reSync joined the ‘New Babylon Revisited‘ conference in Athens and our 2 day workshop ‘reStreet’ was one of five group events that took place over a 4 day period. 6-9th November 2014.

In the run up to the Friday workshop we spent many hours walking in Athens and working at Space Under preparing reSync systems.

reStreet sets out to expose the free information infrastructures of AWMN into the social labyrinth of Athens streets by presenting techniques for data exchange and experimenting with easily available syncronisation tools and DIY signage. In our travel bag for this trip we carried; DIY piratebox, reSync relay, wireless router, 19dbi parabolic antenna and 38mm badge press!

We also worked at rooftop level to build links with AWMN, connecting to the network infrastructure and met with President of the association, Joseph Bonicioli, who talked with us all about many aspects of AWMN and reflected on issues of public communication and network development in progress around Athens and across Greece. In particular we were keen to help identify where information presented at street level could inform and illuminate on the infrastructure development in place at roof level and how to utilise it.

 

 

Enclosures and reStreet sessions shared Space Under and to start with we addressed everyone present (36) with an introduction to proposals for both workshops and key activity schedule. Once each participant installed BTsync app on phones and laptops we activated the Space Under reSync to hold the workshop notes, some images from the session and views from the rooftop to illustrate a range of materials and techniques to test.

AWMN.net maps the community network infrastructure and describes services available to network users. Five groups each picked a network node location to visit and capture impressions, consider the environment and prepare media files to represent each one.

By Saturday we also activated a reSync for each New Babylon event ; Octo-Apps, Athens  Conference for Utopian Technologies etc. Enclosures of new Athens / Glossary of Subsumption and Babylon Radio. We prepared a range of print media artworks to promote all ten reSync locations pressing out button badges and printing small posters and flyers for distribution.

Both groups reconvened before the end of the day to share experiences and prepare for Sunday’s  Athens Drift, sharing out QRcode badges and producing a city map with points marked for AWMN, Enclosure and New Babylon revisited.

Thanks to all who attended and special thanks to our hosts Space Under and event organisers Gothe Institute Athen for their support.

reSync set out on an ambitious programme of activity to mark it’s establishment as a startup company, picking up where deckspace.tv rounded off it’s research phase in Leuneburg.

To begin we formed a collaboration with the Freifunk Leuneburg group and invited them to join us for a few days preparation and two days of festivities on the Leuphana University campus.

Lunatic festival is held each year and operated by students of all faculties in the University as part of an enlightened in-house work experience period for second and third years. We first met with previous years chief co-ordinators at sessions in Freiraum during 2012 where we first proposed our involvement and set up the process for the following years festival. They estimated 2000 visitors a day would attend to share the love of summer and end of term!

With our invitation in hand we promoted Freifunk Leuneburg as wireless infrastructure providers at the festival an ambitious but achievable prospect and one which drew in some great characters from the local group all of whom chose to work above and beyond the call to put in place the physical and radio interlinks as well as install and test the dozen wireless access points required to put a universal access network into place for everyone to use.

To reSync Lunatic, we set up an array of pre-configured Bit Torrent Sync secrets to facilitate file synchronising between attendees at the festival via qrcode graphics printed on a series of custom button badge artwork sheets. Each Lunatic (festival visitor) claimed a badge from us and pressed it together in our workshop, along with it’s write access ‘secret’ enabling them to present sounds texts and images from their smartphone to anyone willing to scan their badge and at any location in the festival area.

We all then setup camp in a quiet corner of the spielwiese and proceeded to monitor the useage of the wireless network and respond to the increasingly engaged festival goers requesting a reSync badge and support to get their smartphones sync ready and activated.

Latest apps for Android and iOS include long overdue ifttt automation suite which will extend the scope for syncronising and managing publicity during the events we have scheduled. So far I can’t see a btsync channel, perhaps we will get one added.

We are using a recipe to trigger a tweet to be displayed whenever a new lunatic makes a badge which displays their resync qrcode. If it works like this I shall be amazed