imagine if a group of self-organized individuals could come together on the Internet to create valuable products and services – and to establish their own “operating agreement” among themselves, according to their specific goals — and yet still receive the benefits of “legal personhood” that corporations enjoy.

This is now possible thanks to a new law in the U.S. state of Vermont, as reported by On the Commons.

Excerpts from David Bollier:

“It is one thing to talk about the “virtual corporation” and online commons as new organizational forms. It’s quite another to have those forms be legally recognized. Yet in a little-noticed law enacted in June 2008, the State of Vermont has formally conferred “legal personhood” on online communities that wish to form limited-liability partnerships.

The law was tucked into a bill called “Miscellaneous Tax Documents,” but the new virtual corporation law has enormous implications. It enables people to come together as virtual businesses, with dispersed partners who may live anywhere, and avoid the usual requirements that the company host in-person board meetings, maintain a physical office and file paper documents with the state.”

And why is this so important?

David Bollier concludes:

“Right now, any group of individuals that wishes to collaborate on a shared project and maintain some measure of control over the value generated – a software project, a wiki-based archive, a database – must incorporate as a company or nonprofit, or forge a partnership agreement. The law more or less forces a collective to operate under a traditional organizational form, and to spend lots of money satisfying various legal requirements of sometimes-dubious relevance.

Cloud law is a departure from existing law in that it enables online communities and corporations to legally name and protect certain collective, indivisible resources in online collaboration. The participant-members of a community or corporation can specify how those shared assets – a database of scientific research, for example – will be managed. Some might be accessible only to member-participants, while others might be treated as pure public goods, available to anyone: two different tiers of commons, as it were. The terms by which a shared virtual resource could be monetized could also be stipulated in the operating agreement, along with the specific membership rights of participants. “

The newsgroups have been under attack in recent months, led by NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. His efforts have forced a number of ISPs, such as Comcast, Verizon, and RoadRunner, to eliminate or significantly curtail access to the binary newsgroups. This action, it seems, has not dampened interest in the newsgroups.

I haven’t used Usenet in ages, but had been worried nevertheless that this important internet medium was dying …

But according to this news item about the growth of Usenet provider Giganews, this is very far from being the case.

Here’s their explanation:

“The newsgroups are one of the oldest mediums of the Internet, with an existence dating back to the late 1970s. Over time, the newsgroups have evolved from a bulletin board type messaging system to one of the premier avenues for file-sharing. Users of this network will often times argue of its overwhelming supremacy over rival BitTorrent.

With lawsuits, bandwidth throttling and politicking consuming the P2P community, the newsgroups are becoming a more attractive source of information. Because of the defined roles in the newsgroup community and secure transmissions, lawsuits against individuals are virtually non-existent. Unlike P2P, the end user is not required nor encouraged to upload material. Instead, dedicated users with the know-how and experience are responsible for providing content. And according to Giganews, those individuals and those posting messages are taking the newsgroups by storm.”

Receiver magazine (published by Vodafone) has a remarkable special issue on the state of geolocation services and the Geospatial Web.

Amongst the many interesting articles is the one by Anne Galloway on community mapping:

“We often think of mobile technologies simply in terms of their communication capabilities, but their increasing ability to trace our movements and collect information about the spaces through which we pass, can also make it easier for people to keep track of the places and things that matter most to them. From geo-visualisations and mapping mash-ups, to the mobile geospatial web and location-based services, people’s relationships to places (and each other) are changing.

Community mapping and sensing projects that use commonly available consumer electronics as environmental measurement devices, enable people to collect and view a wide array of location-based data. As a form of public science, such projects stand to reinvigorate environmentally focused civic engagement. However, given public concerns around environmental risks and their connections to technological progress, I believe that this kind of active citizenship should promote more critical reflection on the values and goals of the very projects that expect to create such profound changes in these domains, and carefully consider the limits of its own power.”

Martijn de Waal introduces MySpace Urbanism:

“this refers to the role of social networks, on-line profiles and tracking sites as spaces where we project our identities, through which we connect and which could lead to interaction in the real city. Secondly, the term implies that these media can help us to personalise the city: to focus only on the bits and connections that are of specific interest to us personally, to remake the city in our own image.”

Do have a look at the full table of contents!

Catherine Austin Fitts, a very astute financial observer and localization advocate, has published the last Solari Report this year, which is a very readable and useful year-end “wrap-up” looking back at events in 2008 and discussing what they mean to our future.

Apart from her analysis of the impact of the financial crisis, she also stresses the “good news”:

“One of the few good investment categories in 2008 was building local self-sufficiency. From the success of the Financial Permaculture conference in Hohenwald, Tennessee to the rapid spread of Transition Towns around the world, to the spreading of participatory budgeting from Latin America, efforts by local communities to re-localize are very encouraging. The logical response to uneconomic centralization is to look for ways to decentralize. Despite all the difficulties in the economy, entrepreneurs doing natural home building, farmers markets, starting farms, installing solar energy and weatherizing homes enjoyed a market moving their way. These efforts will continue to grow well beyond any shakeout.”

Here’s an outline of what else she discusses:

- The Slow Burn
- Bailouts: Where’s the Money?
- Financial Coup d’etat
- The Crash in Commodities: Temporary or Permanent?
- The Freezing Up of the Global Financial System
- Election 2008: The First Billion Dollar Candidate
- Russia, China, and the Middle East Rising
- Pension Fund Time Bomb
- The Shake-Out Moves into 2009

New Digital South has been undertaken a series of interesting interviews; the latest one with one of the technology thinkers that I respect most: Nova Spivack. (in fact, I know of no other analyst with such a clear and realistic vision of the further development of collaborative technologies)

Please note that our wiki keeps an extensive directory of such interviews, and that Bimal Shah also undertook an interview on peer to peer a few weeks ago.

A sample question from the interview:

3. I believe Twine (www.twine.com) is Radar Networks first product that helps people track their interests, using the Semantic Web and collective intelligence. Can you tell us more about the Semantic Web and the collective intelligence?

The Semantic Web is about the pendulum swinging to the back-end infrastructure of the Web. That is, it is about fundamentally upgrading the quality of the data on the Web.

As more pools of domain knowledge are added to the Web around various verticals, all applications will potentially benefit. This sets up a kind of network effect in which a global knowledge commons begins to form and self-amplify over time. For example, first the travel domain is added to the Semantic Web. Then someone else adds domain knowledge about geography and links them together. Another group then adds domain knowledge about hotels, and another one adds domain knowledge about weather – and these all connect to each other in various ways.”

(if this isn’t a harbinger of cultural change, then I don’t know what would qualify …)

Via Torrentfreak:

“Things are looking really good for the Swedish Pirate Party. Running up to the 2009 European Parliament elections more than half of all Swedish men under 30 are considering voting for them. Thanks to the Internet, its membership has grown 50% during the last quarter, surpassing that of the well established Green Party.

For the upcoming European election, the Pirate Party requires 100,000 Swedish votes to get a seat, a goal that is within reach in the current political climate. Falkvinge is optimistic too, and said “We need to grow by another 50%, counting from the Swedish election two years ago, to get seats in the EU parliament and shake the political copyright world at its core. It’s hard, it’s supposed to be hard, but the numbers show we can do it. We can do this, and the charts are going stratospheric.”

Steve Talbott, of the Nature Institute, (dedicated to neo-Goethean ‘wholistic’ science approaches) is a very thoughtful author on technology, who publishes a stimulating newsletter called Netfuture.

In the December issue, he reflects on the meltdown and what has been wrong with the justifications of the economists.

Here’s only the introduction. The full text is well worth reading.

Steve Talbott:

“Between November 1997 and March 1998 I published three articles in NetFuture under the title, “Beyond the Dreams of Avarice”, where I commented on certain destructive misunderstandings of capitalism. I subsequently conflated those three articles into a single chapter of my recent book, *Devices of the Soul: Battling for Our Selves in an Age of Machines* (O’Reilly Media, 2007). While streamlining and condensing the presentation, I found no need to alter the text substantively. And, in the current economic crisis, that text now seems to me at least as relevant as when I first wrote it over ten years ago. So I’ve decided to offer the book chapter here, by kind permission of the publisher. (You’ll find ordering information at the end of the article.)

How could we ever have imagined that sending people off on profit-making schemes — in an abstract, quantitative realm where the numbers are detached from real values and needs — could do anything other than create continually new and undreamt-of (and *never* adequately regulatable) opportunities for market disruption? How could we have imagined that banks and investments houses — supposedly serving the needs of the real economy — could forever reap profits totally out of line with the increased productivity of that economy without introducing terrible distortions *somewhere*? “

This post is a reflection on Tom Shermans essay ‘Vernacular Video’ and my weekend at Different Directions film festival – www.differentdirections.ie/

Manifesto on Art / Fluxus Art Amusement by George Maciunas, 1965 -

Therefore, art-amusement must be simple, amusing, upretentious,
concerned with insignificances, require no skill or countless
rehersals, have no commodity or institutional value.
The value of art-amusement must be lowered by making it unlimited,
massproduced, obtainable by all and eventually produced by all.
Fluxus art-amusement is the rear-guard without any pretention
or urge to participate in the competition of “one-upmanship” with
the avant-garde. It strives for the monostructural and nontheatrical
qualities of simple natural event, a game or a gag. It is the fusion
of Spikes Jones Vaudeville, gag, children’s games and Duchamp.”

I spent last weekend in Galway at Different Directions a festival of experimental film. On my way back to Belfast I got chatting with with a fella on the bus he scoffed when I told him what I was at, assuming that experimental also meant boring. I prefer the word ‘challenging’ myself . Anyway it was far from boring. It was in fact one of those rare weekends after which I felt my passion for film entirely revitalised. One of the highlights was Jean Luc Godards ‘L’Histoire(s) Du Cinema’.
Godard began working on the film in the late 80′s and completed it in 1998. Its an epic 266 mins long. The ultimate in remix and montage, the film draws on Godards unique knowledge of cinematic history, reaching into his personal video archive ‘L’Histoire(s)’ features clips from hundreds of films. Much of it was shot on video and I’m told edited manually (ie. without computers shock horror). Which is surprisingly low-fi for someone like Godard. Who we might expect would easily have access to the best technology of the day.
Its astonishing to consider how much the mediascape has changed over the past 10 years.

Tom Sherman in his essay ‘Vernacular Video’ said -

“Video in 2008 is not the exclusive medium of technicians or specialists or journalists or artists – it is the people’s medium. The potential of video as a decentralised communications tool for the
masses has been realised, and the twenty-first century will be remembered as the video age. Surveillance and counter-surveillance aside, video is the vernacular form of the era – it is the common and everyday way that people communicate.”

The moving image is reaching its considerible potential as a fluid medium of human communication. Practical limits to expression in this form are overcome by new technologies every day. Making access to the means of video production and distribution ever more accessible and affordable.
There may be more of a ruff and ready aesthetic to video online today, but perhaps this is because we are just at the beginning of a new stage in our relationship with the moving image. A wider engagement in the production processes behind video\film making encourages a more media savvy public. One that not only understands the language of the moving image and is capable of critically challenging its use by those with bigger megaphones (hollywood/advertisers), but a public who rather than rehashing the old aesthetics create their own. In time availability of greater bandwidth and greater media fluency may well smooth out the ruff edges we see today.

‘Video artists must have something to say and be able to say it in sophisticated, innovative, attractive ways. Video artists must introduce their brand of video aesthetics into the vernacular
torrents. They must earn their audiences through content-driven messages.’ – Tom Sherman ‘Vernacular Video’

Instead of artist having to make ‘content driven messages’ to compete for audience attention spans to make a career for themselves in the realm of vernaculer video. Instead of seeing the abundance of the gift economy as a highly competetive space, why not see it as an open space for diversity of creative expression, including the development of artistic practices that are not shaped by a need to compete, the internet supports such autonomy. We cant always say what art is for or what its meaning is, playing with this ambiguity is one of the great things about art. It not neccesarily the artists intention to baffle an audience, more often the artist respects the audiences ability to participate in creating their own interpretations of the work.

I agree there is certainly a rear guard tendency in the visual arts towards the emerging culture of vernacular video (different from the rear guard mentioned in the fluxus quote above). Some of this is generational, many experienced artists (often also educators) whos own practice, established in the gallery system, have simply no understanding of new media. The internet is not on their radar, nevermind the commons.
The question to ask is what world does the artist situate their practice in? Who are your audience? Is it more important to reach a thousand people geographically spread across the globe or to reach a thousand people in your town or city. Oddly it seems easier to get your work seen by people online spread across the world than to connect with local audiences.
My own hope is that this trend towards decentralization of cultural production will redress the balance between the consumption of mainstream globalized culture in favour of greater support for smaller local cultural producers?

Millions of videos are uploaded and downloaded everyday, but to produce a film like’ L’Histoire(s) du Cinema’ takes a lifetime. Tools and materials we have a plenty but these are not enough. Great art is not a practical exercise. It is fueled by life experience and a sustained engagement with ones medium whether that be film, text, music or whatever. Commitment and experience makes a master and that takes time.

Another masterpiece of remix is ‘The Society of The Spectacle’ by Guy Debord (1973). ‘Godards enemy’ as one film maker at the festival referred to him . The situationist critique of spectacular society is more relevant today than ever and its popularity has grown over the past few years, in no small part due to the availability of what would be otherwise obscure Situationist texts and films online.

“The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people mediated by images”
“Understood in its totality; the spectacle is both the result and the goal of the dominant mode of production. It is not a mere decoration added to the real. It is the very heart of this real society’s
unreality. In all of its particular manifestations – news, propaganda, advertising, entertainment – the spectacle represents the dominant model of life. It is the omnipresent affirmation of the choices that
have already been made in the sphere of production and in the consumption implied by that production” – The Society of the Spectacle – Guy Debord

Its true today we live in a world in which we are endlessly navigating a dizzying sea of spectacles. However there are significant changes since the time of the Situationists. Today we have a growing decentralized sharing economy. An economy which significantly disrupts that dominant mode of production, the process of commodification and the alienated subjectivity it produces. Today millions of people participate in an incredibly productive commons where the products of our labours can circulate freely further enriching communities in a kind of exponential cross fertilization of the commons. The value of artistic contributions to the commons are more difficult to measure though no less important than the more practical contributions of the free software movement.

Think of your favourite films, books, or music. What makes them so special? We all have different tastes, but truly creative works resonate with us on a personal level, they communicate something both meaningful and timely. We recognize the value in such things though it is not something you can measure, something you can put a price on. In the same way gestures both big and small contribute to the diverse wealth of the commons. Creativity flows and cycles much like water through all forms and bodies, good and bad, without distinction. The art of the commons is naturally more creatively fluid and spacious than that bound by the rigid antagonisms of the market. Free creative works lend themselves to a more diverse aesthetics then the crash bang boom of big media. The commons grows exponentially. It may take some time for its qualitative wealth to accumulate. Eventually it will reach the point at which its value becomes undeniable. Its transformative power unstoppable will bring some much needed balance to all this market madness. This could take a generation.

My 11yr old niece saved for the past year to get herself a laptop. She video calls me regularly on skype accompanied by my nephew who will be 2 in January. For their generation a screen is not just something to sit and stare at. Its a portal, an interactive window to other worlds.
The dynamics of this relationship are completely different to the old screen media, television and cinema of the 20th century. These changing dynamics so many 20th century heads struggle with, are second nature to kids today. In these early days we are still in a position to wonder what these changes mean. It will take some time for the effects of this new dynamic to fully permeate mainstream culture. What will shape the history of 21st century cinema? The question is intriguing.

Many habitually continue to treat the product of the commons like market commodities. The lines that distinguish the commons from the market are not always clear, but for the gift of free creativity to continue to flow its important that those of us who do recognise those differences to continue to share the love with those who don’t. Ti’s the season after all.

Michael Szpakowski is one of my favourite artists working with online video a detour by his vlog ‘Scenes of Provincial Life’ is always enjoyable – www.somedancersandmusicians.com/vlog/ScenesOfProvincialLife.cgi

Kevin Flanagan – kevflanaganvideoartblog.wordpress.com

Excerpts from an editorial by John Robb:

“Designers will need to focus less on macro or global level needs and much, much more on the needs of the local. Why? The solutions to macro level instability will be found in the development of local community’s that build systems and organizations that enable them to both withstand systemic shocks and prosper based on internal dynamics. This is nearly inevitable since architecture and design flow to sources of growth, and we will only see prolonged growth at the local and not the macro level.

So, get ready and get innovating, for if we can crack the design of the models necessary to accomplish this, it will propagate virally across the entire world.”

I missed this when it came out, i.e. George Siemens’ appreciation of the Peer 2 Peer University project:

“What do I disagree with? I disagree with the notion of “sense makers”. We make sense personally. No one makes sense for us. I’m also somewhat unsure of the formality of this approach. It bears within it too much of the existing university model. Why centralize things? The only thing we really need to centralize is the accreditation (i.e. open accreditation). Who really cares where or how people “got their learning”? Use existing networks of learning opportunities. This is P2P University administered through centralized models (which, then means, it’s not really P2P). I love the concept. I like the vision. I don’t like the execution. It’s foreplay when we need consummation.”