Collaborative Futures

I bought this book in the Transmediale.It is an interesting book with an interesting process.
via

This book was written over 5 days (Jan 18-22, 2010) during a Book Sprint in Berlin. 7 people (5 writers, 1 programmer and 1 facilitator) gathered to collaborate and produce a book in 5 days with no prior preparation and with the only guiding light being the title 'Collaborative Futures'.

These brave collaborators were: Mushon Zer-Aviv, Michael Mandiberg, Mike Linksvayer, Marta Peirano, Alan Toner, Aleksandar Erkalovic (programmer) and Adam Hyde (facilitator).
.......During this first day we relied heavily on traditional 'unconference' technologies – namely colored sticky notes. With reference to Unconferences we always need to tip the hat to Allen Gunn and Aspiration for their inspirational execution of this format. We took many ideas from Aspiration's Unconferences during the process of this sprint and we also brought much of what had been learned from previous Book Sprints to the table.

First, before the introductions, we each wrote as many notes as we could about what we thought this book was going to be about. The list consists of the following:

* When Collaboration Breaks.
* Collaboration (super) Models.
* Plausible near and long term development of collaboration tech, methods, etc. Social impact of the same. How social impact can be made positive. Dangers to look out for.
* Licenses cannot go two ways.
* Incriminating Collaborations.
* In the future much of what is valuable will be made by communities. What type of thing will they be? What rules will they have for participation? What can the social political consequences be?
* Sharing vs Collaboration.
* How to deconstruct and reassemble publishing?
* Collaboration and its relationship to FLOSS and GIT communities.
* What is collaboration? How does it differ from cooperation?
* What is the role of ego in collaboration?
* Attribution can kill collaboration as attribution = ownership.
* Sublimation of authorship and ego.
* Models of collaboration. Historical framework of collaboration. Influence of technology enabling collaboration.
* Successful free culture economic models.

Then each presented who they were and their ideas and projects as they are related to free culture, free software, and collaboration. The process was open to discussion and everyone was encouraged to write as many points, questions, statements, on sticky notes and put them on the wall. During this first day we wrote about 100 sticky notes with short statements like:

* "Art vs Collaboration"

* "Free Culture does not require maintenance"

* "Transparent premises"

* "Autonomy: better term than free/open?"

* "Centralised silos vs community"

* "Free Culture posturing"

...and other cryptic references to the thoughts of the day. We stuck these notes on a wall and after all of the presentations (and dinner) we grouped them under titles that seemed to act as appropriate meta tags. We then drew from these groups the 6 major themes. We finished at midnight.

Day two – 10.00 kick off and we simply each choose a sticky note from one of the major themes and started writing. It was important for us to just 'get in the flow' and hence we wrote for the rest of the day until dinner. Then we went to the Turkish markets for burek, coffee and fresh Pomegranates.........

I think the result is really a success. Bravo.

It may be sad to ask if there is collaborative futures in the Chinese speaking world.

What is the future of cash or a world without cash?

kashklash:: exchanging the future

It is another project from fiction writer Bruce Sterling and many others, like "we-make-money-not art" Regine Debatty and Irene Cassarino, the manager of the online collaborative cinema project "A Swarm of angels".

Interesting blogging ...

Grow your own media lab (the graphic novel)

Text by James Wallbank
Pictures by Michael Tesh
Design by Scott Hawkins
Access Space, 2008
ISBN 978-0-95500-913-6
Access Space is an open access media lab based in Sheffield. Access Space encourages people to learn how to use hardware re-used from local companies and Free Software from the GNU project and others. This saves money and builds skills. Those skills can then be shared to build a self-reliant and sustainable community around the lab.

Since being founded in the year 2000 Access Space has thrived where many community and government schemes have failed. This has drawn attention from groups eager to understand and reproduce its success. This has led to the Arts-Council-funded study "Grow Your Own Media Lab", of which the final report is the graphic novel of the same name "Grow Your Own Media Lab (The Graphic Novel)" or GYOML for short.

GYOML is a 114-page A5 perfect-bound book. The cover is a vivid black and yellow composition. Part Principia Discordia, part Emigre, it will look equally at home in gallery bookshops and alternative press outlets. Curious browsers will be hard pressed to resist taking a look. Inside, the book is black & white throughout with an introductory text followed by alternating pages of titles and comic-book illustrations of case studies.

Most books that use a Creative Commons licence either don't specify the licence or use one of the more restrictive licences. You'd be surprised how many cheerleaders for Free Software and Free Culture have restrictive licences on their books. Kudos to Access Space for getting the licence right (the copyleft "Attribution-ShareAlike" licence) and making sure that it's explained clearly in the book's front matter. This ensures that GYOML continues the Access Space ethos of sharing cultural and technological wealth in a principled and practical way.

The comic-book illustrations by Michael Tesh are in fanzine style, a characterful and evocative aesthetic for a small press publication. I found myself smiling at the clear inner thoughts of some of the people Tesh depicts, and if you meet one of Access Space's personnel after seeing his depictions of them you'll feel you already know them. What makes Tesh's art the perfect illustration for the case studies is that he is an Access Space regular.

Rather than providing an instruction manual for using software, which the book's introduction rightly points out would quickly become outdated, GYOML presents a series of case studies of users of the lab and the situations that they encounter. The case studies include a shy teenager, a nervous work placement, a mature student and a refugee dissident, all people learning from and contributing to different aspects of the running of Access Space. This illustrates the value of Access Space's approach and explain how, and more importantly why, to recreate it.

Despite not being a software manual there is a surprising wealth of technical and administrative information delivered surprisingly painlessly mixed in with the case studies. Such as how and why to use computers that businesses will pay you to take away from them, how and why to use Free Software, and how and why to make a server to keep users' work safe if one of those reclaimed computers breaks down. The names of Free Software operating system and art software is mentioned, as is how to learn more about them, so it is easy to find out more. And I didn't know how to crimp an RJ-45 ethernet cable before reading GYOML. Now I do.

For all the talk of "grass roots activism" and "alternative governance" on mailing lists, in universities, and at conferences there is often a disconnect between the rhetoric of technological radicalism and actually doing anything in society. We can learn a lot from Access Space's determination to get their hands dirty and to use technology as a means to the end of empowering people. A few years ago I helped out at Remix Reading's open access lab, which was inspired to adopt Access Space's way of working, so I can say from personal experience that running a lab is a rewarding experience.

GYOML is an effective and persuasive exposition of the virtues of Access Space's way of doing things. It is inspirational, unpretentious and informative. We need more like Access Space, and GYOML shows us how to do it. Let a thousand media labs bloom.

Using your own iphone for performance

亲爱的iphone用户们：
　　
　　我们召集诸位在10月19日晚前往浦东张家浜陈逸飞创意街沿岸体验一趟转为iphone所有者所制作的新媒体互动表演。
　　
　　在19日晚的演出中来自日本的电子艺术巨匠“赤松正行 Masayuki Akamatsu”将为您带来半小时名为“云彩”的演出。
　　“云彩” 是为现场观众随身带来的iPhone 手机而设计的视频／音频演出。每一个iphone都会化身为演出者，共同呈现一场庞大宛如交响乐般的华丽盛会。
　　
　　我们将召集50台以上的iphone参与演出，iphone玩家们，赶紧带上你的爱机参与这场河上秀吧。
　　
　　参与本次活动请将您的联系方式发送至eartsyan@gmail.com
　　2008年10月10日之前哦！
　　
　　当天还将呈现Autechre的现场电子表演，以及其他来自奥、日、美、英及中国本土艺术家的精彩表演！
　　
　　活动免费！
　　没有iphone也欢迎参与哦！！！
　　

A swarm of angles : Worlds will shatter

After the "one world one dream" unfaithfulness in Olympics, I am pleased to see the "worlds will shatter" open source trailer video from A Swarm of Angels, an open source collaborative feature film project started by the UK filmmaker Matt Hanson.


Worlds Will Shatter - The Unfold trailer from Nine Orders on Vimeo.

I have been tracking this project on this blog and am looking foreward to the finish work. It sure comes a long way from 2006 to phase 3 here. 1 million pound is not easy but Matt made it.