Betreff:  	 Re: GATEways collaboration : concepts
Datum:	       Thu, 24 Feb 2000 20:43:01 +0100
Von:		 Martin Breindl 
An:	  	  gateways 

The main topic is pointed out in our concept paper: *GATEways is a topographical
project dealing with space in which various cultures go through a change of 
location. Dislocation, assimilation and cultural diversity are the main topics.
Actual local sites, which (can) act as intercultural passages ("GATEways") 
become intersections of a global acoustic network, which in itself is a gateway.
Locally bound soundscapes enter data pathways, travelling to other spaces. 
The idea of boundaries based on the stability of the locations collapses, 
wiping away the borders between them.*

This has two reasons: First, since the beginning of our net-activities we always
have had a strong interest in transcultural phenomena. We are of the firm 
conviction that progression in social life, science and art (and anything else) 
can only be achieved by open-minded approaches towards, interchanges of ideas 
with and interaction between people of various cultural backgrounds, which (re)act 
out of deep respect for the very variety of cultures. We deny the necessity of 
closed borders (physical or psychological ones), which obstruct interchanges 
between cultures. Global network systems like the WWW are a great possibility 
to establish intercultural communication, if worked out by people of social competence.

Second: Our On Site location is the Siebenbrunnenplatz. It is located in the 
center of 5th district, which is the district with the highest population-rate 
of foreign people in whole Vienna (official number: 27%). The district is cut in 
half by Reinprechtsdorfer Strasse, which is an almost accurate borderline between 
*middle class* (or petty bourgeois) society area and space of multicultural 
character. In the latter you can find places which seem to be translocated from 
somewhere else. Like Turkish cafes: they are not Turkish cafes in Vienna, but 
they are really *in Turkey*. You enter a remote place, when you walk through 
the door. Siebenbrunnenplatz is like a Gateway in between these two-faced district 
- and (because it was completely reworked during the last two years) is at the 
same time still an empty hole, without life - a huge projection space.

Into this space we want (wih your kind cooperation) project possibility worlds. 
As translocated atmospheres (see above) are all around, we want to extend this 
theme into public space (for thre is not much of this life in public space in 
Vienna). So in principle GATEways is a soundscape project, but soundscapes are 
always a matter of individual perception - so we would be strongly interested in 
developing individual-based approaches towards that. With all diversification one 
can think of.

We have been working on GATEways since last fall. It did not emerge from political 
impetus, but - unfortunately for us, as things changed - became one with, simply 
because of its underlying theme. Our conviction (as stated above) does not allow 
us to make *business as usual*, nor does it allow to withdraw from the project 
itself - as this would be the best argument for certain people to cut down projects 
like this.

Betreff: 		2 thoughts on the gateways vienna sound concept
Datum: 		Fri, 03 Mar 2000 17:42:35 +0100
Von: 		Norbert Math 
An: 		gateways 

1 sound islands / 2 multilayered - sound exchange

1. a multichannel audio system forms 10 acoustic islands along the 7brunnenplatz. 
depending on the volume, there will be times when the sound will not be audible 
from one island to another. because the place is quite noisy the sound will even 
sometimes disappear into the overall soundscape - but sometimes it will also take 
over from the ground noise and impose its own "alien" soundscapes over it. the 
vienna sound installation will be strongly denoted by time parameters - the 
"conductor" being a simple but powerful multichannel delay system routing 
sounds to the different sound "islands" - with varying delaytimes from 0 to approx 
100 seconds. the delay system will be fed from different sources - 2 open mics on 
the place itself, soundscapes and pieces from the collaborating groups, pieces 
taken from sound recordings and interviews which we made beforehand.

2. (...) there has to be a relationship between the different streams. what worked 
out best was using streams that were originated from the same material. when the 
different locations share some sound material it makes it possible to understand 
what the different people do with it and how it is changed on its way across the 
continents. therefore i want to focus more deeply into this principle - i propose 
to give access to you other groups to different steps of our sound processing - 
beginning from the bare material through the processing and editing up to the 
"finished" pieces. this gives the choice for everybody on which level of sound 
manipulation s/he wants to interfere or use it in her/his own work. this approach 
could be useful for both the radiojams and the installation.

Betreff: 		Re: just to let you know
Datum: 		Wed, 1 Mar 2000 20:29:59 +0100
Von: 		"Gordan Paunovic" 
An: 		

just to add a little mess from belgrade side...
actually b92 being such an internationally famous media brand name:) has got an 
invitation from AMARC (international association of local radio stations) to handle 
a part of their big programme dedicated to 21 march, anti-racism day which could 
be maybe nice but it is now a hellova nightmare for me - as i have already made 
a small scenario and collected some nice music and documentary material having 
in mind only GATEways when it turned out i have to split myself to two pieces 
(not impossible - 50 kg each) and to send one to rome, another will stay in 
belgrade so everything stays in control ....

anyway this means that b92 will come up with independent concept that will serve 
both purposes at the same time - hope this is not a problem (actually as more 
people will be now involved it will result in more diversity and creativity...for 
a mutual benefit i hope).


Betreff: 		Re: just to let you know
Datum: 		Thu, 02 Mar 2000 02:14:29 +0100
Von: 		johannes sienknecht 
An: 		gateways@alien-productions.mur.at

now it's a little bit clearer what we are able to do and what we will do in 
erfurt/weimar. there are some new people in the project and the technical questions 
are (nearly*)solved. the radiostation radioF.R.E.I will broadcast different works 
related to GATEways at the 21.03.

people of "Adefra" and "EGO" (erfurt) will do artistic performances at radioFREI 
and they will organize an event in the public space, where they will perform, too. 
there will be different connections between the work in the radio and in the public 
space. "Adefra" is an organisation of and for women especially(but not only) of 
and for black women and migrants. EGO(Erfurt GroundOrganisation) is of the youth 
- and eventually they will perform progressive hiphop.

we have a room made of glas in weimar at the roof of an old factorybuilding 
(6'th floor). there will be a soundinstallation. the sound will be composed in 
realtime of the recordings  of 48 tongues, speaking one sentence as a translation, 
transformation of one (nomore) original sentence, of naturesounds recorded  in 
weimar and buchenwald (10km from weimar), and of sounds coming out of your streams.

in this room we will also have the server for streaming the sound of radioF.R.E.I 
and of the installation. the installation will start when the sun is rising - we 
can see the sunrise and the sunset from there. hopefully we will have some discussions 
at the limona - may with some people which will start to participate in the 
project, soon.


Betreff: 		Re: kunstradio live tonight
Datum: 		Sun, 19 Mar 2000 22:02:27 +0100
Von: 		"Gordan Paunovic" 
An: 		

dear all,

as usual, belgrade arrives at the last moment, but here we are!

for tonite show there is a static file of "Voice of Roma" show in roma and serbian 
language - hot issues, racism against roma people and lots of their music. hope 
that you can use something. you will easily find it at the page there.

it is both possible to download or stream the file as per your requirements.

our tuesday netcast will consists of several "Voice of Roma" shows so i think 
it will be interesting thing for a public space in vienna, especially having in 
mind a number of serbian roma people in vienna.

also please pay a visit to some roma locations linked from our GATEways page, 
they consist of some very interesting material.

Betreff: 		steet (e)scape | background information
Datum: 		Sun, 19 Mar 2000 17:20:12 +1100
Von: 		andrew garton 
An: 		gateways 

steet (e)scape - commerce descends Lygon, Brunswick and Smith Streets, Melbourne.

an audio documentary by andrew garton / Toy Satellite / for GATEways.

Throughout Melbourne's history Bohemian culture has found its home in the multicultural 
streets of Carlton, Fitzroy and Collingwood. Marked by government housing apartments, 
these suburbs have been common destinations for migrants in particular Vietnamese, 
Chinese, Greek, Italian and to a lesser extent some middle eastern communities. 
This mix of languages and traditions has attracted writers, artists, musicians 
and poets since the 60s.

In the past two decades these areas have become synonymous with significant increases 
in property values, particularly rent, both residential and commercial. Despite 
the fact that the inhabitants of government housing found in these areas, people 
who live on the fringes of the poverty line, commerce has descended and is laying 
waste to the culture that has stimulated so much creative activity here.

In the 60s Lygon Street, Carlton, dominated the theatre and visual arts with its 
band of writers and painters, many of whom frequented the cafes and pubs that were 
sparsely located there. 

Melbourne University and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology are neighbors. 
The student population contributed to the vitality of Lygon Street, but by the mid 
to late 80s a steady flow of bohemians left Lygon for Brunswick Street, the next 
major parallel shopping centre in the working class suburb of Fitzroy.

Lygon Street began to attract investors and the wealthy middle class who wanted 
to live amongst interesting people! But as they came, rents increased, the artists 
left and the restaurants and malls moved in. 

From the late 80s through to the very early 90s Brunswick Street was all the rage. 
The remnants of Lygon Street's colourful past can still be seen in Idamos Cafe, 
La Mamas Theatre and Jimmy Watson's Wine Bar and Cellar.

Brunswick Street now supports more than 90 restaurants and cafes and is officially 
registered as a tourist district. The money moves quickly here and so too the real 
estate.

Struggling to maintain some elements of its past, Brunswick Street is faced now 
with its first street lined apartments, a 7/11, the first Blockbuster Video store 
in the neighborhood and a $7 000 000 investment about to turn a small grocery store 
into a supermarket and mall style eatery. All this on a street that was home to 
the most violent pubs in Melbourne and some of the most hardy and consistent of 
band venues in the city. The Punters Club is still there, so to the first of two 
cafes in Brunswick Street, the Black Cat Cafe and Mario's. The other mainstay, 
battling to sustain its presence there is the radical bookshop, Polyester.

The final bastion of bohemian existence in Melbourne has found a home on Smith 
Street, surrounded by tired, disused factories and warehouses and of course the 
ever present government housing estates. Here you will still see people in traditional 
dress walking comfortably amongst Aborigines, ferals, homeless people, artists, 
drunks, slumped heroin addicts, and the ever desperate, eternally bored middle 
class struggling to find a foothold in this last and final stronghold. 

Go one to two blocks down from Smith Street and one can't help but feeling surrounded, 
as if commerce is moving around in an attempt to strike from the bottom, from the 
expensive thin walled, hurriedly build warehouse apartments to the few glitzy 
restaurants serving the wannabe public... the kind of eating establishments where 
one won't find the local Aboriginal nor Asian communities. 

The wave of commerce is relentless, but on Smith Street it seems to have found 
hardy resistance... For a time...

Betreff: 		street (e)scape | some drafty Notes
Datum: 		Tue, 11 Apr 2000 00:30:59 +1000
Von: 		andrew garton 
An: 		gateways 

I spent two full days collecting material for street (e)scape, both photos and 
sound. A. Thomas from Toy Satellite assisted with camera in hand capturing the 
landmarks of Smith Street and some of the new developments on Brunswick. 

Many more days were spent dicing, carving and listening to audio files in 
preperation for GATEways during which time I was often reminded of R. Murray 
Schaffer's book, The Soundscape, in particular his comments about noise pollution. 
He suggests that a solution to the world's growing problem with noise pollution 
would be a "world-wide energy crisis". 

The greatest enemy of the urban sound artist is the car. It was wind till I made 
wind my friend, but the car remains my greatest foe. In compiling streetscapes 
for the netcast, it become impossible to discerne the difference between a 
Melbourne street or one in Milan for that matter. 

What gives each place the character that is discernable in the context of 
sound, is more often than not, the people that create these environments... 
and at the heart of these people is communication and at it's apex is language. 
A friend once remarked that "language is dead", but in sound and in listening we 
may yet rekindle that which many in the so called civilised world have come to 
dread... wonder!

Betreff: 		some drafty notes from Vienna, too
Datum: 		Fri, 14 Apr 2000 17:43:21 +0200
Von: 		Martin Breindl 
An: 		gateways 

(...) the first is that thing about cars. I remember times - some 15 years ago 
when we started recording environments - when you precicely could distinguish 
different cities just from the traffic noises. Istanbul was Istanbul and not 
New York, even without the muezzins and the bazar. Viennese traffic had another 
underlying rhythm than the traffic in Rome or Paris and thus sounded different. 
but these differences almost vanished giving way to something like global traffic 
noise entropy.

this *entropy* increases, the more one leaves the so called *interesting places* 
- that means places which have still their roots in traditional structures (like 
the souks in Africa, market places in Italy or the vast habour areas in northern 
Germany). get away from these places and everything that's left is the endless 
stream of traffic which sounds the same wherever you are.

the vicinity of Siebenbrunnenplatz in Vienna is one of the most uninteresting 
environments you can think of. historically seen a district where more or less 
randomly some unimportant small villages have grown together, the last open spaces 
filled during the 1910's and 20's to give homings for the working class people, 
which were needed so badly then. no public life there, no points of interest - 
no tourists. only the sound of traffic reverbing in audible vacuum.

and that's the point where the people come in. I totally agree with Andrew's 
opinion about people creating their environments also create the character of 
these places' soundings. we have done three big projects so far which worked 
with *oral history*-methods, i. e. talking with people about their daily life in 
certain environments - about their everyday experiences, their hopes, their dreams 
and the realities emerging from different people's viewpoints. and then, during 
process of such work, something happens: the soundscape of places changes.

the reason for this is quite simple, there is no mysterium behind, but it always 
strucks me the same. the longer you talk with people the deeper you get into 
their culturally and individually bound activities. the more you learn about these 
activities, the sounds connected with them (and these are more or less *communiction 
sounds*) increase, overwhelming the anonymous soundscape caused e. g. by traffic.

GATEways was a very good example for that. in the beginning it was very hard to 
collect some sounds in the 5th district - the more we talked to people and listened 
to their stories the more sounds we found. but as a matter of fact: almost all 
sounds we found emerged from situations where people interacted with others - 
and very often in their different cultural backgrounds. and this led - well, not 
quite surprising for us - back to a very old Viennese tradition: the city always 
has been a mixture of people originating from different places on Earth, usually 
getting along with one another very well. intermingling cultures always have been 
very present here - and the best places to find them (also acoustically) now are 
the *places without interest* - like Siebenbrunnenplatz and vicinity.

Betreff: 		on places
Datum: 		Wed, 19 Apr 2000 00:59:42 +0200
Von: 		Martin Breindl 
An: 		gateways 

our installation setup was very discrete. actually it was enough for passersby to 
notice that something unusal was going on and of course everybody had the chance 
to get more information; but it was that sort of event where the artists step 
behind their work, act in the background and leave the work open for the people 
to react on it.

so what you mostly see on the documentation pics & tapes are people of different 
provenience gathering on siebenbrunnenplatz, looking, listening, disussing with 
each other, arguing sometimes. some looking astonished, some mad, others just 
having a good time...

the atmosphere of the whole event was just different: what GATEways created was 
a vivid vibrating space where people could interact. definately it was not just 
another presentation of art in public space - it was an animation of an existing 
place into another slightly shifting reality. it was like pushing an everyday 
situation slowly over the edge - and suddenly things happen that did not happen 
before: people who would never talk to each other engaged in discussion. kids 
felt free to do things for what they usually get shouted at and everybody smiles. 
other people who are mad on everything and everyone dared to critisize the 
situation open and loud.

on siebenbrunnenplatz not only the artists but also the work of art itself 
stepped into the background in a certain way. the piece GATEways was important 
because it was a gate to a parallel reality, it served as catalysator to bring 
that place into life. but then the piece became more and more an intergrating 
part of the place's interacting activities. and you know what ? - I liked it.

in the beginning I feared, that our piece would'nt be perceived very well, 
because of all these activities - but then I thought that precisely this could 
be the quality of GATEways. of course it was not our piece alone but also a 
synergy of many things: the first *presentation* of the newly reconstructed 
place, Polycollege's activities, the performance group, etc., etc.. but I think 
that the spirit of such a concept like GATEways played an enormous role.

one of our interview partners told us, replying a question about the reconstruction 
of siebenbrunnenplatz: *this place is now tabula rasa - and the first who comes 
and does anything on that place will title this tabula rasa*. he then came in 
the afternoon on march 21 and after some minutes he had a big smile on his face 
and said: *this is exactly what I meant. you gave the place a title*.

and now I have the idea that maybe this kind of reality shift, of bringing 
places into changing life could be a more stringent method for future works. 
I mean we all think about the complex question about the connection of art & life 
all the time - otherwise we would not do these works we do. we would present our 
pieces in galleries or big concert halls. (what we actually do some times, but 
this is only to earn one's living). but the real interesting spaces are out there, 
somewhere, where usually everyday life is going on - and every place has hidden 
parallel realities.

we could continue in the spirit of GATEways to close circuit even more public 
spaces to see if one can push them over the edge through sort of networking 
chain reaction.

do you think it's worth a try?

Betreff: 		Re: just to say hello
Datum: 		Thu, 04 May 2000 08:41:54 +1000
Von: 		andrew garton 
An: 		Martin Breindl 

end of june i'm going to korea to do a similar project, but based in interviews 
with women from various parts of south east asia. the main component of the project 
will be an oral archive of their background, the culture they come from and their 
influences. they are all humanitarian workers from places like mongolia, india, 
bangladesh, indonesia, east timor...
 
it threads well into the concept of gateways... yes, i can only think of taking 
the concept further... perhaps the gateways site becomes a "gateway" to such 
projects, projects that deal with cultural origins, cultural transition, change 
and perhaps, more importantly, creating a portal/archive of history that would 
otherwise be forgotten or go undocumented.