New Cross is an area home to emerging creative businesses, deprived council estates and large numbers of students. How do these different communities interact? What is the future of New Cross? What will happen to the creative culture that has thrived in this area? On the 5th November, you are invited to Deptford Town Hall to air your views and envision possible futures around the Talkaoke table.

This Talkaoke was hosted for the first time by a rising star of Talkaoke: Jesse Darlin’.

 

Watch the video here

comment by transpontine

There’s lots of interesting (and indeed free) stuff happening in New Cross this week, not sure I can keep up with it all. To start with on Wednesday 5th September there’s an event – or rather couple of linked events – at Deptford Town Hall, New Cross Road, London SE14 6AF.

From 4.30-5.15pm, there’s ‘Deptford.TV Premieres: Black History Month’ – four short films made by Goldsmiths MA Screen Documentary students for Deptford.TV on Deptford’s black history. They look at the story of reggae sound systems in the area, the growth of the black community here, and the racist violence of the 1970s and 1980s, including the New Cross Fire.

Then in the same venue from 5.30-8.00pm it’s ‘Talkoake on se14 6af: What will New Cross be?’: ‘Goldsmiths, University of London is located in the heart of the dynamic and diverse neighbourhood of New Cross. The area is home to emerging creative businesses, deprived council estates and large numbers of students. How do these different communities interact? What is the future of New Cross? What will happen to the creative culture that has thrived in the area? On the 5th of November, you are invited to Deptford Town Hall to air your views and envision possible futures at a public Talkaoke, an interactive audience-led talk show on the future of the area’.

Talkaoke by The People Speak, supported by The Centre for the study of Global Media and Democracy, and The Centre for Urban and Community Research.

GOTO10 and pure:dyne host an evening dedicated to Free Software and art…

* BOOK PREVIEW: Be the first to check out FLOSS+Art, a new openmute publication reflecting on the growing relationship between Free Software ideology, open content and digital art. Edited by Aymeric Mansoux and Marloes de Valk.

* PANEL DISCUSSION: Anthony Iles moderates a panel discussion on communities of collaboration, online and off, with book contributors Matthew Fuller, Olga Goriunova, Aymeric Mansoux; and artist/activist Stefan Szczelkun.

* SOFTWARE PARTY: Check out the new Debian-based pure:dyne system – the GNU/Linux distribution for media arts. Meet the developers and hear about pure:dyne projects by our  friends at Folly (Taylor Nuttall), Access Space (James Wallbank), HTTP/Furtherfield (Marc Garret & Ruth Catlow), Dave Griffiths and Adnan Hadzi.

pure:dyne is an essential tool created to provide a  complete, Free/Libre/open source (FLOSS) custom and ready-made GNU/Linux computer environment for media artists. The pure:dyne CD can be inserted and run on a computer without the need to install anything, with an aim to make it simple to use on many types of hardware. It contains FLOSS programs for recording and manipulating sound, making live visuals and creating interactive media in installation, and more.

This event is part of the pure:dyne for everyone project, a national series designed to make pure:dyne more accessible through special events with partnering media arts centres across the country. * PLUS: pure:dyne promo goodies, Free Beer and more!

More info at:     http://www.goto10.org http://puredyne.goto10.org
Live interview 16 – 23 October on Netbehaviour:
http://www.netbehaviour.org/

Why Openness Matters: The Deptford.TV Project

Hadzi, Adnan
Department of Media and Communication
Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
a.hadzi@gold.ac.uk

This paper was presented at the RIPE conference & Documentary now!

Deptford.TV is an online media database documenting the urban change of Deptford, in South-East London . It operates through the use of free and open source software, which ensures the users continued control over the production and distribution infrastructure. Deptford.TV (http://www.deptford.tv) was initiated by Adnan Hadzi in collaboration with the Deckspace media lab, Bitnik media collective, Boundless project, Liquid Culture initiative, and Goldsmiths College .

This paper argues for the importance of: a) The use of open source software, which ensures the users continued control over the infrastructure for distribution; b) The capacity building of participants in the technical aspects of developing an on-line distribution infrastructure that they themselves can operate and control, empowering them to share and distribute production work both locally and internationally.

This paper continues the debate raised in the Next 5 Minutes media conference (Amsterdam, 2003) regarding ‘tactical media in crisis’; a conference which in many ways marked the “crash” of an online activism based on a merely tactical approach. As McKenzie Wark and others asked during the conference, ‘Can tactical media anticipate, rather than be merely reactive?’

The aim of a strategy is to generate a form of social contract; not only by enunciation or discursive agreements, but by actual practice. Existing networks, applications, artefacts and organisations like The Pirate Bay, Steal This Film, Deptford.TV, the Transmission.cc network etc. in effect constitute strategic entities that re-write the rules of engagement with digital media on an everyday basis. The problem being, that many of these entities become deemed illegal, quasi-legal or illegitimate by the current copyright legislation, something which can only really be addressed through finding new ethical frameworks which can appropriate what is already happening but in terms which do not frame it in the old dichotomy of ‘legal’ versus ‘illegal’.

As Michel de Certeau makes us aware of, strategies differ from tactics in that they are not reactive to an oppressor or enemy. Rather, strategies are self-maintained, autonomous, and – more specifically – spatially situated. If the ‘temporary autonomous zone’ (Bey 1991) of pirates, nomads and vagabonds is characterised not by permanence but by transience, still it might be seen as a means to generate short intermissions of stability; the establishment of momentary connectors, stable points, islands in the stream. The establishment of such islands is dependent on location and manual effort: different types of strategies that will become apparent throughout this reader.

An overarching issue for this paper has been the concept of ‘data spheres’ and of strategies aiming to build, uphold and defend these generative spheres. Adnan Hadzi presents a case for the strategic use of copyleft licenses within the datascapes of peer-to-peer networks by establishing data spheres: basically, acknowledging the need for a social contract which can uphold an ethical viability for those data spheres that have already emerged, but are currently branded illegitimate or at least non-sanctioned.

The fourth bi-annual RIPE (9th-10th of October 2008) conference is hosted by ZDF (Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen), Germany’s national public service television broadcasting company, and two universities: The Medienintelligenz programme together with IAK Medienwissenschaften at the Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz and the Institute of Media Design at the Mainz University of Applied Sciences. Our theme is public service media in their role, obligations and development for relations with the publics such companies are mandated to serve. About sixty international scholars and researchers together with strategic managers and policy makers will be working collaboratively to generate analysis and uncover insights about media development of relevance to the practice of citizenship in 21st century. Participants will better understand the dynamics of collaboration and public partnership in the development of a genuinely participatory public service enterprise.

Documentary Now! returns this year (11th October 2008) sponsored jointly by Brunel and Roehampton Universities.  The conference brings together scholars, filmmakers, students and interested members of the public to discuss current trends, from the return of documentary as a theatrical box office phenomenon, to broadcast television, the web and beyond.  It explores questions of industry, audiences, aesthetics, political engagement, documentary’s relationship to the mainstream media and many other issues.  What’s new in documentary? Where is documentary headed?

I St. Lab Micro TV is a TV broadcasting unit to facilitate mobile TV broadcasts. It is being built by Container Project, a community media lab in a 40 foot shipping container in rural Jamaica. It was initiated in 2003 by media artist (h)activist Mervin Jarman, who fulfilled his dream of returning to Jamaica to start the Container Project in the community where he grew up in. !Mediengruppe Bitnik from Switzerland are contributing their know-how, experience and technical material to build up and start using the micro TV station in August 2008. look it up http://www.istreet.tv

Finally, the first prototype of a shared cinelerra .xml project file is realised. See the documentation on http://watch.deptford.tv/wiki/

report by peter:

Lisa Haskel, Bitniks & OS video discussed how can the functionalities of online and ofline systems to edit video be reviewed to facilitate open source ways of collaborative video-editing. We worked on imagining a system, exploring the possibilities of content managing systems and the capacity of timeline editors to export edit decision lists in open standards formats.

In Spring 2008, NODE.London is calling a seasonal gathering of media art, showing how London is budding with fresh exhibitions, discussions, musical events and participatory projects.

This website will soon be filling with an ongoing programme from Spring 2008. Until then, you can browse the archive of the first NODE.London season of media arts in March 2006.

NODE.London is open to any person or group who wants to help spread media art and related activity around London and beyond! If you would like to get involved, please check the NODE.London wiki and come to one of our regular meetings and introduce yourself.

The next Layer

This one day workshop “from taxi to praxi and back again” uncovers and examines some of the challenges and opportunities faced when creative artistic practice is undertaking research. Independent artists and free and open source software developers have made more rapid advances than those working within the more traditionally minded arts and humanities departments in academia. The challenge is now to find ways of re-embedding useful aspects of free and open source methodologies in academic practice based arts and technology research. How do we incorporate and negotiate research in those areas of work which are strongly inter- and trans-disciplinary? The aim of the workshop is to address and discuss some of the generic, rather than discipline-specific, challenges of undertaking practice-based research within academia. The workshop will draw on open and collaborative (FLOSS) methodologies by proposing and discussing a diverse range of taxonomies and practices thus “from taxi to praxi and back again”. http://www.thenextlayer.org (collaboration between Armin Medosch & Adnan Hadzi)

Greenwich.TV ?

For people interested in brainstorming on a converging broadband/broadcast medium, webtv – greenwich tv?
This event is a follow up session of the disclosures roundtable discussion on TV looking at “…organisational principles of openness in contemporary cultural production, by focusing on openness in the public sphere, taking participation and community TV making its starting point.”
New input to the questions asked at disclosures?:
Disclosures roundtable “… will ask people around the table to consider the different approaches to participation presented in each of the projects. From this we will reflect on how we, as cultural producers, can facilitate sustainable opportunities for open participation. The topics that will be of interest are civic reach, censorship and methods of broadcast.”
see also http://www.gasworks.org.uk/exhibitions/detail.php?id=344

dorkbotswiss
people doing strange things with electricity

dorkbotswiss presentations are meant to be fun, friendly, informal chats. they’re short, just 20-30 minutes, including questions. the standard “artist talk” format (my life history in slides + narration) does not work very well at dorkbotswiss. what does work well is a casual talk about something you’re currently interested in. pretend you’re at a dinner party and someone has just asked you, “so what are you working on?” we encourage people to ask questions during the presentations, rather than always waiting until the end.

about dorkbot.swiss

dorkbot.swiss ist ein alle zwei monate stattfindendes meeting von künstlerInnen (sound/image/movement/ etc…), designerInnen, ingeneurInnen, studentInnen und anderen interessierten, die in schaffung und gestaltung elektronischer kunst ( im weitmöglichsten sinne) involviert sind. jedes dorkbot.swiss meeting präsentiert ein lokales, ein nationales und ein internationales projekt.

die absicht von dorkbot.swiss ist es:

* den künstlerInnen/programmiererInnen/ingeneuerInnen die möglichkeit zu bieten, ihre arbeit anderen künstlerInnen verschiedenster richtungen vorzustellen und mit ihnen zu diskutieren und zu betrachten.
* ein forum für die präsentation neuer art works/ technologien/ software/ hardware zu etablieren

Open Knowledge Conference

The Open Knowledge Foundation is a not-for-profit organization founded in 2004 with the simple aim of promoting (and protecting) open knowledge. It is our belief that open approaches to the production and distribution of knowledge can deliver far-reaching social and commercial benefits in a variety of areas.

What is Open Knowledge?

Simply put: it is knowledge that is open! To be more specific, by knowledge we mean any kind of content, information or data: genes to geodata, sonnets to statistics. By ‘open’ knowledge we mean knowledge which anyone is free to use, re-use and redistribute without legal, social or technological restriction. For more details and a really precise explanation of what this means see the Open Knowledge Definition.

What We Do

The Foundation exists to promote open knowledge in all ways possible. Central to this is our role as an open and participatory community as well as our position as a hub and partner for existing open knowledge networks. Beyond this we work specifically to:

• Promote the idea of open knowledge, both what it is, and why is it a good idea.

• Act at the national and international level on open knowledge issues.

• Run ‘Open Knowledge’ events, for example the Open Knowledge Forums and OKCON.

• Develop tools that help us and help others develop open knowledge, such as KForge and the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network.

• Provide infrastructure, and potentially a home, for open knowledge projects, communities and resources. See, for example, the KnowledgeForge service.

Running through all of our activities is a strong emphasis on decentralized collaboration. In particular, our primary aim is to help others develop open knowledge rather than doing it ourselves. Of course, that doesn’t mean we don’t develop specific projects (for example Open Shakespeare) but we believe that the future lies in collaboration between a multitude of different groups and that no one group or organisation can, or should try to, “do it all”.

Introduction to Open Knowledge 2008: 1030
Rufus Pollock, Open Knowledge Foundation

Session 1 (1045-1200): Transport and Environment
* Gavin Starks (AMEE and dgen)
* Tom Steinberg (MySociety)
* Dr Muki Haklay (Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, University College London)

Session 2 (1200-1315): Visualization and Analysis
* Liz Turner
* Gael Varoquaux (Mayavi2 and Scientific Python)
* One other TBC

Session 3 (1415-1530): Education and Academia
* Erik Duval (ARIADNE)
* Lisa Petrides (OER Commons)
* Dr Martin Brett (Cambridge University History Department)

Open Space (1530-1830)
* Contributed (and spontaneous) lightning talks, demos, mini-workshops

Open Media Economics Panel (15:45-16:45)
* Jamie King http://www.stealthisfilm.com
* Joerg Baach http://www.opencoin.org
* Simon Worthington http://www.openmute.org
* Holmes Wilson http://www.getmiro.org

Open Media (moderator Maria X)

Deptford.TV fundraising night for the mindsweeper with premiere of Deptford.TV shorts, Ampersand.TV performance and an openlab headphone concert. “BRING YOUR OWN HEADPHONES”

4th April 2008:
* 6pm doors open
* 6.30pm premiere of Deptford.TV docs
* 8pm Ampersand.TV & NRSZ performance
* 9.30pm Openlab performance: livecoding / homebrew software + electronics / video remixing / noise club beats

Deptford.TV is a collaborative video project documenting South/East London see http://deptford.tv These short films are coming out of a Deptford.TV/CUCR collaboration about two Deptford stories: the eviction of the squatters and businesses on New Cross Road, and the restoration of the Minesweeper, a floating community creative space recently damaged in a fire, see http://www.minesweeper.tv/
CUCR is the Centre for Urban and Community Research at Goldsmiths, see http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/cucr/

about NRSZ:
NRSZ The pioneer of realtime visualization will shred the the deptford.tv footage in time with ampersand. see http://www.5VOLTCORE.com

about Ampersand.TV:
South London based Ampersand are a fivepiece that use recycled and found objects to produce sonic sculptures from random noise. Their setup features the inside of pianos, shell casings, corrugated iron, scaffold and brass pipes. All sounds mesh together creating multifaceted timbral music. For more information visit http://www.ampersand.tv

about Openlab:
OpenLab collective builds on what is now an increasingly blurred line between artists and software developers. The broad expansion of the Internet and the democratization of computers have left audiences more than ever confronted with new, hybrid software conceived by a blend of artists and programmers. As intellectual property is a fiercely debated issue, some people cling on to their little bits of territory, while others choose to share knowledge, art and collective work. This event will be a platform for OpenLabs’ digital artists, musicians and programmers, to present their collaborative works.

Do you want to research or make documentary films? Are you interested in collaborative film-making? Do you want to document regeneration, gentrification and alternative urbanism in deptford and new cross? Do you want to learn how to edit and publish digital video?

This is a call for participation in a Deptford.TV/CUCR collaboration to document the closure by Goldsmiths College of the buildings at SE14 6AF (the block that includes Cafe Crema) and the restoration of the Minesweeper boat on Deptford Creek.

CUCR is the Centre for Urban and Community Research at Goldsmiths http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/cucr/ [http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/cucr/]
Deptford.TV is a collaborative video project documenting the regeneration of Deptford http://deptford.tv [http://deptford.tv]

This call is to participate in a series of workshops from January to March 2008 and participation in the making of short documentary films about two Deptford stories: the eviction of the squatters and businesses on New Cross Road, and the restoration of the Minesweeper, a floating community creative space recently damaged in a fire http://www.minesweeper.tv [http://www.minesweeper.tv]

The workshops are aimed at CUCR’s MA and PhD students (MA Culture, Globalisation and the City, MA Photography and Urban Cultures, PhD Visual Sociology), but are open to anyone. They are free and require no previous experience. We are looking for people who have an interest in documenting stories of city change, whether they have skills in film-making or a passion for research.
You will be given basic training in collaborative digital film-making, editing with Final Cut, and publishing video, and work together to make short films. The project is based on open source and creative commons principles. The workshops will be held at Goldsmiths College.
The schedule:

Research pre-meet:
– 15th January 3 pm to 5 pm: starting off the documentary research process (optional) Workshops:
– 1st day: 28th January 10am to 4pm introduction to deptford.tv principles, introduction to themes to film, how to publish on deptford.tv, research into topics, forming of groups. – 2nd day: 4th Februaryry 10am to
4pm: introduction to shooting equipment.
– 2 wks time independent filming
– 3rd day: 18th Februaryry 10am to 4pm introduction to final cut – start of editing / parallel to shooting – 4th day: 3rd march 10am to 4pm: discussion of edits, how to upload to deptford.tv

by transpontine

From last week’s Mercury, 30 January 2008 (buy the hard copy if you can, it has got a two page colour spread of photos of the shops and the people):

‘University Landlords call time on charming shopping parade

An iconic parade of shops looks set to be consigned to the history books. Rubbish and Nasty,Café Crema and Prangsta occupy the run-down shops at 302-314 New Cross Road.
Parade landlord Goldsmiths College, part of the University of London, has told disappointed business owners to leave by March 7.

Rubbish and Nasty, an emblem of this part of Lewisham’s recent fashion and music revival, is run by Sophie Soni and Ian McQuaid. The shop operates as a working installation for the pair’s creative work and also sells music and second-hand clothes. Sophie said she would now quit New Cross, hoping to find a studio space in Deptford.

At the other end of the parade is specialist “costumiers” Prangsta whose selection of vintage clothing for hire attracts people from across London. Owner Melanie Wilson has been running the shop for 10 years and said she was sad to leave.She also plans to move to a Deptford studio.
She said: “The building does need attention and repairs, so we can understand that the businesses will have to move out. But it’s going to be very sad for the area. I have had a lucky time here, but I think that perhaps the university wants to make it part of the campus.”

Kiri Lewin and Chris Boddington have run Café Crema since 2004, becoming popular with students and lecturers with their vegetarian home cooked food, coffees and film nights.
While Sophie and Melanie will be able to move out and continue their work, Café Crema faces a tougher future. It is most closely tied to the university community and most reluctant to leave.
Kiri said: “We are emotionally attached to the area and don’t want to see all our hard work go down the drain – especially if the shop just ends up being boarded up. We’d really like to be involved in plans for the future.”

A spokesman for Goldsmiths said notice on the shops had been served following a fire enforcement notice. He said: “The college has been seeking an inclusive approach to the problem. In autumn 2007, we invited all of the businesses to send representatives to attend discussion meetings. We are currently looking at a number of options for addressing the building issues. We are committed to ongoing dialogue with the businesses when these have become clearer”‘.

Transpontine comment: Nobody is denying that work is needed on these buildings – Cafe Crema aren’t arguing that they shouldn’t move out while work is carried out, they just want the option of moving back when it is completed. What is clear from this story is that Goldsmiths have no clear plans or timescale for carrying out the works, or for what they will do afterwards. I understand that there are two options being considered – one to turn the parade into student accommodation, the other to have flats upstairs but to have some kind of ‘market place’ downstairs, possibly with stalls selliing student work, shops and a cafe. It would certainly be another nail in the coffin of any idea of New Cross ‘town centre’ if Goldsmiths gets away with the former, taking a whole stretch of street frontage on the high street out of public circulation.

by neil

I can’t believe that my friend Paul Hendrich is dead, but he is. He was apparently cycling from his home in Battersea to Goldsmiths in New Cross when he was hit by a lorry on Wednesday. He was just 36 years old, and leaves behind his wife Sasha and their one-year old daughter, Agatha.

I first met Paul a couple of years ago when he got in touch to interview me for a project he was doing about the former Deptford Town Hall, taken over by Goldsmiths College in 1998. Like me he had drawn the connections between its maritime statues and Deptford’s links with slavery and colonialism. Unlike me he decided to do something about it, not only making it the focus of his Masters dissertation – the basis of an article to be published in the April issue of Anthropology Matters – but launching a campaign for Goldsmiths to publicly acknowledge this history in the context of debates about marking the abolition of slavery and the appropriateness of apologies and reparations. He was instrumental in organising an event at the Town Hall in June 2007 on ‘Repairing the Trauma of History: What does an apology of substance look like?’ which featured a group of people on the Sankofa Reconciliation Walk wearing yokes and chains attempting to make reparation for the acts of the seamen carved in stone on the front of the building.

Paul also organised a Town Hall Pirate society at Goldsmiths to have fun playing around with piracy while raising serious questions about an alternative maritime narrative from below. The photo of Paul here doing his Captain Hook pose was taken on a visit by the Pirates to the Island, where I met them to talk about the history and wonders of this New X traffic island.

In September 2007 he was involved in organising the Migrating University/No Borders events at Goldsmiths. We then worked closely together on the Lewisham ’77 events, including a walk and a conference to mark the 30th anniversary of the anti-fascist demonstrations in New Cross and Lewisham. Paul’s active opposition to racism carried over into his job, where he worked with young refugees. At the time of his death, he was preparing to sail to Arizona, USA to research the various forms of activism that have taken shape around undocumented cross-border migration of Mexicans into the US.

Sophie Day from Goldsmiths Anthropology department is right to say that ‘Paul’s enthusiasm, generosity, kindness and inclusiveness drew everyone he met into the broader issues that he was thinking about and working on’. He made many things happen, and everyone who knew him will also be mourning all the other numerous things he never got to make happen – he was always bubbling over with ideas. We never did find time to have those conversations about Brighton raves back in the day, the Yeovil music scene or contemporary americana (I believe Paul was learning to play the banjo) – we were always too busy planning and scheming.