GlobalNetworks |THING | www.c2o.org/about.html
!Matra [15 March resultati]: - transfer of knowledge - co-oproduction /ljudmila/pro.ba/mama/kuda/ /dubrovnik/mostar/ min 22 000 EUR per years DeBalie - V2 !East-East: =Matra / transfer of knowledge !Cultural Policy: ThinkThank Competence recognition !Cultural Link: Network, Magazine !Daniel-Langlois (May 4 organisations): - open source software (streaming playera) (authoring SMILa) (real-time video manipulacije) (mpeg4 packager) - !European Commision - 6th Framework2003: ---------------------- Projects to finance _DIGITAL_MEDIA OMA like system development Frequency Clock like system development Lowlive like system development Darwin services _(meta)data managment/distribution__GNUTELA+OMA+OSSA streaming _media production__SMIL/video-audio/flash _media/content presentation/managing__schedualers/players/codecs _INFORMATION_MANAGMENT OpenDMOZ directory newslog project development yahoo-like services: _maillinglist (minordomo) _wiki _
Report On Alpha - ThingTank Berlin meeting @ Boot Lab Berlin, 8th February 02 Theme: Developing Independent and Sustainable Media Projects “To contribute to the strength of independent media projects - enabling them to compete with institutional, governmental and corporate driven ones, and to create information spaces where high quality tools, content and research are produced by individuals and small organizations who are compensated for their work." - Quim Gil, nettime e-mail, 2001. Metamute.com About ThingTank Project: ThingTank will investigate the history, the current condition, and the future of “Independent Media Projects” at the start of the new century. The core trajectory of the ThingTank panels is to gather information on the strategies and tactics of other independent networks in order to construct a viable and sustainable foundation for The Thing’s maintenance and growth during the next 5 years. Panel Themes: Art, New Infrastructures, Software Development, Content Distribution and Activism. 10 Intimate Panels (from February 2002 to November 2002) Each theme will have two panel sections on one day. ThingTank would present 10 panels/workshops from February 2002 to November 2002 that would focus on 5 themes that have been important for The Thing during its last 10 years: infrastructure as social sculpture, art, software development, content distribution, and activism. Each of these themes has been at the center of The Thing’s creative drive as a support system for research and development of art, software, social projects, and as distribution nexus for artists, theorist and activists. ThingTank will outline some possible scenarios for long term sustainability: building an open source funding network for both local and international support (a peer to peer shared-funding development network), decentralized economic models beyond e-commerce, long term collaboration projects with outside institutions and emerging groups, a residency based incubator for projects and artists, a viable structure for content production and distribution, and a focus on creating stable glocal (global/local) support and access to minority communities and social activist communication networks on Thing.net. ThingTank will also discuss the possibilities of international support and funding, as well as developing support projects realized within a trans-cultural context and with international partners, such as, ZKM and V2. Also, special focus on new micro-networks such as mama in Zagreb, RIXC in Riga and ljudmila.org in Ljubljana. ThingTank will also focus on the question of new infrastructure models: wireless distribution, developing new software content management systems (beyond our current bbs.thing.net interface), and continuing the development of our open source code network. The question of sustainability for the Thing is bound to its ability to offer a stable and scaleable infrastructure. ThingTank will invite both international and local New York peers to join us. The chosen panelist would each offer expertise and histories of work in the theme under investigation. The panels would be intimate and focus on bringing out all the implications of the theme at hand. The audience for a number of the panels will be by invitation. This will keep the panelist from falling into an introductory mode of discussion and to move into more difficult questions as quickly as possible. Participants ThingTank Berlin Meeting: Wolfgang Staehle, Ricardo Dominguez The Thing New York Marco Deseriis (Snafu), The Thing Rome Pit Schultz, Klubradio Sebastian Luetgert, Boot Lab, Textz Adam Hyde and Honor Harger, Radioqualia, Open Source Streaming Alliance Konrad Becker, Public Netbase Zeljko Blace, Mama Walter van der Cruijsen, Lijudmila Thomax Kaulmann, Open Meta Archive Alexei Shulgin Olga, Macros Center James Stevens, ex-Backspace ???, Interfund Ricardo opens the meeting thanking all the participants and reminding that this year The Thing celebrates its 10th anniversary. Wolfgang explained how The Thing New York works: the organization is divided into 2 branches: www.thing.net and bbs.thing.net. Thing.net main focus is hosting and co-location, it is also maintaining an e-mail server, slashdot box, and some dial-up services bbs.thing.net is supported by Thing.net, occasional Art auctions and grants. LIGHT TUNNELS Preliminary Considerations The grant received by The Thing New York from The Rockefeller Foundation, will be partly invested in a series of "intimate panels" whose main focus will be to set up a new content and distribution infrastructure that will encompass the current bbs.thing.net. This infrastructure will rely upon existing servers and on a new platform for content management and distribution. It will be built around "light tunnels", that will allow the network differences to connect and shine without building another information bunker. On this point all the speakers seemed to agree. Pit, for instance, said "we don't want to become the McDonalds of underground", inviting to set up a New Thing without holding a flag and leaving always a space open to reinvention. In other terms, the New Thing will not present itself as a "dominant filter" (such as ZKM, aec, transmediale, etc) between the net.art world and the audience. On the other hand, Wolfgang remembered the importance of exercising a cultural impact. Pit said that to exploit an opportunity like this, means to set the rules to which institutions have to adapt to. In other terms the key seems to find the right balance between the capacity of characterizing our own voice in a unique manner and how to keep this identity enough fluid in order to make new subjects and new generations join in, This process will be scheduled along a 3 or 5 years plan that will take into account two main factors: sustainability and scalability. - Sustainability Sustainability means that the work of a distributed intelligence network will be valorized at its maximum potential. Stressing the importance of the process (the social sculpture) means to create the conditions for compensation of a variety of activities, from software development to content production, management and distribution (editorial work, translations, audio, video and net based projects). ECONOMIC TUNNELS Funding and Compensation These conditions can be accomplished through the creation of funds (e.g. the translation fund) that will allow different competencies to emerge within the network and to re-invest time in the network itself. It is important to move away from dependence on “Gift Economy” and push toward “Compensation Economy.” This would allow the network to create a stronger functional rhythm of content and project distribution on daily bases. Steps to be taken_ 1) Fix a number of thing.funds, and figure out the dimensions of each of them, according to their specific needs. As an example we can imagine that the software development fund can be activated in specific circumstances, whilst content editing, hardwired infrastructure and administration costs require a continuous support. 2) Fix approximately a total budget [Ricardo estimated 230,000 US Dollars, but it is to be verified], comprehensive of all the costs necessary to make the network sustainable for at least 3 years. Once this figure is established, start to aggressively focus on seeking support from foundations and other bodies (in the U.S. and EU, etc) in order to reach this amount as soon as possible. As an organization model, Ricardo suggested might function as follows: any time one of the intimate nodes gets funded, it will automatically deposit a small percentage of the grant to one or more thing.funds. This Open Fund would be transparent via peer to peer access to the account, with a rotating 2 member signature dispersal pattern. SOCIAL TUNNELS Scalability (and modularity) is one of the proprieties inherent to the Internet and new media in general. Applied to a network, to work on different scales means to float between the local level to the international one, not forgetting all the intermediate passages (from national to macro-regional, eg former Yugoslavia countries). As an example Ricardo said that the grant for The Rockefeller was written taking into accounts three different layers that The Thing New York can operate through: Local -- Collaboration with Nomads and Residents (New York based group organizing regular meetings) National -- Partnership with Creative Time in New York. International -- Partnerships with other nodes of the network and with organizations external to it. SOFT TUNNELS Platform and Data Classification As regard the platform a variety of possibilities have been taken into account. At the moment, the most viable solution seems the Open Meta Archive (OMA) (http://meta.orang.org and http://sourceforge.net/projects/oma/ ) platform written by Thomax The main components of OMA are: - descriptive database entries for the media files according to their specific attributes - category system, based on a definable tree structure - defining a location for the meta-gathered medial information in the tree structure - the meta items can be copied, moved or linked within the tree - media upload and descriptive database entries through web browser access relative to user (editor) - automated database entries through XML input - structured document output with XML/HTML-based templates - fulltext and keyword retrieval, as well as hierarchic navigation - distribution of data to joint, but independently administrated OMA systems Many speakers underlined the necessity of configuring the platform to allow "users" to publish straight their own contents, without the mediation of an editorial board. Moreover, Walter said it would be interesting to allow users to describe metadata as they prefer. And also to allow them to redefine the descriptions inserted by other users. This freedom risks to create a sort of cognitive entropy, exposing the system to a difficulty in data retrieval. One possible solution is to tighten the metadata description to personal accounts, in order to make the original description always retrievable. The proportion between chaos and classification needs, has to be further addressed, taking in consideration all the software at our disposal. This topic can become another object of research for Thomax and the future developers of the Thing platform. Other systems of publication, filtering and metadata description mentioned: - Wiki - [Pit proposed something on Yahoo (made with gogle)] What was it Pit? - everything2.com EDITORIAL TUNNEL Editorial issues were not dealt with fully, much more needs to be done in this area. The ideal condition would be to have a network that covers the 24hours with a fast rotation amongst the different nodes. Wolfgang addressed the importance of having an effective system for mailing list archiving and filtering. For this purpose, two robots were discussed: - minordomo (create web mailing list, easier to install than majordomo) - miterdomo (mailing list archiving and filtering before the final delivery to the mailbox) There was little discussion on how to integrate audio, video and net-based contents and whether to keep or not the actual division of The Thing in 6 areas (projects, reviews, video, audio, threads and sites). The next ThingTank in London might be the space to open this specific question further. Steps to be taken_ 1) Define an international editorial board 2) Meet for an intimate panel (New York during Blur Festival in April?) to discuss content-related issues. License License is a key issue. There's a common sense that contents have to be re-usable in the same way in which the code of the platform is open. At the same time, we have to protect ourselves and our community from any possible expropriation realized for commercial purposes. Moreover, anyone who publish something on The Thing will have to know in advance which sort of use will be made of h/er material. GPL license work for code but can be hardly extended to text and other objects. Pit suggested (after the meeting) to give a look to the Open Content License (http://opencontent.org/opl.shtml) Organizational model There have been little discussion about it. In which way any node of the network will relate to the other? In order to answer this question we have to discuss whether to constitute an international thing.board or an organism that will be able to discuss how to redistribute income, and so on. PAPER TUNNELS From a conversation between Pit and Snafu The idea of producing a multi-lingual internationally edited paper has been around for a while. Walter mentioned it last year in Bologna, now this could be the appropriate context and moment to realize it. The idea is to set up a cross-referenced database of already existing texts (OMA seems a useful tool for it, but we can also think to a P2P sharing systems such as Gnutella), extracted from notorious filtered resources, such as nettime, multitudes, textz, and many others. Once a common design is defined, a dislocated editorial team (from Berlin, New York, Ljubliana, Rome etc) can decide to edit different versions of the same paper, according to their own distribution channels. For instance, if we decide to distribute the paper in Barcelona during a massive international gathering (such as Genoa, Porto Alegre, and so on) we can edit it in Spanish, French, Italian and English. If the meeting takes place in Ljubliana, the languages can be Slovenian, Russian, German and English. In Holland they will be Dutch, German, French and English. In Mexico they can be Spanish, English and maybe Totzil. And so on. Giving for granted that any (young) European citizen knows at least two languages, we can assume that it will not be necessary to translate everything into English. Culturally, this means to open up to diversity and to facilitate the emergency of different regional cultures, which are much less visible on a global scale. To reduce print costs there's a double road to follow: 1) Print something very inexpensive, on recycled paper, such as the ZPK4 nettime readme (the idea of having scrolling parallel columns, each of them written in a different language seems very effective). 2) Print all the copies at the same printer in Europe or US in order to maximize the relationship between number of copies and costs. Funding: the best solution would be to get some sponsors (from some Institute of Culture to some big conferences) in order to distribute everything for free. Otherwise we can think to a small cover price (1 euro or 1 dollar). The project can start immediately and it can be also a powerful pool to train the new thing editorial team. Steps to be taken_ 1) Create an international editorial team -- if you are interested, please shake your e-hand and say "me !" 2) Define the online and off-line resources at our disposal (ask for the collaboration of nettime and multitude moderators and many others) 3) Decide which sort of cut and which sort themes to focus on (intellectual property issues, tactical media, tools, etc) 4) Find possible sponsors (media centers, cultural institutes and so on) to cover print and editorial costs 5) Define the international gatherings that can work as distributive channels (give a look to the post-Porto Alegre agenda, it is very rich). 6) Go there and have some fun ! HEAVY TUNNELS Infrastructure Sharing As a first step, it seems logical to use the existing infrastructure, while mapping other bandwidth possibilities (like a Prague Thing, invitation from Prague suggesting that he could give us bandwidth. The problem would be maintenance and the need for a bio-agent to the work ). Most of the sharing can happen cross-linking the existing resources but as the network will grow, it will be important to define who will provide what. In terms of streaming, is The Open Source Streaming Alliance model suitable for us, or do we need another system? RESPONSE TUNNELING ThinkTank would like to request a short or long Response to the above memo from each of you. Such as, what do each of the nodes present at this ThinkTank need to feel fully a part of the project and that the ThingTank might be able to offer. For instance www.thething.it domain urgently needed a server to point to it (The Thing did not know this) and now we have been able to resolve that issue. Does your node have issue that you feel the ThingTank could enable and respond to? We that this ThingTank gathering will help us develop more precise questions for the next ThingTank panel. Thanks to all who took the time to share some face to face deep knowledge with ThingTank. See all of you soon on the other side of the Tunnel!! P.S. HISTORY OF THE THING Since its inception in 1991, THE THING has provided a flexible and supportive venue for developing, supporting, and presenting innovative media art and cultural criticism concerned with exploring the possibilities of electronic networks. Initially, in 1991, THE THING took the form of a dial-up bulletin board system (BBS) that facilitated discussion and experimentation, primarily within the New York City arts communities. In 1993, when UUCP (UNIX-to-UNIX copy protocol) technologies permitted broader communications throughout a small and scattered but vibrant community of like-minded efforts, THE THING actively took advantage of this to promote international exchanges and collaborations. And in 1995, when the rapid growth of the Internet made open activities on a full-time and global scale viable, THE THING again expanded and intensified its efforts by initiating individual and collaborative efforts with an extraordinary variety of artists and activists. Over the last decade, THE THING has played a seminal role not just in fostering a generation of network-oriented artists, critics, curators, and activists but also - and equally important - searching out ways to interconnect their diverse interests and activities. It is no exaggeration to say that the list of people and projects THE THING has supported comprises a who's who of contemporary electronic culture. From sponsoring a prescient electronic edition by the noted artist Peter Halley in 1993, the ranks of artists who were among the earliest to explore the possibilities of electronic networks through THE THING includes Beat Streuli, Marika Mori, Martin Kippenberger, Craig Kalpakjian, John Simon, Heath Bunting, Sawad Brooks, Vuk Cosic, Mark Napier & Andy Deck, Prema Murty, John Klima and Daniel Pflumm. Similarly, notable curators such as Benjamin Weil and Jordan Crandall undertook many of their foundational projects and networking activities in conjunction with THE THING. As the sudden rise of internetworking expanded many of issues taken up early on by artists and curators into broad social concerns, THE THING's purview expanded accordingly. Many notable creative/political efforts (etoy, RTMark, Electronic Disturbance Theater [EDT]) and vital cultural/political mailing lists (Nettime, Thingist, Iniva/Blast, Non Linear Circle and Forum Hub have gravitated toward THE THING for reliable support. In some cases (for example, Nettime and Rhizome), these remarkable resources would likely have suspended operations without THE THING's timely and unconditional support. In other cases (for example, etoy, RTMark, and EDT), this commitment to difficult projects in the face of aggressive commercial and political pressure has jeopardized the basic operations of THE THING and those who rely on it. More generally, THE THING has continually encouraged individual and collaborative efforts in any and every way possible. First and foremost, this has meant providing technical support (in the broadest sense) to growing numbers of cultural workers open to, but often unfamiliar with, electronic networking tools and techniques. At each stage of THE THING's development, this aspect of its work has taken on new magnitudes of complexity. From its beginning as a text-based BBS, THE THING has evolved into a full-service ISP, including sophisticated hosting and design/programming services, as well as support for dialup and dedicated high-speed connections. Some aspects of this development, though ancillary to THE THING's basic mission, have proved to be an invaluable mechanism both for introducing newcomers to networking as well as for THE THING's own technical environment. More important, these expansions have allowed THE THING to offer a much broader array of functions needed to fulfill its basic mission. Over the last decade, THE THING has served as a workplace with access to production and network facilities for visiting artists, cultural workers, and technicians; as a space for ad hoc gatherings, events, and exhibitions; and as the publisher and/or maintainer of a series of arts-oriented newsletters and custom-developed, publicly accessible websites. Perhaps the strongest testimony to THE THING's protean status and activities is the fact that it has spawned independent "THING"s in Berlin (1993), Vienna (1993), Frankfurt (1994>), Amsterdam (1994) and Rome (1999). The success of these projects has been mixed (all are still in operation), depending on local conditions, the fact that the name "THING" was regarded internationally as a rubric for a constellation of interests and ethics confirms that THE THING has played a vital role in fostering open dialogue between arts-, culture-, and politics-oriented sectors.
| Edit | Rename | Changes | History | Upload | Download | Back to Top |