Creeknet XF Symposium

Its been a very hectic few weeks at SPC as we bring focus onto DIY networks of Deptford Creek at the first Creeknet Symposium on 20th and 21st June.

The poster here for you to print and put up in your window, outlines event details which can be found in full on the SPC event listings and at http://deptfordcreek.net

The Creeknet friends have been meeting regularly at venues up and down the creek. We have been exploring the fast changing environment and revisiting access points onto the river, crossing bridges and improving an understanding of local concerns and ambitions. The last of these before summer takes hold is on Monday 12th June at noon, in the Undercurrents gallery inside the Birdsnest pub on Deptford Church Street. We will be collecting together images and stories to publish at the local network Anchorholds, a trail of information points along the creek, so please do come along to contribute your experiences !

Rapid progress was made by the very energetic Hoy Steps clear-up group on Monday 5th June. The huge overgrowth of Buddleia clogging views, was cut down and disposed of in a flurry of action and enthusiasm. The vigorous roots of this plant have got deep into and have damaged the sea wall and will continue to regrow unless more drastic measures to remove remnants are adopted soon, even then they are likely to return!

Wooden pallets stored at street level have been sorted and stacked ready for re-use or removal and the rubbish sheet materials, plastic wrappers and polystyrene are bagged ready for disposal. We return early on Tuesday 13th to complete the clean-up process in preparation for a public viewing during Creeknet Symposium the following week.

Friends of Deptford Creek is a community group set up to support, represent and protect the human, natural and built environment of Deptford Creek, London. How do these two different groups work together? How does the changing landscape affect them? What technologies can help?

Find out by joining us over an exciting two days of public meet ups and workshops to exchange ideas and explore the DIY networks of Deptford Creek<http://deptfordcreek.net/>.

Meet MAZI<http://mazizone.eu/> partners from around Europe, Chat to local community groups, and play with our technology that support local networks and discuss what’s next for Deptford. You can attend all or parts of these events over the two days by registering with Eventbrite here:

Tuesday 21st June 2017
Wednesday 22nd June 2017

For further information please visit this website.

This week starting Monday 12 June, we have a busy schedule to install equipment, complete work and do last minute promotion. (really!). Today we are meeting at the Undercurrents Gallery in the Birdsnest pub to update the mazizone prototype there and meet with local mariners and artists to discuss their network systems. On Tuesday it’s an early Lowtide and 10AM return to the Hoysteps to complete clearup work and prepare for a visit the following week, refreshments provided. After lunch we will be installing bluetooth beacons along the creek to mark out the Anchorhold locations

Wireless Wednesday at http://bit.spc.org this week is dedicated to preparation of print materials for distribution during the Creeknet Symposium so please come along and help out, but please hold off on the broken PC’s for a couple of weeks! On Thursday and Friday, We will be testing the Creeknet Anchoholds app, a guide to the DIY networks of Deptford Creek. If you would like to help out please call for more details as we will be working along the length of the tidal creek from Brookmill Park to the Swing bridge.

http://friends.deptfordcreek.net

Don’t forget to tell us you are attending Creeknet Symposium, not least so we can arrange catering! Please register.

Creeknet meet-up @ Hoy

The MAZI Project is working on an alternative technology, Do-It-Yourself networking, a combination of wireless technology, low-cost hardware, and free/libre/open source software (FLOSS) applications, for building local networks, known as community wireless networks.

Creakynet

We visited the Hoy Steps again today to view the condition of the street level area inside the gates and assess the clean up task. After 20 years of restricted access, an accumulation of old wheels, wooden pallets and tangle of Buddleia block the steps. There is also a large amount of scaffolding framing the space which can be used again in any reconstruction plan. High tide at midday prevented us seeing more than half a dozen of the twenty steps that lead down to the muddy shoreline at low tide. A ferry once transported people across the creek to Greenwich at this point. The ‘hoy!’ call out to summon a boat was first heard here hundreds of years ago.

Our previous Creeknet meet-up started out at Laban Dance cafe’ from where we walked down Creekside and over the Ha’penny Hatch footbridge to the fork in the path on the Norman Road side. Thames Tideway are rapidly completing this controversial diversion, whilst setting out their groundwork for an 18m diameter x 60m deep excavation to a 12m diameter 30km sewage overflow tunnel from Ealing on route to Becton.

Waste removal from the Greenwich Pumping station site will add 100 trucks a day to the roads already overloaded with heavy construction services. Earlier suggestions to use huge river barges have been kicked into the long grass in favour of the pre-approved and cheaper option.!

Continuing on our way up to Creek Bridge, we stopped off at the far end of Hiltons Wharf, to step out on to the tiny mooring point in time to catch departure of the Prior’s aggregate ship to Gravesend for a refill. Opposite, the race for construction of two huge towers crashes on, sucking up the entire concrete capacity of Euromix!

After a well deserved coffee at Hoy Kitchen and visit to the steps we were picked up by Camden for a fantastic river trip aboard a motorised lifeboat, which first took us out onto the Thames before returning us to the nest of houseboats at 4 Creekside.

Please take that trip sometime, till then check this video! More photos here.

At the furthest reaches of the tidal creek, Friends of Brookmill Park held their quarterly meeting to map out activities for the rest of spring and early summer. Their re planting program in the formal garden adjacent to Stephen Lawrence centre is proceeding well with fresh lavender beds and new roses. Mariner and beekeeper Julian Kingston will talk about local shipbuilding at a fundraiser event in Brookmill pub on June 7th, space is limited to 30 seats so get your ticket soon!

That’s just a few weeks before the Creeknet Symposium on 20th and 21st June. DIY networks of Deptford Creek host partners from the MAZI project in Germany, Switzerland and Greece to attend this ‘cross pollination event’, all are welcome.

The first day begins at Hoy Kitchen on Creek Road with rolling breakfast welcome, exhibition of local images and stories followed by mass low tide walk at Creekside Discovery Centre at 3pm. The second day starts with project presentations and lunch at Stephen Lawrence Centre, followed by a visit to Redstart Arts and picnic in Brookmill Park. Finally take a walkshop to the Creek Mouth, crossing bridges and exploring the Creeknet trail.

Post unitary

Ongoing MAZI research into DIY networks and complimentary solutions has turned up many great options. Our current favorite is Sandstorm.io a a collaboration suite of open source software which continues to develop and swell with features.

Three new servers in centres of activity, have been introduced where the rising need for safe, secure and stable alternatives to corporate cloud is called for by subscribers and collaborators.

Mazi is well on track to present combinations of network and collective development tools in 2018, a pick and mix of hardware, software and scenario conditioning, though we are not there yet! Adoption of ultra low power ARM based pc’s like Raspberry Pi for a multitude of tasks is on a rocket. On the flipside, a mountain of small format, legacy laptop and powerful low cost / free desktop i386 hardware is in great abundance, a glut even, these are perfect hosts for Sandstorm.

As we concluded the third Creeknet meet-up at Stephen Lawrence Centre this week, it was great to welcome this group of residents from the boating community of Deptford Creek.

The large converted coal barge, Luna, moors alongside a nest of boats in the mud at No2 Creekside and this is where will next meet-up again in March. It’s home to ten young people who share the residence and have expressed enthusiasm to shape their own futures here by improving communications between boat owners and public awareness of river living. Concerns over continuity of mooring for the many boats here is uppermost in everyones mind as development plans emerge that throw assumption about tenure into questions.

When we last spoke to Julian Kingston, he mentioned how difficulties in communications between the new LLP owning the yard, the DLR and boat owners was provoking anxiety. Land access here for moored boats depends on continued good will and understanding from all parties. Shoreside utilities, access to clean water and sanitation, power and telecoms are vital.

SPC are working with OU and Creeknet friends to establish a network of interactive installations along the tidal creek, that forms a DIY networking trail from Brookmill Park to the Swing Bridge. Using a combination of low power computing and mesh wireless technology, this initiative aims to support existing neighbourhood activity and inform Mazi toolkit development. Follow it along the length of the tidal creek from beacon to beacon, each point presenting locally sourced and augmented information.

Each Mazizone consists of a reconfigured Rasbian operating on a Raspberry Pi that hosts, webserver and database tools that are arranged and refined to suit local conditions. They are connected to existing broadband internet or as standalone ‘offline’ systems. Each offers ‘Creeknet’ wireless access, which responds to your web request by presenting a captive ‘portal’ page loaded with guides for use, selected collaboration tools,  and a view on each neighborhood.

The current MAZI toolkit release is V1.6 with the project sources bug tracking and development notes at Github. We invite all those interested to get in touch, download and install the development images and contribute feedback and follow our progress. The details of how best to configure and deploy a mazizone are being accumulated as we experiment.

Project partners at Univesity of Thessaly in Greece have the job of building and managing the development of the toolkit software, adding and adapting to the evolving requirements. You can preview the default Mazi toolkit, but for better insight into how progress is being made in London please visit one of the Creeknet Mazizones and try out the options. We now also have berryboot versions of the toolkit hosted by Alex Goldcheidt alongide the hundreds of alternative OS for the Raspberry Pi at Berryserver.

Since loosing the boat in a fire in January, Minesweeper Collective are operating in Deckspace and at DIY Space for London. Their Undercurrents gallery at Birdsnest was first to be installed to support the group art exhibitions updated each month.

We have been meeting Creeknet friends regularly at Hoy kitchen on Creek Road where a Mazizone was installed in March. We will return there this coming Monday at noon for a research session with those specifically interested in clean-up of the Hoy Steps.

Artist Karen Barnes mazizone is Eileen Ford named after her pinhole camera truck parked in the yard at N02 Creekside. It has a built in camera and other sensory extensions, fitted inside her human sized portable ‘box camera’ to record and publish pinhole images on the move. It operates in ‘offline’ mode and presents a guestbook, image galleries, and reports on changing conditions.

When we return to Brookmill Park in May the fourth Creeknet Mazizone will be installed at the Park keepers hut by the pond. It will help friends of Brookmill Park co-ordinate public events, present wildlife images and environmental conditions.

Our UK partners at Open University have set up a mazizone installation of their own to demonstrate to their colleagues and experiment with new features whilst in their work space in Milton Keynes.

Triangulated

The brexit debacle has so far proved to be a substantial distraction from much else going on this week. However, work toward the first of many MAZI reports to satisfy conditions for EU support, has been completed on time. Our academic partners at the Open University now have an additional part time researcher (Gareth) in post to help prepare the ground work for the next phase of neighborhood engagement which SPC are for preparing now. Here is Mark pointing out the Minesweeper floatilla on the creek.

We haven’t had many visitors to the recent Brookmill Park, Monday meetups, though great progress has been made with those attending to clean and prepare the space for Redstart Arts who take up residence later this summer. Their current exhibition at the Deptford Lounge is result of 8 months work with learning disability artists and called ‘weatherSCAPE’. It has been installed in the 4 story atrium space there, very impressive!

Much of the Brookmill conversation so far, has been concerned with how to improve on use of the park and encourage a wider appreciation and support for the events and activities organised by the ‘friends’ group. Last weekend YT joined the Picnic and met with near neighbors as well as some more familiar faces. There was great interest in the MAZI activation initiative using the park keepers building and many questions on what and how might be possible. We sat in dappled light beneath a giant London plain tree with it’s bat and bird boxes, adjacent to the large pond with resident heron and frolicking water birds, to share stories, savories and cakes!

Later this month we will meet again with MAZI partners Common Ground in Berlin to review progress of the new Prinzessinnengarten building in progress  and enjoy the bloom of midsummer. Terry Edwards has been in a battle with slugs at the small gardens in Crossfields Estate he tends and will join us on the trip this time.

Here in Deptford there is no shortage of building work underway as seen here in this site view adjacent to CET. Directly opposite, preparations for the Tideway tunnel excavation are also advancing quickly. Intensive building work in progress on both sides of the creek reach are reaching crisis point as project increasingly coincide and collide. Any plans for environment monitoring, neighborhood awareness and useful responses may be foiled if we don’t make some rapid progress before long.

Mudlarking On

Before heading off to this years Battlemesh in Porto, Portugal, YT got together with 20 Deptford locals, Inurian activists and Mazi partners for a low tide walk on Deptford Creek. Our guide for the walk was botanist Nick Bertrand of the Creekside Education Trust, leading river ecology and environmental experts.

We had a splendid experience of the creek and learned a lot about how our impact on the environment, even one already so compromised and contaminated by waste and decades of abuse can have unexpected outcomes on ecology of plants and animals. When 400 shopping trolleys were removed in 1990’s it caused a collapse of fish populations! So now things a mostly left as they are.

Hundreds of school and public groups a year visit the creek and gain a unique experience and insight into the workings of Thames tributaries and an understanding of this most urban of British coastline, it’s place in history and current state of play.

Fresh water from the River Ravensbourne washes into Deptford Creek having soaked up Spring Brook, Pool and Quaggy rivers on its wander from Bromley. Daily tides swell the Thames 7 or 8 meters, yet the creek remains mostly fresh water with very little saline effect to deter plant and animal propagation. The sea wall containment of all these rivers has restricted the opportunities for nature to gain a firm footing, yet many wild flowers and water creatures thrive in the stew of manufactured and organic rubbish the river drags along. We saw leaches, shrimp and crabs and should expect flounder and eels in abundance later in the season. Decaying timber ‘bumpers’ along the length of the creek serve alongside purpose built terraces as home to small fish and plant life, nurturing success of species variety.

Many human lives also rely on the ebb and flow of the river not least the boating community here, many of which we continue to talk to and engage with, as our MAZI pilot develops. Minesweeper Collective operate an art lab aboard the wooden triple hull 2nd world war minesweeper in the creek. A screen printing workshop and image creation lab occupy the below deck areas whilst on deck the space suits symposium and performance both of which are well used by local and visiting artists. The collective seeks energy autonomy and uses 12v throughout, currently relying on large batteries, charged by diesel generator but intent on harvesting solar and wind before long. Slow repairs to the boat following a fire in 2008 are in progress but a crowd funding campaign and or public funding is needed to complete the majors works still required.

Yesterday, Greenwich Maritime Museum hosted a public consultation for those interested in artist and community collaboration projects seeking funding. The presentations from GAVS, ACE and Royal Borough of Greenwich, each explained how funding and support was available to nurture project development of public arts. Greenwich operate a Community Arts Fund which would particularly suit existing minesweeper project work and may offer a pathway to greater development funding in the future. In particular with a view to participating at the tall ships event in 2017 where a season of community arts and creative interaction events a planned to celebrate the return of the Tall Ships regatta to Greenwich . The theme for this year’ is ‘Voyaging, Discovery and Adventure’ perfect.

Olympia aspirated

YT just returned from a round trip around Greece for MAZI-kickoff meetings. Starting out in Thessaloníki for a couple of days to acclimatise and explore the city on foot, caught the bus with Mark Gaved (Open University) south to Volos.

On the eve of the sessions we joined the other consortium partners for first of many lovely feasts in the re-animated service quarter adjacent the port and marina, where we all enjoyed first principals of Volos catering; drink tsipouro and eventually great food arrives at the table, keep drinking and the selection and frequency increases! Great social exchange and a wealth of information and insight on these new relationships was gathered and a sense of fun and inquisitiveness established.

Our meetings at University of Thessaloníki set out to unpack the many layered project package of the successful bid to EU. Ahead are three years research, application and monitoring of MAZI toolkit development, which begin in earnest now. Their Nitos lab offers a grand facility for prototyping and testing a wide range of sensor components, wireless options and engineering of suitable interfaces we will need for the successful establishment of the MAZI toolkit at the pilot sites in Berlin, Deptford, Zurich and in the wild from Athens to Edinburgh.

Partners introduced their respective organisations, listened to each others proposals and considered the scope of collaboration together. We examined how to begin the processes of examination and annotation to best serve the needs of wider public communication and consultation with one another throughout the project. This intensive and somewhat testing experience, articulated some gaps in our assumptions and reinforced the sense of confidence and enthusiasm in one another for the tasks set.

Those left standing continued on to a trip up the Olympian mountains in central Greece, a unique opportunity to visit community wireless project Sarantaporo.gr. We met it’s key protagonists and heard first hand, from locals about their hopes and fears for the future. Improvements in the interlinking of settlements has already animated relations and revealed more ancient rivalries of village life. The children and more specifically grandchildren of longest lived residents are the most enthusiastic adopters of the new services in place, now much more willing to visit from nearby towns and cities than ever. Further promotion of mountain existence and wider expansion of the impressively well distributed quality broadband is underway. . Quality broadband access has been granted by regional university in Larissa and the project has already delivered to eleven of the many dislocated villages. Population depletion of recent decades now shows strong signs of reversal as a consequence of economic turmoil and these homegrown successes. The sense of goodwill and courage demonstrated was an inspiration and energis for the MAZI we now embark on together.

Social Centre Plus – 12th April 2011

Participants from the Social Centre Plus created through Deptford.TV a 3 min. documentary about the eviction attempt, which was then published on indymedia.

Local residents who occupied the old Job Centre on Deptford High Street with the aim of “converting it into an anti-cuts space for the community” have responded to a legally binding eviction order for this Tuesday by announcing a series of events, culminating in a “mass meeting of anti-cuts activists” the night before. The collective – who go by the name of Social Centre Plus – also plan to bring the local community together against the government’s budget cuts, with spoken word concerts, children’s days, film showings and market day cafés.

Members of the Social Centre Plus collective were in Woolwich Crown Court on Wednesday 30th March to hear the Judge accept the argument of Paul Jackson from Victory Land, the owners of the site on 122 Deptford High Street, and rubber-stamped an order that allows Jackson and bailiffs to forcefully evict the occupation. “They’ve notified us that they’ll arrive this Tuesday morning,” Nasser Khan said. “So we’ve got a raft of activities to keep us busy in the meantime, and we’re calling on the local community to come down and participate. It’s your space, so we want to hear your ideas!”

When asked what the SCP Collective had planned for after the eviction, Khan replied that they hadn’t discussed the issue. “What’s important now is that we all work together to use the space as an effective space to counter the brutal cuts being implemented both by the Tories and Lib Dems in Westminster, and the Labourites running Lewisham Council,” Khan continued.

On the morning of Tuesday 12th April, SOCIAL CENTRE PLUS successfully resisted an attempted eviction. Around 60 people gathered outside the space, linking arms and blocking the front door so as to prevent High Court bailiffs and builders – backed up by a vanload of police – from entering.

Scp-medium
photo by Transpontine

The victory was achieved following an hour-long stand-off, during which the bailiffs – from Locks Bury Services – met with Paul Jackson, the site’s landlord, were spotted outside the Deptford Project, the café opposite Social Centre Plus, whose owner also wanted the space for a high society art exhibition. There they made a series of frantic phone calls in which they spelt out their reluctance to confront the occupiers inside the anti-cuts space, some of whom were positioned on the building’s roof.

Eventually the police informed the bailiffs that they had no intention of intervening, and recommended that they come back another day. Members of the local community remained outside SCP for most of the morning, savouring the success for South East London’s anti-cuts movement.

However, the SCP Collective is well aware of the continued threat to the space. A second eviction attempt must be expected, and this time Locks Bury will come unannounced, and with the necessary tools and thugs to remove the occupiers. Despite this, SCP remains committed to hosting and facilitating the local anti-cuts movement, even if they do have to move on from 122 Deptford High Street.

From the blog http://socialcentreplus.wordpress.com

Lewisham 77 at Cafe Crema

Quoted from Lewisham, Peace, Justice and Solidarity:

Thursday 18 March
Who shot the sheriff? The Battle of Lewisham 1977 and the Battle of Cable Street short films looking at the fight against fascism from the 1930s to today with Q and A with film makers and Unite Against Fascism

Who shot the sheriff? – the history of Rock Against Racism and Love Music Hate Racism inspiring and mobilising young people to stop the fascists by bringing together music and politics-from the 1970’s to today.

[Details here. Read an interview with director Alan Miles here. We showed this on our Lewisham 77 commemorative day, and it went down well. If you like it, you may also like our short films about Rock Against Racism’s Red Saunders: 1, 2.]

Lewisham 1977 about the Battle of Lewisham filmed in New Cross by Deptford TV volunteers.

[Not sure which of our films they are showing, presumably this one, filmed on our commemorative walk. More details of the film in this article. Our films were made by volunteers, including Goldsmiths MA Screen Documentary students, in collaboration with Deptford TV, a project which uses open source technologies to generate new forms of collaborative film-making to document changes in SE London.]

The Battle of Cable Street and The Legacy of Cable Street with film maker Yoav Segal

[More info here. Note: Cable Street features in our film about anti-fascist footsoldier Martin Lux.]

With Q and A with film maker and Unite Against Fascism – important lessons as the fascist BNP stand in the forthcoming elections.

Presented by the Lewisham Anti-Racist Action Group and south-east London Unite Against Fascism in conjunction with Café Crema , New Cross larag@talktalk.net; www.naar.org.uk/larag www.uaf.org.uk/ also join face book ‘sel uaf see LARAG online exhibition with images and quotes about fighting fascism in London from 1930’s to 2010.
For all the films at Café Crema there is a charge of £6 which includes polenta meal or cake and drink ordered at 7.30 pm, film screening 8.15pm. Tickets available from the café in advance. To guarantee a place at this cosy venue. 306 New Cross Road. London SE14 6AF. 2 minutes from New Cross and New Cross Gate stations mob 07905 961 876/ 07905 552 571 http://www.cafecremaevents.co.uk/ for information. Pop in: book your seat!

Bonus link: Watch the Deptford.TV film about Cafe Crema.

CUCR & Deptford.TV, workshops / roundtable: research architecture

During April/May 2007 CUCR students joined the Deptford.TV workshops. Have a look at the 2007 channel in the http://www.Deptford.TV Broadcast Machine.

As a result the text “strategies of sharing” got published in the CUCR magazine street signs (.pdf file).

roundtable

 

Can spatial practice become a form of research? How may architecture engage with questions of culture, politics, and conflict? This new and innovative research centre brings together architects, urbanists, filmmakers, curators and other cultural practitioners from around the world to work collaboratively around questions of this kind. In keeping with Goldsmiths’ commitment to multidisciplinary research and learning, the centre also offers an alternative to traditional postgraduate architectural education by inaugurating a unique, robust studio-based combination of critical architectural research and practice at MA and MPhil/PhD levels. The MA programme is for suitably qualified graduates from a range of disciplines wishing to pursue studio-based spatial research in the context of theoretical work. The MPhil/PhD programme is aimed at practitioners of architecture and other related spatial practices who would like to develop long-span practice-based research projects. The encompassing aim of research at both levels is to explore new possibilities generated by the extended field of architecture. http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/architecture