RADiCAL.PiRATiCAL: (a really) Open Call for Workshops
What is This?
Focusing on an exploration of various modes of non-legalist archival practices–non-legalist archives being those archives which are created without corporate or state interference, but are horizontally-curated, communal collections–RADiCAL.PiRATiCAL will aim to explore questions along the lines of how are independent archives formed and operated, how are legal and technical challenges grappled with, and how is information disseminated via these archiving practices? How can information be archived and shared not merely by state, corporate or institutional entities, but by individuals or community-based collectives?
The event will present three broad strands, under three pirate sails: case study presentations from those involved in various shadow archiving practices and projects around the world, theoretical situating of the myriad modes of resistance to intellectual properties as setting both the contextual and conceptual situatedness under which independent archiving may operate, and finally practical workshops exploring the potentialities of engagement in the DIY practices of shadow archiving.
Situated amidst a suffocating climate of a variety of existent barriers to open knowledge sharing–Digital Rights Management, verbose legalese injunctions, and pro-intellectual property agitation from vested corporate parties, to name but a few examples–RADiCAL.PiRATiCAL will be a two-day event focused on critically engaging with the politics and practices of so-called intellectual properties by creating, quite simply, the possibility for some breathing room in the discussion of the potentialities of the archive’s contribution to practices of data dissemination.
Where & When
RADiCAL.PiRATiCAL will take place May 2-3 in Malmö, Sweden.
Open Workshop Call
Does all this sound like something you don’t just want to attend but want to help shape and be an active participant in? We have a number of open half-hour slots on the workshop portion of the schedule where you can sign-up to conduct a workshop of your choosing. This being a genuine open call (meaning you don’t need to contact anyone for permission), simply sign up for a slot by editing the aforementioned schedule wiki page (you’ll need to register for an account before being able to edit), show up, and do your thing.
Potential workshops should somehow revolve around our theme of radical piratical practice, non-legalist archiving, or ensuing socio-economic-gender-political-et cetera dimensions thereof. Workshops can range from topics geared towards budding pirate beginners to arcane piratical esoterica.
When planning your workshop, remember that the workshops are meant to be ethnographic depictions of on-going/emergent pirate trends, operating in the realm of speculative potentiality (in other words, think ‘this is how smuggler pirates foil radar systems’ or ‘these are some potential weaknesses in existent radar systems’, not ‘this is how you should foil radar systems to engage in any sort of illegal maritime activities’).
Some random potential topic ideas could include the following (feel free to do a workshop on any of these!):
- The Politics of Piracy
- Radar Subversion Mechanisms Employed by Pirate Smugglers in the Pacific
- Setting up a Community PirateBox
- NFOs, SFVs, DIZs, and other Pirate Ephemera Explained
- A Reverse Engineering Primer
- Challenges of Maintaining Large-Scale Data Warehousing Arrays
- Optimal Video Encoding Methods
- Book Scanning for Budding Bibliophiles
- Pirate Sewing: The Art of the Knock-Off
More iNFO?
For more details, see https://RADiCAL.PiRATiCAL.cryptonomic.net
For all inquiries regarding the event, please contact Radi Pira via electronic mail: radipira {a.t.} sigaint.org