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Changes in Cuba

photo by Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

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I’m not quite sure what to make of recent events/changes in Cuba. While I want to remain optimistic, my skeptical side always takes precedence on these issues. Earlier this summer the Archbishop of Havana announced the release of 52 political prisoners. While the popular media saw this as “good news” the Cuban blogosphere (the only place to find an uncensored local perspective) was highly critical. Labeling it “forced exile” (the prisoners where exiled to Spain) – a deceptive gesture made to garner some good publicity. Laritza Diversent a Cuban blogger (and lawyer) wrote, “We should not be misled. Do not confuse a humanitarian gesture with a willingness to change. If those who are released need permission to return to the island, then the government does not have the slightest intention of removing restrictions on the freedom of movement of its citizens.”

All this while Juan Juan Almeida (another Cuban blogger and son of a Cuban Revolutionary) was on his hunger strike – one of the only ways a Cuban can protest without getting thrown in jail. JJ Almeida simply wanted permission to leave the country to receive the medical attention he needed and to see his wife and daughter. He was denied permission several times and saw no other option. For a long time his situation looked grim, but recently a blog post by Yoani Sanchez came up on my reader titled, “He Did It”–it reads:

“The day that Juan Juan Almeida announced the start of his hunger strike was like reliving the nightmare we’d experienced with the long fast of Guillermo Fariñas. “This is the worst of all decisions,” we, his friends who love him, told him, sure that he would not withstand the rigors of starvation, nor that the authorities would yield before his empty gut rebellion. Fortunately we were wrong. It turned out that the talkative JJ — as his close friends call him — was not only willing to take his chances arm wrestling with the government, but seemed willing to sacrifice himself for all of us, who have repeatedly been denied permission to travel outside this archipelago.

The jovial forty-three-year-old leaves us a painful but effective lesson, because although we have no elections to vote directly for those who govern us, nor courts to accept claims of police abuse,  much less means by which a citizen can denounce the immigration restrictions holding the national territory in their grip, we still have our bones, our skin, our stomach walls, to reclaim, by way of the fragile terrain of our bodies, the rights they have taken from us.”

Could this victory be a sign of change? Earlier today, to my extreme surprise, I read that the Cuban rap duo “Los Aldeanos” are going to be allowed to travel to Miami to perform a concert. This is even more unexpected because the music/message of this group is explicit, honest, uncompromising, and critical of the Cuban government. They’re voice has been censored, their shows shut down, and permission to leave has always been denied–until now.

And if that’s not enough, the free-market reforms just announced have really got my hopes up (at the same time confusing me even more). The changes allow, “foreign investors to lease government land for up to 99 years – potentially touching off a golf-course building boom – and loosening state controls on commerce to let islanders grow and sell their own fruit and vegetables.”(HP)–giving the government a share (via taxes) of course. That second bit is extra surprising, (remember that in Cuba the government owns everything, 95% of the population is employed by the government) it’s not uncommon to find young Cubans selling what they themselves have planted and grown on the highways – cautiously cross-examining their customers in fear that they might be the National Revolutionary Police posing as a civilian. It appears that these vendors will no longer have to run into the forest in order to avoid being arrested when they see a police officer. How this will affect the black market (integral to survival for both the vendors and the customers)? It’s hard to say. I’m trying to remain optimistic.

DRM && Net Neutrality

Here’s a couple articles I wrote for Fnewsmagazine re-capping this summer’s [US] interwebz legislation – the first is an expansion of a post I put up a while back on the DRM exceptions (legally jailbreaking iphones, etc.) the second is an attempt to clear up some of the Google/Verizon Net Neutrality mess:

http://fnewsmagazine.com/wp/2010/08/digital-locks/

http://fnewsmagazine.com/wp/2010/08/net-neutrality-pearl/

33.333333333

33 Days till GLI.TC/H 2010 Chicago – the blog is up (http://gli.tc/h/blog) && the bots crackin’ keep your readers trackin – more updates real soon.

EFF – Fair Use Victory!

(I jailbreak my iPhone in commemoration of the day)

It’s a tumultuous time for digital rights, after the passing of the Digital Economy Act in the UK and Bill C32 which Hollywood Canada is attempting to pass, it’s surprising and encouraging to see a victory for “fair use” in the states – arguably the biggest bullies in the digital rights fiascos. Today (thanks to the Electronic Frontier Foundation) the Library of Congress passed a handful of exemptions to the DMCA (digital millennium copyright act), a law that prevents consumers/users from breaking digital locks on their products/devices.

Imagine, you purchase a bookshelf from Target and the only books you’re allowed to put on that bookshelf are books you purchase from Target’s abismal book selection. Furthermore, image you’ve filled that shelf with hundreds of dollars worth in Target purchased books, but now you want to buy a newer better bookshelf from Ikea for your collection, but you can’t legally (and without great difficulty) move your books from your Target shelf to your Ikea shelf. Imagine you can’t photocopy a page from any of those books for your school project. Imagine you can’t even lend any of your books to a friend. That’s exactly how it works with digital devices like the iPad thanks to the DMCA and digital locks (DRM) – and this goes much further than just migrating your media. Say you want to appropriate from a DVD to make a remix video or “jailbreak” your iPhone to use a new app someone created that hasn’t been approved by Apple or say you’re blind and want to take a digital book you’ve purchased and open it with your read-aloud software – all these actions require you to illegally break digital locks, and all these actions starting Tuesday will no longer be illegal!

Jennifer Stisa Granick, EFF’s civil liberties director, said the rules are based on an important principle: Consumers should be allowed to use and modify the devices that they purchase the way they want. ”If you bought it, you own it,” she said. (AP)

Though I’m excited, I can’t help but be just a tad skeptical. It seems like there’s still a lot of loose ends: if you “jailbreak” your iPhone will it still void your warranty? Does this mean it’s legal to sell software that breaks digital locks (DRM-ripping, iPhone jail breaking, etc.)? Breaking the lock on a DVD to remix the content is no longer illegal but how well will “fair use” hold up? Only time will tell. All in all, its a happy day for digital rights.

further reading:
Ruling Allows ‘Jailbreaking’ of iPhones
EFF wins enormous victory against DRM: legal to jailbreak iPhones, rip DVDs for mashup videos
Rulemaking Fixes Critical DMCA Wrongs
Public Knowledge and Rock Your Phone Pleased Copyright Office Expands Consumer Rights

A New Ecology for the Citizen of a Digital Age @Axiom(Boston) Tonight!

My piece “A New Ecology for the Citizen of a Digital Age” will be part of “Refresh” an exhibition curated by Yuri Stone at the Axiom Center for New and Experimental Media!
http://axiomart.org/

Info:

Opening Reception: Friday, July 23rd, 2010 | 6:00 – 9:00 pm

This Friday, July 23rd, join us for the opening reception of Refresh, a collection of video and animation artwork curated by Yuri Stone. Artists featured in the exhibition hail from Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Canada, and the Netherlands. The exhibition will open at 6pm and will be on view for the evening until 9pm. Food and drinks are available for donation. This event is free and open to the public. Refresh will be on view at Axiom until Saturday, August 28th.

Axiom Center for New and Experimental Media is pleased to present Refresh, an exhibition of video and animation work that explores an alternative aesthetic in digital media artwork. Refresh features a group of artists that all ask the viewer to reevaluate our collective definition of digital beauty and the value we place on visual quality in contemporary culture.

Spanning from 8bit and ascii animations to manipulated digital video, this exhibition creates an aesthetic and conceptual dialogue that allows us to question conventions of digital media in our society as well as our relationship to new and past technology. The artists included in this exhibition evoke notions of nostalgia, document unintended artifacts, and experiment with new technologies. In doing so, these artists create a refreshingly alternative digital practice that functions outside of the mainstream aesthetic.

Artists in the show include: Nick Briz, Michelle Ceja, Clint Ennis, Elna Frederick, Doug Goodwin and Rebecca Baron, Duncan Malashock, Rosa Menkman, Andrew Rosinski, and Nicolas Sassoon. This exhibition is curated by Yuri Stone.

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What/// REFRESH

Who/// Nick Briz, Michelle Ceja, Clint Ennis, Elna Frederick, Doug Goodwin and Rebecca Baron, Duncan Malashock, Rosa Menkman, Andrew Rosinski, and Nicolas Sassoon

When/// July 23, 2010 – August 28, 2010
Opening Reception: Friday July 23, 6-9pm

Gallery Hours: Tuesdays, 2-5 pm, Wednesdays 6-9 pm, Thursdays 2-9 pm, Saturdays 2-5 pm, alternative visiting hours can be arranged by appointment

Cost/// FREE and Open to the Public

Where/// AXIOM Center for New and Experimental Media – 141 Green Street
located in the Green Street T Station on the Orange Line

Information/// For more information, please call Yuri Stone at (301) 455-3722 or
contact him at yuri@axiomart.org

Become a fan of us on our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter!

Image: Still from Lossless #3, Doug Goodwin and Rebecca Baron. Image courtesy of the artists.

AXIOM is located on the ground floor level of the Green Street Subway (“T”) station on the Orange line, at the corner of Amory and Green Streets in Jamaica Plain, MA
AXIOM Center for New and Experimental Media focuses on new and experimental media, with an interest in technology based, innovative combinations of sculpture, installation and live performance. AXIOM has had a history of success in bringing together members of the new media community as well as outreaching to the general public, along with emerging and established artists working within the realm of new media.

Encouraging and Supporting Experimentation in the Arts through Exhibition, Education, Resources and Collaboration

For more information, visit www.axiomart.org or call
(301) 455-3722

Axiom and ATNE are programs of Boston Cyberarts
dorkimage dr responsible
Axiom is generously supported by:
UFO

Remember Spirit Bomb?

(photo by James Hicks)

Dear Orlando & elsewhere friends,

For those who attended Spirit Bomb shows in Orlando, specifically the last one, you might remember that right before playing the last song we would ever play together Chris promised everyone a copy of the album that we where supposed to have brought to that show (as it was our goodbye/CD release show), shortly after that the five of us ended up in five different cities, and what was nearly finished got tossed to the back burner.

So, albeit long overdue, here’s our only recorded studio record (and by “studio” I mean Willi’s pretty fantastically wired home, and by “record” I mean zip file.)

There’s two versions of this you can download:

the “Lite” version: http://www.nickbriz.com/files/rememberspiritbomb(lite).zip
this file just contains the six tracks + album art

the “Full” version: http://www.nickbriz.com/files/rememberspiritbomb.zip
In this one, along with the tracks, we’ve added a few videos from particularly sentimental shows and some “bonus” tracks from practice sessions (songs that could have been, but alas never were). This version is a bit bigger (i.e. longer download time) but its worth it.

This album and all its contents are licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License so copy it, torrent it, share it, remix it,
whatever.

So thanks to everyone that cares enough to give it a listen, and thanks to all our friends who came out to all the shows and played with us all those times and made Orlando and Uncle Lou’s sucha magical place =]
-SB

check out a cool vid here
check out some sweet pics here
check out some kind words here

Copyright vs Copyleft…

…from petitions to combat the secretive ACTA initiatives to the heated comments made by Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore towards those who dare oppose the C-32 (Canada’s new copyright bill) to the even more heated comments found in the filings of the Viacom Vs. Youtube billion dollar lawsuit, this summer’s intellectual property & digital rights bonanzas are off to quite a start. My favorite stink so far (and one I had to share) is a letter ASCAP recently sent out to all it’s peoples. This comes from composer Mike Rugnetta via BoingBoing:

Ok, so as a music consumer/creator, even IF this meant the fall of the record industry (which it doubtfully does) to say that it would be the end of music is just completely absurd, rest assured our music repositories aren’t “drying up”. I mean this is crazy, saying that Creative Commons, Public Knowledge, and the EFF are  these companies with “deep pockets” that want to steal ASCAP’s music and make it all “free.”  The irony here is that these groups ASCAP labels as “copy-left” are really more a “copy-middle”, which to my knowledge have never claimed ASCAP’s (or anyone’s) music should be free, but rather have advocated for the creator’s right to determine for his/herself what the details of their “intellectual property” should be (be they free, partly free, or not free at all). They side with the independent creators of works rather than the multi[non]national media conglomerates which have always sought to control and absurdly monetize cultural products. My favorite line is, “We fear that our opponents are influencing Congress against the interests of music creators” I could only  hope that these groups will one day have the kind of influence over Congress ASCAP “fears” …the sad reality is that those conglomerates which run the industry have been “influencing Congress against the interests of music creators” for years already.

Here’s part 2 of that letter, the part they ask for money. Poor ASCAP, just trying to help us lowly musician’s out like they always have, by asking for more money, lest we forget what happened last time they tried to double license fees *cough* BMI* …speaking of, just as a final thought, how much does Creative Commons charge for their new progressive licenses and all the work that went into developing them?

Entropic elasticity: Critical Glitch Artware && the demoscene

Invite Demo by mark-beasley.com

http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=391

So, in internet days this is way old news, but I figured I’d post it up partly as a way of ushering this blog into existence and partly because it was such an awesome event and such an awesome article (Rosa Menkman was definitely the perfect writer for the job)