(e-mail enviado para a lista da waag-sarai platform)
After some time trying to rescue the lab in Olido gallery, we gave up.
After all, as I said before, it's major elections year, and the city
telecenters coordinator didn't want to understand that we work with the
federal government, but are in no way affiliated with PT or any other
party. For them, it's easier to think in terms of "who's with them is
not with us".
Then came A Teia, the megalomaniac meeting of the cultural hotspots,
solidary economy and related subjects. You won't understand the size of
it with the pictures. It was big. Too big, some say. Comments are that
BRL 8,5 million (~ USD 4 million) from fiscal incentives were spent in
the event. It happened in Bienal, the huge building designed by Oscar
Niemeyer in the middle of Ibirapuera Park. Over 500 projects from all
around the country were able to exhibit their products.
Products? Yeah. Ideas such as solidary economy and grassroots
entrepreneurship dominated the event, and are becoming more and more
present in the Cultural Hotspots. More important than cultural
production itself. But that may be subject for another e-mail. One of
the best results of A Teia has been that 25 cultural hotspots finally
got their "multimedia kits", composed of one server, one multimedia
workstation, one thin client, video camera, printers, audio equipment
and more, and brought the kits back home, with a customized multimedia
GNU/Linux distribution configured.
Last year, we were promised BRL 50k for a MetaReciclagem meeting during
Teia. Then it became to BRL 16k. Then less money and more
responsibilities. We gave up on the national meeting, and Dalton
decided to create an exhibition on things that he and Glauco have been
doing. Nevertheless, we scheduled a MetaReciclagem meeting, with people
from São Paulo and all the metarecyclers who were in the city for Teia.
Around twenty people attended. It has been our first meeting since
august, and a very important one. For the first time, Dalton was not
the center of the meeting. If we are to succeed in adopting a
de-centralized methodology, we can not depend in one person or group of
people to lead everything (even though we acknowledge the importance of
leaders, even in self-organized structures). Some people got to know
each other that day. By the end of the meeting, we decided to re-design
our online infrastructure and to write down some important concepts
that are needed to define whether or not a specific action can be
labeled MetaReciclagem. Some new ideas appeared, such as a periodic
two-page PDF publication to be printed and distributed in the Spores;
comix-style educational material related to MetaReciclagem; and a
weekly podcast. Let's see if any of that comes true. I'm very
optimistic with it.
In talking with people involved with MetaReciclagem in São Paulo, one
decision has been made: some of us will try to create a space in São
Paulo that does not depend on the municipality or any federal resource.
We'll still need to get paid, but the idea is to set up a space that is
somehow self-sustained. We're having conversations on whatg is the best
form for that to happen, and are planning to have concrete plans in the
next months. Now, I realize that that is what Waag/Sarai platform
requested us two years ago, but perhaps we were not ready yet. And,
anyway, I am really excited with the way things are developing with
des][centro. This space, of course, will be part of des][centro.
Then again, some of us are still involved with the federal government.
We have been called to create content for online courses on
MetaReciclagem for the Casas Brasil project, that is developing 90
"expanded" telecenters, with library, multimedia studio, auditorium
and... MetaReciclagem labs. It's been great in the sense that we were
able to focus on questions such as _what is MetaReciclagem_, and how do
you make people understand that. There are two courses, being released
with open licenses in the next weeks: one on MetaReciclagem concepts,
and the other on the praxis of MetaReciclagem. We'll publish them in
our own e-learning environment as well.
And some breaking news: this is not to be publicized yet, but
MetaReciclagem got honorary mention in digital communities category for
Prix Ars Electronica 2006. I don't know exactly what to expect from
that...