apc.au blog

That I would blog, or prepare a report at this time, when there are several people dedicated to recording the iSummit is likely an exhausting prospect. Thus, this article, a sampling of articles and reports on the sessions I’d been involved with. Three for now… let’s see how many more turn up before the close of the summit.

Fair and legal reuse of video

Composed by Simon Dingle covering the DIY video session, 31 July, this was a kind of roundtable sharing experiences in the use of CC rights management in various film / screen initiatives.

Grokking the Asia Commons

Simon covers the Asia Commons session, 30 July, that resulted in the following:

• developing case models/studies on the commons
• building a distribution network for asia (e.g. for multimedia contents)
• how to share presentations
• sharing strategies on advocacy

Live Blog: Asia Commons Meeting

I’ve arrived in Sapporo with Sarawak still heavy on my mind. Feeling good though… and optimistic despite the challenges ahead.

I’m here to produce the joint iCommons and APC micro doc, Identifying The Commons. Here’s a brief description:

The notion of what constitutes the commons has broad interpretations. So to does the information commons. This video will enquire into what is considered an information/knowledge commons through a series of short interviews conducted at the 2008 iSummit in Sapporo Japan.

The end result is a video resource for the iCommons and APC, additionally supporting the APC Strategic Priority Scoping paper, Growing the Global Information Commons.

For more information on this project, refer to our uber wiki!

A small team left Kuching for what turned out to be an 18 km trek visiting four remote Bidayuh communities affected by the Bengoh Dam development.

It was epic!

I’d not taken many notes on the trek itself, spending much of my time behind a video camera… and given the context of the trip, there are several stories I could tell.

Should I attempt to recount the forest soon to be drowned, walking into the heart of this region, opening out to me as if I were on a planet best described in detail by the author, Iain M Banks? Or the Kampongs (villages), which, to my urban eyes, were much like an apparition, the first of which could have come from J. G. Ballard’s, The Drowned World.

The Kampongs and the stories inherited there could consume a tome of works unto themselves, but I had little time for listening and with few people around and the focus of our mission being about land rights, it was not possible to absorb at length what will soon be lost.

To give you an idea, a very scant idea of what where I’d been, peruse the photos and these few posts:

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrew-garton/sets/72057594117560624/
• http://agarton.wordpress.com/2008/07/14/bengoh-eia/
• http://agarton.wordpress.com/2008/07/11/sarawak-going/

Producing the series on a miniDV cam (thanks Paul W) has helped immensely, however, I can see the value in recording straight to disk or memory card for these kinds of projects.

Either way, little to no budget DIY projects are based on the notion that you use what you’ve got and make the most of it. I think you’ll find the results pretty good… at least I’m happy with the material I came back with and now with editing in full swing, the results are starting to talk for themselves.

For information on the series:

• http://wiki.apc.org.au/index.php?title=Sarawak_Gone

On the Edge of Wrong #3 from andrew garton on Vimeo.

Earlier in the year I shot a series of shorts at the Cape Town based On the Edge of Wrong free music festival. The completed set of five are now online.

We’re producing a self-funded micro docs series titled Sarawak Gone entirely on location.

Sarawak Gone explores four remote Bidayuh communities accessible by foot within an hour’s drive from Kuching, capital city of Sarawak, Malaysia. They will lose their livelihood, traditional lands and culture, their rights and heritage with the development of the controversial Bengoh Dam project.

Sarawak Gone is a micro docs series intended to raise awareness to the denigration of the rapidly dwindling societies on the island of Borneo, the native land titles at stake and the rapidly decreasing habitats for protected and endangered flora and fauna.

Micro-docs are short, 5 – 10 minute documentaries designed for online distribution and portable media devices and laptop screening events.

For more information read Rengah Sarawak or the project description on our wiki.

Ten years ago I began working with the video artist and painter, John Power. We were keen to develop ways and means to fuse our improvisations in sound and image towards interactions that were both immediate and meaningful.

Our work continues having explored numerous means of live sound and image interplay, over many projects, recently culminating in the proof of concept machinima work titled Border Song.

Border Song was recently exhibited at the new RMIT Gallery, Field 36, from June 10 – 13. For more details on this unique collaboration read the exhibition notes.