Syndicate: invitation for syndicate @ cfront - meeting 7-9 june

[Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck@transmediale.de>]

Date: Wed, 09 May 2001 17:50:16 +0300
From: Dimitrina & Alain <sevokessi@cfront.org>


Dear Syndicalists,

we would like to invite you to a small Syndicate meeting in Plovdiv,
Bulgaria, from 7-9 June.

The community of Internet users at large is continually growing, and the
Syndicate family in its turn is building up mass and speed and
tradition. In the meantime, the Internet is developing dynamics that are
not only due to size. Huge efforts to commercialize the Net, to turn the
experience of countless adventurers, hackers, media artists, theorists,
into money, are underway. The way we communicate with people who are
close to us, and even the very notion of somebody being close, are
undergoing considerable transformations under the influence of new
technologies, but also new paradigms of social relations that date back
to pre-Internet times. The changes in the political systems in Eastern
Europe are in part due to these developments, but have also influenced
them in return. All over Europe, and in variations throughout the world,
we are witnessing deep changes that can be seen to constitute chances,
but also create enormous pressures as historically grown power relations
have been destabilized and are currently being redefined. A wide range
of these questions are regularly discussed on the Syndicate mailing
list. The Syndicate family has, since its inception, consisted not only
in a mailing list, but also in physical meetings which have had a great
importance for the development and identity of the family: Rotterdam
(Sept. 96), Liverpool (April 97), Kassel (July 97), Dessau (Nov. 97),
Tirana (May 98), Skopje (Oct. 98), and most recently in Budapest (April
99), with many smaller meetings and joint projects, presentations and
workshops happening in between. These meetings have been essential in
developing, in closer collaboration than is possible online, strategies
of resistance and subversion against pressures that tend to limit our
choices and freedom.

Since April 1999 in Budapest there has been no proper meeting. Two years is
a long time without meetings for the Syndicate.

Communication Front proposes us its hospitality in Plovdiv, Bulgaria,
for a small meeting from 7-9 June. Communication Front is an
international project of electronic and media art and theory going into
its third year, and will take place from 1-14 June. This year's topic is
"Cyber and my sp@ce - Netizens and the New Geography". Specific
Syndicate questions will be discussed in a shorter, closed-doors
Syndicalist meeting in the afternoon of 8 or 9 June. The rest of the three
days will be open to all interested people including the participants in
the CFront event, for a cultural networking meeting to address some urgent
questions. Once again, the Balkan region is at the center of attention,
with the recent developments in Macedonia. Similar destabilizations are
happening all over Europe. It seems that the Balkans give a stronger echo
to these destabilizations, and the pressures escalate into more visible
conflicts, which are then
attributed to "ethnic" feuds. Once again, the question which role
artists and cultural producers can play in such a situation is posed in
a dramatically urgent way.

With the meeting in Plovdiv, we hope to take the discussions started on
Syndicate and in other fora a step further and in face-to-face debate,
come up with concrete proposals for projects that can develop
inter-cultural collaboration. Some wounds are difficult to heal, some
will remain for long, and yet we must find ways to deal with each other,
to see others as persons and not exclusively as representatives of a
community seen as the "enemy" and, building on the Syndicate family, to
find common strategies to overcome the "dividing lines of hatred" and
break through the isolation.

In the following mail you will find a few excerpts from texts
dealing with so-called "ethnic" wars and conflicts, which may serve as
an inspiration for the discussions on what is going on in Macedonia and
the Balkans at large, and for developing common strategies as artists,
theorists and activists networked through the Syndicate mailing list, on
how to deal with this and similar situations.

Please contact us at <curators@cfront.org> if you'd like to join the
meeting.

With our very best greetings,

Dimitrina Sevova, Alain Kessi & Andreas Broeckmann


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