This essay presents — albeit more as a sketch — one of the topics I consider important when considering some European cultural activities of the 1990s. It is more contextual and associative than documentary, and touches on a number of topics and fields, such as technology, semantics, social relations, infection, immunity, cultural stereotypes and communication networks. It is a far from sentimental reappraisal of long-concluded stories — today largely forgotten — or of mere incidents taken from archives and dusted off (for example, as part of this year’s Transmediale in Berlin). ¹

I would like to thank those who have had the patience to read this work-in-progress, and have offered critical points and inspirational information: Dušan Barok, Martin Zet, Ondřej Vavrečka, Radka Schmelzová, and others.

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I admit to a certain attempt at revision, as the established interpretation and reflection of the “little history” of the (Czechoslovakian) refurbishment of state-controlled surveillance capitalism towards market capitalism often seems unsatisfactory to me: the transition from a “closed” to an “open” society², the shift from shared poverty and a state of need towards “surplus” and waste, from “de-nationalization” towards privatization³; these are often missing the proper context. Maybe that is because this decade is rarely analyzed more deeply or impartially.⁴

The question is: To what degree can these rather marginal, fringe, artistic and “pop-cultural” initiatives, labeled as “independent” or “non-commercial” truly be called “independent” or indeed “autonomous”?⁵ What, from today’s perspective, does the term “autonomous” mean? The various initiatives, the cultural centers, media labs, “anti-institutional” and non-governmental projects, artistic collectives (which were a thorn in the side of the neo-liberal wing of the then-contemporary economic forces), did they really spring up and close down of their own free will, by their own “decision”? Or was there also the interplay of circumstances? To what degree were the communities and collectives which served as intersections of, often opposing, economic and political forces and motives premeditated and constructed?

The seismic upheavals in the fall and winter of 1989 resonated across Europe in mutually connected, vertically and horizontally strengthening and fading signals. Some spread from east to west, some went the other way; some from north to south, from underground centers of dissent to official structures, sometimes vice versa. At the same time, a discussion raged on the geopolitical and ideological contours of how to define the new situation of “central” or “eastern” Europe. Are the Baltic states in the same (cultural) sphere as regions like Romania or Albania? What are the connections and what values are shared among Austria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, considering that the fall of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy had happened some 70 years previously? Is it even possible, after 30 years, to write a report on the artistic collectives and cultural networks which usually did not survive this decade of transformation? Can one find a common feature which would point to the strategies and motivations which might differ from those parallel networks where people used to meet, and where they would discuss the environment, humanitarian aid, rock music, religion, tramping, or other practices?⁶

Patchworks, Networks and Globalization

Patchwork, or patching is “a traditional hand-crafting technique which usually consists in the mechanical linking of smaller, variously colored pieces of cloth into a larger whole, so that geometrical patterns are created.” Patching is a technique similar to knitting and sewing, and people most likely started practicing it 40,000 years ago. It is in that time frame that we find archeological remains of plant fibers which were used to sew together pieces of animal skin or cloth. The invention of the needle and thread is predicated on the specific anatomy of the hand, its fine motor skills, as well as cognitive abilities such as imagination, causal thinking, combining formerly separate parts into a new whole. The technology of montage, connection, stitching, knitting, weaving, or crocheting can be found in almost all traditional agricultural societies. Apart from cooking, baking, fermentation and other forms of food processing, tinkering, metallurgy and agriculture, patching was in place at the dawn of modern industrial society.⁷

The term “networking” is usually a term used in management. It mostly denotes the methods and know-how necessary for founding and developing companies, meaning it has to do with commercial tactics and marketing. It uses the theory and practice of the sociological and economic sciences and we often see it employed as a strategic tool in team building or knowledge management. More generally, networking touches on interpersonal relationships and communication, social, psychological, as well as cultural and economic structures, formations and strategies. Social networking is increasingly part of information and communication technologies and, with the advent of the internet and globalization, the level of “networking” is at a point where “inhuman” entities, such as bots or algorithms are becoming integral to it. They are also most probably becoming ever more dominant. In tandem with militarized media, the “autonomous,” self-regulating technologies and markets are inconspicuously pushing civic society to the sidelines, “paralyzing our ability to think constructively, to make meaningful connections and to act with intent. As if civilization itself reached the threshold of extinction, as if we lacked the collective will and coordination necessary to solve fundamental life questions asking about the very survival of humanity,” writes media theorist Douglas Rushkoff in his Manifesto of 2019.⁸

Network theory was certainly a hot topic in the late 1980s and early 1990s, regardless of whether they were communication, social, or neural networks; commercial, control, or power networks, closed or discrete networks, chaotic or organized. In the post-war fractured world (which was however increasingly permeated and connected by a mesh of journalistic, energetic, informational and gradually electronic networks and communication systems) networks had ambiguous connotations from their beginning. Is it perhaps because we had become parts of mirroring, antagonistic systems: worlds which were closely connected and mutually dependent? It was due to the anxiety and the drive to achieve a fragile equilibrium of military capital and nuclear weapons. From the mid-20th century, ideas of a universalist re-connection of everything and everyone with everything and everyone else under the banner of one victorious economic system made a periodic return. It might be that the ascendant maxim of interconnection will not only lead to singularity and the end of history, but will also increase instability and open the possibility of collapse. It might at least pose a threat to personal rights, such as privacy and other features of a civil society. The nightmares of the future as prophesied in the 1950s by Ray Bradburry and Philip K. Dick have, with the 2013 testimony of Edward Snowden, become all too real.

Thinking “the network” along with the research done on transformation has, in contemporary vocabulary, come to be preferred over terms such a structure, paradigm, or system. Even before the advent of Web 2.0 and the reign of the “anti-social network,” the network has shown itself to be latently ubiquitous, and not only in the sphere of contemporary art and globalized culture.⁹

The theory of networks and agents and the theory of parasites

A good example can be found in the popular, albeit criticized, conception of the so-called Actor Network Theory (or ANT for short). This is a materially-semiotic theory developed by three sociologists — Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and John Law, which they formulated as part of their research at the Parisian Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation. The authors adopted a generally methodological or epistemological frame for sociology, post-structuralism, general systems theory, texts of Michel Serres, Deleuze and Guattari (Assemblage theory) and other sources. ANT is a hybrid network constituted by all active nodes. It connects various artificial and natural elements — actors can be organic and cultural elements, as well as human, machine, institutional, animal, plant, food or resource-based. Each one of the actors/agents has an equal value for the whole. Communication or cooperation take place in relative stability, dynamic symbiosis, but only until the point when one of the actors disappears, dies off, or another actor appears. This brings tension and turbulence to the network which can lead to growth, debilitation, dissolution or collapse. The reason can be, for example, the collapse of a communication (telephone) network, malfunction of a military, control, commercial or banking system, the imposition of an unknown infection, parasite, virus, or the integration of a new — for example communication — platform (like the advent of electronic networks and their impact on the transformation of communication and commercial systems in the latter half of the 1980s). MacLuhan’s ideas about the impact of emergent technologies (for example of communication networks) which determine the economic, social and cultural relations, patterns and strategies — including the functioning of art institutions, artists and artefacts — are still relevant today, 70 years after their initial formulation.¹⁰

If we apply the concept of ANT to the sphere of “unofficial’ culture, or “artistically autonomous” happenings which took place around the same time as the fundamental upheavals in the region of central and eastern Europe, we can find a number of correlations in the increasing coverage of satellite TV (an assemblage of hardware, economic, symbolic and value formations such as culture and propaganda), the largely available apparatuses of data storage (audio tapes, VHS, video recorders) and technologies of copying and distributing texts (xerox).¹¹ On the other hand, there was the formula of the censorship/surveillance system. We can also find signs of the “mysterious” or dark network in the workings of the surveillance/police state, which exhibits a complementary connection between the visible and hidden/discrete formations and agents which (just like in the case of the television network which connects the signal and the broadcast and receiving technologies) permeated both the public and the private spheres.

According to Michel Serres, the biological metaphor of the parasite was one of the first modes of human communication and excommunication.¹² The term “parasite” comes from the Greek para sitos — “to sit next to,” and in Czech and other languages it has a similar, tripartite meaning: an animal which feeds on or from the body of another animal, a slothful person living off the spoils of others, and noise in the decoding of a signal. The parasite lives from the body of the host, either on the inside or outside, and is a burden on its host, but only to a degree, as its existence relies on the host’s survival. Parasitic life strategies allow for long-term co-existence, and often a feedback loop is formed, so that the parasite provides some type of reciprocal service, establishing exchange — symbiosis. Parasites live from the remnants of other parasites. According to Serres, culture, art and language show certain signs of parasitism. The parasite creates disequilibrium in the system network, bringing disorder, chaos, which in turn breeds a more complex form of order. The parasite becomes the initiator of something new, something which is at first regarded as alien, subversive or disruptive. Parasitic (or pirate) strategies are complicit with the art of discovering novelty: Ars Inventiendi which, for Serres, constitutes the very essence of philosophy and art.¹³

In 1967, two authors of the Fluxus movement, Robert Filliou and George Brecht — much like the Situationists, or later media activists of the 1990s — thought that the network is “eternal.” They adopted the practices of camouflage and the strategies of mass media, advertisement and commercial corporations, despite the fact that their aims were socially and politically very different. Geert Lovink, one of the activists and theorists of the early 1990s who started to articulate the essence and sense of autonomous, free media, has recently become much more skeptical towards networks. The threat of a global network, a single Web, is nowadays interpreted in a much more realistic and gloomy light.¹⁴

WWW

What was the situation of communication networks in the Czech Republic in the early 1990s? The first attempts at connection took place in the fall months of 1991 at Charles University. The line led from Prague (through the Czech Technical University) to an internet node located in Linz. Our Republic was officially connected to the internet on February 2, 1992 at the Czech Technical University. In 1991, the company Econnect was founded for a number of ecological initiatives around the Zelený kruh. Apart from the academic network, Econnect was among the first providers of access to the net. In 1991, Tim Berners-Lee, in collaboration with a team of colleagues, proposed a coding language for creating web sites (HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language) and defined the HTTP protocol for transmitting websites through the internet (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). Berners-Lee also became the creator of the NEXUS program which was used to edit and browse web sites. The original proposals for naming the web were “Mine of Information” or “Information Mesh,” but ultimately the “World Wide Web” won out, and its services were provided free of charge. In April of 1993 — two years after launching the service — the Austrian curator Peter Weibel addressed the phenomenon of the web as the main topic of a festival of electronic culture: “Welcome to the Wired World”. In the introductory text, Weibel writes: “The postmodern society is based on information. No more the dynamics of mechanical machines but the exchange of data in the network of information machines supports the social operating system. Every day billions of humans communicate billions of massages via a global network which is constituted of telephone, fax, picture phone, mobile telephone, GPS (Global Positioning System), public access terminals, radio, pagers, TV, ISDN data communication, cable nets, cable TV, mailbox, e-mail, global computer networks like Internet, etc. We don’t live anymore only in streets and houses, but also in cable channels and telegraph wires, in fax machines and global digital networks.” But the distribution of information in mass media can also become a component of control and a source of optimizing strategies of power. Data opens critical questions about the dogmas and myths of post-modern information society.¹⁵

I mention Latour’s Actor-Network Theory because it seems a fitting metaphor to frame the story of the birth, growth and dismantling of various NGOs, non-commercial, and other “independent” artistic initiatives in central Europe, most importantly between the years 1990 and 2000. I will try to show this using the example of the Hermit Foundation and the Center for Metamedia Plasy. I depart from the assumption that it was not only the personal motivation of myself and other involved initiators, but also the social-economic circumstances of the times, and the conditions, impulses, available technologies, time, space and the possibility of crossing borders. That is the amalgam of conditions for all the “actors” which rather became witnesses to the expected and feared disappearance of a long-riven and unknown world. Other factors, such as the chaotic state of the planned economy, the hibernation of the surveillance structures and the absence of a state-level cultural politics also played their part.

The moment of mimesis, or the intuitive ability to distinguish, interpret, appropriate, transplant, evaluate or “translate” the foreign cultural templates, strategies and conditions was also important.¹⁶ A slightly de-mythologizing approach can uncover determinative relationships among the art histories and cultures as they were found in the regions. They might also reflect the current discussions on colonialism, or “self-colonialism,” in art, including the art of central Europe.¹⁷

During the organization of the auditory, visual and textual archive of the Hermit Foundation and the Center for Metamedia Plasy — as the project was paradoxically called — I kept encountering the idea, whether the name itself might not be hiding a subversive kernel, possessing a “diabolical machine” ticking away towards its self-detonation. What role could the foolish idea of hermitage have played in the project’s gradual extinction?

The concrete idea and offer were drafted in the winter of 1991 and the spring of 1992, at two geopolitically and culturally distant places: in the abandoned buildings of the central European former monastery of Plasy, and the 900-km distant shores of northern Europe, in Amsterdam. The genealogy of the idea, which at that time was still sketchy, was much older but the uncertain, grim, nomadic, homeless zeitgeist of then-contemporary Europe, with its unexpected outcome of 1989, certainly played a part. Was it a concoction of romantic dreaming about art, community, friendship and collectivism mixed with a dose of reality?¹⁸ On the one hand, the situation in the diaspora, the anxiety from a possible nuclear conflict of the great powers, feelings of uprootedness and alienation, and on the other hand the unclear idea about what all can be done in derelict, abandoned Baroque buildings, “far from the madding crowd” and far from centers of the “art world.”

Looking back at the annals of case studies (which rarely exist), it might seem that most “autonomous” cultural projects share one feature: only a few were created in isolation, but were rather connected and maintained through personal, communicational and economic ties and links, providing each other with a network of nutrients. It is important that, together with technologies of communication and “excommunication”, the political-economic landscape has changed: from interviews with physical, stable networks such as magazines, books, and other publications, telephone wires, post services, vinyl distribution and magnetic tapes adapted to electronic, digital networks, Bulletin Board Systems and web sites.¹⁹

The authors of the provocative study Fame as an Illusion of Creativity published in 2018 write that social intelligence and a richness of social relationships was more important for the success of select European and American innovators of the first two decades of the 20th century than – as might be expected — their immanent artistic quality or creativity.²⁰

It is true that subjectively I considered the residence, meeting and communion of all those hundreds of guests who frequented Plasy over the span of almost 10 years more important than the festival, symposia, exhibitions and concerts themselves. Self-indulgence certainly played a part in this, because him who invited all of them to the magical place of the Plasy monastery somehow became somehow important himself. But as time went by, I found myself thinking the heretic thought that if someone doesn’t come and replace me in the position of the person who makes the next year’s event happen, I will just drop and quit everything. And eventually, that is what, in a way, happened.

Amsterdam: At the beginning in 1991 there was an almost accidental meeting in Amsterdam, where visual artists, musicians and writers from Czechoslovakia started to came since the spring of 1990. I tried to maintain the OKO Gallery - an exhibition space in the house we have been living then and where several artists from Czechoslovakia have exhibited since 1989. It is important to say that since the 1970s the former colonial and maritime center of Amsterdam - similar as Berlin, Marseille or Copenhagen - has lost its "national atmosphere" and became - at least culturally - a cosmopolitan place. "Alternative" and "experimental" currents played a role on the art scene, or were at least tolerated, sometimes even encouraged. The relatively favorable economic situation and the social and immigration policies of the Dutch government have attracted a number of artists from Western Europe, the USA, Australia, Asia and Africa. After 1989, and especially during 1992, young people from Yugoslavia, refugees from the civil war, and gradually refugees from the crumbling USSR, found asylum here. Since the early 1980s, squatting / kraak movement has spread in the Netherlands. Several autonomous art centers have been set up in Amsterdam, temporarily settled in abandoned industrial buildings (both illegally and semi-legally). Autonomous communities were often associated with pirated radio (Radio 100, Radio ADM, Radio Patapoe), even pirate television (Rabotnik TV), theater stages and galleries. There were many artistic community centers in Western Europe in the late 1990s. In the Netherlands, for example, in Eindoven, Hetogenbosch, Rotterdam, Cologne (since 1993 the Moltkerei Werkstatt), the Schedhalle in Zurich, and many others.

Technology - correspondence - communication: The discussion and negotiation about the production of symposia´s in the first years took place mainly personally, by telephone, fax and by postal correspondence. In the early 1990s, the Artbook "art directory" was available in libraries, listing the mailing addresses of artists, critics, galleries, museums and art agencies in most countries of Europe and USA. I remember that I sent the invitation to the first symposium Hermit to aprox. 50 addresses, which I found here and where I estimated that the event could attract the addressees. In 1993, I bought or actually received instead of honorarium an Apple laptop (honorarium for the Orbis Pictus Revised installation project for ZKM) and started using a modem and fax to contact people in foreign countries, later via email. Even artists in Western Europe in the early 1990s, as far as I can remember, did not own a personal computer. I invited them with letters because international telephone tariffs were financially unaffordable.

Construction in process: The European political landscape of the 1980´s looked like two separate worlds. In fact, not only after 1989, but also before, it was - albeit sparsely - connected by many personal and professional links, which, after the fall of the Berlin Wall became quickly renewed and strengthened. I was challenged how to create a place or an event where Czechs, visitors from abroad would be interested to come. What about the fact, that it was a place which almost nobody knows about? An important model for me was the visit of the photographic exhibition 8x8 in Plasy, organized by Anna Fárová and Joska Skalník in the summer of 1981. Another event I was able to get a personally involved was the International bourse of small, Independent publishers from all Europe "Europe against the Current". It was set up by the anarchist publishing house and bookstore Fort van Sjako in September 1989. A certain information penetrated into Prague about the international symposium which Ryszard Wasko with group of friends - visual artists and filmmakers from the Lodz organized. They invited fifty artists from Western Europe and the USA to the symposium "Construction in the Process": promising them an apartment, food and materials, if they would pay for their travel. To express the support for the independent Polish culture and scene in a country where martial law was threatened, many artists - even established ones - accepted the invitation. For Czechoslovak "independent" culture - not only for dissent - was in the 1980s Poland and Hungary the land of freedom and goal of many expeditions to visit festivals and theater performances (especially in Wrocław, Gdańsk, Warsaw and Budapest).

I listed below at least some of the institutions and initiatives with which the Hermit Foundation and the CMP may have been, or have been directly linked to, or which have been for us a model of inspiration. Most of the links are already listed in the web archive. Here are mainly projects and community networks to which it was possible connect with, or to use their platform and experience, or - at best try to support them (CMP attempted to do it in the last three years of its existence, when funded by the grant Pro Helvetia Ost West).

The Cistercian reform and the Magicians context: Topos of the monastery, where the symposia took place, was decisive for shaping of the concept and program of the Hermit Foundation and the Center for Metamedia. Therefore, I briefly researched the historical and cultural contexts of architecture, with a predominantly Baroque atmosphere. After coming to Bohemia, the Cistercian order established a network of convents from the middle of the 12th century, (gradually in Sedlec near Kutná Hora, Plasy, Mnichov Hradiště, Nepomuk, Klášter nad Dědinou, Mašťov and Osek). In the 13th century, the Cistercians built monasteries in Zlatá Koruna, Vyšší Brod, Zbraslav, Velehrad, Žďár nad Sázavou and Vizovice. Perhaps the largest and richest monastery in Bohemia was established in Plasy in the Baroque period. In 1785, as part of the reforms against the church, Joseph II. canceled the cloister. The brotherhood, with its spiritual and administrative center in France, from the beginning created an expanding network, which in a short period colonised almost the entire Christian Europe. It was established by splitting from the Benedictine center of Cluny - criticized by Cistercians for its excessive secularism and deviation from the original monastic ideals. Robert the Abbot of Molesme left with a group of brothers and in settled in 1098 near Dijon - (Cistercium today Cîteaux). Here they founded a new abbey. The community of monks practicing asceticism followed the "primordial" Christian ideals and order was in 1119 confirmed by Pope Calixtus. The most famous figure was Bernard the first abbot of the Clairvaux monastery his teachings and reform served to poverty and simplicity of monastic life. In accordance with the original order of St. In addition to piety, the Benedicts promoted physical labor, striving for economic self-sufficiency, ensured by a system of farmyards (grangias), where the lay brothers of the order worked.

Another inspiration was the catalog of the exhibition of the curator Jean-Huber Martin "Magiciens de la terre", which took place in 1989 at the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris. From a newspaper article, I learned about his activities in the Curios & Mirabilia project in the interiors of the Baroque Chateau d’Oiron near Nantés. The Magicians of the Earth exhibition is considered one of the first major projects to try to deconstruct colonial concepts of contemporary art. Based on the traditions of the Dada movement, Martin brought to contemporary art the works of hitherto completely unknown, anonymous artists from Africa and Asia. In Dada he found elements of "postmodernism" and an attempt to break the Western frameworks and stereotypes of art perception. The exhibitions at the Chateau d’Oiron were again a revocation of Baroque Wunderkamer, or "cabinets of curiosities", where art was confronted with objects of science and technology

The Apollohuis network program was probably the strongest inspiration and the example to follow, although it is clear that comparing the conditions in which it operated with the improvised process in Plasy would be weird. However, the exhibition and concert spaces in the monastery were much more magnificent, which probably caused that one of the founders, Paul Panhuysen, was enchanted by the space and acoustics of the convent. The "Apollo's House" project in Eindhoven has been networking for more than 20 years in the form of promotion, creation and support of experimental music, sound and visual art, performance and, in part, the art of new media. The philanthropic sharing and exchange of information and resources was a basic idea for the Apollo network, as was solidarity with the art scene anywhere in the world. In 1980, the program was co-founded by the composers Remko Scha and the intermediate artist Paul Panhuysen on the premises of a former 19th-century cigar factory. The project was partly funded by its own publishing activities, partly by grants from the Dutch Ministry of Culture and the Brabant Region. Between 1980 and 2001, Paul and Helén Panhuysen in Het Apollozeis, but also in Germany, Japan, the USA and elsewhere, held about 250 art exhibitions, 500 concerts and performances, 50 public lectures, symposia and initiated several festivals (ECHO: Pictures of Sound II. 1987, or FLEA Festival, 1997). They also organized a residency program, which was accommodation, a scholarship and access to a recording studio for guest artists who could prepare an exhibition, installation or publication there. Part of the archive was acquired by the Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven, part of the archive was taken over and released on CD ZKM in Karlsruhe. The Apollohoum profile was also very international for Netherlands, It was one of the few places in Europe where experimenting artists from Asia, the USA, Canada and later also from Eastern Europe could get some support. In 1992, Panhuysen helped me to contact several artists who attended the first year of the Hermit Symposium. At their own expense, they participated several times in symposia in Plasy. In 2001 Paul and Heléne Panhuysen application was rejected the support because "their program was allegedly too international". Therefore, they finally decided to end the gallery's program and devoted themselves only to their own artistic activities. paulpanhuysen.nl/apollohuis

Experimental Intermedia Foundation, founded in 1968 by Elaine Summers, has been presenting performances since 1973. Produced and curated by composer Phill Niblock, over 1000 concerts have been given at his loft, and he has opened his doors to hundreds of composers, giving them a place to explore the use of new ideas and technologies in their music. EIF continues to present at least 15 -20 concerts a year. The concert series are during March and December of each year. There are on occasion extra performance events that occur outside the usual concert series.Phill Niblock (1933), an American intermediate artist active in music, film, photography, video and new media is as capable a networker as Paul Panhuysen. Since 1965, he has been involved in film, music and intermedia performance, and curating and publishing music media. In 1985, he became director of the Experimental Intermedia Foundation, and in 1993 established a branch at his house in Ghent, Belgium. In Plasy, Niblock took part in the first Hermit festival, where they came with Paul Panhuysen. Until his retirement, Phill taught at the University of New York and devoted his free time to obsessive travel and concerts. He was coming back to Plasy until the end of the 1990s, later joined the Ostrava Days of New Music festival. His work is often the result of collaboration with visual artists, dancers and other composers. In 2014, he received the John Cage Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. He releases on labels XI, Moikai, Mode Records and Touch. He released four hours of two-DVD movies and music for Extreme. His large retrospective took place in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2013, organized by curator Mathieu Copeland and in 2015 in the House of the Lords of Kunštát prepared by Jozef Cseres. experimentalintermedia.org

The Vasulkas: The meeting with Woody and Steina Vašulková in Amsterdam in 1989 motivated me to start preparing the Hermit Foundation concept. The Vasulkas were linked with the ethos of the counterculture of the 1960s, moving through the power lines of transnational cosmopolitan communities, networks and institutions, broadly connecting the liberal world of art (at least that;s how I interpreted it then). The Vašulkas had a presentation or screening in Steim (Studio for Improvised Electronic Music), where Steina later worked as an artistic director. I remember we discussed somewhere on the positions of mainstream and electronic art, which I knew very superficially. I was catched up by his parable that a real Art should stay hidden, not try to negotiate too much with public, because the seduction of success and popularity corrupt artist. We also talked about a network of shelters for creative people, inventors and artists, for whom such homes whould be opened all over the world. The Vašulka founded in 1971 The Electronic Kitchen in New York, which was actually a model of a semi-dissident center, perhaps similar to the groups of artists in Central and Eastern Europe. vasulka.org

Nettime, Next5min and Spectrum: Mailing list Nettime, still operating today, was one of the first European communication electronic directories before the advent of social media. Founded in 1995 on the occasion of a meeting of artists and media activists at the Venice Biennale by Geert Lovink and Piet Schulz. In those years, Nettime played a key role in distributing information and creating an environment for critical discussion about the Internet, tactical media, and media strategies. In 2004 Nettime was awarded at the Ars Electronica festival. Over the years, there have been several international meetings of the Nettime network at events such as HackIt in Amsterdam, Chaos Computer Congress in Berlin, ISEA, the Ars Electronica festival, the MetaForum conference (95-96) in Budapest and the Nettime Conference - Beauty and the East, organized by the Ljudmila media lab in Ljubljana. The "The Hybrid Workspace" conference at Documenta X in Kassel in 1997 was closely linked to the Nettime community Next5min was an international festival and conference of tactical media in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. It took place between 1993 and 2003 on the premises of organizations such as De Balie, Paradiso, Waag society and V2. tacticalmediafiles.net

Syndicate was a mailing list, an open platform for exchange and cooperation in media culture in Europe. Founded in January 1996 on the last day of the festival Next 5 Minutes 2 in Rotterdam, where the meeting was attended by 30 media artists and activists, journalists and curators from twelve Eastern and Western European countries. The list enjoyed the most active period until 1999, and existed until August 2001 (then linking 500 members from more than 30 European and a number of non-European countries). The original idea was to establish an East-West network as well as an East-East network. In the meantime, however, the Syndicate had increasingly developed into an all-European forum for media culture and art. Over the last few years the division between East and West had been growing less important as people cooperated in ever-changing constellations, in ad-hoc as well as long-lasting partnerships.In September 2000 after a server crash, the list was moved to a new server hosted by OpenOffice.de in Berlin, and switched from Majordomo to Mailman administration software. The Czech cultural and art scene became didn´t get involved and interested in the European network concerning electronic culture and art or rather minimaly. Maybe for similar reasons as in Poland. An exception was the Terminal Bar project, which had little contact with the Czech community and High-Tech exhibitions and festivals in Brno...

Nadace Pro Helvetia je součástí švýcarské kulturní politiky od roku 1939. Založila ji Spolková rada „na obranu nezávislé kulturní identity Švýcarska“ proti nacistickému Německu a fašistické Itálii. V roce 1940 zřídila první kancelářské místnosti v Hirschengrabenu v Curychu. V roce 1949 se stala veřejnoprávní nadací, s posláním podporovat švýcarskou kulturu, propagovat ji v zahraničí. Mandát a organizační forma byly stanoveny v roce 1965 a postupně převažovaly zahraniční aktivity. V roce 1985 Nadace otevřela kancelář v Centre Culturel Suisse v Paříži a v Káhiře. Pro Helvetia založila řadu poboček v partnerství s dalšími institucemi po celém světě. Ve východní Evropě byla Pro Helvetia Ost West jednou z nejaktivnějších zahraničních kulturních institucí a po roce 1989 získala kanceláře Švýcarské agentury pro rozvoj a spolupráci v Polsku, Československu a Maďarsku. V rámci programu Pro Helvetia Ost/West finančně podpořila řadu švýcarských umělců v ČR, v roce 1997 pak projekt Plasy, divadlo Alfred ve dvoře a Centrum české fotografie. Vzhledem k politické stabilizaci zemí střední Evropy byla pražská pobočka k v roce 2005 uzavřena. Ředitelkou pražské pobočky byla fotografka Iren Stehli a sekretářka Jitka Altoe.

prohelvetia.ch

Artist in Residence — Res Artist/Bethanien: V roce 1996 přijel do Plasů ředitel organizce Res Artist Michael Haerdter. Ten v roce 1974 založil berlínskou organizaci Künstlerhaus Bethanien s rezidenčním programem a v roce 1993 globální síť uměleckých rezidencí Res Artis. Plasy se staly členem sítě rezidencí. Zúčastnil jsem se setkání Res Artist v Berlíně v roce 1999. S Michaelem přijela Češka Miro Zahra, která vedla, možná založila, rezidenční program v zámku Pluschow v severovýchodním Německu. Další rezidenční programy, se kterými jsme spolupracovali, byly například Hotel Pupik Schrattenberg (Haimo Wallner), kalifornské Headlands v Sausalito a další. Na Ministerstvu kultury ČR o čemsi jako je umělecká rezidence tehdy dosud neslyšeli a vyúčtovat příspěvek na ubytování bylo skutečně umění. Po ukončení aktivit CMM v Plasech v roce 1999 získalo Sorosovo centrum současného umění pronájmem zámečku v Čimelicích prostor pro rezidenční program, který běžel několik let, pokus o rezidenční centrum vznikl v Broumově (Petr Bergmann), MECCA v Terezíně (Petr Larva), Cesta v Táboře a snad i jinde. MK později iniciovalo vlastní rezidenční program v Českém Krumlově, který existuje dodnes.

resartis.org

Důležitá a užitečná byla spolupráce a udržování kontaktů s kulturními odděleními velvyslanectví — například Goethe institut, Britská rada, Nizozemské velvyslanectví, Kulturní centrum Velvyslanectví USA, které v 90. letech většinou podporovaly účast svých občanů na kulturních akcích ve Východní Evropě.

Síť Sorosových center ve střední a východní Evropě. Sorosovo centrum současného umění Praha zahájilo činnost v září 1992 v budově Olšanka, kde v prvních letech fungovalo jako zvláštní program Středoevropské univerzity (CEU). Vzniklo v rámci mecenášských aktivit George Sorose, který od 70. let užíval kapitál získaný spekulacemi na burze k podpoře aktivit v zemích východní Evropy. Pod vlivem skupiny lidí z oblasti výtvarného umění (například Medy Mládkové), rozšířil Soros podporu zaměřenou na rozvoj otevřené společnosti a také na svobodnou uměleckou kreativitu. V roce 1985 bylo v Budapešti při Mücsarnok založeno The Soros Foundation Fine Arts Documentation Center a v roce 1992 SCCA Network. Později přejmenované na Soros Network Budapest a Center for Culture and Communication C3, vedený Suzy Meszoly respektive Miklosem Peternakem. Kontakty měla Nadace Hermit také s umělci György Galántai a Julií Klaniczay, kteří vedli dokumentační centrum Artpool v Budapešti, založený v roce 1979. V 60. a 70. letech byli nejspíš nejpilnějšími networkery na poli současného umění ve střední Evropě László Beke a Dora Maurer. Beke v sedmdesátých letech realizoval řadu výstav a událostí, které měly výrazný mezinárodní kontext, podobně jako aktivity například Jiřího Valocha v Brně.

Black Market performance network: Kontakt: Tomáš Ruller, v Plasech byli Roi Vaara a Alastair MacLennan a Zbygniew Warpechowski, který ovšem není členem BM. Kolektivní „jam sessions” hnutí Black Market nebyly pojímány jako „improvizace“, ale jako „umění setkávání“, a umění „setkávání“, vlastně jako umění „tkaní sítě“, kde účastníci jednají ve vzájemné inter-akci, v přítomnosti tady a teď — viz. motto Martina Bubera: „Setkávání se neodehrává v čase a prostoru, ale čas a prostor náleží setkávání…“. Black Market International (BMI) je mezinárodní kolektiv performerů, z nichž se každý věnuje vlastní sólové praxi, který od roku 1985 vystupuje po celém světě. Kolektiv založili pod jménem Market v Poznani Boris Nieslony, Zygmunt Piotrowský, Tomáš Ruller a Jürgen Fritz v roce 1985. Během prvního evropského turné roku 1986 použili název Black Market. V letech 1990/91 vystoupili jako Black Market International, ale o BMI existuje řada verzí, protože skupina se vyhýbá všemu definitivnímu a název neoznačuje ani tak skupinu, jako spíš myšlenku. „Cílem je podpora — podobně jako na černém trhu — otevřenou a svobodnou výměnu myšlenek a pěstovat umění setkávání.” Black Market je nebo byl součástí globální sítě performerů, což je poměrně obskurní komunita několika desítek umělců, žijících na různých kontinentech, snad mimo Afriky a Antarktidy. Protože umění performance není zcela akceptováno uměleckým mainstreamem, panuje mezi členy poměrně silný pocit solidarity a sounáležitosti.

blackmarketinternational.blogspot.com

Terminal Bar: se nazývalo pražské kulturní centrum a společnost, založená Angličanem Chris Standerem. V devadesátých letech byla otevřena internetová kavárna v Soukenické ulici, kde společnost provozovala knihkupectví, videotéku a nabízela klientům připojení k internetu. Část firmy poskytující připojení k internetu a související služby se později osamostatnila a v roce 1998 ji koupila norská společnost Telenor Nextel. Dceřiná společnost Nextra Czech Republic s celostátní působností přešla v roce 2005 pod firmu GTS. Kavárna Terminal Bar v roce 2000 zbankrotovala. U začátků TB stáli Chris Stander, Dan Holman, Martin Neal, Brad Kirkpatrick, Morgan Sowden, Ron Barack, Charles Kane a Ken Ganfield. Hlavním iniciátorem byl Angličan Chris Stander (1965 - 2014). Designerem TB byl Borek Šípek. Team TB spolupracoval například s Pražským hradem, festivalem Ars Electronica, s NG na výstavě Jitro kouzelníků, v roce 1998 na festivalu Limbo I v Plasech.

Z archivu webu TB: “Společnost Terminal Bar pořádá přednášky, odborné porady, festivaly, konference, výtvarné a technické výstavy a praktické dílny pro veřejnost. V zájmu rozšíření kulturní výměny shromažduje TB různé názory z České republiky, jež je známa svojí kouzelnou historií. Česká republika zrodila a byla domovem mnoha výtvarných, hudebních, vědeckých, lingvistických a politických děl.

archive.org

Mezinárodní kulturní centrum CESTA: v roce 1993 jej založila dvojice kalifornských hudebníků Chris Rankin a Hilary Binder (Sabot) v mlýně v centru Tábora. Chris Rankin se v tomto roce (nebo v roce 1994) zúčastnil symposia Hermit. Cílem kulturního centra, který byl zveřejněn později na webových stránkách, bylo „zlepšit kulturní porozumění a toleranci prostřednictvím umění”. CESTA v letech 1993 až 2012 organizovala pravidelné mezinárodní umělecké festivaly, místní komunitní projekty, tvůrčí dílny, skupinové pobyty spojené s kulturním aktivismem určené pro „umělce všech žánrů, výrazů i zaměření”. Jejich představa o rozvoji kulturního porozumění vycházela z předpokladu, že tradiční formy uměleckého dialogu jsou omezující a Cesta svým otevřeným prostředím usilovala o překračování takových omezení, hledala alternativy v širším kontextu. Česká republika nabídla jak z ideologického, tak ekonomického hlediska vhodný rámec. V přeneseném slova smyslu byla CESTA „laboratoří, kde se kulturní práce propojuje s komunitními projekty” … „Nemyslíme, že CESTA je tak výjimečná, aby naše aktivity byly pro okolí nesrozumitelné. Chceme být jedním projektem z mnoha, projekt obsahující známé i neznámé. Umění není limitováno abstrakcí, éteričností, ale obsahuje společensko-politické aspekty. Taková kulturní praxe platí pro vše, co děláme, od kulturních akcí až po to, jak jsou uspořádány interiéry” (převzato a upraveno z internetové stránky CESTA).

cesta.cz

Transart Communication: „Studio erté Roco Juhasz” založili roku 1987 v Nových Zámcích József R. Juhász, Ilona Németh, Ottó Mészáros a Attila Simon. Program ukončili v roce 2007 a studio se věnovalo hlavně organizaci festivalů alternativního, experimentálního a multimediálního umění, performance, výstavní, a vydavatelské a výchovné činnosti. Festivaly byly součástí společensko-politického kontextu střední Evropy v 80. a 90. letech. Dějiny skupiny jsou zachyceny v knize Transart Communication, Performance & Multimedia Art Studio erté 1987-2007 (Kalligram, 2008) v textech Gábora Hushegyiho a Zsolta Sőrése s rozsáhlou obrazovou dokumentací. József R. Juhász se stal členem světové sítě performerů a do Nových Zámků jezdili umělci z celého světa.

studio-erte.sk

Mamapapa: byla nezávislé občanské sdružení, které se věnovalo konzultacím, kurzům, workshopům, performancím a projektům v oblasti alternativních skupin i jednotlivců. Vznikla v roce 1997 jako výsledek aktivit holandské organizace MAPA (od 1975 v Amsterodamu). Mamapapa participovala na akcích a projektech KALD DAMU, Čtyři dny v pohybu, Moving Academy for Performing Arts. Projekty realizovala v prostorách průmyslových objektů (Bubenská čistička, tovární haly, sklady, garáže), v církevních budovách, ve volné přírodě, sokolovnách, hospodách (tzv. site specific). Mezi projekty mamapapa patří: Zrod, Strom, Slunovrata aj. (Mnichovo Hradiště 1997), Rituál místa (Plasy 1998), workshop Griftheater v bubenečské čističce odpadních vod (1998), tvůrčí dílna s veřejnou explikací performance 3W/window, water, wind (1998), LightLab v rámci Pražského quadrienale (1999), Východní žně (Černý důl v Krkonoších 1999), sympozium Demolice (ČKD Praha 1999), Artes(t)CO (obchodní dům Máj-Tesco, Praha 2000), Svatojánská noc (Jičín 2000), Obilí a obydlí (statek Vojnarka Trstěnice, 2000), Tělojakokotel (kotelna Fišlovka ČKD Karlín, Praha 2000). Industriální safari (Kladno 2005), Les pramenů (Písek, 2017), Recykles — cesta dřeva (Praha, 2018), Lesníkův rok (Praha 2019).

Pantograf: se jmenovala platforma, pro kterou vznikl pilotní seminář iniciovaný Milošem Vojtěchovským, Jo Williams z Centra pro Metamedia Plasy a Jennifer de Felice za Centrum současného umění v Praze (bývalé Sorosovo centrum současného umění v Praze). Platforma měla za cíl zprostředkovat a rozvíjet metody spolupráce, diskuze a posílení vznikající sítě „meziregionálních”, hlavně lokálních kulturních a uměleckých projektů v několika zemích bývalého „východního bloku”. Ty měly být navzájem pevněji komunikačně propojeny, a tak se měla zlepšit udržitelnost. Platforma se soustředila hlavně na aktivity a oblasti, které usilovaly o přesahy mezi uměním, kulturou a sociálními a politickými tématy. V roce 1994 proběhl v Plasech podobný mezinárodní seminář připravený rakouským uměleckým kolektivem Die Fabrikantem.30

Divus: S nakladatelstvím Divus jsme připravili a v roce 1999 spoluvydali poslední katalog CMM, dokumentující výstavu a symposium Po-hádky. S Ivanem Mečlem, který byl jeden z důležitých českých networkerů, jsme se seznámili v průběhu 90. let, hlavně přes Martina Zeta. Ivan Mečl je spiritus agens časopisu Divus už od roku 1992, později vydavatel časopisu Umělec a zakladatel projektu Prager Kabarret a Nová Perla. Jeho přístup byl a je spíš z hájemství uměleckého a dobrodružného, než striktně podnikatelského světa. Zatímco většina kulturně-sociálně-uměleckých aktivistů, kteří začátkem 90. let povstali, to buď vzdala (Petr Bergmann v Dejvicích a v Broumově, Chris a Hillary v táborské Cestě, mamapapa kdekoliv, Jednotka Krištofa Kintery také), případně přešaltovali na jinou, obchodnickou linii. Mečlovo umění přežít i ty nejtěžší okamžiky dovedla Divus přes peripetie různých úkrytů po Praze, Vraném nad Vltavou až k vlastní budově v Kyjově u Krásné Lípy. Mečl teď u výrobní haly bývalé továrny na nitě, kterou přestavuje na umělecké centrum s galerií, knihovnou atd. buduje zimní zahradu, zakládá ovocný sad, a pokouší se dokonce získat přilehlý rybník. Nová Perla na „konci světa” ve Šluknovském výběžku koncepčně připomíná vizi plánovaného Centra pro Metamedia v Plasech. Jen je ještě vzdálenější od center a možná dokonce autonomní. Název Nová Perla, který je o něco šťastnější, než Hermit nebo Metamedia, si Mečl vypůjčil od Alfreda Kubina, rodáka z Litoměřic a autora knihy Země snivců. V Kubinově pohádkovém příběhu je popisováno město Perla jako „místo neomezených možností pro všechny snivce”, tedy pro ty, kdo si ještě troufnou o něčem snít.

divus.cc

Galerie Sam83 Kupodivu v České Bříze, nedaleko Plasů, byla v roce 2006 jako podprojekt „Vize pro novou kulturu a její místo” otevřena galerie Sam83 jako zázemí a prostor pro volné myšlenkové pole. Iniciátorka projektu Sráč Sam usilovala o vytvoření „místa přirozeného setkávání” už od roku 1993. V roce 2010 Galerie Sam83 a culture83 zahájily rezidenční pobyty a vydávání katalogů k výstavám a kulturní čtvrtletník PIŽMO. Technickou, IT a mediální podporu galerie zajišťuje InterLab83. Galerie je samofinancována, nečerpá dotace ani granty a hospodaření je podřízeno principům eko-sociální ekonomiky (ohledy na původ finančních zdrojů, minimalizace spotřeby, zdůvodnitelné investice). Takže ideální konstelace. CMM v Plasech zmizelo sice na podzim roku 1999, ale po 6 letech o 15 kilometrů blíž k Plzni vznikla jiná inciativa v podobném duchu a s realističtějším programem. sam83.cz