Furtherfield needs your old laptops for work with homeless people in London… >The Zero Dollar Laptop Project:

In January 2010 The Zero Dollar Laptop Project kicks off with clients of St Mungo’s charity for homeless people in London. We will be recycling hardware, breaking Windows and installing Free and Open Source Software to build media laptops and create music, graphics and video for distribution over the Internet. Participants will leave the project with street-smart technical knowledge and a wireless enabled media laptop, classier than any shiny power-book.

The Zero Dollar Laptop is a recycled computer, running Free Open Source Software (FOSS) that is fast and effective — now and long into the future. Do you have an old, unused laptop taking up space in your home or office? Would you like to see it returned to productive life? If YES, then please donate your old laptop. Continue reading

The new version of openArtist is an artist friendly Linux distro based on the latest Ubuntu KarmicKoala.

openArtist tries to provide all apps that an artist might need: in one package; with at least a short help text to get you started; while making sure that everything works out of the box.

“openArtist features a streamlined interface (gnomebased), with integrated mousegestures, custom menus, reorganized and extended system configuration tools, terminal-on-desktop integration (guake, ctrl+esc), dropbox for collaboration between artists, extended tooltips for the program launchers, documentation for (nearly) every program…” Continue reading

make art is an international festival dedicated to the integration of Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) in digital art. The fourth edition of make art - “What The Fork?!” distributed and open practices in FLOSS art - will take place in Poitiers (FR), from December, 8-13, 2009. With Aharon Amir (GB), Wayne Clements (GB), FooCorp (GB), Gijs Gieskes (NL), Gullibloon (AT/DE), Adnan Hadzi (CH), Lisa Haskel (GB), Reni Hofmuller (AT), Olivier Laruelle (FR), LAFKON (DE), Anne Laforet (FR), Mattin (ES), Antoine Moreau (FR), Nathalie Magnan (FR), No Copy Paste (HU), Noyade (FR), Jean Sepulchre (FR), Wesley Smith (US), Koray Tahiro#lu (TR/FI), The Guardians of the Tradition (US), Taku Unami (JP), Milovann Yanatchkov (FR), Simon Yuill (GB), Jeremie Zimmermann (FR), IOhannes M. Zmolnig (AT), … Francais below. Continue reading

Upgrade! New York: Free as in what? A debate on open source vs. free culture :: October 29, 2009; 7:00 - 9:00 pm :: Eyebeam, 540 West 21st Street, New York City :: Live streaming and chat.

Upgrade! NY continues its program series on open source as it relates to activism and creative practice. Join us for a discussion and debate on what constitutes freedom within the Open Source and Free Culture movements. We will examine the strong ideological differences through a provocative panel discussion with Gabriella Coleman and Zachary Lieberman. Continue reading

Culture Café, Centre for Media and Cultural Studies, Mumbai presents The New Media Series — A set of provocative presentations and discussions about our relationships with new media and technologies :: Centre for Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, V.N. Purav Marg, Deonar, Mumbai.

Shilpa Gupta on her Work and Art :: July 31, 2009; 4:00 - 6:00 pm, Room 4 — Shilpa Gupta creates artwork using interactive video and objects, photographs and performances to probe and examine subversively themes such as desire, religion, notions of security on the street and on the imagined border. The artist will share her work. Continue reading

How the Swedish Pirate Party Platform Backfires on Free Software by Richard Stallman:

The bullying of the copyright industry in Sweden inspired the launch of the first political party whose platform is to reduce copyright restrictions: the Pirate Party. Its platform includes the prohibition of Digital Restrictions Management, legalization of noncommercial sharing of published works, and shortening of copyright for commercial use to a five-year period. Five years after publication, any published work would go into the public domain.

I support these changes, in general; but the specific combination chosen by the Swedish Pirate Party backfires ironically in the special case of free software. I’m sure that they did not intend to hurt free software, but that’s what would happen. Continue reading

Michel Bauwens, founder of the Peer to Peer Foundation, is one of those who believe in open spaces and creation without incentive. In this interview he talks about the Free Software and Wikipedia movements as pointers to a genuine change in the way we think, create and distribute goods. He believes that we have never before had such real-time possibilities for human cooperation and collective intelligence on a global scale.

The economic collapse of 2008 is leading many people to question the suitability of the capitalist economic system. At the same time, many people are unsure about the system that can replace capitalism. The most common solution is, of course, socialism. But there are those who wonder whether there could be alternatives, though no serious discussion seems to have taken place on this subject. Continue reading

Openlab Summer Workshop #2: PureData, Processing, SuperCollider, Arduino :: July 28, 2009; 6:00 - 10:30 pm :: The Roebuck pub (upstairs room), 50 Great Dover Street, London

This summer, Openlab, the London-based open source art and technology collective, presents a series of in-depth summer workshops exploring creating and hacking media using free software and tools. Workshops will include both beginner and advanced instruction in such software as PureData, Processing, and SuperCollider, as well as using the microcontroller Arduino, general sound hardware hacking, and more. For less than the cost of the cinema, you can gain some valuable skills using free software! Continue reading

Make Art 2009 - What The Fork?! Distributed and Open Practices in FLOSS Art :: December 7-13, 2009 :: Poitiers, France :: Call for Projects — Deadline: July 22, 2009.

Make Art is an international festival dedicated to the integration of Free/ Libre/ Open Source Software (FLOSS) in digital art. It offers performances, presentations, workshops and an exhibition, focused on the encounter between digital art and free software. We’re currently seeking new, innovative FLOSS works and projects: music and audiovisual performances, presentations, software demos, and installations. Continue reading

Autonet is a project to create a wireless, global internet that can provide more reliability than corporate phone companies by being community based and freely licensed.

The cutting off access to The Pirate Bay by BT in the UK is just another sign of the beginning of the end. The fact that the Great Firewall of China exists signals that the internet is already obsolete and that the Great Firewall of the US is just around the corner. While moves against net neutrality began years ago and have been fought, nasty laws such as HR4437 and the Total Information Awareness program have a way of coming into existence later in the future, slightly modified, under different names. Continue reading