Lond-on-Line Diary
13.02.1996
A mixture of Malatesta and Computer School called Cyberia is the first Internet Café in the world, in a parallel street to Tottenham Court Road, the street where the computer shops are strung together. The door jams, someone inside arises from the monitor, lifts the latch. Everywhere computers, young women and men are sitting there, coloureds, a father with his perhaps ten year old daughter, a very busy person who is typing with one hand and with the other handling his mobile and talking about something. Wooden floors, metal tables, in the centre a tray with sweets, which are more inviting than the technology. Fetch a cappuccino from the bar, sit next to a blond who is writing notes in an agenda and let time pass by. The young man who is making the coffee, is called if a problem arises at a work station. With the dishcloth over his shoulder, he types something with one hand, it works again. Eva Pascoe, a woman, founded Cyberia 2 years ago as an «artistic and «social project, as «spacial interface between work and home. She says: «Cybercafés should be organised by women. If men take it over, we have a technical club room in some dark corners. I wrote that a few weeks ago in a column, now I am sitting here and find the atmosphere slightly technically club-like, slightly more dismal, but not only. T-shirts can be bought, and even cakes eaten, they are good, as well as the cappuccino. Actually you feel good, no great stress, no hectic, everyone works for himself. Eva is really a bit of an icon in this shop, in a vitrine there are newspaper articles, with nice photos of the beauty posing on a chair. Someday, perhaps she will appear here herself, who knows.
Cyberia is also a type of educational café, a vision that we discussed at EB Wolfbach in Zürich. At that time I imagined myself being such a café barman with a cloth over the shoulder and one hand casually helping someone at the monitor who is learning in what we then called «a room without fear for contact with modern technology and who then again operates the coffee machine.
Cyberia just happens to be in London, not in Zürich, where, in the meantime, such initiatives exist, unfortunately not at EB Wolfbach, the state-run school. The cappuccino is finished, I feel somewhat unnecessary, do not feel like sitting at a monitor, I have Internet at home. He who owns everything does not need to share socially, but can find it pleasant all the same. Out into the town again, the damp air, the traffic. But it is good to know a place that radiates something homely, a real existing alternative to an erstwhile Vision that one still yearns for a little bit |
Translated by Pat Gerber |
