Radio FRO Mediadays at the K2

Radio FRO „Mediadays 2008 - Open Networks Shaping Society? - Future in Progress!“
The Radio FRO media-conference within the frame of the ARS Electronica Festival 2008.
K2, University of arts and industrial design, Linz, Kollegiumgasse 2.

Radio FRO is organizing once again a media conference within the frame of the ARS Electronica Festival. This years conference, „Mediadays 2008 – Free Networks Shaping Society? – Future in Progress!“, is dedicated to a topic range including free, open networks, granting and fostering diversity, and organizational questions linked to these topics. Related to the questions raised this year, the formats and the organizational model as well as the organizational process of the conference have changed too. According to the raised questions, the organizational approach of the Mediadays itself has been changed. We switched from an old school top down, curating model towards a more open, participative organizational process, which needs, seeks and found active co organizational efforts from a variety of different and diversively engaged and interested civil society groups and initiatives.
But taking the topic cluster serious, active involvement of a broader public, is needed. Therefore, the central organizational tool we've chosen is a media-wiki, that enables anyone interested, to leave comments, hints…. and furthermore gain influence on the shape of the Mediadays as a whole.

Your approaches, ideas, suggestions… are what the Mediadays need. Of course technology and techniques will play a certain important role again, but not only technologies in the technical sense, but social techniques, social networking, and similar approaches, organizational conceptions and similar will find special attention.

Wireless network and initiatives active witin this field, like the initiatives, FREIFUNK or FUNKFEUER, blogging, social tagging…, wiki's and co plus other tools from the so called WEB 2.0 sphere won't be solely objects to be discussed, but moreover play a vital role in the emergence of the Mediadays.

But even shape and layout of the Mediadays have changed. The K2, one of the locations of the Linz' Arts University, will host the Mediadays, providing some rooms that ensure that the Mediadays can provide a frame fostering informal exchange, social networking and many other forms of interchange. Up to five rooms will offer the opportunity to have different topics with different approaches at the same time. There will be loose meetings, speeches, workshops, lab-situations for experiments and of course “Lightning Talks” at the evenings. Everyone and each group will decide the best fitting format for “their” topics.
Additionally the Lightning Talks will summarize the days activities and bring results, new questions which arose from the discussions within meetings and / or workshops and hopefully more than that.

These Lightning Talks with a maximum length of about 5 minutes will not only offer an overview on what happened during the day within the meetings and other activities, moreover they will offer an active participation to anyone, interested in the topic range. For all who need to know more or want to go deeper in details, there will be room to get in touch with those who contribute lightning presentations. The Lightning Talks will take place in the “Audimax” of the K2, a room providing wireless internet, projection facilities, microphones and more, or simply anything needed for presentations.
At least two of the smaller meeting rooms will be equipped with projection technology too, while at least two won't provide projection technology, but therefore these will offer a more comfortable setting ideal for interaction and discussion.

Additionally the DOKAPI, the students cafeteria and its terrace will provide space for informal, personal exchange and recreation…

After the Lightning Talks in the evening, the “transpublic”, an initiative and a location at the same time, will invite to hang loose, talk, relax whatever appreciated, and of course to get a glance of what will happen on the second day. Furthermore, the “transpublic” is the location where everyone interested will find information concerning the program, the schedule and so on and it will function as central reception for the Mediadays, and of course it is a nice place.

As participation and active involvement, openness and open access are key words of the Mediadays they are key concept of the organization too. Therefore the main parts of the Mediadays emerge from cooperation and collaboration between the participating organizations, teams and persons, while some other parts still are organized by the Radio FRO team and others result from the participation via the media wiki, which is the main organizational tool and the main information platform about the Mediadays at the same time. Therefore the diversity of aspects will be the result of the diversity of contributions and suggestions and finally from the interaction between all participants. Thus one of the main goals of the conference and it's open organization is to provide a framework and moreover to provide different approaches, aspects and of course persons with the means needed. So we seek mainly to foster self empowerment and to provide a frame useful for exchange, impartion, discussions, lectures, …. and similar. As open access is program and topic openness is part of the concept, while openness is still nothing to be taken without reflection of it's boundaries, it's pro and cons, and of course all of that needs be put into context. So we seek to challenge basic principles of community media and open source initiatives, without jumping against them but as well without mystifying these key terms and concepts. This simply results from the fact, that key words like free and / or open access, open source and similar became everyday terms and therefore blurred.

Till now mikro.FM and FREIFUNK, both from Berlin, KUPF (the umbrella organization of Upper Austria's independent, cultural initiatives), a group of anonymous, Linz based Radio-Interventionists, who will provoke Radio irritations, Nico Carpentier from the free university of Brussels, servus.at, the Linz based, autonomous cultural network provider and open resources group, social impact an other Linz based cultural initiative active in the field of open source solutions and concepts, Kiberpipa, a Slovene initiative activ in the field of open source, and some Members of CMFE (Community Media Forum Europe) and servus.at, a local not for profit network – organistaion, opensource experts group, net provider, arts and resaerch collectiv and free WIFI distributer, have confirmed their participation and active involvement. Some more suggestions and offers already happened, some more will drop in any moment and some more can be expected and offered, as there is no early deadline.
The ultimate schedule will be organized on a daily base so be curious and have a look at the mediawiki.

Zuletzt geändert am 14.07.08, 00:00 Uhr

Verfasst von Michael Schweiger

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