New Landscapes for New Media
Author: redactie redactie
The second debate within the Deep Local program focused on bringing to light new and adventurous new media projects outside the western world. These ambitious projects were placed in the context of the Deep Local thread. What can new media projects do within small local communities and how can we make them work properly?
The second debate within the Deep Local program focused on bringing to light new and adventurous new media projects outside the western world. These ambitious projects were placed in the context of the Deep Local thread. What can new media projects do within small local communities and how can we make them work properly?
The debate opened with an introduction from Eric Kluitenberg in which he addressed the issues specific to this theme. It is important, he said, to make the distinction between global and local, to customize to the needs of the local environment and culture. We would see examples of how this could be implemented in the presented projects.
First up was Carl Biörsmark, a media artist and filmmaker from Latvia who set up the culture and information centre K@2 as an outcome of a filmproject on the inhabitants of Karosta. Karosta is a small town of Russians left over from a former Soviet military base. Carl showed the film " crazy girls", documenting the every day life of three girls. Initially, the project was to make a documentary about the inhabitant’s lives only, but after completing it, the artists realized they just couldn't leave the people and the history just as they were. They felt they could do more for them, especially for the children in the city.
K@2 is an open social space where children and youth can talk to pedagogues and have access to media. In this way they can learn about media, basic operating and accessing information. Biörsmark feels that local media projects are mostly about a sense of responsibility.
After setting up the centre and the film projects there has been an increase in interaction between the Russian and Latvian population. The K@2 centre has become an active meeting place for the youth of the city.
What followed was the project Cybermohalla (Cyberneighbourhood), from India. This is an interactive installation based on creative content from inhabitants of a non-programmed neighbourhood environment. Inhabitants of the neighbourhood could contribute to the installation by adding text, pictures, drawings, poetry and various other content. This is done in a studio set-up, where there are computers, cameras, printers, scanners etc. to make it possible to deliver the digital content to the project. The installation was written on open source software. Free and accessible to everyone. The Cybermohalla installation is more than an opportunity for Indian citizens to interact with new media. It is also a socio-political statement. A statement against the corporate and state controlled censorship on free software. Against the lack of opportunities for the common people to express themselves without being undermined by state control. The lack of free resources is one of the reasons for the lack of possibilities for the average Indian citizen to get to know modern media technologies. The Cybermohalla installation can be seen the whole weekend in the Melkweg.
And finally, the NairoBits project helped children in Kenia to set up small internet café’s and organised internet courses to teach the children in townships the fundaments of digital media. The courses are being tought at different levels of difficulty. Right now the students who took the course earlier are teaching new students. The participants are learning to develop their own websites and setting up other networks.
Marcin Pakulnicki