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Tag Archives: Winter Camp

Archive

Upgrade! Video Interviews

The following interviews — with Mushon Zer-Aviv (Upgrade! International), Başak Şenova (Upgrade! Istanbul), and Kyd Campbell (Upgrade! International) — were recorded during Network Cultures Winter Camp in March 2009:


Interview with Mushon Zer-Aviv (Upgrade!) by Gabriella Coleman from network cultures on Vimeo.


Interview with Başak Şenova (Upgrade!) by Soenke Zehle from network cultures on Vimeo.

Interview with Kyd Campbell (Upgrade!) by Annette Wolfsberger from network cultures on Vimeo.

You can watch the interviews with other Winter Camp participants here.

News

Winter Camp Report

3333238960_67e6197bb7Recently, 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.

Events

Network Cultures Winter Camp

March 3, 2009 to March 8, 2009.
Amsterdam

wintercampUpgrade! International has been invited to participate in Network Cultures Winter Camp, an event organized by the Institute of Network Cultures that will take place from March 3-7, 2009 in Amsterdam. Jo-Anne Green will represent Upgrade! Boston. The other participants are Blender Foundation, Bricolabs, Dyne.org, Edufactory, Floss Manuals, freeDimensional network, Genderchangers, MyCreativity, and Planetart.

When a network settles down, and is not so new anymore, it can be quite a challenge to keep it’s activity level. Should a network then transform into a so-called ‘organized network’? Organizing a network does not necessarily mean decreasing the level of spontaneity to make way for rules and hierarchy: it can provide a place for sustainable knowledge sharing and production.

As Ned Rossiter argues in his book Organized Networks (2006), face-to-face meetings are crucial “if the network is to maintain momentum, revitalize energy, consolidate old friendships and discover new ones, recast ideas, undertake further planning activities, and so on.” Network Cultures Winter Camp is therefore meant for those networks and (potential) network members that need support to gather in real life, conspire, discuss and make the necessary steps forward. Winter Camp does not have an (academic) educational or training component, but there is a lot to learn.