Month: May 2020

Fest concept paper

the draft concept paper I put together for the fest before we started. Linked below and I’ve included the full text below also just in case..the linked version is prettier tho..

https://openpublishingfest.org/paper.html

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  • People are fatigued with video conferencing
  • People are up and down, down and out
  • We need to switch up the format. Let’s create a festival that is fun and have a “drop in, drop out” feel to it.
  • Cheer folks up, celebrate open.

Concept

A festival, not a conference. Takes place over two weeks in May (May 18-29). We take the idea (but not literally) of “tents” as venues within a festival. There are many tents and each is curated around a certain theme. These tents have rolling events, sometimes gaps, sometimes gapless. Many events occur across all tents simultaneously. The tents relate to themes — Open Content, Open Source Software, and Open Publishing Models. There may also be a “main stage”.

All events are curated by thematic teams of people we trust. Each event is online. The festival website maintains the program of events. The central website is going to be very much like a festival programme, pointing to various events on each day you may wish to browse.

Content Themes

Open Content, Open Source Software, and Open Publishing Models are the themes of the Open Publishing Awards. We may also have a “main stage”.

Within this we will invite a number of trusted people collaboratively curate these threads. We have so far hooked initial interest from Dan Rudmann (Punctum Books), Christine Fruin (Atla), Chris Hartgerink (Liberate Science), and John Chodacki (FORCE11/California Digital Library) as well as a few others.

The content within these 3 themes will cover a lot of scholarly communications projects and materials but it won’t be exclusively Schol Comms. We may want to specifically branch into several areas including the open publishing of blueprints for emergency COVID-19 hardware — and the issues around this eg https://safecast.org/2020/03/announcing‑the‑covid‑19‑testing‑map/, https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as‑it‑happens‑thursday‑edition‑1.5502954/canadian‑doctor‑who‑works‑in‑gaza‑makes‑3d‑printed‑face‑shields‑for‑covid‑19‑1.5502964 as well as highlighting interesting publishing initiatives such as: https://coronavirustechhandbook.com/ and also the very interesting developments around publishers opening up their articles for covid-19 research: https://wellcome.ac.uk/press‑release/publishers‑make‑coronavirus‑covid‑19‑content‑freely‑available‑and‑reusable

Event Formats

Each event must take the form of one of the following:

  • panel discussion
  • fire side chat
  • demo

In addition we will have an opening and closing event (format tbd).

Streaming Formats + Tech

We will place no requirements on streaming tech, folks can use whatever they like, we will place an emphasis on giving us the recordings immediately after so we can keep an archive online for all events in almost-realtime.

Stand up a Mattermost instance. Low-fi (techwise) but good looking WordPress site, easy to update.

Scheduling

We will not require live events to be co-ordinated with timezones or timeslots. People that are contributing can choose a time that suits them as long as it is scheduled on the site before the festival starts. The site will look after converting timezones in the listings for display.

The Spice

Events to be augmented by performances.

Examples:

Puppeteers such as Hannah Clarke and Jon Coddington: https://silotheatre.tumblr.com/post/167022898348/qa‑puppet‑master‑jon‑coddington, http://www.puppetfiction.net/who.html, https://www.georgefm.co.nz/home/music/2019/11/watch‑‑fat‑freddy‑s‑drop‑return‑as‑marionettes‑in‑new‑video‑for‑.html

Jenny Ritchie and Immogen Stone, aerialists: https://www.jennyritchie.comhttps://www.imogenstone.co.nz/projects.html

TimesUp and Foam: http://www.timesup.org/overview/works https://fo.am/

Additional Ideas

Social Events, Kids Events, Festival Radio… tbd

Coko

Coko will be in the background for this. We are the founding org but we want to promote everyone in this space even our “competition”. We did this very well with the Open Publishing Awards (https://openpublishingawards.org/) and we want to take the same strategy with this.

Budget

Coko will cover initial costs.

Summary

This event will not only bring a lot of attention to some amazing open publishing projects but also get people engaged and help with both the ‘zoom fatigue’ and stir craziness we are all feeling. The end result will be a fun festival you can browse (either synchronously or asynchronously via the archive), and drop in and out of as you have time / attention.

Contact

adam@coko.foundation or chat at https://mattermost.openpublishingfest.org

Virtual Book Sprints

The amazing Book Sprints team…

While some organisations have really struggled to adapt to remote working during this time, we were actually fairly used to it and had good systems in place. Although we spent the last ten years running Sprints in real space in different places around the world, we were at the same time working remotely with our own production team. Connected across at least 7 different countries and timezones from to Nicaragua to New Zealand, our book designers, illustrators, copy editors and project managers have to coordinate well and turn around tasks very quickly. Our internal online collaboration is aided by a good mix of tools including the collaborative book production platform Editoria, the collaborative design application Figma and the the open source chat software Mattermost.

We now do Virtual Book Sprints

This written by a recent client to Book Sprints – Red Hat. The article documents their experience.

The key to success with this model is experienced and trusted facilitation, and excellent logistical support. Our Book Sprint facilitation team came through with flying colors.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-we-wrote-300-page-security-book-two-weeks-keith-basil/

Fests

So, I came up with the idea of the Open Publishing Fest in response to a few things:

  1. Coko couldn’t put on realspace events due to the virus
  2. the sector is depressed (emotionally)

So I figured we could do something a little bigger than our usual events and one that is deliberately designed to be a bit more fun and lighter. The event is very de-centralised, features musicians, some drag queen performances, mindfulness workshops, along with readings from books, fireside chats and various discussions. The original concept doc is here – https://openpublishingfest.org/paper.html

I think its going to be pretty interesting.

As it happens, this is a continuation of a long line of events I’ve put on. Starting way back when I was a little kiwi, lost for something to do and failing university, I put on an event the local radio station – Contact89FM. The event was called ‘The Deep Fried Orgasmic Ambience Gig’. It was a fund raiser and it was an amazing success. I think here I learned the basics of events – how to organise but not put yourself in the middle of it all, how to leverage upwards, organising venues, curating etc…

After this I later landed the job of Station Manager for Contact89FM and I put on a HEAP of events. Many years or organising events for the community. Many many years of long periods of sleepness nights while setting up venues, picking over art, logistics etc etc etc

After that I didn’t do too many events until net.congestion

The festival was held in Amsterdam in October 2000. Net.congestion was an intensive three-day celebration and critique of the new cultures that have arisen from all forms of micro-, narrow- and broad- casting via the internet, now collectively known as streaming media.

The event covered most of the interesting ground of the time for streaming media, from the transformation of issues surrounding intellectual property to the uses of streaming as a mobilisation tool for global resistance through to the more rarefied questions of aesthetics and how narratives are transformed when embedded in networks. The overwhelming experience of many visitors to Net.congestion was a sense of tools, networks and sensibilities being re-purposed, returning us, again and again, to a primary experience of the net as a social space.

Net.congestion occurred just months before dot.com bubble burst, exploding the ‘new economy’ and ‘the long boom’ with its fantasies of a world in which the economic laws of gravity had been repealed. There is no doubt that if the same event were to be held now, the atmosphere would be markedly different. It is not that Net.congestion was an industry event which depended on the hype for its existence, as the very title indicates that we mixed a healthy dose of skepticism with our festivities. But none of us, however critical, can entirely escape the zeitgeist and there is no doubt that in those brief heady days Warhol’s aphorism was re-written; we could all dream of becoming billionaires, if only for 15 minutes. A strange historical phase when (particularly for anyone involved in streaming media) the normally fixed boundaries between business, art, technology, science fantasy and just plain bullshit temporarily blurred to create a moment of unique cultural hysteria. In that sense our timing was perfect.

After that I did some stuff but most notable was an event called re:mote… a series of remote events around the world…starting with an event in Auckland

re:mote
re:mote: auckland was the first in a series of one-day experimental festivals, bringing together new media art practitioners and theorists from Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand to discuss the theme of remoteness and technology.

re:mote: auckland featured on-site, online and pre-recorded presentations analysing the way that digital technologies can augment collaborations across geographical and cultural distance. Artists and commentators from London, Newcastle, Helsinki, Rotterdam and Sydney gave presentations of their work via live video stream to an audience in Auckland. Presenters from around New Zealand also attended in person to share their work. re:mote is to be an ongoing series of events, which will take place at locations around the world. re:mote: auckland was the global premiere of this series.

re:mote explores questions like: what does it mean to be remote in an electronic art world? Are there ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’ within a world increasingly bridged, criss-crossed and mapped by digital technologies? Can technologically mediated communication ever substitute for face-to-face dialogue? Is geographical isolation a factor in contemporary art production? Is remote a relative concept?

The keynote presentation was from Japanese artist, radio pioneer, and lecturer, Tetsuo Kogawa, who travelled to Auckland especially to present at re:mote, on the topic of technology and the body. He also performed with and demonstrated micro fm transmission.

re:mote: auckland took place on Saturday March 19, 2005, from 10am to 7pm at the Elam School of Fine Arts lecture theatre.

and including at least one other event in Regina, Canada:

re:mote regina is an experimental symposium and international net-based festival that links new media practitioners and theorists from diverse areas through a mixture of live and online presentations.

re:mote: regina is the second in a series of one-day experimental festivals, bringing together new media art practitioners and theorists from Europe, Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand to discuss the theme of remoteness and technology.

re:mote: regina will feature on-site, online presentations analysing the way that digital technologies can augment collaborations across geographical and cultural distance. Artists and commentators from Nice, Auckland, London, Vancouver, and Toronto will presentation their work via live video stream to an audience in Regina. Local artists from Regina will also present their work. re:mote is to be an ongoing series of events, which will take place at locations around the world. re:mote: auckland was the global premiere of this series.

re:mote explores questions like: what does it mean to be remote in an electronic art world? Are there ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’ within a world increasingly bridged, criss-crossed and mapped by digital technologies? Can technologically mediated communication ever substitute for face-to-face dialogue? Is geographical isolation a factor in contemporary art production? Is remote a relative concept?

looking back, it somehow feels like I’ve been walking a straight line…