It was a strange experience for us, since we had expected widespread coverage. The silence around AIDS was deafening, the 0+nework was a real invention, the collaboration during the 0+Ball was impressive. The scientific findings of the formal VI International Conference on AIDS were reported in the scientific sections of the newspapers with no mention of the 0+Ball in Paradiso. The social consequences of AIDS, which were high on the agenda in Paradiso, were apparently not considered to be news.
With hindsight the title of the 0+Ball was not well chosen, which may be one of the reasons for the press silence as well. Originally we, the initial group of producers including Act Up, had intended to name it the Zero Positive Ball, wanting to emphasize that when one arrives at a 'Zero point' in life, being diagnosed with HIV or AIDS, one can also approach this positively and focus on Living with HIV/AIDS. The word 'Ball' suggested to us 'Feast' as a way to transcend the limits of time and place. When expanding the network around the 0+Ball people in Amsterdam asked us to change the name to Seropositive Ball, which we did, and however silly, we did not realize that another meaning of the word 'Ball' would make many people feel uncomfortable; it means 'fuck', which we appreciated as a double entendre at the time (the number '69' in the 69 hour duration of the 0+Ball, which became the title of the San Francisco-based event, also possesses such a double meaning). When discussing the absence of press-coverage of the 0+Ball with Jan Dietvorst from Paradiso, he emphasized that illness as a cultural phenomenon is not a very attractive subject and even more so when you compare it to the 'Robin Hood' sort of fun typified by the Galactic Hacker Party.
