A big thanks to Remix the Commons and Commons Spaces – two groups in Montreal, and to Alain Ambrosi, Frédéric Sultan and Stépanie Lessard-Bérubé — for pulling together this wonderful snapshot of the commons world.  The overview video is no introduction to the commons, but a wonderfully insightful set of advanced commentaries about the political and strategic promise of the commons paradigm today.

The overview video (“Les communs dans l’espace politique,” with English subtitles as needed) is striking in its focus on frontier developments: the emerging political alliances of commoners with conventional movements, ideas about how commons should interact with state power, and ways in which commons thinking is entering policy debate and the general culture.

The video features commentary by people like Frédéric Sultan, Gaelle Krikorian, Alain Ambrosi, Ianik Marcil, Matthew Rhéaume, Silke Helfrich, Chantal Delmas, Pablo Solon, Christian Iaione, and Jason Nardi, among others.

The individual interviews with each of these people are quite absorbing. (See the full listing of videos here.) Six of these interviews are in English, nine are in French, and three are in Spanish.  They range in length from ten minutes to twenty-seven minutes.

To give you a sense of the interviews, here is a sampling:

Christian Iaione, an Italian law scholar and commoner, heads the Laboratory for the Governance of the Commons in Italy. The project, established five years ago, is attempting to change the governance of commons in Italian cities such as Rome, Bologna, Milan and Messina. More recently, it began a collaboration with Fordham University headed by Professor Sheila Foster, and  experiments in Amsterdam and New York City.

In his interview, “Urban Commons Charters in Italy,” Iaione warns that the Bologna Charter for the Care and Regeneration of Urban commons is not a cut-and-paste tool for bringing about commons; it requires diverse and localized experimentation. “There must be a project architecture working to change city governance and commons-enabling institutions,” said Iaione. “Regulation can’t be simply copied in south of Italy, such as Naples, because they don’t have the same civic institutions and public ethics as other parts of Italy….. You need different tools,” which must be co-designed by people in those cities, he said.

Jason Nardi, in his interview, “The Rise of the Commons in Italy” (27 minutes), credits the commons paradigm with providing “a renewed paradigm useful to unite and aggregate many different movements emerging today,” such as degrowth, cooperatives, the solidarity economy, ecologists, NGOs, development movements, and various rights movements. He credited the World Social Forum for helping to unite diverse factions to fight the privatization of everything by the big financial powers.

Charles Lenchner of Democrats.com spoke about “The Commons in the USA” (11 minutes), citing the important movement in NYC to converted community gardens into urban commons.  He also cited the rise of participatory budgeting movement in New York City today, in which a majority of city council districts use that process.  The City of New York is also encouraging greater investment in co-operatives, in part as a way to deal with precarity and income disparities.

Silke Helfrich, a German commons activist, discussed “Commons as a new political subject” (27 minutes).  She said that “it’s impossible today to know what’s going on about the commons because so many things are popping up or converging that it’s hard to keep up with them all.”  She said that there are three distinct ways of approaching the commons:  the commons as pools of shared resources to be managed collectively; the commons as social processes that bring commoning into being; and the commons as an attitude and way of thinking about a broader paradigm shift going on.

Kevin Flanagan gave an interview, “Transition according to P2P” (19 minutes), in which he speaks of the “growing political maturity within the commons world, particularly within digital commons, peer production and collaborative economy.”  Flanagan said that there has always been a politics to the commons, but that politics is moving from being a cultural politics towards a broader politics that is engaging hacker culture, maker spaces, and open design and hardware movements.   Commoners are also beginning to work with more traditional political movements such as the cooperative and the Social and Solidarity Economy movements.

Lots of nutritious food for thought in this well-produced collection of videos!

The post New Videos Explore the Political Potential of the Commons appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Remix The Commons:
An Evolving Intercultural Space
for Commoning

A well-known Canadian environmental expert told us at a commons conference in Berlin in 2010, “Commons are an attitude.” A year later, a Senegalese participant of the World Social Forum in Dakar stated, “Commons are what we all share,” and yet another said, “They are something I feel committed to.”

In May of the same year, one of 15,000 demonstrators on Plaça de Catalunya in Barcelona used the image “a soccer team (that plays well!).” At a 2012 Earth Day rally in Montreal, Canada, one participant responded, “Commons are what belongs to everybody,” and the next one added, “commons are what belong to nobody.” During the Rio+20 Conference in Brazil, an Ecuadorian government minister talked with us about commons and buen vivir.² 

At a commons festival in Helsinki in 2014, we had to reformulate the question so that we could pose it to a Lithuanian dancer: “How would you dance commons?” Her spontaneous response: “But that’s impossible alone!” Then she invited the interviewer to participate in a “moving” commons definition.

By August 2014, our collection had grown to more than 100 brief definitions in thirty-five languages from about forty countries. Naturally, we also included definitions that are more precise and elaborate and that reflect the long practical experience of commoners and the research findings of commons theorists.

All of these substantial and diverse answers to our simple question illustrate both the universal character of commons and the difficulties arising when one tries to both delineate such a definition while keeping it open and dynamic. And they made clear to us that an intercultural perspective is indispensible.

Remix The Commons considers itself a place of intercultural encounters, sharing, and joint production of video and audio documents, short films, and media and cultural projects about commons. The initiative is supported by an international collective of people and organizations convinced that collecting, exchanging, and remixing stories and images about commons is an active, sociable way to get to know the concept and make it one’s own.

Remix The Commons itself works like a commons. The work is organized around an open and collaborative platform which is a website that enables storage, exchange, cataloguing, remixing, and dissemination of multimedia documents. We also always find places and opportunities that make it easier to jointly develop concepts for media productions and to design and breathe life into them. In other words, an intercultural, free and collaborative catalog of multimedia documents on the commons is available to commons practitioners, academics, educators and cultural activists. They can use it and enrich it with contributions of their own.

The history of the project is closely linked to the emergence of the commons in the current societal debate and in the proposals put forward by social movements since the crisis of 2008. An initial draft was presented at the International Commons Conference (ICC)³ in November 2010. It was based on the video documentary of the interdisciplinary meeting on “Science and Democracy” that had kicked off the World Social Forum in Belém in Amazonia in January 2009. The commons had a place at the final session of this World Social Forum, and the manifesto “Reclaim the Commons”⁴ was published in several languages on this occasion. That same year, the academic community saw Elinor Ostrom awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work on the commons, and the documentary “RIP: A Remix Manifesto,⁵ which pays tribute to humanity’s creativity as the outcome of collaborative creation in space and time, circulated in the independent cultural scene.

Remix The Commons is maintaining its close connections with the international meetings of social movements, and this colors the development and realization of our concrete projects. We participated in the discussions and documentation of the commons at the World Social Forums in Dakar in 2011 and in Tunis in 2013, at the Summit of the Peoples at Rio+20 in Rio de Janeiro, and at the Afropixel Festival in Senegal in 2012. We were part of international meetings on social and solidarity-based economic activity as well as open festivals à la Villes en Biens Communs 2013 in the French-speaking countries and Pixelache in Finland in May 2014. We are now concentrating on events that bring out the art of commoning⁶ and contribute to the development of an international network of commons schools.

Our roughly 300 videos have been viewed more than 15,000 times and are constantly reproduced, disseminated and used for many purposes. The videos consist of interviews, case studies, reports about concrete projects and activities, reflections upon them, and theoretical and political statements on commons. The videos also consist of a large collection of individual commons definitions in the respondents’ native languages, as mentioned at the beginning of this piece. That collection is currently being mapped on an online map that locates each speaker and his or her statement on a world map, which is very helpful for workshops and educational events about discovering the diversity of commons. Such workshops – for example, “commons breakfasts” or “commons summer schools” – illustrate how collaborative knowledge production works in open networks.

As the commons have grown in visibility on the international stage of culture and politics, Remix The Commons is constantly adapting to the rapid shifts in sociopolitical contexts. This is evidence of the agenda-setting power of a movement that is still very heterogeneous, but is increasingly influencing socioeconomic and political agendas. Amidst this veritable cultural revolution, Remix The Commons is committed to using the Internet to shape new cultural interest in commoning and to develop new methods of communicating these trends.

This requires that we meet numerous challenges, for example, countering “commons-washing,” which seeks to trivialize the innovative and revolutionary character of commons. We must also confront incessant enclosures of information and natural resources, and devise joint strategies, collaborations and means of communication for commoners in the cultural arts and trades, education, and communication in order to share knowledge. In George Pór’s words, “We have to raise our culture of communication to the level of commoning” – and make it as intercultural, user-friendly, participatory and inviting as possible.

Alain Ambrosi (Canada) is a designer and producer of intercultural projects, independent researcher, author, videographer and producer of the Remix The Commons Project. His long involvement in improbable international collaborations has led him to aspire to the status of utopian’s apprentice.

Frédéric Sultan (France) is a French commons activist. He co-facilitates the Francophone Network for the Commons, launched in 2012, and helps people create or claim commons in their communities through cultural and educational actions. 

The post Patterns of Commoning: Remix The Commons as an Evolving Intercultural Space for Commoning appeared first on P2P Foundation.

ZEMOS98 will bring feminist-orientated care and warmth, Remix for Bien común (Remix for the Commons), Commons spirit and Love to the North. In particular they will share their Audiovisual Source Code (Código Fuente Audiovisual) format and approach. We are hopeful we can all benefit from a ‘Finnish Summer of CopyLove’ gathering peer-support and attention to contribute to their and our dreams come true.

During Zemos98’s visit to Helsinki we will organize several events in the framework of the Pixelache Festival. We will be disseminating open practices and open formats for audiovisual creation that we firmly believe contribute to co-create ways of performing multi-cultural understanding, increase the connections between South-North, and allow us all to contribute to much needed empathy and care in the world.

Main features

During Zemos98 visit to Pixalache festival in Helsinki we will organize:

• 2-3 public presentation events in Helsinki on the topic of CopyLove and Interfaces for Empathy. The events will take place during the Pixelache festival days 22-25.9.2016. They will be live-streamed, and the documentation archived online with commons-orientated licenses. One of the events will be in Spanish, and the other one or two in English. All the events will be simultaneously translated to another language (either English or Finnish).
• 1 CopyLove workshop (registration-based) on the topic of Caring for Each Other and Interdependence. In the workshop we will crowdsource ideas and approaches towards promoting care-economics and caring commons and we will co-design and co-produce an open manual. This manual will be shared post-event with text content variably in English, Spanish and Finnish.
  Related events according to reward scheme to peer-supporters (See rewards).

Why this is important

CopyLove and Empathy are themes that speak to the current environment of tension, division and isolation that communities feel are encroaching their everyday lives. Instead, Pixelache festival creates a different narrative of collaboration and empathy that we think will greatly benefit from the input of our colleagues from Zemos98.

To bring Zemos98 to Pixelache we want to reach out to:

1. Citizens worried about increasing intolerance in Finnish society and want to support concrete actions that create new narratives.

2: Alternative Economy Cultures -oriented initiatives, including crowdfunding & feminist/care economics that want to cross-pollinate their thinking across Europe.

3. To the Spanish-speaking community in the Finnish metropolitan (Helsinki)-region.

4. The Open/AvoinGLAM and AV practitioners, activists and researchers who want to learn more about the Audiovisual Source-code method and event-format, and Remix for the Commons approach.

Goals of the crowdfunding campaign

– Develop, disseminate and encourage the Audiovisual Source-code format as a way to talk and generate empathy and CopyLove.

– Make migrant and local connections between North-South.

– Promote Goteo and commons-orientated crowd-funding in Northern Europe.

Team and experience

We are sister festivals that only recently met after all our time apart. We care.

Pixelache people have been making their festival since 2002 in Helsinki, Finland. Zemos98 people have been making their festival since 1998 in Sevilla, Finland. Both have grown up to absorb trans-disciplinary subjects and to promote Caring for the Commons around the same time (2014-2015). ZEMOS98 took the theme CopyLove as it’s festival theme in years 2012-2013 and made a successful related Goteo campaign. ZEMOS98 no longer produces a festival but focuses on other projects and has consolidated a good network around these topics in the South of Europe. Pixelache Festival in Helsinki is partly supported by the Finnish Ministry of Culture and Education and City of Helsinki, this year the full-time and part-time staff employed by the association are also co-directors of the festival (Petri Ruikka and Mari Keski-Korsu respectively). Pixelache has strong presence in the Northern European cultural scene, and benefits from a broad international network.

We Care.. We are not only colleagues, but best of friends, and we want to bridge across South-North.

The people specifically, focusing on the Finland-based branch of the CopyLove Helsinki campaign will be:

Andrew Gryf Paterson from Pixelache has been an artist-organiser for over 12 years in Helsinki and internationally with a strong profile, focused on open-source culture and Commons-oriented strategies. In 2009 he organised the Alternative Economy Cultures symposium in that year’s festival, whereby the 2 keynote speaker’s (Michel Bauwens and Michael Albert)’s travel costs from Madrid and Massachusetts USA were fully crowdfunded. Previously part-time staff role for 4 years, he is again on the association’s board with responsibility for International Networks and Archival-tendencies.

Andrea Botero is a Colombian designer and researcher based in Helsinki for over 10 years, with a keen interest in caring for the commons and participatory methods. She is co-editor of the Peer-Production in Public Services: Cases from Finland ebook (together with Paterson and Joanna Suud-Salonen), and has been lead-researcher on co-p2p.mlog.taik.fi platform at Aalto University.

Mariana Salgado is an Argentinean design researcher that has worked 10 years in the cultural sector in Finland, and has actively contributed to the Finnish chapter of OpenGLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums). She was invited last year to the Hackathon Caring for the Commons at 17th ZEMOS98 Festival, and got inspired by the CopyLove sessions and Zemos98 activities. She published in Spanish the book: Diseñando un Museo Abierto (Designing an Open Museum, 2010). Mariana is an activist in her neighbourhood, and within the Spanish speaking community in Finland.

Support the Campaign here.

The post Bringing CopyLove’s Audiovisual Source Code to Helsinki and Beyond appeared first on P2P Foundation.

From the shownotes to the Podcast:

Alain Ambrosi from Remix the commons collective discussing in Finnish autonomous radio program Totuusradio (“The Truth Radio”) on Monday, 9th June 2014, about the commons, cultural revolution, and revolution in culture.

The broadcast starts at 10 p.m. (UCT+2) in the evening and it is streamed online in internet inhttp://moreeni.uta.fi/Internetlahetys.

Ambrosi is a designer and producer of intercultural projects, independant researcher, author and videographer. He is presently producer of the Remix the commons and associate researcher at Communautique.

Ambrosi arrives to Totuusradio straight from Pixelache Festival held in Helsinki during the weekend, and the latest news will be discussed.

Totuusradio is a Tampere based media project that is produced by an autonomous Totuusradio collective.

The music for the evening introduced by Dj Dirty Andy!

Plug in on Monday, 9th June at 10 p.m. (UCT+2) in http://moreeni.uta.fi/Internetlahetys.

See also:

http://www.totuusradio.fi

http://www.pixelache.ac/festival-2014/

www.remixthecommons.org

The post Podcast of the Day: Remixing the Commons appeared first on P2P Foundation.