Access to Knowledge Conference

Yale Information Society Project

April 21-23, 2006

Yale Law School

The information revolution holds great promise for development, freedom, and justice, but this potential is fragile. Without a coherent framework for why access to knowledge matters and an agenda how to achieve it, this potential could be undermined by the growing propertization and regulation of knowledge. The Information Society Project (ISP) at Yale Law School invites you to help determine the future of A2K.

MyCreativity

Convention of International Creative Industries Researchers
First Announcement

Date: 17-18 November, 2006

Venue: Club 11, Post CS Building, Amsterdam

Organisation: Institute of Network Cultures, HvA and Centre for
MediaResearch, University of Ulster

Concept: Geert Lovink & Ned Rossiter

More information: info@networkcultures.org, Sabine Niederer.
www.networkcultures.org/mycreativity

Introduction

Emerging out of Blair's Britain in the late 90s as an antidote to
post-industrial unemployment, early creative industries discourse was
not able for a promotional hype characteristic of the dot.com era in
the US. Over the past 3-5 years creative industries has undergone a
process of internationalisation and become a permanent fixture in the
short-term interests that define government policy packages across
the world. At the policy level, creative industries have managed to
transcend the North-South divide that preoccupied research on
the information economies and communication technologies for two
decades.

Today, one finds countries as diverse as Austria, Brazil, Singapore
and New Zealand eagerly promoting the promise of exceptional economic
growth rates of "culture" in its "immaterial" form. Governments in
Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, and the Netherlands have initiated
creativeindustries policy platforms with remarkably similar
assumptions andexpectations given their very different cultural and
politicalenvironments.

Despite the proliferation of the creative industries model, it
remainshard to point to stories of actual "creative innovation", or
to be evensure what this might mean. What is clear -if largely
unacknowledged - is that investment in "creative clusters"
effectively functions to encourage a corresponding boom in adjacent
real estate markets. Here lies perhaps the core truth of the creative
industries: the creative industries are a service industry, one in
which state investment in "high culture" shifts to a form of
welfarism for property
developers.This smoke and mirrors trick is cleverly performed through
a language of populist democracy that appeals to a range of political
and businessagents. What is more surprising is the extent to which
this hype isseemingly embraced by those most vulnerable: namely, the
contentproducers (designers, software inventors, artists, filmmakers,
etc.) of creative information (brands, patents, copyrights).

PIPS writes: Provflux 2006
June 1–4, 2006, Providence, Rhode Island

"The Providence Initiative for Psychogeographic Studies (PIPS) is pleased to announce its third annual Provflux, a weekend-long event dedicated to artistic and social investigations in psychogeography. Part festival and part conference, it brings together visual, performance, and new media artists, along with writers, urban adventurers and the general public. Events will take place throughout Providence to explore the physical and psychological landscape of the city. Provflux 2006 will be held concurrent with the (Conference for New Urbanism).

petra writes:

Take Back the Mic!

International Women's Day

Monday March 6 through Sunday March 12, 2006

CKLN 88.1FM to Focus on the Achievements and Struggles of Women in Week-Long SPECIAL PROGRAMMING, streaming here. Check out the schedule (hit "click here" in second sentence for the week's schedule)

CKLN 81.1 FM, the campus-community radio station based at Ryerson University, is hosting special programming to commemorate and celebrate International Women’s Day.

Our programming features a Live Broadcast of the International Women’s Day Rally, March and Fair beginning Saturday March 11 at 10am. The IWD Fair will be held on the main floor of the Student Campus Centre of Ryerson University at 55 Gould Street, the new facility that is also home to CKLN. We look forward to an energizing day with many guests dropping their two cents on the past, present and future of the feminist movement.

“One thing that’s new this year is blocks of programs focused on particular themes,” says CKLN IWD co-ordinator Sharmeen Khan. “Monday March 6 features the voices of First Nations women from 5–10pm.

On Wednesday morning we get up early for discussion on women and labour at home and abroad, from 6am to 11am. Wednesday afternoon and evening we focus on women’s bodies as sites of celebration and struggle, with a diverse line-up of guests talking about menstruation, environmental toxins, the impacts of poverty on health, transsexual and transgender identities, sex workers and their partners, and women’s boxing.”

Program director Tim May adds “International Women’s Day special programming creates space for women artists to showcase their work on our popular and unique music shows.

Look forward to female indie-rockers on Tuesday afternoon, 2:30-5pm; “String Sisters” featuring women bluegrass artists on Wednesday’s Radio Boogie, 10pm to midnight; and a look at women and jazz with a special feature on Etta James on Tien Providence’s “The Jazz Zone” on Friday between 7and 11am.”

On Thursday March 9, CKLN teams up with sex shop “Come as You Are” to present an art show with the work of former CKLN programmer Wendy Maxwell, known as Queen Nzinga. A refugee from Costa Rica, she was arrested on an immigration warrant at last year’s International Women’s Day Fair after seven years in Canada.

Her subsequent deportation focused attention on the precarious life of non-status people. The show runs all month. The opening, which includes a film screening of d’bi young’s “Blood”, is scheduled for 7–10pm. That’s at 701 Queen Street West in Toronto.

Plan your listening schedule NOW....visit www.ckln.fm and hit 'click here' to get to the schedule

For more information, please contact

Sharmeen Khan, IWD Co-ordinator (416) 979-5251 Email: iwd@ckln.fm

In March We Remember

Thoughts About Peace in a Time of War

New York City, March 8, 2006

An event of contemporary concert music, poetry readings, and visual images, with showcases of several independent publishers including Seven Stories Press, The New Press, Akashic Books, Verso Books, and Autonomedia.

Participant artists include composers Frederic Rzewski, Elias Tanenbaum, composer/performers Kristin Norderval and Philip Wharton in collaboration with Ensemble π, led by pianist Idith Meshulam.

Poetry readings by Charles Bernstein, Carolee Schneemann and Peter Lamborn Wilson.

Visual images selected from the archives of the art critic David Levi Strauss.

The event is made possible by the support of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Edward T. Cone Foundation, and Cooper Union.

In March We Remember

Thoughts About Peace in a Time of War

New York City, March 8, 2006

An event of contemporary concert music, poetry readings, and visual images, with showcases of several independent publishers including Seven Stories Press, The New Press, Akashic Books, Verso Books, and Autonomedia.

Participant artists include composers Frederic Rzewski, Elias Tanenbaum, composer/performers Kristin Norderval and Philip Wharton in collaboration with Ensemble π, led by pianist Idith Meshulam.

Poetry readings by Charles Bernstein, Carolee Schneemann and Peter Lamborn Wilson.

Visual images selected from the archives of the art critic David Levi Strauss.

The event is made possible by the support of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Edward T. Cone Foundation, and Cooper Union.

NOT BORED! writes:

Guy Debord Film Retrospective

New York City, March 5, 2006

In response to the way he was slandered in the French press during its coverage of the murder of his friend, Gerard Lebovici, on 5 March 1984, Guy Debord withdrew all six of his films from world-wide distribution. It wasn’t until shortly after his death (a suicide) on 30 November 1994 that two of Debord’s films were finally screened on French TV. Finally, in November 2005, Debord’s films were re-released as a collection. Most of these films have never been screened in New York. In this retrospective, all six of Debord’s films will be shown in chronological order and in the original French. No subtitles. Translations and other relevant printed materials will be available.

5 pm Hurlements en faveur de Sade (1952)
7 pm Sur le Passage de Quelques Personnes (1959)
8 pm Critique de la Separation (1961)
9 pm La Societe du Spectacle (1973)
11 pm Refutation de tous les Jugements (1975)
midnight In girum imus nocte et consumimu igni (1978)

Tickets: $5 per film.
Doors open at 4:30pm.

CHASHAMA@217
217 East 42d Street (between 3rd and 2d Ave.) New York City
www.chashama.org


NOT BORED!

Anonymous writes:

First General Assembly of New York Metro Anarchist Alliance

New York City, March 4, 2006

Calling all anarchists, anti-authoritarians, grass-roots anti-capitalists, and fellow travellers!

The New York Metro Alliance of Anarchists is holding its very first General Assembly and you're invited.

Time: Saturday, March 4th, 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Place: Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center (107 Suffolk Street, corner of Rivington Street), second floor.

NYMAA is a new anarchist organization that has been formed in response to the isolation, stagnation, and frustration felt by many anarchists and anti-authoritarians who live in the New York metropolitan area. We feel that in order for anarchism to truly spread and take root, anarchists need to band together for the purpose of initiating and nurturing a wide range of revolutionary projects. Our aim is to build a genuine culture of liberation and resistance that will ultimately be capable of rejecting the brutality of authoritarianism and domination.

As our organization is still in its infancy, the main function of this first General Assembly will be to bring people together in the same room in order to propose and begin concrete, coordinated anarchist activity through the formation of project-based working groups and geographically-based local unions. There will be ample time allotted for both casual socializing and facilitated discussion. Food and drink, as well as childcare, will be provided.

You can read more about NYMAA and familiarize yourself with its basic organizational structure (we strongly encourage this) at: http://www.anarco-nyc.net/nymaa.html

Proposals and other agenda items for the General Assembly are welcome. Please e-mail them along with any RSVPs (especially if you're bringing kids) to: nycfed-owner@lists.riseup.net

If you're unable to attend this General Assembly, we will be holding another one on April 8, so keep your eyes peeled for that announcement.

Slavoj Zizek Master Class on Jacques Lacan: A Lateral Introduction

A Four Week Course

2006, Birkbeck, University of London

The following dates for the Master Class have now been confirmed. All sessions will run between 2.00pm and 4.00pm.

There will be no charge for this event and no booking is required. Seats will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. We recommend that you turn up to the Master Class sessions in good time to avoid disappointment.

Our Lives Ahead

Because capitalism is worthless
Friday May 26 - Sunday May 28, 2006

Indianapolis, Indiana

a focused conference exploring the theories and practices of confronting
and dismantling capitalism from anti-authoritarian, anti-statist
perspectives.

Introduction

Capitalism isn’t the only system that restricts, demeans and sacrifices
our personal desires while striving for a liberatory life, but here and
now, it is the most identifiable, pervasive, consuming, and destructive.
It creates and perpetuates unfulfilling and exploitative relationships
through hierarchical frameworks. It swallows the time and space needed to
construct our lives on our own terms.

To put it succinctly, it is a monster that strives for totality.

If we desire to eliminate the exploitation and disparity of hierarchy, to
save all life from an increasingly desolate and mono-cultured environment,
to reclaim what is necessary for the realization of our desires, then we
must act to confront and ultimately dismantle the institutions,
relationships, and controls constructed and perpetuated by the capitalist
system.

From this basis, the Our Lives Ahead organizing group seeks to gather a
community of anti-capitalists and anti-authoritarians, or anyone curious
regarding such approaches, to discuss the theories and practices of
confronting and dismantling capitalism. The Our Lives Ahead conference
will be strongly focused on invigorating an anti-capitalist approach to
our theories, activism, and lifestyles while showing working examples of
the many ways we can reclaim our lives from the strongholds of a
capitalist framework.

So yea yea, the same ‘ol anti-capitalist jargon we’ve all been repeating
for some time now. What makes this conference any different from the rest
and why should I make yet another trip across the country?

Trust us, we too are tired of spending all our resources traveling to
conferences, sitting in the same old workshops year after year, feeling
our time is better spent socializing then developing our perspectives, and
frankly, being bored. So instead of offering up the default conference
structure of the past, we are making an attempt to invigorate our culture
with something more exciting, more engaged, more effective at
understanding what it’s going to take to create our own lives right now
and on into the future.

We’ve thought a lot about what turned us off at radical gatherings, and
most importantly, what inspired us. Taking these dynamics into
consideration we’ve set up a framework for the Our Lives Ahead conference
that puts our values into practice by instantly engaging everyone in the
conference creation and leaving behind as many of the soul-sucking
elements of capitalism we could think of.

We hope you are inspired by our efforts and want to come to Indy for Our
Lives Ahead. See you in May!

The Our Lives Ahead organizing group

www.ourlivesahead.org