Letter of Memorandum, August 16, 2000
konsortium.Netz.kultur Austria
http://www.konsortium.at

::Net culture and free media in Austria

Dear Wisemen,

konsortium.Netz.kultur is a union of Austrian net art initiatives at the intersection of art, culture, and new information and communication technologies (for a list of representative initiatives see appendix of this letter of memorandum).

These net art initiatives are early pioneers to fuse culture and the arts with digital media in manifold ways, thus enabling free speech and diversity of opinion in the Austrian public space. It is self-evident that culture and the arts greatly contribute to new ways of digital communication and interaction in society and between people.

Most important task of the konsortium.Netz.kultur is to raise public awareness for the intertwinedness of digital networks with a democratic, partizipative, and socially balanced cultural development. konsortium.Netz.kultur appeals to political responsibility to enable and guarantee a pluralistic and democratic Information Society for all.

The Austrian net art initiatives are based on positions first formulated in the so-called "Amsterdam agenda" of 1997 (http://www.dds.nl/p2p) and have been taken as blueprint for formulating an Austrian "Yellow Paper" on culture, the arts and digital media. There, we conceptualise our demands for an Austrian Cultural Backbone (http://www.servus.at/versorger/48/gp.html).

Net art is an important component of democratic opinion formation in today's Information Society. It contributes to cohesion and innovation in society by stimulating critique and by offering objective information and creativity away from the mainstream of commercial pressures. It believes that public policy is responsible for creating a stimulating legal and financial framework. The initiatives' main objective is to guarantee a pluralistic Information Society, firmly rooted in regional and local networks, unlimited diversity of opinion, and diverse artistic and cultural content produced and distributed by independent media.

The new right-of-centre coalition government between the conservative People's Party (ÖVP) and the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), being represented by the new State Secretary for Media and the Arts Mr. Morak, has now stepped back from all funding promises for 2000 and drastically threatens the realisation of these goals and the socio-political missions of the many initiatives that fight for them.

konsortium.Netz.kultur, the representative platform and chosen spokesman of the many Austrian net art initiatives confronting the public, the media and politics, strongly point out these dangerous developments and urges you to make them visible for you and us!

konsortium.Netz.kultur

Winfried Ritsch
mur.at (Graz)
http://www.mur.at/

Gabriele Kepplinger
servus.at (Linz)
http://www.servus.at/

Martin Wassermair
Public Netbase t0 (Vienna)
http://www.t0.or.at/

Paul Murschetz
Public Voice Lab (Vienna)
http://www.pvl.at/

Peter Riegersperger
subnet (Salzburg)
http://www.subnet.at/

Rainer Roppele
med-user.net (Dornbirn)
http://med-user.net/

contact@konsortium.at

http://www.konsortium.at/
http://www.netzkultur.at/