This weekend the database of the Dictionary of War project has grown again with 25 entries to 125 concepts. I attended the fifth Novi Sad edition. It was my first encounter with the format. Here a few observations.

• Dictionary of War ought be positioned within the theatre context and is a critical cultural project, not academic or scientific in nature. The sessions take place in theatre spaces and are ‘staged’. It is notable that there is no real space for questions from the audience.

• As a new media project it deals with online video content with the larger v2v video syndication network. It’s idea is that ordinary users will, at some point, adopt the peer-to-peer paradigm. The project is ‘post-streaming’ in that it no longer concentrates efforts to be ‘live’ on the internet.

• As an audience you get the feeling of watching a television show recording. Here in Novi Sad, the technical crew that ‘capture’ the concepts built up their video editing gear on the right side of the stage, thereby stressing the fact that we are attending a public video recording session. The studio setup is used for realtime editing. After coding the video files are uploaded to the Internet, days after the events.

• There was few local audience in the big hall. This may have been different in Berlin or Munich, I don’t know. What is clear is that the speakers are addressing the virtual Internet audience and that this act of contributing to the dictionary is visually explicit. We are Working for the Database.

• Unlike conferences and festivals the organizers were in no rush to suggest continuity between the different presentations. What counts is a flawless technical presentation. Each time there were breaks of 1,2,5, 10 and 15 minutes. This created a relaxed ambiance. This unlike the conference format that works with blocks of 1.5-2 hours. In part it is also related to the length of the recording session. It is unrealistic to continuously entertain an audience for eight hours.

• What made the Serbian edition so interesting was the mix between critical work from the ‘region’ and concepts from elsewhere in Europe (St. Petersburg, Vienna, Berlin, London). Most presentations dealt with historical reconstructions of events related to the Ex-Yugoslav wars (1991-1999). It was a relief to attend a multi-lingual event — a rarity these days.

• Branka Ćurčić of kuda.org was hosting the show, introducing each presenter. It was great to each time hear her announcing the next ‘conceptual person’. Such an honor!