1994-95 New Year's Eve Telebration

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 28, Santa Monica, CA, USA:

Contact: Sherrie Rabinowitz
[email protected]
+1 310 828 8732

Electronic Cafe International� (ECI) today announced an upgrade to its renowned New Year's Eve around-the-world "TELEBRATION" -- ECI will debut its WWW Netscape site, which will go online at 12:00 Noon PST, on December 31st 1994. A worldwide network of ISDN video links and consumer videophones will contribute to the World Wide Web home page, which will evolve throughout the event. Images and sound files from sources such as CU-SeeMe, IRC chat, the ECI TelePoetry Moo and Image Galleries of Telebrations past will be on exhibit. An additional Image Gallery will be updated on the fly, showing the people, places and events the ECI links to throughout the day-long Telebration. The event will be hosted by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, proprietors of the flagship Electronic Cafe in Santa Monica, California.

A NEW ERA'S EVE PARTY

ECI will be connecting periodically with a variety of Internet-based New Year's Eve parties around the globe, such as Cyberia in London, England and the Cyberfoo event being held by the Boston Computer Society's VR-SIG & The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (The WELL). The annual ECI TELEBRATION hopes to establish links with those who are producing their first cyberspace New Year's Eve events.

CYBERCASTING WITH A NET

The ECI Telebration will create audio bridges for audioconferencing as well as for ECI's international network of Panasonic black & white videophones and compatible devices. The analog bridge linking the Panasonic videophones around the world will be interfaced live to a CU-SeeMe cybercast, so that even those who don't have access to the Internet can cybercast video on the net. A digital bridge will be established to facilitate the international ISDN compressed video links for the ECI Network as well as for others utilizing PictureTel or any H.320 videoconferencing systems.

RUSSIAN TOWARD MIDNIGHT ;-)

The event will begin at 12:30 PM Pacific Standard Time (PST), with videophone links to the Electronic Cafe at The "TV Gallery", which rersides within the Contemporary Art Center in Moscow. The TV Gallery is an independent experimental video studio, which archives creative video works and produces "TV Gallery" a television show which regularly broadcasts programs of interest to the business and art communities in Russia.

REVEILLONS des MONDES

Europe will come on line live from the ACTUEL Magazine party in Paris, France at 1:00 PM PST, using ISDN compressed video, CU-SeeMe, and IRC chat. The party is a part of the "Reveillons des Mondes" (New Year's Eve of the Worlds) celebration. The ECI in Paris will be facilitating the cyberspace attractions for the ACTUEL party. The main location will contain some 8,000 - 10,000 partiers, while a smaller adjacent structure, The Cyberspace Building, will house a bank of 36 computers connected to the Internet. The French Connection will be a continuous 12 hours from 1:00 PM PST to 1:00 AM PST.

ISRAEL ON LINE

At 2:00 PST, Maxine Ben-Meir of the newly established Electronic Cafe in Jerusalem will send videophone still images and live audio, concurrent with New Year's Eve celebration in The Holy Land.

WALTZING THROUGH CYBERSPACE

At 3:00 PST Linz, Austria will join the ECI Network via videophone, and also musically through a Yamaha Disklavier MIDI player piano. An Austrian pianist will play the traditional Austrian New Year's Eve Waltz in Linz, and the MIDI signals from Austria will simultaneously play the digital player pianos in Santa Monica and New York City. For New York and Santa Monica, the Austrian pianist will have the power of telepresence, as a real-time performance of the Waltz via audio and video will be enjoyed by partygoers there. The rest of the network will simply hear the performance, in real time. Both Paris, France and Linz, Austria will enter 1995 at 3:00 PM PST.

POPPING UP IN GREENLAND, AT INTERVAL

At 7:00 PM PST, the ECI will connect with Michael Neilsen, Director of the Danish Electronic Cafe. Neilsen, who is vacationing in Greenland, will send videophone images to the Network via CU-SEE ME. Around the same time Sally Rosenthal, who operates the Electronic Cafe at Interval Research in Palo Alto, will send eye-popping images from her World Class collection of POP-UP Paraphernalia.

SENATOR POBOT & THE BIG APPLE

North American celebrations will begin at approximately 7:30 PM PST when Santa Monica connects with the Electronic Cafe International sites in Toronto and at "The Kitchen" in New York. Networked co-created Ambient music and performances will take place between all three locations via PictureTel videoconferencing systems. ISDN-based audio codecs from Dolby will link the New York and Santa Monica ECIs with two-way CD-quality sound. Graham Smith in Toronto will feature an appearance by the ECI's Senator POBOT, a 5' tall, 92-lb wireless robot. In November of 1994 Senator POBOT, direct from its live appearance at the White House, linked COMDEX attendees with people on Pennsylvania Avenue, interviewing passersby on their opinions of the information superhighway. Using its video camera monitor head, the robot broadcasts real-time images of the face and audio of the voice of the person controlling Senator POBOT's movements via ISDN from a remote location elsewhere in the world.

SOUTHWEST ROUND-UP

At 9:45 PST, the connections and focus will shift to the big New Year's bash at the Electronic Cafe in Austin, Texas. More ambient music and other surprises will be hosted by Nate Pagel, Director of the ECI Austin. An hour later, ECI will be ringing in the new year with Studio X, an Internet service provider in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

PACIFIC COAST PARTYING

As the Midnight Hour approaches on the West Coast, simultaneous connections will take place with Kim Spencer's New Year's Eve party for the Internews organization in San Anselmo, California, as well as with Hank Bull of the "Western Front" in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The "Western Front" is a TELEBRATION tradition.

APPEARING AT ECI SANTA MONICA

Throughout the evening and into the New Year, several performers will appear live at the Electronic Cafe in Santa Monica. Vocalist Bonnie Barnett will sing and saxophonist Richard Wood will perform for the live crowd. Ambient music will be created by Meridian Dreams and Paul Sangster.

Gene Sterling and his MIDI percussion pads will be accompanied by bass and guitar players in Santa Monica. They will collaborate in a real time Cyberjam with Dean Jacobs, who will joining the party via videophone from his home in Berkeley, California.

ECI is a long standing cross-cultural network exploring the creative aspirations of artists and others interested in using all the manifestations of collaborative telecommunications media we can get our hands on.

Electronic Cafe (TM), Founded in 1984.
Electronic Cafe International (TM) with 40 Affiliates around the world and growing.

If there is someplace special you think we should post the ECI TELEBRATION info to, please let us know.
Hope you can join us.

Happy Solstice,
Happy Holidays,
Happy New Year

ECI