Re: [-empyre-] Synaesthesia, with James Patterson, Amit Pitaru, and Joel Swanson

[<dv@vilt.net>]

hm i think this is putting it rather too negative, perhaps simplistic

1. projects like these, see http://www.vilt.net/nkdee/benevolencija/index.jsp
make extensive use of new media as an infrastructural means to create the actual means transmitted by radio . I have been involved with a similar project in 1999 aimed at broadcasting radio where the use of streaming .ra files was essential to the production output of the project. Without "new media" nothing would have been possible.

2. the same project shows that "culture" is to be seen as a vital and even life-saving element in the approaches to development issues. denying this would boil down to refusing to acknowledge that

3. who are we to say what people actually need?  there's an ongoing discussion on this by experts in the field that i would not reduce to such statements, one of the points to consider is that a way to bridge the technological divide is refusing to dump older equipement in places where investing in current cutting edge technology or even prototyping technology would be recommended

4. you do not need to understand  which culture produced a television to watch it ( i'll refrain from more pertinent examples)

greetings,
dv


-----Original message-----
From: "G.H. Hovagimyan" ghh@thing.net
Date: Thu, 04 May 2006 08:39:30 +0200
To: soft_skinned_space empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Synaesthesia, with James Patterson, Amit Pitaru,and Joel Swanson

> gh comment:
> 
> Poor people may be vaguely interested in new media but they are more  
> interested in not staving to death or being displaced by wars and  
> natural disasters. The best third world use of new media is the  
> Moslem extremists who use the internet as a propoganda and recruiting  
> tool. While the other side of the digital divide, the have nots, may  
> want the technology, they neither want nor understand the cultures  
> that have produced it. After all, we are talking about using new  
> media as a tool for cultural transmission.
> 
> 
> On Apr 11, 2006, at 9:46 PM, jennifer.gunther@gmail.com wrote:
> 
> > Potential viewers without the
> > advantages of these technologies... what do they do? Come to the show
> > and see the installation?
> 
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