MEDIATED PRESENCE: RADIO PARADISO

From the GHP I had learned how important it is to have a social interface when connecting internationally in a performance setting. I had also found at the GHP that 'moving letters on a screen' are not very interesting dramaturgically. In addition, the 0+Network was intent on proving itself worthwhile for people with HIV or AIDS, and it was characterized by content and not by the 'flashy-connection-wave HI-thing'. In other programmes that I organised for Paradiso I had regularly used the so called 'fork", a small device that allows you to connect the telephone to the Public Address System (and use the microphone to speak). It felt as if we were broadcasting over the radio and allowed us to make phone calls to different locations. Most of all we focused on San Francisco, but we also phoned Romania, for example, where Coen Stork, the Dutch ambassador at the time, reported on the situation in that country.