Come to net.culture club mama once, you'll find WIFI for your laptop and a fairly decent coin operated coffee machine. Come twice, you'll get used to working and socializing at the same time. Keep coming and no one will wince if you briefly use the office phone, the desk crew may let you choose the music played over the sound system, maybe you'll even exert some influence on the new additions to the library. Mama is not about hospitality, but community. What kind of a place is this?  I dare say Croatia's best known cultural NGO.

It has been a scorching hot summer in Zagreb. With most of the city's inhabitants leaving for the coast, the streets were empty but for a few sweaty and pained faces drudging along, trying to find some shade. With Adriatic beaches only a couple of hours away, only those chained to their office desks and shop counters stay in the city once the temperature rises. So, you'd expect freelance cultural operators to be the first to leave, the last to return? Indeed, most of us had a few days in the sun and thus contributed to the annual summer exodus from the burning asphalt streets, but with different grant application deadlines, summer festivals and perhaps article deadlines, many stayed to work. So, with only a ventilator and deadlines to meet, this summer I traded in my home desk for a breather under the newly installed air conditioning system in Zagreb's net.culture club mama.

Come to net.culture club mama once, you'll find WIFI for your laptop and a fairly decent coin operated coffee machine. Come twice, you'll get used to working and socializing at the same time. Keep coming and no one will wince if you briefly use the office phone, the desk crew may let you choose the music played over the sound system, maybe you'll even exert some influence on the new additions to the library. After all, mama is not about hospitality, but community. So, what kind of a place is this? Not just a cybercafe, never only a cultural center that hosts a variety of programs, club mama is the public space of Zagreb's Multimedia Institute – I dare say Croatia's best known cultural NGO.

Stepping into an uncharted territory between social and cultural agency and new technological developments, starting in 1999, the Multimedia Institute (mi2 for short) has brought together an emerging generation of civil activists, media practitioners, independent cultural actors and social theorists. Its programs focus on digital culture and new media practices; the social relevance of technologies such as free software; contemporary philosophy, social and media theory; they advocate preservation of public domain, both in the actual and virtual space; they work to influence cultural policy.

Writing this article was difficult – I didn't know how to squeeze all of their activities in the limited space I had. You'd expect an institution with tens, perhaps a hundred employees, and yet mi2 is but a handful of people in their twenties and thirties from different backgrounds who function together because their sense of purpose and community outweighs the individualist consumer mentality that seems to dominate the life styles of inhabitants of a country transitioning towards EU membership. Besides regular film, theory, electronic music, free software and artist's presentations at club mama, mi2 co-organizes an annual Human Rights Film Festival. They have established the EGOBOO.bits free music and free content publishing label, hold regular skill sharing workshops, have published a series of relevant books and manage a very prominent library open to all. The hosts of Croatia's Creative Commons team are also known for establishing and participating in several local and regional networks. Both locally and internationally mi2 is recognized for the high level of both its programs and its convictions. After all, this is the NGO that famously returned a US grant of $100.000 upon the start of the invasion of Iraq, even though it had little secured funding at the time.

So, whether it's the newest (free!) music beats, the latest biopolitical bestseller, an issue with the Linux you are running on your home computer, irritation with shopping malls overtaking public space in the city or a need to see a good film – you'll find what you are searching for here!

Ivana Ivkovic, novembre 2007