[Open Design + Hardware] FREE?! A one-day journey into the cultures of sharing - 29/11/13 - Rotterdam

[Aymeric Mansoux]

Sorry for ><, please >>

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FREE?!
A One-day Journey into the Cultures of Sharing
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Het Nieuwe Instituut
29th November 2013
13:00-00:00

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FREE?! investigates one of the great paradoxes of our times: While the
fast paced development  of digital media and the Internet has made the
sharing and reuse of cultural products, like movies, music, books as
well as their tools of creation, extremely easy. Yet at the same time,
this same technological development allows intellectual property law to
increasingly enclose culture behind privileged walls, thus tightly
controlling and policing its access.  Meanwhile, the debate that opposes
the rights of authors and file sharing has been stifled into a virtual
trench warfare.  

Is there a way out?

FREE?! attempts to answer this question by looking at the alternative
offered by the free culture movement, both exploring its potential and
the obstacles it encounters. 

The concept free culture refers to all forms of cultural expressions
that have been deliberately ‘freed’ by their legitimate authors from the
limitations that current intellectual property law, such as copyright,
impose on them. Free culture promotes the free distribution of works and
tools to create the lowest threshold possible for the access and
transformation of culture  for an audience as broad as possible. To do
so, free culture operates as a nested territory, in which  different
forms of  cooperation and collaboration establish working environments
and modes of production that are based on sharing and exchanging
knowledge. This requires a new approach to the production, financing,
distribution, and appreciation of culture. It is in this particular
context that FREE?! explores the potential and limits of this
alternative.

The program divides into four sections:

The Free Culture Brunch Club: a series of roundtable discussions around
key themes that affect free culture: transaction systems,
entrepreneurship, copyright reform, publishing, documentation and
archives, as well as tools ownership and appropriation.  

A public debate about the position of creative entrepreneurs in the
context of free culture and the fast paced development of digital media
communication. With Timo Vuorensola (Iron Sky), Bruno Felix (Submarine),
Ton Roosendaal (Blender), Jamie King (VODO), moderated by Felix Stalder
(World Information Institute, Vienna).
 
A multifaceted public evening program where the domain of free culture
is explored guided by a Winter Night’s Copyright Fairytale featuring
Dušan Barok, Andre Castro, Florian Cramer, Annet Dekker, Jan-Kees van
Kampen, Gülşen Emre, Gijs Gieskes, Eleanor Greenhalgh, Paul Keller,
Marcell Mars, Nikita Mazurov, Rob Myers, Luc Nagel, Manuel Schmalstieg,
Femke Snelting, Nan Wang and Dave Young.

Accompanied by the (Mis)Interpreting Free Culture exhibition of FREE?!,
in which students and alumni of the Willem de Kooning Academie, the Piet
Zwart Institute and WORM’s Parallel University are both reflecting and
inviting you to interpret, as well misinterpret, what free culture is
about.

FREE?! is organised by Kennisland in cooperation with the Willem de
Kooning Academy, the Piet Zwart Institute, WORM, Creating 010, V2_ and
The New Institute. FREE?! Is made possible with support by the Culture
Programme of the European Union and the Stimuleringsfonds Creative
Industrie.

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Friday November 29th
Free Culture Brunch Club: 13.00 hrs
Plenary debate: 16.00 hrs
Evening program: 19.30 hrs
Location: The New Institute, Rotterdam
FREE?! Tickets: http://freeculture.eventbrite.nl

More information:
http://freeculture.info

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