About the keynote speakers
Péter Inkei, Budapest Observatory
Vuk Ćosić, net artist
PÉTER INKEI, born in 1945, is the Director of the Budapest Observatory: Regional Observatory on Financing Culture in East-Central Europe.
The Observatory conducts or takes part in various projects on cultural policy and finances (www.budobs.org).
Dr Inkei has done consultancy in various fields of cultural policy. Among others author of the Hungarian entry of the Compendium of cultural policies; did consultancy for the Council of Europe; served on the Board of Cultural Information and Research Centres Liaison in Europe (CIRCLE); was a stakeholders’ representative to the Lab for Culture; is chief advisor to the National Development Office in cultural matters.
Previously, had held various positions in the civil service, including deputy minister for culture, general director for publishing (Ministry of Culture), national coordinator of research (Ministry of Education), and his first job at the National Commission for UNESCO. He has also worked in publishing – actually with Central European University Press – and was founding director of the Budapest International Book Festival (1994).
About the Budapest Observatory
The Budapest Observatory was created in April 1999 with the support of the Hungarian National Commission for Unesco, in response to the call of the Unesco world conference in 1998 in Stockholm for systematic monitoring of processes of cultural policy all over the world. The mission of the Observatory is to be of help for those, who want to know more about the ways cultural life - cultural activities and products - are being financed in Europe, more particularly in East-Central European countries. The organisation functions under the umbrella of the Foundation for the East-Central European Cultural Observatory, established by the Hungarian Association of Mediators of Culture.
As a resource organisation, the Budapest Observatory facilitates research, collects and provides information, establishes contacts in areas that include the financing of culture, cultural policy, legislation and statistics. We take part in projects of various character and size, ranging from conducting surveys through organising conferences to acting as speakers at international meetings.
A well-received instrument for this is the monthly newsletter (BO memo), whose material of over eight years stored on the web site of the Observatory, functions as a widely used information gateway about key subjects.
Address: Október 6 utca 14, 1051 Budapest, Hungary
W: www.budobs.org/, E: bo@budobs.org
VUK ĆOSIĆ, born 1966 in Belgrade, lives in Ljubljana since 1992. He is considered to be a pioneer of Internet art, exhibiting on prestige locations, such as Venice Biennale; ICA, London; Beaubourg, Paris; ICC, Tokyo; Kunsthalle, Vienna; Digital Artlab, Tel Aviv; ZKM, Karlsruhe; Ars Electronica, Linz; Walker, Minneapolis; Postmasters, NYC; Friedricanum, Kassel; Neue Galerie, Graz; IAS, Seoul; Moca, Oslo and others.
He is also a lecturer (Beaubourg, Paris; Guggenheim, Venice; CCA, Glasgow; Thing, NYC; festivals: Hong Kong, London, Liverpool, Dessau, Montreal, Banff, Madrid, Gorizia, Copenhagen ...; art academies and universities: Stockholm, NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Troy, Dundee, Liverpool, Venice, Linz, Barcelona ...).
His work is mentioned and analyzed in numerous diplomas, master and doctoral thesises (University of Rome, Sao Paolo, Leads, Manchester, Bruxelles, Trieste ...), media (NY Times, Liberation, La Repubblica, Guardian, Cahiers du Cinema, Artforum, Newsweek, Wired, Haaretz, ORF, CNN, BBC ...) and monographic publications on new media (MIT Press, Thames & Hudson, Tate, Taschen ...).
He is represented by the galleries, such as Bryce Wolkowitz, NYC; Skuc, Ljubljana; ARC, Edinburgh, Sofia and many others.
More: www.ljudmila.org/~vuk/
