dear xchange,

We are happy to present the preliminary program of net.congestion, the
International Festival of Streaming Media, which will take place in
Amsterdam, October 6 - 8, 2000.
( http://net.congestion.org )

We have tried to be as accurate as possible in drawing up this program, but
it still preliminary and may be subject to change and/or minor errors. We
will publish the final program in the second half of September.

hope you will all come and play with us!

regards,
eric


_______________________________


p r e l i m i n a r y  p r o g r a m



	net.congestion

International Festival of Streaming Media


De Balie, Paradiso, Melkweg, De Waag, Montevideo/TBA

Amsterdam, October 6 - 8, 2000



-----------------
Introduction
-----------------

net.congestion, the first international festival of streaming media in The
Netherlands, is the result of the collective effort of a broad coalition of
Dutch and international cultural & media organisations, artists and media
tacticians. The festival is devoted to new forms of broadcasting and live
programming that have emerged around the Internet (the so-called "streaming
media"). The festival presents and explores the use of streaming media as
an artistic and tactical (social / political) medium, i.e. the points where
artistically challenging work and socially relevant content meet. The main
venues will be Paradiso, De Balie and Melkweg, creating a unique festival
infrastructure around the Leidse Plein in the heart of Amsterdam.
Montevideo and the Society for Old and New Media (De Waag) will act as
important workshop locations.

The festival will be a showcase of the most exciting and innovative
artistic and tactical streaming media projects from around the globe. The
program includes performances, concerts, club events, public presentations
and debates, the 'Media Bank' (a public do-it-yourself media space),
walk-in studio's that give the audience a chance to see the artists and
technicians at work and interact with the live programs as they are being
made, workshops and seminars. A large part of the festival will actually
happen in the media; on the Internet, in local and national radio
broadcasts, via cable television, satellite, and any other (trans-)
national medium that the festival manages to seize upon.

The festival will be a meeting point for various artistic and tactical
communities who do not regularly meet each other. It aims to give new
incentives to these communities, create new lasting structures for
co-operation, and encourage the development of fresh ideas and improved
technology in this field.

While commercial forces dominate the main-stream development of the field,
net.congestion will instead create a public platform for the multitude of
innovative artistic and tactical initiatives that have emerged around
streaming media.

The web site address  	http://net.congestion.org


------------------------------------
Content of this Document:
------------------------------------


The preliminary program contains the following sections:

- On-Line Events

- Off-Line Events

- Performances, Evening Programs & Club Nights

- Artist Presentations

- Panels & Debates

- Workshops & Seminars


__________________________________

Tickets, Prices & Contact Information:

Day-Tickets:   DFL 35,-

Passepartout:  DFL 65,-

(prices include evening programs)

__________________________________


Reservations:

e-mall: congestion@ balie.nl

Tel.:  +31.20.55 35 100


General Enquiries:

net.congestion
c/o De Balie
Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10
1017 RR Amsterdam

Contact: Lucas Evers

Tel. +31.20.553 51 51
Fax. +31.20.553 51 55

e-mail: congestion@xxxxxxxx

http://net.congestion.org
______________________________



------------------------
ON-LINE EVENTS:
------------------------

For net.congestion the events happening in the media space are equally
important as the events taking place in the real physical space in
Amsterdam. The online aspect of the festival will be both a reflection of
the activities in real space as well as an event in itself.


* Festival Web Site

The web site accompanying the festival will be a networked  'event space',
with a large collection of streaming tools for the public to experiment
with, documentation of the content collected for the festival, the content
itself, and information about streaming media.

The most recent information about the festival and the program updates can
be found at the festival web site:

http://net.congestion.org



* Streamed Events

All the public discussions will be streamed live for free access over the
internet. In addition we intend to have online participation by invited
remote guests. These contributors will present their work or thoughts to
the panel discussion by way of live streamed video and audio, direct to the
presentation rooms.

Links to all live streams produced @ net.congestion can be found at:

http://net.congestion.org/live



* Hybrid Broadcast Events

The festival would like to follow the model for hybrid broadcasting as
established by DDS' Virtual Media Lab. Within a small but open environment
we wish to melt different streaming and broadcasting media, to form hybrid
outputs online, on air, and via satellite. The public is welcome to occupy
this space while this occurs, and of course there will be plenty of
opportunity for participation by the online public.

The output of these hybrid broadcasts will also be displayed throughout the
festival venues, both visually and audibly.

Check the web site for details!



* Remote Participation

The festival is organised in close co-operation with a large and very
international community of artists, media producers and activists scattered
across the planet. It is obvious that it will not be possible for all these
people and groups to visit the festival in person. The very nature of the
festival, however, turns this liability into an opportunity. The net offers
manifold possibilities for remote participation in live events, for
re-mixing, co-creation, and mediated presentations. These remote
contributions on-line will therefore add an important decentralised
dimension to the festival.

Special remote connections will a.o. be set up with the electrofringe
festival in Newcastle, Australia, the Integrated Media Programme at CalArts
in Los Angeles, and WMF Club & Tresor in Berlin.



-------------------------
OFF-LINE EVENTS:
-------------------------

A unique festival infrastructure in the heart of Amsterdam will create the
backbone of the streaming media festival. The famous concert and club
spaces Paradiso and Melkweg, and De Balie - centre for culture and
politics, all located within two minutes walking distance from each other,
will be the main venues for the festival. These venues will host a diverse
series of public events and presentations.



* Walk in Studio

A walk in studio for broadcast and streamed representation of the real
space events will be created in the small hall (kleine zaal) of Paradiso.
The public is welcome to walk through this space and observe the artists
and technicians at work. The aim of this studio is to reduce and demystify
the live content production process and offer the public the opportunity to
see and understand this process. The studio will host interviews, music and
sound sessions, and a series of micro performances, all sent out live over
the net and other cross-connected media.

Hosted by Bellissima (Amsterdam)

Location: Paradiso (Kleine Zaal) - Continuous



* The Media Bank

A major component of the festival will be 'The Media Bank', an exhibition
medium presenting and contextualising diverse streaming video and audio
projects from around the world. The Media Bank will exhibit work enabled by
the new open distribution channels created by streaming media. In its early
manifestations, streaming media catalysed a dynamic flurry of production in
arts and music communities, leading to novel media formats as net.radio and
web-tv. This early artistic activity was quickly followed by the tremendous
interest of tactical media initiatives, which work in a more decidedly
social and political context. Later, club cultural scenes and documentary
film makers began to experiment with streaming media.

Recognising that these creative and tactical projects are seldom seen by
large audiences, The Media Bank aims to provide a dynamic platform for
artists, documentary makers, activists and other media producers to show
their work to the diverse and critically engaged on-site festival audience.
The Media Bank will offer visitors of the festival a chance at a first hand
experience of streaming media. The Media Bank will comprise a centralised
collection of computers connected to a localised server, running specially
designed piece of software which will present and play back archived
streaming video and audio. Audiences will be able to select and experience
artists' works, online documentaries, activist videos, demonstrations and
instructive material, and other streaming projects.

net.congestion are now calling for proposals of projects to exhibit in The
Media Bank. Email <qualia@xxxxxxxxx> for more information.

Location: De Balie (Grote Zaal) - Continuous




* Performances, Evening Programs & Club Nights

The cross-over terrain between new music, dance and club culture, and media
culture is investigated through a series of club events, live concerts and
performances. Live programming via the Internet is becoming highly popular
in club and concert-spaces. The performance and club events will bring
together distinguished performers from the contemporary music and club
scene, as well as young innovative musicians, sound and performance artists
who produce challenging work in this new field. These evening programs of
net.congestion are a diversified mix of experimental performances,
concerts, live net events produced at three of Amsterdam's most famous
cultural venues: Paradiso, De Balie and Melkweg.



- Opening Event - Zadruga  (.yu)

The Belgrade artist collective Zadruga has been invited to design the
opening event of the festival. On the Friday evening Zadruga will transform
the theatre spaces of De Balie into a multi-sensory total environment that
fuses high- and low-tech interfaces in the space with

Zadruga is a collective of visual artists, musicians, writers, cartoonists,
and do-it-yourself new media specialists, with a great experience in
creating both small and large scale public happenings bordering between
contemporary arts and club culture.

Date: Friday, October 6 - 20.00
Location: De Balie



- net.radio.web.tv.night

A global re-mix, sound, music & image exchange: Exactly at midnight on
Saturday night a global net.audio.web.video jam session will start, in
which artists dispersed around the globe will continuously repurpose each
others sound and image materials streamed live over the net. A fascinating
exploration of the dynamics of the networked communication space in sound
and image.

The net.radio.web.tv.night is hosted by Xchange, the net.audio network
(http://xchange.re-lab.net), who in the past conducted a series of similar
exercises, using net.audio (net.radio.nights). For net.congestion this
concept will be expanded to include images for the first time.

Date: Saturday, October 7th @ midnight
Location: Mediabank - De Balie



- Club Nights

The nightly club programs venture into the heart of the Berlin techno
scene, with live connections and DJ/VJ exchanges with famous Berlin clubs
WMF and Tresor on Saturday in Paradiso & Melkweg . The Sunday night will
dive into the Hip Hop scene's massive net-presence, including a live
free-style session between Paradiso Amsterdam and the Media Buro in
Philadelphia, as well as the world's first ever live streamed break-dance
instruction class.

Date: Saturday & Sunday October 7 & 8
Location: Paradiso & Melkweg



* Performance Night @ Melkweg  (The Max)

A selection of internationally renown performance and media-artists will
create a unique performance program involving all kinds of streaming
technologies and streaming components on the Saturday night in the main
hall (The Max) @ Melkweg.

The performance will include:

- Sarah Teitler & Jade Jossen (New York) - The Silent Show with Sound
Puppet Theatre Show streamed live over the net.
- Snowcrash (.nl) - Tokyo
A co-operative real-time performance between an Amsterdam band and a singer
in Tokyo
- Arcangel Constantini (Mexico City)
Bakteria - Live interactive visual music performance & audience installation
- F5 (Riga)
- eset - Software Performance

Date: Saturday October 7 - 21.00
Location: Melkweg



* Special Event:  O + E
   a connected concert between Amsterdam & London

De Waag, Society for Old and New Media, together with Audiorom present:
O + E: a connected concert between Amsterdam and London using KeyStroke.

KeyStroke is a multi-user crossmedia synthesizer developed at Waag Labs.

Date: 7 + 8 October
Location: NEMO Oosterdok 2. Starting time 9.30pm.

Admission by special ticket only: Dfl.20 / 16.50
Ticket reservation: tel. 020 - 531 3118 or tel. 557 9898

More info:
http://www.keyworx.org  / http://www.waag.org




---------------------------------
ARTIST PRESENTATIONS:
---------------------------------

Leading individual artists and artist collectives around the globe are
invited to present and comment their work.

These presentations include:

- Rachel Baker, Irational / TM Selector, London
- Nora Barry, The Bit Screen (festival), Narberth (Wales)
- Ad de Bont, Radio Interference, Amsterdam
- Bruno Beusch & Tina Cassani, TNC Network, Paris
- Tim Boykett, Times Up, Linz
- Heath Bunting, World Service, non-located
- Arcangel Constantini, Mexico-City
- Nick Crowe, UK
- Walter van der Cruisen, streaming ascii, Berlin
- Dimos Dimitriou, Athens
- Heidi Grundman, Kunstradio, Vienna
- Alexander Gubas, Zadruga, Belgrade
- Zina Kaye & Mr. Snow, Laudanum.net, Sidney
- Thomax Kaulmann, OMA - Open Meta Archive
- Lev Manovich, microcinema
- Peter Notari, Pararadio, Budapest
- Gordon Paunovic, net.aid / FreeB92, Belgrade
- Radio Active, Zagreb
- Kate Rich, Fall Out Radio, London
- Mike Riemel, Border2000, Berlin
- Rasa Smite & Raitis Smits, Xchange / Ozone, Riga
- Borut Savski, Radio Student Ljubljana
- Martin Thompson, Nervous Objects, Sidney
- Krassimir Terziev, Interspace, Sofia
- Vencislav Zankov, Zetm@g, Sofia

Location: Media Bank - De Balie



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
OVERVIEW OF PANELS & DEBATES, WORKSHOPS & SEMINARS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

(Time tables will be announced shortly)



--------------------------------
PANELS AND DEBATES:
--------------------------------


I - "The changing shape of things that flow"


- Narrative Streams  (The Network is the Narrative)
Online media streams are multiplying access points to the already explosive
proliferation of narratives. In the face of a general consensus that we are
living a provisional and in-deterministic reality, supported by new media
whose databases allow for multiple trajectories, there is something almost
joyously perverse in the unflagging popularity the classical narrative,
with its fixed geometry of beginnings, middles and endings of heroes and
villains. Despite modernist experiments and the technology of the database
the narrative (along with the image) remains one of our societies dominant
way of knowing in which propositions unfold through progression, through
temporal sequence. The panel's presentations and discussion will seek to
clarify the way in which these and other longstanding questions about the
relationship between the net and the narrative are both heightened and
popularised by the emergence of streaming.

Participants:
Lev Manovich (remote presentation), San Diego
Nick Crowe, Manchester
Norra Barry, The Bit Screen, Narberth (USA)
Fabian Wagminster, Argentina / Los Angeles

Chair:
David Garcia


- Bandwidth Aesthetics
An artist lead discussion about whether quality is important in audio and
video streaming, or whether we can consider 'low quality' streams an
aesthetic and a choice. How does the emergence of broadband internet affect
the accessibility of the net for artists and audience. Is the narrow  band
net.cast a more favourable option?

Participants:
Alexander Gubas (Low Fi Video), Belgrade
Rasa Smite & Raitis Smits, Ozone - train project, Riga
Walter van der Cruijsen (streaming ascii), Berlin
Menno Grootveld, Lost & Found, Amsterdam
Repr. Integrated Media Programme, CalArts, USA

Chair:
Honor Harger



- The Hybrid Media Show
A dazzling show of successful and innovative hybrid media formats from
around the globe, interfacing the networked media with traditional
broadcasting formats, and fusing the digital with the analogue.
The show is followed by a debate on the ratio of hybridisation of digital
and analogue media. What are the tactical advantages of creating hybrid
fusions of digital and non-digital media? Does it lead to new models of
media production and distribution? How can hybridisation help to reach new
and larger audiences?

Presentations:
Frequency Clock
TwenFM
Radio B92 / ANEM
live.dds.nl/TV
Interface Pirate Radio - Howard Jones
Kotmale Community Radio, Sri Lanka
Radio 90, Susan Kennard
TV 3000, Hans Kerkhof    [tbc]

Host:
Micz Flor



- target.audience=0
A panel discussion by leading streaming artists about whether they create
for a particular audience or if the process of streaming is an end in
itself. Are artists really interested in "communication" with an audience
or is there something at stake which escapes the traditional broadcasting
formats? How do artists treat the Internet, as an extension of the old
media or as a media space with a new quality of its own?

Participants:
Rasa Smite (xchange)
Heidi Grundman (Kunstradio)
Representative of Atomfilms.com   [tbc]
Eric kluitenberg
Raul Maorroquin

Chair:
David Garcia



- Web Documentaries
Documentary film is discovering the web. How do documentary filmmakers use
the new channels? Is the web an alternative for mainstream distributors,
commercial interest and censored mass media channels? How is the content of
documentaries affected by the new outlets?

A series of presentations of on-line documentary projects produced by a new
generation of documentary film makers, followed by a panel discussion by
some of the 'early experts' of this new field.

Participants:
Manu Luksch, Ambient TV, London
Femke Wolting, Submarine, Amsterdam
Sandra Damato, Montreal
Peter Wintonnick, Necessary Illusions, Montreal
Alain Fountain, London
Phillip Peacock  [tbc]



II - "Streaming Media for Social Change"


- Tactical Streams
How can streaming media contribute to address issues of vital social,
political and human concern with a wider audience? Is the net the
appropriate channel to give voice to the voiceless, or is the threat of
ghettoisation paramount? Many people feared that with the emergence of
streaming technology, broadband internet, and the fusion of internet and
broadcasting the celebrated democratic, open and decentralised character of
the Internet is sacrificed to create the ultimate entertainment machine.
Recently, however, it turned out that many of the aspirations of the
entertainment industry were not met with the ring of the cash box.
Meanwhile a host of alternative outlets and fringe media players emerged
who exploit the tactical potential of streaming media. The panel presents
and explores exemplary initiatives and challenging models of tactical uses
of streaming media.

Participants:
Gordon Paunovic, FreeB92, Belgrade
Kantor Berita Radio 68H, Jakarta, Mr. Santoso
Bruce Girard, Comunica.org
Arun Metha, New Delhi
Radio 21, Pristhina
Howard Jones, International Humanitarian Aid Concern, London
Translocal communites: Gay & lesbian activism

Chair:
David Garcia


- Campaigning
Streaming media has become an ever more important tool for social and
political campaigns. This has become clear during recent anti-WTO / G8
actions such as the recent protests in Seattle, Washington, and this
September in Prague, but also in immanent crisis situations such as the
Kosovo conflict (helpB92 & FreeB92), or most recently in the
counter-campaign to the US Presidential elections media machine (MicroRadio
Network). A careful look at how these campaigns are constructed. How
successful are they? What are the limitations of this new type of global
(micro-) media campaigns?

IndyMedia Network,
FreeSpeech TV, Boulder (USA)
Albana Shala, Open Channels for Kosovo / Press Now
Adbusters    [tbc]
Gilberto Cutrupi, Greenpeace International, Amsterdam
Manse Jacobi, Boulder (Colorado)
Supersphere, Chicago
Electrofringe, Newcastle Australia (remote presentation)

Chair:
Eric Kluitenberg



- Intellectual Property Stands Trial: The Court Case
Paradiso - Grote Zaal