Issue 7, September 2004

npage.org. reconstructed

Next Page Foundation can finally welcome all our friends, partners and users to its updated web site. Besides the new design there are several added sections. You can find much more information on the Foundation’s profile, activities and announcements than previously. In the newsletter archive we have stored all the previous issues of Page Back for those who have joined the club recently. Some sections are still under construction, but will be released soon and updated frequently.

Invitation to Frankfurt

Next Page Foundation warmly invites you to attend a public discussion, co-organized with the Arab Publishers Association, at the forthcoming Frankfurt Book Fair on:

Translating into Arabic: problems and prospects
Co-organized by Next Page Foundation/Open Society Institute - Budapest
Friday 8th October, 14:00 – 16:00 h
Publishers’ Pavilion

This public discussion is a follow-up to a recently conducted study on translation policies across the Arab world. Is it true that the Arab world translates so little? How are academic translations being published in Arabic? What are the public and private funding policies which support the publication of translations? These are some of the questions that will be examined by the panelists – Arab publishers, intellectuals and experts.

Read a summary of the study. The full text can be obtained free of charge upon request.

Newly Published Books

Bitomatik: Art Practice in the Time of Information/Media Domination ;
Tektonik: New Social Onthology in the Time of Total Communication, - ed. kuda.org (Futura, Novi Sad 2004), supported by the Media Project.

This bilingual (English/Serbian) two-volume collection contains texts, interviews and transcripts of lectures given at the New Media Center kuda.org from 2001 to 2004. The first volume – “Bitomatik” - describes models of contemporary artistic production which use different media as a means of expression. Among the guests of kuda.org one can become acquainted with the work of Critical Art Ensemble, Bureau d’Etudes, Armin Medosch, Inke Arns and others. The second volume offers a research intersection in the domain of new technology, culture and society. Some of the articles suggest models for reducing the dangers of the information society and critically assess the promises of the so-called California Ideology. These include global peace and global enlightenment enabled by technology; biotechnology convergence; slaves and expert systems; disinformation and democracy; infrastructure control; money networks; the databody economy; digital security; intellectual property; intelligence networks; corporate public relations and infobody attack. These are just a few of the urgent socio-political phenomena critically analyzed through the various activities of kuda.org. included in the current publication. Among other aims kuda.org strives to “further media literacy and digital ecology in the age of information”. In this it has positioned itself as a unique venue for gatherings and the exchange of information in the Balkans. Aside from its user-friendly profile (see www.kuda.org->kuda.org) – “a place where you can work in linux , read some of the books and magazines from the kuda.org library, and copy and burn materials that you need” – kuda.org has clearly succeeded in escaping from the “limbo between the industrial past and the information-based future” which Balkan countries are still enduring. Passing through this experience, possibly, qualifies kuda.org to provide excellent distribution of this publication. “Bitomatik/Tektonik” will circulate not only in Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Macedonia, but will also reach certain bookshops in Western Europe and the USA.

Latest Romani Publications Project results

Below is the list of applications recently supported by the Romani Publications Project. All initiatives are of interest not only to the target audience, i.e. the Roma community, but also to non-Roma readers.

1. Luludi – a series of publications for Roma children by Civic Association Luludi, Slovakia
2. Roma Women Can Do It – a translation into Romani of a documentary film by the Gender Project for Bulgaria Foundation, Bulgaria
3. Romano Dzaniben – a bi-lingual journal of Romani studies by the Society of the Friends of the Journal Romano Dzeniben, Czech Republic
4. Rromnjaki zor/Snaga zene –a bi-lingual on-line and printed magazine by BIBIJA - The Roma Women’s Center, Serbia and Montenegro
5. The Bridges of Folklore - an audiotape and publication with texts of Romani Songs by Center Amalipe, Bulgaria