What has the internet ever done for us? Standard Time talk show S1E12

Hello and welcome to Standard Time. This is a Display Europe production presented to you by Eurozine. Today, we talk about Eurozine and where it comes from. Eurozine is a twofold project. It's both a professional network of more than a hundred cultural journals and magazines from across Europe and an online magazine presenting and showcasing the publishing of these more than 100 partners amended by Eurozine originals, quite like Standard Time. But I'm not the best-qualified to talk about Eurozin

e's origins. Today, we have Eurozine founders and early partners with us at the Alte Schmiede to tell the story from 1983 to 1998 to today, from the early Internet to AI and whatever's ahead. In this episode, we celebrate the 25-year anniversary of Eurozine, the magazine, with some Kaiserschmarrn, a typical Viennese winter treat. We'll also discuss how the new venture Display Europe will expand on the original dream. Judith Vidal-Hall came from London to celebrate with us. She was the long-time

editor of Index on Censorship, a unique magazine dedicated to the freedom of speech and press. Walter Famler is a publisher, harmonium player and the general secretary of the Alte Schmiede Kunstverein, hosting our show here in Vienna. He was the long-time editor of Eurozine's founding partner journal, Wespennest. Andrea Zederbauer is currently the editor of this great Austrian journal, Wespennest. Carl Henrik Fredriksson was Eurozine's first editor-in-chief for over 15 years and still serves as

a member of our advisory board. He's a Swedish critic and essayist living in Vienna. A warm welcome, everyone. We have a couple of founders and early partners of Eurozine here to talk on this festive occasion. Now we celebrate the 25th "birthday anniversary", so to say, of the founding of Eurozine, the magazine, and the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Eurozine network, which started out with a meeting in Switzerland in 1983. And then, over 15 years, resulted in an online publication. If

I may ask the two of you first. Walter, you presented the concept for World Brains in 1997, I understand, for the first time. And Carl Henrik, you told me a lot about, and you also wrote about what a schism this caused in the network. Can the two of you clarify why online publishing seemed so controversial at that time, and what your original concept was? Hans Götz Oxenius, a German radio worker, organised a small meeting of magazines because he was curious about literary magazines and how they

work, as well as art magazines and political magazines. This was the nucleus. Because we were in a situation where we had samizdat magazines in what was called the East. We had the peace movement in East and West Germany. And it was quite a lively surrounding in political terms. We tried to establish these kinds of magazine conferences, and then it came to an end, where we said, okay, it's not enough to meet once a year, and in between we are simply disbanded. Could there be a common publishing

project beginning from the 1990s? When the Internet came, which we deeply doubted. But then it was an option, and then we presented, the first concept at a magazine conference in Moscow, where you were also on board. So, this is, in short, how I would describe the atmosphere, the goals, the aims, and what we did in organising ourselves. The real goal was to stay independent and also to grow because we were limited. There was definitely a second aspect of that as well, because when the first conc

ept was actually presented at this conference in Moscow in 1997, I gave a speech there called "World Brains and Super Encyclopaedias". And this was all about the revolutionary leap publishing was taking at that time. Namely, with the advent of the Internet. Most of the editors present in Moscow subscribed to an idea of the World Wide Web being a place for pornography and for short snippets of information. However, a handful of us decided to continue, and with time, our friends and colleagues saw

that this was not such a bad idea after all, joining forces in order to meet the challenges of this new technology. In 1998, the association Eurozine was established and registered here in Vienna. Ten years later, the network had 75 partner journals from 34 different countries published in 32 different languages. As fast as that, I hadn't realised how fast it was. As you would have gathered from my accent, I'm the outsider here, but have been a passionate and devoted admirer of Eurozine. For mo

st of our audience listening now, 1989 won't have any serious meaning. It was that impassioned tearing down of the wall that divided Europe physically. Walter organised the first conference and the leaders of cultural journals got together. There was a common culture, and I think for me, that remains the very precious discovery and legacy of Eurozine. The Europe we're talking about 40 years ago is a very different place from today, where the beginning of division is beginning to show in a rather

alarming way, from Hungary in the East to the Netherlands and Sweden in the West. I do want to pick a bone with this at some other time when we have time for that. This whole, I think, very English notion of being away. Being outside of the EU, OK, but Europe is not the EU, first of all, and very importantly, it's not one and the same. And I very rarely hear this from Scots or the Irish, that they wouldn't belong in Europe and would be away. It's a very English thing to say, I understand why. I

t's an important point. The United Kingdom is now, I always use the phrase "United Kingdom" with a question mark. I am not popular, but it's a reality. But may I remind you, dear Judith… - Of course. Without the British 1960s and then the punk movement and whatever happened, the entirety of Yugoslavia in the 1970s was completely influenced by punk musicians. And we have been influenced by 1960s culture. And we were taught English at schools. I'm not quite sure whether he's beating me up or prais

ing me. I want to come back to English as a lingua franca and what kind of cultural hegemony it comes with. And it has implications for Eurozine. But first, let's hear from Andrea, who is the editor of one of the founding journals, Wespennest. You also have an issue with you. I brought some of the founders' issues with me. This is one of the early issues with the picture. No, this is one of my childhood pictures. Oh, sorry. That's fine. I quite like the wasp. Wespennest is one of the journals wh

ich is still very firmly rooted in print. You have an online presence to signal that Wespennest exists, and you refuse to budge to put everything online. Magazines were reluctant to take to the Internet, and Eurozine tried to change their position on that. I think that we tend to forget that using a website was not an everyday experience. In 1995, before the association Eurozine was founded, we organised a conference in Vienna. Then, it was still a looser network of cultural magazines in Europe.

It was somewhat an understandable and natural move to use the Internet for this further dissemination and wider audience. And the second function, why I think it was so compelling for printed magazines to use Eurozine as a tool, is that they have these archive functions. You see that magazine articles really age well. And you can highlight this, you can use their archival character, so to say, to put it in a different context. And now, a word from today's sponsors. This programme is supported b

y my aunt, Kati. She provides me with pickles and bacon, which keep me going through a long working day. Thanks, Aunt Kati. Please come visit me in Vienna. You've been promising for months. You can also become a supporter of the show. And you don't even have to feed me. All I ask, is that you pledge your support at patreon.com/Eurozine. That is Eurozine, the magazine presenting this programme. You can pledge anywhere, starting from as little as 3 euros a month, or whatever you can afford. Go cra

zy if you can, and I promise, we won't buy pickles with it. Instead, you'll get access to bonus material, invitations to the tapings of the show, and you will even get to suggest topics and questions. I usually say that this kind of work that cultural journalism does, it works toward eternity. The way I like to look back on the Eurozine archives, you can see an imprint of the time. I was editor-in-chief of a Swedish journal, Ord&Bild, which is still a partner of the network. And I was very proud

of what I was doing in Sweden. I was introducing international artists, philosophers, thinkers, opinion-makers to a Swedish audience. But I had all these contacts, and it all went in one direction. It was a one-way street. We presented this to a Swedish audience, but why couldn't I turn it around as well and make use of all those contacts and knowledge that I had of the Swedish culture and make my colleagues in Hungary, in Austria, in Germany become part of that knowledge. I can share that with

them. So, I can open up the traffic going in both directions. We have an earlier issue of Ord&Bild, just in case you want to flaunt it as a previous editor. And the current editor… Still one of the best journals in Europe, founded in 1892. And if somebody is interested in the history of Eurozine, get this anthology, co-edited by Carl Henrik and Klaus Nellen. Was this an obvious issue, when you found Eurozine, that English would be the primary language of the publication? Is it even the case? En

glish is the lingua franca, and for practical reasons, we needed to do that. But already from the start, it was thought and conceived as a multilingual project. The opposite of global mainstreaming and the hegemonic efforts and powers of you lot. I allow these people to say these things because, in principle, I allow free speech. That's good that you're an advocate for free speech. The purpose was not to promote English or ideas specifically from America or the UK. Instead, it was the small coun

tries and the small languages that were in focus. So, typically, a publishing history could look like this: Slovenia is a fantastic country when it comes to journals and literature. But it's small. In Slovenia, an article that the editorial office in Vienna found very interesting, not only for Slovenians, but for a wider European audience, is then picked up, translated from Slovenian, with a potential readership of 2 million, if we extrapolate, translated into English and made available. Not in

print, as the original was, but on the web. There's an editor sitting in Tallinn, in Estonia. Just a small language, also an editor of a printed journal. The editor realises, reading this text in Eurozine, this is exactly what I'm dealing with in my next issue. So, the editor translates it, of course, not from English, but from the original Slovenian, into another small language, Estonian. And the text has then travelled via this lingua franca platform, from a very small printed public sphere, i

n a small language, via English, into another small public sphere and small language across Europe. But it's not just the ideas that travel, it's also the authors that find a pathway through international publishing. You are, of course, right, because it multiplied their audience enormously. Slavenka Drakulić is always cited as a very successful example because her text travelled, I think… I don't know if it's still the record… But she travelled, so to say, in most languages, which means that sh

e multiplied her reach enormously because she comes from a very small language too, even if she also writes in English. So, for writers, it was really very important to have editors who were connected via Eurozine because editors didn't use it merely as a source of information, but they, of course, also looked for texts which would fit in their next contexts. At this point, English being the lingua franca, coming from a small language, if this is the only foreign language you learned, it's like

having a leaving certificate… It's probably true. - …now, as opposed to having it a hundred years ago. So, this is the starting point… That is probably true. Because, of course, it reaches… Not only is English the national language of the United States, but the language reaches as far East as it does West, if you think of Australia. It's very good that we remind people of how important Eurozine was in making the connection from East to West. But I think it's also important at this moment to look

to the future. I think we are at a very critical moment, not only in the history of Eurozine, but Europe itself. And I think we should look at the future of Europe through the vehicle of Eurozine. It has the capacity to play a unique role in the future of Europe. That is to say, by connecting with it and through it. But Carl Henrik, you pointed out just a couple of days ago, when we were talking about this, that publishing in and of itself is also changing, at a turning point. And you likened i

t to the point 25 years ago, a little more than 25 years ago, when digital publishing was making its more serious entry. It's a good point. Yes, I think that, structurally, we're now in a similar situation to the one we were in when we were in Moscow. With the escalation of this technology, with AI being added to it, we take another leap in this, and this ancient genre, this ancient part of the publishing industry, the cultural journal, the cultural magazine, is again faced with that challenge.

Should it address and try to grapple with this challenge? Try to make use of the opportunities that it actually represents, while at the same time retaining its own identity and bringing that into a new era? And now, some more words from our sponsors, or shall I say, funders and founders. The European Commission and the European Cultural Foundation. The European Cultural Foundation is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It has long been keen on connecting Europeans across borders, languages and

cultural backgrounds. It has been supporting the arts, research and much more since 1954. It also created the Erasmus student exchange programme, allowing over 10 million Europeans to travel and study abroad. Now, it is bringing together partners from across Europe to build a content sharing platform that syndicates articles, audio and video programmes in 15 languages. And somehow, miraculously, doesn't abuse your user data. Display Europe covers politics, culture, community and so much more. I

t also brings you this very talk show, Standard Time, produced by one of the co-founders, Eurozine. This all wouldn't be possible without the support of the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. Thanks, folks. Now, let's get back to where we were before. With all the challenges AI poses, one of the big opportunities affects the use of language, as the quality of language tools compared to, let's say, what was foreseeable in the 1970s, is just unimaginable. So, there could be a barrier

, a language barrier broken through technology with very cautious application. Cautious and editorial and strategic application, not just pouring on top of everything. Because technology simply poured on top of existing things doesn't tend to have a good track record. But, Walter, you wanted to come back in. I wouldn't like to stress too much the importance and the role of the momentary or long-term, meanwhile, prime minister of Hungary. But he's a perfect example of somebody, who started out as

a liberal politician. - Yes, absolutely. I personally saw him in, I think in the mid-1980s, when he gave a lecture at the IWM. A smart young politician, he pushes and was pushed, in a way, also, to rightist and far rightist positions. And what we face now, is a complete "fascisation" in Europe. We have a nazi party in the German parliament, which is very dangerous. We have the follow-up party of the NSDAP in Austria, which is pushing all the other parties right in this direction. And Eurozine s

till holds the flag of a kind of liberal, leftist, open-minded society. We now face a lot of rightist publications, especially on the Internet, and I would say they have a hegemony. Walter, how could Eurozine begin to be the flagship again? How could it lead this change to more positive waters? I think it can play a role. We are facing a militant right. It's not a play for a militant leftist movement, but for the renewed formulation of strict positions. And this battle has been ongoing for the l

ast 150 years. I would like to just call back to an anchor point. Because, in essence, I believe that the editors, who doubted the relevance of the Internet, suggesting that it's mostly porn and titbits on the side, were right. I also think cultural journalism has more evolutionary forms. And we try to create this point, where you can look into this deep insanity around us, in current affairs, in politics, in culture, and check against this board. Am I insane, or is everybody else? Hopefully, th

is helps the readers get out of a reactive mindset. Because, what this technology does, and that's online publishing, and everything based on online publishing, is that it inundates you. What people need more and more, I believe, and what I increasingly need myself, is a place where I can actually quiet my mind a little and think about what is really relevant. I would take issue with what Walter and Judith said before, namely that we are now in a very unique situation. Back in the year 2000, whe

n Eurozine was newly founded and was recruiting partners here and there, the opening speech at the 2000 conference that was held here in Vienna and in Bratislava, was written by Slavenka Drakulić. The title of that speech was, "Who's afraid of Europe?" In Austria at the time, the NSDAP follow-up party was entering into the government, which resulted in sanctions from the European Union. - It's good to remind us of that. Politically, it's not that very different. And Eurozine found its role then,

in order to retain a certain anchor position. Absolutely. And I have no doubt that it will do so today as well. I think Carl Henrik's idea of the anchor is a very good one. Or, as Réka said. - I think it's a rather… Well, the two of them. It really anchors where I think our position at the moment can most usefully be. What I appreciate so much about Eurozine working with this huge network of publications. We don't act like we "report" something from some kind of arbitrary centre point, right? T

his is important to me, what Andrea emphasised, that ideas and new voices and perspectives have to enter through these journals. I think not only ideas, but the decisive moment and also the charm of Eurozine for the magazines has always been that it was built bottom up, so we built something which didn't exist. Every one of these journals had the experience, either they were very small print run publications connected to academia, or they were, as Walter mentioned, very small print run independe

nt publications not linked to anyone. By connecting, we built trust, which is very important. Because you knew that the editor and the magazine will struggle with the same problems and issues. As far as I understand Eurozine until now, the backbone continues to be the printed magazines. All our printed magazines are in danger of going out of print and disappearing. The predictions for the future of printed media are really very dark and from my point of view, I see that they are doing everything

to disappear because they really only promote the electronic issues. Of course, they have a lot of distribution problems. Print is threatened, and reading print has a very different effect than reading digital surfaces. But also, digital publishing is not at a sustainable place. It's incredibly volatile. It's way costlier than most people perceive. And the editorial cost does not go away. Yes, that's the thing. Our cultures have this very deeply misplaced belief that human labour is disposable

and is practically the worst thing to have to pay for. The editor's work becomes more precious in my eyes. Because they are liable and responsible for maintaining quality, maintaining sense, understanding what would be comprehensible and what wouldn't. Toward eternity, perhaps not eternity, but for a longer term. But when we talk about eternity, I want to bring in Gaby Zipfel, who can't join us today because she has passed away. She was one of Eurozine's founding partners, editor of "Mittelweg 3

6". This is the book she authored with Regina Mühlhäuser and Kirsten Campbell, published posthumously, on sexual violence. An incredibly heavy topic. Editing only a fragment took me several of hours of crying. Could you please tell us a bit about Gaby? Just to have a moment to honour her. Gaby was one of the handful of people, who immediately saw a way forward, a path forward in Moscow. Without Gaby's extremely critical input in forming this concept, Eurozine would not exist today. She was a lon

g-standing editorial board member, but she was also securing funds for the projects in different ways at her home institution in Hamburg. She also organised, back in 2012 I think it was, a full-fledged Eurozine conference, which she conceived together with us, of course, but she was the brain behind it. In short: without Gaby Zipfel, Eurozine would not exist. Gaby Zipfel was an extraordinary person. In terms of the political stance of Eurozine, cultural journals as a genre and a collective throu

ghout Europe, are to a large extent a left-of-centre liberal endeavour. This is absolutely clear. However, leftism is not the only game in town, also when it comes to intellectual endeavours. Therefore, I tried as much as I could to find and identify publications that were centre or right-of-centre but shared the same fundamental view of the importance of a public sphere and intellectual exchange. My magazine, Index on Censorship, was of course not at all… It was very centrist, open-centre is a

very good way of describing it. With the current editorial board, we were discussing most recently updating our, so to say, public definition of a cultural journal. We are more or less centred around the notion of the essay as an organising idea. How do you see the essay faring now? Do you think it is maintaining its boundaries, or is it transforming in the foreseeable future? We did an issue on the essay, and there were both voices saying, the end of the essay has come now, and others saying, i

n times of polycrisis, this is the time of exactly that genre. It takes you a month, it takes a writer a month to write a decent essay and there is no money thus far that I have seen that you can take this month off. So, this is a very practical problem. But the form is interesting. I don't know how it can be transformed to be applicable to all the partners or to other formats than a printed magazine. Or the respective long essay on the web. Just to conclude, as we are sitting in the Alte Schmie

de, we have a literary programme and the gallery of magazines here, but we also have a music programme and an art programme. And I think we shouldn't finish without having some music here. Thank you, Walter. Thank you, everyone. "Blowin' in the Wind" by Bob Dylan. Is that what it was? - Yes, it was. Now listen, I'm having Blowin' in the Wind at my funeral, and it ain't gonna sound like that. This programme is presented by Eurozine, an online magazine bringing you reads from more than a hundred p

artner publications and across dozens of European languages. This talk show is a Display Europe production, a content sharing platform offering you content on politics, culture, community and so much more. And somehow, miraculously, it doesn't abuse your user data. Shocker, I know. Now, if you like what you see and wish to support our work, please go to patreon.com/Eurozine. That is, Eurozine, the magazine presenting this show. You can pledge as little as 3 euros a month, or whatever you can aff

ord. In return, you'll get access to bonus material, invitations to the taping of the show, or even get to suggest topics and questions. This programme is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union and the European Cultural Foundation. Importantly, the views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors and the speakers. They do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor t

he EACAE can be held responsible for them. We also thank the Alte Schmiede for hosting us today. Subtitles: Julia Sobota © 2024 Eurozine