Hello everyone, Dmytri was saying:
Is Free Culture content to be a beleaguered, insular, fringe? Or is Free > Culture meant to be a critique of our curent cultural industries? Does it > aim only for it's own meagre existence? Or does it aim for the > transformation of cultural production? If the answer is the later, than > this ambition can not be reconciled with capitalism. > > Free Culture/Capitalism is a conversation. Differences make transformation: you change the "situation" and you change yourself, as well; few minutes after the transformation the conversation goes on, along slightly (or drastically, in some cases) different lines. Yet the conversation remains: both (or multiple) parties changed, new differences emerge, conversation goes on. "revolution" never existed. obviously, visions (is it maybe what you call "ambitions"?) are needed, to choose directions. But there are many more layers below this level of the discussion, having to do with the lifestyle of people, with the ways in which they perceive their world and their daily routines, what they are aware of, what they are not aware of and what they don't care about, for whatever reason it is. Speaking about "publishing", and "openness", i see it as one of the most powerful opportunities to promote visions, in performative ways. Publications can take many different forms, arriving at ubiquity, creating the possibility for different forms of awareness, and for the creation of the opportunities to become more informed, active, interconnected presences on the planet and in societies. This possibly fosters a more active "conversation" and, thus, a stronger process for transformation. Thence, my previous question about the definition of "successful" projects. How do you measure it? Is it possible? Is it interesting? How do you define the "success" of an open publishing project/process, for example? By number of participants? By the structure of its process? (how do you measure/qualify it?) By number of readers? (?!?!?) By the times it is has been invited to festivals and conferences? (who? the project? one of its authors? participants? theorists? "users"? ) By the number of people who "can make a living out of it"? (what does it mean? how?) By the number of people who "changed their minds about something"? (how do you measure it?) By what? these are smaller questions. yet they describe the scenario in possibly more usable forms, letting people understand what/how/where/when/why can be changed, and to what result. possibly the most revolutionary action that you perform today is to create "something that works", answer these (or other like these) questions, share knowledge and answers with other people and move onto something else. and this is an "open publishing" process. all the best! Salvatore http://www.artisopensource.net http://www.fakepress.it
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