Bricolabs
Bricolabs Workshop, at Mal au Pixel and Enter_Unknown Territories festivals:
Rob van Kranenburg, Denis J. Rojo (NL) & Venzha Christ (Indonesia)
The workshop will consist of short presentations on :
- the recent new possibilities of open source software, content and hardware and its promises for real democratic generic infrastructures (non branded, non ip) from your average electricity supply, your automobiles (OScar), your connectivities (mobile infrastructure)
- bricolabs; a series of labs all over the world that work on shared objects, not so much through a shared philosophy. Apart from presentations there will be two participatory strands: 1) a scenario workshop on what generic infrastructures would mean for you, your house, your street, your life, and 2) hands-on experience on employing GNU/Linux for digital artisanship and tactical media, hacking cheap game consoles to recycle and craft novel forms of interactive handheld computing.
Timo Arnall: “What I really like about the Bricolabs is the kind of low-tech hacking of everyday infrastructure. If the participants come out of a bricolab course with an increased sensitivity to everyday, ubiquitous, technology infrastructures, that would be fantastic.”
The convenors of this workshop, along with many others, are currently developing novel means for exchanging knowledge between “bricolabs”, distributed sites that explore the potentialities of pervasive information technologies in an open context. The central theme is that of “re-working”, “re-using”, and “re-purposing” existing infrastructures in order to develop novel forms of knowledge exchange between artists, technologists, and socio-technical theorists, as well as the development of new models for innovation in business and in society more generally.
We believe that the work of bricolabs would be extended and made more durable through the creation of a shared open hardware and software testbed for experimentation. In this workshop we provide details about potential aspects of such a testbed;
Rob van Kranenburg is an innovation and media theorist involved with negociability strategies of new technologies and artistic practice, predominantly ubicomp and rfid (radio frequency identification), the relationship between the formal and informal in cultural and economic policy, and the requirements for a sustainable cultural economy. September 2007 he will head a new BA Experience Design at the HKU, Hilversum.
Denis Jaromil Rojo is author of the liveCD dyne:bolic GNU/Linux and software as MuSE and FreeJ, for running a web radio and for veejay and realtime video manipulation. He is active on Open Source Research & Development projects for the Netherlands Media Art Institute, as well hacktive as member of the FreakNet brotherhood. His productions are available online on dyne.org and rastasoft.org .
Venzha Christ has been focusing on new media art since 1999. Established the "House of Natural Fiber" (Yogyakarta new media art laboratory), and produced and organized projects related to new media and education. Some of his works and projects have been presented in Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, France, Brazil, Netherlands, Germany, and Finland. - www.natural-fiber.com
Matt is present only in Cambridge:
Matt Ratto is currently a researcher with the Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences (VKS), a Research Affiliate with the Metamedia Collaboratory at Stanford University, and a Senior Research Fellow with the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Santa Clara University. His work addresses the relationships between knowledge work, collaboration, and social and technical infrastructures. He is particularly interested in the contexts of knowledge work, and the distribution of those contexts across cultures through the mediation of material artifacts. Further, he believes that attempts to change discriminatory systems, improve ill-fitting ones, and develop innovate ways of collaborating, communicating, and representing knowledge depend upon both theoretical and technical innovation, and a strong commitment to “on-the-ground” engagement with the persons and social groups affected.