description, argument, subjective, specific, personal history, collective history:
Caroline
Caroline
In this chapter and in chapter 4, I will discuss two case studies: The Galactic Hacker Party (GHP) in chapter 3 and the Seropositive Ball (0+ball) in chapter 4. The introduction that follows below,
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methodology, specific, general history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
Before describing the cases I will first sketch the context in which they were conceived. Each case study is what I will call a networked event. A networked event is an event in which people gather
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specific, general history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
The contexts of the case studies can be discerned in the climate of Amsterdam at the time, and especially in the 'underground' popular culture of music and art and design from which certain practices
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description, specific, general history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
Culture requires a certain infrastructure out of which the culture can evolve. Apart from the sharing of time a culture also needs an infrastructure consisting of spaces, tools, raw materials and a
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description, general history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
Amsterdam, the capital of the social democracy of the Netherlands, had a marked climate of tolerance at the time; for centuries, and till the present day, migrants have found their way to Amsterdam
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description, concept, methodology, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
The two case studies were produced in the context of Paradiso and in collaboration with many other partners in Amsterdam and abroad. It was possible to build the networked events because there was a
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description, collective history, general history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
The GHP and the 0+Ball were two of the first events in a range of gatherings, and an inspiration to networks that still exist today like Nettime , a collection of moderated mailing lists in several
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description, specific, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
Paradiso has been one of the key podia in Amsterdam for new cultures, a musical venue of international reputation over the last few decades. It has been a catalyst in cultural developments by staging
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The culture and tradition of Paradiso guarantee a quality and a certain edge. As a producer I would use the fact that Paradiso is perceived as a special place when funding and inviting guests to
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description, collective history, general history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
Paradiso is a former church in the centre of Amsterdam, which was squatted in 1968 note 82 . Since the early days music and debate from the current of the time have been performed there. Stars from
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description, concept, methodology, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
To understand why certain programmes are successful I turn to the distinction that is made between space and place in the variety of social sciences. In general terms space is used for the literal
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description, concept, personal history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
Developments in media and modern art, including the performing arts, deeply influence how the visitors will perceive and experience the place. I worked in Paradiso for 11 years. In those years the
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description, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
A place like Paradiso is a continually formative influence on people. I personally learned a tremendous amount, but also these events 'educated' a new generation of cultural programmers. The Hack-Tic
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description, methodology:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
When discussing this text with Pierre Ballings, Jan Willem Sligting and Jan Dietvorst, all still working in Paradiso, we considered the underlying methodologies.
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description, methodology, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
Pierre Ballings emphasized that the production process of Paradiso is 'content-driven'. As a result the editing, the marketing, the guests (musicians or others) and the potential audience are
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description, methodology, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
Sligting, the musical artistic director of Paradiso, elaborates further on this approach. Paradiso does not just want to be a hall one can use, it wants to create real events. And for that to happen
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description, methodology, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
Jan Dietvorst, an independent visual artist and programmer of special lectures and modern classical concerts in Paradiso, who was also present at both networked events that I will discuss, emphasizes
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description, concept, methodology, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
In 1989 the goal of designing networked events, including the applications that were developed, was to create meaningful interactions between its participants. Meaningful is meant to be understood
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argument, collective history:
Democratic politics is concerned with issues that require organization of a public, and the modification of democratic spaces, if they are to be addressed. Accordingly, all sort of ideals,
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description, general history, stories, theory, Parresia:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
For such political spaces to work they have to give people an experience, as was my conviction in 1989. Having studied social sciences at the University of Amsterdam in the 1980s, my perception and
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description, argument:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
It is like organizing a party. The infrastructure has to be there, one can put a lot of care into extra ingredients like food, an aesthetically-pleasing, exciting environment, music, maybe even a
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description, methodology, personal history, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
The way a networked event, which happens in the public domain, is evaluated is very different to how a scientific experiment is evaluated. People sense and feel and discuss. Audience response is not
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description, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
To create good infrastructures is an art in itself. It requires a lot of technical insights about technology, finance and the behaviour of crowds. It also demands an understanding of cultures at
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description, methodology, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
When creating a networked event, one is also designing time. Dramatic events change our sense of time. A minute of pain or a minute of a daily bicycle ride feel very different in duration. Time can
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description, concept, argument:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
When designing a party, an event, or an application simple questions become hugely important: how to enter, how to identify, how to meet, how to show yourself, how to leave traces, how to find
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description, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
It was dark in Paradiso in early August 1989. The light of computer screens created a blue fluorescent mood. Off to the right-hand side, in the middle of the floor of the main hall, we had built 'the
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description, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
We had worked for several months to make this happen together with Rop Gonggrijp note 92 and Patrice Riemens note 93 . Meeting the Chaos Computer Club note 94 from Hamburg was an inspiration, as
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description, personal history, collective history, techno-biography:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
The source material for this case study consists of several kinds of publications. There are the proceedings, published by Paradiso and Hack-Tic, there is the press coverage in national and
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description, collective history, general history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
In the press the issues of the new computer era, which were raised by the GHP, were sketched convincingly. Hackers want to show that systems are not safe and help companies and governments to make
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description, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
At the end of January 1989 the editors of the GHP, Rop Gonggrijp, Patrice Riemens, Marieke Nelissen note 99 and myself decided to go ahead and create a large computer show in the summer. Possible
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description, collective history
"During the summer of 1989 the world as we know it will go into overload. An interstellar particle stream of hackers, phonephreaks, radioactivists and assorted technological subversives will be
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description, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
The same week a more formal Paradiso press release concerning the ICATA '89 stated the following:
On August 2, 3 & 4 1989, a large gathering of technologically minded people will assemble in
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description, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
In the months following these announcements many connections were made, people approached us and we approached people, including bodies like UNESCO. All communication that was exchanged in these
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description:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
On the first day 140 three-day passes were sold for fl 25,00 note 102 each and 154 one-day tickets for fl 10,00 each. The second day we sold 284 one-day tickets, and on the third day another 315
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description, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
The formal programme was orchestrated in the large auditorium at Paradiso. Debates, supported by presentations on the big screen were programmed in a linear fashion. The programme would start at 10
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description, personal history, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
In the small auditorium was the hack room. Participants were invited to bring their computer and hook it up to the network. Incoming computers were registered but these records have not been kept.
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The internal network during the GHP was based on a SUN machine, on which Unix was installed. This SUN machine was placed in one of the dressing rooms of Paradiso and only 'our' systems operators, who
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description, collective history, stories:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
The 'edit group' was located in a dressing room next to the server room and had regular problems posting its work on the GHP net. The edit group consisted of Geert Lovink, Geke van Dijk, Gert de
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description, argument, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
In Wellington New Zealand a group of about 30 people gathered for all three days. They had installed dedicated lines of communication with the GHP. Professor Hamelink note 105 and Professor Boafo
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Each of the three days had a theme through which both the hacker community as well as the the social, business, political and scientific community would be triggered.
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description, argument, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
The first day was "To byte or not to byte", about the relationship between man and machine . An animation of Max Headroom opened the conference, after which Captain Crunch opened the
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description, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
The second day at the GHP focused on "$$, secrets & the right to information". note 116
The three-day programme stated: "This day will be about the complex relationship between
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The morning was supposed to be taken up with an in depth talk by Professor Hamelink, Professor Boafo and their students about the relationship between the northern and the southern hemisphere as
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concept, argument, personal history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
In the Foreword to the conference proceedings on 5 October 1989 I wrote:
"Through combining these audiences, we assumed that the overall effect of those three days in August could be more
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concept, argument, personal history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
The fact that as organizers of the GHP, we were actually connecting in person with most of the guests and contacts, made the conference and the meeting point of real value to most people
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argument, subjective, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
This trustworthiness becomes even more important when one wants to work together online, make live connections, get hardware installed in a place where one is not present and have people actually
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argument, subjective, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
At the GHP I was actually surprised so many times by the trust people placed in each other, which became clear to me because people put a lot of effort into trying to make connections work. It was a
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argument, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
One thing that did not take place at the GHP was a videoconference between Paradiso and Siggraph in Washington and some people in San Francisco. Despite the fact that I have more than 30 pages of
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concept, argument, conclusion:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
The fact that I called this section trustworthiness instead of just trust implies an interaction. Trust is not a given, it is something that evolves out of an interaction. In this interaction, which
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concept, conclusion:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
At the GHP we succeeded in making links with Moscow because Captain Crunch was already their friend; we did succeed in connecting to South Africa and Brazil because the people there were in the
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description, argument, subjective, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
Once the programme had been drawn up, we had to reach out for our audience. It is a question of finding the right tone in the right places. The imagery (Max Kisman made the poster in which you see a
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concept, argument, stories, theory:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
The notion of 'social interface' was elaborated upon at Performing Arts Labs (UK) in 1994. Performing Arts Labs (PAL) had invited about 20 people from all over Europe who had been creating events in
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argument, conclusion, theory:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
In the variety of cultures humankind has developed many strategies for assessing the truth. Many are based on the unity of time, place, action and presence of another person. To marry, to buy a
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collective history, stories:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
An interesting example, which underscores the need for social interfaces to convey trust in mediated environments, is a current policy change by the Dutch Rabobank in Amsterdam. As is the case with
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description, concept, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
Two weeks before the event the doorbell rang in Paradiso. At the door was Charly Jungbauer. "I guess you are in trouble having promised this network, and so on, I like it, I will make your
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description, argument, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
Before the GHP, Paradiso had an Ethernet installed in the building, at the time this was already quite something. The Ethernet connected several locations in the large auditorium, the cellar and the
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argument, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
The people who were reporting in the edit group were all social scientists and/or journalists. The gap between the edit group and the tech guys was huge. In the proceedings there is lots of
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argument, conclusion, theory:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
When I was preparing for the GHP I was working closely with people who knew how to operate computers at the time. During my studies at the University of Amsterdam I had had computer training, having
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concept, argument:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
In 1955, J.L. Austin formulated the notion of 'performativity' in a series of lectures at Harvard University. They were published in the book "How to do things with words". One can use the
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description, concept, argument:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
On that first day a man who we did not know walked into Paradiso with a picture-phone. OK said Crunch, 'lets see our Russian friends, they have a picture phone as well'... 45 minutes later the blurb
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description, argument, subjective, collective history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
This picture-phone connection was not documented in the proceedings, nor was it announced in the programme. It did not crop up in any of the production schemes, but Rop Gonggrijp reports on it in his
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description, argument, collective history, general history:
Caroline Nevejan
Caroline
Because I was curious to find out what I had actually witnessed I did some research via the Internet in the spring of 2006 and found that in hindsight this 'accidental' connection was part of a much
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In the Wau-Pengo debate Pengo argued that the difference between intelligence and commercial enterprise was not that great. The story of the San Francisco Moscow Teleport shows in hindsight that both
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