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Young People Look at the Future of Information Society
Young people accompanied by representatives of the Ars Electronica Center (AEC) and the Austrian Culture Service (ÖKS) recently attended the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS). Their aim was to enrich this conference’s proceedings with the perspectives and views of the generation that will be most directly effected by its decisions. In addition, the AEC is present at the summit in the form of an exhibition commissioned by the Office of the Chancellor of the Republic of Austria.
Linz. Whoever associated international diplomacy exclusively with stiffly formal receptions attended by elderly gentlemen in dark suits was in for a surprise on December 10-12, 2003. Three Austrian students from the High School for Artistic Design in Linz took a youthful, open look at an international summit held in mid-December, and the AEC and the ÖKS assisted them in going about it.
These students conducted interviews and filmed an account of the WSIS, a summit organized by the UN and the International Telecommunications Union and held under the direct patronage of Kofi Annan. Now, they are using this material to produce a documentary that will serve as the basis of a project to be launched in Austrian schools in 2004-5 designed to enable young people to formulate their concerns and submit them to the summit. Moreover, the students have also been given the task of coming up with a concept of how such proposals can be worked into the agenda of the final summit meeting set for 2005 in Tunis.
Austria is also being represented artistically at the WSIS in Geneva. The AEC was commissioned by the Office of the Chancellor to organize an exhibition of digital media art that includes installations by Golan Levin and Zachary Lieberman, Hiroshi Matobi and the staff of the Ars Electronica Futurelab. Gerfried Stocker, artistic director of Ars Electronica, is convinced that the AEC can play an important part in conjunction with the WSIS: “Ars Electronica sees itself as a mediator at the interface of art, technology and society, and the WSIS proves that this role will assume even greater significance in the future.”
The WSIS is dealing with the issue of the sustainable use of new technologies. How can the opportunities being opened up by Information Society have a positive impact on the lives of all human beings? What possibilities that promise long-term improvement in the prospects of poorer states are emerging from these new technologies? And what instruments and bodies of regulations does the international political system need to achieve its goal of enabling fairness and justice to prevail in the world of information?
The first phase of this forum was the international conference held December 10-12, 2003 in Geneva at which the framework conditions were established for implementing at the final summit on November 16-18, 2005 in Tunis the long-term objective of instituting uniform global standards and norms for the positive ongoing development of new technologies in the best interests of all people and societies.
With queries, contact:
Wolfgang A. Bednarzek
Pressesprecher / Press Officer
AEC Ars Electronica Center Linz
Hauptstraße 2, 4040 Linz, Austria
tel ++43.732.7272-38
fax ++43.732.7272-638
wolfgang.bednarzek@aec.at
Press Lounge@Ars Electronica:
http://www.aec.at/press
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