crunch@well.UUCP (John Draper) (03/27/89)
Announcement ------------ On April 16th at 7:30 pm till 11 pm Eastern time, at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center in New York, a workshop "One Million Points of Light" will take place. The theme of this event is obviously both toung-in-cheek extrapolation upon US President George Bush's famous phase, "A Thousand points of Light", and earnest metaphor for an attempt to create "Humanity" as a real community. Megavision, a non-profit International project for global humanitarian initiatives, will present and coordinate this international cultural event. Telecommunication networking people are invited to attend and have a special role. Especially those who correspond through Email and computer conferencing. The event will feature computer networkers in their normal activities of communication all around the world as if the earth is a global village. We are looking for people to pass information to commercial networks like Genie, Compuserve, BIX, WELL and all the other commercial and non-commercial networks like Usenet, Arpa net, and the other large area networks. We invite any suggestions and comments on how we as networkers can contribute to the script of the workshop now in progress. How do the Networkers fit in? On the stage will be a command post coordinating all channels of communication through a TeleSet*, while portable workstations will be placed throughout the auditorium for inter-audience communications. At the event workshop participants will be communicating through a new class of Communication equipment called a TeleSet* Environment. A TeleSet* itself is a machine that integrates the signals from the Audio, Video, Computer, Television and Telephone worlds into a single experience for the users. Utilizing satellite technology we will have an interactive videophone amongst the participating sites, through TV technologies we will reach the public over cable, through the radio world we will be "on the air", through the computer modem we will be in "Network" mode, and through the telephone there will be people calling in who are watching on TV or listening via one of the radio signals. Interactive link-ups are expected from San Francisco State University, Moscow State University, Yale University, George Washington University, MIT and the Media Lab (MIT). Additionally, there are proposals for an uplinks and downlinks from Japan, West Germany, Holland, Hong Kong and a rapidly rising number of new locations globally. This workshop will be preparing the way for a "Global Town Meeting" on June 21, 1989 (Summer Solstice). All previous "Space Bridges", from the early 80"s through now, have been planned and implemented by a few Activists or Media Professionals in a music concert type format or a "Talking Heads" type exchange. The audience has not been given a choice as people have when choosing cultural products like books, films, concerts or theater performances. The June 21st event will, for the first time, be planned by the workshop participants, which includes approximately 3000 people in Avery Fisher Hall (Lincoln Center) as well as electronic correspondents from around the U.S and abroad. If we are fortunate we will experience something like our ancestors did in public squares in the Greek city-states or the crowds did in the Forums of the Roman Empire. Quite a challenge... If anyone out there is interested, please let us know, just Email to me, and indicate which networks you use, such as UseNet, Arpanet BIX, WELL, Compuserve, etc. John Draper & Craig Larson In association with Joseph Goldin, Megavision Programmers Network ...uunet!acad!crunch!well