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> Decentralized Networker Congress / The 'Decentralized Networker Congress' in 1992 (DNC'92) is the second 'Congress year' of the Mail-Art network, organised by Hans Reudi Fricker (Switzerland) who formulated the world wide call and Peter W. Kaufman (Switzerland) who was the co-ordinator. In the 'Congress year' of 1992 Fricker and Kaufmann tried to broaden the concept of the project, to open it beyond Mail-Art circles, by also involving people related to other kinds of creative networking activities. Fricker wanted to have the "Networker Congress" be different from the "Mail-Art Congress" because Mail-artists often do not reflect what they really do, they just follow a mainstream. He was looking for those who reflected their roles as artists and who were interested in using different media. Chuck Welch aka. Kracker jack Kid for example was important for the 'Decentralized Networker Congress' because he linked many artists who already worked with computer nets when internet became a new networking tool. Networking is a very different social structure then the common artist group, many Mail-artist have seen themselves as a group which separates its activities from others. In the very initial stages Fricker asked help of about a dozen other networkers from different countries. These networkers were called 'Netlink' and acted as co-ordinators for organising the congress. They acted as sites for the dissemination of congress propaganda and contacts for information. Also the official invite was written by a team of networkers to formulate the call for the world wide 'Congress Year'. Piermario Ciani (Italy) aka. Stickerman did the co-ordinated graphics, logo, postcards, stationery (1), stickers, … which helped in giving an identity to the event. As co-organiser Kaufmann did send out a chronology of congress sessions planned for such places as Paris, London, Stockholm, Milan and San Francisco. At the conclusion of the 'Congress year', he issued a book documentation listing all the events which occurred during the period. Over five hundred artists from twenty five countries participated in about 250 events. Mail Artists reached out to other networkers to bring together various artistic networks, such as: zine publishing, fax artists, street artists, rubber stampers, computer bulletin boards, flyposters (2), home tapers, … to explore similarities in networking experience. Beside personal meetings there was also an electronic meeting, mentioned in the 'Congress year' documentation as 'TAM Computer Sessions'. This session was organised by Ruud Janssen (the Netherlands) who transformed his paper TAM-Bulletin in 1992 into a bulletin board version, a computer network before the internet technology. Mail-Art pioneers in electronic links of computers has explored this meeting like Mark Bloch 'PAN' (U.S.A.), Charles Francois 'RATOS' (Belgium), Rod Summers 'VEC' (the Netherlands) and Ruud Janssen 'TAM' himself. As part of the 'Networker Congress' Peter Küstermann (Germany) and Angela Pähler (Germany) took a personal delivery service around the world, carrying two hundred kilos of Mail-Art from one Mail-artist to another over more than hundred thousand kilometers, meeting 350 Mail-artists. Kustermann dressed in an antique German postal, they travelled around the world meeting Mail-artists in Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia and the United States. In the beginning of the nineties the Mail-Art network was tested in its international dialogue, when Yugoslavia came under an embargo on June 1, 1992, including a cultural embargo. The Yugoslavian contingent is an integral part of the network from the beginning with participants in intercultural communication art. Andrej Tisma organised an 'Anti-Embargo Net Congress' from 1 until 3 September 1992 where eight Serbian networkers signed the 'Deblockade of Creativity'. This congress was the start of "Anti-Embargo" actions which lasted till November 1995 when the embargo was lifted. During the 'Congress year' Chuck Welch (U.S.A.) aka. Cracker Jack Kid introduced the terms 'metanet', 'metanetworker' and 'netshakers'.
'Meta-networker' is a term that was intended to spiritualise Fricker's materialistic call in 1986 and 1992 for networkers to meet each other through "Tourism". The 'meta-networker' as a Mail-artist persona is more akin to Robert Filliou's (France) concept of an 'eternal network'. As such, Welch always preferred the utopian, global context of Mail-Art as a spiritual multi-cultural communications form, aligned to some aspects of Fluxus networking as typified by Dick Higgins (U.S.A.), Robert Filliou (France), Ken Friedman (U.S.A.) and others. Welch has catalogued over two thousand congress items at the 'Networker Databank collection' in his 'Eternal Network Archive' and has been donated to the 'University of Iowa's' 'Alternative traditions in the Contemporary Art Archive'. (1) Stationery: envelopes and
sheets of paper for correspondence personalised with a logo. [01] Congress [02] Network [03] Fricker, Hans Reudi [04] Kaufman, Peter W. [05] Concept [06] Project [07] Decentralized Mail-Art Congress [08] Media [09] Welch, Chuck [10] Computer [11] Internet [12] Ciani, Piermario [13] Postcard [14] Stickers [15] Documentation [16] Zine [17] Fax [18] Street artist [19] Rubber stamp [20] Computer bulletin boards [21] Flyposter [22] Home tape [23] Janssen, Ruud [24] Bloch, Mark [25] Francois, Charles [26] Summers, Rod [27] Küstermann, Peter [28] Personal delivery [29] Tisma, Andrej [30] Anti-Embargo [31] Tourism [32] Filliou, Robert [33] Eternal network [34] Fluxus [35] Higgins, Dick [36] Friedman, Ken References: Date last update: 11 January 2004 |
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