We therefore centre our attention on a certain idea of periphery, a social and cultural periphery resulting out of the new global order, but we also try to detect equally new peripheries happening very close to us which multiply as a result of the system and the predominance of technology itself.

Fundación Rodríguez operates from Vitoria-Gasteiz, in the Basque Country, with the necessary support and backing from Arteleku, San Sebastian, Basque Country.

TESTER's nodes operate from Lima (Peru), Johannesburg (South Africa), Vienna (Austria), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Berlin (Germany) and the Basque Country. They, in turn, have invited other participants from around the world: Argentina, Brazil, China, Japan, Germany, Israel, the Basque Country, Bosnia, Austria, the United States, etc...

TESTER therefore resides in the continuous flow of communication between all the participants without actually having a physical headquarters. Nonetheless, the project's physical reference point lies in Arteleku.

The project, in continuous process, seeks to set a working structure which does not submit to conventional curating standards.

Fundación Rodríguez enters into a relationship with various people (nodes) who in turn, put us in contact with other local areas of creation. These do not have a major presence on the multimedia art circuits, either because of their geographic location or because of their divergent nature.

Thus, a group of collaborators, who we shall call nodes , work together as an association to propose-once the initial theoretical and conceptual aspects have been sorted out-a series of authors, artists, groups or projects whose work will make up the final product.

TESTER is therefore process-driven, it is created along the way, basing itself on a well defined timing which is closely kept to and which marks the times of the project.

We use the term nodes to refer to the six people who make up the central core of the project. These nodes working in the TESTER project are:

Marina Grzinic (Ljubljana, Slovenia), José Carlos Mariategui (Lima, Peru), Hito Steyerl (Berlin, Germany), Mark Neustetter (Johannesburg, South Africa) and Oliver Ressler (Vienna, Austria).

In 2003 Fundación Rodríguez invited two nodes to form a starting group: Marina Grzinic and José Carlos Mariategui. They in turn invited the other nodes to make up the initial group.: Mark Neustetter, Hito Steyerl and Oliver Ressler.

The function of these people is to provide the system with theoretical and conceptual support and contribute new lines of transmission to the project. This "commission" works to make TESTER possible by networking.

This group of collaborators, or nodes , work as an association to propose-once the initial theoretical aspects have been sorted out-a series of authors, artists, groups or projects whose work will make up the final product.

Each of the nodes has presented a particular local context which is denied visibility on the hegemonic art circuit and which is looking to make connections in alternative networks. Bringing them all together gives us a new creative panorama.

We turned to a group of people as the central core of the project in order to investigate other forms of selection work, in a search for more horizontal, collective and process-driven relations than those used in conventional curating formulae.

In the Arte y Electricidad (Art and Electricity) project, www.arteyelectricidad.net , the immediate reference point for TESTER, the map of relations we established covered the whole of Spain. All the authors and projects associated with that experience worked from their places of origin in different cities in Spain.

In TESTER, apart from taking a further step by starting from a group of nodes, we also experimented with the scale of an area of international relations.

TESTER 's target area consists of the so-called "dark areas" , meaning projects that are refused visibility because they adopt a critical distance from the single network project, or which by their origin are located outside the predominant geo-political framework.

TESTER's intention is to generate a structure and form a network , and it therefore has an essentially dynamic structure, in a constant state of flux. This "log" can be followed on the website: www.e-tester.net , the heart of the project.

• Contact and selection of nodes
• Consolidation of working structure (seminars in 2003 in San Sebastian. Koldo Mitxelena Arts Centre )
• Publication of the book "TESTER, NODES AT WORK" and public presentations.
• Publication of the 2-DVD pack "TESTER" (in 2005).
• Distribution of book and DVD. Public presentations.

• A website is used as a catalyst for the project, to produce and host different working materials.
• A mailing list between the nodes, which since 2002 has been the medium of communication between collaborators.
• To date we have conducted a range of activities and these contacts have led to a publication- a book -the first graphic container of the works produced, with essays, projects and graphic contributions from the collaborators.
• Finally, TESTER will lead to products or work which will be hosted on a double DVD (video and ROM), and together with a publication, this will be the final result of the project.
• Like Fundación Rodríguez's previous project, "Arte y Electricidad", the presentations in different formats, video-music sessions, sound performances, public interventions, etc. might be another way of presenting this project.

In any case, no activity will substitute any other and they can all be compatible.

We say work or projects because the contributions from collaborators are of different kinds. There are finished pieces and projects in process.

There will be videos, pieces for the Internet, theoretical texts, graphic work and photography. Some of them are complemented with information available on the website; others have found in TESTER an initial support for a subsequent long-term development; others have used it as the vehicle for dissemination.

Forming a new network of relations, giving a strategic dissemination to their proposals (always from a respectful treatment of their work as creators), enabling each author to have control over their work through the authorship formulas or "copyleft" they consider most suitable.

"Tester book; trabajo de nodos, adabegiak lanean, nodes at work"

The index of the publication, divided into three parts, shows in graphic form the spread of the TESTER network, and the nodes that support it.

As well as contributing their own text (Section 1) each of these nodes or coordinators has invited collaborators whose theoretical contribution is contained in Section 2. Section 3 gives a foretaste of the artists' projects to be produced in the next phase of TESTER

The book, published in Basque, Spanish and English, forms a compendium of essays which is unprecedented in the Basque publishing panorama, relating to digital culture, the new support systems for art and contemporary culture, from a political conception of art.

The book has been published using the "Copyleft" formula, which promotes the free circulation of knowledge and the collective enjoyment of intangible goods. This concept refutes the restrictions of "copyright" and the prevailing mercantilist views of intellectual property.

Around summer 2005 the process of TESTER as a project will come to an end, when it will be presented in the form of a double DVD containing all the material produced during the process.