If electronic music – or at least its most widely internationalized styles – is the soundtrack of virtual media spheres, then there is really no reason as to why its protagonists should come almost exclusively from the industrialized western world – except this one: limited access to resources, technology, markets and networks. A helping hand and the forging of links are in this regard indispensable. The commitment in recent years of Montreal’s MUTEK Festival to musical exchange between Canada and South America has its counterpart in CTM’s efforts to promote an on-going exchange between Berlin and the countries of south and southeastern Europe. Yet it isn’t quite so simple. The more universal question is posed, as to the relationship between a particular cultural identity and social participation. Is it possible to have the one without losing the other? And, if the answer is yes, then in what dimensions are we talking? The world of Pop is challenged constantly by this paradox in both major and minor issues. Globalization, not only of Pop, takes the question a step further: creative participation in the achievements of the networked world – as opposed to being a passive consumer on the margins, fed with the products of distant lands – is desirable. Yet, at the same time, the demon menace of a faceless aesthetic, disinclined to give expression to local idiosyncrasy, is alive and kicking. Such unresolved questions are handled, more or less overtly, by all of tonight’s projects. Club sounds and motion pictures from Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Canada, Turkey, Russia, Poland and Germany meet here to weave a new network. Whilst the main-floor is devoted to the most international styles, Minimal Techno, IDM and Microhouse, the artists on the second stage aim for a fusion of local traditional sounds with international genres. This program, organized collectively by MUTEK and CTM, is a statement of cooperation between artists and promoters. And equally, a positive avowal of the role played by international music festivals, as far as their means allow it, in making the global world of Pop truly global – with equal access opportunities for all, as opposed to the tired and stigmatizing mainstream marketing of folkloric exotica.
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