<nettime> reports from the amsterdam net.congestion streaming media festival

["geert lovink" <geert@xs4all.nl>]

See also: http://212.83.64.183:8090/netcongestion/news.html

The net.congestions site will obviously give a high priority to live (and
archived) streams of all panels and seminars. But this will be supplemented
by continuously updated reports from the festival. A team of web editors
will be bringing articles, reports and reflections from guest speakers and
artists as well as short pieces by our actual and on-line visitors. So
please visit us regularly to stay in touch with events at net.congestion.

Workshop Quick Time
Montevideo
Date: Friday October 6
14.30-17.00

Two employees from Apple, Fred van der Ende and Bram Elderman, were
presenting the workshop of Quick Time (QT), a cross-platform and
multi-tracked video-editing semi-free software. During the workshop they
were explaining the details of using QT and its streaming possiblities
although the audience would like to have heard more about streaming and less
about Apple-products.

QT streaming is an Open Source technology so anyone can download the
serverside code and compile it for their own system.  One participant of the
workshop was not very impressed by "the little Apple dance" where the two
presentators
were showing the technique of wireless live-streaming. The QT code is
available for Unix-platforms but from reactions of other participants its
not so clear if the API is available or open.

Linux rules.

Sara Platon

Scripting workshop/seminar (Christoph Kummerer)
De Balie, Kleine Zaal

Friday October 6
10:00-12:00

M/^\S+\s+(\S+@|st)(.*[0-9]+s+)(\d\d*\,\d\d?]\s*$)

"Well, so this it what it looks like," says Christoph.
"Ooh, that's interesting," says the grey man in the first row, "and you are
gonna teach us how to read this?"
The answer to this question is a series of nice looking but unfortunately
not very clarifying actions that take place on two different screens, which
are projected on a large screen. Christoph gives some explanation when he
does his programming, but after a while his talking slows a little bit.

I am not a programming expert: the only thing I know about is HTML, so this
workshop seems to be a tough one. It is kinda technical on this Friday
morning. The aim of it is to get to know programming with PERL. It is a
language with which you can enhance the interactivity of a web page. PERL
provides a way to transfer information from one computer to another, tell
the producer of a web site things about its users and check out the routing
of information. So, in the script you can check, for instance, whether the
email address that someone has given is correct.

Christoph Kummerer is a guy from Vienna who was given a computer for his
eighth birthday. Since then he's been hooked: he starting with making
electronic music, and since that time he has written a music application for
the Nintendo Gameboy. He is considered an artist. The good thing about this
is that he knows perfectly well what he's talking about. The bad thing is
that he is so well equipped that he kinda forgets that the people attending
the workshop aren't really into the programming stuff yet.

Carole Wright, a web designer/media artist from London, who works primarily
with video and photography, came to the workshop to see to what kind of uses
PERL programming can have in her work. As a lecturer herself, she really
wants to pass on the information about this to people who don't have easy
Internet access. She expected the workshop to be far more interactive; that
she would sit behind the computer and DO the things she has merely watched.
Still, after 2 hours, she'll be able to demystify some of the art of
programming.

This is not a workshop for dummies, although I quickly begin to feel like
one. And then, suddenly, we see a page in which the things Christoph has
been showing us become clear: suddenly, the idea pops up that the text
screens do result in pages we, as beginners, can understand. I will have to
stick to the websites: http://www.cpan.org/ in which 'all things PERL' are
provided, and http://www.worldwidemart.com/scripts/perl/ because that is
where we can easily download the things we want to use.

I didn't find a more elegant way to do it, but hell, it works...

Floor de Groot

Software Developments I: Interfaces & Customised Players - Visual Basics
De Balie Kleine Zaal

Friday October 6
12.00-14.00

In this workshop, it is Ray Shelby's task to give us an idea about how
simple it is to get started with Visual Basics. Unfortunately nobody in the
audience has any experience with VB, the way he lovingly calls it. Together
with Nic Limper, also an expert in the field of VB, he will gives as an idea
about the way you can integrate streaming media into your webpage. Ray
starts by giving some information about the programme. He loses me a few
times but now and then there are things I do understand. Ray shows us how he
built a webpage in which he imbedded streaming media. I understand now what
he said at the beginning: VB is halfway between simple using a programme and
writing your own binary/machine code. So you use the language already
written and change that to make the page exactly the way you want it to be.
For example by changing the properties and by cutting and pasting a little
bit. Of course it is not as simple as that, but this is how far I could
follow it. The result is a site with a frame on the left side, with a list
of different sound and film files where you can click on. If you do that,
Realplayer or Windows Media Player starts and plays whatever you chose.
Special is that everything is shown in the same window, there is no new
screen popping up. It looks really nice and I have the idea I could learn
how to make it myself. When your interested too, you can find more
information about VB on http://www.klari.net/netcongestion .

A more vivid example of what can be done with Visual Basics, is shown at
http://www.klari.net/2000/klarivision.asp . On this WebPage made by Nic, we
see a television, a comfortable chair and a remote control. With the remote
control you can zap the way you can with your television at home. The
channels appear on the tv-screen. The only problem is that you have to wait
a while before you see the channel of your choice, because Nic made a
connection to his video so we have to wait until the signal has come over. A
nice example of what can be done with Visual Basics.

Wendy Koops

Opening Event Zugrada
De Balie

Friday, October 6
20.00-2.00

This artist collective from Belgrade could not have chosen a more
unfortunate time to come to Amsterdam. They are invited to do the opening
event at the Balie, but in their absence there has been a revolution. By the
time they return to Belgrade, the political situation is going to be changed
drastically. One of them says that he cannot believe it: 'I have been living
under Milosovic for twelve years, which is a large period of my life'- he is
only twenty-two. They follow everything what happens at home with amazement.
His colleague, Aleksander Gubas tells me a bit more about the collective and
the situation at home.

The Hardcore of Zadruga contains of about twelve artists, of which six came
to Amsterdam. I ask if the group has any political background. 'We are what
you can call an artguerrilla. Not in a political sense, we are mostly
opposed to a lack of sense.' They all got to know each other at the Cinema
Rex, a cultural centre where people had the opportunity to present new ideas
and inventions. Each of them had their own story, their own approach. 'After
the Cinema Rex and all the equipment was taken over by another owner, the
crew of Cinema Rex went on in the group Cyberrex. This group became too
involved with politics, so the artists of Zadruga formed their own group. We
wanted to express our feelings in art, not make a political statement. We
want to tell about our emotions about living under the regime of Milosovic.
Political actions have to be done for example by demonstrating in the street
or cancel programmes on the radio.' At the same time it's difficult to
concentrate at the moment. 'We are only half here. Our minds are with the
things that happen at home.'

It is a pity, but I am more interested by the way they react on the
political situations then on the art they make. Probably it is also because
they are not completely here. But the public seems to have a good time, and
that is the most important thing, isn't it?

Wendy Koops

Opening Event Zugrada
De Balie

Friday, October 6
20.00-2.00

This artist collective from Belgrade could not have chosen a more
unfortunate time to come to Amsterdam. They are invited to do the opening
event at the Balie, but in their absence there has been a revolution. By the
time they return to Belgrade, the political situation is going to be changed
drastically. One of them says that he cannot believe it: 'I have been living
under Milosovic for twelve years, which is a large period of my life'- he is
only twenty-two. They follow everything what happens at home with amazement.
His colleague, Aleksander Gubas tells me a bit more about the collective and
the situation at home.

The Hardcore of Zadruga contains of about twelve artists, of which six came
to Amsterdam. I ask if the group has any political background. 'We are what
you can call an artguerrilla. Not in a political sense, we are mostly
opposed to a lack of sense.' They all got to know each other at the Cinema
Rex, a cultural centre where people had the opportunity to present new ideas
and inventions. Each of them had their own story, their own approach. 'After
the Cinema Rex and all the equipment was taken over by another owner, the
crew of Cinema Rex went on in the group Cyberrex. This group became too
involved with politics, so the artists of Zadruga formed their own group. We
wanted to express our feelings in art, not make a political statement. We
want to tell about our emotions about living under the regime of Milosovic.
Political actions have to be done for example by demonstrating in the street
or cancel programmes on the radio.' At the same time it's difficult to
concentrate at the moment. 'We are only half here. Our minds are with the
things that happen at home.'

It is a pity, but I am more interested by the way they react on the
political situations then on the art they make. Probably it is also because
they are not completely here. But the public seems to have a good time, and
that is the most important thing, isn't it?

Wendy Koops

The network is the narrative
Paradiso 10.30

Shifting Paradigms

Panelmember Philip Pocock, participating in an artist collective from
Karlsruhe, Germany, creates online and offline situations in which the user
is asked to step into this work of art. Pocock: "Interaction is not about a
controlling author, but about the user inputting text." Offline, the
collective creates installations in which the user can walk around and
contribute to the work of art. He becomes more aware of his own
possibilities as an active contributor, shifting his paradigm from a passive
consuming spectator into an active coproducer. This process is the result of
the interaction between the users on the one hand and between the collective
and the users on the other. The space between the different individuals is
where the collaboration takes place, both offline and online. The Internet
encourages an active attitude as a result of the frequency of
information-exchanges. It speeds up the interaction between different users
and thus teaches them to create instead of consuming.  But not only the
audience has to shift to another paradigm; the artist himself has to grow
into his new role in which he has to give up his control and leave the
lion's share of the invention of fiction to the audience.

Barbara Devilee

Bandwith Aesthetics
Paradiso; Grote Zaal

An artist lead discussion about whether production values and technical
quality are essential for audio and video streaming. Is it the medium or the
message that is crucial in artistic expression? In reference to Marshall Mc
Luchan's remark.

Participants:
Alexander Gubas: Low Fi Video, Belgrade, FR Yugoslavia
Rasa Smite & Raitas Smits: Radio OZOne, Riga, Latvia
Menno Grootveld: Lost & Found, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Prema Murthy: Artist, New York, USA
Walter van de Cruijsen: Streaming ASCII, Berlin, Germany

Chair: Honor Harger: Radioqualia, New Zealand / London, UK

Menno Grootveld

Background:
He is an 80's activist. There were by then para tv stations popping up, and
he and some others broadcasted a television program called Robotic tv. That
came to an end and right now everybody can start his own station via the web
Menno said. In the nineties he worked at the Dutch broadcasting company
called VPRO.

Now he develops his own projects again. Especially a program named LOST AND
FOUND, which is viewed on a regular basis at DE WAAG in Amsterdam. These are
screenings of video, websites, slide shows, or whatever. Menno Grootveld
mentions in relation to the topic of the discussion that the media need a
specific environment. A couple of weeks ago there had been a screening in
the Artis planetarium. That space is much bigger and the screening was
different or actually it didn't work well in that environment. It is very
hard to treat a medium in different spaces in the same way. Film on the web
is also not a very good idea according to him.
He is an administrator of the mailinglist Nettime-nl and recently he wanted
to make a connection between a mailinglist and a tv-program. He thinks that
a mailinglist and the web are very different from tv as a medium. He
actually played around with that fact and made the tv screen look like a
computer screen. This is of course very contradictory, but that was the aim
of his approach. They also wanted streamed video in this program. So they
used Quick time in a very large format, as a voluntary deterioration of the
image emerged. The philosophy behind this approach is that they make people
think of what technology is and what the specifics of certain media are like
image or format.

Raitas Smits

They were running a radio station and were so excited on the streaming, that
they wanted to do it everywhere all the time. Finally they streamed sound
from a train. Radio on a train. They transferred the content (the music)
from the train to the web, by using cell phones to transmit the data. Rasa
was on the train and Raitas received the content via the Nokia which have
very good sound. Raitas said that the audience after this discussion will
remember nothing more than two artists doing something with streaming from a
train. He said that he can't explain us the great feeling of doing that.

Live performance - Metastream:
http://ozone.re-lab.net/meta/

Walter van de Cruijsen

Due to some connection mistake he can't show he wanted to show us first, but
a link will be announced somewhere on this site later on as he copied it
from his computer to another. This project would have shown us in the top
some videoconferencing and underneath a talk session. Therefore he now shows
us some other ASCII examples. Walter van de Cruijsen is a member of the
ASCII ensemble together with, among others, Vuk Cosic from Ljubljana.
They don't believe the streaming medium will produce (good) content. They
are very sceptical on the possibilities of streaming. They believe in text
based ASCII, and low profile computer stuff.

He shows a previous recorded videotape where the data are converted to
computer characters (ASCII). Then the Ensemble still has to compress the
video as the content is too big for the streaming. The video they used for
this piece is 'Deep Throat' a very successful B-grade porn movie from the
seventies. Vuc Cosic made this choice.

Another example he shows is, is a form wherein you can dump some text. Then
you have to wait a while for the server. On a sudden moment it changes the
ASCII characters to sound and after a while it transfers into text again.
Walter makes the text block smaller as it is too big for the machine, but
then actually a stream of very alienating words sprout out making totally no
connection to each other. It repeats person, dollar, etc..

ASCII Art Ensemble
http://www.desk.org/a/a/e/ (homepage)
http://www.zkm.de/~wvdc/ascii/java/ (mac user should have mrj2.2.1 or
newer!; then open this in the apple applet runner)
http://ova.zkm.de/cgi-bin/mp3speech (text to speech to mpeg-stream)

Alexander Gubas

What is specific of making films for the web? Is a question that Alexander
is interested in. During the bombing in Belgrade no one was allowed to
organise any festivals, as they wanted to have one for movies, but they
could have an Internet site accompanied by short films. Alexander Gubas
thinks that there has to be something specific to the streaming that is
especially for the Internet. Therefore as they don't have broadband Internet
connection in Belgrade, they have put very low profile short films on the
site. There is a very short moving part in it, while most of it is just a
row of stills and music.


DISCUSSION

Honor:
As it is created especially for the Internet, what are the specifics of that
streaming?

Alexander:
Almost any movement has disappeared, it became a row of stills. Moving
images is too much for the technology they have in Belgrade. He wants to
make full length movies shot by a home camcorder. It works, according to him
when you have a good story. He says that the message is the most important
and not the medium.

Menno:
In general Menno agrees on Alexander's statement: the aesthetics of
streaming media. Streaming media are still not very good. Only Loops or
stills do work with the broadband and not real movement. His argument to use
the net instead of the broadcasting companies is also related to the power
of the central institutions. He prefers distributed authority to central
power.

Honor:
Wants to know what the main reason was for everybody starting to use
streaming media: the freedom. The Lack of access to other medium channels?

Raisas:
For him that was one of the main reasons. He has a socialistic background.
It fit in with the image of the net a few years ago. The idea of being equal
on the net.

Rasa:
'We were just very excited about the streaming, experimenting with using the
cell phone by Nokia (very good sound) as a microphone.

Honor:
What is exciting about streaming media, she asks Walter?

Walter:
Walter isn't positive about it he already mentioned. There are also
confusing definitions according to him what streaming media are. 'Data goes
through lines while nothing gets lost'. With mail you also stream, the
difference with video is that it regards very huge amounts of data. The
technology is still not sufficient enough to handle all those streams.

Honor:
Do you all make use of the possibilities or limitations of the technology?

Menno:
Limitation makes you aware of what you are doing and so making your profit
out of it.

Walter:
DDS was in the former days not totally dependent on equipment. You also have
to be aware of the format. Everybody had by then great expectations.
Everyone was eventually disappointed about the lousy quality due to those
high standards everybody had in the beginning. So think about the formats
too. This is call from Walter for making the right equipment. 'Start
programming', he said.

Alexander:
Says that technology isn't underdeveloped, but that it depends on what your
demands are. There is still a lot that is not explored yet. He mentions the
obsession with buying the new(est) machines, that no one has explored fully.
The most important is what you want to tell so the message, which is
dependent on the possibilities of the medium.

Rasa:
Technology is good enough. What we want to do with it is the biggest
question. It is not about consuming, but about participating and
contributing, she adds.

Audience;
Is it important to have the audience interact on the project?

Raisas:
Raisas says that that is always important. There has to be a call for
feedback all the time. They have always the possibility to chat in their
projects.

Producers were the audience and the other way around, complete blurring is
mentioned by the audience.

Raisas agrees on that.

Menno:
TV is a broadcasting medium, they aim at a large audience, so in theory that
should be interesting for participation, but it is very hard because there
is no feedback possibility.
That was possible at Queensday in Holland at some date. People could then
call the studio and their question was asked to people who were walking on
some squares in Amsterdam. Another example was the Eurovisiesongfestival. By
then there was a connection between a caller who wanted to sing a song
together with someone on TV. On tv you deal with very large amounts of
people watching. The net is different from the Net.

Audience:
How do you meet on the expectations of the audience. How can you not kill
the message because of the sometimes badly quality of technology?

Alexander:
Says that it adds some new qualities too. It deprives for instance from not
necessary information. The essence that is what it is about and what can be
showed.

Honor closes the discussion.

This was a summary of the discussion. Eventually the conclusion was that
everybody agreed on the statement that the message is the most important. Of
course that is again dependent on the medium and the available technology.
The artists make use of the limitations or possibilities each in their own
way and with their own specific reasons and backgrounds. Technology is still
not sufficient enough to do what we sometimes would like to do. Though that
is good also, in my opinion. We have to embrace our limitations I guess, and
do not pretend we have all the possibilities that are available or could be
in the future. So far don't be too optimistic on the streaming media
technology, but certainly don't be too pessimistic.

Petra Heck

The Hybrid Media Show
Paradiso, October 7, 14:00

Host: Micz Flor
Panelmembers: Adam Hyde, Gordan Paunovic, Remco Scha, Arthur Elmers, Howard
Jones, Zina Kaye, Susan Kennard, Toek and Mauzz.

Having expected 'a dazzling show of successful and innovative hybrid media
formats', that would demonstrate the progress that has been made in
combining diverse technologies, I have to say that, personally, I was rather
disappointed to see the focus of this panel aimed almost solely at audio.
Nonetheless, the presentations did demonstrate the many possibilities
available to streaming media today. These vary from content production, as
demonstrated by Zina Kaye of the House of Laudanum (
http://observatine.net ) to radio broadcasts over the airwaves using
computer technologies to feed off the Net for programs (Frequency Clock
http://www.radioqualia.net ).
Susan Kennard (undeliberately) questioned the use of extended database
websites, showing how on Radio 90 in Banff, Canada ( http://www.radio90.fm )
the Internet is mainly used as a platform to find and compose program
schedules. However, this did not invoke any strong discussion, as most
panelmembers did represent websites with extended possibilities. And all
seemed to agree on the fact that streaming media allow, and should allow,
the user to manipulate (and sometimes even control) the program schedules.
Howard Jones of Interface Pirate Radio in the UK (
http://www.interface.pirate-radio.co.uk ), for instance, rightfully took
pride in the fact that over 120 dj's and over 50.000 viewer/listeners
worldwide contribute to their round the clock schedule. Toek of DFM radio in
Amsterdam (http://Basis.desk.nl/~dfm ), on the other hand, emphasized the
joy of webcasting for the sake of webcasting, no matter how large or small
the audience, thus indicating that streaming media is indeed successfully
marginal and marginally successful*.
An issue that cast a darker light over this promising technology is that of
licensing. Gordan Paunovic explained how Radio FreeB92's (
http://www.freeB92.net ) efforts at informing the Yugoslav audience have
been curtailed by the government on numerous occasions. Transmission of
programs then had to be realized by encoding them in MP3 format, sending
these files to a London collaborator who then decoded the files and
broadcast them back to Yugoslavia. Host Micz Flor later expressed his
concern that it won't be long before legislators have found ways to obstruct
streaming media by imposing new laws obligating streaming media distributors
to obtain licenses. For streaming media, then, the time is now.

* convex tv.. Next Five Minutes 3 reader

Fifi Schwarz

the network is the narrative/ speakers' comments
paradiso, 10.00 hrs, October 7th

The network is the narrative: commentary of the speakers

The need to structually redefine narrative itself

The panel presented a broad set of views on the role of the network in
the evolution of "narrative", but there were two clearly
differenciated positions: on the one hand Nick and Nora offer a view
of how the network can embrace and democratize traditional narrative,
Phillip and I proposed a structural redefinition of narrative itself.

In my case I propose the concept of "creative exchange" and
"interpretative interference" as a key forces in the possibilities of
network narrative. Through this approaches the individual can be
valorized and made central in the processes of construction of
meaning.

While I don't believe any approach to narrative (such as those
proposed by Nick and Nora) should be disqualified as valid, I do
think that it is most important to explore those elements of the
technology which offer alternatives to traditionally hegemonic models
and open up to modes of expression embracing a multitude of cultural
identities.

Fabian Wagminster, Argentina, Los Angeles

Closings, and the benefits of linearity

The panel discussing networked narratives took as its focus the work of a
number of artists who were making online moving image based work that
extended the cinematic frame to include material that engaged with the non
linear nature
of the networked environment. The strategies utilised to do this were
various and included installation and other offline approaches.

Phillip Pocock's demonstated a database driven engine which serves differing
content on a 24/7 basis whilst Nora Barry showed artists projects which use
a similar strategy of building narratives out of the interaction of the
user/view themselves. Fabian Wagminster was critical of the notion of
"viewer" (or worse) "user" seeing it as symptomatic of the western or
north-world master narrative which imposes a passive postion on the viewer.
Contra to this he demonstrated a recent project
which connected web cams in a coal mine with a gallery based installation
that showed material to the visitor in response to their own movement
through the gallery space. My own project, Discrete Packets demonstated a
combined linear/non-linear approach sourcing a part of its narrative content
from pre-existing missing persons web sites.

The panel discussed issues around authorship and closure - moving towards a
position where the 'benefits'of linearity could be held in play against the
socially valourised mechanism or user/viewer participation. Audience members
questioned the
overiding 'video' nature of the panel and suggested that online audio is
also making a contribution to new narrative understandings, a point that was
accepted by the chair.

Nick Crowe

ed.: Floor de Groot

network is the narrative, remark by chairman
paradiso, octobre 7m 10.00 hrs

Net.report the network narrative.
So many interesting threads emerged in this panel that we will hopefully
have time to follow up later. Nora Barry the initiator of BitNet on-line
film festival mentioned story telling as a basic human need and she
articulated that by referring to 1001 Nights and the underlying structure of
the Princess Sheherezade whose had to tell a story every night to save her
own life. She went on to describe the net as an ocean of story.
Fabian Wagminster raised the issue of evolving a model for narrative based
on exchange rather than user/receiver. He saw developing communities as
having developed many advanced social protocols, which could be developed.
Phillip Pocock was the artist who most concentrated on narrative as 'plot'
not only in terms of the " the principal of interconnectedness and intention
by which we move through the discrete elements-incidents-episodes and
actions." But also the spatial use of the idea of plot. Plot as in a
measured area of land. His narratives are plotting landscapes as they unfold
in narrative time and so and so re-visit the oldest narrative form (from
Homer onwards) the picaresque or narrative as epic journey.
One of the most powerful pieces was from Manchester based artist Nick Crowe
whose fictional character is in search of a missing person. As one moves
through Nick's piece one finds oneself immersed in real missing person's
sites. In which his fictional character has been embedded. Fact and fiction
merge as the net accelerates towards a space of rumour, myth and
misinformation. In Nick's piece above all the network is the narrative.

David Garcia

The network is the narrative
Paradiso October 7, 10.00

The network is the narrative,
Saturday October 7, 10.30 hrs, Paradiso

Participants:
Philip Pocock, ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany
Nick Crowe, Manchester, UK
Norra Barry, the bit screen, Narberth, USA
Fabian Wagminster, Argentina, Los Angeles
chair: David Garcia

The Plot is changing

David Garcia reminds us of the original threefold meaning of the term plot.
It has a distinct spatial element as we call a small piece of landscape a
plot, an occupation in space. The way in which we generally use it is to
describe a series of events of which a drama consists. But 'plot' is also a
secret plan. Those three elements of the plot might be kept in the back of
the head, when talking about new narrative structures and principles.

At the moment, there are more stories than ever. The Internet can be seen as
a database filled with different stories. We might have to change the
paradigms we have on narrative. The author isn't the same he was, the public
may become a co-author, and the easy one-direction narrative isn't
sufficient anymore. However.

"Bob, you stupid spammer. I hope she's dead."

Nick Crowe combines the fluidity of the network experience with other kinds
of cinematic experience, and integrates them in one narrative. We can regard
the Internet as a real physical space, or some kind of public space, in
which we can travel and we can integrate public resources in stories. In his
project Discrete Packets is that he uses the Internet interface as a means
to guide us along his story lines.

The base of the narrative is a homepage in which a fictional character,
Robert Taylor, appears. Bob is searching a woman. We take a look in his
online search, in which film elements provide a better look at his life.
Story elements, provided in discrete nodes of information, pop up in emails,
via links you come in 'real life websites', for example the missing persons
website. We make up a story from all these information packets in an
interactive and exploring way, which is however strictly guided by the
program.

http://www.nickcrowe.net/online
http://king.dom.de/equator
http://www.thebitscreen.com

Are we Technology Dolls?

Fabian Wagminster has shown us a multimedia and multi-user installation,
(Time and Time Again), in which the viewer takes a look at himself. It is a
project in which not just the screen is present, but also the body, the
physical being of the viewer. And not just at the outside, but also at the
inside. The things you see in these silhouettes, however, are not what you
might think what they are or want them to be in the first place. It shows a
viewer who is made out of technology. In what way do we use technology? In
what way do we interact with the stories that are presented to us, what is
our role in the narrative? Are we going on to take for granted the
centralized way in which stories are being told to us, are we comfortable
with that?

Wagminster originally comes from Argentina. That background makes him more
aware of the fact that we take for granted that in the richer countries
everybody has a personal screen, keyboard and mouse. Projects should be
organized in a more easily accessible way, like his own installation, so
that people who don't have the means, do have the possibility to make
themselves heard. Only in that manner, political empowerment can happen
through narrative exchange.

Narrative needs to get another function: instead of the perfected one way
narratives in which the product is highly controlled by the author, we have
to embrace the importance of imperfect, easily made narratives that can be
shared. True narrative lies in the collaboration between the creator, the
piece and the other. This exchange creative process is of great importance
for the meaning of a project and crucial to put content in a new context.

Sheherazade's 1001 nights
Telling stories to stay alive, and in the end, all the loose ends form a
unified story. That is what happens in the 1001 nights, and that is what
happens on the Internet as well, according to Norra Barry. Stories on
Internet from together a 'Sheherazade mixture' of different types of
classical and anti-traditional narratives.

Bouncing projects
Barry gives an outline of four types of more or less interactive narratives,
that she has distinguished within the stories that can be found online.
There is the linear interactive story, in which the viewer takes decisions
that do not really influence the story line. There is the 'framed story', in
which the basis is some kind of home page, where the viewer is introduced to
a situation, and which functions as a database in which the viewer can
browse and put together his own version of. Then another, more interactive
way is the pass-along story telling, in which some writer/author initiates a
story line, and others make sequels. The result is a 'bouncing project' that
keeps moving. The last one is a story that is a database of multimedia story
components, which are put together by an author. As soon as the viewer
enters the story space however, the computer program randomly mixes them up
and forms a more or less unique product. The creator gives up control. The
'traditional' short film is also being reshaped by the influence of online
distribution.
www.thebitscreen.com

Break down the author, celebrate the user
In a collaborative site, Philip Pocock, shows a series of broken stories,
which interfere and exist along each other. More or less like our lives. It
is not the author anymore that needs to be celebrated, the role of the user
is far more important. Stories aren't simply stories that are being told.
What is of importance is the user who breaks in on the different story
lines. Only in that manner, there is hope for transcendency.

Invitation to the wooden pallets
In the 'net condition' exhibition in Karlsruhe, this working together was
made clear by an installation, in which there was a team working on a
project, by 2 access points: the things being done were shown on two
different screens. It was quite an open installation, made of wooden pallets
to hint to a ship, and to invite people to become part of the plot, to join
the makers, and so to reduce the passiveness of the participants.

The very activity of the user was subject of another project, a personal
narrative (http://www.humbot.org/index/php) that invites a user to explore a
given world. The route someone does is being made clear by an index, and so
the program is capable of tracing people around the globe.

Network as weather
As said in Natural Born Killers: 'Media are like the weather: they aren't
noticed when in the background, until they suddenly and cruelly become
foreground.' In the traditional narrative, the media-network has been on the
foreground. Slowly but certainly, this network will move to the background.
Like the weather, or the environment, it will be embraced by previous
environments. Thus, an anti environment will be created, an environment in
which even our individual conciousness moves to the background, that is when
full absorption takes place.

http://www.dom.de/acircle
http://ring.dom.de/equator
http://www.humbot.org
http://www.humbot.org/video.php3
http://www.humbot.org/webcam

Floor de Groot

Open Streaming Alliances
Melkweg, Oude Zaal

12:00-14:00
Saturday October 7

Manse Jacobi, chair of this panel discussion, is involved in quite a few
open streaming collaborations. Jacobi on the Independent Media Center:
"Independent media producers can use the international network to
collaborate with other producers on content and to provide them with the
technical resources to distribute their content, which can be re-broadcasted
for free by non-commercial broadcasters."

A lively debate arose from the floor at this session about the issues facing
open streaming groups pulling together for advocacy and collaboration and
the strategies for tackling them. Strategies included syndication as a
response or alternative to globalisation or "corporatisation",
volunteer-based organisation, and focusing on small groups or "micro-cells".

There was some domain name-dropping. Perspectives from and about the
following sites came up: http://www.superchannel.org/
http://www.supersphere.com/ http:// http://www.klubradio.de/
http://www.indymedia.org/ http://www.consume.net/ http://www.pseudo.com/
http://www.streamingmediaalliance.org/ http://www.europeanstreaming.com/

Alan Steed http://www.hugecaster.com/ appeared in spirit to set the tone for
the presentations, live on video from Seattle via the Internet. He outlined
the importance of cementing internal alliances first before setting out to
establish external collaborations, a point echoed by net.congestion festival
editor David Garcia. Steed emphasised that making streaming media happen
involves the indispensable, combined talents of content producers, network
providers, and promoters.

Jesse Reynolds of Virtual Artists http://www.va.com.au/ maintained that it's
"not that hard" to distribute streaming media, so content producers can be
provided with free access to this service.

Thomax Kaulmaan http://www.orang.org/ let his presentation speak for itself
via a text-to-speech reader. He demonstrated a contributor-driven,
distributed database of pooled audio content. Check out orang.org to take
part!

Heath Bunting http://www.irational.org/ of Radio 90, a pirate radio station
in Canada, pointed to the gathering of the streams taking place when club
radio is brought to the Internet. This goes both ways: radio can be
distributed through the Internet and then re-transmitted locally.

Dimos Dimitriou http://freespeech.org/dimosd/ stressed the relationship
between content and network structure. Multi-nodal networks allow for a
broad spectrum of interests and many interconnections, a departure from the
obsolete, hierarchical pyramid structure.

RadioACTIVE from Croatia http://www.mi2.hr/radioactive is involved in
connecting different grassroots initiatives into networks, advocating a
modular and non-hierarchical approach to sharing content.

Monday October 9 there will be a meeting at Montevideo in Amsterdam for
people interested in open streaming alliances.

Pam Cruise

Intellectual Property Stands Trial: the court case
Paradiso, Grote Zaal

16:00-18:00
Saturday October 7

copyleft accuses copyright!

The prosecution's claim against intellectual property:
World copy law should be rewritten so it conforms to the underlying
principles set out by copyleft. Where there is conflict between copyright
and freedom of expression, the balance should be adjusted substantially in
favour of freedom of expression.

A central problem of the trial was the balancing of artists' and authors'
interests against the public interest. The prosecution stated that
intellectual property laws were instituted to encourage innovation. But now
are intellectual property laws going too far? Copyright: is it killing
culture, or is it the only thing that can save it? Accusations were levelled
at both sides.

"We stand on the shoulders of giants." The prosecution raised bugbears such
as the end of fair use and the end of freedom of speech. Do new precedents
were and acts of law (such as the European Copyright Directive and the
American Digital Millennium Copyright Act) pose a threat to the public
interest? Under cross-examination by the prosecution, artist and expert
witness for the defence Zina Kaye drew the line between theft and derivative
works.

The prosecution cast doubts by asking whether it is in fact artists or
mainly their distributing and publishing companies who are losing money due
to piracy. Counsel and witnesses for the defence displayed sincerity in
revealing that profit and return on investment were naturally among the
motives for keeping the intellectual property system in place.

Digital technology and the Internet have made the copying of intellectual
property easy. But by that token, should it be made legal? The defence
maintained that intellectual property laws should not be abolished.

A silent video link streamed jury room deliberations (or at least those that
came across through body language) onto Paradiso's big screen. At 19:30 the
jurors emerged from relative seclusion to give their verdict in favour of
the prosecution.
Pam Cruise

Shifting the Frame: Alternative Audio-Visual Networks
Melkweg, Oude ZaalSaturday October 7 - 16.00

Present: Rene Liethof (XS4ALL), Egon Verharen (SURFnet), Igor Djordjevic
(CoRRoSion), Erik Huizer (NOB). Chair: Marleen Stikker (De Waag, The Society
for Old and New Media)

Egon Verharen says broadband is the way to go. He thinks that content is
worth nothing if it can not be shown: exposure is everything. He was so
friendly to explain his opinion:

--------------------------------------------------------------------
The standpoint I defended in the forum discussion was:
With the advent of broadband IP networks there is no need to look for
alternative distribution mechanisms and have creativity bounded by the state
of the Internet today. If reaching as large an audience as possible is the
goal, then alternative distribution mechanisms might be looked at. However,
all proposals made at the forum were about Internet distribution, with the
exception that the demo scene can distribute its products/projects using
floppies handed out at gatherings or posted by snail-mail. But of course the
audience is
different then.

If the Internet is used for distribution there are alternatives to streaming
to distribute audio and video. The examples given were newsgroups, bulletin
boards or even mail. These techniques however were devised when audio and
video where not amongst the data type distributed over the Internet. They
focus on static data and mostly text and graphics. Multimedia data types ask
for a better (more effective, more efficient) way of distribution. And
streaming techniques are clearly the best for this. Whether or not the TV
media and DVB-T and satellite will be the preferred media for distribution
remains to be seen.

Even if Internet technology is preferred, we are not there yet, however. In
distributing audio and video data to large audiences more work needs to be
done on multicast technology and on caching and replication of audio/video
streams. Although multicast is far more efficient than unicast (1-1)
connections, it is still not optimal in the case where there is one sender
and a large number of listeners, or when many small groups work together,
and it is not reliable. On the caching side only today's popular formats
(Real, Windows Media, Quicktime) are supported, and not the 'higher' uality
MPEG streams. On the replication side commercial services like Akamai rule
the Internet, and not much effort or work is done in not-for-profit
situations. Maybe the Open Streaming Initiative can mean something there.

Concluding: IP networks will provide the bandwidth and will be ubiquitous to
stream high quality audio and video to the masses. Looking into alternatives
for that only works for today, not tomorrow while loosing a lot of the
possibilities of the medium (like interactivity while streaming). With IP
streaming more work needs to be done on underlying scalability protocols,
like multicast and caching and replications.

Sincerely
Egon Verharen
SURFnet
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Erik Huizer tells us about the future. He shows an example from the
scientific world. People can talk to each other about the weather, while
watching at a 3D representation of a weather map and seeing each others
image in the representation. In the end people will have personalised
interactive TV, where the content is based on personal profiles. This could
be realised around 2003. He shows a piece of film of a guy at the highway,
who sees this plane behind him that is landing, eventually on his car. All
goes well, the car sticks under the plane, until he sees this granny riding
really slow before him. He freaks out because he thinks they are going to
crash, but they just miss her. Then the plane and the car slow speed and
stop and the grandma is passing them with a lifted middle finger. This is a
fun way to show how there are totally different tempos of technical
progress.
Rene Liethof points out that newsgroups are the grandfathers of
communication on the internet which still can be used for transportation of
information (so also streaming media) without depending on all sorts of
institutes. Igor Djordjevic agrees with this. If you are creative, you make
your files as not to big and then you do not need all this bandwidth. His
group, DEMO, wants people with slow machines to have access to their work as
well. They even do competitions in using as little space as they can. They
also want their stuff to be free for everyone to use it: there is no
copyright. He wants to be sure that he can work without being constraint by
all the commercial shit.

Marleen Stikker comes to the conclusion that it would be a good thing when
the two different worlds we have seen here, namely the one that developed
from the old media and is made for the mass audiences and the more
alternative, creative world that looks more at the characteristics of the
internet, would come together a bit more and work together.

Wendy Koops

Target.audience=0
Melkweg, Oude ZaalSaturday, October 7 - 18.00

Participants: Eric Kluitenberg (De Balie), Rasa Smite (xchange), Heidi
Grundmann (Kunstradio), Raul Marroquin and MauzZ (Hoeksteen TV), Peter
Mertens (Park4dtv)
Chair: David Garcia

The questions that will be discussed today: Are artists really interested in
"communication" with an audience or is there something at stake which
escapes the traditional broadcasting formats? And: how do artists treat the
Internet - as an extension of old media or as a media space with a new
quality of its own?

Eric Kluitenberg doesn't care about audience or press coverage in his own
work at all. He is very enthusiastic about "intimate media", that focus on a
small group, often with little difference between receiver and sender, and
where feedback plays an important role. People are connected with each other
by geography or specific interests. This kind of media stands apart from the
traditional broadcast media, which often work in a frame of mass media. The
only thing they do totally wrong is that they still want to communicate
something. They should not!! They should just be media, regardless of what
the content is. People should make themselves at home at the Internet, claim
their space and create a new social sphere. Geocities is a good example of
more private media. People have their own personal homepage. Saying 'I am
here' should not be regarded as a banal statement.

Okay, you could say we have a clear opinion here. The way Rasa Smite got
involved with Internet is connected with what Eric said about "intimate
media." Rasa and her partner were looking for a means of expression, in
which they could communicate and create together with other people. They
never thought about any audience present. It was just a way to be as well a
contributor as a participant. Rasa thinks that for activists as well as
artists should work freely and not think about making content for consumers.

Rasa Smite, producer of Kunstradio, has a similar story. This radio station
started experimenting with collective events combining live and recorded
sound, webcams and physical installations and performances which can be
watched on their website ( http://kunstradio.at/ ). The people involved with
the project, are communicating and working with each other. If there is any
audience is not really the question.

Time for an different opinion, perhaps by Raul Marroquin? He says you always
produce for yourself, not really for an audience. You make something because
you want it to be made. Not that it is not nice to have your ego massaged.
When he found out that his regional television programme Hoeksteen TV had a
relatively big audience, he started to be more interested in them. So he
developed Hoeksteennet ( http://hoeksteen.dds.nl/main.php3 ), with 24 hour
live cable tv. Before his programmes were on at the middle of the night, now
people can watch whenever they want to.

And then there is Peter Mertens, who says he loves the audience and
immediately proves this to us by giving everyone present a CD-ROM of
Park4dtv (also regional tv). The motto of Park television is pure image,
pure sound and can be seen every night between one and two. Recently they
started broadcasting at MTV Europe to. This means their exposure is
extended. Internet is used for the spreading of files. Everybody can watch
and download their programmes and screensavers whenever they feel like it.
He wanted to show us a video of his programmes, but the organisation could
not make it possible to connect the video recorder to the beamer. At first
he was mad, but perhaps it is funny too: it proves that video is an old
medium!

Wendy Koops

The Power Of The Database
Melkweg Theater

Sunday October 8
14.00 - 15.00

Insufficient bandwidth proves to have a devastating effect on the
availability of streaming content. This workshop did not escape from this
effect, but might have demonstrated that this problem can be solved.
Distributed databases and deeplinking offer a robust solution...
theoratically speaking. Unfortunately none of the intended presentations
could be loaded. This actually served as the perfect proof of their theory
(intentionally or not ?).

For the record, the software does work in real life. They have not decided
on a licence yet. The software (in PERL) is freely available, see
http://meta.orang.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi"
target="new">href="http://meta.orang.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi">http://meta.ora
ng.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi .

Rob

The Toy Show
Melkweg
............
Marvin stole the show by lifting a plastic cup with his tiny robot claws.
He is a LEGO robot that you can control over the Internet. A webcam mounted
to his head presents the scene using streaming video.
Another amusing tech-toy was the Sonicbox, a remote controller of net-radio.
This is a good example of the domestication of high-tec devices. The
computers do all the work while we are leaning back controlling everything
from a remote control. Adam Hyde was also showing us the amazing "be-here"
webcam. It can look in multiple directions at a same time and viewer is
deciding where to look.
..........

Sara

Commodifying Culture
Melkweg, Oude Zaal, Sunday October 8 12:00

Chair: Alan Fountain, MondialOnline, London UK

Participants:
Robert Mudge, initiator of BBC Online, UK
David Sinden, Lux Centre, London UK
Andrew Bullen: DreamStream Ltd. Amsterdam, NL
William Rowe: ProteinTV, London UK
Laurence Desarzen: BoomBox, Zurich, Switzerland.

For as long as the Internet penetrated businesses and households throughout
the Western world, questions dealing with artistic integrity have been the
subject of many discussions. At the net.congestion festival, too, an entire
panel discussion was devoted to the issue of the commodification of culture.
And rightfully so, apparently, since a debate was certainly triggered by
Robert Mudge's declaration that he didn't really understand what the fuss
was all about.

Andrew Bullen hinted at which future conditions we would find ourselves
subjected to if the developments of technologies keep on advancing and
expanding as rapidly as they do now. He indicated that new technologies have
facilitated a wide spectrum of new services, new creative potential for
content providers, a new content experience for the end user as well new
creative potential for the end user as content provider. Naturally, these
developments call for the question whether the artist might lose his
creative 'aura'. Bullen decided to quote Walter Benjamin, who in The Work of
Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction states that 'the distinction
between author and public is about to lose its character.'
William Rowe, however, demonstrated artists needn't much worry about this as
long as quality remains the criterion. He showed that, despite many offers
to 'go commercial', the artistically successful ProteinTV managed to keep
large investors at a distance. They have agreed to a partnership with one
commercial company, for the sake of survival, but determined their own
conditions. Thus, were able to develop such varied projects as revamp (
http://www.revamp.org ), betacast ( http://www.betacast.com ), mainframe (
http://www.mainframe.co.uk and streams and accompanying schedules on
http://www.proteintv.com/oldsite/pod/0699.html.
Laurence Desarzen presented her company Boombox ( http://www.boombox.net )
which has in fact succumbed to Big Money. However, her company has managed
to maintain tight control over the artistic quality of their content. Her
good fortune is that Boombox operates in Switzerland, a relatively small
country that allowed for growth, and ultimately a partnership with the
nation's largest ISP. Still, it appears, as long as one both holds on to his
principles and keeps a close eye on market supply and demand developments,
money can be made while experimenting with new technologies.
David Sinden then argued for a stronger awareness about the consequences of
these developments, as he was certain that artists these days are being
exploited and are facing more and more (nonartistic) competition from an
increasing group of content producers. Since he considers the position of
the artist as a cultural producer as threatened, he suggests we regard
artists as cultural inventors.

Thus, the abovementioned panel members addressed the issue of the changing
role of artists in a commodyfing culture. However, most of them, and most of
those who have claimed a spot on the Internet culture and content producing
scene, seem to be fairly able to find a balance between producing art and
creating an audience for it. Hence, Robert Mudge (originator of BBC Online,
and now working for Pearson's Publishers wondered what the fuss was all
about. Although artists no longer seem to live in
in the privileged environment they have for so long, that does not mean to
say that they are the only ones who have the right to contribute to it. 'Are
artists the only keepers of culture?, Mudge asked. Simply because art is
being taken outside the elite few who have a somewhat more critical few,
that does not legitimate complaining about the fact that more, and less
professionally artistic, people have entered the arena. Mudge rightfully
quoted Jon Perry Barlow who in the current issue of wired (
http://www.wired.com ) wrote: "Think of how much more freedom the truly
creative will have when the truly cynical get out of the game".
Having thus put the issue of this panel into question, Mudge did invoke a
tiny discussion about why artists are not properly rewarded for their work
on the Internet. It almost seemed as though the talk of artistes as superior
beings with a more refined look on art and culture were not also people
working out lucid creations in their own homes. Surely, this couldn't be
true? Didn't we all agree, at least for the past few days, that users of the
Internet should no longer be regarded as passive viewers, but as individuals
actually contributing their bit? Maybe I missed out on something here.
Fortunately, both Robert Mudge and Andrew Bullen pointed out that artists do
get their fair share, or at least are able to. Everyone who produces
streaming media can organise into a lobbying organisation, and companies are
more and more willing to pay for it. After all, they do have an audience to
serve. And although not every member of that audience may be an artist, he
should nonetheless be considered a critical user.

Fifi Schwarz

Tactical Streams
Paradiso

October 8, Sunday
11.00 - 13.00

The tactical streams panel was held on Sunday morning after the party. And I
think we were all a bit tired.

Gordan Paunovic from Free B92 was describing the incredible importance of an
independent media in in the struggle against the Milosovic regime. It is
clear that this can be overlooked when we see the TV images of a classical
revolutio in which the masses can be seen storming the parliament. But
Paunovic's presentation made it clear just how important that it was the
disemination of information by independent media that ensured that the
uprising was not only Belgrade based but was also made up of large numbers
from the provinces that swelled the numbers producing the critical mass that
ensured change.
The rest of the panel was not so much tactical as a panel made up of
professionls from the world of 'NGO media' groups of independent journalists
or activists who are involved in forms of activism.

It was Howard Jones who asked the key question. Where next? And also
described examples in which enourmous resources were being wasted by NGOs
with no knowledge who were devouring enourmous quantities of hardware with
no idea how to make it effective on the ground. He compared it to the burn
rate in the world of dot.coms.

My sense of this panel was not enough focus on the question of how
independent pirate media and the world of NGOs could make more out of what
they share. And use events such as this to cut through their cultural
differences.

David Garcia

The Art of Making Money
Melkweg, Oude Zaal

15:00-17:00
Sunday October 8

Survivor stories

David Guez, with http://www.teleweb.org/ , has taken on commercial web media
head-on by competing with it. A problem he faces in France is that
traditional granting agencies funding the arts don't recognize or understand
the Internet medium.

Raoul Cannemeijer of http://www.boombox.net/ formed a services company
called Nomad Media in response to outgrowing government funding. They found
a model they're happy with, so they can fund boombox.net and stay involved
in broadcasting local shows.

Mike Riemel and http://www.klubradio.de/ take a sociological approach to the
scene, which can be seen as a community where people of like interest
congregate and may even find "potential mates." He emphasised funding
models, including grassroots campaigning in combination with other funding
sources.

Impressions

"The panel was luckily diverse enough to represent a spectrum of approaches"
to the problem of artists trying to survive in the marketplace, according to
creative enterpreneur Joe Pezzillo of http://www.gogaga.com/ . These
strategies were the main focus of the discussion, leading Vickram Crishna of
http://www.radiophony.com/ to observe that "Issues such as bias in art, due
to the need for commercialisation, were not addressed."

However, panelist Joe Pezzillo did note a mainstreaming of his site's
content due to a move toward an advertising-supported model of streaming
media. Some of his comments on the discussion: "It seemed to me that there
are more than a few people who share an enthusiasm that the Internet will
create a new type of marketplace for creativity, if indeed today's models
resemble more a collage of traditional tactics than ground-breaking
strategies for the future."

Crishna's overall impression from the panel discussion was that these are
still the "early days". "Means and methods for establishing innovative
distribution channels are now emerging, and economic models for the survival
and growth of art are evolving." One particular option that interested the
audience was micro-payments.

Manse Jacobi, the chair of this session, opened the floor by addressing the
qualitative difference between old and new media in terms of broadcasting
business models. This point was reprised by Vickram Crishna, who spoke of
our present environment, into which we emerge, "from over a hundred years of
technology-dominated constraints on art forms that have created their own
self-generating business models. Now these constraints are largely lifted,
and we must expect to see many new and hopefully more equitable business
models by which we can approach a state where an artist will be able to
create art for its own sake, knowing that one way or the other, the
essentials of life will also be taken care of without undue stress."

Joe Pezzillo offered further remarks: "It is my hope that the panel at least
sparked discussion from which useful, practical approaches will emerge. I
hope that what I was able to share of my experience will provide the
audience with examples, both good and bad, of the triumphs and struggles of
seeking a balance between the unlimited joys of art and the stark realities
of commercial existence."

Finally, there was an interesting consensus: "We must assume a consumer
society," but for the society's sake (and in defiance of "decline"), art
must not be segregated away from society.

Pam Cruise

Commodifying Culture
Melkweg, Oude Zaal, Sunday October 8 12:00

Chair: Alan Fountain, MondialOnline, London UK

Participants
Robert Mudge, initiator of BBC Online, UK
David Sinden, Lux Centre, London UK
Andrew Bullen: DreamStream Ltd. Amsterdam, NL
William Rowe: ProteinTV, London UK
Laurence Desarzen: BoomBox, Zurich, Switzerland.

For as long as the Internet penetrated businesses and households throughout
the Western world, questions dealing with artistic integrity have been the
subject of many discussions. At the net.congestion festival, too, an entire
panel discussion was devoted to the issue of the commodification of culture.
And rightfully so, apparently, since a debate was certainly triggered by
Robert Mudge's declaration that he didn't really understand what the fuss
was all about.

Andrew Bullen hinted at which future conditions we would find ourselves
subjected to if the developments of technologies keep on advancing and
expanding as rapidly as they do now. He indicated that new technologies have
facilitated a wide spectrum of new services, new creative potential for
content providers, a new content experience for the end user as well new
creative potential for the end user as content provider. Naturally, these
developments call for the question whether the artist might lose his
creative 'aura'. Bullen decided to quote Walter Benjamin, who in The Work of
Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction states that 'the distinction
between author and public is about to lose its character.'
William Rowe, however, demonstrated artists needn't much worry about this as
long as quality remains the criterion. He showed that, despite many offers
to 'go commercial', the artistically successful ProteinTV managed to keep
large investors at a distance. They have agreed to a partnership with one
commercial company, for the sake of survival, but determined their own
conditions. Thus, were able to develop such varied projects as revamp (
http://www.revamp.org ), betacast ( http://www.betacast.com ), mainframe (
http://www.mainframe.co.uk and streams and accompanying schedules on
http://www.proteintv.com/oldsite/pod/0699.html.
Laurence Desarzen presented her company Boombox ( http://www.boombox.net )
which has in fact succumbed to Big Money. However, her company has managed
to maintain tight control over the artistic quality of their content. Her
good fortune is that Boombox operates in Switzerland, a relatively small
country that allowed for growth, and ultimately a partnership with the
nation's largest ISP. Still, it appears, as long as one both holds on to his
principles and keeps a close eye on market supply and demand developments,
money can be made while experimenting with new technologies.
David Sinden then argued for a stronger awareness about the consequences of
these developments, as he was certain that artists these days are being
exploited and are facing more or and more (nonartistic) competition from an
increasing group of content producers. Since he considers the position of
the artist as a cultural producer as threatened, he suggests we regard
artists as cultural inventors.
Thus, the abovementioned panel members addressed the issue of the changing
role of artists in a commodyfing culture. However, most of them, and most of
those who have claimed a spot on the Internet culture and content producing
scene, seem to be fairly able to find a balance between producing art and
creating an audience for it. Hence, Robert Mudge (originator of BBC Online,
and now working for Pearson's Publishers wondered what the fuss was all
about. Although artists no longer seem to live in
in the privileged environment they have for so long, that does not mean to
say that they are the only ones who have the right to contribute to it. 'Are
artists the only keepers of culture?, Mudge asked. Simply because art is
being taken outside the elite few who have a somewhat more critical few,
that does not legitimate complaining about the fact that more, and less
professionalluy artistic, people have entered the arena. Mudge rightfully
quoted Jon Perry Barlow who in the current issue of wired (
http://www.wired.com ) wrote: "Think of how much more freedom the truly
creative will have when the truly cynical get out of the game".
Having thus put the issue of this panel into question, Mudge did invoke a
tiny discussion about why artists are not properly rewarded for their work
on the Internet. It almost seemed as though the talk of artistes as superior
beings with a more refined look on art and culture were not also people
working out lucid creations in their own homes. Surely, this couldn't be
true? Didn't we alle agree, at least for the past few days, that users of
the Internet should nog longer be regarded as passive viewers, but as
individuals actually contributing their bit? Maybe missed out on something
here. Fortunately, both Robert Mudge and Andrew Bullen pointed out that
artists do get their fair share, or at least are able to. Everyone who
produces streaming media can organise into a lobbying organisation, and
companies are more and more willing to pay for it. After all, they do have
to serve an audience as well. And although not every member of that audience
may be an artist, they are nonetheless critical.

Fifi Schwarz

[Tune In or Download] / user vs producer
Melkweg Oude Zaal October 8, 13.30

Participants:

Duncan Arbour: Oyster Partners London, UK
Zina Kaye: Laudanum, Sydney, Australia
Andy Stamp: Batard TV Sheffield, UK
Susan Kennard: Radio 90 / Banff Centre, Banff, Canada
Bruno Felix: Submarine, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Chair; John Wyver: Illuminations London, UK

The main subject of this panel discussion is the difference between
broadcast media and network media from the perspective of the user. How does
the behaviour of audience members change depending on what type of media
they are using?

One of the strong themes discussed in this panel is the issue of the user as
producer.
As Bruno Felix tells us, the most important difference between broadcast
media and network media lies in the use of the platform. He lets us in on
his experience at VPRO, a Dutch public broadcasting Institution, and the
turn from this organisation towards an all-media company. Moving into a new
area in which old definitions of viewers and listeners no longer apply. The
individual member of an audience used to be caught up in statistics.
Broadcasters didn't reallly know anything about their audience. The maximum
of control the audience members had was that of zapping between the
different channels. Now that we produce network media, we invite people to
assemble their own programs using our archives. This became possible because
of the platform used by the audience. While television is just ' a box in
the corner,' a computer is not only a receiver but also a tool with which
the user can download and manipulate the content. His control increases
because as soon the user downloads a file -in stead of tuning in to a
program- he 'owns' the file, and is, for example, free to alter and forward
it to a friend. Bruno Felix: The VPRO developed a tool called desktopradio,
( http://www.vpro.nl/desktopradio) and invited the audience to programme
their own webradio channel, using our audio archives. The user could make a
link on his own webpage to enrich his personal site with his favorite
radioprogram; the user as producer?
As Bruno Felix mentioned himself it was more a repurpose of VPRO's
radiocontent. The user is still not producing himself at the most he becomes
a reproducer.

So has the relationship between producer and user really changed that much?
According to Andy Stamp this should be the main question of this panel
discussion

Does the most important element of network media; interactivity, really
empower the audience and does the audience want to be empowered? Andy
states: "nothing much has changed and nobody is really looking for change."
Sometimes people do not want to click, they just want to watch football.
Untill now nothing has really changed that much: a lot of people are having
fun others are not, just like in the old days. But in the social sphere a
lot of changes are going on. In the article below Andy Stamp explores his
ideas of the changing self in the virtual experience.

Barbara Devilee

[Tune in or Download] / Andy Stamp's comments

Mild discomfort changing shape. User interactivity and human behaviour.

Forces at play shaping our experience. Icluding: work, play, sex, food and
money.

1. Language. If the language we use, defines our thinkable thoughts, then
what is the language of human engagement with interactive media?
Will it expand our conciousness and ability to communicate? Whilst happily
being romanced by the new possibilities of convergence media - all forms of
communication define their own possibilities and limits.
The expansive possibilites of new communication are counterbalanced by the
fact that we are loosing languages and dialects at the rate of 80 a day. And
that globalisation currently means half the world's population has yet to
make a phone call.

2. Vocabulary. Much of what we make sense of is done with physical
behaviour, gesture, posture and movement. The mobile phone is an intimate
intrusion on public space. Television up till now has been exactly the
opposite.
What did we loose with the clock face changing to an lcd digital read out?

3. Wealth and value. Convergence media will generate copious wealth. The
miracle of wealth generation is beyond the comprehension of the average
human being. Understandable only to Tony Blair and marketing guru's.
Aesthetics add value. All we have to do is make beautiful art and we will
all become fabulousely rich, and third world debt will be wiped out at the
click of a mouse.

4. Work and money. We don't actually do anything connected with work and the
creation of the resources to satisfy our basic needs anymore. We are super
efficient, over assertive, powerdressers engaged in important marketing
execution for leisure complexes and the meaningful content of entertainment.

5. Self and sex. Although we are just cultural clones in a genetic marketing
campaign we like to believe our lives have meaning. We make sense and
meaning of and through our selves. We've all got one. A self. However rich
or poor we are. Will our experience of the self, or ourselves change with a
reconfiguration of reality, actuality and virtuality? According to science
we have better orgasms
with symetrical partners. Though we can't see them when making love. How far
will we sit away from the tv or computer screen to appreciate the sexyness
of it's symmetry?

Safe bets: The pornographic possibilities of the 3G phone will be
phenomenal. Anyone wanting to make goldmine money should invest now.

Bioengineering will take off in a big way.

I can't wait till the selfish gene meets it's maker and shakes hands with
itself.

bastard@theculturecompany.co.uk for details of b.tv festival / the uk' first
celebration of the use and abuse of convergence media.Sheffield, England.
Friday the 1st of December 00. http://www.theculturecompany.co.uk

ed: Barbara Devilee

[Producing On-demand streaming material]
Melkweg theater Sunday October 8 - 12.00

Presented by David Guez: Paris, France & Jesse Reynolds: Sydney, Australia.

In short, this workshop was an introduction and explanation of the teleweb
website: http://www.teleweb.org.
This website is a fairly complete guide to produce and upload your own
streaming content with as little means as possible. The websites provides
links to downloadable free software that compresses mediafiles into a
streaming format like REAL MPEG, MP3 or Quicktime.
Not to hard, even for complete beginners on the subject. The problems users
walk in to are generally the same and solutions are still not found. After
capturing a movie through a firewire cable does not always result in a
perfect movie file. Often the audio is not sync anymore, due to dropped
frames in the capturing process. Problems with different resolution or
differences in screen size cannot be resolved in one single way and thus are
no topic in a workshop on producing streaming media. When combining
different programs to capture, edit and encode material, errors always
occur, which have to be solved over and over again.

On Teleweb's website we find David Guez' ideas on streaming media connect
with thoughts about Internet and the public sphere. You are advised to read
the website in its original language, French, since the translations make
absolutely no sense because they have been produced by an automatic
translating program. See below for an attempt at a proper summary of one of
such translations.

TELEWEB. ORG is a public artistic work that permits the free creation of
web - televisions and web - radios in free access.
THE SELF MEDIA
The idea is that every user has the abillity to invent his own media with
the latest technologies of today, without really worrying about the cost of
the material or software. Especially without the necessity to pass by the
classic chain of the audiovisual sector.The origin of the Teleweb project is
an extension and an overtime of an artistic work on medias developed since 2
years by David Guez and his research of alternatives facing the classic
medias: Several projects appropriate in place of independent audiovisual
solutions and in free access on internet have been proposed to the public
http://www.tv-art.net thematic webchannel on contemporary art
In this first version of TELEWEB the creator is totally independent and has
the choice to distribute on a common portal and/or on his personal site.
US IS All OUR OWN MEDIA
The arrival of Internet and its consequences on art, fashion and propagation
are not merely an effect of style or of fashion.
For the first time in the history of art, technology can create new kinds of
content but especially a new way of organizing content and productions: one
could imagine completely autonomous systems which unite artists their
content and their audience.
PROPOSITION
My proposition: " We are all our own media " is an artistic engagement, a
call to the construction of new means of diffusions and mediations.

David Guez

Barbara Devilee

Campaigning
Paradiso

Location: Paradiso
Time: 13.30-15.00

Gilberto Cutrupi: Greenpeace
Manse Jacobi: Indymedia
Ed Marszewski: Supersphere
Fran: Borderhack

The central issue of this debate was how possiblities of streaming media are
used by non-profit organisations. Manse Jacobi from the Independent Media
Center ( http://www.indymedia.org ) showed us the formula behind their
successful website. Indymedia offers newscoverage to a progressive,
alternative and politically active audience. Not only is the site available
in many different languages, but the users can send their contributions in
any mediaformat to the site without any editorial interference. With this
site Indymedia breakes with the monopoly of current newsjournalism. One
question from the audience adressed the infamous bandwith problem and the
associated costs. Indymedia solved this problem by cooperating with other
non-profit organisations, share the serverspace.

Gilberto Cutrupi, a representative from Greenpeace in Amsterdam, talked
about how they are using streaming media. One example was during the French
nuclear testing on Moruroa in 1995. See
www.greenpeace.org/~toxics/toxfreeasia/updates/jan20.html . They distibuted
a Quick Time movie to the web, showing what was going on. The biggest
advantage of the Internet broadcast is that Greenpeace can create their own
independent media channel, according Cutrupi.

Supersphere ( www.supersphere.com ) also has a highly interactive site where
its audience can share their progressive ideas and report on political
events. Fran, (did not get his last name), set up a Mexican site called
borderhack ( www.borderhack.com ) in which he supports the campagne "No man
is illegal" by stating that all men are legal. The site adresses the
immigration problems between Mexico and the U.S.A.

>From the presentations it is clear that these politcal sites and their use
of streaming media is a hugh success. The interactivity with the users is
very high and the response is fast. It is interactive media at its best.

Sara

Almost an interview with Walter Van der Cruijsen
The flatliner table at de Balie

Walter Van der Cruijsen, a dutch painter and ascii-artist now living in
Germany and a member of the ascii ensemble. He is also one of the founders
of dds, desk, nettime and namespace.
7 is the number of God. 7 is the number of bits in ascii.
The ascii ensemble try to convert anything that is visual back to
datacommunication, into a set of characters. According to Van der Cruijsen
is ascii art the opposite of current streaming media, it is about the time
before broadband, its about sending packages. In current streaming media the
loss of content is taken for granted. The ascii ensamble is interested in
the art of ascii text. The almighty ascii has spoken.
The first art piece of the ensemble is the Asciimator which is in fact a
famous pornomovie but converted to ascii text.
http://www.desk.org/a/a/e/nice.
The dream of the ensemble is to be able to stream anything, even money.
Ascii is the way.


(ps. This text is mix between an interview with Walter Van der Cruijsen, and
an artistic expression of me as webjournalist. Thank you for your time. Do
not follow this link http://squat.net/ascii, because it has nothing to do
with the ascii ensemble. :)

Sara

Tactical Streams
Paradiso Grote Zaal

Sunday October 8 - 11.00

Participants: Gordon Paunovic (FreeB92), Mr. Santoso (Kantor Berita Radio
68H), Bruce Girard (Comunica), Arun Mehta, Howard Jones (International
Humanitarian Aid Communications)
Chair: David Garcia

Many people feared that the emergence of streaming technology, broadband
internet, and the fusion of internet and broadcasting, would mean that the
celebrated democratic, open and decentralised character of the Internet
would be sacrificed to create the ultimate entertainment machine. This
meeting made clear that there are a lot of alternative outlets and fringe
media players who exploit the tactical potential of streaming media, and
reach a wide audience.

All the guests are involved with accessibility of information. They all
think it is very important for people to be able to have a medium which is
free of the influence of governmental and corporate institutions. Also the
pluriformity of information is important.

Radio 68H is a website that acts as a platform for news exchange in
Indonesia. This is quite revolutionary, because before the Indonesian radio
used a news agency which was controlled by the state. Also a new possibility
for local stations is that they can broadcast their news on radio 68H. When
there are regional conflicts people in other parts have knowledge about this
too. Normally it does not get on the national news. And seeing people who
were part of the conflict talk about their experiences helps others to have
more understanding for the situation. www.radio68h.com
In Latin America and the Caribbean the radio has the same function as the
Internet in the Western world, namely a social and a communicative one. So
it is the most important carrier of information: it reaches around 90% of
the population. As for only 10% has access to the Internet. Another problem
is that there is no public broadcasting tradition, so the opinions given by
the media are from the government. And a lot of the programmes on television
are from the United States. A good thing is that the radio act as an
intermediary between the people and the Internet. So there was a farmer who
had problems with a worm that ate his crop, the radio people dropped the
question on the Internet and some scientist from Sweden gave him a solution.
Also in America there are problems with getting independent information.
Brian Drolet says the independent media are really threatened by the
concentration of media ownership. On www.freespeech.org we can see a big
online archive with progressive documentaries and programmes. FreeSpeechTV
also encourages people to make new footage by distributing videocameras. At
a time there was a demonstration were the police used teargas, and the
information at the official channels denied that, the activists had the
footage as evidence. They also have a lot of footage about Mumia Abu-Jamal.
I was really impressed.
Arun Mehta from New Delhi sees the Internet as the only channel available
for the poor people. All the other media are owned by the government or the
by commercial companies. It does not matter that people are using the
Internet for entertainment, it is not blocking other use of it. He thinks
streaming media can change the powers, so it's a really good thing. Further
it is a real good device for teaching. So give information and knowledge!
Getting the information network started again is also an important things
for countries in or recovering from war. According to Howard Jones getting
the equipment is not so much the problem, but getting the people who control
this also make it available to the people is really difficult. He
experienced this at his last expedition to Kosovo.
Unfortunately I missed the presentation of Gordon Paunovic, but I can
imagine that for a country in war it is important to have a free radio
station. At the end he was asked how the future of Free B92 is going to look
like. He thinks, and the situations the other panel members described prove
he is right, that they have to keep there independence and distance from the
government an corporate institutions.

Wendy Koops

Tune in or Download
Melkweg, Sunday Ocober 9, 13.30 hours

Text in the leaflet:
In the age of the convergence between the Internet and broadcast media, how
do audiences - or users - interact with different types of media? Does the
behavior of users change depending on what type of media is being consumed?

Participants: Duncan Arbour: Oyster Partners, London, UK
Zina Kaye: Laudanum, Sydney, Australia
Andy Stamp: Bastard TV, Sheffield, UK
Susan Kennard: Radio 90 / Banff Centre, Banff, Canada
Bruno Felix: Submarine, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Chair: John Wyver, Illuminations, London, UK

John Wyver gives a short introduction to the presentation and discussion of
the panel.
Does the behavior of the user change depending on the media being consumed?
He wanders whether there is a difference between the broadcasting and
network media? And what the use of the technology is in that sense? When the
TV was just invented everyone expected different things from it compared by
nowadays. They thought it would be a communal and much more social tool
instead of the private and laid back medium it turned out to be. What about
the networked media, and the difference between the broadcast and network
media?

Andy Stamp
There is a small article written especially on his presentation, which is
accompanied by his own statement. Therefore I will shortly tell what he told
in an incredible short time due to the late start caused by the previous
presentation.
He works at Bastard TV in Sheffield in the UK. He states and poses certain
remarks concerning the audience question. Will there be more or less
communication by the explosion of the Internet? There are so much machines
being produced, what will the effect on the people be regarding
communicating with each other. Will we get more private space or intimate
space as these different spaces are blurring constantly. Will the audience
receive more power in the (near) future? Does the audience want that power,
or do they want to be entertained? Will our identity change due to those
machines?

Zina Kaye
She is a streaming artist since 1995. She mentions some facts concerning the
network medium. 3 % of the world population should have broadband
connections. 75 % should have modems, which is in her opinion, and probably
in almost every one else his opinion, a very frustrating fact if you want to
stream things. As you know this, you almost have to choose for either image
or audio if you want people to see it.
She investigated some things in the way people behave on the net by looking
at some commercial sites.
You should make the process for visitors of the site interesting, by adding
a chatroom which attracts people or some video you can see with real player.
There occur some visual problems, while you have to keep the stream going,
how do you combine different things in the site, how many data do you have
to proceed, in what way do you get people during the streaming towards the
site (by sending the emails at the right time), etc.?
She says the aim is to target for a niche market and that you have to work
like cinemas do, by giving the correct date and screening time of the event.
The streaming doesn't last for days and has an end. As not everybody has the
same capacity to capture the streams she distinguishes various levels. You
can either choose between just audio (audioOnly), videoOnly, audio video or
the simplest. You should pay attention to the technology that is required
and most of them look at streamed events during the week between 12 and 14
or 17 and 20 hours. Music in the background while something has to load is
also a good idea for keeping their attention.
In the future no-one will be attending a conference or a festival like this
anymore as by then information will be spread in different ways from where
you could choose the format you prefer. It can be distributed via cd-rom,
text, streamed etc. Of course this is nowadays already the case, it isn't
new information anyway and besides that you could think of more efficient
ways to gather all this information.

Duncan Arbour
Is giving a more professional presentation by making use of Powerpoint. His
point of view is also much more corporate.
In 2005 he believes that 18 % of the world population is broadband
connected. His view of the future is: video on demand instead of videos you
could rent (tv broadcasting time used to dictate the bedtime of everyone!),
much more pc penetration in the household, and he says that the computer is
much more intimate (as he is having a relation with his) and that finally
the biggest winner in the event will be the radio on the net. That should be
everywhere, mobile, all the time and broadbanded. Last remark of Duncan
Arbour is what is genuinely right, probable and good for us, and the users.

Susan Kennard of radio 90
Spoke about the Campus Radio Network in Canada. They try to advance the role
and increase the effectiveness of campus and community radio. She
distinguished two types of behaviors: the first is the programmers who are
very locally related to their family and friends, secondly there are the
programmers who are much more involved in the networked spaces, in the
global netculture, etc.

Bruno Felix
He works at a company called Submarine, but speaks about his former job at
the VPRO broadcasting company settled in the Netherlands. He tells about the
website where you could choose from about ten radio channels, your favorite
one, and download it to your own computer. Afterwards you could make a
button on your website, which resulted in the possibility of listening to
your own chosen music while surfing the net. It turned out to be your own
tool. This is a manner of connecting the audience to the power of the
company in a positive way. The audience has (in a limited way) influence.

DISCUSSION:

What about the user - producer discussion?
On the net you have to deal with the global niche or even a local regional
audience that you can reach.

Someone from the audience makes the remark about the difference between
artistically independent projects that are interesting in itself and the
commercially sites that have to be interesting.

There is a range of expectations from producers and users / viewers.

Bruno mentions an interesting thing where streaming video shows professional
Quake-gamers (computer) whom you could watch playing like in a football
match. The private computing becomes a social event.

Someone else mentions that maybe the culture still has to change for
different approaches of watching and listening to audio / video. Not just by
sitting on the couch and listening to the latest cd of Radiohead, but also
via netradio on your computer.

Andy says at last that there hasn't been much change in user and producer
relations. What do we want? Sometimes we just don't want to have all the
power and be overruled. I guess he is right, but that should not mean that
there can't be any new things invented. That sometimes we like to have all
the power there is and rule everything. John calls the statement of Andy
pessimistic, Duncan shouts that it is realism. Those negative aspects
regarding new things and especially the streaming media are discussed in the
Doom Scenario in Paradiso.

Petra Heck

net.congestion - The Doom Scenario
Paradiso, Sunday October 9, 17.00 hours

This panel takes a critical point of view about the impact of streaming
media on internet infrastructure. Is the future of the Internet with
streaming technology its ultimate break-down? With only 6 % of the websites
containing streaming content, but being responsible for no less than 56 % of
the total net traffic, a safe prediction for the future can be made: if
streaming truly becomes the trend in the future, and no self-respecting
website can do without it, the net may well break down in complete
congestion. (leaflet text)

Participants:
Michael van Eeden: De Waag, Amsterdam, NL
James Wallbank: Redundant Technology Initiative, Sheffield, UK
Calin Dan: Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Chair: Eric Kluitenberg

In the previous days of the festival there was most of the time paid
attention to the joys and benefits of the streaming media, while some people
aren't that enthusiastic about them at all. Walter van de Cruijsen is one
example. In this discussion there are participants who for different reasons
are against the streamings. Is the future of the net its congestion?

Calin Dan shows us some of his figures and ideas concerning this issue on
the screen.

DOOM?

Fatal growth
Traffic jam
(The end of the net as we know it (in reference to the program of Femke
Wolting and Felix Bruno, The end of tv as we know it (due to the explosion
of the internet))

This overload won't happen due to:

1: Content
selfregulation (commercial - non-commercial)

2. Localization (which turns out to be a loose connection of Intranets)

3. Censorship (financial and technical)

Two facts he would like to give are
1. Rationality (regulation / deregulation is an alternative system)
2. Internet is as well:
Many - 2 - many
Few - 2- many (the comparison between the tv and the net isn't made or
nothing all the time)

WHY DOOM?
This issue is being raised now for a couple of years already.

The solidarity with the heroic theme park.
The second reason for him could be a symbolic reaction: a redemption through
collapse (Y2K)

The question he raises is:
Is pessimism a strategy to avoid the content - 2 - audience issue? He
believes so indeed.

James Wallbank:

Is giving a presentation from an information technology kind of view. He
thinks that the streaming media are just invented to make the technology
that exists now abundant. Just as they change the gas every once and a while
to make old cars useless. He believes we don't need the streaming media;
that previous forms were sufficient and that the big companies want to sell
the stupid consumers many more computers and technology.
He gives the example of this festival where millions of packets of data are
being sent out to everyone. The very interested persons have to download it
on their own computer and make a text out of it, as James Wallbank thinks
this is not efficient at all. It could have been better printed on paper in
the beginning. Besides that it isn't necessary to have it streamed as no-one
can give any feedback. With Quick time they can control the information and
send it to other people for instance. They could 'own' it by then giving
power to the audience. It could have been recorded and put into realplayer
as well. It also costs a lot of money. So efficiency and structural
centralization are both reasons for James to hate the streaming media.

Michael van Eeden:

He sometimes wants streaming media weren't existing at all as they could be
working with simple tools again. Back to the roots and making creative stuff
with that. Streaming media is according to him too technical. Ordinary
people cannot work with it. It is interesting that streaming exists, but the
image and text already exist. That should be enough for him, you don't need
the expensive technology to do interesting things.

David Garcia says that streaming media 'rocks', because of the live images
we get from Belgrade for instance by B 92.

Michael van Eeden mentions that B92 existed before the streaming stuff doing
many great things. The companies are making their money out of it.

Sometimes streaming media and other complex technologies are needed, as for
mailinglists with a huge amount of subscribers for instance, Eric says.

Calin Dan says that streaming media exists and that the few to many aspect
is needed in the net for people having the same historic moments, people
tuning in at the same time to the same channel.

I have come to the conclusion that we should be critical towards new media,
new technologies and the companies that made it, but on the other hand there
are many great things done with the possibilities and especially the
limitations of those technologies.

Petra Heck

nEtiNFectIOn
Van Gogh Museum

Due to his argument to Norra Barry the company settled over and wet. I
were are very large amounts of view of piece is going also the
effectiveness of expression. Jacobi, the Sonicbox, a collaborative
little, difference between my hungry pussy would cling and the panel
Streaming Media today. The base of pink as She did (so excited her;
mouth the difference between theft and seeing it was fine incurving
clothing and so it the damp and meaning).

You stupid spammer: that it available technology is Ray starts and began
to hint to be segregated away.

He says the Internet; broadcast media and with most of like one by the
pain communication are we are not invoke be shown at least for a
similar story line.

Multi network as little, of the aim of a few who says that ensured that
does not legitimate complaining about.

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