+ "The ISEA Circle: Seeking First Nation/Native Voices" by Rosemarie McKeon

We would like to take this opportunity to warmly welcome Nadia Palliser our new coordinating director and the executive editor of our ISEA newsletter. We are looking forward to working with her in the coming years.

This is a very brief editorial as I would like to leave as much space as possible for Cynthia Rubin, the guest editor of this unique issue.

This newsletter presents a major effort by the ISEA Cultural Diversity Committee led by Patrick Lichty and Cynthia Rubin. Sincere thanks for your contributions on diverse topics, spanning across continents.

Nina Czegledy
Chair, ISEA Board

Electronic Arts practice operates in a globalised information and knowledge economy in which the West continues to dominate (for the moment). In Britain, our government sees the strengthening of an information and computer-based economy (particuarly the notion of culture industries) as a future stabilising force for the European Community.

We also know the gap between rich and poor has reached an all time high based on what can only be described as a particuarly brutal world economy that continues to sustain wealthy western populations. This gap also appears amongst most populations of a single country but crucially it is at its worst operating between European and North American countries, and the world populations in the southern countries of Afrika, central and outhern America, and majority population of the Far East.

My concern is to call into question the way in which 'cultural diversity' as a project is being used as a way of sustaining the existing economy of electronic arts practice as we experience it in Europe and North American countries. That is to say - who exactly benefits from the project of culturally diverse arts practice? Who benefits in owning, acquiring and sustaining the skills, equipment, production, distribution, management of electronic arts services and provision while engaging with the notion of cultural diversity?

Beneficiaries are crucial to this concept.

I am not interested in giving specific examples or naming institutions and individuals. It is easy for us to reflect and refer to examples from our own specific experience as artists, curators, academics and technicians. The implementation of 'culturally diverse' practice of electronic arts I have experienced or seen funded in Europe and North America, can be categorised in two ways:

The first category involves 'international' artists and their work brought in from beyond its borders to be enjoyed by an audience in Europe and North America. A temporary arrangement is made in which the artist/s and audience encounter a culturally different experience of electronic artwork. This may be experienced as part of a festival, event, performance or exhibition. This is often a form of 'importing' cultural difference into European and North American borders. The artwork and artist/s are here for a while, enriching our cultural experience, it is enjoyed and remembered by many, and finally returns with the artists who have brought it. The immediate financial benefit for the artist/s is more than likely to form the smallest part of the budget, seen within the wider cost of hosting the event or performance. The real benefit remains within the recipient host European/North American country.

Of course, the international artist/s expertise and knowledge gained from the experience is expected to be highly significant and valued by the artist/s concerned. Needless to say, that the audience remembers and cherishes an unusual and unfamiliar experience. Yet this pales into insignificance when comparing the cumulative expertise and knowledge acquired and gained by the technicians, managers, curators, designers, engineers, etc. who facilitated the production and process in London, New York or Berlin. This form of 'culturally diverse practice' cannot be described as an exchange (let alone an equitable one) of knowledge, experience or mutual financial benefit. Further still, in art forms such as music and video work, intellectual copyright based on a performance in Western countries additionally disadvantages the artist from outside of Europe and North America. Long-term financial gain is made from the media product merchandise (DVD's, Audio CD's for example) of the performance or event. Unless a radically different economy is set up, the normal beneficiaries of the experience, the knowledge and the financial economy of this venture remains the same.

The second common example is where culturally diverse practice of electronic arts is often 'naively' translated into art projects for the minority populations and communities living in European and North American countries. This model includes the encouragement and active engagement of artist/s whose background/s may be from the minority populations targeted. In this instance, electronic art practice is seen as being a project about 'socially inclusivity' that often includes workshops and taster sessions, discussion groups or commissions in public spaces (see ISEA 2006). They are often seen as integral projects to festival seasons and tourist income generation summer activities in Europe and North America.

The notion of 'the communities' and the artist of a minority population benefiting in real terms is at best spurious. Rarely have I seen the commission or workshop conceptualised in a way that sets in place a transformative process for knowledge, expertise and financial gain from one group of people who devised the venture to the 'community' and artist that it has been chosen to involve. Sure, it may be that twenty young women from refugee communities may have had hands on experience (for a limited period) of digital video, Internet skills or making videos using mobile phone technology. Sure, the artist may benefit through financial gain and European artistic recognition. But certainly in Britain, we are well aware of the pitfalls and dangers associated with the notion of 'access', minority artist/s and 'community based arts practice'. There continues to be very few arts agencies or institutions run and managed by people from minority populations who control and manage significant national events, arts institutions and cultural artistic budgets. The full range of expertise for fundraising, curating, producing, accounting for, managing, running and creating electronic arts practice is hardly ever devolved to individuals of minority populations or organising bodies of their communities.

Culturally diverse arts practice therefore remains an exercise of a small and rather insignificant gesture and gift of a cultural artistic experience, without the intention of handing over control. There seems to be little intention to put in place systems in which 'communities' and individuals are left with the expertise to run their own show and contribute to the wider intellectual and creative debates and developments of electronic arts. As artists descendant of minority populations, we create and make interventions despite this.

My contention is that in anxiously reaching out to embrace the project of cultural diversity, institutions and its population of individuals such as ISEA are failing to recognise the power base they are operating from and working within. An arts institution that operates a policy of diversity is more than likely merely reproducing an economy of knowledge creation and production that is involved in sustaining itself. The failure to recognise the power and control of living and practicing within a European/North American framework makes a mockery of the original good gesture behind the cultural diversity project. A genuine intention of culturally diverse practice involves giving way and taking a step back. Individually and collectively, cultural diverse practice means demonstrating a commitment to allowing other individuals and institutions that emerge from minority populations within and increasingly outside of the European and North American borders so they may produce, manage and organise their own practice. Rather than individually stepping in and taking up the funding, expertise and knowledge on offer, there has to be a readiness to give away and devolve responsibility. If individually we are not willing to give way and show such generosity, it means the economy, energy and funding continues to sustain us as academics, artists and practitioners to create things and debate ideas that stay within a wealthy Western experience.

Very rarely does an economy include a long-term commitment to devolve responsibility, knowledge and ownership to disenfranchised communities let alone populations beyond its borders. And yet there are some important and (long overdue) gestures being made around global economies of debt relief and fair trade, which are based on corrective measures to compensate for an inherently unbalanced financial and administrative system that has always favoured the rich over the disenfranchised. The electronic arts economy is no different. ISEA could only benefit from having a position on cultural diversity that wants to devolve and transform electronic arts practice as it currently exists - that is with an intention to stop mimicking and sustaining an information/knowledge economy about digital technology in which only the rich and privileged minority continue to creatively silence a majority.

© Roshini Kempadoo

notes:
1. I use the term Western here rather crudely in this text since ISEA is predominantly sustained within a westernised aesthetic, sensibility and funding system. It is also important to acknowledge that Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia and other surrounding Eastern economies have also played an important part in contributing to different types of electronic artistic endeavours and approaches and who have highly significant economies driven by technological development. They seem less engaged with the notion of cultural diversity and how this might be inscribed into an association and practice and will not be referred to in this commentary.
2.In this commentary, I use the term economy to refer to the notion of ownership, exchange and acquisition of skills and knowledge of electronic arts production and the product/processes/financial economy of electronic arts practice.

The electronic arts digital divide is an expensive and ever-expanding chiasm for Indigenous technologists. There are several reasons for this widening gap: Often, said technologists live and work in remote locations. Even when presented with opportunities to travel, leaving home, employer, or community requires advanced planning. On top of these obstacles, the lack funding for continued professional development snuffs out many a First nation/Native dream. Therefore, collaborative financial strategy and representation in professional organizations such as SIGGRAPH or ISEA, is a strategy to introduced in this article.

Digital Indigenous works regularly spring from deep storytelling and listening roots. Nowadays, our beautiful stories are often interpreted through digital mediums: film, music, performance, games, animation, and graphics. During the SIGGRAPH 05 keynote address, George Lucas said that he is a storyteller and suggested that, as a storyteller, you constantly bump into the limits of technology. So true! But for digital Indigenous storytellers, not only is there a lack funding for software and hardware, but funding to learn the use or to push its limitations for the sake of storytelling is mostly non-existent.

This short letter is a call to similar Indigenous digital artists who are interested in sharing their electronic/non-electronic tactics to obtain resources and training. Let’s explore collaboration, education, and representation in the ISEA digital art community. As apprentice or master navigators, strategically moving through culturally sensitive and often techno-phobic terrain, we can collectively survey funding for our work, for travel to educational opportunities, and for attending conferences that focus on digital storytelling, production, and art-making.

The speaking and use of native languages to represent non-western understanding of sky, earth, and people are ours for the telling. Let’s forge forward together.

anpetu waste yahape,
rose

Some number of years ago, I wrote a theoretical piece on New Media and disability, largely looking at the interface of dis/ability and Virilio’s argument of the paralysis of the accelerated ‘able’ and the similarity to the technologically augmented disabled. This time, I would like to share a brief informal reflection in context with my experience in disability and New Media and the aforementioned article.

I could reflect on Virilio’s theory once more, but in the 2-3 years since my writing, the instance of the interface between the disabled artist and the medium, and between artists of differing level of ability, as well as the public perception of the people engaged in the project has not changed. It might be interesting to note that disabled artists have a handicap in public perception by the nature of their position. This is why many disabled artists choose to, as Erving Goffman (1) would put it, ‘pass’ so that the disability is not foregrounded in the context of their work. I admit that when I watched the video about Anzai et al’s Tactile Renga project** that the issues of a visual arts project between the sighted and non-sighted, the nature of the project partially obscured my objectivity for the work..

Even though some New Media works addressing disability have emerged, there are extremely complex issues that problematize the creation for such works in the first place. First of all, as Lev Manovich’s definitions of New Media are becoming canonized by certain numbers of the New Media art and larger art worlds, the privileging of the visual (as Manovich frames much of his theory in film studies) challenge the avisual. Of course, we could mention that databases, transcoding, etc. do not privilege the visual, but the framing of his discourse in terms of New Media do in considering terms like Vertov’s ‘kino-eye’. What does film theory have to say to the blind?

This leads me to issues of understanding and sensoria. For example, how does one understand experiences which are so fundamentally different from one’s own? How could I understand deafness, or incapacity, or permanent blindness, or schizophrenia, or…? The idea that many humans with challenges have such trouble truly empathizing with one another in similar situations,reaching out to truly understand others with incredibly different circumstances, requires substantial personal resources. This is why I believe that if extraterrestrials are ever discovered, communication will be impossible. However, I do not feel that empathy between dis/ability is not so improbable, but it does take a bit of time; usually more than those in the developed world are allowed by society.

Lastly, I would like to talk about the marginalization of the disabled, the challenges of access/ability, education, and the like in instilling desire or giving the ability for the disabled to create New Media works or creating them with the disabled. The disabled are frequently not given sufficient financial support. The educational challenges presented by many forms of disability do not exclude these demographics from creating New Media works, but certain obstacles remain.

I claim to have few concrete solutions to many of these problems, but it is clear to me that constant reminders are necessary to spur the production of access, possibilities or opportunities for the disabled to work in or have access to New Media. Disabled people are some of the most distinctive individual people in all of humanity, and they have much to teach. But much work remains in the project of New Media enablement of the disabled, and honestly, except for long-term visibility and research, I find the discipline of which I’ve just spoken very challenging. It is my hope that within ISEA we might be able to have more dialogue on the disabled in the coming years.


(1) Goffman, Erving, Stigma Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. 1963 Penguin Books

What is the School of Panamerican Unrest?
The School of Panamerican Unrest is a project that intends to engage audiences in alternative modes to discuss history, ideology, and trends of thought that have had important ramifications in political and social events in the Americas.

The School of Panamerican Unrest will take the physical form of a collapsible/portable schoolhouse that will travel by ground from Alaska to Chile, stopping in different locations in the U.S., Canada, and Latin America.

Some of the primary goals of The School of Panamerican Unrest are:
To broaden and strengthen the debate around ideas and actions that had a crucial influence in the development of the history of the Americas, with the hopes of providing a framework of discussion around current international affairs, and bridging dialogue between Spanish and English-speaking America.

To build bridges between the different cultural communities of the Americas and facilitate communication between regions. The SPU seeks to show that it is possible – and necessary- to create independent networks of communication and dialogue outside of the existing economic structures that bind the Americas together. The SPU seeks to do a critique of the market-driven structure of the art world by including those regions that do not benefit from the attention of the international art market.

To initiate a debate on the ways in which the arts in the Americas can have again a significant role in the construction of public policy and enriching people’s view of the world in a forward-looking manner.

To combine educational strategies, modes of display, and debate on political and historical issues in non- conventional ways, create an infrastructure for discussion that breaks with traditional academic or art-market-centered formats;

As an artistic project, the SPU will seek new ways of integrating the experience of an artwork with a site-specific audience by making the group dynamic an integral part of the experience of the piece. The project was conceived and directed by artist Pablo Helguera. Its implementation, however, will require the support of a group of curators, critics and other artists throughout the Americas that will participate as members of a network of information built by this project. The School of Pan-American Unrest, more than a single artist project, is an effort to create true bridges between isolated cultural areas of action in the Americas.

Artists, writers, political activists, sociologists, and educators will be invited to join in this nomadic think-tank. The discussions created as a result of those readings are designed to result in local collaborative exhibitions, performances, panels, and other events that will be documented and incorporated in the project's archives.

The project is inspired in the travelogue itineraries of those who crossed the Americas: missionaries, explorers, gold-seekers, revolutionaries, intellectuals, and others. In the utopian spirit of those who thought of the Americas as a unified entity, the SPU will cross the continent making the idea of Panamericanism a reality. A pilot version for this project was created in 2003 in Zurich, Switzerland, sponsored by the Shedhalle alternative space. The current project is supported by a grant from the Creative Capital Foundation in New York.

When will it take place and where will it be presented?
The project will have three main phases: a virtual conference before the trip, starting in October of 2006, the trip in itself, and the creation of a documentary and exhibition that will gather all the discussions and resulting information from this experience. The trip is scheduled to take place starting in May of 2006. More than a traveling exhibition, it will function like a traveling conference. It will stop on large and small cities. In principle, the SPU is interested in any community and will accept any invitation as long as the conditions are workable within the schedule and logistics. What will the SPU do on each of its stops?

On each of its stops, the SPU will offer a compact schedule of workshops, art showcase, performances, discussions and lectures for the public. Each presentation on each stop will differ depending on the length of the residency, the resources available at the locations, the local interest, and the traveling schedule of the project. For each of its stops, special presentations will be prepared corresponding to the local history of heroic and visionary figures (both famous and unknown) that have helped to define the area where they came from. Will the discussions and other programs take place inside the SPU structure?

While the SPU structure is intended to provide a physical presence to the project wherever it goes, the public activities that will offer may or may not take place within the structure, depending on the scale of the events. What will be the methodology of the SPU? The SPU seeks to facilitate dialogue through innovative discussion strategies, inquiry-based methodology and other forms of communication using the visual arts. By using image association strategies and an open format of construction of critical dialogue, the school' s methodology is based on the assumption that in history, like in art, there is never a final reading on an issue, but only a temporary understanding of it through a continuous influx of discussion and interaction between method and intuition. Such dynamic implemented in the project will simulate the nature of the history of the Americas, not defined by its permanence but by its unrest.

While focusing on the history of the Americas, the SPU seeks to foster a larger discussion and understanding on the roots of contemporary humanist ideology. The house will contain a library of images related to the topics, which will be used in various experimental ways to prompt debates.

What will the SPU's publications be?
The SPU is planning the following publications:

Virtual forum. The virtual forum, to be started in October of 2005, will be available on the web. Pending funding, once the project is completed a publication will be made with excerpts from all the discussions that took place before and after the project. Additionally, during the trip, the SPU will produce ‘travelogue’ dispatches that will be released throughout the duration of the trip.

Textbook. The textbook will be made available in bilingual form in the various locations. It will be also available on a pdf format on the web. Including information on the history of utopian thought and pacifism in the Americas inside the house, the textbook will be an anthology of readings and discussions of relevant moments in the history of the Americas. Readings will include texts by Simon Bolivar, Abraham Lincoln, Che Guevara, Martin Luther King, and others. (please see attached reading list)

Catalogue. A catalogue documenting the project will be produced once the journey is completed and all discussions, contributions and visual documentation are brought together.

How can institutions and local curators get involved? What will be expected from them?
The SPU is looking for hosts –both institutions and individuals- to receive the project and help organize the activities that will take place in their respective localities. We are looking for any size of institution with a constituency, and wherever there aren’t any,we will seek for public or private spaces from where to operate.

Institutional commitment may vary depending on the resources and planned activities. Nevertheless, both institutions and individuals will be asked to sign a letter of agreement where they will commit to help facilitate the various logistics of the project.

What are the requirements from the SPU to the host institutions?
Depending on the location, the SPU will require support of the following nature:
-Financial support for transportation for that leg of the trip
-Accommodations for a few nights during the length of the stay
-Local promotion and outreach
-Technical support for public programs, workshops, etc.

How will local audiences be involved? Who is the right audience for this?
SPU will work with local institutions, curators, and cultural activists who may volunteer to host the project in their respective localities to bring an audience. The SPU will emphasize quality against quantity, which means that a group of 10 people at a given site may be more than enough to conduct a seminar. Nevertheless, the SPU will also be prepared to engage large groups of people via screenings, lectures and performances.

The SPU is a project directed mainly to cultural workers – thatis, people who work in the arts. However, it will also actively seek to involve people in the areas of sociology, politics, economical thought, religion, biology, etc.

What are the final goals of the SPU?
While we are well aware that the School of Panamerican Unrest may only manage at its best to provide modest or symbolic contributions in the very ambitious task of unifying the cultural voices of the Americas, we do intend to take the utopian nature of this enterprise very seriously. We regard this project as a relevant statement about the locality of influence of culture and the urgent need to create avenues of dialogue between the Americas.

How to receive more information?
Please contact Pablo Helguera at
Phelguera@aol.com

Semi Ryu is an a faculty member in the Department of Kinetic Imaging, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, USA.

Dakar Web is archived at :http://www.agencetopo.qc.ca/dakarweb/dakar/index.html


Initiated by ISEA HQ Montréal, the Dakar Web project took place during the month of February 1999 in Dakar, Sénégal. Twenty local artists (painters, sculptors, photographers, writers and musicians) collaborated under the guidance of the ISEA team (Eva Quintas, Michel Lefebvre and, myself Catherine McGovern) in the creation of 5 web fiction projects, the first created in West Africa.

At the time, the Internet was relatively unknown and expensive to access. Only the privileged had computers in their homes or even access to them. During the intense and very rich sessions, the artists discovered web art and, for some, computers and the Internet. Their enthusiasm was only exceeded by their open minded and committed spirit of discovery. Together we were able to open the door on a new form of artistic expression, enabling the Senegalese artists to bring their creative vision to what at the time was a very Western medium of expression.

Story telling is one of the fundaments of African culture and in the context of the dynamic local visual arts scene; Dakar Web offered a wonderful opportunity to begin the process of appropriation of these means of expression. Today access remains an issue in this region and electronic art in general is relatively under exploited by local artists. Nonetheless, many of the artists of Dakar Web were inspired to explore this new territory and here are some of their views.