Syndicate: mikro, Berlin/D

[Inke Arns <inke@berlin.snafu.de>]

[from mikro's upcoming printed documentation -- best wishes, -i]

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mikro
Initiative for the Advancement of Media Cultures, Berlin/D
<http://www.mikro.org>


Beginnings

In March 1998, fifteen artists, theoreticians, journalists, organizers and
other cultural producers founded mikro e.V., a Berlin-based initiative for
the advancement of media cultures. The founding members work mostly in the
field of independent media culture ? from video art and electronic music,
independent radio and TV production, to creative use of the Internet and
digital multimedia technologies. What brings this multi-faceted group
together is the need for a critical discussion of the cultural, social and
political impact of media in today?s society. This discussion takes place
not only within the initiative itself, but also during events that address
an interested public. In this way, an independent Berlin-based platform for
media critique has emerged.


Activities

The initiative instigates and realizes public discussions, conferences,
exhibitions, publications, and other activities dealing with the artistic,
political and cultural applications of new media. The monthly mikro.lounges
which take place at the Berlin WMF club deal with specific questions of
media culture (from copyright and cryptography to art and politics on the
Internet) and combine the different formats of video screenings, lectures,
panel discussions and DJ sets. Besides inviting representatives of
Berlin-based cultural initiatives and companies for a presentation of their
work, mikro also invites guests from other parts of Germany or the world.
In cooperation with national and international partner organisations, mikro
invites experts from media culture to Berlin, thereby enriching  cultural
debates in the city. The consistently increasing number of visitors serves
as evidence of the need for these events.

 
Network Structure

The name ?mikro" is programmatic: the initiative does not intend to develop
into an institutional makro structure, but instead focuses on small,
distributed, yet no less influential capillary structures, through which
the media and technologies exercise power within art and society. mikro and
its members are a genuine part of this mikrological field which is
characterized by its heterogenous, multi-faceted and networked elements.
These networks, from which mikro's work emerges, exist parallel to
commercially formed social structures and are based on relations of trust
and the gift economy. The diversity and the fragility of this network of
relationships is the reason for the careful formulation of the aim of the
association: "advancement of media cultures".


Partners

Over the past ten years, a network of independent media cultural
institutions and groups has developed in Europe and beyond. Big media
centers, artistic research laboratories, producers? galleries, media art
festivals, magazines, Internet radios, etc., are cooperating in ever new
project-bound constellations and thus create a dynamic, translocal process
of media cultural production and reflection. Engineering and cultural
research, artistic and technological development, production, presentation,
and critical analysis and discussion influence and permeate one another.
mikro takes part in these processes within both a local and international
context as its members, while organizing mikro's own events, are regularly
invited to take part in events inside and outside Germany. The
collaboration within the association bundles and strengthens these
movements and this energy. The explicit aim is to contribute to the
development of an open and democratic media culture in the often mentioned
knowledge and information society.

[A.B.]



i n k e . a r n s __________________________ b e r l i n ___
49.(0)30.3136678 | inke@berlin.snafu.de | http://www.v2.nl/~arns/
mikro: http://www.mikro.org | Syndicate: http://www.v2.nl/syndicate


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