Boston

Recently, I spent a week in Amsterdam attending Network Cultures Winter Camp. Twelve networks were invited, including Upgrade! International. Our group consisted of representatives from Skopje, Munich, Dakar, Zagreb, Berlin, Istanbul, New York, Montreal, Tel-Aviv, Paris, Boston and Eindhoven; Sao Paulo and Chicago participated remotely.

For four days, networks held closed morning and afternoon sessions. At the end of each day, everyone gathered for a plenary session; there were screenings and other festive events in the evenings. Many networks engaged in extra-networking activities: Upgrade! met with freeDimensional, Gengerchangers, Edu-Factory, and MyCreativity to discuss possible collaborations. We also attended a FLOSS Manuals demo.

All in all, Winter Camp was inspiring and productive. The organizers — all of whom did a flawless job — provided bloggers for most of our sessions. Their posts about Upgrade! are available here.

One of the Upgrade! outcomes of Winter Camp was the decision to create an Open Upgrade! listserve. Everyone is invited to subscribe and post announcements about their projects, calls for collaborators, and opportunities for residencies, exhibitions, etc.