The direct context is the festival "Teatro Telematico" that is dedicated to the crossroads between art and technology in the era of digital communications, with the special emphasis on the east-west problematics.
The general contours of this conversation are defined as an exchange of thoughts and experiences about the possible net.art as a specific art form. The hopes of the organizers are that the debate will offer the identification of the most important neuralgic points regarding the net.art crossroads.
Formaly, the meeting is a day & 1/2 long closed brainstorming session, moderated only in the direction of allowing everybody to say a word, and with the public panel discussion the second afternoon where some of the articulated dilemmas will be presented to the broader audience of the Festival (with a public debate, hopefully).
Some of the questions that are going to be adressed are:
Is there a specific net.art?
How does the artist use the control over the distribution of his/hers work?
How does the modernist/romantic perception of the "art work" as a tangible piece influence the net.artist? Is hard copy obsolete?
Is teritory (realy) obsolete? (does the automatic globality of audience necessarily mean the universality of the topic?)
The list of participants in this moment includes the
following nice people:
Adele Eisenstein, C3, Budapest
Akke Waggenar, net.artist, Cologne/Groningen
Walter van der Cruijsen, Desk.nl, Amsterdam
Oliver Frommel, AEC, Linz
Alexei Shulgin, WWWart Center, Moscow
Igor Markovic, Arkzin, Zagreb
Marjan Kokot, Koda, Ljubljana
Gomma, Decoder, Milano
Andreas Broeckmann, V2, Rotterdam
Pit Schultz, net.artist, Nettime, Berlin
Vuk Cosic, Ljudmila, Ljubljana
Luka might also come