This is a call for participation from one of Japan's most important media/film critics. As director of the Goethe Gallery (a position inherited), he has turned their exhibition gallery into an innovative space for any kind of media art. Many of the artists that have done projects have been filmmakers. This time, they are using internet and other kinds of telecommunications. Thought you folks might want to see this and maybe send something. ----Markus ____________________________________ CALL TO PARTICIPATE IN: Goethe Art Project '94. Our space is open to your FAX and Internet work. Goethe Gallery Tokyo >From August 28th through December 17th, in our museum space we will exhibit "Goethe in the Net", a spontaneous collective telecommunication work. Please join our project. We are gathering people's graphic and textual thoughts about Goethe by FAX and E-mail: FAX: +81-3-5394-8280 (FAX users see note below) E-mail:[log in to unmask] You can consider Goethe as a joke, but you might be interested in the fact that he argued for a "World-citizen" who is not an all-round cosmopolite but a critical synthesis of locality and internationality. This reminds me the positive function of the Internet. So, Goethe is now de-constructed in Goethe Gallery Tokyo. And this Goethe for the new project to use telecommunication is very free from the conventional Goethe. As you read this, in one of our spaces we exhibit printed matter such as books to show how Goethe was involved in various fields from poetry to science to theatre to politics. In an adjacent space we artistically set up FAX machine, a video monitor and a roll-viewer to show texts and images that you send by E-mail. If you send sounds by E-mail, we will set up the interface for them. The presentation of our exhibit is very free. You can send me any kind of text and images which are shallow, sarcastic, academic and whatever you like. Best wishes, Tetsuo Kogawa Director of Goethe Gallery Tokyo FAX: +81-3-5394-8280 E-mail:[log in to unmask] ____________________________________ BRIDGING THE G.A.P. --- an introduction to Goethe Gallery Goethe Gallery Tokyo is basically a library for scholars and students who study Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the German poet. This library was privately established in 1949 and now holds over 150 thousand books on/by Goethe in Japanese and a collection of rare originals. Why such an institution? Goethe was special as the founder of his generation. Different from today, Goethe was a cultural symbol of Western civilization for those who studied in schools before WWII. In the last eighty years, for example, over one hundred different translations of "Faust" were published. However, in spite of this devotion, or due to it, Japan's Goethe has been more and more isolated from the international intellectual scene where Goethe has been rethought from the new perspectives of color theory, biology and political thought. When I became involved in Goethe Gallery Tokyo in 1989 as the director, I felt that to bridge such a gap be indispensable for my new administration. Thus I started Goethe Art Project (GAP) in 1990. Up to 1993, eight artists were invited to create their original works from the inspiriation they received by the material of our library (most of these were innovative works of media art). Furthermore, our space has been opened to the public since then and now this is a cultural spot for the local people. NOTE FOR FAX USERS: We have set up a fax machine for the transmission of text and graphic art. The faxes are displayed as *one continuous strip.* This means that if your fax is more than one page, you must insert pages backwards & bottom first. On the Tokyo end, this will come out as a long strip in the "proper" order.