Friday January 19

Translocal Media Networks and the Diaspora

The expanding computer networks reconfigure our conceptions of social
space, they can distance people who live close and connect others over
immense distances, allowing them to communicate and cooperate in new,
'translocal' ways. Wars and continued migration make it important that people
can stay in touch with support and inform each other, even at a
distance. The networks thus help to develop alternative, both public and
private forms of communication at a time when dislocation, migration and
diaspora form a widespread and almost common experience. They serve to
maintain the newly evolving translocal communities.

In the course of the day, media artists working in translocal media networks
and with issues related to migrants and refugees will present and discuss
their work. Representatives from a series of interlinked electronic
networks related to the former Yugoslavia will come together in a unique
meeting, presenting their work and sharing their experiences with
maintaining this communication structure.

Sivam Krishnapillai (Sri Lanka/GB) and Krzysztof Wodiczko (PL/USA) will
then talk about the instrumentality of the media for individuals and
communities living in the diaspora, and about the role that artists and
designers can play in the improvement of (mediated) communication.
Krishnapillai writes: "I would like to essentially discuss ethno national
conflitcs in cyber-space. Also discuss the emerging forms of virtual ethno-
national conciousness. The perception of conflicts in home territories.
Importantly the role that individuals can play in cyberspace in questioning
ethno-national ideologies."

The role of media in a world of refugees, of migration, of nomadism will
further be explored in the evening programme at the Zaal de Unie, where Ingo
Günther will present the concept of the Refugee Republic, and
discuss it with other guests and the audience: "Configured as a trans-global
net and inculcating its own form of Statehood, the world's refugee
population in toto are the best (perhaps only) candidates to become a socio-
economic and political/ideological avant-garde of the Millennium. In the
form of the Refugee Republic, an experimental supra-territorial state is
called for which is multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-lingual, able to
anticipate socio-ideological and economic challenges and conduct
experiments which force solutions as well as make them possible. Such an
entity would act as a structural model for the rest of the world. The refugee
citizens/shareholders will own their country/corporation." Suggested by
an artist and promoted on the WWW, this political and economic project
also raises important questions regarding the ethics and aesthetics of
artistic media practice.

V2-Exhibition space
14.00-16.00
Electronic support-networks for Ex-Yugoslavia: MediaFilter (New York) by
Paul Garrin, Zerberus (Bielefeld) by Rena Tangens, Arkzin (Zagreb) by Vesna
Jankovic, and ZaMir (Zagreb).
Other participants include: Drazen Pantic (B92/Internet, Belgrado), Adrienne
van Heteren (Rex Cinema/B92, Belgrado), Darka Vucic (B92, Belgrado),
Luka Frelih and Vuc Cosic (kud-fp.si, Ljubljana)

16.00-18.00
Debate about media in the diaspora with Sivam Krishnapillai, Krzysztof
Wodiczko, and others.

Moderator: Patrice Riemens (Amsterdam)

Zaal De Unie
20.00 - 23.00
Presentation and discussion of the Refugee Republic project of Ingo
Günther (New York).

Moderator: Kathy Rae Huffman