Re: <nettime> Ars Electronica and its political context

[Rafael Lozano-Hemmer <rafael@csi.com>]

(please post as soon as possible!)

Hi Simon, greetings from Linz.

Your last post came as a bit of a disappointment for me since I have
always enjoyed your contributions on nettime and elsewhere. As a Mexican
artist about to discuss "Free Speech" at this afternoon's round-up I find
it amazing that anybody could make such huge oversimplifications and
stereotyping of an entire nation. If you fail to see the way in which your
fiery stance is actually complicit with what is happening in Austria (and
elsewhere!) then I humbly suggest you review the past 30 years of activist
political thinkers (ask if you want a list of names, though I am sure you
know them quite well).

For those of you who are in Linz please join us for the free speech
round-up 6PM at the Ars Electronica Center skyloft. Pit Schultz, Konrad
Becker, Thomas Lehner and myself will be there.

All the best,

Rafael



Simon Biggs wrote:

> >Its good that some people have finally recognized the Free Speech Project
>>in our program.  I hope you all can come to judge whether Ars Electronica
>>meets your expectations.
>>
>>Gerfried Stocker
>-----
>
>I doubt that this will be enough. Way before Haider Austria was already a
>difficult country to be in if you are not a conventional person (eg: if
>your sexual/drug/cultural/political preferences are not mainstream
>Austrian, or if your skin is the wrong colour).


<....>





#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net