from written  
or edited versions and seem to be shorter, more direct and  
understandable by the wider audience. A live stream and a podcast  
should be available on the project's site.

TOPICS / ISSUES:
more: copyleft/copyright issues, creative commons license,  
legislation in the digital domain, digital authorities, digital  
politics, the right to copy&paste, models and approaches to ownership/ 
user rights/royalties, digital clone/analog copy, market and  
commercial issues, piracy - how and if piracy is contributing in  
bridging the gap between hi tech societies and the rest of the world,  
is culture and communication supposed to be free for all the people  
as an axiom, open source discussions and legal/ethical issues...self- 
education as a right/obligation, are the wikipedia, MIT  
opencourseware, google and alike a models for a future education and  
how it is being used today, the position of institutionalised  
education, does possession of the means to distribute knowledge means  
the ownership on the knowledge, self-organisation of the self- 
educated...is globalization bad, and why? what's the problem with  
same-language-all-accessible-all sharing global network? who owns the  
data, who owns the bandwidth? do you, and your work, officially exist  
if not being visible by google? can we trace back the politics and  
money flow and do a forensics on how our new digital world turned out  
to be parceled and owned BEFORE we inhabited it?

3. SMALL TALK (meet some of the Belgrade tourist officers here,  
presentation, discussion and videolink)
(13.12, 19:00)
http://a-rough-guide.net/en/enr/belgrade_tourist_info_point/ 
prezentaccije

This should be an informal presentation of a few publications and  
"unofficial" discussion with a few actors of what can be described as  
a layer of independent content providers constantly active troughout  
the years, producing a critical and theoretical journals and debates  
aside or in the occasional collaboration with official institutions.  
The publications to be presented are the first issue of Prelom  
Journal in English, published by Prelom Kolektiv and dealing with the  
issues of Yugoslav politics, postsocialism and critique in  
contemporary art, and TkH (Walking theory), Journal for Performing  
Arts Theory:Self-organization issue, published by TkH Centre for  
performing Arts and Bitef Theatre. Also, the issues connected with  
the emerging self/organized networks such are slobodnakultura.org and  
druga scena.net will be discussed ...

Participants:
Vesna Mad_oski and Jelena Vesi_ from Prelom Kolektiv, Bojan _or_ev  
from TkH (A Walking Theory), and Vladimir Jeri_ Vlidi presenting  
slobodnakultura.org - live at De Balie. VOIP video-link will be  
established with people from Belgrade: members of Prelom Kolektiv  
(Du_an Grllja, Dragana Kitanovi_ and others), TkH (Ana Vujanovi_,  
Sini_a Ili_ and others) and slobodnakultura.org (Milica Gudovi_,  
Milo_ Ran_i_ and others), including all of the other people interested.
All of the organizations are the part of newly formed self-organized  
network DrugaScena.net.

The idea is to represent this cultural activities and content "in  
vivo", on the very way it is functioning in usual everyday practice,  
as we do meet in bars, cafes and apartments and use personal networks  
and private discussions to both propose and negotiate content and  
discourses and to reflect on it once it is being established and  
realized. This myriad of micro-conversations and mutual relationships  
and opinions is creating the platform acting like a bigger entity, a  
network not layered over but emerging from living practice of the  
people involved.

4. RGTB/BTI (A Rough Guide to Belgrade/Belgrade Tourist Info) web site
Members of slobodnakultura.org just launched a project site at the  
address
http://a-rough-guide.net./

Technical realization:
Milica Gudovic
Marko Dordevic
Vladimir Jeric - Vlidi
for slobodnakultura.org-drugascena.net




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