Categories
Free Culture

Shared Space

Creative Commons are trying to protect shared creative space from enclosure. Open space allows value creation, closed space is value extraction.
http://www.bollier.org/reclaim.htm
http://creativecommons.org/
I’m not convinced that commons are the best metaphor for the *constructed* wealth of shared human knowledge. Better imagery is available. One of “No Logo”‘s theses is that public space is being fenced off by brands under the guise of sponsorship. Since it reduces the value of the sponsored space and regulates its use, sponsorship is value extraction and is enclosure.
http://www.nologo.org/
This shared theme of protecting shared space against enclosure and insuring value creation rather than asset-stripping is important. Open Source/Open Content seeks to address it by changing individuals’ mode of production but the historically romanticised model of commons is inaccurate. Anti-globalisation’s image of recent civic space such as the town square is still romantic but is more accurate. Anti-globalisation’s weakness is that it seeks to change other people’s mode of production without any real understanding of how this will impact its own ground conditions.
Open Content can learn from Anti-Globalisation’s imagery and critiques of enclosure. Anti-globalisation can learn from Open Content’s self-practice and legal strategies. Hopefully it will be a fruitful exchange.

Categories
Free Culture

Manifesto Of The Day

Start a weblog. Place a downloadable image on it in a common format (SVG, PNG, Gimp, PhotoShop) placed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. Let people modify and re-upload the image using the comments mechanism (censor uploads that don’t preview, offer help if people get this wrong). Collaborative art.
After a while upload a new image as a new topic and begin the process again. Use elements from the previous work or make a call for new images. Encourage an accompanying discourse (or at least discussion). Take the work somewhere. Make shared objectives.
Art & Language’s 1970s Indexes provide a good historical counter-example to the whimsy of Exquisite Corpses and Mail Art for collaborative artwork. The net can be studio and gallery simultaneously. Work can be done this way. More, it should be done this way. This is culturally urgent. The relations of production, distribution and consumption as well as the creation and extraction of value must be changed.

Categories
Free Culture

Surplus Labour

Volunteer Open Content/Open Source is a way of ironising surplus labour (Marx).

Categories
Free Culture

Open Art: Containers

“Containers” is now available for download at the Open Content section of my site. The download includes preparatory work as extras.
Click here to go there.

It’s in SVG format and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.

Categories
Free Culture

Open Art: Playing The Mall

“Playing The Mall” is now available for download at the Open Content section of my site.
Click here to go there.

It’s in SVG format and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.