[spectre] juxtaposing

[Josephine Bosma]

hello all,



I realized this week that I had completely forgotten to respond to  
Esther Polak's request for examples of alternative symposium models.  
Yesterday would have been the best time to finally sit down and talk  
about it, but unfortunately I was very busy. One of the things I had  
to do was score a bucket full of Italian ice cream to celebrate the  
15th anniversary of 'net.art per se'. This small but legendary  
gathering on May 21st 1996 is one of the examples I was talking  
about, but there are more.

As I wrote earlier, it surprised me to find such well informed people  
come up with such a limited description of symposia and conferences.  
In hindsight I guess what they were addressing is probably a very  
particular kind of event, and very particular presenters: big events  
with (generally) lots of financial backing, inviting very specific  
speakers that are on the road nearly 24/7, who are delivering the  
same speeches everywhere. I do believe that in the larger scheme of  
things such events and speakers are a minority. Maybe, and please  
don't take this the wrong way, the writers of the Juxtaposium  
proposal have 'arrived' at a certain level of events, the most  
institutional kind, and do not see the many smaller and alternative  
events that are no less important?

Anyway, before I dart off on another lengthy criticism of the  
juxtaposium idea, let me try to give a few different examples of  
fruitful events that I have witnessed myself. In most of these the  
boundaries between audience and speakers was non existent. This is at  
the top of my hat, and I know that alternative conference models have  
been around since at least the sixties. I  read in Dark Fiber by  
Geert Lovink that for example the founders of de Waag, Carolien  
Nevejan and Marleen Sticker, were also adamant to avoid the  
traditional, hierarchical conference model in events in the early  
nineties. A quote (page 246): "Using audio-visual media, constantly  
changing position of tables and chairs and a sharp, witty rhetoric of  
well instructed chair (wo)men, attempt were made to cut through the  
routine pitches of experts, politicans, and writers. Remotre  
contributions via telephone, video conferencing, web cams and chat  
rooms were brought into the local debate."

I am sure the examples I mention (above and below) in my mail are not  
the only ones, and that these alternative conference practices have  
not disappeared and are still alive today. I welcome anybody chiming  
in and giving some, but I know that is rare on mailing lists these  
days... So here are my examples:

1: The First Cyberfeminist International, at documenta X in 1997. In  
the summer of '97 the Orangerie in Kassel was occupied by ten  
different groups for ten days at the time. It was called Workspace,  
and each group had a very alternative presentation model, which was  
partly due to the setting: it was an open workspace with people  
coming and going. There was not a symposium audience, but an  
exhibition audience, which behaves differently. The mailinglist  
Faces, for women working in new media culture, was one of them. They  
organized a very loose and sympathetic event, part of which were talk  
sessions, in which everybody would gather in a circle and discuss  
issues. There was no hierarchy. there was only a shared interest in  
(cyber)feminist issues. There was not even a very tight schedule, if  
there was one at all. My memory fails me on this point. This  
conference model reminded very much of that of Beauty and the East,  
the first nettime conf, in spring 1997, but there was more openness  
for experimentation.

2: There are the three net.art events I have described in my book  
Nettitudes: net.art per se (in Trieste, Italy, organized by Vuk  
Cosic), Digital Chaos (in Bath, UK) and 'the secret net.art conf',  
and event in the 'Anti-with-E series (in London, both organized by  
heath bunting). In all these meetings the emphasis was on  
participation and accessibility (of 'experts', or a leveling of  
roles), and on escaping the traditional conference model. True,  
net.art per se was so small one could say it was an 'insiders only'  
event, but the whole idea of these kind of events is a very basic  
destruction of hierarchy and the creation of true social interaction.  
This happens in small and bigger meetings.

3: The Cool Media Hot Talk Show is another very interesting model.  
This was/is an initiative of Tania Goryucheva, and was organized and  
(literally) programmed by Eric Kluitenberg and Michiel van der Haagen  
of De Balie in Amsterdam. It was an event that could be entirely  
planned through an online audience. Special software was created  
through which anybody could compile an event, choose the speakers,  
have it voted for, create questions, etc. The event itself happened  
on and offline. The online audience could vote for specific audience  
questions that came up during the event itself.

What is missing in all these models is of course the Big, Awesome  
Expert. What I am missing form the juxtaposium proposal is any view  
on the role (and value?) of this expert and of the audience. It just  
wants to get away from boring speakers talking about themselves or  
the same things over and over. In a living social environment people  
actually do not get away with such behavior. Having someone discuss  
the work of another person is no alternative in my point of view: I  
do it almost every time I give a lecture, and so does almost every  
critic and theorist. What is interesting however is getting real  
conversations going between real people.


best,


J
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