Social Context and Digital culture

Introduction

 * More opinionated since Rick got to give overview :)
 * Art view and the popular view (but we are still in the bubble of the bay)
 * Provide hooks for interested people

Me

 * Open Source Developer
 * Inkscape.org, Open Clip Art Library
 * Get paid by Creative Commons to work on Open Source
 * Artist (Not that it matters, I have an MFA! :)
 * Teach at San Francisco Art Institute in Design + Technology Department

Quick Opinion (in my spheres)

 * Increase Efficiency (not decrease)
 * Increase Social Relationships (not decrease)
 * More openness (not closed)
 * More subcultures and detailed networks (not large conglomerate grey goo)

Quick Opinion

 * Yes.
 * Google bought youtube for 1.65 billion USD last week
 * NewsCorp bought myspace.com for ~580 millions USD
 * Barbara Kruger and others have said it is the battle of our generation of artists.
 * Not sure if it is a battlefield, if that is the right metaphor, or a Star Wars style "culture wars" or a red-tinged revolution.

My medium is people.

 * While some artists might paint, program non-stop, etc,
 * I spend most of my time emailing, writing, programming, and participating in events (like this!)
 * GENERAL: Community Building

Mediamixing, parties, and VJ'ing

 * Making parties and events with anarchic goals around the ideas of "digital happenings"
 * devolves into a party once you have alcohol and beats
 * Mediamixing and VJ'ing is lacking major criticism
 * Need a better model for society (maybe good for young people)

Hacktivism and Hacking

 * WIKIPEDIA SAYS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism
 * "Hacktivism (a portmanteau of hack and activism) is often understood as the writing of code, or otherwise manipulating bits, to promote political ideology - promoting expressive politics, free speech, human rights, or information ethics."
 * hacktivism scene
 * too secretive
 * not honest
 * not good coding
 * negative criticism (not positive)
 * It is culture wounding art
 * a chair with a removed leg rather a better chair
 * Does creating subversive software or practices really build culture and society?
 * Examples: Etoy, Jodi.org, Legions of the Underground, Cult of the Dead Cow
 * Hijacking of traditon of hacking, which is a thing for people trying to understand technology, etc
 * Media and media companies demonized these terms heavily!

Inkscape

 * "An Open Source cross-platform vector graphics drawing tool."
 * Slogan: "Draw Freely."
 * http://inkscape.org
 * 70+ developers
 * Currently working on getting out 0.45
 * The idea is to work on completing standards compliant, Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) support.

What is Open Source?

 * Movement founded after the earlier ideology, Free Software, seemed business unfriendly, and thus, Open Source term was coined in 1997 for the launch of the netscape web browser. Open Source, as a movement existed before this name.


 * Let the source code be open
 * Release Early, Release Often
 * Reward Contributions with Praise (and materially if possible)

Open Clip Art Library

 * "A public domain collection of public domain clip art."
 * http://openclipart.org
 * Inkscape artists were creating tons of artwork, so lets capture it and up the ante on the SVG standard
 * Uses Open Source tools, but is "Open Content"

Creative Commons

 * "Enabling the legal sharing and reuse of cultural, educational, and scientific works."
 * http://creativecommons.org
 * Uses copyright to provide an opening in how to license works
 * Six licenses that allow varying conditions
 * CC licenses fit in between the most open, Public Domain and the most closed, Copyright.
 * Most important parts:
 * Licenses
 * Technology and Standards that support the licenses (metadata and technical test-of-concepts)

ccHost

 * "A web-based media sharing software."
 * A Content Management System (CMS)
 * Empowers many sites with the remix culture aesthetic
 * http://ccmixter.org/
 * http://openclipart.org/
 * http://openfontlibrary.org/
 * http://simuze.nl/
 * http://teacherhost.org/
 * Very big companies are setting up installations (that's all I can say)
 * Just released version 3.1

Salon Seeding

 * 17th Century France
 * half social and half intellectual.
 * Dorkbot.org (International now, but started by Douglas Repetto)
 * Remix Reading (Reading, UK)

SFAI Design + Technology Salon

 * How to promote new department?
 * How to work out problems of 1960s to present problems with "design"
 * Salon provides an open model for working in realtime on the issues in a public way
 * Succesdful (have done 3 so far)
 * Not really replicable nor do I have control over as visiting faculty.

Creative Commons Salon

 * Why?
 * To catalyze relationship building between people and their projects.
 * Map open source ideals onto creation of events.
 * Develop a replicable blueprint
 * Connect phyiscally
 * Leave a digital trail all over the web
 * flickr photos, blog posts, youtube videos, etc, to increase ideological and material capital

Digging in heavy

 * Spending much time coding, administrating, doing releases, coordinating
 * Traveling kills productivity (while glamorous and the new academic model)
 * NOTE: Is that why I'm catching a red-eye to Toronto tonite? :)
 * Converting of Open Clip Art Library and Open Font Library to ccHost
 * Launching of Overlap.org (http://overlap.org/)
 * applying open source ideas to creating experimental media arts community
 * online site and offline event series

Future

 * Keep plugging on all these projects
 * Want to apply these things to politics in a major way
 * So many simple ideas that need to be done: post-Internet-based democracies
 * Apply simple ideas of bug tracking, feature tracking, reward systems to cities, recycling programs, tax breaks, etc.
 * If interested, please connect with me and I'll help plug you in

Questions

 * http://rejon.org/