Dorkbot Melbourne 21 : 31 August 2008
We meet at 4pm, on Level 1, 124a Johnston St Fitzroy 3065 (just east of Brunswick St).
This Sunday Dorkbot Melbourne once again brings together inspired and inspiring minds from all over the known universe (and abroad) with a stellar lineup of presentations! Everyone with an interest in doing strange things with electricity is invited to come along and check out the presentations and participate in lively discussion. Doors open at 4pm, presentations start at 4.30 sharp. Bring your friends. Bring drinks and nibblies of your choice. Scheduled talks are outlined below.
As usual there will be an opportunity for anyone to spend a couple of minutes explaining what they're up to, promoting related activities and events, or requesting help. You're welcome to just turn up and ask on the day, but feel free to let us know in advance. Also, please get in touch with us at ( dorkbotmelbourne@dorkbot.org ) if you'd like to present something at a future dorkbot.
Free Software Art: Work In Progress
Javier Candeira
Free Software, also called Open Source, is code that can be freely shared, used, modified, even sold. Software Art is discipline that creates and studies artistic artifacts composed exclusively (or mainly) of code. Freesoftwareart.org is a project established for the promotion, study and catalogation of Software Artifacts shared under Free and Open Source licenses. It's a deliberate intervention in the political economy of software art, an embedded anthropology experiment in shaking the digital arts establishment out of its preemptive copyright mindset.
The first leg of the project is an essay/manifesto on the advantages of Free Software licensing practices for artists curators, historians and archivers in the three stages of production, distribution and conservation of Software Artifacts. The second and third legs of the project, currently ongoing, study the impact of Software Art on the Free Software community and on the art community at large respectively.
Javier Candeira is a Spaniard living in Melbourne. He co-founded barrapunto.com (the "Spanish Slashdot"), helped in the adaptation and launch of the Creative Commons licenses in Spain, and teaches Introduction to Free Software int he Masters in Free Software at Universidad Oberta de Catalonia. He has writen extensively on peer production and digital aesthetics, for media ranging from Revista de Occidente to Rolling Stone Spain. Currently he typing his bio into a computer, writing about himself in the third person.
Help Your Self
Narinda Reeders
Narinda will be joining us to present both artistic and technical perspectives on her installation 'Help Your Self' which was exhibited during the 2007 EXPERIMENTA PLAYGROUND: International Biennial of Media Arts.
The “Help Us Help You Help Centre” is an ATM-style kiosk that provides self-help for a convenience driven society. Lydia, a slick, corporate self-help guru with a short temper and strong opinions, guides you through this interactive installation with a series of questions, prompting you to respond by speaking into a microphone. As a voice-activated character, Lydia is prone to misinterpretation. She will probably get your name wrong and doesn’t hesitate to berate you if she thinks she hears you swearing in a public place. She asks very personal questions, and her comments, assumptions and attempts to give you advice are not only unhelpful but also often amusing. Help Your Self parodies the potential for self help gurus to prey on our vulnerabilities and plays with the increasingly blurred line between public and private in our society. Taking two ubiquitous ideals of our culture, self-help and self-service, to an absurd level, we are offered a particularly inconvenient convenience and some unhelpful and potentially damaging advice.
Narinda Reeders is a photo-media and performance artist based in Melbourne. She is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts and also holds a degree in Psychology and Computer Science. Her art work combines digital video, photography and interactive media to explore urban dystopia and the increasingly blurred line between public and private. Narinda’s photography has exhibited widely, including the Centre for Contemporary Photography and the Australian Centre for Photography. She was also a finalist in the 2003 Leica/CCP Photo-documentary Award show. Her interactive work has been exhibited in the last two Experimenta exhibitions and has toured both nationally and internationally. She recently completed a residency at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley California.
Narinda has been working as a computer programmer for over ten years in both large and small organisations. She is currently working for the digital studio Portable Content developing websites.
OpenDorks
Please announce yourself to the presenters if you want to make a short communication (three to seven minutes) about your project, work in progress, or make a petition for help (material, technical expertise, etc needed).