Virtual Borders or Digital Devide?

Manu Luksch

2% of the world's population have internet access, half of them live in the US. 0.5% of the population in SE Asia have internet access. (UN Human Development Report 1999, www.undp.org/hdro)

The excitement about "Convergence" might derive from the fact, that the allegedly global media internet simply is not global. Streaming media on the internet is often at its best if linked, or as a consequence converged, with technology which exists in the average household. In the "developing countries" the most common media is the radio, especially in rural communities with lack of infrastructure. A range of projects are exploring the convergence of radio and internet as a means to democratize knowledge infrastructure. (1)

However, in the "industrialized countries", the term of convergence is mostly associated with the fusion of TV and internet due to massive advertisement for high-bandwidth solutions. TV on broadband internet connections, or internet on TV through settop-boxes and cable modems, the consumer somehow knows the range of hardware solutions before s/he can even guess which content might come along with it.

The project Virtual Borders aims at creating a documentary film, which narrates a story by distributing information over intertwined layers of media - DV, internet and radio ? in order to reach and involve diverse audiences.

Left-Overs Of The High-Tech-Age

"1962 ... wurde in Harvard und beim MIT der erste elektronische Krieg der Geschichte entwickelt (...es) empfing, interpretierte und zeigte das elektronische Ueberwachungszentrum von Nakhon Phanom in Thailand Daten, die von Bodenstationen ueber die Bat-Cat-Lockheed- Flugzeuge uebermittelt wurden. In diesem neuen Kriegsknotenpunkt klassifizierte ein 360.35 Computer von IBM automatisch die uebermittelten Daten und lieferte den Analytiker ein Schema des feindlichen Verkehrs und liefeten den Jagdbombern der Operation Skyspot die Daten, die aeusserste Schnelligkeit und groesste Genauigkeit in der Ausfuehrung ihres Auftrages gewaehrleisteten." S 178-180 Virilio, Paul: Krieg und Kino.(2)

Shooting a film in villages in a jungle-covered, mountainous setting, where infrastructure such as electricity, water systems or roads are mostly missing, one is tempted to celebrate in a romantic way "tribal" life in harmony with nature. However, not all is what it seems to be. The foothills of the Himalayas in the Golden Triangle served once, during Cold War in the 60ies, as operational area for state-of-the-art data-collection and -transfer technologies, in the lost effort to track down and exterminate the "Communist guerrilla".

One relict of the CIA's investment is the radio station in Chiang Mai, north of Thailand. The Virtual Borders team met up with the director of the Mountain People Radio Station, Mr. Vichien, and the presenters of the Akha language radio programs, Mrs. Apho and Mrs. Asseu. "People who work here told me about the history of this radio station. They say that in the beginning, many years ago, a lot tribal people lived in the mountains who didn't know who they were: Thai or Burmese or Laotian or whatever. The Thai government thought it is better to get some news or information from the government to the tribal people in order to establish contact with them. That's why they started the mountain people program, now they can all listen to the radio programs." (VB Interview with Apho, 12/1999) (3) Or, as another friend put it, villagers were informed not to host rebels in the mountain villages, as they threaten the state which will look after the villagers. Today, 10 ethnic minority groups of N-Thailand amongst which the Akha transmit daily programs in their native languages. The programs are received deep into the Shan State and north of Laos, where battery powered transistor radios provide the only access to media for most of the villages.

The Akha People Network

I had gone there following an invitation by Akha friends to make a film with and about the Akha people. Their population of 3 million spreads across the borderlands of five national territories: China PDR, Laos PDR, Vietnam, Thailand, and Burma (Myanmar). The year 2000 brought them together when they held a meeting in Jinghong, Yunnan, China. The Akha and Hani identify as one people through their "tribal" history, rather than the "modern" world history which created the nation states they live in. The most important tool for shared experience is the traditional knowledge transmitted orally to the successive generations. More recently, this tradition has found support through the radio programs. The International Conference on Hani and Akha Culture was hosted by the People's Government of the Xishuangbanna Dai Prefecture, and the official focus lied in "cultural and social issues".

The network of the Akha hamlets, knowing no geographical center and no territorial borders, had been invulnerable during the last 2500 years, as long as the forwarding of shared experience, wisdom and history through memorizing was unchallenged. However it had became fragile in the face of new communication means, such as national scripts and electronic media. At the conference it showed that most "cultural" issues were linked to the conditions within the different national context. Governmental policies that influence the daily lives of the Akha were considered; issues such as citizen rights, formal education, infrastructure, land rights, or their relationships to the dominant lowlanders. The main narrative of the film followed the highly recognized Akha personality, Abaw Buseu, on his way from his village in Thailand to the conference in Yunnan, accompanied by the radio presenter Asseu.

Exploiting Dynamics Of Media

Usually, documentary filmmakers attempt to minimize their influence of their presence. This project was driven by the idea that the dynamics of media are not only able to capture a story but also create a situation from which the people to be documented will continue to profit: the documentary introduces the internet as effective solution to provide an affordable audio link for a people divided by international borders.

We established an internet link from the meeting in China to the radio station in Thailand, which transmitted the discussions and interviews to the mountain villages within the allotted 2 hours Akha programme. The structure of VB recognizes the emerging 'media loop': TV, radio, and the internet Abaw Buseu´s wife was filmed listening and reacting to the programme, which again, is integrated in the documentary. Like her, many Akha villagers followed the reports of Asseu from China. Apho, who commented the inserts from the radio station in Thailand received telephone calls during the programme and was asked questions. Apho was connected to the conference participants through video-mail facilities .

The creation of the temporary 'internet radio station' in this cultural setting allowed the Akha to explore the appropriateness of this technology, as an affordable and legal alternative to the problems they face in relying on their oral culture in the face of an ever more embracing global culture.

A Film Always Has An End While Reality Continues

As part of the Virtual Borders project, we arranged the teaching of web authoring to some Akha who were already more or less computer literate. Silverserver, an ISP in Vienna, agreed to host www.hani-akha.org, the beginning of an Akha community website, for music, online textile shops, discussions about the still not standardized Akha script, etc. It serves not only as self-representation to the outside world, but also as tool to communicate amongst themselves.

Asseu was eager to see the Web of which she had heard before. We showed her a search engine and she suggested to type in "Akha". The sites which appeared meant nothing to her, as she could not read English. Consequently, I chose a link to a RealVideo file, a video I remembered which was based on a popular Akha song and which I had uploaded some time ago. As soon as she recognized the song, she understood immediately how the internet can carry information in different formats ? text, image, and sound, and from then on she would suggest her ideas during our collaboration on the radio programs from China. A film always has an end while reality continues. In the case of Virtual Borders, the end leads to this community website as 'online interface' to the people who appear in the film. In a way, the audience will be able to influence how the "story" continues by using the Internet and getting involved.

Converging Technology For Converging People

If "converging" means "coming closer together", the concept of convergence of radio-internet-film content in Virtual Borders aims to converge the people behind the different media. It is people creating borders and gaps and it is people bridging them, be it with means of technology. The broadband film & DVD (English and Mandarin subtitles) will be available at www.ambientTV.net. (4)

Footnotes:

(1) links to Radio-Internet projects in the Developing World: www.comunica.org/kl/docsnlinks.htm
(2) Virilio, Paul: Krieg und Kino. Logistik der Wahrnehmung. S178. Muenchen, Wien 1986.
(3) ex: Interviews conducted for VIRTUAL BORDERS
(4) further information and credits of VIRTUAL BORDERS: www.ambientTV.net/akha