Orfeo-Telestreet

Telestreet has distinguished itself by organising audience campaigns against the monopoly position of the major television stations; people can make their own television programmes. With the aid of mutual link-ups and co-operative efforts, the Telestreet projects achieve an optimum mixture of media technologies, based on both television and the Internet. This allows Telestreet to set up street television stations on a relatively small budget. In Italy, there are now about 250 such mini television channels, each run by about 10 to 15 people. With the aid of aerials on the roofs of houses, each station can broadcast to a radius of about 300 metres. If several aerials are linked together, it is possible to broadcast to a larger area. Telestreet is not a centralised organisation, but is made up of a multitude of forms in different Italian cities. Orfeo-Telestreet (from Bologna, set up in 2002), will relocate its usual approach to the specific context of Rotterdam. In doing so, it will use a variety of technologies (videophone, real-time closed circuits with graphic elements, etc.) and local news subjects, for instance in the public library, at the market and in WORM. (EC)