It's a couple hours before a benefit at Heaven Gallery, a couple Saturdays before the opening of Version>02, the "digital arts convergence" (April 18-20 at the Museum of Contemporary Art). Marszewski, or Edmar--as he's been known for the more than a decade he's plied his entrepreneurial media in Chicago--has just quit smoking. I ask how it's going. The publisher of Lumpen and Select, and partner in the stalled Supersphere.com, stands still, contemplates, works the licks to the center of his Tootsie Pop. Pretty well, he thinks, drawing from a well of infinite nonchalance.

"Except for this," he says. He produces a printout of an e-mail. One of the event's many facets is a DVD collection of sophisticated, subversive short pieces criticizing contemporary media. Edmar shipped the masters and a substantial certified check to a duplicator in Virginia. While technology that allows DVDs to be burned as readily as CDs is just around the corner, mass duplication remains in the hands of corporations that question every frame of material from non-corporate sources, particularly when it criticizes other corporations. Copyright law allows some leeway in terms of satire and criticism, but as with the long history of printers who often choose not to manufacture books contrary to their beliefs, DVD manufacturers are skittish. Particularly with a project like this: "The provided DVD-R was reviewed by our Data Bureau and many of the chapters that were presented contained content that would most likely be considered copyrighted material. Please refer to the non-comprehensive list of what was seen... ABC; CBS; NBC; FOX; CNN; CNBC; MSNBC; C-SPAN; TLC; History Channel; Disney; Larry King 'Live'; Star Trek-TNG; Scooby Doo; G.I. Joe; The Brady Bunch; Gomer Pyle; Calvin Klein commercial; The Devil's Advocate; Deliverance ... Before we can proceed any further with the production of this DVD, please provide the replication licensing documentation from the IPR [intellectual property rights] owners of the above listed material. If there are any questions please let me know and I will help in any way that I can."

I laugh. Edmar offers me a sucker. Will corporations truly help in any way they can to bring about a more democratic mass media? Like the other organizers of the event, Marszewski has his doubts. But he expresses them with unflagging cheer. Buoyed by a working class background (he grew up in Bridgeport where he still works some nights in his mom's bar), Marszewski turned a desire to reflect his personal beliefs into the longtime political and arts magazine Lumpen. With Lumpen, 1998's one-shot Easy Listener, and a series of events and parties over the past several years, Marszewski has grown increasingly interested in how alternative messages could be conveyed by independent media in competition with the relentless gloss of major media. The greatest inspiration came from "Net.congestion" and "Next 5 Minutes," two media arts festivals in the Netherlands, events where form and content were equally important.

One of the key concepts behind the films, performances, presentations and new-media labs that comprise Version>02 is that of the "digital commons." An introduction to the issue of Select to be distributed this weekend, which will include the controversial DVD (or, worst-case scenario, a VHS tape), defines it: "The digital commons is a metaphor for the public space that we use to communicate and distribute ideas, where we share tools and resources, and influences. It is a place for commerce, art and the transmission of knowledge." Much like the public square of old, "this commons requires a dialogue about intellectual property, the balance between civil liberties and security, freedom of speech and privacy, issues of access, and the creative use of tools. Some herald the Internet and the global communications infrastructure as a protected space that allows creativity and innovation to flourish. Others argue that our civil liberties are at risk and we are entering a society more perfectly monitored and filtered than any in history."

Liz Revision, who developed the Version>02 Website from open-source code in a way that would allow non-programmers to share information about issues relating to the festival, is concerned about whether artists can use the Internet as an alternative distribution medium. "We need new systems that allow artists to continue to experiment with technology, collaborate with others through new communication media, and create innovative works and projects. We also need to continue to encourage common protocols to provide for alternative media distribution routes, and resist attempts by governing agencies to move the Internet into a push-content model like television, since that will not encourage innovation or lead to any interesting developments within the arts."

How does Version>02 suit that? "It's a festival where artists and other people involved with technology can come together to discuss these kinds of issues and promote the Internet idea as a space that allows creativity and innovation to flourish."

Each Wednesday night since October 2001, shifting members of the group have met at Square One on Milwaukee Avenue, trying out ideas, showing videos, listening to music. A few weeks ago, the group included festival organizers Marszewski, Brien Rullman, Karl Kuhn and Brian Dressel. Marszewski is reluctant to take the spotlight, insisting as he always has, that he's in the service of the message and the event. Some activists argue that to participate in the vernacular of mass media is to cheapen a message. The organizers of Version>02, like the culture jammers of Adbusters and Guerrilla News Network and publishers like Soft Skull Press' Sander Hicks (all of whom are participating in Version), argue that it's not only desirable, but imperative. On this particular night, the Select DVD is showing, and the mix of skeptical messages with state-of-the-art technique prompts conversation about that approach.

Conversations about the event often revolved around the idea that digital duplication--particularly once DVD burners are standard Mac equipment--will shift power, in frightening ways both for capital and for artists. ("The means of production," I think it's called.) Marszewski draws on his experience with the super-ambitious Supersphere. "We took control of the tools and technologies of the Web and harnessed them better than many giant media corporations. And we did it with nothing. That is definitely a measure of success: that you can compete with the giants and beat them aesthetically and operationally."

But a lesson reinforced by Supersphere was "that cultural signifiers, music, films, indie celebrity, fashion, the brands of the underground scenes, mattered more to people than issues that were always on my mind while doing Lumpen. I found myself drifting from my total preoccupation with the information war to understanding the business and marketing end of the entertainment and 'new media' industry." What followed was a period where he did "strictly business development-oriented work," in which he "learned what mattered most to business was marketing and the aggregation of consumers. Nothing else mattered. Consumption of a product is all that matters to a corporation."

Multimedia lab manager Logan Bay reflects, "I really got into Version because it is all about the dialogue. Working as an artist and designer, I see lots of flashy nice stuff with no teeth, no substance. Learning about politics I see good content but lack of presentation, which hampers the appeal to so-called nonbelievers. Version looks to be the place where artists and activists can come together, talk, meet and network. Influence each other and shake things up in the digital, the real, the whole world."

Event organizer and installation coordinator Rullman, who has spent the past eight years in live video mixing for events, organized the after-dark portion of the Summer Solstice, and lauds the MCA's support. "We don't have any outside funding, so production comes from people who want to make it happen. This year we have a remarkable collective of people who are going to perform and show work, and discuss the arts." He believes that the collective ambitions of those assembling for the conference can signal important developments. "We need this access to information and the ability to comment on it and express ourselves. Media corporations have constructed this paradigm of directing the media downstream and discouraging any independent comment or critique. These are very scary times and I feel the big companies are controlling the shots to benefit themselves and not what is good for culture."

It's the kind of issue that has always been a mainstay of Lumpen magazine. Contentious in its youth about local issues as much as the world issues it currently fixates on, it led many locals to grumble. So years later, it's always a surprise to run into Edmar on the street or in a café or bar and see how many folks he greets with his smile. Plus he talks a good game, slangy and sly. It would be ridiculous to use a phrase like "mayor of Wicker Park" about the veteran provocateur, yet in his quiet way, he's an important force in keeping ideas in the air in this part of Chicago. I jokingly used the word "self-promoter" recently, and he looked thoughtful for a second before saying, "It was only the other day someone ever said that to me. They walked up to me at a party, I was handing out someone else's flyer for an event, and he said, 'You're the shameless self-promoter, aren't you?' I didn't know what to say. I'm helping out somebody else's event, it's always about the event and getting people together with ideas. It's not about me. But for a couple of years, somebody had this in their head and was wanting for the chance to say this to me." He smiles. "It's the work, man, you can't let people stand in the way."

Edmar sees himself as a worker bee of information. Of the now-quarterly magazine with which his name is most associated, he says, "Was Lumpen a success when it came out monthly? Perhaps. But I think now that it comes out quarterly we have time to make it better. Lumpen seems to have more impact in times of national duress or war. Today more than ever people are telling me how much they enjoy reading it, especially in light of the Bush theft of the election and the aftermath of 9-11. Lumpen is also successful, even if it has never been successful financially, in that I get to work with people who challenge my preconceptions and ideas. They're making Lumpen a better cultural product and artifact through its design, research and presentation of some pretty radical concepts, facts and opinions."

The pre-1999 version of Lumpen also allowed the creation and funding of the inactive Supersphere.com. "The knack for producing Lumpen with no resources except our heads was transferred to Supersphere. In many ways I saw the site as an electronic Lumpen on acid. The site and its operations were an amazing experiment to see what could be created when a band of underground artists had resources to create daily content for our peers. In the end we fucked shit up and amazed ourselves at the work we could do as a dysfunctional group of cultural producers. Eventually we imploded internally, but we blew everyone away who had access to the site because of the volume and quality of our material. We didn't put up thirty-second clips. We produced and shot or represented over fifteen hundred hour-long concerts, hundreds of films and interviews, thousands of articles and reviews. We did this with a small staff and crappy equipment. But we needed real cultural products that people could pay for to support our efforts to underwrite our business. Our false assumption that people would pay for niche content exclusively online was our downfall."

But this did not make him any less ambitious. "I realized that in order to get wider distribution of the ideas and products that we support or create, we needed to make new publications, new festivals, media collectives and perhaps TV shows. We need these outlets to compete with the monoculture of the big corporados to support the cultures that we create. Since we have the tools and means to do this, the only thing stopping us is the ability to pay rent. So making rent is the first focus. After that, creating and supporting our culture is paramount."

Nice talk, Edmar. "I'm not one to talk shit and do nothing about it. Post-Supersphere you can witness a flurry of activity from me. In short, there's been Select magazine and enhanced CDs, which includes the pimping of Electronic Culture, design, video, music and cultural subversion. The Select DVD label, focusing on the distribution of radical and leading edge videos. Lumpen, on a quarterly schedule focusing on politics, analysis of Bush regime and globalization. And, of course, parties, usually held to give away or fund and celebrate the release of a CD project of genius local work."

And Version>02? "It brings all these ideas and projects to one space, allowing humans to interact and conspire to create new projects, enlarge our scenes, share commonalties, learn about emerging trends in the use of technologies in the arts and create new strategies for confronting corporate hegemony over our cultures and lives. We will be in deeper shit if the corporations continue to hold ownership of ideas and images. What kind of planet do we live in when we cannot explore criticism or art without the consent of corporations?"

And parties? "Yes. And have a major party every night showcasing the best talent in the city."

Which means? "Fuck the corporados!"

But for right now, Ed's focus is finishing up--and keeping nicotine free. "No panic. Just no time left to get the shit done. I'm trying to keep my mouth full of toothpicks and candy."

The Version>02 digital arts convergence runs April 18-20 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 East Chicago, (312)397-4010. For more information and a full schedule of events visit www.versionfest.org or www.mcachicago.com.

Also by Ray Pride

TIP OF THE WEEK
Roger Michell, director of "Persuasion" and "Notting Hill," shows another side to his sensibility with this rich and masterful story (co-written by Michael Tolkin) of two men--cocky lawyer Ben Affleck, weary insurance salesman and alcoholic Samuel L. Jackson--who collide on New York's FDR expressway and proceed, during the course of the day, to try and destroy each other.
(2002-04-11)

CRAZY LOVE
In John McKay's debut feature, "Crush," Andie MacDowell is Kate, lonely headmistress of a private school in England's Cotswolds. She and her two best friends, all in their forties, meet weekly to moan and glory in their failures with men despite their professional success.
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TIP OF THE WEEK
If John Hughes were so bold as to make "Magnolia," after reading Philip K. Dick while tripping, the result wouldn't be one-tenth as good as "Donnie Darko," writer-director Richard Kelly's bold American original, a 1988-set teen satire that offers up the dissonant spectacle of twenty-eight days in the life of your essential suburban paranoid-schizophrenic teen (Jake Gyllenhaal).
(2002-04-04)

TIP OF THE WEEK
If the only thing Hal Hartley had gotten right about his "Beauty and the Beast" riff was his multitude of long looks at Sarah Polley's dreamy-scheming face, I'd be pleased already.
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PANIC BUTTONS
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GLOVE AND MONEY
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TIP OF THE WEEK
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LETTING GO
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AUTUMNAL CRAFT
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SPRUNG
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