One of the discussions during first getogether zoomed into the potential for collaborations between art and other political spheres. The political sphere can learn from art to create new and urgently needed public spheres. The cultural field across Europe is potentially, if not already, a transnational public sphere in the making. The small spheres of exchange between Europe-based cultural initiatives and political movements are often very conflictual, antagonistic. There is no uniformity, but this confrontational heterogeneity summons a real and undetermined public space. Therese Kaufmann describes how new media collectives working together with political movements that show art no longer as a seconadry cousin to politics, but an imaginative expression that works together with politics to generate new public political and social resonances:

"There are excellent models in the new media context, such as new media collectives who are working together from different contexts to exchange their ideas...Alliances are being built between small structures, within the arts, but also beyond into other fields, for example in Austria recently there was a collaboration between the cultural field and a political anti-racism group. It was not without difficulty, but it was in the end very productive. We do observe these developments in new forms of self organization in different political movements and interestingly they often connect with arts and cultural fields. In this overlap between culture and politics, the arts does not have an ornamental function to make the politics nicer, but it is a genuine contribution. This is what I see as transversal overlappings."

— Therese Kaufmann, 4 July 2005