Tactical Media Club, Alexandria d’Egitto

Me and my friend Joanne Richardson, filosopher and filmaker, were invited from the Contemporary Art Forum of Alexandria to run a five days workshop/club on Social and Tactical Media. In the workshop partecipated young artists, grafic designers, filmakers and researchers from Alexandria and Cairo. Egypt doesn’t seem to have a big tradition of resistance in the media and internet field, due to the repressive egyptian state policy and to the State control of information, media and the Internet. Egypt indeed have arrested bloggers and closed sites. In february Karim Amer faced the trial for writing blogs criticizing Egypt’s al-Azhar religious authorities, President Husni Mubarak and Islam. He was first detained by the Egyptian authorities for 12 days in October 2005 because of his writings on his blog (karam903.blogspot.com) about Islam and the sectarian riots which took place in the same month in Alexandria’s Maharram Bek district. After he was charged and released, disciplinary measures were taken against him and he was dismissed from al-Azhar University in March 2006. The university’s disciplinary board found him guilty of blaspheming Islam. He’s still under detention. This repression doesn’t seems to go together with the initiatives on freedom of information, digital culture and access to knowledge carried on in the Library of Alexandria. Is this only a cosmetic institutional strategy? Maybe the egyptian society is ready for a political and social change! I will write more impression on Egypt later…

Pixelache Elsinki: International Festival of Electronic Arts

From 13th to 17th March I have been invited to Pixelache Festival, an international festival of electronic Art organized by juha huuskonen in Helsinki. The theme this year was exploring education in the cross-roads of science, technology, art and culture. I partecipated, together with my peer and friend Federico Primosig in the panel “Signals from the South” to exchange infos on differents projects developd in cooperation with southern countries. Me and Federico talked about countercultural digital networks in Italy, Pontos de Cultura in Brazil and the policy of Venezuela Government towards free software. Enjoyed very much the presentation of the MOWOSO collective in Kinshasa, Congo and the ideas for next Pixelazo in Colombia…maybe would be able to go there..During the festival my friend Jean-Noël Montagné presented the Bricofone project and the Bricolabs Network. I enjoed very much also the Arduino workshop and the presentation of Vidalab in Colombia.

EcoySol: technological and scientific cooperation between Europe and Venezuela

EcoySol was organized in February 2008 in Rome. a week of conferences, workshops and seminars on Digital Ecosystems, Free Software and Free Knowledge as part of a cooperation on science and technology between Europe and Venezuela. The Event was organized by Libero Sapere and Solve, The Association of Free software in Venezuela. Co-organizers Invited Institutions were Cenditel, CNTI, CVG, Idrobolivar, the European Commission and CNR. It was a week of promotion of cooperation between Europe and venezuela to research and develop Digital Ecosystems towards cooperative paradigms for the 21th century. You can download materials and picture of the event here: EcoySol