out here.

i've been trying to make some minor changes around my immediate world, for example, i deleted everyone from my msn messenger because somehow, at certain periods of life, it becomes impossible for me to work when i see so many people inside my ibook's desktop. there's also a new person living in our house, my sister sol, which means i can start conspiring around certain projects that i wanted to do and didn't because of lack of an actor who could be interested in participating in minor media or net.related stuff. i've been trying also to find a sense of namny things that are happening around, for example war, and the ever-growing fear manifested in pacifism. and i have to say i strongly dislike pacifism, with this i don't mean i'm into war... but let's face it, this war is the result of so many things we never wanted to solve and even promoted... this looks to me so much like all these persons from my country who complain about this political party which remained in control for over 70 years, but when it did, nobody wanted to do anything about the situation and in fact many many millions of people liked the idea (i could certainly talk about majority). one could think that after world war 2 we would certainly be cured of pacifism, but no, there are many people who still believe in not getting involved in their lifes, the world that surrounds them because it's for easier for them, and when things get really bad, they again get into pacifist mode. now you have a lot of artists doing art against war that will be shown in galleries and websites, but without really being involved in campaigns or actions. look at the demonstrations of last week, that wasn't just a pacifist act, that was a strategic action of people against war. numbers, multitudes which will appear in newspapers and media in general to demonstrate that nobody wants war. and it certainly was a coordinated action. but this people against war doing art and showing it in places nowhere near the action, i mean....

yesterday pacho and i had a long conversation which involved new media art and activism versus pacifism. this was yesterday. today i found out that the gig i'm doing in pittsburgh is not really in pittsburgh, but in philadelphia. i have to say sometimes i can be the worst when it comes to things like this, and this said, i'm a big geography addict, but sometimes can somehow confuse pittsburgh with philadelphia (which i now don't have much in common but the initial 'p' and the thing that they are both cities in the usa). i can understand mixing genoa and geneve, but this..... pffff. if you're online this night try to check out story streams , which is one of the events happening in streaming cinema 3.0. and tomorrow marsha kinder and femke wolting will speak there, too bad i will miss them. next some info about their panel where also michael lew and jeannette lambert participate:

Is Once Upon A Time Enough?
"Run Lola Run". "Time Code". "Memento". All are theatrical films which play with the linear narrative structure of cinema. On TV, Fox's 24 employs a real time timeline that subverts traditional television narrative. Exhibitions and online venues are full of non-linear and interactive programs. The content is there, and it's been successful yet most media companies continue to exhibit linear only programs (making only occasional forays into interactivity). But are distributors really the bottleneck, or is it the audiences? Do they want to be challenged do they just want to be entertained? Do they want to interact or do they want to be passive? "Once Upon A Time" will explore the realities of creating, producing, and finding audiences for non-linear narrative and interactive programs. The panel will also discuss the live, interactive webcast which takes place the previous night.

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today i had an incredible e-mail by Marie Desire Kabila, which almost convinced me to start an investment in Democratic Republic of Congo. you know, one of this spams you receive many times day, but the difference was, this is the first time i receive this same scam written by a woman. altough i still would have to make up my mind wether i want to invest in angola, congo or sierra leona. i think sometimes nigeria is also an option. i could also invest in a couple of coffee's this night.

now, i have to say that after posting or before doing it, i have all this wonderful ideas and when i actually write it's like i can't connect the dots. i remember i wanted to talk about the war and all this artists who are against it (without really doing anything against it, sometimes not even connecting with their local initiatives to do some collaborative work) but instead continuing the author tradition, i wanted to talk about doctor x (my friend) who desesperately wants to leave the streets of méxico for the streets in baghdad in order to act as a human shield.... yesterday a whole delegation of mexicans left to baghdad to act as shields. a lot of things are happening, both in narrative media and how it's slowly mixing with activism, altough i believe we have to be weary of some of its manifestations which in a way could become like some kind of 'indymedia storycenter', which of course would be the easy way to go. for the time being i want to see jeroen's spaghetti narrative scheme visualizer and avoid all possible traps to follow the way which many of us are following, seems like for many the only way to go is do the same as west europe and the north-america (mexico not included). so in a way it seems we are always repeating patterns and following trends which don't work. i remember this conversation i had with atty from hell.com after he gave a talk in a museum in mexico city. i told him he should've talk more about the context where he works, cause otherwise the kids in the audience only understood he was coming out of london, and so, he was cool. and so, people asked what computer do they need to create net.art. but they didn't talk so much about forms and ruptures and why this could mean an antimaterial art. and i mean, the exhibition happened in the poshest museum in the city, why would the kids or the audience think that net.art was something radical if they where watching this artist from london in the context of this museum. and i mean, who in méxico could think that art made with computers could be something democratic or revolutionary or for the people. i mean, who can buy computers here? even books could be considered less elitist, as people learn how to read in the first year of school, and we could say that schools exist more or less everywhere in this country. but to talk about some kind of media art / net.art literacy this would mean that somebody knows how to read, use a computer, have access to internet, be interested in art and even know where in internet you could find this. talking about elitism and specialization. my discussion to atty was basically that every spacetime has different conditions, and that net.art was not the same as in others part of the world. but of course my message didn't come thru. and then i understand when people talk about eurocentrism. and then what i don't understand is why would we try to follow every trend from the outside, when is so obvious that are conditions are different. i could think that computers would create somekind of authentic expression in places like latin-america or africa or some parts of asia, but to implant net.art or expect that history follows the same path is actually looking for 'the same' in 'the other'. of course there where always good indians that did what the european wanted. and they're still around, loook at the way the president of mexico behaves. mestizos are so complicated. and yes, i am a mestizo. and even worse as i'm from north america, the south from southern california: baja california, the north of méxico, who is trying to make up all this latinity issues in an scene where everybody wants to live in paris, new york or barcelona. sometimes even london. ... what to do?

Posted by fran ilich at February 22, 2003 01:39 PM