Tranzindex Coneference, Cluj, Romania, sept 26-29

anna balint epistolaris at freemail.hu
Thu Sep 19 15:29:25 CEST 2002


Tranzindex Conference
Sept 26 - 29, Cluj, Romania
The democratization of media in post-socialist Europe has been celebrated since 1989. Yet how "democratic" is the 
current state of media awareness and production? The standardization of TV, radio, print, & web to a few widespread 
forms diminishes the possibility of critical approaches. The aim of the conference & workshop (as well as the year long 
Meta Media Project) is to provide students, youth and minority groups access to media literacy and production skills--in a 
context where ideas of public access are still largely absent. The project is organized in collaboration with the Next 5 
Minutes festival of tactical media, which in its 4th edition is a series of decentralized local media-laboratories in different 
cities (Amsterdam, Berlin, Chicago, Cluj, Delhi, Kabul, London, Moscow, New York, Sydney, Zagreb). The results of each 
local event will be documented in an on-line environment and there will be a concluding festival (a meeting of the 
different tribes) in Amsterdam in May 2003.

INTERNATIONAL PARTICIPANTS:
Jozita Shkreli, Lindart (Albania)
Galina Dimitrova, InterSpace, (Bulgaria)
Igor Markovic, Arkzin (Croatia)
Petr Motycka, Pode Bal (Czech Republic)
Janos Domokos (+ 3 others), Dialektus Festival  (Hungary)
Virgiliu Margineanu, OWH TV Studio (Moldova)
Ivana Moncolova, Buryzone Club (Slovakia)
Alexandra Kostic, Kibla Multimedia Center (Slovenia)
Kristian Lukic & Branka Curicic, Kuda (Yugoslavia)
Marie Pierre Despret & Francois Ducat, Les Corsaires (Belgium)
Sigismond de Vajay, Underground Film Festival (Switzerland)
Nina Czegledy, ISEA (Canada/Hungary)
Sebesi Istvan, Kultiplex (Hungary)
Tilos Radio (Hungary)
David Garcia, N5M (Netherlands)
Derek Holzer, N5M/Radio Jeleni (Netherlands)
Hito Steyerl, theorist & filmmaker (Germany)
Georg Schoelhammer, Springerin Magazine (Austria)
Boris Buden, theorist (Croatia/Austria)
(Romanian participants to be announced later)

TENTATIVE PROGRAM
-Thursday, September 26 : arrivals & informal evening gathering
- Friday, September 27 - morning & afternoon discussion sessions (there will also be nightly screenings and live 
audio/visual performances, TBA)
>Presentation by Media/Art Centers of activities, focusing on media production & literacy (InterSpace (Bulgaria), Lindart 
(Albania), Kuda (Yugoslavia), Kibla (Slovenia), Kultiplex (Hungary), Buryzone (Slovakia), Les Corsaires (Belgium))
>Backdoor Media Education
(informal roundtable discussion focusing on (1) different models of innovative media education outside schools & major 
institutions (2) the tendency of independent media centers founded by artists to become the primary vehicles for 
education & production in EE region ... please suggest other topics of interest)
-Saturday, September 28 : morning & afternoon
>Counter-Documentary & Politics of Representation
(this discussion will focus on visual media but the following issues can also apply to other media which distribute 
"documents": what is a document; documentary and counter-documentary styles & forms of production; connection 
between documentary & propaganda; reality/fiction boundaries; strategies of indirect and non-representation)
>Mapping Media Activism
(in light of the collaboration with Next 5 Minutes, it seems timely to ask what tactical media means today, and how it 
differs from other forms of media interventions - strategic, alternative, migrant, nomadic; what is the connections between 
tactical interventions and mainstream propaganda; the geography of media activism - what regions and issues remain 
unaccounted by current media theories; what can "activism" mean in a specifically post-socialist context)
- Sunday, September 29 : morning & afternoon
>Public Domain & Democratization
(different meanings of the public domain - as a shared social, cultural space of ideas and as a juridical category of 
property rights that belong to the community or government; where does the idea of public domain come from; who owns 
the public domain, who pays for it, who has access; what is the future of public space in a digital media environment; 
what is the significance of open source & copyleft for the public domain)
>Informal discussion of old & new forms of borders - from mass economic migrations of labor to new borders of intellectual 
property and on the internet (this is unplanned & open to all participants, though you are welcome to make a description 
of something you want to talk about)
>Minor Media Production & Distribution
(presentation and follow up discussion of different modes of production and distribution for "alternative" content; the idea 
of grassroots and do it yourself production in different media - tv & cable, festivals, pirate radio, (e)zines, etc; the prosumer 
& the disappearance of the distinction between producer and consumer)

Csilla Konczei, Tincuta Parv, Joanne Richardson conference organizers









More information about the Syndicate mailing list