INSEECP

inSEEcp on Conference: A Network of Possible Paths

2011-09-17T22:49:00.008+02:00

The representatives of inSEEcp - Informal Network of South-East European Cultural Portals - are among the participants in the panel discussion "A Network of Possible Paths", organized on September 19 in Belgrade by Cultural Point Office / CCP Serbia, Ministry of Culture and Information Society, in cooperation with Bitef, and dedicated to the topic of importance of networking in culture and gathering around common goals.

Dušan Dovč will present - inSEEcp, and Vesna Milosavljević will talk about SEEcult.org, networking and cultural portals in the region. Dušan Dovč is a member of editorial of cultural portal Artservis.org (SCCA-Ljubljana), and Vesna Milosavljević is editor of Portal for South-East European Culture SEEcult.org. Both portals are founding members of inSEEcp.

Participants in the panel–discussion are also the representatives of regional CCP offices well as representatives of European formal and informal networks such are: NEMO, Clubture, IETM, TEH , Culture Action Europe, Europa Nostra, Lab for culture, Independent cultural association, Executive agency EACEA, DGEAC/European commision.

The chosen topics for the panel discussion should help explain that the strategy of networking and cooperation between public and private sector represents a very efficient way not only of bridging the gap between the two, which still exists in most countries in Southeastern Europe, but also of overcoming the numerous problems and shortcomings regarding infrastructure (lack of space, equipment, technical tools…), human resources (lack of trained staff for new professions, lack of certain skills, use of common resources…), lack of partners and contacts, lack of communication with the government, lack of contacts with international financiers, the problem of not meeting contests’ criteria, etc. Although the presentations are aimed at general networking issues, they also analyze current trends and praxes through several case studies from Europe; they pose the question of the necessity for initiating an independent cultural network, the current state of networks, key agents, and prevailing approaches and challenges, through some of the topics: Presenting European Cultural Networks and Informal Initiatives to Professionals and to General Public; Why Do We Need Networks; Managing Networks and Participating In Them; Accessibility, Transparency and Sustainability of Networks; Gaining Acceptance and Status; Evaluation and Efficiency of Networks; Importance and Advantages of International Networks in the Field of Art; The Role of Networks in Development and Culture / Partnership and Networking as A Strategy; Networking as A Strategy For Overcoming Problems and Deficiencies in Infrastructure and Human Resources, As A Means for Creating Partnerships and Establishing Contacts, for Communicating with the Government, with International Financiers… Therefore, the discussion aims not only at exploring the issue of networking in culture but at emphasizing some concrete examples of cooperation, that give practical results valuable to culture workers and beneficial to the cultural and social community as a whole.

Find out detailed program HERE

inSEEcp - PRIMER NEFORMALNEGA POVEZOVANJA (Slovenian)

Mreža kulturnih portalov inSEEcp povezuje uredništva kulturnih portalov in vzpodbuja mednarodno kulturno sodelovanje. Mreža je rezultat delavnic in on-line aktivnosti, ki so se začele odvijati leta 2006 v Beogradu v organizaciji portala SEEcult.org in Goethe-instituta Beograd ter s podoro Pakta za stabilnost. Prva delavnica je izpostavila temo Kultura na internetu, druga leta 2007 pa temo Mreženje in sodelovanje kulturnih portalov v regiji SEE. Prva javna predstavitev mreže je bila leta 2008 v Ljubljani na mednarodni konferenci Re-Network!, ki je potekala v okviru srečanja evropskih Kulturnih stičnih točk in v organizaciji Kulturne stične točke Slovenija.

Mreža inSEEcp je danes neformalno združenje, ki povezuje portale: Zagreb: www.culturenet.hr, www.kulturpunkt.hr, www.culturelink.hr, www.knjiga.hr, www.teatar.hr; Banja Luka: www.kulporter.com; Beograd: www.seecult.org; Skopje: www.culture.in.mk, www.plagij.at; Podgorica: pro-story.org; www.startmontenegro.com; Priština: www.stacion.org; Ljubljana: www.artservis.org, www.evrokultura.org, www.radiostudent.si.

Danes se med portali vzpostavljajo sinergični učinki izmenjave informacij in skupnih projektov. Štirje člani so samostojno že izvedli projekt, podprt s strani Evropske kulturne fundacije: Let's Talk Critic Art (2009-2010). O kritičnih aspektih sodobne umetnosti (okrogle mize, intervjuji, teksti). Partnerstvo so oblikovali: SEEcult.org (Srbija), SCCA, Zavod za sodobno umetnost - Ljubljana/Artservis (Slovenija), Kulturpunkt (Hrvaška) in Forum Skopje (Makedonija). Pravkar pa poteka projekt dveh portalov in partnerskih organizacij, podprt s strani programa Kultura EU: Criticize this! Kritična diskuija o sodobni umetnosti. Partnerstvo sestavljajo: Kulturtreger in Kurziv iz Zagreba, KPZ Beton in SEEcult.org iz Beograda in Plima iz Ulcinja.

Mreža kulturnih portalov je tako tudi mreža kulturne produkcije, organizacij in umetnikov v vseh glavnih mestih, od Podgorice do Ljubljane.

Criticize This!

2011-08-18T22:15:00.004+02:00

inSEEcp's members Kurziv from Zagreb (Croatia) and SEEcult.org from Belgrade (Serbia) started a new project Criticize this!, designed with three more partners from the region - Kulturtreger from Zagreb, KPZ Beton from Belgrade, and Plima from Ulcinj (Montenegro). The general aim of the project Criticize this! is to initiate a Europe wide discussion on the significance of contemporary art in enhancement of the common cultural space achieved by affirmation of critical reflection on art. The project is funded through the programme Culture 2007-2013 of the European Union.

Project description

After years of deliberate nation building narratives in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro in which state supported art was particularly instrumental, some national myths have informed the society at large. Mainstream contemporary art in these countries still very often reflects this sentiment, openly promoting prejudiced stereotypes and justifying national ideologies or political agendas. Simultaneously, these countries have witnessed a significant decrease in critical reflection on contemporary art. Since mainstream media treat culture as entertainment, it is almost impossible to publicly discuss issues such as nationalism or chauvinism in art. Art criticism has dwindled down to occasional specialized magazines catering for a very narrow and mostly academic audience. Proper newspaper art reviews have virtually disappeared.

Having this in mind, this project is conceived as widening the public space for critical discussion on contemporary art. This is of particular importance at this specific moment considering the European Union prospects of these countries, their connection to European common cultural space and adoption of European values of tolerance, participation, intercultural dialogue and inclusion. Criticism of contemporary art contributes to this dialogue inasmuch as it reveals the way in which contemporary art (de)constructs nationalistic myths, national identities and images of the other as well as the ways contemporary art deals with neuralgic and traumatic points of societies.

Project aims

The general aim of the projects is to initiate a Europe wide discussion on the significance of contemporary art in enhancement of the common cultural space achieved by affirmation of critical reflection on art.

Specific objectives of the project are:

1. To create trans-national critical discourse on art in order to contribute to intercultural dialogue;

2. To facilitate the dialogue between artists and audiences by recreating the common cultural space;

3. To promote European values, particularly intercultural dialogue, inclusion and participation, by means of increasing their visibility in online and print media.

The project is defined by three main themes: dealing with the past, social transformation and identity. art criticism will be particularly focused on the way contemporary art treats: the past (emergence of new states, nationalism, chauvinism); social change (change of cultural framework, new economic system, decrease of public space, consumerism, censorship, freedom of speech); identity ((re)inventing national identity, building European identity, models of inclusion/exclusion of minority groups).

Project structure

The project will focus on visual arts, performing arts and literature produced in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro in recent years. Art reviews will be produced during three Art Modules. There will be 11 participants (young art critics) per Art Module from all these countries selected based on their applications.

The Art Modules will be organized in Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia and they will host prominent thinkers from the region, Europe and the world. The first part of each art module is a three-day initial event which will include: workshops for young art critics, public lectures given by international lecturers and a public discussion on the topic of building democratic and open society.

The second stage of each Art Module consists of writing essays on a predefined subject. Writing essays will be preceded by researches which will be conducted in all countries of the project (consulting archives, visiting events, interviewing artists etc.). Selected art reviews will be published simultaneously on the project web site and partner’ web portals, in daily and weekly newspapers in these countries and in other electronic media. Best art critics will be awarded a prize at the end of the project.

Find out more on the project's Criticize this! web site http://www.criticizethis.org

LTCA Publication on Critical Art Presented in Belgrade

2011-04-12T21:49:00.001+02:00

The publication 'From Consideration to Commitment: Art in Critical Confrontation to Society (Belgrade, Ljubljana, Skopje, Zagreb: 1990-2010)', created as part of the regional project Let’s Talk Critic Arts, was presented on April 11 at 7 pm at the Art Center of the University Library “Svetozar Marković” in Belgrade.

Among the participants were Dea Vidovic (Kulturpunkt – Zagreb), Miha Colner (SCCA-Ljubljana – Ljubljana), Ivan Mirkovski (Forum Skopje – Skopje), and Vesna Tasic and Vesna Milosavljevic (SEEcult.org – Belgrade).

Promotion of this multilingual publication was followed by presentation of Belgrade based artists Saša Stojanović/Ana Vilenica and Nikola Pilipović (Manik with Marija Vauda).

The publication explores practices of critical contemporary fine arts – practices of research, progressive and experimental actions by contemporary fine artists from the 1990s to the present, in four countries in the region – Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia. These are practices which focus on issues such as identity aspects (national, cultural, religious, ethnic), workers’ rights, social integration of minorities, global market fluctuation trends and its impact in the local context, unscrupulousness of capital, the position of women, spatial devastation, art institution system issues, and many others.

The publication maps out and theoretically reviews critical and research practices, and contemporary fine arts practices oriented towards the contemporary civilization moment, which have been active in the context of the independent cultural scene since the 1990s, but which have also been present in the institutional frame. The authors provide only drafts of the political, social, economic and cultural changes of the local contexts, through four segments, due to a lack of space. Each segment focuses on the practices and context of a given country, i.e. the capital as the primary focus, and in addition to the introductory word by the authors, it includes interviews (with authors, theorists, curators, organizers…) who contribute to the recording of these artistic practices based on their experience, work and knowledge.

The segments deal with the Belgrade, Ljubljana, Skopje, and Zagreb scenes. All the authors devised their approaches in an effort to present the fruitful and creative production of these cities, to the greatest extent possible. The authors involved in the creation of this publication are Jasna Jakšić (in collaboration with Tihana Bertek, Maja Gujinović, Ana Kovačić, Srđan Latrezom, Petar Novak, Tino Novak, Tamara Sertić and Leda Sutlović) from Croatia, Nebojša Vilić from Macedonia, Vesna Tašić (in collaboration with Vesna Milosavljević and Miroljub Marjanović) from Serbia, and Miha Colner and Nika Grabar (Slovenia).

Contemporary visual art is discussed through the works and experiences of Igor Grubić, Sanja Iveković, Andreja Kulunčić and Darko Šimičić (Croatia), Stevan Vuković, Milica Tomić, Danilo Prnjat and Živko Grozdanić Gera (Serbia), Neven Korda, Marko Peljhan, Marija Mojca Pungerčar and Maja Smrekar (Slovenia), and Bojan Ivanov, Zoran Poposki, Mira Gakina and Žaneta Vangeli (Macedonia).

Editorial Board (Dušan Dovč, Vesna Milosavljević, Jasna Soptrajanova i Dea Vidović) believes that selection of 16 voices provides a possible cross-section of the events in the contemporary fine arts scenes of Belgrade, Ljubljana, Skopje, and Zagreb from the 1990s to the present, but it is certainly not the final or only one.

The publication is a type of platform that is available to the public, with the wish to encourage further collecting and evaluation of art and cultural endeavours in the past 20 year in these four cities, as well as in those that could not be included in this project (for financial reasons).

The book was conceived as a multilingual publication in English, in addition to the local languages (Croatia, Macedonian, Serbian and Slovenian), in order to enable better insight into contemporary artistic practices in post-Yugoslav cities both for the local and international public.

The publication is made available by the Creative Commons Licence Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported unless it is not differently stated.

The LTCA project is concluded by promotion of the publication From Consideration to Commitment: Art in Critical Confrontation to Society (Belgrade, Ljubljana, Skopje, Zagreb: 1990-2010), but it is open for comment and further research.

The LTCA project was initiated and implemented by the cultural portal SEEcult.org (the SEEcult.org Civic Association) from Belgrade, Serbia, in collaboration with the Artservis.org portal (Center for Contemporary Arts, SCCA-Ljubljana) from Slovenia, Forum Skopje from Skopje, Macedonia, and the Kulturpunkt.hr portal (Alliance of Associations Clubture and Kurziv – Platform for Matters of Cultural, Media and Society) from Zagreb, Croatia, with support from the European Cultural Foundation (ECF), and national/local donors.

E-book ‘Art in Critical Confrontation to Society’ launched!

2011-04-11T21:50:00.003+02:00

The electronic book made within the framework of the international project ‘Let’s Talk Critic Arts’ entitled ‘From Consideration to Commitment: Art in Critical Confrontation to Society (Belgrade, Ljubljana, Skopje, Zagreb: 1990-2010)’ has been launched. The book is free and could be downloaded from Let’s Talk Critic Arts blog.

Download the electronic version of the book HERE – 52MB (just click Save As when pressing your right mouse button)

The publication 'From Consideration to Commitment: Art in Critical Confrontation to Society' (Belgrade, Ljubljana, Skopje, Zagreb: 1990-2010), created as part of the regional project Let’s Talk Critic Arts, was presented on April 11 at 7 pm at the Art Center of the University Library “Svetozar Marković” in Belgrade.

Promotion of this multilingual publication was followed by public interviews with Belgrade based artists Saša Stojanović/Ana Vilenica and Manik (Marija Vauda/Nikola Pilipović).

The publication is made available by the Creative Commons Licence Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported unless it is not differently stated.

The publication will be also distributed in CD form to galleries in Belgrade, Ljubljana, Skopje and Zagreb.

LTCA Publication – From Consideration to Commitment: Art in Critical Confrontation to Society (Belgrade, Ljubljana, Skopje, Zagreb: 1990-2010)

2011-04-08T21:44:00.001+02:00

The publication From Consideration to Commitment: Art in Critical Confrontation to Society (Belgrade, Ljubljana, Skopje, Zagreb: 1990-2010), created as part of the regional project Let’s Talk Critic Arts, will be presented on April 11 at 7 pm at the Art Center of the University Library “Svetozar Marković” in Belgrade. Presentation of this multilingual publication will be followed by public interviews with Belgrade based artists Saša Stojanović/Ana Vilenica and Manik (Marija Vauda/Nikola Pilipović).

Among the participants will be members of Editorial Board of the publication, as well as authors of its segments and representatives of the organizations involved in the LTCA project.

The publication explores practices of critical contemporary fine arts – practices of research, progressive and experimental actions by contemporary fine artists from the 1990s to the present, in four countries in the region – Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia. These are practices which focus on issues such as identity aspects (national, cultural, religious, ethnic), workers’ rights, social integration of minorities, global market fluctuation trends and its impact in the local context, unscrupulousness of capital, the position of women, spatial devastation, art institution system issues, and many others.

The authors of the segments faced a gruelling task – how to tell the story of a period on only 50 pages (which was predefined for every segment), and how to select only four protagonists for every city, among the many protagonists of the art scene? The authors applied different criteria – they strived to select precisely those respondents who could provide a cross-section of the discipline development, some were selected because their work is a paradigmatic of critical and socially engaging practices, while some were inescapable authoritative and creative minds…

The publication is made available by the Creative Commons Licence Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported unless it is not differently stated.

The publication will be also distributed in CD form to galleries in Belgrade, Ljubljana, Skopje and Zagreb.

The LTCA project will be concluded by promotion of the publication From Consideration to Commitment: Art in Critical Confrontation to Society (Belgrade, Ljubljana, Skopje, Zagreb: 1990-2010), but it is open for comment and further research.

Public interview: Marko Brecelj

2010-11-20T21:38:00.000+01:00

The public interview with Marko Brecelj will take place on November 23, 2010 at 5 pm in Project Room SCCA (Metelkova 6) in Ljubljana.

The public interview, moderated by Tanja Lesničar – Pučko (translator and journalist) will be focused on artist and activist Marko Brecelj questioning his long term practice, especially projects that were exposed to censorships by politics, religion or legislation. Amongst them his so called soft terrorism actions.

Marko Brecelj is Slovenian singer/songwriter, self-called youth, cultural and social worker. From 1991, he runs Youth, cultural social and multi-media center (MKSMC) in Koper and the Association of Friends of moderate progress. In 2010 the Association celebrated 20th anniversary. On this venerable anniversary, an exhibition was prepared, originally on display in the Regional museum of Koper, and can currently (until November 19th) be seen in Ljubljana Spanish Fighters Cultural Centre.

“How could we in retrospective condense biography of almost 50-years-old, who for years hasn’t been doing what he would have preferred, but what he thinks is the most urgent? In the seventies he acclaimed confirmation and was immediately in the prime of influence on generations of future artists. In the eighties he has devoted himself to his son less than to himself. He worked on the periphery of public life and, rarely but still, cancelled out those who tried to put him in oblivion with his excellent songs and continuous appearances. With his soulmate he ran into the nineties like in a tunnel with no end in sight, he fought for ‘liberated territories’: youth and cultural facilities, where generations, which will have to battle with defenders of social and civilization collapse, can flourish.” (from Marko Brecelj’s biography)

Soft-terrorist actions file its history since 1999. Pre-event of soft-terrorism has occurred spontaneously on reception of the Ministry of Culture followed by much better conceptualized and prepared actions, from performance to Anton and Pohorski bataljon (1999), the Šeligo’s P-tič award (2001), bombing of U.S. Embassy and the Slovenian Government (2001), to the bell silencing or Tapisirano vnebovzetje (2003), when series of soft-terrorist actions experienced its peak. Brecelj sais that “soft-terrorism is not over, but was never pulled out of time context. Life inspires soft-terrorism, soft-terrorism is not in focus, it’s just method, or tool. Artistic work and fight for it, that’s what’s important.” (source: Mehki terorizem. Interview with Marko Brecelj from Društvo prijateljev zmernega napredka. Written by Alenka Pirman, March 2006.)

Moderator Tanja Lesničar – Pučko studied literary theory as well as French linguistics and literature. She was among the founders of Fiction Production Company (Podjetje za proizvodnjo fikcije) female alternative theatre (1983–89). In 1987 she was employed by Dnevnik Newspaper Company, first as a translator, then as a journalist. She writes essays, interviews as well as literary, theatre and dance reviews. She translates fiction and non-fiction from French. In 2009 she has reviewed and published the columns that she began writing for Dnevnik in 2002, which results in a sharpened image: they read as timeless parables, they hardly leave you cold.

The public interview is a part of the project Let’s Talk Critic Arts (2009-2010) which examines the critical aspects of contemporary arts (round tables, public interviews), documents them, and archives them (online documentation, publication).

The project is conducted by the cultural portal SEEcult.org (Serbia) with the partners SCCA-Ljubljana / Artservis (Slovenia), Clubture / Kulturpunkt.hr (Croatia), and Forum Skopje (Macedonia). The partners are the members of the informal network of cultural portals inSEEcp. It was founded in 2006 with the aim of connecting the editorial boards of the portals and stimulating the international cultural collaboration in the former Yugoslave countries.

The project Let’s Talk Critic Arts is financially supported by European Cultural Foundation.

Open Talks on Contemporary Visual Art Practices in Zagreb (1990-2010)

2010-09-01T20:50:00.001+02:00

Kulturpunkt.hr is organizing an event entitled Open Talks on Contemporary Visual Art Practices in Zagreb (1990-2010) which will be held on Thursday and Friday, 9th and 10th of September at 5:00 pm in club Booksa in Zagreb (Croatia). In these Open Talks will participate artists, curators, theorists, cultural managers as well as wider public, and will be moderated by journalists and art critics Marko Golub and Vesna Tašić.

The themes of the Open Talks are critical practices in contemporary arts – practices of research, progressive and experimental character which take critical approach to reality, but also work and role of the institutional system. As the frame is rather wide and comprehends period of twenty years, it also comprehends generational gap, which is why we envisaged these Open Talks as a place of solidifying and exchanging knowledge, information and interpretation of artistic phenomena from the period. The other aspect takes into focus institutional and non-institutional, economic, social, political and other context giving the frame to the practices in focus. Although the focus of the projects are “critical practices”, the intention is to regard them in these talks in the wider context, and instead of one, unique story of two decades, to reconsider them and evoke more different narrative lines.

Open talks on Contemporary Visual Art Practices in Zagreb (1990-2010) are organized by portal Kulturpunkt.hr in cooperation with club Booksa and partners from the region – SCCA/Artservis (Slovenia), ForumSkopje (Macedonia) and Seecult.org (Serbia).

Open Talks on Contemporary Visual Art Practices in Zagreb (1990-2010) are organized in the frame of the regional project Let’s Talk Critic Arts initiated by portal for culture Seecult.org from Belgrade in cooperation with partners from Slovenia – SCCA/Artservis.org, Macedonia – ForumSkopje and Croatia – portal Kulturpunkt.hr. Project is supported by ECF – European Cultural Foundation.

Open Talks also make part of the project In Focus of Kulturpunkt.hr. Let’s Talk Art, Design & Media – Critics or Analytics supported by The Netherlands Embassy in Zagreb (Croatia), and is implemented by portal Kulturpunkt.hr. Events are also supported by City of Zagreb – Office for Education, Culture and Sports, Republic of Croatia – Ministry of Culture and National Foundation for Development of Civil Society.

Forum Skopje 2010

2010-05-25T20:44:00.001+02:00

The round-table A Public Space between Solidarity and Violence will take place in the framework of the Forum Skopje 2010 on May 27, 2010 in Mala Stanica, Skopje.

Participants of the round table are Marko Golub (Croatia), Stevan Vukovic (Serbia) and Nika Grabar (Slovenia). The round table will be moderated by Nebojsa Vilic (Macedonia).

The main concept of the debate theme is based on the following quote: ”Violence may be in some sense ‘encoded’ in the concept and practice of public art, but the specific role it plays, its political and ethical status, the form in which it is manifested, the identities of those who wield or suffer it, it is always nested in particular circumstances.” [W. J. T. Mitchell, "The Violence in Public Art", pp. 37-8 in W. J. T. Mitchell (ed.) (1992) Art in Public Sphere. Chicago: University of Chicago Press]

According to Nebojsa Vilic, this quote underscores three main lines of art in open public space, related to the City of Skopje as The City of Solidarity. The first aspect is, certainly, the excerpt about “particular circumstances” – the relationship between the ideological and political as the constituent of the appearance of the figurativeness (as narativeness) in the state purchases of sculptures in the central area of the city. The second aspect pertains to the notion of “political” status in the public art, i.e. political as execution of politics of arts – enforcing public interest in the zone of public space. At the third, simultaneously joining and dividing aspect is the one related to its “ethical” status.

Skopje, as The City of Solidarity in the mid- and late-1960s, in the recent years became “city of violence”. Therefore, the City itself is located between the ethical status of international campaign of leftist structure of SFR Yugoslavia (we can recall: the disaster of Skopje earthquake is not measured through the number of dead only: 1 700 casualties, and the level of destruction, 85% of the central urban core, but the international community was driven to solidarity by the fact that it was the first big casualty after the WWII) and the ideological structure of the new nationalism in the new, democratic processes of transition of governing right-wing political parties.

Therefore, the debate aims to analyze this complex relationship between ideology, politics and ethics, through the relationship of the purchased (visual) art and the public open space. Then, to define the ideological, political and ethical discourse towards the City of Skopje, in the sense of discourse of the ongoing internationalization of solidarity into the right-wing (ideological) milieu. And, finally, to position the potential links between the neoliberal (responsible) individual and the conservative (nationalistic) group.

Potential guidelines:

public art as part of the ideological planning of the city
artistic activity in the public open space as ethical conduct of artists
controversy of public art in the polis
political discourse of public art, and
critical debate about the public critical debates on art

The round table is organized by Forum Skopje together with partners from the region – Artservis/SCCA-Ljubljana, Clubture / Kulturpunkt.hr (Croatia) and Seecult.org (Serbia).

The round table A Public Space between Solidarity and Violence is organized in the frame of the regional project Let’s Talk Critic Arts initiated by portal for culture Seecult.org from Belgrade in cooperation with partners from Slovenia – SCCA/Artservis.org, Macedonia – ForumSkopje and Croatia – Clubture / Kulturpunkt.hr. Project is supported by ECF – European Cultural Foundation.

The Time of Media

2010-04-01T20:07:00.003+02:00

Public interview and Open forum: Media and culture will take place on April, 8th and 9th, 2010 in club Booksa in Zagreb (Croatia).

Public interview and Open forum are parts of the series of public events The Time of Media initiated by portal Kulturpunkt.hr with the aim to open a public discussion on culture and policies of media in Croatia through different aspects. The first round table was dedicated to the non-profit media trying to define their role and importance in Croatian society and present media landscape. The second round table dealt with journalism as profession and the challenges it is encountering today. The third event is taking into focus media and culture.

Public interview Media and Culture we will try to analyze culture and arts contents published in commercial, public, non-profit and specialized media through examples from four countries of the region. Participants of this dynamic discussion are Dejan Budjevac (Macedonia), Saša Ćirić (Serbia), Dean Duda (Croatia) and Mojca Planšak (Slovenia) who will give an overview of the state of the space for culture in the media in the region. The discussion will be focused on evaluation of quality and ways culture and art topics are presented. The discussion, which will be held on Thursday, April 8th at 18 hours in club Booksa, will be moderated by Miljenka Buljević.

Open Forum of culture media and journalists aims to gather representatives of periodicals, magazines, editorial boards, programmes and media for culture. The lack of space for presenting and analyzing themes from the field of culture in mass media, made us to turn our attention to different types and forms of media which are trying to present cultural and artistic contents and are paying attention on the quality. On the other hand, communication between representatives and producers of these media is very rare, and when it appears it is rather an exception than the product of systematic conducting and structural networking. For all these reasons on Friday, April 9th at 17 hours in club Booksa, in the frame of Open forum journalists and representatives of media for culture will be gathered and will have the opportunity to discuss their problems, exchange experiences and start possible cooperations.

Both events are organized by portal Kulturpunkt.hr in cooperation with portal Booksa.hr and magazine Zarez together with partners from the region – SCCA/Artservis (Slovenia), ForumSkopje (Macedonia) and Seecult.org (Serbia).

Public interview and Open forum: Media and culture are organized in the frame of the regional project Let’s Talk Critic Arts initiated by portal for culture Seecult.org from Belgrade in cooperation with partners from Slovenia – SCCA/Artservis.org, Macedonia – ForumSkopje and Croatia – portal Kulturpunkt.hr. Project is supported by ECF – European Cultural Foundation.

Both events also make part of the project In Focus of Kulturpunkt.hr. Let’s Talk Art, Design & Media – Critics or Analytics supported by The Netherlands Embassy in Zagreb (Croatia), and is implemented by portal Kulturpunkt.hr. Events are also supported by City of Zagreb – Office for Education, Culture and Sports, Republic of Croatia – Ministry of Culture and National Foundation for Development of Civil Society .

Round table – Critical Art and Responsible Culture: Without Anaesthesia!

2009-12-06T20:57:00.005+01:00

SEEcult.org is organizing the round table “Critical art and responsible culture: Without Anaesthesia!” which will be held on December 7 2009 at the Goethe-Institut Belgrade.

The participants are artists and curators from Belgrade, Ljubljana, Skopje and Zagreb, and discussion will be moderated by Maja Ćirić, a Belgrade based independent curator and art critic.

The panelists are artist Vladan Jeremić (Belgrade), cultural worker and curator Nataša Bodrožić (Zagreb), and artists Milena Kosec (Ljubljana) and Igor Toševski (Skopje).

The aim of the discussion is questioning critical art as unforeseen impulse of dominant cultural-political paradigm and emphasizing anti-politics as an alternative to anticipated politics – direct and impotence politicization.

Discussion emphasizes anti-politics which would stimulate effective responsible culture, questioning positions, praxis and models of critical art through four examples from the region – what are the impulses and intensity of critical art and responsible culture – representation or intervention? Status quo or step forward? Confrontation or manipulation? State cultural engineering or partial, but focused individual praxis?

The round table is organized by Belgrade based portal for culture SEEcult.org in cooperation with the partners from the region – Kulturpunkt.hr (Croatia), SCCA Ljubljana/Artservis (Slovenia), and ForumSkopje (Macedonia).

The round table is organized in the frame of the regional project Let’s Talk Critic Arts (LTCA) initiated by SEEcult.org in cooperation with partners from the region. The LTCA project is supported by ECF – European Cultural Foundation, and the round table is organized with support of the Goethe-Institut Belgrade/Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe.

Andrej Rozman - Roza & Tomaž Dernovšek - Vinči

2009-10-05T12:35:00.003+02:00

Public interview
Friday, October 9, 2009, at 7 pm
Project Room SCCA, Metelkova 6, Ljubljana
Moderated by Tanja Lesničar Pučko.

The public interview will present the two authors who established a successful self-organization. Although coming from different fields, their non-bureaucratic operation and unconventional activities are what they have in common. The guests will speak about their strategies, methods, experiences and aims.
Andrej Rozman - Roza is the founder, director and member of the smallest possible theatre (Rozinteater) and recently the founder of a religion community. Tomaž Dernovšek - Vinči is the founder and director of the Museum of Too Modern Art located in former stable in Spodnji Hotič.

Andrej Rozman - Roza
Poet, writer, dramatist, actor and translator. Between 1981 and 1995 he was the leader of the alternative Ana Monro Theatre and the initiator of improvisational theatre sports league in Slovenia. He writes parodies, comical lyrics, fairies and theater comedies for adults and children. He adopts, translates and modernizes classical texts. In March 2003, he founded Rozinteater as the smallest possible theatre.
Roza

Tomaž Dernovšek - Vinči
The Museum of Too Modern Art reflects the points of view of contemporary artists in the humorous and critical way. At 1000 m2 exhibition space there is a permanent exhibition with the art works of seven established artists from Slovenia and Europe. The gallery space hosts solo exhibitions of renowned local and international artists.
The Museum of Too Modern Art
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The concept of the event: Marija Mojca Pungerčar
Information: T: + 386 (0) 1 431 83 85 (Dušan Dovč, Marija Mojca Pungerčar)
E: info@artservis.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The public interview is a part of the project Let's Talk Critic Art (2009-2010) which examines the critical aspects of contemporary arts (round tables, public interviews), documents them, and archives them (online documentation, publication).
The project is conducted by the cultural portal SEEcult.org (Serbia) with the partners SCCA-Ljubljana / Artservis (Slovenia), Kulturpunkt (Croatia), and Forum Skopje (Macedonia).
The partners are the members of the informal network of cultural portals inSEEcp. It was founded in 2006 with the aim of connecting the editorial boards of the portals and stimulating the international cultural collaboration in the former Yugoslave countries.

The project Let's Talk Critic Art is financially supported by European Cultural Foundation.

Self-organizing of Artists for the Improvement of their Position

2009-10-04T18:16:00.004+02:00

Round table
Friday, October 9, 2009, at 11 am
Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, Trg Prekomorskih brigad 3, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Moderated by Maks Soršak.
Panelists: Marija Mojca Pungerčar (Artservis), Jadranka Ljubičič (Odprta zbornica), Jurij Krpan (Asociacija), Denis Miklavčič (SUKI at Glosa), Nemanja Cvijanović (artist, Reka/Venezia), Dragoslav Krnajski (artist, Belgrade).

The round table Self-organizing of Artists for the Improvement of their Position is dedicated to the status and position of the cultural workers with a special emphasis on their initiatives that attempt to improve their working conditions. The guests from Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia will explain the main reason for the self-organizing cultural forms on the local and national level, what their purpose is and what they have already achieved. They will talk about the circumstances of their activities and their tactics in self-organization. They will also present the extent of the dialogue established with the state or city authorities in solving the problem of the conditions of cultural production and the formal status of the artists, as well as in improving the system of social transfers for artists etc.

The panelists are the representatives of art & civil society initiatives from Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia or the self-organized artists/cultural workers (formal or informal associations, syndicates, and media) that strive to improve the conditions of production in art and culture.
The aim of the round table is to inform the public about the activities of the self-organized cultural initiatives on the national and international level and to stimulate cultural workers to get connected and embark on collaboration.

The round table is a part of the project Let's Talk Critic Art (2009-2010) which examines the critical aspects of contemporary arts (round tables, public interviews), documents them, and archives them (online documentation, publication).
The project is conducted by the cultural portal SEEcult.org (Serbia) with the partners SCCA-Ljubljana / Artservis (Slovenia), Kulturpunkt (Croatia), and Forum Skopje (Macedonia).
The partners are the members of the informal network of cultural portals inSEEcp. It was founded in 2006 with the aim of connecting the editorial boards of the portals and stimulating the international cultural collaboration in the former Yugoslave countries.

The project Let's Talk Critic Art is financially supported by European Cultural Foundation.

Third World Culturelink Conference

2009-09-10T15:43:00.005+02:00

call for papers - programme - registration form

Networks – The Evolving Aspects of Culture in the 21st Century

Zagreb, Croatia, 13-15 November 2009

With the support of: UNESCO Office in Venice - UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe (BRESCE); Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation (Hivos); Ministry of Science, Education and Sports, Croatia; Ministry of Culture, Croatia

Call for Papers

The Culturelink Network celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. To mark this occasion, we are organizing the Third World Culturelink Conference under the title "Networks – The Evolving Aspects of Culture in the 21st Century", to be held from 13 to 15 November 2009 in Zagreb, Croatia.

The conference is envisaged to bring together Culturelink Network's members, researchers, professionals, and many others who perceive networking as one of the most intriguing phenomenon of contemporary culture.

The Third World Culturelink Conference will aim to investigate the role and relevance that cultural networks hold for cultural development. A retrospective overview of the cultural networks phenomena in the past 20 years will pose as grounds for debate on new perspectives of cultural networking in the 21st century. Special consideration will be given to issues regarding the position of cultural networks within cultural policies structures, as well as to the effective usage of innovative ICT and networking applications that significantly develop the modes and scopes of activities of cultural networks. The event will include discussions on the promotion and affirmation of cultural diversity and intercultural communication through networking processes and will closely look at case studies from all regions of the world, thus providing comparative examples and experiences on a global level.

We invite the submission of papers to be included in the Third World Culturelink Conference programme. Paper abstracts should thematically correspond to the themes and topics listed in the preliminary conference agenda. Conference participants interested in holding a paper/presentation, should comply with the following requirements:

all prospective speakers must submit a presentation proposal and a short CV,
presentation proposals should be given a precise title that falls well within the scope of the chosen programme theme, and
proposals should be submitted in the form of a written Abstract or Executive Summary on not more than one page (approx. 500 words).

All proposals should be submitted for revision by 15 July 2009 to clinkconf@irmo.hr.

Conference languages are Croatian, English, French and Spanish.

For the conference programme, please see here.

Contact: Conference Secretariat, Culturelink/IMO, P.O. Box 303, Vukotinovićeva 2, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia; tel.: +385-1-4877490;
fax: +385-1-4828361; e-mail: clinkconf@irmo.hr; http://www.culturelink.org/clinkconf.html

Forum Skopje 2009: The Aftershock of the Postmodernism

2009-06-05T10:35:00.000+02:00

This year's Forum Skopje will be held from 8th to 14th of June at Mala Stanica in Skopje (Macedonia) hosting numerous European and regional architects and urban theoreticians. The concept of this year’s debate would give accent to the newest rises in the City Center, seen as antonyms to the Postmodern's philosophy. The subject of this year’s debate is set to be: the Aftershock of the Postmodernism.

Participants: Erich Raith, Sergej Nikoljski, Biljana Stefanovska, Ivan Rupnik, Antonio Petrov, Marko Sančanin, Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss, Vera Martinez, Christiano Lepratti, Maren Harnack, Kai Vöckler, Gabriele Reiterer, Ines Tolic, Aleksandar Petrov, Maximilian Hartmuth and Ivan Mirkovski.

Programme:
8 June, 19:00h
Pre-opening night
Mala Stanica, Upper level gallery
The Caffe

Lecture by: Antonio Petrov (Harvard University, Wasx.org Architecture - USA)
"Presentness and the Cultures of the Aftershock(s): Critical Formations of the Creative Unemployed"

#
9 June, 19:00h
Opening night
Mala Stanica, Upper level gallery
The Caffe

Jazz concert: the Georgi Sareski Quartet
Exhibition opening: 90 Years Bauhaus

#
10 June, 19:00h
Mala Stanica, Upper level gallery

round table night sessions

#
11 June, 19:00h
Mala Stanica, Upper level gallery

round table night sessions

#
12 June, 19:00h
Mala Stanica, Upper level gallery

round table night sessions

#
13 June, 19:00h
Mala Stanica, Upper level gallery

round table night sessions

#
14 June
Mala Stanica, Upper level gallery

last day activities
the student workshop presentation

Forum 'Culture 2007-2013 Programme – possibilities of co-operation'

2009-05-26T13:48:00.001+02:00

Organized by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, Cultural Contact Point Croatia and Croatian Movement & Dance Institute in cooperation with Cultural Contact Points Austria and Slovenia on June 1st at the Mimara Museum in Zagreb.

Programme:

9.00-9.15 Registration

9.15-9.30 Foreword: Božo Biškupić, Minister of Culture

Presentations:

9.30- 9.45 Vesna Jurić Bulatović ( Museum for Arts and Crafts, Zagreb)

9.45-10.15 Stephane Re (Institut Française de Zagreb) and Emma Lecoeur ( L’Oreal Croatia)

10.15-10.45 Alemka Lisinski (T-Hrvatski Telekom) and Snježana Pintarić (Musem of Contemporary Art, Zagreb)

10.45-11.15 Marina Dijaković (Zagrebačka banka) and Vesna Kusin (Gallery Klovićevi dvori, Zagreb)

11.15-11.45 Polona Lovšin (Riko Group, Slovenia) and Ranko Novak (Brumen Foundation, Slovenia)
_______________________________________________

11.45-12.30 Coffee break
_______________________________________________

12.30-13.00 Dubravka Jusić (Vipnet) and Ivica Prlender (Dubrovačke ljetne igre)

13.00-13.30 Leonie Hodkevitch (Austria): ”Sponsoring: Alter Ego in Arts”

13.30-14.00 CCPs Austria, Slovenia and Croatia: Presentation of the Culture 2007-2013 programme

14.00-14.30 Matjaž Farič and Ksenija Kaučič (Flota, Slovenia), Manfred Biskup and Liz King (Verein für Neue Tanzformen, Austria), Alfred Masal (Offenes Haus Oberwart, Austria), Barna Petrany (Pro Progressione, Hungary), Mirna Žagar (Croatian Movement & Dance Institute, Croatia): Dance Explorations Beyond Front@

14.30-15.00 DISCUSSION/ CONCLUSION

(Source: CCP Croatia)

ONLINE/OFFLINE festival in Skopje, Macedonia

2009-01-22T12:10:00.002+01:00

The two Macedonian portals, members of inSEEcp, www.culture.in.mk and www.plagij.at are founders of the ONLINE/OFFLINE festival. inSEEcp members Vesna Milosavljevic (SEEcult) and Dusan Dovc (Evrokultura) are also taking part in the festival.

Supported by Pro Helvetia – Skopje, the ONLINE/OFFLINE festival, true to its name, has an online and an offline component.

The offline component is taking place in Skopje on 22 and 23 January 2009. It starts with a blogging workshop entitled 'Blogging and networking tools for artists', lead by blogger Deborah Hustic aka lomodeedee (Personal Cyber Botanica) from Zagreb, and targeting especially artists and cultural operators.

A discussion under the title Where Is Culture, Where Is the Audience? will follow, involving not only the representatives of culture portals, but also editors of other popular, fun-oriented portals, and the audience. It will deal with the issues of interest, presentation, content, technology, social networking and web 2.0 modules and will attempt to respond to the issue of attracting audiences to culture, through portals as intermediaries in the process. The evening will end with the Plagij.at listening party.

On the second day, Artservis’ Dusan Dovc will present its Art Suitcase, featuring digital art on the topic of the survival in the art world. It will also pack within works by Macedonian artists. An exhibition of photographs from previous Plagij.at events and the festival will be closed with a concert of the Serbian band Petrol and Macedonian all-girl band Vivid.

The online part of the festival will be continuously updated and will consist of two blogs jointly managed by www.culture.in.mk and www.plagij.at. The addresses onlineoffline.wordpress.com and offline2online.wordpress.com will feature formats previously unused by the two portals – collections of works of relevant Macedonian artists, also their recommendations on other artists worth exploring, longer journalistic forms (interviews, reviews …) as well as audio and video features. Through the process of collaboration with the artists and journalists covering culture, we will aim to find the right format, satisfying the artistic criteria, while still being attractive for a wide audience. Also, one of the main role of the joint blogs, considering that a large part of portals’ visitors come from abroad, is to provide a more immersive cultural and artistic experience to audiences who cannot physically attend the events in question.

inSEECp's conference covered at Labforculture

2008-12-12T11:41:00.002+01:00

The conference Cultu(RE)gion online!_The Future Goes By!, which took place this week in Belgrade has been covered at Labforculture portal.

'Gathered representatives of the portals for culture collected new knowledge in order to improve their work. Through sharing their professional experiences and through the workshops of social and cultural aspects of the web 2.0, but also through the practical usage of portals, blogs, social media and free software, they learned how to use social media in a better way. With presentations of existing portals for culture in SEE and through the discussions on possibilities and challenges of the art and culture in the digital era, they also promoted importance of digital culture.'

Read the whole coverage here

New inSEEcp's logo by Andrija Nikacevic

2008-12-05T13:24:00.010+01:00

'The shape of new inSEEcp logo is based on square that presents the basic unit of the screen resolution – pixel, in that sense showing the media it represents – the web portal. At the same time, squares are associate to web windows, their interlacing and information exchange; as well as the collaboration between portals in the region.'

'By spreading the squares from the upper left to the bottom right side in different colors, this logo is geometrically placed within a certain geographical and abstract context of the region, but this dynamic form itself shows a tendency for expanding outside of the borders. With the color pallet, logo for inSEEcp presents optimism and awakens positive vibrations.'
Andrija Nikacevic, graphic designer, Belgrade

Andrija Nikacevic is respectable designer with many projects behind, his latest project was visual identity for the Octobar Salon. Nikacevic was participant of many international artist-in-residence programs, as well as jury member of design contests.

In the occasion of the conference Cultu(RE)gion online, Future Goes By!, the organizers will publish a brochure on English, German and all regional languages of the portals included.

The conference will gather about 20 portals – present and future members of the informal network, as well as representatives of many foundations, cultural centers and different targeted groups.

(RE)gion online, Future Goes By! Has been organized by SEEcult.org portal, Goethe Institute Belgrade and Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe.

More info: www.seecult.org, www.goethe.de/belgrade

Artservis is seven years old!

2008-12-04T21:21:00.003+01:00

You are invited to the Artservis birthday event!

We will celebrate the birthday with the launching of two news of the Artservis Collection: the web site and the artistic case - introduced and created by Borut Savski.

When & Where:
Thursday, Dezember 4th, 2008, at 7.00 p.m., in SCCA Project Room, Ljubljana (Metelkova 6), Slovenia.

There will be a cake!

Home web page of the Artservis Collection

CULTU(RE)GION ONLINE! FUTURE GOES BY!

2008-12-01T19:57:00.004+01:00

The regional conference Cultu(RE)gion online! The Future Goes By, dealing with the significance of culture portals, the need to utilize the potential of Internet development and opportunities and challenges on the path towards innovative cooperation in the region will take place on 8-9 December 2008 in Belgrade. It is organized by Goethe Institute Belgrade and the Portal for Culture of South-Eastern Europe, SEEcult.org.

The conference be held in the premises of Goethe Institute in Belgrade, and it is an activity within the two-year project for development of Informal Network of Cultural Portals of South-Eastern Europe inSEEcp (Informal Network of South-East European Cultural Portals), supported by the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe.

Minister of Culture of Serbia, Nebojša Bradić, will open the conference. In addition to the representatives of some twenty cultural portals from the region, participants in the conference will be the founder of Berlinergazette.de Krystian Woznicki and one of the pioneers of net-art and lecturer Vuk Ćosić from Ljubljana, who will speak about the phenomenon of social networks on the Internet.

Representatives of local and state authorities, cultural, academic and research institutions, art associations, non-governmental organizations, foundations, media and web-magazines, as well as artists, activists and other representatives of target groups of culture portals are invited to attend and participate in the discussion.

The conference has the aim of highlighting the potential of the network of cultural portals, as a platform for innovative cooperation in the region, but will point also to the obstacles that portals, as non-profit projects, face, in view of the inadequate cultural policies in the region and on the European level. New opportunities and challenges in the areas of culture and arts will be discussed, as well. A workshop will deal with the social and cultural aspects of web 2.0, presenting practical uses of portals, blogs, social web services and free software in culture and arts.

This will also be an opportunity to add new members to inSEEcp, for the moment only from the region of former Yugoslavia. The new visual identity of inSEEcp, designed by the Belgrade graphic designer Andrija Nikačević will be promoted, as well as a booklet on inSEEcp in the original languages of the portals, as well as German and English.

Members of inSEEcp are the portals Artservis.org, Evrokultura.org and RadioStudent.si from Slovenia, Culturenet.hr, Kulturpunkt.hr, Culturelink.hr, Knjiga.hr and Teatar.hr from Croatia, Kulporter.com from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Pro-story.org from Montenegro, Culture.in.mk from Macedonia and SEEcult.org from Serbia. An associated member is Stacion.org from Pristina, while Plagij.at from Macedonia, Montenegrina.net from Montenegro and Creemaginet.com from Belgrade have started the process of association.

Representatives of portals Startmontenegro.com from Montenegro and Forumskopje.com will also be among the participants of the conference.
InSEEcp is a result of workshops, meetings and on-line activities of culture portals in Southeast Europe, initiated in 2006, at the first regional meeting organized by SEEcult.org and Goethe-Institute Belgrade.
Given the importance of digital culture, common problems of culture portals in the region, and rapid technological advancement, InSEEcp was launched for the purposes of on-line and off-line advocacy and promotion of culture on the internet, facilitation of a free flow of information about the diversity of cultures in the region, exchange of experiences, and professional enhancement, with a view to supporting and furthering quality production in culture and the arts, and drawing attention of the widest possible public to such production.
At the very outset of its development, InSEEcp has gathered portals from the former Yugoslavia, and has thus formed a natural starting point for further networking in the SEE region, especially in light of related cultures and languages, and historical links of nations in the region.

The first regional workshop of culture portals, titled “Culture on the Internet / Networking Participants in the Cultural Domain in Southeast Europe through Specialized Internet Portals” was held in Belgrade, in November 2006. Representatives of German portals Signandsight.com and N-ost.de were also present at the event. A round table – “Significance of Culture Portals”, hosted during the workshop, brought together representatives of target groups of portals, and attracted undivided attention of expert and wider audiences.
Some InSEEcp members had already met each other at the round table of the Culturemondo international network, co-organized by Culturelink.hr, in Dubrovnik, in October 2006.

Concurrently with the continuation of on-line activities, the second inSEEcp regional workshop, titled “Networking and Cooperation of Culture Portals in the SEE Region”, organized by SEEcult.org and Goethe-Institute, and supported by the Stability Pact for SEE, was held in Belgrade, in December 2007. A round table “Cultural Policy and Culture on the Internet – SEE and Europe” was held within the workshop. Representatives of the German portal Perlentaucher.de and target groups participated in discussions.

InSEEcp presented itself for the first time to the international expert audience in Ljubljana, on 12 June 2008, at the “Re-Network!” conference, organized by CCP Slovenia / SCCA Ljubljana.

InSEEcp members also took part in the international round table “Intercultural Dialogue and Digital Culture”, hosted by Culturelink.hr, in Zagreb, in November 2008.

Within their two-year activities aimed at networking portals in the region, SEEcult.org and Goethe-Institute Belgrade, with the support of the Stability Pact for SEE, hosted a working meeting of inSEEcp in Belgrade, in October 2008, and also are organizing a regional conference “Cultures of the Region Online!_Future Goes By!” in Belgrade, on 8-9 December.

More information: http://www.seecult.org / http://www..goethe.de/belgrad / http://inseecp.blogspot.com
Contact: info@seecult.org / inseecp@gmail.com
Vesna Milosavljevic, vesna@seecult.org, + 381 63 214 893

New Book: Digital Culture, The Changing Dynamics

2008-11-25T18:35:00.005+01:00

The book 'Digital Culture: The Changing Dynamics' has been published by the Institute for International Relations (IRO). The title was edited by Biserka Cvjeticanin and Aleksandra Uzelac, Scientific Researchers at IRO and Editors of the Culturelink publications.

Aleksandra Uzelac: How to understand digital culture: Digital culture – a resource for a knowledge society?; Rob van Kranenburg: New realities, new policies?; Helena Popović i Hajrudin Hromadžić: Media users: from readership to co-creators; Tomislav Medak: Transformations of cultural production, free culture and the future of the Internet; Jaka Primorac i Krešimir Jurlin: Access, piracy and culture: the implications of digitalization in Southeastern Europe; Joost Smiers: Copyright and the digital age: a contradictio in terminis; Biserka Cvjetičanin: Challenges for cultural policies: the example of digital culture; Vesna Čopič: Digital culture in policy documents: the national(istic) perception of cultural diversity - The case of Slovenia;Ana Žuvela Bušnja i Daniela Angelina Jelinčić: Managing culture in virtual realms: policy provisions and issues - A European perspective; Herve Fischer: Ecology of the media and hyperhumanism; Jane Finnis: Turning cultural websites inside out: changes in online user behaviour, Web 2.0 and the issues for the culture sector; Lidia Varbanova: The online power of users and money: can culture gain?; Carlos A. Mas Zabala i dr.: A glance at the Cuban culture through its cultural portals.

Digital culture is a new complex notion: today digital trends are increasingly interloping with the world of culture and arts, involving different aspects of convergence of cultures, media and information technologies, and influencing new forms of communication. The new possibilities created by ICT – global connectivity and the rise of networks – challenge our traditional ways of understanding culture, extending it to digital culture as well. So, culture today should be understood as an open and dynamic process that is based on interactive communication, and we cannot think of it as an enclosed system which makes up a 'cultural mosaic' with other similar or diverse cultural systems. The ICT and especially the Internet, has given these interrelations a new dimension, by changing our relation towards knowledge and knowledge society, by intensifying the flow of cultural goods and services, and by causing a new understanding of cultural creativity.

The book entitled Digital Culture: The Changing Dynamics, is the result of discussions among experts, members of the Culturelink Network and IMO's researchers, in the course of the past few years on the impact of information and communication technologies on culture and the changes that in the context of the information era affect established cultural practices and concepts. The inspiration for producing this book rose from the meeting of experts at the Culturemondo conference, held in Dubrovnik, Croatia in 2006, hosted by Culturelink. Informal debates led to the proposal to unite different approaches, opinions and reflections about the phenomena transforming the world today into one book focusing on digital culture.

If you want to order the book
More info about the book 'Digital Culture: The Changing Dynamics' click here

Video from the Re-network! conference in Ljubljana (June, 2008)

2008-11-24T18:31:00.000+01:00

Here is video from the Re-network! conference which took place in Ljunljana on 12th June 2008. This was the first international conference where inSEEcp presented its members and activities.

RE-NETWORK from toni poljanec on Vimeo.

inSEEcp members at the Intercultural Dialogue and Digital Culture round table in Zagreb

2008-11-19T15:19:00.006+01:00

The Culturelink Network is organizing the round table entitled Intercultural Dialogue and Digital Culture, to be held in Zagreb, Croatia, on 20-21 November 2008, marking the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue (EYID) 2008.

Culturelink is one of the founding member of inSEEcp.

inSEEcp will be presented by Dusan Dovc from Evrokultura / Artservis, whilst Aleksandra Uzelac (Culturelink), Dea Vidovic (Kulturpunkt) and Deborah Hustic (Culturenet) will attend the event on the behalf of their portals.

The event aims to discuss and share knowledge about the possibilities that digital culture provides for intercultural dialogue and to identify examples of existing good practices that allow for participation of users in virtual cultural projects, thus enabling democratic participation of citizens in the building of virtual/digital culture.
We feel that issues related to digital culture and intercultural dialogue are insufficiently discussed and researched. In the roundtable discussions, we hope to clarify issues that often have diverse and imprecise meanings, focusing on the following topics:
- Intercultural dialogue – concept and its realisation (clarifying issues)
- Digital culture - how it relates to intercultural dialogue
- Digital culture participatory practices - building shared spaces?
- Digital culture new trends – portals, blogs, participatory internet: does the cultural sector recognize the current trends as a tool for enabling intercultural dialogue?
So far a number of speakers have confirmed their participation, including Colin Mercer, Don Foresta, Myriam Diocaretz, Kelvin Smith, Rob van Kranenburg, Katherine Watson, Vesna Čopič, Vuk Čosić, Filip Stojanovski and Tomislav Medak.
The round table is supported by UNESCO-BRESCE, the Croatian Ministry of Culture and the City of Zagreb.
The working language of the symposium will be English.
See here more detailed programme

(Text by Culturelink / inSEEcp)

Re-network! (short overview of the conference)

2008-06-23T19:41:00.008+02:00

Re-network!

International conference on networking in the cultural sector

12 June 2008

City Hotel Ljubljana,

Dalmatinova 15, Slovenia

Short overview of the conference

The international conference dedicated to the topic of networking and stimulating transnational cooperation and free flow of information in the cultural sector hosted altogether 150 participants, mainly representatives of various international cultural networks, including ca. 50 delegates of European Cultural Contact Points.

A lively and sincere discussion involving speakers as well as the audience has reaffirmed the absolute significance of transnational networks while highlighting their specific roles as:

- »guardians« of the public domain (the power of networking is sharing),

- common platforms for identification of and discussion on relevant issues,

- »translators« (mediators) between different stakeholders,

- empowering structures (survival and self-education; visibility and recognition),

- enablers of the decentralisation of cultural industry.

In general it was stressed that culture should not be seen as a mean (illustration, decoration, PR) but as a value as such. As a concrete example of anachronistic notion of the role of culture in our society, the obsolete and unproductive category of »Ambassadors« supported within the EU Culture Programme was pointed out. This financial support should be rather used to stimulate networks and festivals which can actually enhance transnational cooperation.

Appropriate conditions on the national and regional levels as well should enable and enhance transnational cooperation through programmes stimulating mobility of cultural workers. The EU support programmes should broaden the geographical scope and substantially include the EU neighbourhood (more should be invested on future Members and regions “on the borders”).

Existing definitions related to networks are out of date and networks should adopt more innovative conceptions of operation and contemporary, synthetic approach. We should avoid thinking in paradigm of a rigid and stable structure (‘network’) but rather of a fluid and changing process (‘networking’).

Alenka Pirman, moderator
Mateja Lazar, organiser (CCP Slovenia)
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
The international conference Re-network! was organised within the Informal meeting of European Cultural Contact Points (Ljubljana and Maribor, 11–14 June 2008) being one of the official events of the Slovene EU Presidency cultural programme.

Re-network! was organized by Cultural Contact Point Slovenia / SCCA, Center for Contemporary Arts-Ljubljana with a support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, the European Commission (DG EAC) and Executive Agency (EACEA), Government Communication Office of the Republic of Slovenia, Slovenian EU Presidency Secretariat, CCP Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia and other partners.

This conference reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Re-network!

2008-05-31T12:13:00.028+02:00

Cultural Contact Point Slovenia is inviting you to the international conference on networking in the cultural sector, Re-network!

Networking in arts and culture has had a long tradition in Europe and there is hardly any professional organisation that is not a member of at least one international network. However, networks as well are facing radical changes affecting cultural industries: new technologies enabling free flow of works and information, audience being transformed into active users…

With the special emphasis put on the intercultural dialogue between the EU and SEE the conference's aim is to find out how ''old'' and ''new'' cultural networks respond to these circumstances and how they manage the problem of free flow of information especially if relevant to transnational cooperation.

The conference will be opened with the introductory speeches by Barbara Kozelj, director-general of the Directorate for Art, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and Marko Peljhan, ambassador of Intercultural Dialogue. Alenka Pirman, artist and founding member of the Domestic Research Society, will moderate discussion with the representatives of EU & SEE cultural networks: Daphne Tepper (Culture Action Europe - EFAH), Pal Steigan (TEH), Vesna Milosavljevic (inSEEcp), Juan Carlos De Martin (COMMUNIA), Dragana Alfirevic (Balkan Dance Network).

Moreover, two keynote speakers will present their views on and experience in networking and free flow of information: Peter Inkei (Budapest Observatory) and Vuk Cosic (net artist).

Re-network! represents a public part of the Informal meeting of European Cultural Contact Points (CCP Meeting) taking place in Ljubljana and Maribor from 11 to 14 June 2008 as one of the official events within the Slovene EU Presidency cultural programme. As a parallel event, the inSEEcp Meeting will take place, gathering editors of on-line cultural portals from Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Bosna and Hercegovina.

12 June 2008, from 9.00 to 12.30

City Hotel Ljubljana, Dalmatinova 15, Slovenia

Registration

By filling the electronic form, please confirm your participation at the conference Re-network! by Monday, 2 June 2008. Only on the basis of your on-line registration CCP Slovenia will be able to arrange your accreditation. The conference is free of charge; travel and hotel accommodation will be covered by participants.

Further information

Re-network! website: General information / Target Group / Conference programme / Presentation of the speakers and panellists / Registration

Contact person: Mateja Lazar, CCP Slovenia, tel.: 00 386 1 431 83 85, e-mail:ccp@scca-ljubljana.si

Re-network! is organized by Cultural Contact Point Slovenia / SCCA, Center for Contemporary Arts-Ljubljana with a support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, the European Commission (DG EAC) and Executive Agency (EACEA), Government Communication Office of the Republic of Slovenia, Slovenian EU Presidency Secretariat, CCP Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia and other partners.

This conference reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

SCCA-Ljubljana

Center for Contemporary Arts

Metelkova 6, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

http://www.scca-ljubljana.si

phone: 00 386 1 431 83 85

fax: 00 386 1 430 06 29

contact person: Dusan Dovc

e-mail: info@scca-ljubljana.si

SCCA-Ljubljana program is supported by Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and City of Ljubljana.

SCCA-Ljubljana is a member of Asociacija, the association of non-government organisations and independent creators in the field of culture and art in Slovenia.

Working meeting of the network

2008-03-19T14:48:00.004+01:00

Working meeting on the theme of:
- collaboration of the network at the meeting of the Cultural Contact Points Network during the Slovene EU Presidency
- possibilities of further developments of the Informal SEE Network of Cultural Portals

Present (representatives of InSEEcp and of CCPs HR and SLO):
- Anja Jelavic (Ministry of Culture of Republic Croatia / CCP HR)
- Deborah Hustic (Ministry of Culture of Republic Croatia / Culturenet.hr)
- Dea Vidovic (Clubture Network / Kulturpunkt.hr)
- Marija Mojca Pungercar & Dusan Dovc (SCCA-Ljubljana / Artservis & Evrokultura)
- Mateja Lazar (SCCA-Ljubljana / CCP SI)

Zagreb, February 7, 2008

A. Informal SEE Network of Cultural Portals
As the follow-up of two regional workshops of cultural portals, held 2006 and 2007 in Belgrade, the SEEcult.org portal for South-east Europe culture with its partners from region continues developmental project of networking in the field of digital culture in region.

At the meeting in Zagreb, members of the network discussed the aims of the network and how to start expanding the network by including portals from different SEE countries (1st stage: in the region of ex-YU countries).

The members agreed that first steps should be taken as follows:

Network
- to define ways of a formal operating of the network
- to review the statement of the network
- to describe the history of the network
- to review short descriptions of all members portals
- to prepare some questions for editors (politics, langugae, finances) in order to get similar descriptions of cultural portals
- to research culture on-line in BiH, Montenegro, Macedonia in order to detect possible new partners/members

The blog
- to start working on the inSEEcp blog
- to prepare links to network members
- to provide a domain for the blog
- to start organizing different contents for the blog (e.g. rubrics for cultural policies) and to search for interesting themes for the articles
- to prepare an article / editorial comment from the perspective of language (which language is used by different cultural portal) in the light of promoting multilingualism in Europe

Fundraising
- to prepare a project proposal for the ECF open call, deadline April 1, 2008

B. Meeting of the CCP Network during the Slovene EU Presidency

Mateja Lazar (responsible for the CCP SLO) presented the program of the CCP meeting (to be held in Ljubljana on June 12-14) including also a public conference dealing with the subject of networking in the cultural sector with a special emphasis on cultural cooperation between the EU and SEE region. This public event will be organized as a moderated discussion with guest speakers and panelists, aamong them two representatives of the Informal SEE Network of Cultural Portals.

Re-network!
International conference on networking in the cultural sector and stimulating transnational cooperation and free flow of information

In the light of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue 2008 (EYID), the meeting will focus on intercultural dialogue between the EU and South East Europe (SEE). The SEE region is an integral part of the Slovene orientation not only due to its historical and geographical links but also especially in the light of further enlargements of the European Union. On practical level, the meeting will be structured around the topic of fostering the networking and information flow between different arts and culture stakeholders in the EU and SEE region.

The international conference entitled Re-network! will be dedicated to the topic of networking seen as an indispensable prerequisite stimulating free flow of information and transnational cultural cooperation. Networking in arts and culture has had a long tradition in Europe and there is hardly any professional organisation that is not a member of at least one international network. However, networks as well are facing radical changes affecting cultural industries: new technologies enabling free flow of works and information, audience being transformed into active users… It seems that the only problem to be solved remains free flow of persons, i.e. transnational mobility of people working in the cultural sector.

With the special emphasis put on the intercultural dialogue between the EU and SEE the conference’s aim is to find out how “old” and “new” cultural networks respond to these circumstances and how they manage the problem of free flow of information especially if relevant to transnational cooperation.

The conference (public panel) will focus on the political and cultural context of developing and enabling cultural networks as a link between local, national and international cultural milieu.

(Text by Dusan Dovc: SCCA-Ljubljana / Evrokultura)

Follow-up

2008-03-10T14:41:00.009+01:00

The second Regional workshop of cultural portals, Belgrade 2007

Magacin Culture Centre, Kraljevica Marka 4

The second workshop of cultural portals from the SEE region was held on December 3-4, 2007 in Magacin Culture Centre in Belgrade, organized again by SEEcult.org with the support of the Goethe-Institut Belgrade, and bringing together the most active members of the inSEEcp in order to assess the results of joint activities and plan the agenda for 2008.

Among the participants, beside the representatives of the inSEEcp’s members (Artservis.org and Evrokultura.org, Slovenia, Culturenet.hr and Kulturpunkt.hr, Croatia, and SEEcult.org Serbia), was also Anja Seeliger, founding member of from Perlentaucher.de and SignandSight.com.

Reviewing joint activities between two workshops, participants from region agreed on network’s name inSEEcp, discussed about drafts of possible joint projects and possibilities to apply on several open calls due to need to find basic financial resources for further activities. Also was talking on possibilities for exchange of contents (writing, translating, publishing…at least one text monthly on actual cultural politics or related specific themes), as well as about possibility to establish a network for training new young collaborators (writers, editors… as inSEEcp’s internship program) etc.

Beside some organizational issues, like establishing rotating coordination, the workshop was dedicated to some concrete joint projects and among the conclusion of the workshop is to create inSEEcp’s blog on some of free services (like Blogger.com), where should be posted the Network’s manifesto, as well as data base on forming the network and its founding members, cultural policy in respective countries in the region regarding culture on internet and other related topics. In 2008 are also planed monthly features on themes of common interests,

SEEcult.org announced the third workshop in Belgrade until the end of 2008, which should bring together all participants from the first workshop, as well as new potential members from the region. Due to lack of money - not only for joint actions, but also for individual portal’s activities, the participants concluded that there is necessity for extra fund that will enable further networking, which is also one of the main tasks of coordination team.

The conclusions were presented at the panel discussion on the theme “Culture policy and Internet - SEE region and Europe”, moderated by the Goethe-Institute Belgrade’s director Jutta Gehrig. All participants presented situation in their respective countries, which again attracted significant interest of public, as well as print, electronic and Internet media.

All photos in this post by Tihomir Stojanovic, http://creemaginet.com/ (c)

(Text by Vesna Milosavljevic, SEEcult.org)

Founding the inSEEcp

2008-03-10T14:30:00.006+01:00

The first Regional workshop of cultural portals, Belgrade 2006
Goethe-Institut Belgrade, Knez Mihailova 50

The inSEEcp was founded by representatives of SEEcult.org (Serbia); Culturenet.hr, Kulturpunkt.hr, Culturelink.hr and Knjiga.hr (Croatia); Radio Student, Artservis.org and Evrokultura.org (Slovenia); Culture.in.mk (Macedonia); Bosniaexpress.com (Bosnia). It was founded at the first workshop of regional cultural portals, held on November 27-29 in Belgrade, and organized by Belgrade based SEEcult.org portal for the SEE culture, with the support of the Goethe Institute Belgrade. Among the participants at the workshop “Culture on the Internet / Networking Participants in the Cultural Domain in South-East Europe through Specialized Internet Portals” at the Goethe Institute Belgrade also was N-ost.de portal and, as moderator, representative of Germany's major independent online cultural magazine Perlentaucher.de and its English service Signandsight.com.

Regarding the importance of the presence of culture on internet, common problems of cultural portals in region (cultural policy, IT development, finance…), sort of a gap in this field between our most of our countries and EU, as well as fast development of web technology generally, the participants of the first workshop concluded that inSEEcp network is needed for exchanging information and experiences, improving professional and technical skills, support and promote quality culture production in the region and also to bring new audience to our respective portals, especially because of the fact that, as for now, there isn’t such of regional platform for cultural portals in the former Yugoslavia region and wider, while cooperation in culture on institutional (state) level between the countries in the region is slow and overwhelmed with various administrative issues.

The participants of the workshop agreed to make an informal network and set out a joint founding manifesto regarding common mission and goals, as well as to continue networking through the Internet, organizing follow-up training and networking workshops and building resources for various joint on-line and off-line activities.

Among the goals which were set out at the workshop are: promoting inter-cultural exchange and transnational debate between the countries of former Yugoslavia, promoting European integration from the bottom up by means of civil society networks on the Internet, communicating the significance of culture for system change and democratization in the region, as well as communicating the current gulf between the significance of cultural portals in SEE region and their poor financial backing, and engaging in joint fund raising strategies.

Also was concluded that Internet fulfils a crucial role in culture in region in the midst of transition and European integration process, because it facilitates and promotes transnational debate and cultural exchange among like-minded people in neighboring countries and the EU as a whole. It also contributes to the internationalization of the regional culture and art scene, enabling also the reverse process - promotion of contemporary world trends in region.

As part of the workshop also was held a panel discussion on the theme “Significance of Culture Portals”, which brought together representatives of state institutions, cultural institutions, the university, artist groups and artists, media, net-activists and other professionals from culture portal’s target groups, as well as public.

Among the participants of the round table were professor Milena Dragicevic Sesic from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, Belgrade Assistant Mayor Gorica Mojovic, Yugoslav Film Archive Museum director Dinko Tucakovic, Belgrade Dramatic Theatre director Nebojsa Bradic, editor of the daily Politika’s culture section Andjelka Cvijic and artist Zoran Popovic, and the aim was to affirm the significance of culture portals as the new media and platforms for comprehensive presentation of the regional culture and art scene, distinguishing the possibilities for networking them, for the purpose of internationalizing regional culture and art, as well as for promoting cooperation and networking between the participants in the culture and art domain.

The workshop and panel discussion triggered comprehensive coverage in Belgrade media, as well as on the culture and Internet related forums and blogs, and the German portal Signandsight.com, which was represented at the workshop by Gabriella Gönczy, in role of moderator, noted that “the workshop has shown that journalists, multiplicators and actors in the areas of culture and international communication have come much farther than politicians in the respective countries. With the networking possibilities of a cross-border medium like the Internet, this group shows much promise for promoting cultural dialogue between their countries and with the countries of the EU”.

Participants: Zlata Veselinovic (Bosniaexpress.com), Aleksandra Uzelac (Culturelink.hr), Dea Vidovic (Kulturpunkt.hr), Deborah Hustic (Culturenet.hr), Valerij Juresic (Knjiga.hr), Jasna Vrteva (Culture.in.mk), Marija Mojca Pungercar (Artservis.org), Petja Grafenauer (Radio Student), Dusan Dovc (Evrokultura.org), Vesna Milosavljevic and Mima Marjanovic (SEEcult.org), Jenni Winterhagen (N-ost.de).

(Text by: Vesna Milosavljevic, SEEcult.org)

The inSEEcp’s History

2008-03-10T14:25:00.001+01:00

The Informal Network of South-East European Cultural Portals - inSEEcp was founded in November 2006 in Belgrade as the result of the first regional meeting and workshop of the representatives of key cultural portals from the region of former Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia).

The workshop “Culture on the Internet / Networking Participants in the Cultural Domain in South-East Europe through Specialized Internet Portals”, was the first initiative of that kind in the region, followed with the second workshop in December 2007, also in Belgrade, and other various activities of the founding members, including the inSEEcp’s blog as a joint platform for further various on-line and off-line actions for advocacy in culture on internet and cross-border cooperation, as well as for broadening the network.
(Text by Vesna Milosavljevic, SEEcult.org)

Join Us

2007-11-30T19:14:00.000+01:00

Join inSEEcp:
inseecp@gmail.com

More info soon!

Ask Us!

2007-11-05T19:15:00.001+01:00

Ask Us!

More to come soon...

Members

2007-11-04T19:07:00.012+01:00

inSEEcp's members:

Who is Who

Artservis

www.artservis.org

Founder

Artservis was founded by SCCA, the Center for Contemporary Arts – Ljubljana (www.scca-ljubljana.si), a non-governmental and non-profit organisation based in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Description

Artservis (since 2001) is a web-based information resource for artists, curators, theoreticians and cultural managers who operate in Slovenia and/or abroad. Its basic mission is provision of information and advice. Artservis keeps its users constantly updated with the opportunities in the world of art through offers, tenders, invitations to co-operation, funding possibilities and advice in the field of contemporary art. It also publishes useful advice, shares experiences concerning tactical usage of the existing infrastructure, and stimulates feedback / opinion of users and public debate. Artservis usage is based on open access, user anonymity and Creative Commons licence policy. Over the years, Artservis has become a reliable and referential medium, visited daily by 915 users (statistics for Jan–Oct. 2008).

Users of Artservis come from Slovenia and the world – mainly Eastern, Central and South Europe, and the Balkans. The tool (browser) and data are in Slovenian and English, selected pieces of news are published in Croatian and Serbian, and are therefore accessible to international (non-Slovenian) speakers as well.

Artservis regularly distributes free Newsletters (up to 3 per month) through e-mail lists, with the aim to draw the users’ attention to the latest news, providing them with information about collaboration possibilities, fundraising resources, professional improvement potentials, artist-in-residence programs, conferences, etc. At present, 5963 international users are subscribed.

Editorial / Management

The SCCA team and the Artservis editor make all important strategic decisions together.

Editor in chief: Marija Mojca Pungerčar

Assistant editor Spela Škulj

Funding

The Ministry of Culture of the Republic Slovenia, private sponsorship (in the past), the solidarity fund of SCCA-Ljubljana (at present).

Contact

Marija Mojca Pungerčar, editor

SCCA, Center for Contemporary Arts - Ljubljana, Slovenia

Metelkova 6, SI-1000 Ljubljana

Phone: + 386 1 4318385

Fax: + 386 1 4300629

info@artservis.org

Culturelink Network

www.culturelink.org, www.culturelink.hr

Founder

Culturelink was established by UNESCO and the Council of Europe in 1989, in Paris, at the Consultation of Representatives of Regional and Sub-regional Networks for Cultural Development Research and Cooperation. The Institute for International Relations in Zagreb, Croatia has been the focal point of the Network since its inception.

Description

Culturelink, the Network of Networks for Research and Cooperation in Cultural Development aims to strengthen communication between networks, institutions and professionals in the field of culture, encouraging the exchange of cultural information, ideas and knowledge, and furthering the development of research cooperation. It serves as a collaboration platform for cultural researchers, policy makers and practitioners, and through its portal, it collects, processes and disseminates information on new concepts, research challenges, trends, experiences and practice in the fields of cultural life, policies, and intercultural communication.

The main focus is the new context of culture in networked society, including issues of cultural identity, cultural diversity, intercultural dialogue and digital culture, creative and knowledge industries, as well as cultural and media transitions in the context of democratic changes and globalisation processes. Its publications, including the Digital Culture: The Changing Dynamics, the latest book in Culturelink's Joint Publications Series, are available in the PDF version and are free for download.

The Network provides its members with the following possibilities: collaboration on joint research projects, use of Culturelink web resources, subscription to the C-News (an electronic newsletter) and the Culturelink Joint Publication Series, and possibility to publish their own announcements.

Information and research results are disseminated in electronic and paper form through regular network channels.

The Culturelink Network gathers networks and institutions from about 100 countries in all parts of the world that deal with and are interested in cultural development, cultural policies and cooperation.

Editorial / Management

Members of the IMO’s Department for Culture and Communication.

Funding

Department members perform network-related activities on a volunteer and part-time basis.

All financing is project-based and used mostly for research activities. The scope of on-line activities depends on the capacity of the IMO infrastructure.

Contact

Culturelink Network

IMO - Institute for International Relations

Vukotinoviceva 2, P.O. Box 303

10000 Zagreb, Croatia

Phone: +385 1 / 48 77 460

Fax: +385 1 / 48 28 361

clink@irmo.hr

Culture.in.mk

www.culture.in.mk

Founder

NGO Junona and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Macedonia

Description

Culture.in.mk: presentation of cultural events in the Republic of Macedonia and presentation of Macedonian culture abroad. Daily updates of news, in both Macedonian and English.

Clipping of culture-related news from the Macedonian media, production of own news items from information received from cultural operators, and presentation of funding and cooperation opportunities. There is an in-built search engine.

Categories featured: Cultural life in the Republic of Macedonia (sub-categories: Music, Theatre, Performing Arts, Visual Arts, Film, Publishing, Literature, Popular Culture, Events, Projects, Festivals, Interviews, Cultural Monuments, Ethnology) and presentation of Macedonian culture abroad (with sub-categories: Events, Exhibitions, Macedonian artefacts in foreign museums, Amateur ensembles in international competitions).

Distribution takes place through its web-portal, occasional newsletters and queries upon request.

The target group are cultural operators, audience at cultural events, cultural institutions, the general public.

Editorial / Management

Editor in Chief – Gordana Gjorcevska

Editor/Coordinator of International Cooperation – Jasna Soptrajanova - Vrteva

Funding

Sporadic; initially the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Macedonia funded the entire production; later, it was sponsored by volunteer work of the portal team; two corporate sponsorships were obtained; it still relies primarily on volunteer work.

Contact:

info@culture.in.mk

goga@culture.in.mk

jasna@culture.in.mk

Culturenet.hr - Web centre of Croatian culture

www.culturenet.hr

Founder

The portal Culturenet.hr was launched as a common project of the Ministry of Culture of Croatia and the Open Society Institute – Croatia, and was accessible on the internet from 2001 to 2004. Since April 2004, the Ministry of Culture has continued to support and develop the project.

Description

Culturenet is a bilingual portal (Croatian / English) that aims to gather information resources of Croatian culture (organisations, associations, institutions, projects, initiatives, artists…), encourage further development of these resources, and enable cultural workers to find information and project partners in one place. The portal aims to improve cultural cooperation in Croatia and beyond, and to contribute to better communication between institutions and artists, including the general public.

Culturenet contains six main segments: 1) Still Gallery of Culture (audio-visual illustrations of cultural heritage and the contemporary art scene); 2) Panorama (overview of some segments of Croatian culture in time and space – reviews of eminent experts); 3) Culture Catalogue (the largest interactive database of Croatian cultural institutions, with advanced search options for different categories) 4) Cultural Events (annual calendar that can be searched by different criteria); 5) Info-service (information about current events, conferences, contests, and various other events relevant to cultural professionals); 6) See Also (contests, foundations; cultural statistics, international cultural centres in Croatia, European and international cultural networks, national cultural portals, cultural policies).

Culturenet relies on users' input through the web page, e-mailing lists (a daily newsletter in Croatian, and semi-weekly newsletter in English) and RSS feeds. Culturenet uses Web 2.0 based distribution technology.

Editorial / Management

Culturenet.hr is coordinated by the editor in chief, and each segment has a separate coordinator.

Funding

The Section of the Culturenet Project and the Ministry website are a part of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic Croatia, and are therefore financed from the state budget.

Contact

Culturenet Croatia/Ministry of Culture of the Republic Croatia

Runjaninova 2

10000 Zagreb, Croatia

info@culturenet.hr – Culturenet editorial team

deborah.hustic@min-kulture.hr - Deborah Hustić, English version editor

rafaela.petrovic@min-kulture.hr - Rafaela Petrović (Catalogue)

ivana.podnar@min-kulture.hr - Ivana Podnar (See Also/Useful),

nena.franicevic-zlatic@min-kulture.hr - Nena Franičević Zlatić (Festivals)

Evrokultura

www.evrokultura.org

EU Programmes for Cultural Operators

Founder

SCCA, the Center for Contemporary Arts – Ljubljana (www.scca-ljubljana.si), a non-governmental and non-profit organisation based in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Description

Evrokultura (Euroculture) is a web-based information resource available in the Slovenian language, and intended for culture operators or all those who are active in the field of culture and seek to obtain funding from various European Union programmes.

Evrokultura contains: listings with detailed information on various EU programmes available to the cultural sector; articles on good practice of EU funding in Slovenia; commented links to other websites that provide information on EU programmes; experts’ comments on new geopolitical and cultural-political conditions; reviews of publications in the field of EU programmes and cultural policies, as well as information on the mediation sector in culture; exclusive interactive thematic works of art: Umetnik Stane I, II, III.

Distribution of information takes place through an openly accessible online database on EU funding programmes, and case studies of good practice, including commented links to other information sources, as well as series of free public seminars on EU fund-raising.

Target group are cultural operators throughout Slovenia: producers, project managers, intermediaries, and analysts working in public organisations & NGOs.

Editorial / Management

The SCCA team and the Evrokultura editor make all important strategic decisions together.

Editor in chief: Mateja Lazar

Funding

The European Union, PHARE Small Projects Programme (2005), Government Public Relations and Media Office of the Republic of Slovenia (2005), Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia (thematic works of art).

Contact

SCCA, Center for Contemporary Arts – Ljubljana

Metelkova 6, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

T: + 386 1 4318385, F: + 386 1 4300629

urednistvo@evrokultura.org

Knjiga.hr - KIS ~ the Croatian Books Information System

www.knjiga.hr

Founder

Faust Vrančić d.o.o.

Description

The project aims to provide a better overview of all information and news from the book market, including information on available book titles, bookstores, publisher contacts, and to involve interested individuals to process information from the book market.

The project focuses on the book market with all its elements, such as: availability, sale, news. We are active primarily in the Republic of Croatia, but we disseminate news from the wider region as well.

Our database on books, publishers, authors and bookstores is updated daily. We publish daily news on books and the publishing industry in the world.

Target groups are publishers, booksellers, distributors, libraries, buyers and readers.

Distribution takes place through webpage www.knjiga.hr, a weekly e-newsletter sent to a growing number of users (there are currently 5,200 users).

Editorial / Management

Project manager: Valerij Jurešić

Funding

In the 2001-2004 period, the KIS project was co-financed by the Fund for Central and East European Book Projects (CEEBP), from Amsterdam, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Matra Programme), Open Society Institute - Croatia, and Next Page Foundation from Sofia.

Since 2007, the project has been partially financed by the Croatian Ministry of Culture, whereas the remaining funds (around 80%) are obtained through commercial activities.

Contact

kis@knjiga.hr

KULporter

www.kulporter.com

Founder

A youth non-governmental organization for the media, art and culture (NGO MUK) Laktaši, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Description

KULporter.com, a multicultural Bosnian e-magazine mainly focused on the promotion of cultural events in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and the region. It was launched after an extensive research showed that this kind of website did not exist in BiH.

Its founders, for years engaged in the NGO sector in BiH, realised the sorrowful fact that people, including youth, still live in a divided society. In order to become a part of the “healing” process, members of the NGO MUK Laktaši, have chosen the new media to rebuild the multicultural society that once existed. The main objectives and activities of the NGO MUK are: development of civil society through cultural events in BiH, connecting people from BiH and the region through the new media and the promotion of cultural, informative and multiethnic ideas in BiH and beyond, development of new, electronic and written media in BiH, promotion of gender equality by encouraging women to enter the media workplace (which is still male-dominant), organisation of youth awareness-raising campaigns about deviant behaviour in society, and humanitarian work with children and youth.

KULporter.com distributes its information via new media platforms, and uses print materials when necessary.

KULporter.com targets individuals involved in the NGO sector, and focuses on cultural activities for youth, including daily readers from the country, other regions and the diaspora.

Editorial / Management

Editor and manager: Tamara Pejčinović.

Funding

KULporter.com is currently funded and operated by the NGO for Media, Art and Culture Laktaši

Contact

Organization for Media, Art and Culture Laktaši

Branka Radičevića 7, 78 250 Laktaši

Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Phone: + 387 65 535 184

zlata.veselinovic@gmail.com

t.pejcinovic@gmail.com

www.ngomuk@wordpress.com

www.ngomuk.com

Portal Kulturpunkt.hr

http://www.kulturpunkt.hr

Founder

The Association of NGOs Clubture

Description

In the Croatian media landscape, cultural sections are losing their space, and even disappearing, while cultural topics are mostly, with a few media exceptions that unfortunately only confirm the rule, treated as (political) cases or (scandalous) excesses. Thus, a frequent editorial practice is to place some of these topics not on the pages of culture, but on the pages of more “juicy” sections meant for the broader masses. Even though culture as a whole faces the same treatment, the independent cultural scene has been pushed to the media margin.

In 2005, Clubture launched a portal, Kulturpunkt.hr, which has since then continuously covered the independent cultural scene and contemporary culture, and which has opened its space to citizens’ initiatives that are the forerunners of public advocacy, thus encouraging the adoption of responsible social and political decisions in Croatia, as well as greater participation of citizens in such decision-making. The portal focuses on youth culture, urban culture, social activism, new technologies, alternative economies, free software, etc.

Alongside the information service that continually reports news and announcements of events, the portal offers articles and interviews related to culture or contemporary phenomena of popular culture. There are also critical overviews of various cultural sections of daily newspapers, theoretical texts that provide insight into the cultural policies of South East Europe, and various types of contests.

Almost all contents are under the Creative Commons licence.

Editorial / Management

Project manager: Dea Vidović

Editorial team: Stjepan Jureković, Vatroslav Miloš, Dea Vidović (editor in chief)

Programming: Aleksandar Erkalović

Design: Tina Ivezić

Funding

Donators so far (2005-2008): The Office for Culture of the City of Zagreb; Open Society Institute – Croatia; Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia; Ministry of the Family, Veterans’ Affairs and Intergenerational Solidarity – Unit for Youth; National Foundation for Civil Society Development.

Contact

Association of NGOs Clubture/ Portal Kulturpunkt.hr

Svačićev trg 1, 10 000 Zagreb, Hrvatska

T: +385 1 45 72 591

F: +385 1 45 72 592

info@kulturpunkt.hr

PLAGIJAT - the new pine tree in the Macedonian internet woods
http://www.plagij.at

About:
plagij.at is the new pine in the Macedonian internet woods. Whole began in form of an internet magazine as a result of the friendship between few enthusiasts that were able to spot the constantly expanding void in the Macedonian urban culture.

Aims:
Improving the culture in the Republic of Macedonia
Promotion of the Macedonian culture and art outside the borders of the country
Archiving the products of Macedonian culture
Developing a civil society by promoting the different cultures and arts in the republic
Supporting sub-cultural movements that are resisting the kitsch and dominant values
To protect and promote various forms of creativity
To make conditions so that the culture can develop and prosper freely
Increase the awareness for the diversity of creativity and raise the level of consciousness for its value on local and national level
Create atmosphere for dialog between cultures in order to provide wider and equal cultural exchange which will lead to intercultural respect and peace.

Target groups:
Plagij.at during its 1,5 year existence managed to create its own devoted audience that is shown by daily unique visits. At the moment that number is approximately 750 visits every day. This number is constantly growing. The visitors read about 9,27 pages each visit. The loyalty of the readers is shown on the diagram below. 81, 74% of the regulars revisit the site of the magazine.
With the cooperation between our second media the magazine www.xmkd.com we managed to unite the extreme sports and the culture in one sub – culture scene. So far we have organized a large number of contests, sessions, music performances, as well as one festival of Macedonian independent music, which are aiming at a precise target group.
We managed to attract performers and spectators with ages ranging form 14 – 45 with various ethnic and religious backgrounds. Among the members of plagij.at there are enthusiasts form almost all of the larger towns in Macedonia, but also there are such that live and work abroad.

Management:
A group of ten people is responsible for the web site maintenance as well as the management of various plagij.at events that take place during the year. Every week there is a meeting at which we discuss and evaluate the functioning of the web site. Besides the ten people that make the core of plagij.at there is also a large number of correspondents (a number that is continuously expanding) and who also contribute to the development of the web site and its contents.

Financing:
The financing of plagij.at, or, more specifically the hosting and domain costs are covered by the people responsible for the web site from the membership fee gathered thought the year. Unfortunately, so far, none of the major, as well as the other companies have not been interested in providing sponsorship for the development of the site and the organization.

Contact:
contact@plagij.at
Pro[story]

www.pro-story.org

Founder

NGO Prostory, Podgorica

Description

The NGO Prostory was formed in 2004, in Podgorica, by respectable Montenegrin artists. The aims and tasks of the NGO are the following: keeping abreast and promotion of quality programmes, works and authors in the publishing field; promotion of current tendencies in the domain of books and culture in our country and the world; creation of programmes intended for the wide public, children, youth and citizens; establishment of links between non-institutional programs, authors and publishers, and raising educational, communication, artistic and professional standards in the country.

The most important projects that the NGO Prostory has realized since its foundation are the following: The Creative Wall, workshop Ice - Sculpturing, Bridges for Literature, Monitoring and Implementation of the Law on Authors' Rights in Montenegro, ActivART – Video Campaign for Montenegrin Culture, ArteVirtus - Blog Discussion, including participation in realization of the short feature film The Masks.

Information is disseminated through the web portal, press releases, media coverage of events and projects, various promotional material.

Target groups are artists, cultural audience, students, tourists, decision makers, local and state authorities.

Editorial / Management

Varja Đukić Popović – manager

Funding

The European Cultural Foundation, Pro Helvetia, USA Embassy in Podgorica, Ministry of Tourism of Montenegro.

Contact

Varja Đukić Popović

NGO “Prostory” Obala, Ribnice bb, 81000 Podgorica

T: +382 20 602 625

F: +382 20 602 626

prostory@cg.yu

Radio Student

www.radiostudent.si

Founder

The Association of Students of the University of Ljubljana

Description

Radiostudent.si is a portal of Radio Student, with a special part dedicated to the fields of art, culture, humanities and cultural politics. The genres range from short information extracts to long critical and theoretical texts.

Radio Student started broadcasting its programme in 1969, and from its beginnings it has been one of the few local asylums of alternative independent journalism and the only electronic media open to new waves in various fields of culture.

The basic principle of Radio Student editorial policy is to present items of information, art forms and music overlooked or ignored by other media. The primary principle of Radio Student programme policy is creation of a programme that does not conform to the taste of an average passive radio programme consumer, but aims to present its audience with serious themes in all fields of creative expression. Finally, in its programme, Radio Student supports the right to communication and a free flow of information and beliefs; it stimulates a creative manner of expression; contributes to democratic processes and pluralism of our society, and stimulates better understanding in support of peace, tolerance, democracy and progress.

The live programme of Radio Student can also be heard on the internet, as it is broadcast on its homepage in the mp3 format.

Editorial / Management

Director: Rok Kosec

Editor in chief: Tomaž Zaniuk

Contact

Zavod Radio Študent

Cesta 27. aprila 31, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

T: + 386 1 24 28 800

rs@radiostudent.si

SEEcult.org Portal for South-East European Culture

http://www.seecult.org

Founder

NGO SEEcult.org

Description

SEEcult.org is a developmental, informative-educational, and presentation-documentary platform for South-East Europe culture and art, established in 2003, with the aim to inform, present and incite development of an open cultural and artistic scene in the region, its integration into Europe, and international promotion. Its aim is to help cultural institutions, artists and artistic organizations to plan and exchange production, present their creative works, participate more actively on the regional, European and the world scene, and to encourage the exchange of ideas, development of critical standpoints, and overcoming of stereotypes.

Besides daily updated news about events, cultural policies, open calls, debates and various projects (in Serbian and partly in English), SEEcult.org has an Events Calendar, Photo Galleries, Artists’ Gallery (photographs / reproduction of art works of selected artists), Forum, Blog, E-books, searchable archive, and special tools for users (webmail, content participation tools…).

Target groups are professionals in the fields of art and culture, as well as the general public.

Distribution takes place via a daily newsletter and the mailing list of the regional media. The new website, to be launched by end-2008, is fully web 2.0 optimised, and enables much greater interaction of users, as well as profile presentations of artists and cultural institutions, and provides other opportunities for the creation and distribution of content on the globally most popular social web networks as well.

Editorial / Management

Editor-in-chief: Miroljub Mima Marjanović

Director and project manager: Vesna Milosavljević

Funding

Belgrade City Council

Ministry of Culture of Serbia

Goethe-Institute Belgrade / Stability Pact for SEE

Private and commercial sponsors

Contact

27. marta Street 26, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia

Miroljub Mima Marjanović

T: + 381 11 3238 224, + 381 64 1535 321

Vesna Milosavljević

T: + 381 63 214 893

info@seecult.org

Stacion.org
www.stacion.org
Established in 2006 by artist Albert Heta and architect Vala Osmani, Stacion Center for Contemporary Art today is a structure of artists, architects, thinkers, critics and other cultural workers committed in reflecting and responding on relevant challenges of the contemporary society with an active, critical and emancipatory approach.
Designed to challenge, emancipate and advance the practice of the art scene and confront the present context, Stacion Center for Contemporary Art functions as an open platform that employs strategies to build up a dialogue with a differentiated public with clear social and political intents; encourage artistic practice to be in direct discourse with the developments in social, political and intellectual spheres and create conditions where contemporary art and thought can happen.
We are committed to re-creation of the necessary momentum for the advance and emancipation of the contemporary art scene and cultural environment of Kosova.
Station Center for Contemporary Art focuses on culture including the visual arts, design and architecture, locally-rooted practice as well as regional, European and international processes.
Contact:
Era Krasnici
erakrasniqi@stacion.org
Prishtine, Kosovo

START Montenegro – event guide
www.startmontenegro.com

Founder and Owner
Marina Kornicer & Milena Luketić - MM Agency d.o.o. Kotor
Description
Startmontenegro.com is a web portal aiming to gather all the information regarding cultural events in Montenegro. The web site is a logical continuation of the START Montenegro magazine - printed monthly event guide. The web site has been active since November 2008.
Events Calendar has powerful search instruments that leads you to the latest and always updated information regarding vast number of cultural events in all Montenegrin municipalities. The Calendar is updated on daily basis - that is a guarantee for all the visitors that the given information is valid and accurate.
Besides Events Calendar, there are other segments regarding art, culture and fun in Montenegro. The address book offers contacts of relevant Montenegrin cultural institutions and can be searched by different criteria. According to the development plan of Startmontenegro.com, the site will be enriched with more interactive content, offering its visitors a space to comment on cultural life in Montenegro and participate in the creation of the web site itself.
Main target group of the web site is very vast - all those who wish to spend their free time in an interesting and nice manner. Startmontenegro.com is an important support for all the cultural operators in Montenegro. It is an important and effective channel of communication with broad public, aiming to inform about cultural events, promote and support them.
Editorial / Management
Marina Kornicer – program manager
Milena Luketić – editor in chief
Funding
Owners founds. Advertising.
Contact
Milena Luketic – editor in chief
redakcija@startmontenegro.com
cell: +382 68 838 871
Marina Kornicer – director and program manager
marketing@startmontenegro.com
cell: +382 68 838 873

Teatar.hr

www.teatar.hr

Founder

Teatar.hr is owned by the publishing company Bofor-art.

Description

Teatar.hr is a daily on-line news magazine dedicated to performing arts. Its focus is international, although a large number of news posted come from the region.

Apart from the magazine, Teatar.hr maintains the largest digital database of theatre plays in the region, with listings, contents and photos of each professional performance in Croatia, as well as a digital address book of all performing arts festivals and professional theatre companies in the country.

Using the web 2.0 technologies, Teatar.hr distributes its daily news via RSS and FeedBurner services to around 60,000 readers a month.

Its target groups are performing arts audience in general, theatre professionals, researchers, students…

Editorial / Management

A five-member editorial board, and its founder and editor in chief is Nora Krstulović.

Funding

Teatar.hr is financed mainly from the owner’s funds. Since 2007, it has been receiving some financial support from the City of Zagreb.

Contact

Nora Krstulović, editor

Zagreb, Croatia

T: +385 91 323 40 16

nora@teatar.hr

About

2007-10-29T18:33:00.003+01:00

inSEEcp

Informal Network of SEE Cultural Portals
http://inseecp.blogspot.com
http://inseecp.wordpress.com/
inseecp@gmail.com

Contents
About InSEEcp
1.1. Network of cultural portals: profile, management, members, funding
1.2 Context
1.3 Objectives and aims
1.4. History: regional workshops
Activities 2008
1.1   On-line
1.2   Off-line
Future
Networking: Why and how to joins us?
1. About inSEEcp
1.1. Network of cultural portals: profile, management, members, funding

Profile

The Informal Network of SEE Cultural Portals (inSEEcp) is a result of two regional workshops of cultural portals (Belgrade 2006 and 2007), organised by SEEcult.org with the support of the Goethe-Institute Belgrade, and is the first initiative of that kind in the countries of former Yugoslavia. Regarding the importance of digital culture and common problems, as well as fast development of web technology generally, the network is needed for joint on-line and off-line advocacy in culture in internet, enabling and strengthening free flow of information of diverse regional scenes, as well as for improving professional and technical skills by exchanging information and experiences, with the aim to support and promote quality culture production and to gain wide audience.

Management
inSEEcp is at the moment the informal network with a horizontal management structure. In the process of formalization the network will be managed by working groups:
a) networking group dealing with common projects and further networking;
b) technological group dealing with web development;
c) cultural policy group dealing with counseling and advocacy;
d) fundraising group.
Each group is run by the coordinator, who informs and reports of the activities the whole network. The network itself is managed by the temporary director/head, who is voted for the chair with a 6 month mandate. During his/her presidency, the headoffice of the network is situated at the address of his organisation.

Members of informal network

inSEEcp is the initiative of KULporter.com (Bosnia and Hercegovina); Kulturpunkt.hr, Culturelink.hr, Culturenet.hr, Knjiga.hr, Teatar.hr (Croatia); Culture.in.mk (Macedonia); Artservis.org, Evrokultura.org, Radiostudent.si (Slovenia); SEEcult.org (Serbia). The participating countries are from the same former Yugoslavia region, with similar languages and cultural, social and political history. The members are representatitives of NGO organisations, as well of governmental institutions (Culturenet.hr is a portal of Croatian Ministry for Culture). All members are multidisciplinary working mostly in the field of arts and culture and are engaged to develop civil society in its local and national milieu. They have strong international connections and are members of different networks. The network is addressed to editorial teams of its members, cultural operators working in/with/from all cultural circles (state institutions, alternative non-profit centers, public spaces, NGOs, individuals, artists’ associations, enterprises, companies, foundations, governments, embassies, media, other portals etc.) in SEE region and Europe at whole.

New members are Pro-story.org (Montenegro) and Stacion.org (Kosovo), and in a process of joining are Montenegrina.net and Startmontenegro.com (Montenegro), Plagij.at (Macedonia), Creemaginet.com (Serbia)…

Funding

The network does not recieve any operating grant to co-finance expenditure associated with the permanent activities. Two unsuccessful aplications has been carried out in 2007 and 2008 at the European Cultural Foundation. However, the members of the network managed to get project based support for two alreday implemented regional workshops and another two planned in autumn and the end of 2008 in Belgrade (the Goethe Institute / Stability Pact for SEE) and the meeting in Ljubljana (Governement Comunication Office of the Republic of Slovenia).

1.2. Context

Up to the end of the nineties, culture and art scene in former Yugoslavia was quite developed in comparison with other Eastern European countries. Nowadays the major deficiencies of the state cultural policy in most of the countries are non-transparency, non-defined criteria, considerably low state budget for arts and culture, with bad taxation policy (tax deduction) that does not stimulate sponsorship… In the period of transition from socialistic system to liberal economy the cultural state institutions, and especially, non-profit organizations and artists in most of the countries in region are generally in disadvantaged position. Also, there are some differences between IT capacity in countries in region, which are now, after war time during 90’s, in different phases of democratic transition process and postwar reconciliation, and also in different phases of the process of European integration, with Slovenia as an EU member.

1.3. Objectives and aims

Regarding the importance of digital culture and portals as a new kind of cultural infrastructure, inSEEcp network of cultural portals is needed as unique platform for joint on-line and off-line actions for advocacy in culture in internet, improving our professional and technical skills, make influence on decisions made by policymakers in the cultural sector, as well as for contributing for cross border cooperation, multiculturalism and other diversities in region, making regional culture and art more visible on European and global level and confirming its European identity.

inSEEcp wants to:

- Emphasis the importance of digital culture and portals as a new kind of cultural infrastructure. Improve the situation of digital culture in region (infrastructure, legal issues, cultural policy…).

- Improve cultural cross border cooperation within SEE and its neighbourhood countries, including connections of non-traditional partners.

- Affirm culturally deprived zones and express the diversity of region within Europe, as well as its European identity.

- Improve possibilities for art for social change, policy development and capacity building in culture.

- Build capacity for joint actions of the network, i.e. training and workshops (improving technical skills, exchanging experiences, establishing web tools…) and further online networking and operating in digital culture, i.e. web site/blog as a domain for regional network of cultural portals.

- Joint activities for advocacy in culture (collecting and presenting individual comments and experiences, reacting in public in certain circumstances regarding culture issues…).

- Involve artists and cultural experts in the innovative and dynamic process of information-share and new methods and forms of collaboration.·

- Bring new audience to our portals, as well as our network, as an example of structural cooperation in culture.

- Broaden partnership in other countries in region.

1.4. History: regional workshops

First acquaintance of the editors of cultural portals, members of inSEEcp, took place in Dubrovnik, on the occasion of Second International Round Table Cultural Portals: A New Era of Cooperation, organized by Culturemondo.org in October 2006. The meeting offered a unique opportunity for cultural portal experts to enhance their working practices, to recognize emerging trends and to exchange experience.

The Informal Network of South-East European Cultural Portals - inSEEcp was later on founded in November 2006 in Belgrade as the result of the first regional meeting and workshop of the representatives of key cultural portals from the region of former Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Serbia). The workshop Culture on the Internet / Networking Participants in the Cultural Domain in South-East Europe through Specialized Internet Portals, was followed with the second workshop in December 2007, also in Belgrade, and other various activities of the founding members, including the inSEEcp’s blog as a joint platform for further various on-line and off-line actions for advocacy in culture on internet and cross-border cooperation, as well as for broadening the network.

Regional workshop of cultural portals No.1, Belgrade 2006

The first workshop of regional cultural portals, held on November 27-29, 2006 in Belgrade, and organized by Belgrade based SEEcult.org portal for the SEE culture, with the support of the Goethe Institute Belgrade. Among the participants was N-ost.de portal and, as moderator, representative of Germany's major independent online cultural magazine Perlentaucher.de and its English service Signandsight.com. As part of the workshop also was held a panel discussion on the theme Significance of Culture Portals, which brought together representatives of state institutions, cultural institutions, the university, artist groups and artists, media, net-activists and other professionals from culture portal’s target groups, as well as public.

Regional workshop of cultural portals No.2, Belgrade 2007

The second workshop of cultural portals from the SEE region was held on December 3-4, 2007 in Magacin Culture Centre in Belgrade, organized again by SEEcult.org with the support of the Goethe-Institut Belgrade, and bringing together the most active members of the inSEEcp in order to assess the results of joint activities and plan the agenda for 2008. Among the participants, beside the representatives of the inSEEcp’s members (Culturenet.hr, Kulturpunkt.hr (Croatia); Artservis.org, Evrokultura.org (Slovenia); SEEcult.org (Serbia), was also Anja Seeliger, founding member of Parlentaucher.de and Signandsight.com. Reviewing joint activities between two workshops, participants from region agreed on network’s name inSEEcp, discussed about drafts of possible joint projects and possibilities to apply on several open calls due to need to find basic financial resources for further activities. The conclusions were presented at the panel discussion on the theme Culture policy and Internet - SEE region and Europe, moderated by the Goethe-Institute Belgrade’s director Jutta Gehrig. All participants presented situation in their countries, which again attracted significant interest of public, as well as print, electronic and Internet media.

2. Activities 2008
2.1. On-line
inSEEcp blog (www.inseecp.blogspot.com, www.inseecp.wordpress.com)

A communication tool for network’s members and web presentation for public with editorial articles on common themes (cultural policy, web 2.0, cultural portals vs. commercial/tabloid web media, language question, cultural tourism…), testimonials of selected intellectuals from the region regarding importance of culture in Internet and special columns (art residency, art market…).

2.2. Off-line
Re-Network!, Ljubljana, 12 June 2008

International conference on networking in the cultural sector and stimulating transnational cooperation and free flow of information aims to to find out how “old” and “new” cultural networks manage the problem of free flow of information especially if relevant to transnational cooperation. Among the participants Vesna Milosavljević (SEEcult.org, inSEEcp) for the first time presented inSEEcp in front of the international audience.

inSEEcp meeting, Ljubljana, 12–13 June 2008

The meeting in Ljubljana was focused on a process of network's formalization and building capacity for presenting diversity of SEE culture through the regional network of cultural portals

inSEEcp workshop No.3, Belgrade, October 2008

The possibilities of web 2.0 for inSEEcp's members and possibilities of joint projects, further networking and cooperation with inSEEcp’s members.

inSEEcp Conference, Belgrade, December 2008

A regional panel discussions on cultural policy and Internet, importance of web 2.0 development and possibilities of improving cooperation on regional and European level.

3. Future
inSEEcp plans to:
- Improve organizational and structural capacities of inSEEcp (rotating coordination of activities, projects and fundraising).
- Look for new potential inSEEcp’s members from participating countries and from the rest of region (Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania…).

4. Networking: Why and how to join?

inSEEcp is trying to improve cooperation between cultural portals in SEE, due to a fact that there is a lack of free flow of information relevant for the cultural sector in former Yugoslavia, despite the fact that all portals in region have similar activities, aims and target groups. At the same time, all cultural portals in region need further optimization toward new possibilities that are enabled by web 2.0 development.

Members will improve its professional skills through offline activities (workshops, panel discussions and joint activities) and online collaboration, which also contributes to the internationalization of the diverse regional cultural and art scene, enabling also the reverse process - promotion of contemporary world trends in the region.

Mapping of potential members is carried out by already participating members and is at the moment formed as informal invitation, addressed to relevant national cultural portals. No membership fee is required, an interest and a willingness to participate at the joint activities are more than welcome.

FAQ

2006-11-04T18:48:00.000+01:00

FAQ about South-East European region

More info soon!