E-culture and Future Heritage

Extract from a 1999 proposal to the European Commission. Author: Kieran O’Hea

This area of research will take as its starting point the European Cultural Backbone (ECB) (http://ecb.t0.or.at/)
a coalition of media-cultural institutions and individuals working together to creatively use and develop
participatory media for contemporary art practice and for social change.

The formation of the ECB in March 1999 is the result of several international meetings during which people
from institutions from across the wider Europe have jointly identified the need for strengthening existing
collaborative structures and for lobbying policy makers to recognize independent media culture as an
important field in between contemporary culture and the development of media and information
technologies.

Over the past five years a series of meetings in different European countries started a dialogue between artists
and institutions active in the cultural practice in ICT. In a series of seminars and conferences these cultural
researchers have been able to engage with national and transnational policy makers.

Some of the main action proposals coming from this new media network are expressed in the "Amsterdam
Agenda", a policy paper developed as a result of the Practice to Policy conference held in Amsterdam in 1997.
These proposals were refined at the International Cultural Competence Conference about New Technologies,
Culture and Employment in Linz, during the Austrian EU Presidency (http://competence.netbase.org).

These events and other meetings reinforce the links in an informal network of independent artists and
producers, micro-enterprises and organizations driving creative innovation in media culture in Europe.
Collectively these pioneers of digital are playing an important role in fostering the Europe’s future digital
heritage in both the non-profit and commercial sectors.

The need for a trans-European collaboration which reaches out far beyond the boundaries of Schengen
territory into "Deep Europe" has long been evident to the partners in this network. At a further seminar in
Vienna in March 1999 17 independent media institutions Western, Central and Eastern Europe founded the
European Cultural Backbone (ECB). (http://ecb.t0.or.at)

The ECB was conceived as an enabling, open for all kinds of initiatives that relate to its concerns. It aims to
become a platform in which independent media-cultural institutions can build and foster co-operations within
the existing and growing networks based on mutual trust, commitment to collaboration, and generosity.

In its start-up phase, the ECB will focus mainly on a campaign for access to high bandwidth networks for media-
cultural centers. Other initial activities are directed at establishing tools and operational structures for the ECB
network. It is now that the foundations for a future cultural heritage of Europe have to be laid. If a living
artistic and contemporary cultural practice in digital media is not supported and encouraged now, the
information society will not have a cultural heritage to draw upon in future.

The ECB also seeks to examine the notion of a public service, or one of a public sphere within new media
systems. The notion of public service in network media takes as a starting point a bottom-up approach that
differs markedly from the one-to-many paternalism of state owned media. Digital media might be used to
support the development of a conversational ethos, a new space in which citizens are equipped to participate.

Public services in digital media should not be developed as discrete channels with national boundaries, and
particular agendas. In fact, what is being would not be like broadcasting at all. New media could underpin a
series of public conversations that would - naturally - take citizens beyond the bounds of the national.
To include the goal of public service within an integrated approach to new media requires including new
criteria in approaches to establishing networks of new media across the Europe. In addressing these issues
Working Group 3 will consolidate the work of the network of independent media institutions which are the 17
founder members of the ECB.

 WG3 deals with the socio-cultural impact of the technology that is shaping the future of our cultural
heritage.

 WG3 focuses on the artistic and cultural practice with and within digital networks and examines the
resulting changes in society, politics and the artistic practice itself.

 WG3 addresses the cultural aspects of the digital revolution. The main partners are artists and art
institutions who base their work in the digital domain or use new communication technologies as
essentials pre-requisites and/or tools for their work.

 WG3 addresses the notion of ‘public service’ in relation to developing digital media systems, a
bottom-up, participatory approach that differs markedly from the to one-to -many paternalism of
early state broadcasting.

Infrastructure, and access to bandwidth, remain a key factors in delivering public service (and other forms) of
digital media, but adequate technical infrastructure is not all that is required. Also necessary is content
development - and a citizenry skilled in new media. The development of a public service ethos in relation to
emerging digital media structures would have to include, as a foundation, a commitment to providing citizens
with meaningful access - which might be defined as access to the means of participation as well as the means
to consume.

In this area the research will address as a core issue the question of "Medienkompetenz" – the social and
technical skills needed for working and living with new media and the tools necessary for handling Information
and Communication Technology and to ensure equality and quality of life in an Information Society.