Networking on the internet - a global communications platform for artists. Is this new website merely an archive to pool artists? works in digital form, or does it offer the user much more than that? Culturebase.net is certainly an expanding audiovisual gallery, making the mobility of art works through the digital labyrinth a fact. But is it also the future "space" in which artists' mobility will be manifested? The project partners describe the site as a "crossroads", where the user can make contact with other users, literally over the heads of the artists. Furthermore, the site offers possibilities to enter one's own critical review of the artists and their works presented, through the discussion forum. It's a gallery, an archive, a meeting place, a platform for art critics, an encyclopaedia and an art catalogue in one.

Culturebase.net is a newly launched site (a Culture 2000 project). It is intended to function as a unique online information source on contemporary international artists from all fields and from geographical regions as diverse as Asia, Africa, Latin America, Middle East, Central and Eastern Europe.

The rationale behind the project stems from the recognition that a crucial prerequisite for international cultural exchange is the networking of knowledge and information about artists from various countries. Especially in recent years, networking among cultural players has shown that the variety of perspectives offered by different cultural regions can open up highly productive forms of transnational, interdisciplinary dialogue. The use of new technologies, in particular the Internet, offers new conditions to create a forum for this global communication network, one that is not dependent on any location. Culturebase.net is one result of this intercultural dialogue.

>From their discussions with numerous cultural institutions, which are devoted to presenting contemporary art and culture, the House of World Cultures in Berlin realised that these institutions have not yet systematically archived their stock in digital form. Yet they are keenly interested in developing their institutional memory, preserving it in digital form, archiving it and making it available to a broad audience. Thus, a consortium of partners: House of World Cultures, Visiting Arts in London, Intercult in Stockholm, and the Danish Centre for Culture and Development in Copenhagen, got together to develop Culturebase.net with the aim of becoming the online information source on international artists.
On the site one can find articles about the different artists portrayed, written by professional journalists/writers specifically for the site. Here one can find biographies and texts on artists who are not listed in ordinary encyclopaedias. Inquisitive minds can find Arabian filmmakers who live in France, West African music groups, or dancers between two cultures.

On the site, the artists and their works are placed in new contexts, which can spark discussions through e-mail forums and chats and offer the chance to initiate a public discussion on the artists included.

It's true that for now inputs provided by the contracting partner House of World Cultures greatly outnumber inputs by the partners, but the project team has set itself the goal of integrating the data of at least two other EU partners in its first year of operation.

And if you ever want to physically meet or cooperate with one of the included artists (for one can't learn everything about them from the site), visit "On The Move", to find the route to cooperating with them.