apc.au blog

Frequent video updates and reports at EngageMedia.org.

Late 2008 a sensational homage to Creative Commons (CC) usage within Australasia was published. Edited by Rachel Cobcroft and produced in collaboration with the team at the Australian Creative Commons Clinic, Building an Australasian Commons features a vast repertoire of projects and initiatives that have employed Creative Commons licenses.

We are very proud and honoured to have been invited to have some of our projects represented here. Such a work has been a long-time coming.

Creative Commons is calling for more case studies to their wiki, also initiated by the energetic and inspired Rachel Cobcroft. Write up a story of your experiences with CC licenses or learn how others are using them.

Go CC wiki – Case Studies.

The Karen community, for whom 2009 is ancient history, will celebrate the year 2748 this December. Australia is host to a growing number of Karen who arrived here as refugees having fled their homelands in Burma.

In 2007, or rather, 2746, we began working with the Melbourne based Cultural Development Network on an internet video production series, Homelands, for young people from the Karen and Sudanese communities. The idea is to co-produce video pieces discussing their perceptions of homeland with other young people from Karen and Sudanese communities abroad, and where possible, those still living in refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border and / or Kenya and the Southern Sudan respectively.

This afternoon I worked with a group of Karen young people who have formed a web development team to start the work of producing a site that will support, develop and promote collaborative video production amongst themselves and young Karen abroad.

They arrived with a draft plan for their website, however it had not included any scope for supporting the video production project. What it did provide though, was a clear outline of information flows that would inform, guide and promote the project. It just needed the Homelands components added.

I showed them through Vibewire, SlumTV and EngageMedia. As I talked through each of these projects Homelands Project Officer, Kirsty Baird, logged onto a chat room on karen.org and found someone involved with the Karen community in California who not only makes videos but was keen to gather up stills and videos from Karen living there. The pieces were starting to fall into place.

Curiously, Vibewire seemed less representative of an online community of young creative people than I recall. EngageMedia will no doubt become the host platform for Homeland videos and SlumTV demonstrates what is possible when a clear framework is provided up front! SlumTV make no bones about what they do. They teach kids in slums how to make videos and screen them.

The next step was to ensure we could get a website up and running quickly – a site that would be easy to use, a site that supported not only the Karen’s vision, but a collaborative environment from which videos can be produced from. I showed them through Wordpress and got their lead web person, Friday, to set up a free Wordpress blog and Karen TV was born! It is but a humble beginning…

By the end of the workshop we had everyone signed up as contributors. We covered some basic publishing techniques in Wordpress, found a design template everyone was happy with and put together a small production team to re-design a header image.

It was a terrific outcome.

We have momentum!

I left the Melbourne Multicultural Hub, wandered up to a Korean grocery store, picked up some supplies for dinner and walked home in the rain. 

—

Photo: A Karen child from the village of Pilokkhi in Thailand near the Myanmar border. By Brian Adler, Public Domain, Wikipedia.

Given our end of year schedules Grant and I decided we would write to you in the new year at a time when we ought to be reflecting on what had transpired with an optimistic view towards the future… It is regrettable that the year has begun with yet more international travesties.

Regardless, we still send you all hearty greetings and best wishes for what we hope will be the year we all make a difference to the world, personally and beyond.

We would also like to thank you sincerely for your support to the projects and initiatives we have contributed to throughout 2008. If you have a moment, we would like discuss in brief some of the changes we had undertaken and achievements of 2008.

apc.au a virtual company

You may have noticed that we began publishing the description of our APC acronym. Although founded in 1997, in 2005 we re-focused ourselves on our core entity, apc.au. Since then we had decommissioned c2o (Community Communications Online), begun the task of archiving Toy Satellite’s first decade and revamping our publishing company, Secession Records.

More recently we undertook the clarification of our primary apc.au function to Advisory, Production, Commons Australia which was quietly launched in 2008, our 11th year.

apc.au a commons company

We are also very proud to announce that apc.au now operates as one of Australia’s first fully commons-based, and entirely virtual companies. In short, it means we govern our business in a collective manner, with special regard for equitable access, use and sustainability.

apc.au has been guided and motivated in part by a broad commons-based agenda, more recently defined through an emerging commons-based sector that seeks to literally unleash diversity, creativity and energy from the ground-up.

This can be best defined by author and scholar, David Bollier:

The commons is a new way to express a very old idea – that some forms of wealth belong to all of us, and that these community resources must be actively protected and managed for the good of all. The commons are the things that we inherit and create jointly, and that will (hopefully) last for generations to come.

The commons consists of gifts of nature such as air, water, the oceans, wildlife and wilderness, and shared assets like the Internet, the airwaves used for broadcasting, and public lands. The commons also includes our shared social creations: libraries, parks, public spaces as well as scientific research, creative works and public knowledge that have accumulated over centuries.

apc.au achievements in 2008

In our first full year as a virtual organisation we have worked on projects in Cape Town, Nairobi, Istanbul, Sarawak, Osaka and Tokyo and I am currently writing to you from the small gothic city of Graz, Austria, where we have worked on installations and radio drama / documentaries exploring commons themes such as forest communities and loss of native title, depression and anxiety and open rights management.

Projects have ranged from research for the internet video series Home Lands, production on the Sarawak Gone micro-docs, hosting Video Slam at Arts Law Week 2008, video production and presentations at the iCommons iSummit, participation in the first Growing an Australian Commons conference and the Open Spectrum Australia symposium, Quality / Control.

• http://wiki.apc.org.au/

Our record label, Secession Records, also released my “5 year in the making” album, Son of Science.

• http://secession-records.org/releases/

We have been inspired to have worked on some incredible projects this year. Very special thanks to all the people at Cultural Development Network and City of Melbourne, our colleagues at Open Spectrum Australia, Arts Law Consortium, Creative Commons Clinic and members of the Association for Progressive Communications.

We have participated in an ever increasing range of “commons” related activities and advisories, providing commons-based solutions to open publishing and rights management, from video production to web 2.0 implementations within the cultural development sectors.

I could take up another few screen pages on all the in-between projects and activities, but I won’t. I will, however, encourage you to visit our wikis and blogs, let us know what you’re doing and what we may be able to assist you with in the coming year.

• http://wiki.apc.org.au/
• http://secession-records.org/
• http://podcast.secession-records.org/

Support Sarawak Gone

And finally, a very special request… in February 2009 we will be hosting a fund-raiser to assist in pulling resources together to complete the Sarawak Gone micro-docs series and to also contribute to a second shoot in the region.

We are calling for donations to assist us in this project should you have any interest or capacity to do so, we would be very grateful.

Donations may be made via PayPal on either:

• http://wiki.apc.org.au/index.php?title=Sarawak_Gone
• http://rengah.c2o.org

All the very best from the “open”, friendly and entirely uncommon team at apc.au…

Andrew Garton & Grant McHerron

Home Lands is a recipient of an Australian Research Council (ARC) grant. apc.au will be involved in a component of the research being one of the partners of the application to the ARC. We are very proud to be involved in this project and to have been part of a successful ARC process.

What is Home Lands?

Home Lands is an internet television project made with entry level technical resources that connects refugee young people living in separated communities. Home Lands is underpinned by the premise that refugee youth resettlement is more successful if identification, communication and engagement is maintained with home communities.

Many young refugees struggle to develop positive cultural identities. The Home Lands project will explore the role that information and communication technologies (ICTs) can play in connecting young refugees to their diasporic communities and demonstrate how this can assist them in developing positive social and cultural identities.

How will it work?

Separated production teams collaborate towards the creation of regular internet television programs that are then broadcast to communities at either end of this production spectrum and to other community members around the world. Preliminary stages of the project will see the use of Engage Media’s video distribution software and Creative Commons licensing, which may well form the basis of a dedicated media delivery platform in the future.

What has Home Lands done?

Over 2008, the Home Lands project has been in a research and development  phase, through funding from the City of Melbourne’s Community Cultural Development Program and VicHealth (Victoria’s peak health promotion body). The Home Lands project has recently been funded over three years by the Australian Research Council and will continue to receive funding from the City of Melbourne throughout this time. Substantial research on the impact of ICTs on refugee/transnational identities will be undertaken by Dr Sandy Gifford at the Refugee Health Research Centre, La Trobe University, as part of the project.

A Home Lands future and partnerships

So far, work has been undertaken with Karen (Burmese) and Sudanese young people in Melbourne and Karen young people on the Thai-Burma border. We are seeking additional funding to support the on-going activities and are looking for international partnerships to support the international aspects of the project’s development over the next three years – 2009-2011 – in Thailand, Southern Sudan, Egypt and other Diaspora locations which could include Europe/USA/UK. Future phases of the project will see the introduction of other communities including Iraqi and Somali.

It is the intention of the Home Lands project that it becomes a sustainable resource to provide for on-going connection between separated communities around the world.

We all know how painful it is to let go of the things you love, the things you have nurtured and given life to. I have had to do just that with Toy Satellite. It has been time to move on…

Last year apc.au had decommissioned c2o, it’s hosting servers and along with moving to an entire virtual operation, it has sought to either continue to support Toy Satellite initiatives, or that of its own. After much soul searching, we chose the latter.

toysatellite.org is now an archive of its contribution to Australian New Media – a decade of innovation and experimentation from its founding in 1995 to its subsequent closure in 2005. Read more about this on my website.

The Graz commons with farms either side

It was a brisk, crisp walk to the Schloss Berg in Graz where the last in a series of public discussions on the commons was being held. The venue, Dom in Berg, a theatre carved out of a mountain (the Schloss Berg itself), actually in the mountain, provided an inspired setting for what turned out to be a pivotal, necessary and invaluable exchange of ideas and debate.

The focus of these discussions were towards Reclaiming the Commons – struggles, strategies, visions. David Bollier wrote about the first session, which I had regrettably missed, but captured the tone of it through David’s article. The panel was comprised of farmer and winner of the Right Livelihood Award 2007 Percy Schmeiser (CA); leader of Creative Commons Brazil, author and professor of law, Ronaldo Lemo (BR); author and Commons expert, David Bollier (US); founder of the Free Knowledge Network, Petra Buhr (DE); Commons activist and blogger Silke Helfrich (DE); political scientist and economist Massimo De Angelis (UK); and, Stefan Meretz (DE), who studies the political economy of the free software movement.

The following is based on notes I had taken during the discussions and as such, are not indicative of the depth and extent of the forum that took place. At the outset of the discussion, the moderator Silke Helfrich and David Bollier, keynote presenter, it set out two primary objectives, 1) Reclaiming the commons, 2) Building the commons.

Read more…

Many of you may have seen reports that the Australian government wants to establish an Internet filter system to protect Australians from harmful sites. Akin to the Great Firewall of China, this system introduces moral and legal issues as well as slowing down the Internet within Australia, breaking existing systems and simply not working as intended. It will also bring Australia down to the level of China, Iran, Cuba and other regimes that fear the openness and freedoms of information the Internet can bring.

The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, is pushing hard to establish this latest step in protecting us from terrorists and the dangers of the Internet. Many comments are being aired related to protecting the children and that anyone who is against such a filter is supporting child pornography. In a chilling indication of the misuse a filtering system could lead to, Senator Conroy’s department has even tried to suppress technical reports critical of the plan.

This proposed system is flawed on three major levels:

• Technical: It slows down the feed, it breaks some applications and it is possible to bypass it
• Legal: If the ISPs are filtering content without laws to support them, they are open to wrongful disconnection and/or wrongful blocking cases
• Ethical: By what standard is content being filtered? Differing religious beliefs and political leanings frequently result in varying moral codes – that which is offensive to me may be perfectly acceptable for you

apc.au believes that this proposed system is an invalid solution to the problem areas of the Internet. Australia should be enhancing existing methods of tracking down illegal content and online criminals rather than trying to find ways to block them. Australia should also be implementing improved education programmes to teach people how to safely make the best use of the freedoms and information the Internet provides rather than attempting to further protect us from ourselves.

We recommend that anyone concerned about the implications of an Australian Internet filtering system should immediately take action about it. In addition to following the issue on the Electronic Frontiers Australia site, an excellent site about the filter is No Clean Feed where they have a great summary of the steps you can take to voice your concerns. Actions range from an online petition to writing a letter to your representatives and calling Senator Conroy. There is also the Australian Web Industry Association’s site called Keep Your Filter Off Our Internet. For further reference to what’s happening in our government, the Open Australia site is a wonderful source of information about your representatives and how to contact them.

If you are concerned about any erosion of the freedoms that the Internet can provide, act now. Don’t just sit around complaining about it or getting upset, tell your representatives what you think.

We are in the midst of researching options towards a tool that maps arts events and activities in Victoria for people with disabilities. Options are:

• Create a unique customised tool;
• Implement custom features using off-the-shelf and open source tools;
• Utilise existing tools and services and aggregate them into a single website.

Personally, I’m keen on the third option. It’s the least expensive and wouldn’t require users to learn a new interface. As such, I’m looking at Google Maps and how this can be integrated into a simple web application for both search and data entry.

Unaware I was being video-taped, I was amused to find my talk at the DIY Video track at iSummit up on YouTube… this piece includes other presentations which were all quite amazing in fact!