1995

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Operating Systems:
Macintosh System 7.5.1 - 7.5.2
Nextstep 3.3
BeOS DR1 - DR5
Windows 95
Browsers: Netscape 1.0
Computers: Apple PowerBook 190 / PowerBook 5300

"For many of us 1995 was the Short Summer of the Net. While surfing the hype throughout Europe from the one symposium to the next festival, we knew that the net backlash was just around the corner."

April 1995: the teleconferencing software CU-SeeMe is going commercial.

In the first half of 1995, MP3 files begin flourishing on the Internet.
By the summer of 1995 most WWW users on the internet were using Netscape's browser. Market share was at 80%+.

6-11 July: Serb forces take over the enclave of Srebrenica. During the following days, an estimated 8'000 Bosniaks are executed by units of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS).

July 1995: at the Interference Festival in Berlin I hear an incredible live set by Pita (Peter Rehberg) and discover what is going to be the Mego sound.

In 1995, Mille Plateaux released three Alec Empire albums: the compilation Limited Editions 90-94; his proper debut album, Generation Star Wars; and Low on Ice (The Iceland Sessions). That same year, Atari Teenage Riot recorded “Delete Yourself”, the first album to be released on Digital Hardcore Recordings, followed by the double-sided EP Speed/Midijunkies.

August 1995: The month ended with the huge open-air Nature One rave in Germany with Aphex Twin and Autechre.

October: a great 12” vinyl by Fennesz: Instrument (mego 004) is published.
Rumours about a new multimedia computer, the BeBox, are spreading.

Other records: Haujobb: Frames; Scanner: Sulphur; Atari Teenage Riot: Delete Yourself; Skinny Puppy: The Process

Paris: soirées cyber (”Ces soirées étaient interfacées avec d’autres à San Francisco, à New York ou avec les soirées zippies londoniennes. Un ordinateur connecté sur IRC ou sur le Well nous permettait d’échanger avec Bruce Sterling Howard Reingold, ou encore des français comme Maurice Dantec. On était en 95 et la musique en ligne nous paraissait pleine de promesses”).

I met up with Lucy Mohl on my Grand American Tour of 1995. I had spent the previous three weeks trekking around the states and finally arrived, dazed and confused, in Seattle. I landed on the doorstep of Adam and Tonya Engst, creators of TidBITS, who put me up for the night. No sooner had I settled down when they informed me that we'd be out for the evening, visiting Glenn Fleishman, who had some strange event happening that night. We arrived at Glenn's offices to find the place jam packed with people, including a full TV crew! Anyway, we spent a very enjoyable evening there, totally failing to watch the first live broadcast of a film over the Internet (via CU-SeeMe) and instead spent most of the time talking to Lucy about her pet project, film.com.

November 1 to November 21: the Dayton conference takes place at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio.

November 20th and 21st : at the National Theatre in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in conjunction with the Obala Art Centre and Radio Zid and the Open Society Institutes of Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, the NSK groups (Laibach, Irwin, Noordung, New Collectivism, Department of Pure and Applied Philosophy, Retrovision), proclaimed the NSK State Sarajevo (following a similar event in Berlin in 1993: NSK Staat Berlin).

November: Interstanding Understanding conference in Tallinn, Estonia. Kathreen Turnipseed gives an overview of the ZaMir network.

December 14: the Dayton peace agreement is formally signed in Paris.

December 1995: Another month of cultural cross-pollination started with the Phonotaktik festival in Vienna.
In December 1995, Shockwave appears for the first time when Macromedia makes the “first public demonstration of technology that allows computer users to run video movies created using its Director animation program without the jerkiness typically associated with computer video”.

The first version of RealAudio is released. RealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks.

Fin 95 début 96 changement de décors, je repars aux Etats-Unis pour aller dans la silicon valley. Enorme claque!

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