"We went to all the different conferences, some of us were for example at Ars Electronica in '95 when they did their Welcome to the Wired World symposium. We could see what was happening, not happening, not getting discussed and follow up on it, take that opposite theme. In '95 we had JP Barlow and Hakim Bey discussing things, Matt Fuller, Marleen Stikker, lots of Dutch. '95 was extremely intense, there was also another Nettime meeting there. The guys from EastEdge had a fight with the guys from Digital Sziget in Budapest, which was also somehow connected with Közhely. There were all these different little groups of the Internet. I don't know if to call them activists, they were people that were active and using the Internet and setting things up. There was almost a cyber war between the Sziget guys and one Budapest cell and we made them make friends at Metaforum, that was nice."

"Does Central Europe have its own, specific language?" this topic was discussed during the 3rd annual Central European Dictionary of Political Concepts Conference, held on April, 2014 in Prague, and on July, 2014 in Wisla, Poland. This text is a part of a chapter in "Understanding Central Europe” publication (2018). The author discusses how the changing sociopolitical and cultural landscape pre-and post-1989 has determined Central European artists’ use of particular art languages – both the languages of verbal communication and the visual languages of art. (First version was delivered at the conference in Prague).

Written while I was the Soros foundation's radio specialist, for a presentation at a 1996 symposium in Saalfelden, Austria, on "International Models of Free/Private Radios." While it might be outdated, it describes the situation in Eastern Europe when changes were still rapidly unfolding, when the innovations and problems were greater than today. In 1996, Austria had no private broadcasting at all. The European Court of Human Rights found that unacceptable in a democracy, so they directed Austria to start issuing broadcast licenses. The Saalfelden symposium was designed to stimulate "new thinking" about principles and goals for the regulation of broadcasting.

Editorial Note: This text is a considerably re-worked version of a lecture I presented in Tirana (Piramedia), Tallinn (ACTION - REFLECTION) and Prague (Translocation). The final text has been included in the book MEDIA · REVOLUTION, edited by Stephen Kovats, Edition Bauhaus #6, published by the Campus Verlag (Frankfurt a/M & New York), released as a bilingual German/English edition, October 1999. It was accompanied by the Ostranenie 99 CD ROM.

Nettime is an internet mailing list proposed by Geert Lovink and Pit Schultz  as a part of the Club Berlin event, at the second meeting of the "Medien Zentral Kommittee" during the Venice Biennale in 1995. Since 1998, Ted Byfield and Felix Stalder have moderated the main list, coordinated moderation of other lists in the nettime "family," and maintained the site as their nexus. Ted Byfield and Felix Stalder have moderated the main list, coordinated moderation of other lists in the nettime "family," and maintained the site as their nexus.

The Romanian revolution had a really strong impact on Hungarian society, it was very emotional, because there is a Hungarian minority in Romania, and they were repressed in many ways during the long Ceaușescu dictatorship, it was a very sensitive issue in our country. And this Romanian revolution had a very strange presence on television because the revolutionaries from Bucharest went to the Tv, occupied the studio, but they couldn’t be sure that it’s really going to be broadcasted. You can stop Tv broadcasting easily, just by turning off some switches, or blowing up a transmitter station. In this situation the Hungarian state decided to rebroadcast the revolutionary Tv program, and this could be received in Romania, especially in the ethnic Hungarian territories, and you could watch it on the Hungarian Tv program too. It was the most bizzare Tv broadcast ever.

Transcription of the lecture for the Symposium "Absence and translocation: art society new media", held at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, February 26 and 27, 1999.The text is an extract of the ideas that the author elaborated in his book Chaokracie - From the New World - A-vropy, Prague 1997.

By the time November 17th, 1989, rolled into history, many artists and activists who had helped to plant that turning of the soil, were already exhausted. We (myself and twenty other Los Angeles and Czechoslovak artists) had managed in the early summer of that year, to create the exhibition “Dialog: Praha/Los Angeles” as a statement against a regime that said we could and should not do it. The Berlin Wall had not yet fallen, the state police were still following our every move, as they had during the years of planning to make the international exchange a reality. The demonstrations in Prague that summer were some of the bloodiest I had experienced during that decade. Czechoslovak artists were dedicated to organizing and pushing the envelope with the authorities wherever and whenever they could. It must be remembered that they were instrumental in forcing the changes towards a democratic society, and that Občanské forum, (the Civic Forum) movement that Havel and other dissidents birthed, was influential in all the cultural events of the 1990’s in the country. At least in principle.

The Olomouc “Post-Hermit” meeting inspired me to start thinking about times before and after 1989 in the ecological context — before 1989 we used to call it differently. What was the role of the environment in the dismantling of the System? Again, as usually, if I say “system change” I start to get unsure.  I think in 1989 people had different goals. I'm (almost) sure that majority of people wished the end to the ruling role of the Communist Party, but I'm not sure if we (including people active in the field of protection of nature) wanted to reset the economy back to capitalism. My personal vision of the future was a kind of socialism (some of my friends and relatives thought the “Scandinavian model” was attractive). When I was considering whether to stay in this country or to try to leave (in the 1980s) the argument how nature was being destroyed had similar importance as was my depression to be locked in a prison behind a one-way sealed Iron Curtain. Finally I decided to stay because of my personal relationships. 

My relation to the independent and alternative art scene was developed during the '80s in the underground music and art environment. I got involved mainly as an independent journalist, focusing on punk, alternative and industrial subcultures and was working as a foreign correspondent for several magazines abroad (Maximum R´n´R and others).

In March of 1992 I saw the film “Step Across the Border” in NYC and a few months later I stepped across the border into what was still Czechoslovakia while traveling to the first Hermit Symposium. The film is a documentary about the musician Fred Frith and it is about his life of musical improvisation showing his many collaborations with various musicians. A contemporary troubadour, the film show’s him as well in the former Czechoslovakia with musicians from Brno Pavel Fajt and Iva Bittova.

At the end of the 1980s, activities in both unofficial culture and so-called grey zone emerged, and greatly influenced, determined and marked the character of the first years of the 1990ies. The enormous dynamics of the emergence of artistic societies, associations, unions and associations after the 17th November 1989 created the potential and hope of a vibrant artistic and cultural scene. The political climate was favorable, even it was only for a short period of time. From the beginning of 1993 onwards, there was a gradual but visible decline of cultural projects and activities especially outside the state institutions, and this process continuied until 1998/1999. Same time, the spliting of Czechoslovakia into two separate states, and setting of borders. To cross them was connected with obstructions three years after the old regime changed, was also phenomen of this period. The shock from the decline of the Czechoslovakia and reactivation of contacts didnt happen automaticaly.

This invitation is a gift because after a year of research that I and Jovita have undertaken to put together the largest exhibition to date on Slovenian punk and photography, focusing on photography, we can focus precisely on art and history, building a future archive.The exhibition Slovenski Punk in Fotografija / Slovenian Punk & Photography, opened on December 4, 2023 and runed until January 30, 2024 in the main gallery of the Cankarjev dom, Cultural and Congress Center in Ljubljana, Slovenia, a center that was built in the 1980s as a bastion of modern art, appeared at the same time as punk in Slovenia.

We heard a lot about Plasy already, and I have read several contributions in the new Hermit catalog and agree with the comments of the co-artists. I’ll focus on the crucial point - in short. I was asked to reflect the situation in Vienna in the 1990ies. Since I am based in Vienna, I can do it.

Things were different. Coffee grounds caught between teeth were common indignities to discourse. We wrote letters to each other. I filled my quill with charred pinesap mixed with a shot of vodka. It was easier that way. Email was something people spoke about, but few had used. Messages arrived with daybreak like carefully folded paper airplanes gliding in and out of our minds.

You wrote: "Nonastalgia is a longing for the (especially early) nineties, not only in the sense of one time period, but especially in the sense of a certain space-time. Nonastalgia is paradoxically a form of so-called ostalgia, i.e. a longing for the world of the "real socialist" East. However, this is not in the form of state socialism itself, but in the form of ideas about the West that people under the dictatorship of one party had created, which were more a set of projections and symbols with fixed meanings than lived experience of the complex and changing reality of Western societies." 1.Linking the concepts of "nonastalgia" and "ostalgia", where you interpret "longing" for the early 90s as a form of utilitarian conservatism, typical (perhaps?) for the generation entering a new decade and a new "space-time" after 1989. The ideas we had about the "free West" were often very naive and mediated, and the confrontation with open culturality was confronting and frustrating for part of society. It took several years for the cultural, political and economic elites to get their bearings. Hence the adjectives we often associate with the 90s such as "free" and "wild". Are your critical words about nonastalgia related to the process of "neo-normalisation" that Central and Eastern European societies went through around 1995?Weren't the first years after 89 a time of change and, even if perhaps naive and joyful, expectations linked to the notion of a fairer world that might finally come? 2. Locally and globally, the last decade of the 20th century is in some ways fascinating because it was unpredictable. Parallel attempts to revise old dogmas and to enforce them have emerged or surfaced (similar as in '68). This was in a situation where the systems of both former hegemons were in reconstruction and therefore weakened. The consolidation or re-establishment of order in the mid-1990s may, from today's perspective, seem like the only possible solution. But is it in fact? Is the then and current re-capitalization and retardation in Central Europe related to the phenomenon of self-colonization, self-colonizing mechanisms, i.e. poor capacity for self-reflection (according to Kiossev)?

From The UNDERGROUND to the GROUND/ From the POSITION to the DISPOSITION FLASHBACKS, described by some psychotherapists as traumatic experiences,can also be experienced positively, as liberating moments of detachment from depressing reality. - FLASHBACKS by Timothy Leary

Poetry and Drawings of Květa Válová (from a photo album, 1953-55), in collaboration with Dagmar Šubrtová and Antonín Petruželka

The text written by Martin Zet about his "situation with the car" in Bubec was published under the title "Owning a Car is an Open Demonstration of Loyality" in the book SEBEVRAŽDA IMAGE /THE SUICIDE OF THE IMAGE, Divus publishing house, 2005-13

The members of the Kyzyl Tractor (Red Tractor) - Said Atabekov, Smail Bayaliev, Moldakul Narymbetov, Arystanbek Shalbayev and Vitaliy Simakov - decided to set themselves the task of ‘returning to the lost roots’ of nomadic culture (Chukhovich 2011). As Kudaibergenova (2018, p. 436) notes, ‘Focusing on such discourses as nomadism, shamanism, the land and the steppe that were previously considered “backward”, “uncivilized” and certainly unwelcomed by the Soviet cultural frameworks, the new generation of postsocialist cultural producers attempted to bare these contradictions.’ (Emina Yessekeyeva and Eric Venbrux: Shamanism, Globalisation and Religion in the Contemporary Art of Said Atabekov and the Kazakh Art Collective Kyzyl Tractor)

Common tumbleweed, tumble pigweed, tumbleweed, prostrate pigweed, pigweed amaranth, white amaranth, wind witch, Russian cactus or white pigweed. It is native to Euroasia but in the 1870s, it appeared in South Dakota when flaxseed from Russia turned out to be contaminated with Kali seeds. Although it is the best-known of this group of weeds, and was at first thought to be a single well-defined species, it now is known to have included more than one species plus some hybrids. This has led to taxonomic confusion in dealing with species in the genera Salsola and Kali in America. Recent studies show that the population that once was assigned to Salsola tragus really includes three or more morphologically similar species that differ in flower size and shape. The group was widely assigned to the family Chenopodiaceae – including the genera Kali and Salsola – have since been included in the Amaranthaceae. They now are allocated to the Salsoloideae, a subfamily of the Amaranthaceae.

Biophysicist Prof. Petr Heřman kindly lent his Praga RND bus, which has not been driven for a long time, for the purpose of its planned transplantation into the mobile laboratory of the Lost Expedition. I discovered information about the bus on the Internet in 2002 and immediately contacted the owner. The vehicle was parked in the forest on the Krkonoše Mountains, where Petr Heřman had to move it from Prague in the early 1990s. In Prague the bus was the victim of repeated vandalism. Bellow, in outline, we present the heroic story of MLOK (Hurvínek) compiled from memory and data on Peter's Wikipedia page.

Karl Katzinger (Freistadt October 1953 - April 2021) was an artist, film-maker, writer, organizer, traveller and scythe coach. From 1973 to 1981 he lived in Vienna, where he studied pharmacy and occasionally wrote for newspapers. In 1981 he moved to his grandparents' farm in Harrachstal near Freistadt and has stayed there ever since, except for his travels to far and near countries. Here he founded various organizations such as the Backwood Association, or the Research Institute for Zero Emission Technology and hosted courses, lectures, music and theater performances in the Drushba Garage which is part of the farm. From May to October, he gave classes in scything. He was a passionate traveller and visited many places such as Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Russia, Ukraine, Albania.... and spent his last time in the Bohemian Forest.

Lizbeth Rymland has worked as an integrative catalyst, writer and producer supporting leaders of evolutionary culture at pivotal moments in their careers. For 40 years until present time she has served continuously and worldwide as a discrete catalyst, mid-wife and producer for visionary pioneers, convenors of emerging culture, indigenous and young leaders in interdimensional medicine.

"Computers are doing to communicationwhat fences did to pasturesand cars did to streets."

"In 1990 and 1991, I had made many performances and produced several festivals in Czechoslovakia; lots of cultural activities over several months. In 1995, I came back, to what was now the Czech Republic, with no cultural agenda but only to visit friends and enjoy myself. I don’t remember how I knew about Plasy and all the activities that happened there; it was very well known in the social circles I was connected with, so it would have been unusual if I hadn’t known about it. Similarly, there are many people who might have been the ones who told me I should meet Miloš Vojtěchovský.