No ano de 2006 a MetaReciclagem recebeu no Prix Ars Electronica, na categoria Comunidades Digitais. Seis anos depois a organização do evento insistiu para que escrevêssemos a rede novamente. Nos últimos dias, Felipe Fonseca, Tati Prado, Mariel Zasso, eu e Adriano Belisário reunimos alguns recortes e perspectivas e acabou que saindo esse texto (ing):

Prix Ars Electronica 2012
Entry in Category: Digital Communites

Project Information

Title of submitted project: MetaReciclagem Network
Year the work was created: 2002
Web Address of the Project: http://rede.metareciclagem.org

Project Details (max. 3.000 characters per question)

Project History:

MetaReciclagem appeared in 2002 as a distributed group in Brazil advocating the need for a deeper understanding of information technologies. Soon it established a lab in São Paulo which refurbished used computers with free/open software and delivered them to social projects. São paulo has a huge inequality and social tension, but is also a cultural melting pot with lots of distributed creativity for solving everyday problems, and particular social dynamics responding to individual scarcity. MetaReciclagem decided from its inception to attribute the proper relevance to such important cultural skills in its own actions.

From the first lab it migrated to another one in a public park in Santo André, in the industrial ring around São Paulo. The park articulated social engagement, arts, environmentalism and new technologies. It offered MetaReciclagem room for an important experimental phase during which it got closer to co-ops, social movements and activist groups. During that time it grew in a distributed way, being replicated autonomously in other parts of Brazil: Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Amazonas. Every one of these labs was free to make their own decisions upon practical issues, following a simple set of principles: use, develop and share free/open knowledge; apply a de-construcive approach to technology focusing on social change; use an autonomous network infrastructure to communicate between labs. By then, MetaReciclagem started to collaborate internationally, at first with the Waag-Sarai platform and later with plenty of other initiatives.

The year 2002 has seen the election of president Lula. It enabled a number of gov projects inspired by the World Social Forum ideals: solidarity, autonomy, diversity, participation. Particularly the new Ministry of Culture led by Gilberto Gil became the testbed for a new sort of public policies, such as the Pontos de Cultura – a network of grassroots cultural centers all over the country (now amounting to 2,500). Members of MetaReciclagem, together with other networks, were invited to plan and implement the strategy of digital culture for the Pontos de Cultura. The outcome was a succesful mixture of cultural diversity and appropriated information technologies guided by principles of open licensing, free/open software, autonomous infrastructure and a human take on technologies. Its bases even outlived the political context, being (even more) active now that the Minister was given away to the copyright industry.

From then on, MetaReciclagem grew organically, silently but decisively influencing other large-scale projects, as well as keeping a high level of innovative thinking in its actions. It willingly avoids the trap of institutionalisation: the network is self-regulated, composed today of almost 500 people and dozens of independent organisations, not one of which is able to respond for the whole. Dozens of child projects, labs and events were created within MetaReciclagem over the years.

Objectives:
What can be seen as a common characteristic within the diversity of MetaReciclagem projects is the sensibility about the importance of opening up access to the processes that reside beneath different technologies. Technologies here are understood in a broad sense: from a networked computer or mobile phone to a toothbrush, social organisation models or the use of fire or language. Not only will MetaReciclagem members promote the critical appropriation in such bases, but they will get back to the network to report acquired knowledge, check its validity and propose new ways to understand it against former conversations. That creates a sense of belonging and a disposition for true exchange between its members, whether it is a hackerspace in a big city, a nomadic workshop taking place in an indian village, an science-art lab, a large-scale government project or a community internet access center close to the Amazon forest. What's important is for people to be in contact to each other and share knowledge in an open fashion.

Team:
MetaReciclagem has always been and will remain forever open to anyone interested. The barrier to entry is very low: an unmoderated mailing list is its main organisational tool. Currently, almost 500 people from very diverse backgrounds are subscribed to it. The website has over 1,200 registered users. An estimated 8,000 people have attended MetaReciclagem workshops, courses or events over the last 10 years (an approximate number, given its conscient lack of control systems). Many more have been indirectly influenced. Its many subprojects, groups and spaces take place in at least 13 states of Brazil, having their own particular teams, decision-making processes and methodologies.

The integration between those different contexts is carried by a variable group of around 15 people who act voluntarily as network articulators. Some members of that group are also part of Mutirão da Gambiarra (MutGamb), an editorial collective created in 2008 whose objective is to make explicit the different narratives about MetaReciclagem by compiling online discussions, interviewing people, editing periodic and sporadic publications and organising meetings. MutGamb has published nine online publications, keeps a very active weblog about MetaReciclagem and was awarded with the national Free Media Prize in 2010, one year after MetaReciclagem earned the same award.

Lessons learned:
As the name implies, we began identifying MetaReciclagem with the idea of recycling. Only later did we realise recycling is a term related to a specific function in the industrial system – turning waste again into raw materials. What we proposed was a totally different arrangement, in which people would approach technology in such a way to master its possibilities, exploring its indeterminations in a kind of collaborative, hyperconnected play. That's far from the usually acknowledged meaning of 'recycling', which often leads to a shock of expectations: people join MetaReciclagem willing to know more about how to 'recycle' computers, and are then dragged into an environment in which everything they think about technologies is to be questioned and criticised. Over time we learned to enjoy that kind of situation, understanding it as a sort of cognitive dissonance that can provoke creative and learning processes.

For some time we have also identified MetaReciclagem with the idea of 'breaking myths' about technology. In discussing that in our mailing list, we came to realise the vital importance of myths in human cultures – as carriers of historical learning, ethical values and technical skills. It was because of that understanding that emerged projects such as the editorial collective MutGamb mentioned earlier – whose first goal was to compile reports on the history of MetaReciclagem and its diverse manifestations.

Statement of Reasons:
More than any individual outcome of its initiatives, the real value of MetaReciclagem lies in its networked dynamics. The links between people are not strong as to demand complex, legitimate decision-making processes, neither are them so weak as to despise affection as its most important asset. In that sense, MetaReciclagem as a network exists only as a collective narrative, always renewing the roles of its members, its own goals and references. It is a social organisation that escapes the dead ends of 20th-century style institutionalisation – based on the establishment of clear boundaries between 'them' and 'us' in order to scale up and compete for a specific 'niche'.

Ever innovative, active and influential, on the other hand MetaReciclagem voluntarily undermines the particular ascendance of its individual members (some of whom are in actual positions of power within the political system) by creating a parallel conversational instance in which everyone has a say.

Promoting the discussion and experimentation on critical issues regarding the role of technology in the society, enabling effective cultural, artistic and educational production in such a context, valuing important brazilian cultural characteristics – especially in a world doomed to environmental collapse, increasing social intolerance and financial crises-, developing a participatory and inclusive social arrangement and pushing an agenda based upon human values, MetaReciclagem may present a model for those interested in making the world a better place. Many of its members would indeed mention that – making the world a better place – as their aspirations within MetaReciclagem, and perhaps it is the awareness of the deep subjectivity and its ultimate practical unfeasibility that bonds us together.

Planned use of prize money:

Apart from all its particular projects in very diverse organisations, the MetaReciclagem network owes its collective identity to encounters that take place extra-institutionally. The mailing list, website, IRC channel and other online environments play an obvious role on that, but presential meetings are of vital importance. There is a disposition to promote at least one large-scale meeting every year, in different places of Brasil. The third edition is happening in May 2012. The prize money will help fund the next edition in 2013, intended to be the most international so far.

Further material entered:

http://planet.metareciclagem.org/

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=metareciclagem

http://duckduckgo.com/?t=lm&q=metareciclagem

http://scholar.google.com.br/scholar?q=metareciclagem

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=metareciclagem

https://vimeo.com/tag:metareciclagem

https://twitter.com/search/metareciclagem