oliver

"What kind of problem succumbs to domination and control? The kind caused by something from the outside, something Other. When the cause of the problem is something intimate to ourselves, like homelessness or inequality, addiction or obesity, there is nothing to war against. We may try to install an enemy, blaming, for example, the billionaires, Vladimir Putin, or the Devil, but then we miss key information, such as the ground conditions that allow billionaires (or viruses) to replicate in the first place.

https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/the-coronation/"

"Hi Thomas, really nice to hear from you!
I know what you mean. We left the post online for a day and there were a couple of comments published. However after discussing the issue more we were of the opinion to delete it. The reason for this was mostly that it has crossed a line with the content aligned and even coming from a far right media outlet. As stated in Memefest's response, we do believe in the good intentions of the author of the post, but we also think that Memefest simply can't be a platform where such ideas can be granted space. It was the first time that this ever happened in 10 years since we have this web site. So, this is significant. But it was a good example, and its super important that we discuss it. I do understand the value of leaving the post so it could be "pulled apart here" as you say. We would do it, if we would not be of the opinion that even giving these ideas space on our website is not something we can support. I hope you are well. Would be good to talk more in the future and see if we could work on something together again!"

"I like this initiative a lot Stephen. Somehow I just got the opportunity to look into it now. Same question as @ize in the comments bellow. Where and how did you want us to post?"

"As we are working a lot with photographers here is an article on Afrapix, a radical photo collective operating in South Africa in times of Apartheid:

https://fomu.be/trigger/articles/afrapix-photographers-collective-and-agency"

"Here are some great links sent to me by Pamela from Goucher, they are very useful resources, so I am posting them here for us to use. Please check them out:


City Lab

Through original reporting, sharp analysis, and visual storytelling, CityLab informs and inspires the people who are creating the cities of the future—and those ...

https://www.citylab.com/posts/maps/

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/02/reparations-baltimore-redlining-segregation-fix-race/582760/


EPA Environmental Protection Administration
EJSCREEN EPA's Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool (Version 2019)
https://ejscreen.epa.gov/mapper/


City-Data.com
Forum Cities Schools Neighborhoods Assessments Restaurants Sex Offenders Blog
http://www.city-data.com/city/Baltimore-Maryland.html

Department of Planning
The Planning Department provides GIS-based information and analysis to support planning initiatives, as well as other City Agencies, City agencies, City Council, the Mayor’s Office, community organizations, and the general public.
https://planning.baltimorecity.gov/maps-data/gis

Interactive Map Gallery
http://cityview.baltimorecity.gov/CityView/

https://data.baltimorecity.gov/browse?category=Neighborhoods

http://cels.baltimorehousing.org/codemap/codeMap.html


Baltimore Green Network Vision Map
Click on map to enlarge and layers in the legend to change map data

http://baltplanning.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=2bb731b7209e40859f64b0d74ed149cd

https://baltimoregreenspace.org/preservation/our-protected-spaces/

Baltimore's Green Registry (access interactive map)
http://water.bniajfi.org/

Acknowledgements:
This mapping project was funded through an agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service, Northern Research Station. The Northern Research
Station of the U.S. Forest Service seeks to improve people’s lives and help sustain the natural resources in the Northeast and Midwest through leading-edge science and effective information delivery. For more information, visit the Urban Waters Partnership site.

See new interactive Baltimore ‘green spaces’ map from BNIA
http://water.bniajfi.org/map/


Baltimore Biodiversity Toolkit
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=3cd1b2b3293941dd878a5d073b782251


Connecting People, Saving Rivers- Rivers into Baltimore Harbor Chesapeake Bay

Map: Who Protects Water?
Approximately 250,000 rivers flow through America’s landscape. More than 6,000 groups, indigenous communities, and government agencies work at local, state, and regional levels to protect and restore rivers and drinking water. This map also shows rivers protected by the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act—celebrating 50 years in 2018—including 12,000 miles of 200+ rivers designated in 40 states and Puerto Rico.

https://www.rivernetwork.org/membership/map-who-is-protecting-your-water/

Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future
Maryland Food System Map

https://mdfoodsystemmap.org/farm-food-storymap/

https://mdfoodsystemmap.org/map/

City Farms in Baltimore
The City Farms Program, operated by the Horticulture Division of the Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks, began in 1978

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?msa=0&ll=39.34134302167557%2C-76.56183199999998&spn=0.071027%2C0.135098&mid=1jfoDRAZQ4dCy9emuN-k-UoFcT54&z=13

"

"Here the latest on Black Yield Institute, published by Civil Eats:

https://tinyurl.com/y2ephb4c"

"Hello Pamela @mxpjthompson, thanks for sharing about the work you have been doing with your students.Both culture jamming and place interventions- imagining green places, are inspiring examples of subverting food apartheid. We could perhaps continue and together invite the variety of possibilities that a broad understanding of multi- media offers through the work. In relation to BYI, culture jamming could support the process of recoding reality, while connecting with the researched effects that green spaces have for the community. Place making while questioning the symbolic, ideological and physical realities of the "butterfly"? We have been thinking of the butterfly, what a striking image and metaphor it is!! Lets's continue the conversation here and in person..."

"I Love Kevin's take on food and its relation to community, commoning and the potentials, which are inherent to food. From a media perspective, it is interesting that food is one of the most popular images on social media, as image it is immensely "liked" and "shared". Why is that, why food (as image)? We have done quite some work on this in the past, and would like to develop this further. If images of food are so popular, can this be used to our advantage, can food images be used as media to carry radical messages far and wide?

Anther thing is cooking, eating together- both rituals, which as Kevin says are connecting us in everyday life, which is otherwise largely defined by individualism, competition, bureaucratic management etc. How can we think of cooking and eating together as autonomous practices. A crucial work here is pleasure. What role does pleasure play in all this? Is pleasure only good, can it be steered can it be liberated from being enforced pleasure via media, social media, advertising, branding? "

"And hi again...so, we are very excited and looking forward to come and join you in Baltimore to investigate Food Apartheid, strategize and design interventionist tools, processes and other things. I am also especially happy to be working with Goucher colleagues and students from different disciplines. More so, what is exciting to me is that we can work in an extradisciplinary manner, connecting academia, social movements, community and more.

As Vida already wrote, dialogue is at the center of how we like to operate and we plan to use different supportive tactics to enable a deep dialogue between us. Pleasure being one of them.

The topic Food Apartheid is complex, so we are looking forward to learn from the Black Yield Institute who is doing all this amazing work on the topic.


Part of the workshops are going to be happening in the classes, which will for the time of the three weeks event have an alternative curriculum. Part of the workshops are going to happen outside of the classes and in different locations, at Goucher in Cherry Hill and elsewhere.

At the moment I am thinking on how can we see food as a medium and how this could be used as a principle, or one of the principles of our workshops. In my opinion food is the ultimate social medium and I'd like to investigate this further. Photography is one of the tools that are important especially in food representation and documentation- we will need both.
We will aim to deepen our knowledge on Food Apartheid, in design, media, communication and few other things in relation to it and also we aim to develop our pedagogic/ research process further.

While based at Goucher this is by no means a typical academic session, our process is designed to include and foster different cultures of knowledge production.

One of the aims, as Daniel mentioned that I personally think is important is to find a way to continue our collaboration also after the end of the event.

Besides engaging with the preparation readings and viewings am super interested to learn from from everyone in Baltimore about the local situation upon my arrival. One of the exciting things will be to utilize this local knowledge and connect it with international perspectives and experiences that we will bring with us.

As for methodologies, besides the extradisciplinarity, personally I am interested in autonomous design and how to apply it in Baltimore. Cheers!

"

"Hi everybody! Very much looking forward to it all. I will write more later but for now here are some additional important and useful resources for out workshops:

Food Security, Food Justice , or Food Sovereignity by Eric Holt-Gimenez

https://foodfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/BK16_4-2010-Winter_Food_Movements_bckgrndr-.pdf

Baltimore's Strange Fruit documentary by Black Yield Institute, here: https://www.bmorestrangefruit.com/trailer

Much recommended!

Baltimore City's Food environment: 2018 Report

https://clf.jhsph.edu/sites/default/files/2019-01/baltimore-city-food-environment-2018-report.pdf

The Elusive Inclusive: Black Food Geographies and Racialized Food Spaces by Margaret Marietta Ramirez. This is open access, just click on the "open access" link:

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Elusive-Inclusive%3A-Black-Food-Geographies-and-Ram%C3%ADrez/81aac3f197257841cc082599b316b1bbedc3d32d

More soon...Oliver



"

"This is cool too:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49582520"

"@Bernadette- you mean from 'Global Liberal Media" into "Democratic Media"?"

"Thanks for this SanFrancisco- if you have any more examples on Culture Jamming coming from Argentina please let us know!"

"Hey Gabriella, thanks for posting about your exciting Zine! I am very much looking forward to see the printed version. Here the link to a publication we did, which than formally inspired the book on Debt and from which the Food Democracy book grew. (I was mentioning this in my previous email to you)

https://issuu.com/memefestpublish/docs/meme_publication_pdfversion

If you PM me your home address, I will send you a copy. :) "

"Hi uli.l, I just checked and the book is available online, for example here on Book Depository: https://www.bookdepository.com/Tinkering/9781925495478"

"I just read this text:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-hangman-of-critique/#!

On the Limits of Critique. I found it interesting to see that the author states:" I assume she doesn’t mean to be interpreted this way, but Felski’s words seem to suggest that those dedicated to critique should give up their intellectual commitments in order to satisfy extrinsic extra-disciplinary demands. From the perspective of a committed skeptic, Felski does not seem to be defending the humanities. She seems instead be asking that the mission of the humanities be transformed."

This reminds me of Memefests own methodology- the extradisciplinary approach for the sake of changing design discipline, or media/ communication discipline.

And further : "When we watch the institutions we assumed were part of the academic firmament be destroyed, the material conditions of our work become newly visible. My ultimate criticism of postcriticism is therefore that any meta-commentary about how we practice criticism — any discussion of the ethos of criticism and interpretation — must always also attend to the sociological and political-economic grounds upon which criticism occurs. Such sociological work must give an accurate description of the political circumstances that once allowed critique to prosper, in however limited a fashion, and now seek to undermine it. The conclusion cannot be that we must methodologically placate powerful skeptics — it is a mistake to believe that any method we adopt will satisfy them for long. We should instead conclude that our task is to defuse the power of such skeptics to undermine our capacity to choose whether and to what degree we exercise our critical judgment. This fight is ultimately a political fight, in which our attitudes, ethos, and rhetoric (whether critical or postcritical) will at best play a supporting role."

Now, what role does Pleasure play in all this? I think the everydayness of pleasure is something to look at. Its presence in all realms of human activity as a fact, or an aim. As such it is extradisciplinary and extra/institutional. The socially responsive part of pleasure than is overtly political, but its criticality, i think is not, but is rather immanent to its own ontology. Can something be critical without theoretical knowledge? Can something be critical without necessarily persuing critigue? Is Latours claim to “to protect and to care” for what we cherish in a way the guarantee of this invisible, immanent critique?

"

"This is wonderful. I miss gardening so much, something I always did before I came to Australia. We are doing it a bit now, on our balcony and the roof, but much less than previously.

I wonder what is specific about Pleasure in the context of gardening. I guess it is pleasure which benefits community and the individual as well as nature. The patience part I like a lot, also that gardening is connected with seasons, supermarkets aren't.

I wonder if we could speak about socially responsive pleasures and how pleasure would be conceptualized as such? "

"Hi, you need to submit your work here:

http://memefest.org/en/competition/application_form/"

"Hi, You need to submit your work here:
http://memefest.org/en/competition/application_form/"

"Hi Estefania, you need to submit your work here:

http://memefest.org/en/competition/application_form/"

"THe link is not working!"

"U.S.-Cuba deal expected in early July to restore ties, reopen embassies

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/13/us-cuba-usa-exclusive-idUSKBN0OT00I20150613"

"Thank you Lisa for writing this. It was a great experience and I feel proud of our all work and the dialogues we are buildng with the Aboriginal communities.

Much more to come:

For now: Whisper. http://whisper.org.au/

The first of many Whispers that will follow soon. Get facts about child removal from Aboriginal families on the Whisper web site and join the protests in Canberra on February 13th.

The protest will take place on the 7th anniversary of Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generations - sorry means you don’t do it again! "

"Hey Alana, It is lovely to see this works spreading and getting peoples attention in other places. If we could somehow get more feedback by how people feel and react while seeing this- it would be super. Curious to hear how this will all work in Warmun!"

"Hey Scott, an old friend of mine, Tom, who worked with me at the very beginnig of Memefest sent me this link https://beta.movements.org/

We have been 'helping' in the sense that we have used the web site as a platform where people could use the tools that were created for the festival. This is from 2003:

http://www.memefest.org/openmeme/main.php

Not even linked to the curen web site anymore.

We have organised workshops for Occupy Brisbane etc.. But never really used the platform strategically where movements could get tailor made'expertise' for a particular project, but we have used this more as a knowledge resource and educational platform through the Festival process...I think this is a great point- in the sense, how could we make the knowledge that is created and made public through our web site more usefull- accessible, more practical in a sense...

"

"Memefest online social network was not designed to network between friends, but comrades. I dont have to be a friend with someone to be a comrade with someone. Most of my friends in life are not really involved in radical/socially responsive communication, art, education. Some are.

I am interested to network with people that are engaged in areas of communication and art for social change. I dont necessarily need to be friends with them. To me- it's more than enough if I can network with people and exchange knowledge.

Its a bit similar than thinking of why did I start writing a blog in 2003 and I published hundreds of posts in all the years. I see this more as an act of making things public, of creating publics, of being part of autonomous publics.

Facebook is besides being a network becoming more and more a news/media reader. Its true, there is a lot of interesting stuff being posted there and it is so convenient to be on FB. But thats the design strategy, or part of it. Being on FB because it is convenient and it works- i have heard this many times- I can understand this of course, but its a different world. This here - to me- is radicaly intimate, while FB is practical.
"

"Hey Stephen, this is very interesting, thank you for posting. Please let me know if you find out where to watch it. I could not find out where to watch it either..."

"Comandante?"

"Hm, that original post of you Roko sounded very plausible to me. Interesting Vlad, you are always puting things on their head! :)) Thank you :)"

"Here also some participant's feedback

http://designfutures.com.au/news/i_2013-12-03-keep-the-fire-burning-memefest-extradisciplinary-seminarworkshopintervention"

"well, thats even more fun, yea, "mula" means the same thing in slovene...
so thats a perfect international culture jam :)
"

"Pozdravljeni Nina- pisite na oliver AT memefest.org..."

"here a nice blog post and info about a documentary that explains the "lost industry" of sign painters...

http://www.messynessychic.com/2013/04/16/the-lost-industry-of-sign-painters/

"

"Thanks Brandon, this looks great!"

"Here is a link to Debtland, a documentary about DEBT in Australia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCKzSNZ6TP4&feature=relmfu

this is part one, but you will be able to see all five parts on Youtube."

"Dear Alessandro, thank you! It is good to know where this great image is coming from.

I had a short chat with Richard Barbrook, who pointed out that Debord was actually a strategist not a philosopher. Interesting.

http://www.classwargames.net/

This might be interesting too:

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/98/wikiswarms.html

Thanks again and keep us posted on your future work.

Warmly, Oliver"

"Anonymus blocked several web sites in Slovenia- including ALL web sites of 5 biggest Slovene political parties. Interesting!


http://delo.si/novice/slovenija/anonymous-blokiral-vec-slovenskih-strani.html"

"Hi Aljaz,

Good to see that this issues are being opened. I really do hope they are also being seriously discussed within a broader local scene.

Here are some thoughts that might be helpful in articulating further perspectives and deepen some of the current ones.

Quite a few things that you have written and that I will write about here can be applied to almost any design related profession/environment. The blind spots are global and to a big extend universal. So is the ideology behind the profession, so are the conditions under which design as profession is constructed. I will speak about Visual Communication. All observations are valid in the Slovene scene, most of them also in the international scene. Of course not all is bad, but here the focus is on problems.

I agree with many things that you wrote In your original comment. Here are additional things that need to be taken in to account:

1. Design is (almost completely) skills based training.

Design as it is to a very big part now is a vocational skills based training. It was as such integrated in universities and for several reasons it remained as such. Partly because it represents a small part of universities, partly because it has strategically used the symbolic capital of art and the autonomy that comes with it. No one from within universities really has been studying design as an academic profession and how it gets constructed and designers- educators as well as students have been living in a small self-referential, save university bubble for decades. It has to be understood that a vocational skills based training is fundamentally different from an intellectual education. The first one has more a place at vocational schools than at universities.

2. Design is market based.

The skills based training has been predominantly related to and connected with the market. This means that criteria of evaluation of what is good design has been first and mainly constructed and created by the market and from there brought in to the class room. Here is an example on how this Ideology works: When I asked once one of the founders of the Brumen biennale what is so good about one of the Jury members, the answer was: “Their advertising agency is very big, they have cca 60 or more people working for them.” This might seem like a lapsus but in fact this is ideology at its purest form and I wont even start discussing the nature of big advertising agencies and their effect on the public sphere and what it means to involve such advertisers as jurors in a visual communication design competition.

3. Design has not established mechanisms to be a serious profession.

Design as a market-based profession at the university (and outside) has in most cases not established mechanisms of research, not developed serious theory and critique and the education is as it is. Also serious publications about design are very rare (and their nr. is getting smaller!)-especially those ones with a critical perspective. Here is a nice post on this problem:

http://observersroom.designobserver.com/rickpoynor/post/another-design-voice-falls-silent/31828/


All this is connected with points nr. 1 & 2. Any field of knowledge that wants to be a profession needs these elements.

So, what there is – is mainly practice. However, practice is generated under the influence of points 1+2+3 + other. Also practice is understood in an incredibly limited way- basically it is about the “pencil and computer mouse” practice of visual communication. Strategic thinking, creative direction, conceptual development, thinking in general…are not seen as practice. Even more, the ones who do not use a pencil or computer are not considered as designers. Next – practice is about service providing for clients. The providers provide, the client orders, the market dictates or the other way around. Again, points 1+2+3 are perfect ground for such servility. (I think the part of your suggested definition on what is Visual communication design, where you mention that this is a practice that is client based- commissioned is problematic! It should not be restricted only to the client relation!)

As a practice it is extremely image and object centred almost without relational thinking and understanding of the broader social, cultural, communicative and political context and because of this depoliticised (except for short surface based rendezvous with critique in order to jump the bandwagon of cool). This is why it has not developed the capability to think about the conditions for the construction of the profession. Going back to the short jury member anecdote- the market –although mainstream economists try to tell us a different story – is of course not an objective criteria for measuring quality.

4. Competitions are about the image / control of the profession not about the profession.

This particular competition gives “The biggest national award for achievements in the field of the design of visual messages.” Here again is a good example of how ideology works: This competition started as an initiative of a handful people mainly based at the university+ a few in the industry.

After few years significant parts of the profession were highly critical to it. In fact the bigger part of the only University design department was against it arguing this event does not really contribute to the profession but actually does damage to it. So where does the title: “The biggest national award for achievements in the field of the design of visual messages” come from? Who said that? Who should say that? Normally it is a matter of broad professional, academic, expert, and industry perspective and agreement. It should and can be done only if certain mechanisms are established that allow for public critique at a certain standard and if such an organisation is inclusive and not exclusive.

In this case it was self-proclaimed through advertisements! Isn’t that fantastic? It was first announced on the advertisements that were launched for the promotion of one of the biennials. (The advertisments have showed a pixled cityscape of Ljubljana, that was covered with the event’s logotypes. Basically the complete city was branded. Interesting if we take in to account that branding is a specific approach to communication).

Of course the media and journalist are for obvious reasons happy to pick up this title. So are the participants, the winners, the losers, the students etc…The nature of this process in problematic and sadly works in the longer term against it self. It does not have anything to do with any academic or serious professional culture. What I am describing here is not only about this case. The underlying principle we can read in this is part of the existing and dominating design (and advertising!) culture, because design (and advertising) competitions, festivals, biennials etc. are not about the design profession but about the image of the design profession! And because it is about the image of the profession it is also about control / influence on the profession/scene. This is key and very important to understand!

5. Design as a profession constitutes it self from outwards not from inwards.

The profession as well as designers and design companies constitute to an important part on the basis of what I call external authority. Good examples are:

- Think about the importance competitions of various kinds play in the profession. It is interesting to think about the fact that almost all designers use awards at competitions as a reference that should prove how good they are but practically no one is thinking about the shallow logic this events are based upon. Much more energy is spent in the filed of awards events than in establishing mechanisms, which are crucial for a profession (point nr. 3), that creates knowledge from the inside. Not to mention that competitions are always an “outside motivation” and an “outside award”.

- Creating and publishing ads that describe something as the best, most important etc… instead of being recognised as such on the basis of good work by the wider profession, critics, experts…

- Using Imaginaries of branding in the narration of positioning the event in the public sphere.

- Instead of developing visual communication in directions that are relevant (let’s have a look at the current state of the world!) the profession is celebrating works like (commercial) logotypes, inventing all kinds of rituals and mechanisms of representation within media and the art world, like putting the submitted works like logos in to an exhibition in to the National Art Gallery to make the irrelevant work seem really important. I mean seriously, what are commercial logotypes doing in a National Art Gallery exhibition?? This is a question to the gallery as well to the designers. Does a profession need to exhibit in such an institution if it puts a lot of energy in to distancing itself from art as design lately does? Or is exhibiting in such institutions mostly about the external authority, because a National Art Gallery has big symbolic capital?

6. Criteria of measuring quality are vague and unclear and the process of selection is exclusive

Evaluations of submitted works are either not articulated beyond the usual: “this is a very strong work with good idea and concept. Or something like: this is a fresh approach or even better: this is a strong image“ or the public and participants do not get any real explanation on the results. Of course the evaluation is highly decontextualized and therefore give only a partial picture of the works evaluated…
Not to mention that all this is a top-down process, which of course has its role in the processes of mystification of the knowledge and importance of design. Not to say that design is not important, it is very important, but there are other ways to celebrate this importance.

There is more to say, but this should be enough for now.

As almost always this event is not done without real ambitions and sincere and hard work to change things for the better. And I think some things- especially through a younger generation of academics, professional designers and educators are changing. But without a radical rethinking, unlearning and relearning things won’t change. Designers have been educated in error. The profession has been constructed without enough focus on substance, but with a lot of focus on the appearance. There is immense work that needs to be and I believe can be done. New institutions are needed. New practices are needed. New theories are needed. New vocabulary and research methods are needed. It will be hard to escape the ideological blind spots of the profession, because real realisation of the real situation will have to lead to fundamental changes on many levels, and they are never easy to do.

The Slovenian design and visual communication scene is in the international perspective strong. But two things should be remembered. It’s real strength is not what the scene thinks it is and being strong in the current dominant international design perspective does not automatically mean that things are good if the global design scene has more or less the same fundamental problems. And secondly we need to widely implement completely new criteria on how to measure quality- the current ones will bring us only this far.


Here is some links that might be helpful in thinking about and around these issues:

Sandy Kaltenborn: dear contributors - dear ...,
the jury dilemma and some other thoughts..:

www.memefest.org/2006/shared/texts/other/memefest_sandy_k.pdf

Jason Grant : Awards Madness:

http://inkahoots.com.au/resources/Awards_Madness-inkahoots.pdf

Tony Fry, Design as Politics:

www.bergpublishers.com/?TabId=14869

Tony Fry, Design Futuring:

www.bergpublishers.com/?TabId=4015

Brian Holmes, Extradisciplinary Investigations. Towards a New Critique of Institutions

http://eipcp.net/transversal/0106/holmes/en/#_ftn10

DEMONSTRATING RELEVANCE: RESPONSE-ABILITY. Theory, practice and imagination of socially responsive communication -- edited and curated by Oliver Vodeb and Nikola Janović:

www.memefest.org/demonstratingrelevance/en/

Oliver Vodeb, Družbeno odzivno komuniciranje:

www.druzbenoodzivnokomuniciranje.si/

Design Philosophy Papers, Beyond Progressive Design issue:

www.desphilosophy.com/dpp/dpp_journal/journal.html"

"Hi Frederic, I haven't forgot about this. Need a bit more time- it is holiday time now here in Australia, but will get back to you once I have some news. I sugest- once we know more we can think about involving other people too."

"Most of the people working in Advertising have ambivalent feelings about it, so you are not alone. :)

Advertising as it is practiced is in my opinion a medium which' potentials havent been yet fully developed. But the reasons for that are pretty clear, because advertising has a clear main agenda- short term financial profit. Because of that the advertising communication approach, which is marketing based can have only specific effects. And as we know, these effects are in the majority of cases limited and problematic.

The main problem, in my opinion, is that advertising has legitimised it self as the one and only form or communication approach when it comes to solving communication problems in public sphere.

But there are other communication approaches. What we are doing here at Memefest is the research, development and practice of an alternative: Socially responsive communication.

Advertising agencies will not be able to change. At least not a lot. It is important to try to change them but it is also highly important to establish alternative institutions/ practices that work under a different logic.

ps: we are working on a text editor tool and a save draft option for this blog. should be online in the next week. :)"

"Hi Frederic,
it took me longer for that one to answer. We have finally moved in to our new place and things are getting back to normal. I am still in the research phase in terms of local scene here in Brisbane and Australia in general.

To answer first your question- no, i don't believe we need the mainstream to make good interactive documentaries. What has been done so far outside of the mainstream is very impressive already and as it looks like there is immense potential in this format.

The question to me is how to bridge university settings with less institutionalised cultures and than include the mainstream in order to make the impact of the doc. as big as possible.

For that, i think, we need to establish a platform where this cultures can create a dialogue. For example, there are fantastic research and theory findings within university environments that could be used as a basis for a documentary. I know this is not really now, but it could be mad ein a more integrated manner. This could actually become a new format in itself. One that could help solve the self referentiality of university research- papers read only by academics etc.. One that could help interactive documentarists on several levels too.

Another dimension that is interesting for me is how to use interactive documentary practice as a research tool. Investigative journalism is research in it self, but how can this be merged with academia, to establish a culture of interactive research based empowerment?

I would be interested to dig more in to this an maybe we could bring more people in to this discussion, if this is something you see potential in?"

"looking good. would like to see more and know more about the project.
let me know when there is more to see...
good luck with it!"

"Lenka, that's exciting. Do you have any images? Also, are you working together with Arwa Ramadan- the one you worked together at the Memefest workshop?"

"hey frederic,

this is really great. as with all new things, the established culture will have troubles to see the benefits of this new format.

what is the media reality in terms of financing online documentaries. i know you have been working on a big online documentary project about canadian reality in times of the global financial crisis. would you say there is already a shift in terms of how important this format is for media and for journalism and money starts to become available for this types of productions or is it still very difficult to produce anything substantial because of lack of resources?

thanks also for this great selection of projects and festivals!"

"Giday,

I have once again read all the posts in this discussion and am a little bit surprised by Jodies post on 23.7.2011
10.49.

To avoid any possible misunderstandings and misinterpretations i'll try to be short and simple:

1. I have never said that there is not an unequal position of women and men in our societies. The opposite. I have welcomed critical thoughts on the relation men-women at Memefest and stepped forward suggesting very proactive action from our side towards this problem. Here is part of my first reply to the initial post:

»...To go one step forward- it is of course true that women are in a position with less power than men in most of the situations in our lives. This is a fact and this is not right. We are open and we would be interested to put strong focus on women for next Memefest friendly competition theme. »

2. I have never said that there is no structural inequality. But i have said that there are different reasons for it. Some of the reasons are due to differences of men and women. Not all power relations between sexes can be explained with the use of cultural determination prism.

3. I felt that we have enough similar views on the subject that there is more than enough ground for dialogue. And I was not referring only to you Jody, but replying to the whole forum. I am sorry to hear that you think we are on such opposite sides, that the only thing we can agree on is that we disagree. Still- I am puzzled- on what do we actually disagree?

4. The particular women-men relation have not been an explicit focus of Memfest or me personally in the past, but this can be changed. In order to work towards more equal relations, I have asked everyone to come up with suggestions and action. Another part of my initial response here: »I hope all women reading this take it as an open and warm invitation to contribute with their thoughts ideas and most importantly actions! What can we do? What should we do? »

So far, Jody, there was not a single suggestion from your side. What happened?

Your critique would definitely have more impact on this forum if you would articulate some productive suggestion toward a better position of women in Memefest. I would be very interested to read more on where and how can we identify conditions in Memefest that brought about an unequal relation of sexes. Not the fact that there were only male speakers at the conference, but the fact that women so far haven't engaged more strongly in the project and this cause."

"sure, but i don't think anyone tries to not recognize that women are exploited. some of the structural discrimination however might not be intended structural discrimination, but a result of the difference between men and women, even if the result in the end is a discriminating structure.
"

"Here is the link to the text mentioned in the post above:
http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm"

"
This article might open some new dimensions for discussion, especially about the "men against women" part of this initial post and discussion.

This title part grabbed my attention "...one unfortunate legacy of feminism has been the idea that men and women are basically enemies. I shall suggest, instead, that most often men and women have been partners, supporting each other rather than exploiting or manipulating each other. "

There is also some interesting data that counters the prevailing feminist perspective that women are the ones who are in a bad position in our societies. But read for your self...

Although sometimes not rigorous enough in it's argumentation, the main argument of this text is strong and i can agree with it. One thing we need to understand with this discussion here is the recognition that men and women are different. The other thing: the initial argument for this post-- a somehow biased position from Memefest which prefers men, does not stand.

In the light of this text, titled "Is There Anything Good About Men?" psychologist prof. Roy F. Baumeister argues that men have different motivations than women. Again, i agree.

Maybe this is the reason (or one of the reasons) why not more women have stepped forward and got involved more actively in to Memefest in the past years?

"

"women, skin tone and prison: http://www.disinfo.com/2011/07/for-women-darker-skin-tone-means-longer-prison-sentences/"

"i wasn't speaking about you post, jason, but the overall feel and dynamics of this discussion. in general i think things are much more nuanced, therefore we need to try to create a more nuanced interaction. i agree here with alana... "

"Well, while i agree with Jason, i would be happy if we could bring this discussion more in to a dialogue, instead of a confrontation of "arguments" which tries to show who is right and who is wrong. The strength of Memefest's community is it's diversity. Meaning, some people are more skilled than others in some things, others in other things. While taking position and developing arguments is necessary, listening and communicating in a manner that is inclusive of the other and working hard towards recognition of the other seems to me far more radical than any shouts for feminist action. What dialogue is about is what happens in the commons, not about who is right or wrong.

"

"Dear Thedoglived,

thank you for your feedback. My intention was not to be harsh on educators as a whole. My basic point is that marketing and especially social marketing communication have taken over the schools when it comes to education processes on "socially responsible" communication/design. Their naturalization has made other types of communication invisible. This has historical reasons and is of course part of ideological dynamics of design /communication proffessions.

I am happy to see more and more educators taking a different direction and I am aware that change from inside is hard. I am an educator too. For past nine years i could observe the situation at my and other universities.

What we are trying to do here is to articulate alternatives in a way that will also help the change from inside you are speaking about.

I'd be happy to discuss this issues more with you. Also, we are interested to collaborate with your Art school. Let us know what possibilities you see.

Cheers, Oliver
"

"Karin: as i wrote in my comment above: criteria for curating speakers/mentors were two(mainly)- expertize being one of them. Longer term contribution to Memefest and Memefest community the other. Of course there are women that have been in the past jury/curatorial/editorial board that are extremely good at what they do."

"
Thanks for this post, Jody. I sincerely value your effort on highlighting this issues. I can agree with most of the stuff you wrote in your post.

It's true, the Memefest curated panel was unbalanced when it comes to gender equality. But the reason for this is quite simple.

The criteria, if you will, for curatorial decisions on speakers were two. First, the obvious: speakers had to be extremely good at what they do. Second: speakers were not only invited for the inspiration day, but were also co mentoring workshop and –very important- they were taking part in the many formal and informal discussions around Memefest and Memefest related issues in the nine days we have spent together in Nijmegen.

This of course is very important, because our meeting was a rare occasion. For financial reasons it is difficult to bring all this people from around the world together to one place at the same time. For this it was logical, that those who were invited were also the once who have played a very important role in Memefest's history. Friends, collaborators that have inspired in a very importnat way and that have contributed huge amounts of time and work to the project.

It's just a fact that there is no women who has put this much work in to Memefest in the past. Why? It's just the way it is and i can't really see any ideological reasons for this. Memefest grew organically. It was and is open to wemen.

From begin on Memefest has collaborated with women on all levels. Few examples- our web site programmer is a women. Many years Memefest visual communication media was designed by a women designer. Every year, there are women in the Jury/curatorial and editorial board. Every year women get awarded at Memefest, cca 50% workshop participants were women, i dont have the numbers but there are many, many women participating in the friendly competition each year...

It is not that women are not involved in Memefest. It is not that women do not know about Memefest. But again, for some reason, those who are the most active, those who put substantial time and work through the years in to this are men.

Personally and from discussions i know also wider Memefest team would be more than happy to collaborate with more women in a more intense and log term manner.

To go one step forward- it is of course true that women are in a position with less power than men in most of the situations in our lives. This is a fact and this is not right. We are open and we would be interested to put strong focus on women for next Memefest friendly competition theme. I hope all women reading this take it as an open and warm invitation to contribute with their thoughts ideas and most importantly actions! What can we do? What should we do?

Very much looking forward to all your thoughts and actions. Wonderful things can grow out of this!


"

"
The remark regarding gender imbalance is interesting for many reasons. Inspiration day was curated by Memefest. All speakers are long therm collaborators. All have a rich history of social engagement on various levels. All have developed their practice to a high level of sophistication. Id be very happy to curate a number of wemen for this, but for some reason at this level of long term intensive engagement on Memefest, this is still more of a male affair. Which of course is regrettable.


It would be good to hear who are the wemen who are engaged in to socially responsive/radical communication? Can anyone help with some names? I would be thankful for any info on that.

As for a younger generation: there is many active wemen in our network. The majority of our workshop participants are wemen..."

"Hi Anja, thanks for this. I can very much agree with your observations. Holland has a advanced design culture, however all this important words have become buzzwords in most cases.

What you are describing can be observed in other countries too. Design as a profession is pretty much clueless what to do. It somehow knows that there needs to be a big step made towards concept, theory, interdisciplinary, research, critique, sustainability, social responsibility etc.. but only very rare designers or institutions make a radical enough step to avoid the trap of cooptation. Its interesting to look at design education institutions. Most of the start branding them selves as environments that provide innovative insight about "ethics", "social change", "sustainability"...

I don't think it is only a bad development. Not so long ago, almost no one spoke about this, now its part of the agenda. What will be important is role models, examples of projects, institutions, initiatives that will articulate their common vision through design/communication practice as well as through theoretical practice outside of close circles within academia or activism. Practice that will be radical enough to avoid cooptation. A new network of people with integrity could start this. What if we use the opportunity of Memefest workshop and strategize about this issues too?

Also, looking forward to your opinion on this:

http://www.memefest.org/en/memeblog/2011/05/mapping-socially-responsive-communication-workshop-preparation----case-study-faculty-of-arts-university-of-ljubljana-humanites-in-a-selfimposed-crisis/"

"fixed! thanks."

"I am very much looking forward to it too and to meet you all and work with you.

There are few changes in the lineup of participants. Some can not come for private reasons, and we are waiting for some replies yet. Once things are more tangible we will post about it here. soon."

"Hi Jody,

this s very interesting! I am sure all Meme workshop participants will like to know more about it. I'd be interested to read your full paper. Is it already written?"

"this post was initialiy discussed via the community board on this web site. i posted it after i saw this documentary. because it became a wider discussion that also has to do with shepard fairey, who did initially the obama poster, i am copying it here.
---------------------------------

oliver
2 weeks, 1 day ago

I watched yesterday the street art documentary, Exit through the Gift Shop.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_Through_the_Gift_Shop

It is about the emergence of Street art focused mainly on Banksy and Shepard Fairey. But than this other guy named Thierry Guetta becomes the main character of the movie. There is a controversy about the documentary being a complete hoax. I have to admit i am not sure about that. But in any case this polemics only help to raise questions about street art, art in general and mainly about the "sell out" dimension of something that was/is authentic. Nothing really new, but this documentary is highly intelligent and i would say strong in any sense. If it is really a hoax, than even more.

Does anyone know more about this polemic? Have you seen it- do you believe it is a hoax?

image-shift
2 weeks ago

i was also suprised that i liked this film. i belive its quality actually lies in what you describe oliver: it leaves one behind with these questions on street-art-gallery hype and artistic authorship. it is very well done and funny.

inesnin
2 weeks ago

i really want to watch this movie, and likely will within the next days. it's sounding each time more intringuing, indeed. a friend of mine wrote about it recently saying that in none of the two reviews she read about it was mentioned the fact that bansky has become some kind of luther blissett. a condividual, she says. apparently there are rumors (yeah, hoax? sounds like, but still) saying that bansky could be a name of not necessarily only one person, but many.. i've heard things like this about other characters, like homer (from the odyssey, the ancient greek famous book).. well.. i'll watch it and comment back again. :)

oliver
2 weeks ago

ok, let's have a look at a few things about shepard fairey- most know for his "obey giant" street art and the obama poster http://www.posterpage.ch/exhib/ex216oba/p181484s.png

here is a little bit of what he says about Thierry Guetta, the guy who in the documentary plays the main role and might be fake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e-F4MsBx_I

watching this video to me is interesting, because shepard knows how to present him self very well. doing he's "subversive" street art, he get help from several people he calls "we'll trained assistants."

having a closer look to what he does- his art, once can see there is not a lot to see. at least not a lot of original stuff. here is a good article about that:

http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Obey/index.htm

doing a bit more of research i came across he's commercial studio web site:

http://studionumberone.com/about/

this is interesting:

"The shop was founded by artist Shepard Fairey in 2003 as a means to extend his unique strain of innovative graphics, subversive self-promotion, and grassroots marketing to the world of advertising. In the ensuing years, SNO has grown to help businesses realize more meaningful consumer experiences through original storytelling, and innovative art-based design and marketing."

hmm, i understand he likes POP art etc... but iam starting to believe that the guy mixed everything up. comming from the skateboard scene, he does similar stuff than the first legendary skate companies. first, doing subversive business, later selling out and making a lot of money.

i am not saying that he's intention to capitalize is 100% false, but he speaks about using marketing and advertising! not sure he knows what he speaks about.

as with many things- its impossible to be totally in a place without contradictions, but watching the documentary, checking faireys work i dare to claim the following.

no matter if the french guy Thierry Guetta is true or false, fairey is using him to create distinction. in the process of overall comodification of street art bad examples, sell outs are needed to make one look authentic.

btw: i like now this poster even more: http://www.memefest.org/en/gallery/works2010-11/519/

oliver
2 weeks ago

hmm... more from he's company web site- here how he presents himself and his OBEY campaign:

http://studionumberone.com/about/


"Shepard Fairey is the artist behind OBEY GIANT, the graphics that have changed the way people see art and the urban landscape. What started with an absurd sticker he created in 1989 while studying at the Rhode Island School of Design has since evolved into a worldwide street art campaign, an acclaimed body of fine art, and a model of alternative marketing for a new generation of consumers."

danielmarcus
1 week, 3 days ago

I'm teaching the film this week in my class on Alternative Media. While I guess revelations could be forthcoming that show it is a fake, I haven't seen anything to really indicate that - just a lot of vague rumors. Seems real to me - and certainly what it depicts actually happened. Did Banksy put Thierry up to it? In one sense, that doesn't matter. And insofar as Banksy has questioned its own validity, that would seem like a canny marketing ploy - adds to the publicity through controversy.

inesnin
4 days, 11 hours ago

alright, so i watched the film. to me it's pretty funny this whole hoax talk all around, to start. first of all, no matter what's inside, this is "the bansky film" or "bansky's film", which would be more correct, and it's very curious this move towards its focus. but, still, thierry/mr. brainwash is the main character since the beggining, and you can see that from the point of view and the interviews.

i really want to watch his unreleased film "life remote control", even though it's said to be chaotic. i don't doubt it is, but i'm still very curious. bansky, while making a film 'about' thierry, his attempt of making a film about him, street art in general and later about his own mad art move, simply labels him as "crazy" and says the piece was unwatchable. well, if you take a glimpse in a lot of well known pieces of video art, most of it is unwatchable 'til the end, usually because of their time concept being too slow or because it's annoying or whatever. it may be much more aggressive or even absurd if put against pop art influenced pieces, including street art, that's usually so graphic and easy to get. i'm not defending it, just saying i'm curious.

one thing that's undeniable is that either mr. brainwash is a readymade by bansky or by himself. his insanely huge idea of becoming a pop star, uhn, artist, taking so much from andy warhol in some kind of obvious remix of what's in the media today - including grafitti - echoes in many artists around, since warhol actually, like jeff koons or damien hirst, who keep some kind of factory in order to produce works in large scale. i've heard reports in art class about koons' production process being very similar to thierry's, the only difference being that he does manipulate images in photoshop himself before sending to some assistant to paint or produce. and i'm not aware of details, but i believe someone like koons might have built his career gradually, not from one day to another, which of course makes someone a very easy target for being a hoax - or a readymade. well, still, he's a product himself. it's all part of the game, millions included. and banksy gets it all.

inesnin
4 days, 11 hours ago

just to make clear: i do like banksy and street art a lot, lol, and haven't made up my mind about sheperd, who you were discussing before.

inesnin
4 days, 11 hours ago

hmmm apparently not so much to do, or maybe, but i kept remembering of the documentary 'we live in public' http://www.weliveinpublicthemovie.com/ - have you watched it? perhaps it reminds me because it's also about people dealing with media, nonstop footage, hiding / showing off and the whole thing as a career. yeah. i watched it in a festival, but it's in the bittorrent fields, so there"

"hi justin, bellow you can find the list of selected works. it's important to note, that:

a) the exhibition is limited by budget
b) the exhibition is limited by space

there is many more works that we would like to include- without doubt- and we will include more in the future. so this list is definetly not to understand as the "ultimate best of memefest. if you want to see a wider range of selected works, have a look at our book:

http://www.memefest.org/demonstratingrelevance/en/

here is the list:

MEME 2010-11

Paper txt from Kashmir
Author: Alana Hunt
Country: Australia

eurovision3000
Design as a Research Tool
Authors: Anja Groten; Janneke de Rooij
Country: Netherlands

The us in virus. Viral sticker inervention
Author: Darija Medić
Country: Yugoslavia

Seduced by love
Author: Monika Klobčar
Country: Slovenia

Capitalism Kills Love (redux)
Authors: Kevin Yuen Kit Lo, Aram Tanis and many others
Country: Canada

Interactive
Welcome to Pine Point
Author: Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons
Country: Canada

Love+conflict+power
Authors: Arwa Ramadan; Manal Al-Mahmood
Country: United Arab Emirates

Find the Love, End the Conflict
Mahya Soltani; Omnia ElAfifi; Rand Almaeeni
Country: United Arab Emirates

Moving
SIDE-VISOR- ACTIVATION OF PERIPHERY VISION TEST 01
Author: Darko Stojkov
Country: Serbia

Cycle
Angela Frangyan
Country: Armenia

Police kidnapping in Toronto
Olivier D. Asselin
Country: Canada

LesÂmes en friche (Abandon souls)
Olivier D. Asselin; Mathieu LeBlanc
Country: Canada
Jesus News !
Olivier D. Asselin, Mathieu LeBlanc - Xavier Leroux
Country: Canada


Beyond

SMSlingshot
Reclaim the screens
Authors: Patrick Tobias Fischer, Christian Zoellner, Thilo Hoffmann, Sebastian Piatza
Country: Germany

UFF
Authors: Vadimir Turner, Tarkan begzads, Tadeas Trojanek
Country: Czeck Republic

Radical ATM Service
Debit Card Hijacker
Ivan Kozenitzky, Federico Lazcano

Liberate Tate: Collected Works 2010
Free Art From Oil
Authors: Liberate Tate
Country: Great Britain



"THE BEST OF":

The welcome mat
Author: Marilyn de Castro
Country: Australia

Romantic taxonomy
Author: shannon linde; alexis ronse
Country: Canada

Ethnic
Author: Héctor Espinosa
Country: Mexico

CTRL_ALT_DEL PROJECT
Author: Paolo Casalis
Country: Italy

Redline (information in formation)
Author: Rok Klemenčič
Country: Slovenia

Destroyevil.com
Author: Katie Bush

We Are Committed...
Author: Barbra Tolentino
Country: USA

Ceci n’est pas...
Author: Fabian Frenzel
Country: Germany

Terror
Author: Anastasia Faldina; Alexandra Faldina
Country: Russia

Guilty?
Author: Paulo Hartmann
Country: Brasil

Advertising communication
Author: Kostis Basiliadis
Country: Greece

"

"Robi hvala za čudovit esej. Z njegovo pomočjo lahko veliko jasneje gledamo in razumemo tudi vizualna dela, ki so prispela na festival. Po mojem mnenju esej pokaže na nekatere ključne povezave med ljubeznijo, konfliktom in imaginacijo. Glede na to, da gre za kompleksna filozofska in etična vprašanja pa je prednost eseja tudi v tem, da je napisano dostopno različnim bralcem.

Bojana, hvala za komentar. Škoda pa je, da se dotika zgolj formalnega vidika eseja. Memefest na srečo ni toga akademska /znanstvena revija. Predvsem poskušamo odpirat dialog in prostor za dialog.
Kar pogrešam je komentar k vsebini, predvsem pa iztočnice za nadaljnji dialog s tekstom in z avtorjem znotraj Memefestove skupnosti. Zato bi te prosil, da dodaš še vsebinski vidik.

Pozdrav obema, Oliver
"

"@alen: thank you too. fantastic having you on board!

@karin: very happy to hear that. let's continue collaboration!

@scott, thank you for your participation and sharing your fantastic work!"

"maybe we will need to map the situation as it is AND map the situation as we think it should be. the disruptive aspect should be than mapped in the second one.

the problem with dominant communication/design profession is that it is robbed of it's ability to think about it's own conditions of existence and practice. we need to map existing conditions/power relations etc too. and than show the disruptive potentials...

what do you think?"

"hector, it's great to see your new work. we at memefest have always found inspiration in your work too.

personally i like the depth of your conceptual approach and the precision of your graphic execution a lot! not to mention that you have developed a unique style.

to me it always seems you are deconstructing ideology. fascinated by ideology, right? :)"

"forgot to say, roko, this really looks wonderful!!"

"dear all. after some great start with new memefest we need to make the next step.

i think there is a good team that can work together on memefest latinoamerica.

milena from colombia, francisco sanz from argentina, hector from mexico and esteban from bogota-colombia. just to name a few. iknow that frederic (http://www.memefest.org/en/profile/frederic/)will also help with latinoamerica.

also claudia jurado from manizales/colombia is interested in collaboration.

i will travel to colombia in end of march and will stay there till mid april. i will try to met with everyone to discuss future collaboration.

i suggest the next step: please let me know if there is anyone else from latin america interested in collaboration. if yes, send me his/her email. i will write to all of you than via email with some ideas how to grow this collaboration.

OK?"

"yes, let's do it. i guess we will need to distinguish between agency within different institutionalized frameworks.

market: companies (ad agencies, design studios), non governmental institutions

non market: loose, semi loose networks with communication projects implemented in the public sphere

in between: communication/art projects manifested in galleries"

"hey scott:

i very much agree with number four. i have been closely studying the ad industry for many years, and all evidence shows that people working in this business for many years have extreme difficulties to think, act and imagine outside the commercial culture. i believe that there is a bit more of a chance for cognitive workers than for cognitive capitalists to change and get engaged in to something else, but its very hard. as for cognitive capitalists within the business of image production- pretty much no chance for a deeper change, except in a very long term. meaning, extensive work, study and also mentorship for some 10 years. problem: i personally would rather spend 10 years in a organization which' members already embody "socially responsive" communication culture than having to deal with a painful transition.

Q3: changing existing ones is tightly connected to Q4. very difficult to do in my opinion. again, easier on the level of cognitive workers. there is a good and useful concept from design theorist tony fry called "platforming" which is meant to be employed for changing institution in to a more sustainable direction.

agree with you on 1 and 2."

"sorry..in the end there are four not two questions...:)"

"Thank you Scott, i did not know about the Afterimage journal. Very interesting!!


Beehive collective does impressive work. Even more than their production of images, the organizational culture is a important example on how to create environments of practice that can remain subversive through a long time. This i think is highly relevant in our discussion regarding the practice of socially responsive communication.

Two questions that are in my opinion crucial within this context of organizational structure:

Q1: is it possible to produce socially responsive communication and back it with a day to day practice of the whole organization within existing structures as marketing oriented design studios or ad agencies?

Q2: is it possible to do it only within more or less loose horizontally organized collectives that work on voluntary basis, or is it possible to establish horizontal institutions that work on the market as a company?

Q3: do we need to establish completely new institutions, with new people or can we change existing ones?

Q4: is someone that has worked in the ad agency for let's say 10-15 years capable of changing and engaging in to socially responsive communications practices/institutions or is his/her habitus (bourdieu) structured way to deep in the frame of commercial communication culture?

"

"thanks to everyone for your input. this is very helpfull in creating a conceptual framework for our workshop. id like to post a link to one chapter of brian holmes' book "Escape the overcode" titled "Network Maps, Energy Diagrams-Structure and Agency in the Global System." its a fantastic analysis on how to map systemic social conditions: real and imaginary.

http://brianholmes.wordpress.com/2007/04/27/network-maps-energy-diagrams/"

"(i received this very interesting response via email, so iam posting it here)

Hi Memefest --

I tried to post the comment below in response to Oliver's recent note about cartography and communication. But it seemed to bounce or get rejected or whatever. I would like to participate in that conversation and know something about the topic. What did I do wrong or, said another way, how might I participate?

Chris Simpson


There are at least two key elements here & both are complex. The first is radicalization of cartography (& cartographic description). The second is liberating communication from the iron shell of marketing, in part by distinguishing socially responsive communication from other sorts.
Some leverage points to make such distinctions:
++ the social _power/empowerment_ dynamics of the setting in which communication takes place. This appears to involve tradeoffs of human agency / human institutions;
++ the degree of, direction of, and patterns of _participation_ in the communicative acts;
++ social dynamics of _voice / voicelessness_;
++ social-power dynamics of intersubjectivity during communicative acts, including stuff such as economic inequity, culture, class, gender, language, etc.;
++ anthropology of propaganda & ritual;
++ other stuff, other frames, etc.
++ need for new languages or paradigms (such as cartography, visualization, etc.) in order to even discuss these ideas in a consistent way.
Chris Simpson -- AU -- simpson at american.edu"

"hi jovana- thanks, this is a interesting comparison. in paglens article the power relations of space play a crucial role. same as in bourdieu's field.

but there seems to be a focus on the material if you look at this:...."I’m helping to produce a space called “geography.” None of these examples is a metaphor: the “space” of culture isn’t just Raymond Williams’s “structure of feeling” but, as my friends Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Clayton Rosati underline, an “infrastructure of feeling.”"

experimental geography is (taken from wikipedia) "Experimental Geography" (is) to describe practices coupling experimental cultural production and art-making with ideas from critical human geography about the production of space, materialism, and praxis.

what is interesting to me is the combination of using immaterial approaches to describe and /or analyze the material or praxis connected with the material-- in this case space-geography.

in our approach of mapping socially responsive communication we will most likely stay in the cognitive/immaterial side of media production. the strongest part however of the body of experimental geography we can use is the knowledge of mapping.

at this point it would be useful to find more radical mapping projects. it would be great if anyone can provide links to such projects. thanks!



"

"yes, exactly! :)"

"?? there is no photo..."

"hi jodyb- thanks for that. its great to hear that there is a wider recognition about the problem. in slovenia, NGOs are still quite far away of this understanding. you mention a recent debate pointing in a better direction- can you give me more info about that. id be interested to know more about it. thanks in advance!"

"TamyaB, Mladina is the most important political weekly magazine in the country and they publish this ads in every magazine for many years. "

"hi jody, are you interested in any visual representations of nature- exmpl. also representations such as national geographic photography, or representations which are already more culturally interpreted and are less documentary? or both? :)"

"curators and editors start their work beginning of february. depending on the quantity of works received- it usually takes 3-4 weeks. results should be known early march.
"

"rebelZ- it does suck. we checked many possibilities, but all of them are highly complicated to integrate or the bureaucracy with banks is just way too much. many of the services also do not work with slovenian banks. we also wanted to integrate a special software on our server- this is done by the bank, but he costs, considering that we are not a business with lots of income are just too high. so, in the end if we wanted to get the book to the people we needed to make this compromise."

"Hi Alex,
the main purpose is to introduce Memefest and this years theme to the public. More than that posters should establish a open interpretative framework within this years theme through the use of a visual poem."

"Sounds cool. but noone says what kind of art are we speaking about. the event organizers ar speaking about using marketing cmapaigns to promote this thing... i can't really see any political dimenstion to it. at least no one explicitelly articutlated. but maybe thats just a tactic to persuade all the ad space owners. will be interesting to see the progress. in any case, its pretty ambitious."

"hi giartek.
can you post some? where? how much do you need. we might be able to send you some..."

"hi ventonlimono: pdf- yes, but the book is almost 600 pages, its hard to read this much from the computer screen. and its a beautiful object, so many people would like to have the physical version.

as for other options: its not that easy as i thought. paypal seems to be practically the option with least integration and bureaucratic hassle. so the dilemma is still here."

"thanks RebelZ, this look prommising."

"thank you giartek and loki,

hm, not than many options that work internationally and are not complicated. "

"Hey Frederic,
we do not have distribution deals with NA, but the book will be available for order through Internet."

"hey bertram, we are working night shifts, final corrections of text etc...should be out of print next week. than we publish previews here on memefest.org"

"this image means conflict, yes. it's one of the images we are considering in using in the poster triptych. posters are not completely finished yet, but should be by beginning of next week.

i agree very much with your comment about the vertical structure of our society. a great observation.

love is definitely already a conflict. but the question is what kind of conflict and how love is related to conflict in the sense that conflict can generate a different structure of our society.

thank you for this feedback!

"

"I have been following some of JR' work for a while. As a fan of Photography, this to me is one of the more beautiful and smart projects that could be seen as a public intervention. Particularly i like the work he did in Kibera "Women are heroes". Just perfect.

Im still wondering how does he do it? He posts his photography on this bridge in the middle of Paris- How does he take measures of the construction?

Anyway- good to see that TED recognizes such fantastic talent and work. Its also interesting that he wants to be anonymous. Similar than Banksy. "

"hi milena, thank you for blogging this wonderful project! i like the point that museums should be aware of the role they are playing and their mission in society. it is so very true, that cultural institutions act in many cases the same way as commercial corporations do, especially when it comes to money interests. compliment also to the activists who did the action. very well done and a good poetic concept!"

"Here is one other nice project: “A 10-meter magnolia tree is planted in the center of Chile’s National Stadium where dictator Pinochet in 1973 imprisoned thousands of political prisoners who were tortured and killed. After planting the tree, the stadium doors are open to the public as a park; offering a space to stop, look again, and remember. An impossible, cathartic soccer match played before 20.000 people, closes the project after a week of activity.”

http://www.rebelart.net/diary/van-der-art-iii-sebastian-errazuriz-memorial-of-a-concentration-camp/005028/"

"An interesting observation from sociologists about Netherlands is that the very mus praised culture of tolerance is actually giving people the excuse not to care about anyone except them selves as long as the other does not interfere in to your own life.

I could observe similar reactions and thoughts as you are describing, when i was talking about Memefest with north Americans. They think that Memefest could evolve from a country that just started it's capitalist journey, still having a socialist historical memory.

I guess this is partly true. When capitalism came to Slovenia it was like a shock. The shock is still here and getting bigger, although a prevailing cynicism that proclaims: "there is no other alternative to capitalism" is stronger and stronger too. The de-politicization - in my opinion- does not manifest it self in lack of opinion, but in the fact that everybody has to have an opinion about everything. However this opinions somehow doesn't correspond to any social action in everyday life. Why is that? "

"Hi d-cultural! That is highly interesting- 360 degrees projections! I checked the World Wide festival page-- very good. It's exciting to think about a "love:conflict, conflict:love" projection. I love it! :)"

"ej ana, tukaj odgovarjam na requested comment.
zgleda da dela. :)"