INVISIBLE EMBASSY OF SEBORGA
ON-LINE IDENTITY - REAL AND VIRTUAL
Intro
(Embassy -NSK -- Invisible Embassy of Seborga -- Consulate of Nomad Territories) A performance project, identity cards or passports, and a virtual connection to a real geographic embassy/consulate are similar conceptual devices that unite the art projects NSK Virtual Embassy, The Invisible Embassy of Seborga, and the Nomad Territories. The three projects show the impact of the global network of artists, and the way that the communication potential of Internet shifts national and urban systems into a globally identified power-position.
This parallels the shifts to global economy, and the end of place-boundedness, as pointed out by Saskia Sassen in her thesis on mega-cities and the global economy. Key concepts for Sassen, are "...the globalization of information, economy and telematics....all that matters is the highly educated professional.." What matters for the artists projects is a sense of identity with the work, and a practical aspect to the connectivity.
The Invisible Embassy of Seborga is an Internet project that has a very real aspect. The Embassy became visible as an online artwork in 1996, although it had been in existence for much longer. It is a funny mix of real-life and the conceptual musings of virtuality. It questions what is real. It is in fact a physical place, located in the Ligurian Alps, in Italy near the border of France, and the coast. The inhabitants elected as their first monarch, Prince Giorgio I, in 1963. He was unanimously re-elected in 1993 by the 308 voters. In April 1995, these same citizens voted 304 to 4 to become a sovereign state, and the Principality of Seborga was established, with the official currency being the "Luigino." The artists did not seem to know this when they began their conceptual project.
The Invisible Embassy of Seborga website includes a Page of Immigration (where citizens can be naturalized, select a site for a house, etc), and an ARTWARPEACE sculpture plan, which is mirrored in the Floorplan of the Embassy - and acts as a kind of "home" icon. In January 1996, Mr Frank Riepe, responsible artist for the group KUNSTcoop (an artist group that conceived the fictional project) received a phone call from the Governor of the Principato di Seborga, who did not agree with the project, and especially the invitation to asylum seekers in the Immigration Page. He asked for a complete project description. The consequent correspondence (all online) described the conceptual nature of the Invisible Embassy project, and the artists desire to learn more about Seborga, and the people there. Ironically, this is how the artists came to realize that the Principato was seeking sovereignty from Italy on it's own!
Although the website is not incredibly active, and it's design defies most screen ratios, it has a very real feeling. It is part propaganda, part symbolic, and very fake. To the theoretical aspects of this further explanations were allreaddy given in the articles on the work of Ingo Guenther and Westbank Industries.
It is as parallel to the Principato de Seborga as any embassy is to the country it represents.
Frank Riepe
To date, the Embassy has inaugurated offices in Bielefeld, and Bremen in Germany, and established an information office at the exhibition discord.sabatoge of realities, located in the Kunstverein, Hamburg. In 1997/98, the project plans "the great conference" where very small states, micronations, kingdoms and states of the Internet will be invited. This event will combine real and virtual (poetic, political, and artificial) sites. This will take the work from the conceptual into a very exciting confrontation, and an interactive exchange of ideas.