June 10, 1990

On-line technology is really good for a lot of things, but my two favorites are its uncanny way of breaking down barriers between people and how well it works for giving voice to people who otherwise have a hard time being heard.

A perfect example of both is happening from June 21 to 24, during the International Conference on AIDS here in San Francisco. During that time an equally international group of artists and activists will create an alternative AIDS conference, timed to coincide with the “real” thing, using lots of phone lines, computers fax machines and every other kind of technology link you can think of.

Called “69 Hours/On-Line Against AIDS,” the San Francisco portion of the event — which is being billed as a “trans-oceanic, multi-media communications event — starts at 7 p.m. at the Capp Street Project.

A couple of the more recognizable faces involved with the project, at least on the technology side, are PC pioneer Lee Felsenstein and Mark Graham, founder of the pioneering on-line information service, PeaceNet.
They’re setting up the text-based half of the network, called On-Line Against AIDS, based on the experience Graham gained during his five years at PeaceNet.

OLAA will host live teleconferences and forums about AIDS from many AIDS electronic bulletin board systems, as well as an on-line version of John James’ highly regarded newsletter, “AIDS Treatment News.”

The other half of the network is going to be a bit more wild and woolly — called “69 Hours,” it will include live on-line reports from a Dutch activist group planted inside the AIDS Conference, as well as a global art event which will transmit graphics, photography and slow-scan and live video performances around the word to and from sites in Amsterdam (their event, at the Paradiso Cultural Center, is called the “Seropositive Ball”), San Francisco, New York City and Rio de Janeiro. Organizers are trying to link Tokyo and Berlin as well.

Each city that’s participating in the event is pretty autonomous, says local “69 Hours” organizer Michael Routery, but they all link up on Graham’s OLAA network weekly to keep track of what everyone else is doing.

Art-and-computer sites in San Francisco will include the Capp Street Project, New Langton Arts, the San Francisco Art Commission gallery, Southern Exposure, the San Francisco Art Institute, S.F. Cinematheque and a performance art space called “1800 sq. ft.,” according to Routery. He says computer-linked events will also take place in New York at the Simon Watson Artspace, in conjunction with a show throughout the month of AIDS-related art.

Routery, a member of the AIDS activist group ACT NOW, also promotes performance art in the city, and got involved after a phone call from the sponsoring Paradiso Cultural Center in Amsterdam, as did co-organizer Chris Robbins.

He says the four-day event is a “forum for empowerment” and the high-tech inks are how people can freely exchange information about AIDS internationally. But the cultural and artistic component, “69 Hours,” is really an international protest against AIDS and AIDS policy, especially focusing on the United States.

Felsenstein said he got interested in the project during a sail on a lake with Carol Nevijans, a Belgian living in Amsterdam who he met during the Galactic Hacker Party earlier this year. She was organizing an alternative AIDS conference to be held in Amsterdam in December. When she found out she was pregnant, she decided to move the conference up to June so she could still participate. The week of the International AIDS Conference seemed to be a perfect time.

Felsenstein suggested that she find a way to use a type of Community Memory system, similar to the public on-line information service he helped develop many years ago in Berkeley, to keep people connected before, during and after the conference. The concept grew from there. “We see it as a virtual convention that just goes on and on and on,” he said.

Lots of volunteers are needed to really pull the event off with panache, though. “Everybody who has interest in the subject should get in touch with the organizers,” says Felsenstein. “Forum hosts should already be setting up their little (on-line) tents.”