<eyebeam><blast> a message form an other

[teo spiller <teo.spiller@rzs-hm.si>]

As a reply to Anna T. and A. Broeckmann: this is a call from Slovenia.

Does anybody knows where it is? It is a state between Austria, Italy,
Hungary and Croatia, not much bigger than L.A., with less than two
million inhabitants.

Slovenian are haveing our own language, own culture etc., The first
slovenia word was written few year after Martin Lutter's manifest about
haveing divines in people's language instead in Latin (the 15 th
century).

The first state of our forefathers were established in the 8 th century.
It was probably the first democracy in the world. The farmers voted !!
their prince on the Gosposvetsko polje (the field of the sacred lady -
the place is now a part of Austria) and in the sign, he is a real
people's representative, in the ritual of enthroning, the new prince had
to drink water from a farmer's hat. I think, even president Jefferson
mentioned the Karantania (as the state was called than) as the model of
the democracy.

Later slovenian were a part of Austrian kingdom, after 1918 the part of
Yugoslavia and from the short civil war in the summer 1991 independant.

The fact is, that there are about two million people on the planet
speaking slovenian. 

I could call myself a net artist. I have my own sites
http://www.teo-spiller.org. It was a big dilemma to me, should I use
slovenian of english language on my sites. I choose english, because it
is the "official" language on the web. And as Anna said, it is a large
problem for me. Some of my sites are written in very bad english, the
other were corrected by a lady from London (but it all costs). We are
learning english for four years in elementary (2 hours a week) and four
years in the secondary (3 hours a week) school. I do understand enough
to talk with peolpe, but reading and writing things, like those on the
eyebeam forum takes me a lot of time and energy. Also this writing may
look much more naive, than if I would write it in slovenian) And that is
, I think, just as Anna said, the biggest problem of the communication
society as a global village. It is not just a matter of being western or
not (Slovenia lies in the middle of Europe, it was for centuries a part
of the biggest European imperium and we had open borders to Western
already in sixties, even if Yugoslavia was a communistic country), it is
a matter of being English or not. It is a big precedence, if your own
language is english or if you are living or studying in english talking
countries for a few years. 

I ask myself, what future has a language, only two million people on the
Earth understand, in the "global village". As more the culture becomes
dependent of the communication tools (the web and what will follow it),
the less "cultural products" will be made in the languages of small
nations. 

Maybe even "net-english" is no more the real english and the language of
future may be a new language, based on english. The chinese imperium
found a sollution for the society of hundered languages about 4000 years
ago; no matter how do you say something in your language, you write it
with a simbol. If you know the simbols, it doesn't matter which language
do you speak anymore. With some software sollutions, there could maybe
even be a kind of translators, so not everybody would need to understand
english or know all thousands of signs. But this are all futuristic
guesses...

The fact is, that the culture, writen in languages of small nations are
haveing no future. It will maybe exist in museums and some academical
spheres, but the "common" people, the consumers, will be using the
easiest way for communicating, the (western, english speaking)
entertainment industry will surely find. 

And the industry is the one, that makes the world "western" or not. The
money rules the world, in the time of global society even much more than
ever before. And the western products are the sign of prestige,
everybody wants to have. As soon "the others" get the access to
Internet, they are no more "the others". They very soon become very
western. Coca Cola is Coca Cola and MTV is MTV, even if it is written in
chinese...

www.teo-spiller.org





http://www.teo-spiller.org/
******************************************
<mailto:teo.spiller@rzs-hm.si>or
<mailto:teo.spiller@fractal.si>
******************************************
-------------------------------------------------------------
a critical forum for artistic practice in the network
texts are the property of individual authors
to unsubscribe, send email to eyebeam@list.thing.net
with the following single line in the message body:
unsubscribe eyebeam-list
information and archive at http://www.eyebeam.org
Eyebeam Atelier/X Art Foundation http://www.blast.org
-------------------------------------------------------------