hello there! i wanted to answer before, but i was flying all over :) (not true)
a series of problems held me back these few days from this wonderful conversation (and yes, marc, i will call you up immediately :) because there are incredible news over here, and some of them might also concern the "I will not absolutely_totally_never fly for art") while buried in problems ov various kind i had a chance to reconsider and think over a few things, one of which closely involves this project we are organizing the next few steps of the RomaEuropaFAKEFactory thing, and we are trying to do it by systematically confronting all the models that we often consider as "standard", as we, instead, feel that they are direct derivates from this economy/philosophy/culture/politics of crisis we all live in. it turns out that the most incredible problems arise when you need to confront the expectations of people. people expect things. people give things for granted. people want stuff. :) in REFF, a project based on the detournement of an institutional initiative, on the invasion of a national senate, on the systematic demolition of intellectual property practices in culture and commerce, and on the adoption of philosophical and operative models that are "natively" networked, there are several issues you need to confront. And they are mainly based on language. Examples: you say "competition"? everyone expects a winner. you say "scientific committee"? everyone expects "authority" you say "exhibition"? everyone expects a "place" filled with the "stuff" (however beautiful) people have sent in and it could go on and on. And we're trying to rearrange all of tehse concepts along our strategy: the competition has no winners, but rather creates value for everyone through formal cultural production and communication; the scientific committee is not based on a hierarchy, and it's actually quite distributed, with specific processes enacted for value to emerge, but not by "counting publications" or obscenities like that. And we come down to the "exhibition". There will be a big event at the end of REFF. For sure. You'll be amazed! :) but we are in this exact moment starting to set it up. And we're considering many layers of issues. One of them is travel. We don't have funding nd institutions behind us (we do actualy have several institutions against us, but that's another thing), but we're becoming pretty good in organizing things in this way, so we're setting up an economy based on network, empathy and love (i-do-swear-it-is-true) and everyone involved is contributing in any way he/she/it can, including money, locations, sponsorships, materials, equipment, publishing, everything. We have partners all over the world, people that are starting to join in the competition from all over as well. So it's pretty global. We see so many problems in making everyone converge to one location! Ecology, economy, visibility, significance, adherence to many of the things we state about global/glocal attitudes, on the need for innovation, on anthropological approaches to design... a whole lot. if you actually take all levels into account there is not a single reason to organize an event in a single place and have everyone converge. If you use several distributed locations it costs less, you pollute less, you can get many more people involved, you can get wider visibility, you can.. well, loads of things more.... the only thing is that you need to get more people involved (which, actually, is a good thing) and that if there is little empathy involved events based on "network connections featuring an incredible webcam connecting several venues together" usually turn out like shit, as there is little feeling involved. so, actually, the secret (ta-daaaah!) to allowing these kinds of "updates" to the standard models of the "we create an event/exhibition here, and you all converge" thing lies in a relational and linguistic issue. That, in my point of view, is one of the most important things to discuss today, as it involves the form and substance of the things that are around us, and on the things that are at the base of the fact that we live in a system that is crisis-centric. Ok, ok.. none of us is a hero, and heroes are in the comics and the movies. But it helps to confront with issues from time to time.... so i signed the pledge. and i add to it: I won't fly for the RomaEuropaFAKEFactory! And I will also happily give up any resources and contacts we are already building up for the event to anyone who is local to those places and who wishes to help out with the organization of the events. We were planning for Rome, London, New York and possibly a few other places. For the first three events we already have informal agreements for funding and locations that need to be confirmed with dates and specifications. Anyone up with that? Anyone add new locations? Let me not-fly. Let me stay home :) ciao! xDxD
_______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
