What can be said about 'independent media practice'? Sometimes I am surprised that we've managed to stay alive and keep going with our activities. We established E-LAB (new media centre in Riga, Latvia) two years ago. A year ago we started working with real audio and founded the net.radio project OZOne and soon afterwards the Xchange project.

We still have not managed to receive real funding. The computers and all kinds of technical equipment we need are in place - so all the energy to raise financing for E-LAB has gone straight into hardware companies and no funding is available to support artists' *lives*...

But what worries me most is local officials' mistrust, disbelief and lack of interest in independent media (at least here in Latvia). At the same time when presenting Latvian culture, they always proudly refer to E-LAB!... This is a loop with no exit - little can be done against ignorance.

The lack of a global perspective on future developments of the local situation (and its intrigues) build a perfect ground, in former Eastern Bloc countries, for people in power to make their own deals. You can do whatever you want with your ideals and 'independent' media practice, but people are too worn out by the everyday 'lack-of-money' to pay any attention to questions about the status quo and the future.

Still, even in such a long black tunnel you can see some light. In such moments I feel that we can survive and even work fruitfully because we have many support networks - not only mailinglists, but, as I see it, networks by and for the people, working and thinking in similar ways. It it is very important to develop network communities, it will become a really powerfull environment in the future.

XCHANGE
The Xchange project is our contribution to the development of a net.audio network for alternative internet broadcasters. Many different activities have been (and will be) carried out, but there is a lack of concentrated, edited and compiled information about those activities - especially because real audio often has been used for short-term broadcasts (live transmissions from festivals and special events). We started the Xchange mailing list recently and want to include the Acoustic.Space debate within it - a comprehensive and exiting idea for organising a sound environment within the Net.
ñAcoustic Spaceî was a lecture in Riga by Erik Davis about the importance of 'sound' tools for creating and organizing the environment, which perfectly translates into the net.environment. Audio is the (invisable) part of communication which often works most directly and effectively.

We decided to use it as a conceptual background for the Xchange maillinglist and net.audio network because the context of 'acoustic cyberspace' is broader than radio or net.audio.

Currently we are preparing our first printed net audio issue - Acoustic.Space - which will be finished by the end of March, 1998.

Subscribe to Xchange mailinglist:

[majordomo@re-lab.net]
(no subject) with the message body:

'subscribe xchange'

information&comunication channel:

http://xchange.re-lab.net

xchange search/webarchive:

http://xchange.re-lab.net/a/

information about Acoustic.Space:

Rasa Smite [rasa@parks.lv]

or Raitis Smits [raitis@parks.lv]

Rasa Smite [rasa@parks.lv]