[spectre] Klaudio Stefancic: New Media Art in Croatia

[Ana Peraica]

Maybe because national institutional centralized networks on the net are
quite disfunctional but despite the fact they tend to have an
institutional explanation (if not even an interpretative colonialism)
backwards /retro-actively, retrospectively.../, while intuitive,
displaced international networks are more friendly and they are used
rather than imposed as a meaning.

ana

> 
> 
> or Ana...
> 
> z
> 
> On Sun, 13 Jul 2008, Ana Peraica wrote:
> 
>>
>> Unfortunately not any mention of Zvone and Maja or Syndicalists...
>>
>> ana
>>
>> Andreas Broeckmann wrote:
>>> (cross-posted from nettime by permission; apologies for all the 
>>> broken special characters...)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> From: "Klaudio Stefancic" <kstefancic at gmail.com>
>>> Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:51:28 +0200
>>> Subject: <nettime> [nettime] New Media Art in Croatia
>>>
>>>
>>> dear nettimers,
>>>
>>> here i would like to contribute with my text 'new media new networks'.
>>> it is about  new media art and culture in croatia from the late 1980's
>>> till 2005. the text is written last year and it was meant to be
>>> published in a reader dedicated to history of croatian art from 1940's
>>> to the 1990's and aimed to international audience. it was one of the
>>> reasons why i've decided to use a sociocentric approach in attempt to
>>> represent this period of media art in croatia and to combine it with
>>> the art theory of modernism and avantgarde. on the basis of my
>>> research i also made a small homonymous exhibtion in galzenica gallery
>>> in zagreb/velika gorica this year. the text is also available for
>>> download here http://www.galerijagalzenica.info/english.html)
>>>
>>> greetings
>>>
>>> ---
>>>
>>> New Media - New Networks [1]
>>>
>>> If you mention the term new media in the presence of one of the most
>>> prominent artists of the extremely popular virtual world of Second
>>> Life, Gazira Barbelli, you will automatically activate a programme
>>> script, which will blow away your avatar to a completely different,
>>> unwanted location. The script entitled Don't Say Tornado is her
>>> artwork, created to draw attention to inappropriate use of some terms
>>> of traditional new media theory in the context of a completely
>>> artificial world in which the artist herself (avatar) is nothing but a
>>> set of binary data.
>>>
>>> Although the Croatian new media art is far from being thoroughly
>>> virtual, the example of Second Life indicates the current process of
>>> redefining the new media culture in relation to the increase in the
>>> number of the Internet users, changes in the ways it is used, faster
>>> introduction of new media theory in traditional scientific fields etc.
>>> In a somewhat modified version of his early new media theory (The
>>> Language of New Media), Lev Manovich has raised a question whether
>>> there is any sense in talking about new media in the culture that has
>>> adopted digital production, processing and distribution of
>>> information.  Therefore, he has developed eight theses for
>>> distinguishing new media from old ones, claiming that the list itself
>>> is a work in progress [2]. On the other hand, Geert Lovink has pointed
>>> out that new media are at a critical juncture. According to him, new
>>> media are facing the mass adoption of new technologies, fast
>>> Internetisation of a non-Western world, the increase in capacity of
>>> the Internet and its new uses known as Web 2.0. They are also caught
>>> in a dilemma about whether they will be used in art institutions or
>>> they will continue consolidation of their relatively independent
>>> cultural sector based on exhibitions, festivals and conferences [3].
>>>
>>> Discursive instability has marked the new media art and culture in
>>> Croatia from its very beginnings. So far, they have been a
>>> heterogeneous cultural area where political, social and artistic
>>> clashes intertwine with coexistence and cooperation. In other words,
>>> governmental bodies for public communication have been corrected by
>>> the work of NGOs while the system of art institutions has alternated
>>> with flexible networks of individuals, projects and initiatives. This
>>> parallel opposition and negotiation among the dominant,
>>> unwilling-to-change culture and marginalized cultures based on
>>> promises of creative communication, citizens' participation in social
>>> processes and a particular form of freedom typical of cyber culture,
>>> have characterized new media in Croatia throughout 1990's [4].
>>> The history of art is usually no more than the history of artists.
>>> Such method is applied even when it comes to a selection of the new
>>> media art [5]. However, new media art and culture in Croatia cannot be
>>> properly presented without a description of the institutions that have
>>> participated in the implementation of new technologies in society.
>>> Those institutions can be described as networks that, in case of need
>>> and depending on circumstances, mutually integrate, connect or
>>> disintegrate, thus forming dynamic and flexible cultural space
>>> suitable for various, not only artistic activities. In that sense, the
>>> history of new media in Croatia during 1990's should include the work
>>> of governmental and non-governmental institutions that were more less
>>> directly involved in political and cultural clashes of post-socialist
>>> society.
>>>
>>> Since the break-up of Yugoslavia, national independence and beginning
>>> of the Patriot war, several distinguishing social networks have marked
>>> the new media art and culture in Croatia.
>>>
>>>
>>> Anti-war Campaign, Zamir, Arkzin
>>>
>>> Chronologically speaking, the citizens' initiative "Anti-War Campaign"
>>> (1991-1995) came first. The efforts for reconstruction of disconnected
>>> phone lines among Croatia, Serbia and later Bosnia and Herzegovina
>>> developed into BBS (Bulletin Board System). BBS is computer software
>>> that enables users to connect by telephoning, to download or upload
>>> files to BBS network, read the news and exchange messages. After that,
>>> "Zamir Transnational Net" (abbr. "Zamir") was launched in Zagreb in
>>> 1992, with the initial help of the Dutch and German hackers, in order
>>> to connect citizens and peace activists across the war-thorn former
>>> Yugoslavia. The realization that public media have a political aspect
>>> as well was quite a shock in Croatia, unlike in other post-socialist
>>> countries [6]. In the state of war, the mass media and means of
>>> communication were tightly controlled in the newly founded country.
>>> Not only there was a problem of regulation of the Internet use, which
>>> was officially introduced by connecting university academic and
>>> research network (CARnet) to foreign servers in 1992, but the use of
>>> "old" media (TV, radio, newspapers) was also reduced. Under such
>>> circumstances, the non-governmental organization "Anti-War Campaign"
>>> with initial funds of "Open Society" launched two media: fanzine/
>>> newspapers "Arkzin" in 1991 and BBS system in 1992 [7].
>>>
>>> At first, "Arkzin" was a strictly political fanzine but after a while,
>>> editorial board widened the interest and included international
>>> members and topics [8]. It gradually changed from the political
>>> fanzine and political fortnightly to a hybrid magazine in which
>>> politics, culture, theory and art met, crossed and overlapped in a way
>>> that Croatian media scene had not been used to. Its hybrid quality was
>>> especially manifested in the field of new media, which has been
>>> continually recorded since 1995 [9]. It is important to say that
>>> "Arkzin" was for a long time the only magazine that systematically
>>> recorded events on the international scene of new media by their
>>> extensive definition, later adopted by Australian Cultural Council,
>>> which included the culture of DJ's, VJ's, electronic music created and
>>> distributed via computers, urban club culture etc [10].
>>>
>>> In the art world context, "Arkzin" was connected with the
>>> international new media art scene on one hand and with the avant-garde
>>> art tradition on the other. In the first case, one of the editorial
>>> board members, Igor Markovi_ participated in the meeting that took
>>> place in Trieste in 1996, where the "net art" pioneers drew op
>>> principles of their activities and started a closer cooperation with
>>> new media festival "Next 5 Minutes" and other events on the Dutch
>>> culture scene [11]. Following the example of De Certeau's definition
>>> of citizens' tactics as opposed to state's strategy, the Dutch
>>> theoreticians Geert Lovink and David Garcia formulated a peculiar
>>> media theory, known as "tactical media" in 1997. Promoting this theory
>>> in the conditions of new media being implemented into Croatian
>>> society, affected by war, economic transition and deficit of
>>> democratic institutions, "Arkzin" constantly pointed out the public
>>> and art media's political dimension [12].
>>>
>>> As said above, "Arkzin" also referred to avant-garde art tradition
>>> that always questioned the dominant social, political and art climate
>>> in Central and Eastern Europe [13]. When it came to "Arkzin", it
>>> challenged the establishment in several fields: in the field of
>>> politics (state of war, autocrat regime, economic privatization), in
>>> the field of culture (new ways of communication, new lifestyles,
>>> subculture etc.) and in the field of arts (art institutions'
>>> bureaucratic system as opposed to the freedom of the Internet etc.).
>>> In many aspects, "Arkzin" was a successor of "Zenit" [14]. It accepted
>>> new technologies based on digital data processing (computer, the
>>> Internet); made space for new media as alternative productional and
>>> distributive tools (web pages, net art); re-introduced the neglected
>>> media objects in the context of art and culture practices (fanzine,
>>> posters, leaflets); treated artistic and discursive practices of
>>> theory, philosophy, sociology on equal terms; reinterpreted high
>>> culture - pop culture relations (rave subculture, pornography);
>>> promoted team work (journalists published texts under collective or
>>> individual pseudonyms); worked hard on internationalisation of art and
>>> culture (on-line and off-line networking, new media festivals reports,
>>> interviews with foreign artists, theoreticians, activists); opposed
>>> and even Dadaistically made fun of dominant culture.
>>>
>>> In the 1992-1995 period, there were two ways of accessing the
>>> Internet: either with the help of academic and research network for
>>> those who actively participated in scientific institutes and faculties
>>> or with the help of Zamir's BBS network that, based on fragile
>>> telephone lines, was insufficient even for activists [15] . For these
>>> reasons, the basic activities of "Arkzin" were criticism of state's
>>> attitude towards new media and fight for free access to the Internet.
>>> However, the government did not have any media politics, only
>>> restrictions caused by war so that media activism of "Arkzin", similar
>>> to avant-garde art, sometimes reminded of Cervantes's Don Quixote
>>> tilting at windmills [16].
>>>
>>> The concept of "tactical media", promoted by "Arkzin" throughout the
>>> 1990's, reveals a considerable influence of the Dutch culture on new
>>> media culture in Croatia. There are several reasons for this: a
>>> constant interest of the Dutch activists, artists and theoreticians in
>>> Croatia, residence and education of Croatian journalists, artists and
>>> theoreticians in the Netherlands and interpretation of media theory,
>>> made by the Dutch theoreticians gathered around "Adilkno" project,
>>> which Croatian intellectuals gladly accepted [17].
>>>
>>>