Inke Arns (guest-editor) 
  

Almost ten years after the revolutionary changes of 1989, this special issue of Convergence focuses on the recent cultural, social and political implications of new media technologies in the post-socialist countries of Eastern, Central and South-Eastern Europe. One of the first lessons to be learned as the Iron Curtain rose was that the east bloc was hardly a bloc at all in the sense of a homogeneous, solid whole. Strategies and forms of media culture were quite different in the individual countries due to the varying possibilities of access to new media (e.g. video cameras, computers, xerox machines, etc.) as well as varying degrees to which ‘independent’ mass media and ‘divergent’ opinions were put up with. While, for example, the subcultural or alternative scene in Yugoslavia - especially in Slovenia - had been working with video since the early 1980s, the situation in Czechoslovakia, the GDR, or Romania (1) was entirely different because access to the technical means was not possible, for either political or economic reasons. In the past few years, new media centers and initiatives have been set up in several post-socialist countries of Eastern Europe. They focus on various forms of media culture and Internet projects and are increasingly taking an active role in global digital culture. (2) 

The diversity of the emerging media culture that surfaced since the early 1990s is reflected in the variety of the topics presented in this special issue of Convergence. The contributions do not represent a coherent body, but rather its opposite: they critically reflect a complex and heterogenous terrain, thus revealing the diversity and the speed of recent media cultural developments in Eastern, Central and South-Eastern Europe. The debates pieces, research articles, feature reports and reviews highlight the problematic areas connected to the growing implementation of global media networks, and address questions of access to new information and communication technologies and their subsequent use in various local contexts. 

In the debates section, Lev Manovich, from the University of California, San Diego, USA, raises the question whether a response to new media different to that in the West can be expected on the part of Russian artists. (3) Analysing the current re-thinking of the historical tradition of ‘screen culture’, he offers a compelling vision of how Russian new media artists can negotiate between the extreme materialism of Western computer art practice and the historicism and conceptualism characteristic of Russian art. Geert Lovink, a new media activist with Adilkno, the Foundation for the Advancement of Illegal Knowledge, amongst other things, interviews János Sugár, artist and lecturer at the Intermedia Department of the Academy of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary. The discussion looks at the relationship between traditional and digital media and questions whether a combination of artistic practices gives a greater freedom to the artist in a country with a legacy of censorship of access to both audiences and to media art technology. Sugár’s advocacy of ‘intermedia’ – which he defines as ‘interdisciplinary plus media’ – offers a refreshing perspective on the integration of new media into art practice and art education, and one which contrasts with the ‘multimedia’ approach often taken in the West. Eric Kluitenberg, who works with the Society for Old and New Media in Amsterdam, NL, and the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Germany, reports on the recent emergence of a critical discourse about the social and cultural aspects of networking, and the emancipatory claims connected with the propagation of new ICTs in the three Baltic States. Discussing the term of ‘misrepresentation’ derived from feminist film theory, Marina Grzinic, from the Slovenian Academy of Science and Art in Ljubljana, Slovenia, who, as a post-doctoral fellow is currently based in Tokyo, Japan, reflects on the reconstruction and re-invention of the body in video art during ‘communist’ times and offers a critical outlook on the confusion of decentered bodies at the end of the millenium. Feeling the lack of theoretical works and appropriate terms for approaching new media art phenomena, Igor Markovic, executive editor of the political and cultural magazine Arkzin, Zagreb, Croatia, proposes to reactivate the terms of ‘peripheral’, ‘border-line’ and ‘provincial arts’ originally coined by the Croatian art historian Karaman some 30 years ago, for the evaluation of contemporary artistic practices on the Internet. 

In the articles section, Agnes Gulyás, from Napier University, Edinburgh, Scotland, examines Hungary’s response to the opportunities of the information revolution since the end of communism from an economic point of view reflecting on cultural aspects as well. She argues that there have been significant advances in the development of the information sector in the country. However, because of the legacy of communism, economic difficulties and the unclear policies and disconcerted efforts of the first post-communist governments, the information revolution has made limited progress. Oliver Marchart, from the Essex University, UK, and the International Research Institute for Cultural Studies, Vienna, Austria, maps out the West European techno-imaginary in its differential relation towards both the 'Oriental' (or ‘Techno-Orientalist’) and the American (‘New Frontier’) myth of electronic space. Marchart seeks to explore Central Europe's role and location within the imaginary cartography of techno-colonialist discourses on electronic networks. Laura B Lengel, from the American International University in London, UK, questions the empowering capabilities of the Internet in East Central Europe, presenting the voices from this region who assert that only with widespread access, can the Internet fullfil its democratic promise. Her article highlights women’s organisations in Hungary, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic which are creating spaces for collaboration and connectivity, and providing a forum for new voices which have previously been silent. 

In the feature reports section, Andreas Broeckmann, who works with the V2_Organisation in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, describes efforts on the part of the media cultural community to tackle the lack of understanding for social and cultural dimensions of new technologies on the official level of European politics, and discusses the results of the conference 'From Practice to Policy', which aim to overcome this deficit in awareness. Kathy Rae Huffman, freelance curator, writer and networker, based in Vienna, Austria, discovers a new generation of young media artists emerging from Sarajevo, Bosnia, who are struggling to re-enter the international flow of life and communication. 

I hope that in all its variety, this special issue of Convergence contributes to a better understanding of the diversity and the specificities of the emerging media cultures in Eastern, Central, and South-Eastern Europe. I also hope that it provides an insight into the crucial developments and the problems connected to the introduction of new media technologies in this part of Europe, which by now is also facing the much discussed effects of globalisation. Having witnessed the emergence of local media cultures and translocal networks such as the V2_East/Syndicate over the past few years, and being aware of their respective cultural backgrounds, I cannot help being an optimist. 
  

(1) Calin Dan, artist and member of the group subREAL from Bucharest, Romania, states that up until the beginning of the 1990s he „had never processed a text on a computer, never sent a fax, never approached a photocopy machine, never owned a VCR." (Calin Dan, ‘Romania - A Right to Virtuality: Media Institutions are the Lab Pets of Social Research in Times of Peace because Media are the best War Simulators’, in: Nina Czegledy (ed.), In Sight: Media Art from the Middle of Europe, Toronto: XYZ Artists' Outlet, 1995, p. 28) 

(2) The E-Lab in Riga, Latvia, the WWW Art Center in Moscow, Russia, C3 (Center for Culture and Communication) in Budapest, Hungary, the SCCA Media Labs in Skopje, Macedonia and in Sofia, Bulgaria, are just a few examples. 

(3) See also Bruce Sterling’s report on Russian politics and St. Petersburg’s contemporary art scene, ‘Art and Corruption’, in Wired, January 1998, pp. 119-140