KopCommonsInvite

From UoWiki

http://kop.fact.co.uk/KOP/images/kop-logo.gif

Dear uo,

I should have forwarded this to you ages ago, so apologies.. but a little introduction now:

Armin Medosh (a sometime Uonik) and Shu Lea Chang have set up a game for us to play. It's called 'game commons' and is currently living in a drupal install here:

http://kop.fact.co.uk/commons/tales

This is a follow on from some excellent stuff they've produced in recent years as the 'kingdom of piracy' (previously instantiated here: http://kop.fact.co.uk/ and in several other places from which its evil piratical propaganda has now been purged.

You can go and sign up and I think you might be able to identify yourself as a uonik and we play for points and cash prizes! (see the end of Armin's email).

So, I'm thinking we could maybe play a little game commons of our own with this.

There's 200 squids on offer here - for participaing in a distributed storytelling and remote participation game of who can post the most interesting commons-related things to the kop blog.

The uo already has a wealth of material on the subject, some of it accreted at the Uo Economic Observatory: http://uo.twenteenthcentury.com/CrEconomicObservatory , but there's a lot scattered elsewhere on the wiki.

So here's another game we can play:

Sign up to the blog, identifying somehow as a uonik (I've used a link to the uo wiki as my 'signature' on the site - so all my posts and stories will be signed with it) and then harvest content from the uo wiki - remixing, and re-editing as you go (or just writing new stuff altogether).

At some yet-to-be decided end point - but quite possibly on Sunday the 17th April 2005, we can gather and, over food and drink, have an internal research assessment excercise (which kind of relates to some conversations we've had on the list about RAE and academic valuation systems: http://mailman.twenteenthcentury.com/pipermail/uo/2004-September/000623.html).

The RAE wil be our second ever OrgiasticBoard meeting: http://twenteenthcentury.com/uo/index.php/OrgiasticBoard (the last one was back in Jan 2003 where the Uo name was decided on).

The winner gets to decide what to spend the 200 squid on. And possibly, they also get to pay for the meal :)

The terms of the RAE and the criteria of choosing the winner will also have to be decided upon, of course. So perhaps we can start that process with a game of wikinomic:

nomic: http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/nomic.htm uowikinomic: http://twenteenthcentury.com/uo/index.php/UoWikiRaeNomic

See you in the Kingdom,

X

S.

• ---- Forwarded message from Armin Medosch <armin@NOSPAMeasynet.co.uk> -----

From: "Armin Medosch" <armin@NOSPAMeasynet.co.uk> To: Saul Albert <saul@NOSPAMtwenteenthcentury.com> Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 15:28:59 -0000 Subject: commons | tales | rules - sign on

dear saul and the uo

As scheduled (with a bit delay), we are now ready to launch the Commons R&D platform. (powered by Civicspace, developed by Jo Walsh of London)

We are now offering a basic structure, a blog format. the platform offers many additional collaborative features to be explored such as forums, books, stories and image galleries.

we intend to use

• blogs for individual telling of tales
• 'forum' for discussing/exploring rules
• 'books' for longer collaborative texts

We also intend to add experimental features such as a biodata newsfeed and we hope to invite some more artists to join and launch 'interventions'.

We are looking forward to develop and cultivate this

• pen territory with you as we go along ...

please go to http://kop.fact.co.uk/commons/tales for signing on. you will be assigned a color (rule#1, you are assigned but not choosing, sorry, too much programming would have to be involved to automize choice system!). please explore the functionality and bear with us for it to get more developed...

We are juggling with budget to include more players and features. but for now, we can definitely offer 200 GBP as feeble honarium for your participation in telling tales and tolling rules. sorry for this feeble fee, we hope you can accept.

see you online shulea+armin KOP-<kingdom of piracy> http://kop.fact.co.uk

• ---------------earlier mail, forwraded very late (sorry - saul ---

dear UofO

• n behalf of KOP<kingdom of piracy>, we would like to invite you to

participate in our research and development initiative, commons | tales | rules, to be launched on KOP website on febuary 15. The proposal below states our intentions.

we are allocating a two months time span (feb 15-april 15) to engage a group of players (from different regions, cultural perspectives, fields

• f study ) in telling tales of the commons on the <kop> blog set up.

During these two month process period, we plan to work out some perspectives on making rules for commons self(posed) organization. the project with a public interface will then be presented as workshop/forum at OPEN NATURE exhibition (curated by Yukiko Shikata) at NTTICC, Tokyo in early May.

We are inviting you, the UofO as a collective because we see an overlap

• f intentions in your efforts that resnoates with the commons | rules

theme and also the open nature theme of the exhibition. in particular, we are interested in ways of self-organization and self-institution.

we can offer a symbolic artist honoraniumm for your efforts. though it is a two month engagement, we of course do not expect your fulltime involvement. We have asked your participation knowing your work and your practice related to commons and open nature. we expect that you can

• utput your existing written texts and engage in dialogue/exchange notes

with other players. During the process, we also hope to make out some rules/social game function idea that involves your input.

The R&D project is funded by Arts Council England in light of recent emergence on commons debate. <kop> team also hopes to develop the R&D project into a game commons exhibition in the future.

we hope you can join us. if you agree, can you forward us your brief bio and url/s represenatitve of your work? we will get back in touch on details of participation next week.

all the best shulea+armin

commons | tales | rules A <KOP> reseach and development project toward game commons Edition #1 - Open Nature - NTTICC, Tokyo, April-May, 2005

Over the last years, Creative Commons has set out to do for producers of content what the GPL does for software writers. The American blueprint for Creative Commons licences is now being translated and adapted to the legal environments of many countries. At the same time industries which are based on aggregating intellectual property have tried vigorously to increase legal and other protection mechanisms. The "contested commons" is furthere testified from geopolitical context in a recent conference "on Inequalities, Conflicts and Intellectual Property" organized by Sarai in New Delhi.

Kingdom of Piracy <KOP> as an online workspace has since its launch in 2001 led the discourse on pirated commons and notions of shared networks. We recognize how the notions of (creative) commons could become an empty formula, very much like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 2005, <KOP> embarks on a commons R&D. We are seeking to highlight the existence of different types of commons which are culturally and historically situated. Each commons has its own story. We are starting by collecting a number of such stories - the tales of the commons. Each tale is an example of a sustainable commons that belies the pessimism of the 'tragedy of the commons'. What are the necessary sets of conditions that allow a commons to form? Besides environmental and contextual conditions what interests us most are the social forms of

• rganization. How do communities self-organize to define the rules of

usage of the commons? Are there any rules in self-organization? Or, to reverse the question, does the commons facilitate self- organization? We are asking how do those rules come into existence. In a further step we intend to present the telling of tales and the making of rules as a public game platform where collective rule making can be exercised.

In conjunction with "open nature" exhibition (curated by Yukiko Shikata) at NTTICC, Tokyo, commons | tales, in its first edition, suggests a thematic area in the privatization of nature and the image of nature in conflicting hegemonic discourses such as science, philosophy and art; repercussions of the theme in biopolitics, the gene business, medicine and drugs provision; the role of traditional knowledge and its counterparts. We are inviting 'players' of diverse disciplines to present tales / case studies and stake their claims on specific solutions, rules or principles. The winning formula opens the cornucopia

• f the commons.

<KOP>-commons initiated by Shu Lea Cheang and Armin Medosch. funded by Arts Council England