Future of the Independent Mediaspace

The Internet has been praised by many as a haven for everyone who has something to say about the world. The free distribution of ideas, not controlled by powerful media companies, is however under pressure. Now the Internet is still an ideal platform for many artists where they can focus attention on their work without first finding themselves a place in the established art or media world. In addition, no other medium offers an opportunity to maintain such a direct relationship with the audience. The Future of the Independent Media Space looks at issues such as: What is the role of the Internet for new collectives of artists and activists? Are the qualities we impute to the Internet - that it is open, democratic and freely distributed - inherent in the medium? How long will these qualities be maintained? The economic activities and the commercial potential of the Internet have in the last two years mainly been restricted to the private digital networks of multinationals. Net activists will probably have to rethink their portrayal of the Internet as a public space.Saskia SassenSaskia Sassen is professor of sociology at the University of Chicago. In addition, she lectures at the London School of Economics. She has published several books and articles including Losing Control? Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization (1996) and Globalization and its Discontents (1998) (this latter book will be published in Dutch translation in April 1999 by Van Gennep), and is one of the leading thinkers in the field of the expanding information society. Sassen talks about the importance of the public digital space - both for art and culture and in a social and political sense - and the threat posed to it by the media industry.MongrelThe British collective Mongrel is made up of artists, political activists and new-media-makers. They work together on a variety of socially committed projects, using all possible technological facilities. They tackle themes such as Nationalism and Racism. For instance, a search engine on Internet was hacked and changed so that all searches for racist material would send the user to a parallel network of sites that had been altered by Mongrel. This project, 'Natural Selection', is described by Mongrel as 'the nightmare that the white-dominated Internet was waiting for'. Mongrel is represented by Mervin Jarman. He will pursue the question of how accessible the Internet really is for all population groups and how this accessibility can be improved. In addition, he gives a demonstration of several Mongrel projects.(http://www.mongrel.org.uk)