Ok, this is a simple burner I saw on the street in Beijing’s Cao Chang Di. It looks explosive, as in explosively cool in an Ikea Houtong type of way.
Saw this in Missouri Gas Station, but I just had to remind myself it wasn’t from Guangzhou Airport…hahahaha…many parallels!
I wrote before about what a great Free Software + Free Culture conference would look like. In response to my, “Is anyone interested in this,” I chatted with Mirko Lindner from CC Sweden, the upcoming FSCons conference in Sweden seems to get most of these ideas right!
One of my favorite “get it done” people, Michelle Thorne from CC, wrote a nice plug for the conference on the CC site:
Free Culture, Free Software, and Free Content will join forces under the banner of “Free Society” at FSCONS on October 24-26 at the IT University of Götheborg, Sweden. The orgnaizing trinity, Creative Commons Sweden, Free Software Foundation Europe, and Wikimedia Sverige, see FSCONS as a chance to reach out with their respective communities and build joint projects with like-minded activists and organizations.
A strong speakers lineup provides the rhetorical food-for-thought in the Free Culture track. Mike Linksvayer (Creative Commons) asks, “How far is free culture behind free software?” as he charts key indicators and historical factors in the progress of each. Eva Hemmungs Wirten argues that the digital commons extends back to nineteenth-century London, while Oscar Swartz keynotes the events with the warning that Sweden’s controversial “Lex Orwell” may usher in “The End of Free Communication”.
In chatting with Mirko, he mentioned that they are still seeking travel sponsorships for the conference. In putting together Libre Graphics Meeting over the last three years, it is pretty obvious that the most important thing that a conference like this can do is provide travel sponsorship to the people making free culture happen. It gives the much needed face time that developers don’t get and provides a source of collective memory making to further focus development and personal relationships.
If you can help support the conference corporately or personally, please do contact Mirko and the other organizers to make a nod. Yes, I know this comes at a problematic time with the global economy, but please, contribution brings stability 
Lu made a post about the Cantocore Export which I got to the last 15 minutes of after a trip to SF -> KC -> HKG -> Guangzhou Here is a nice glowing image from the opening:
I’m now in Beijing out at CaoChangDi near 798 (DaShanZi) living it up, coming out of my fake retirement and generally relishing the fact that I’m waking up and doing whatever I want to pretty much each day. Its pretty funny to be out here right now in a studio right next to Matt’s studio in nearly similar circumstance to our old UCSD VAF lifestyle of old.
The primary difference is that we are in Beijing, on the outskirts, next to a village from some other era, and have more resources to realize all those dreams. We had a bbq last night and pulled out one of two speakers custom beijing north sound system speakers and blasted it until midnight with no complaints. Fun!
Many fun projects on the horizon as I’m realizing many great things with space to deal with experiments and creativity once more. Cluster speakers, sustainable open source development, and a possible dubstep event are coming up quick!
I updated the Opening Remix Networks with some new slides, dropped some other wasteful ones, and I think the presentation is much better. Of course, there are times where I play video, and I’ve substituted slides for those clips and associated audio files.
I’m still interested in having a high-bling presentation app. I still can’t believe that this doesn’t exist on Linux. If someone else is interested in this, I would consider running funds through my company to build up an open source application to do this possibly based on clutter. Or, better yet, I should try out http://go-oo.org/ which has 3d effects, SVG support, and gstreamer support! Is there a Gentoo overlay for this?
I gave this presentation today at the famed Beijing-based Central Academy of Fine Arts in Deer Fang’s Experimental Video Lab course. It was strangely like a real art school!
I gave presentation last connecting up my artistic/creative trajectory, involvements with Open Source, Open Content, Creative Commons, on into new projects, exemplified through Cantocore (at present). Thanks to all who came out, watched some of the pixellated videos I presented, and laughed at a few of my bad jokes
A big super thanks to Pat and Gwen for having me speak at the well-respected Electromediascope program. Also, please check out Mark Daggett’s work. He presented the week prior and his presentation sounded much more high-level and put together than my open diatribes. He held me accountable on a few topics I’ve become lazy about differentiating like the diffs between Free Software and Open Source, and Open Content.
Here is the slide show:
While in SF and BoCoMo (Boone County, Columbia, Missouri), I have been mulling many ideas and plans over deeply. After I get back to Guangzhou in time for the Cantocore Export Opening (and then onto Beijing), I am going to be doing some internal code review, drop some files on the floor, and churn out more writing. I’ve been spending massive time in the applied arts, and not so much in more theoretical and pure research. Don’t worry, I’m not going to spin out in “prep” mode or anything. It is just a good time to clean house
Oh, and I forgot to give a summary of my talk last night: I build remix communities which make systems for producing objects. Currently, I’m making cultural remixes.
The Cantocore Import Opening went quite well as Lu blogged about on the Cantocore site, primarily in Chinese.
Her photos also unveiled my installation, Artonomics #11: Special Economic Zone, which uses 24, 7 meter pieces of bamboo, constructed into a tower to hold a 1.6 meter by 1 meter LED sign, as often found in Chinese hospitals and government buildings, which displays common economic data that reigns down upon Chinese (and global) citizens about the direction of the new superpower.
Artonomics #11, Special Economic Zone by Jon Phillips
I’m not sure if the installation I made is more interesting than the process of constructing it, as shown below. This involved finding bamboo, trying to get it far across the massive city of Guangzhou (which this fella did by three-wheeled bicycle), hire carpenters to construct it, re-do it to make it stronger, and then put the big LED sign atop the solid structure. Getting the LED screen happened to be the simplest part.
Misako Inaoka, who had a detailed installation with a zen garden, and her hybrid toy creations from Chinese toys (not the poisonous kind!), has also posted her photos up showing off the space and some great highlights of the installation (I’m waiting on the go ahed to post her photos up after she CC licenses them 
Above are a couple of my good friends, Hu Xiangqian and Lu Jun, from Guangzhou who are both Lang Zai (pretty boyyyyz).
I’m still pulling together my thoughts from the show right now. I really needed to do something completely different than my gig at Creative Commons, and spending a good solid month on making this show happen successfully really took tons of energy. All the hard work paid off IMO, and I’m hopeful to get some other reviews of the show here shortly to highlight the work.
UPDATE: I just wrote an post on the cantocore.com website about the Cantocore Export opening and updated text on the website. And, Justin just posted a bunch of his photos as well. Here is a sampling:
