[spectre] CARGO NEWSLETTER

[Geert Lovink]

From: cargoweb at pandora.be

THE CARGO NEWSLETTER
CARGO IS A FOUNDATION FOR CREATION & DEVELOPMENT WITH MEDIA
http://www.cargoweb.org

THE DREAM OF CARGO

CARGO investigates new forms of creation development with media, and 
invites artists, philosophers, architects and critics to engage in this 
search. The question – how can the world-with-media open itself to us 
in meaningful experience – is central. To consider development as a 
process, as an event even, that is the intention of CARGO.

Today’s digital culture has everything to do with expansion of scale in 
terms of space (being global and omnipresent) and time (being 
simultaneous, available and caught in speed). We are dealing with a 
state of exponential growth and incontrollable conception in which 
everybody and everything is involved, accomplice to form of crime as it 
were – a crime of becoming.

We are dealing with a state of ‘as-if-it’, a ‘drama of false 
appearances’. True, there will always be people – like media persons, 
artists, politicians, academics and businessmen – who exploit this 
state of seemingly inexhaustible possibility of mixing for their own 
profit, thinking that its use has been revealed to them alone, 
invisible and unavailable to others (i.e. everyone) who are too 
literally involved. Don’t we find here an ultimate paradox of truth and 
falsehood?

It is no longer relevant to distinguish between reality and fiction, 
but rather to discover the nucleus of reality, which we can only 
maintain as real as long as we fictionalize. Truth operates on the 
level of false appearance rather than detailed (historical, 
sociological etc.) knowledge. Are we wrong, then, in considering 
digital media as a form of ‘supplement’ that is added to whatever is, 
that transforms what originally exists and, in doing so, maintains it? 
In other words, would we still exist or would we still be able to 
establish our lives, if we were to disengage from what inevitably 
transforms us?That is the central question.

With CARGO we intend to set up situations that not only permit such a 
‘distorted’ view on everyday life, but even provoke it: situations that 
generate radical shifts of perspective; worlds of experience that are 
made known by those who discover their truths in them not only by 
helping to initiate them, but maybe even more so by playing a 
tragicomic part in them.

CARGO wants to develop a context for further investigation, where 
concrete approaches are tested that are compatible with the 
extraordinary features of the new media. The key word isn’t 
‘experiment’ but rather ‘development by creation’; or ‘context’ but 
rather imaginary imagination; or ‘process-like approach’ but rather a 
step-by-step approach, with one move after another; or ‘network’ but 
rather circuitry between people.

Exactly which requirements this type of development should meet and how 
the approach/method eventually should look like, remains to be seen. 
Indeed, in some ways it shares its features with new media studios, 
workshops, labs, institutional research centres and online web 
communities, but in others it is very different.

FIRST MOVES BY CARGO

- - - ) - In case you feel like getting tuned in to this dream, and 
investigate further its potential, then please don’t hesitate to read 
the latest CARGO publication:

WEAK MEDIA, as a book and online on http://www.cargoweb.org

WEAK MEDIA traces and marks of a search for new ways of using media. 
Here we keep asking the question how we can make the most recent media 
work for us. How can we benefit from them in terms of our own 
development? Which capacities do we need for that? At what cost and at 
what expense? And what do we get in return? Can media account for 
applications outside their own field? Within the given technological 
and overtly company-dependent infrastructure, is there any possibility 
of criticism, experiment or creation? Or does the digital domain 
confiscate everything within its reach? Do media indeed bring us closer 
to a clearer understanding of everyday life or do they offer us a 
horizon by catching us in a web of age-old, endless desires?

- - - ) - In case you like to get involved in this investigation with 
your own questions and project ideas, then please ask for a password 
and get access to the database and the interface of the new CARGO 
platform on the Web:

SITE IN SITE is open for everybody: http://www.cargovzw.be

SITE IN SITE is the new CARGO webplatform with passwords for access to 
database and interface for webmanagement. Moderators can personally 
manage their own projects. They themselves can also give away 
passwords. They can invite participants of their own choice to engage 
in the project.

SITE IN SITE has been developed together with Dominique Callewaert. The 
site can be duplicated in ever so many copies of the original one. The 
versions of each mirror are managed using the same interface for 
uploads, choice of webcam and (live) streaming.

It is the intention to create circuits between the different project 
and participant subsites, in whatever degree of current input and use 
of media.

- - - ) - The following projects are initiated by CARGO itself. 
However, you are kindly invited to propose projects of your own:

PROJECT PROPOSALS 2006-2007, with (the very first) draft descriptions 
on http://www.cargoweb.org

MEDIA FOR US: a cityproject in Oostende;

MEDIA FOR INVISIBLE CITIES: an exchange project with the Kinshasa 
artist Bylex (first move by Filip De Boeck, anthropologst);

MURDER IN MEDIA: a music project (first move by George De Decker, 
composer);

THE PUBLIC EXPERIMENT: an exhibition project about presentation and 
re-enactment (first move by Margit Tamás, media lecturer TU 
Delft/Bouwkunde);

HET AANROLLEND NOODLOT VAN DE VOORTVLUCHTIGE EINDER: a poem (first move 
by Mark Van Tongele, poet).

Questions by Cargo:

Would you like to be invited to a presentation– as a candidate 
participating maker/user and/or as a candidate partner? Which questions 
would you like to see answered first? You can send us a email: 
cargoweb at pandora.be

Some questions by makers:

How can I give access to my worktable? – how to connect my worktable to 
a network of worktables by other makers? How can I engage others in my 
creation process? How can I set up moderated ways of access to the 
results of my (academic, critical, artistic) research? How do I give 
access to my working materials, in a context of exchange? I am an 
artist, I don’t make mediaworks, however I would like to make more use 
of media during my makeprocess. How do I proceed, without letting media 
dictate my process too much? I am a writer (of stories, scenarios, 
journalistic reports), so I work in a linear format. However, I foresee 
a digital version of my work (as a website online, a game, a cd/dvd, an 
interactive presentation). In what way can I adapt my working method 
from the start? 

Possible questions by users:

How do I get a better understanding of the working-research-development 
procedures of processes of creation by makers? How do they proceed? 
What are their references, their sources, their networks? How can I get 
access/insight? Can I manage a site of my own, and with it, share my 
own materials with others, sharing a database on a common platform on 
the Web? Can I invite friends and other makers to engage with my site? 
I would like a more direct contact with makers. Where do I find and 
eventually build this kind of platform?

Questions in relation to technical challenges:

I own gadgets of all kinds (gsm, digital cams, wireless computer, 
webcam…). How can I better integrate these tools in my personal work- 
and living environment? Not only a media pc+gizmo I would like at home, 
but a media space that I could inhabit, and connect to other places. 
How do I set up that kind of networked instant media space? And what 
would you like to see me doing with it?

Practical questions:

I have some technical skills (in Flash for example, or in MAX, or 
simply in Multimedia of all sorts). Can I pass on some of these to 
other participants in exchange for learning more about their skills? In 
what kind of conditions would I like to see this happen? I am a maker, 
and for the sake of this development, I would very much like to propose 
one of my own projects. I would like some specific workshops to be set 
up. What would be my conditions? Whom would I like to see invited as 
well for extra advice and coaching?

CONTACT CARGO

e-mail: cargoweb at pandora.be
phone: +32 59 43 00 39
postal address: Marie Joséstraat 11/23 8400 Oostende, Belgium
people: Margit Tamás, Stefaan Decostere
web: http://www.cargoweb.org