During the past few years, the »Interstanding« festival has grown in importance in the Baltic region as a forum for Estonian and international media and Web art. This event, which is organized by the Estonian »Center for Contemporary Arts« and the Estonian Art Academy, took place for the fourth time at the end of last year. In the following article, Sirje Helme, the director of the Center for Contemporary Arts in Tallinn, goes back over the history of the festival.

The »Interstanding« series began in 1995 as a laboratory for the analysis of the wide-ranging possibilities offered by new media and visual culture. The Estonian Center for Contemporary Arts (CCA), founded in 1992 under the name »Soros Center for Contemporary Art,« had previously organized annual exhibitions. But in the rapidly changing cultural situation, we decided to create an event which would characterize and express the CCA'S ideology and its attitude towards contemporary art and culture. At the same time, Estonia also established itself internationally as a stronghold of computer technology: today, it is one of the top ten countries in Europe as regards the use of e-mail and mobile communications. Back them, everything was not just changing politically, but also in the field of communications - and Estonia was very ready to embrace these processes.

In 1995, everybody was very enthusiastic about the freedom that limitless communications were to bring, and about the new means of connecting with and understanding other cultures. This was why Ando Keskküla (Estonia) and Eric Kluitenberg (a media theoretician from the Netherlands) decided to call the first festival »Interstanding. Understanding Interactivity.« Together, they organized altogether three conferences with accompanying exhibitions. The Estonian Art Academy became the CCA's partner in organizing the event.

While in 1995 the conference was still about introducing the problems and visions connected with new media to the local community, at »Interstanding 2« in 1997 the commercialization of the internet already came under intense criticism. For this reason, the second festival was subtitled »Freedom,« although - or because - the possibilities offered by the freedom of the internet were being seen more and more critically. The conference focused on questions of openness, ethics, social regulations and individual freedom, and finally, the possibilities for trying out alternative participatory strategies in media space. The third festival in 1999 was called »Interstanding 3: Beyond the Edge.« It was an attempt - as in the keynote address by Saskia Sassen, for instance - to deconstruct the clichés about what supposedly constitutes the borders of a culture, social life and politics.

»Interstanding 4: End Repeat,« curated by Mare Tralla and Ando Keskküla, saw the event change from the biennial form to a more open one. This was a decision based on practical considerations. Instead of dividing up the event into a conference and an exhibition as had been traditional, a media laboratory was opened up in the facilities of the E-Media Center at the Estonian Art Academy, where open workshops, lectures, performances and webcasts could take place.

 

Translated by Tim Jones

 

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