Mail from Stockholm
6/11/99
hello my dears,
Knut and i are on tandem computers at a cybercafe high above Drottingatan which is lovely flag-draped walking street filled with Stockholmers walking and talking on cell phones. The per capita cell phone speak here is astronomical. I think it is because they are used to being snowed in most of the time that Stockholmers have developed a phone society far beyond other wired geographic parts. Also the city in general has a commitment to infrastructure and early techno-adoption and are marketing the whole city as a testbed for new technologies to Japan and the US. Sometimes someone looks like they are talking to you and sounds like they are talking to you but they are actually plugged into a hearing aid type phone with a tiny microphone hanging from their ear and an invisible phone tucked somewhere on their garb.
We did not win the grand prize, the Harlem project did win because they got very high points on the social scale. Vicente sat next to one of the judges at the ceremonial dinner and she told him that our project was off the scale in innovation, technology use, aesthetics and creativity (but we got no points for our value to society - ah art) however the judge had voted for our project and encouraged us to engage in other competitions and continue to develop our fantastic opera. It was a much greater honor than I had expected to have reached the finalist category. We were in great company of grass roots activists' innovative websites from all over the world. I have a big thick book describing them all and they are not the kind of projects that get on the front pages of Wired or other high tech zines. I am very happy to be here and experience first hand the great work that is being done by us little people who have inserted our passions and creativity into the world wide web. What a party! We had a formal dinner in the golden hall of the city hall which is not a working office building but the hall that is used for great ceremonies like the Nobel Prize awards. For our dinner the chef's recreated the 1993 Nobel Dinner. Very tasty time travel. I have a copy of the menu which I want to post on www.wholefoods.com but Knut is in a hurry to move on.
Our booth was the most elegant at the display. And the video on Tish's laptop was very effectively combined with the website on the computer that was provided playing the music from the CD drive into external speakers.
A representative of Tel-Com in Geneva asked if we can present a 10 minute performance in October and Vicente has entered us into the UNESCO competition in Paris later this year.
Dr. Bangemann and the European Commission have initated a program called the Global Cities Dialog to be a flexible body of investigators into information technology effects on society. Dr. Bangemann is an exciting speaker and I took a bunch of notes. Then I wandered into a meeting of European mayors. That was fun! Really the mayors are cool people and even one a woman. Their political movements were quite lovely to watch as they Articulated concerns in elegant small speeches. The mayor of Stockholm is the best! He's hysterical once you get into his dry wit groove and he has a way of stealing the show and remaining respectful of everybody. Very smart person. I collected the proposal for the Global Cities Dialog to show to Jim and anyone in Austin who wants to read it. I gave the mayor and several other City of Stockholm representatives the List of Media Developers, the Chamber of Commerce's trifold of information about Austin provided by TateAustin, and Jim Butler's card.
Anyway my time is up and I will bid you a fond farewell from the cybercafe & start the afternoon walking tour of this lovely town....
bye for now,
lovesong and fleurish,
the impresaria on tour,
honoria
see also: Knut's Sweden Report, honoria in ciberspazio in the Global Bangemann Challenge Awards
