Trapese workshop November 2009

Background

The Trapese Collective approached Mike and Llanos to do a dayschool workshop on media activism. The course is titled Experiments against Enclosure - Tools to reclaim the Commons and is part of the C Words film & events season taking place at the Arnolfini modern arts centre in Bristol.

Link to the event http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/events/details/481

There are three days and we will be taking part in the one on Saturday 14th November entitled Direct action: a catalyst for positive social change. The workshop is two hours from 3pm to 5pm.

The programme for the day is at http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/downloads/misc/day3.pdf

Angle

Trapese originally suggested the workshop be billed thus:

Technoville

How Indymedia and Linux, open publishing and networking are transforming the media and helping build tools for a self managed future-practicals and demos.

And Mike reworked this slightly in order for it to fit better with content that had already been planned for the Big Green Gathering 2009. Here's the amended text that went into Trapese's programme:

Hacktivism: How free software and free media are changing the future.

"Don't hate the media, be the media": Following the this year's G20 protests in London and the advent of social networks and other web 2.0 tools, Indymedia's raison d'être is possibly now even more relevant than it was when the project started nearly ten years ago. The software tools used to build Indymedia into the World's largest autonomous anarchic network are those that have helped construct the internet and whose principals of openess and collaboration are changing the way we look at science, art, knowledge and even activism.

Programme

Two hours, from 3pm until 5pm.

1. Introduction (Mike) - what's it all about (30 mins)
   1. Creative Commons
   2. Software libre
   3. HackLabs in Europe, BarCamps & HacktionLab in the UK
2. Practical use of free software for social change (Llanos) (30 mins)
   1. mailing lists (Mailman) - Why mailing list. What suits you better: types of mailing list, open, close, announcement.. how and where to set one.
   2. Crabgrass - Social networks introduction. Why one more social network app, what's different about crabgrass. Who maes it and how crabgrass relates to free software and activism. Show them about
   3. Kebele café:
      1. Linux workshops - how linux (any but maybe focused on ubuntu as it's very popular these days) can be your chose for your computer. How and why kebele types and activist in general are adopting it.
      2. LTSP - Use of very old hardware being brough to live with LTSP. Not going technical but showing some pics and examples.
   4. Radio libre using Software libre - How you can be the media using software libre. How the idea for the radio came, how we are carrying it out and what will be the ideas to get across. Radio vague as our host.
      1. Possible live link to HacktionLab in Bradford
3. Free the media/How to be the media (Dave) (30 mins)
   1. Indymedia and the rise of alternative media
   2. How social networks and modern web 2.0 tools are freeing the media - G20 experience, Twitter, Delicious, SMS, VisionOn??
4. Security on the internet, how to be secure using mail and other tools (Llanos, Dave, Mike).
5. Conclusion/Questions (??) (20-30 mins)

Slides

Links

http://www.indymedia.org http://www.creativecommons.org http://fsf.org