<nettime> Beauty & the East DAY TWO

["Inke Arns" <inke {AT} uropax.contrib.de>]

Dear nettimers,
 
here are the threads for day two of the nettime conference 
"Beauty and the East": "Power Politics: Virtual Europe, 
Ministate Thinking and the Construction of the Data East"
 
Looking forward fo a heated debate and waiting for reactions,
Inke
 
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BEAUTY AND THE EAST Conference
 
Friday, 23.5.
14:00 LJUDMILA - omnifire debate: Power Politics: Virtual Europe, 
Ministate Thinking and the Construction of the Data East (Marina 
Grzinic, Tamas Bodoky, Alla Mitrofanova, Miran Mohar...)
chair persons: Inke Arns <inke {AT} is.in-berlin.de>, Calin Dan
<calin {AT} euronet.nl>
 
Six invited speakers will intervene with prepared blitz
statements (10 min. max, very dense) during the afternoon 
session and the rest will follow...
 
Possible threads for the debate of day two:
 
************************************************************************************************
** "So happy together": Political and mental mappings and remappings of
Europe **
************************************************************************************************
>Today, driven by unified market forces the topology of cultures 
>in the east and west has to relate to new maps of global 
>corporations and media networks, down to the local resistance of 
>bureaucracies, institutions, and cultural initiatives. But it
>is not only 'the east' that is forced to adapt, but 'the west' 
>also having to face an inner crisis within its imaginary cartographies.
 
Isn't it rather wishful thinking?? Is the cultural topology of the 
west wanting at all to adapt to new maps? Doesn't the so-called 
'inner crisis' of the west has to become stronger still, in order 
to create a genuine wish for changing cultural topologies?
 
** "Knockin' on heaven's door": who is going to be left outside, who 
is going to be integrated into the developed capitalist order (i.e. 
european civilisation) (reference: Zizek)
** inclusion vs. exclusion
** recent failure of the EC Kaleidoscope programme concerning 
participation from Eastern Europe: "Sorry, EC-only" (see also 
Andreas Broeckmann's critique on the conference of the Council of 
Europe, held in Prague in November 1996: _Odysseus, not Aria
ne. Report about a new European space programme_, Syndicate 
mailing list, Dec. 18, 1996): creating a culture of heterogenesis, 
of continuous becoming different, of embracing instability, aimed at 
singularisation, against stability and large homogenising projects. 
** The inability of West European society to deal with the tremendous 
changes after 1989: "Why is there no flexible, decentralized plan 
from Brussels?" (G. Lovink)
** what does 'European identity' mean in the so-called East? 
(--> R. Mocnik organized a conference about "European identity" 
in Ljubljana one month ago)
** old and new orientalism: western cultural tourism, the transfigured 
eye and the fascinated gaze
** universalism vs. particuliarism
** difference or distinction?
** Transnacionala & Translocality: "How to define historical, cultural 
and existential differences in the context of global, trans-national 
capitalism?" [Eda Cufer, _Transnacionala_ (written in October 1996), 
posted on Nettime May 16, 1997]
** 'center' vs. 'periphery'
** Critical Micronations (M. Grzinic)
** Reactions to the ISEA'97 Initiative to Promote Diversity (IPD): 
Against Representation
 
 
**********************************************************
** Filling the political vacuum: NGOs and PGOs **
**********************************************************
** State building through Philanthropy - the empire of charity (C. Dan)
** Humanitarian Organisations and the myth of civil society (P. Stubbs)
** Social engineering in the Society of Non-Option: Is the existence 
of a single alternative a real alternative at all?
** 'Mother-Theresa-Complex' vs. 'Brother-George-Strategy'
** technocratic elite vs. open society
 
 
****************************************************************
** Eastern Europe and the Geopolitics of Cyberspace **
****************************************************************
** cyber politics for constructing the Data East (T. Bodoky)
** 'open society' and 'closed systems': 'xs4all' vs. 'xs4us' policy, 
towards a constructive critique of the regional Internet program 
of the Soros foundation (G. Lovink)
 
 
******************************************************************
** Strategies for the society of the debacle: Parasitism **
******************************************************************
Parasitological economy and ethics could be regarded as a 
contemporary strategy for dealing with various institutions. Can we 
still speak about "state artists" and "dissidents"; i.e. can we today 
still speak about "conformity/official sphere" vs. "autonomy/inofficial 
sphere"? Or don't we rather have to look for sth. in between?
 
** The Art of Being Independent (what does that mean exactly?)
 
Concerning future strategies I would like to remind you of the 
following texts: Andreas Broeckmann _Net.Art, Machines, and Parasites_ 
Nettime mailing list, March 8, 1997, and Thomas Bass, _Poliphony and 
Parasites_; Nettime Mailing List, May 8, 1997.
 
+++
please comment!
 

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