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Abstract
This presentation shows the evolution of the Estúdio Livre project in Brazil.
Born from an insights into free media tools necessary for research, development and production, the project was initiated by the Programa Software Livre Paraná - a non-profit organization that promotes FOSS initiatives.
The goals are: to stimulate production of free/open media; to analyze the professional potential of free/open media tools; to collaborate with the multimedia FOSS community; to build collaboration between programmers, between computer scientists, artists and media producers; to experiment with the use of artistic meta languages, mixing new technological processes and contemporary concepts; and to build new interface possibilities using technologies once considered obsolete.
Estúdio Livre is unique as a collaborative Brazilian Portuguese speaking network. The interactions within its environment are presented through personal weblogs, media for download, manuals for users, forums, research groups, discussion lists and other unique collaborative work tools.
Last year, through a partnership with the Brazilian government - Ministry of Culture - Estudiolivre delivered implementation support for the Cultural Hotspots, a project which uses free media tools in creative processes as a way to improve the circulation of cultural 'goods'. Through an interface to estudiolivre.org, each Hotspot is now becoming mediactive in the network.
/* adicionei este paragrafo abaixo para não parecer que o Estudio Livre é restrito a este projeto do governo
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We are however not restricted to support work on such a large scale project. We are open for donations, endorsements or any other specific consultancies which are looking for new ways to maintain structure, with a focus on support and maintenance of our community and research into the implementation of collaborative tools and methods.
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This initiative is still restricted to the Portuguese language yet, but intends to interact very soon with the world wide net that also researches and develops professional and experimental media production softwares.
1. Free Software and its Process
Free Software as a phenomenon is gaining more space everyday, both in media and in practice, as it is considered a powerful instrument for digital inclusion and technological development. The notion of open systems as proxy activists for freedom in the "Information Age" is widespread - capable of equaling and in many cases surpassing "proprietary" monopolies. With this perspective, free software is appropriate as a flag and weapon against hegemonic models of closed information systems. Free software is often technically superior, more secure and offers an economic alternative because of its open source and its open distribution license.
This is all well and good but it ignores the most important characteristics of the Free Software phenomenon: its production dynamics, its viral rules of product circulation and the changes in social behaviour brought about by its utilization logic .
There's a world of difference between "proprietary" and "open" models not only in materialistic terms, but also in terms of the social relationships that it moderates. Actually, it's not correct to argue that free software is better than "proprietary", but in fact that it belongs to another order. This order can be argued as more honest and better than proprietary.
A proprietary model is motivated by competition and financial gain whilst an open model is motivated by collaboration and generosity.
In any level of interaction in the open model, a horizontal relationship exists between producer and consumer, which is completely different from the producer/consumer or server/consumer relationships of the closed model, as these are often seen as qualitatively unfair social relationships. More importantly, and stressing the divergence from closed source software, publishing with open source is part of its process of development - the moment that the collaborators will build it together.
Therefore, the new collaborative paradigm that we present is inspired by free software production and in the structure of information cycles in the Internet, in that should be understood as a new cultural PROCESS and not as a new cultural PRODUCT. This PROCESS can be defined as a cycle of cumulative feedback, that pushes the network to think and is based on information sharing as a motor of technological innovation for the PRODUCTION of cultural goods.
It is interesting to observe the coexistence of the variables PROCESS and PRODUCT (or PRODUCTION ), in a continuous flux of events which can be better understood by the computationally modern concept of "fuzzy logic". Under a traditional Aristothelic logic, based on "True" or "False" statements, we usually conclude that some PRODUCT is a RESULT of a PROCESS. Fuzzy Logic works with the idea of complex scales calculated at the limits of processes. Most human experiences can't be just classified as "true" or "false", "yes" or "no". We want to see all the implications and inter-relations in the dichotomy between PROCESS and PRODUCT, to know and to learn about complex scales of interaction, through various perspectives. Working technology with human aspects: that's the way Estudio livre works.
2.Estudio Livre
Free multimedia software is finding more barriers due to the advanced state of proprietary software serving the media industry . To fill this vacuum Estudio Livre was created, a collaborative environment for people interested in the production and distribution of media made with free software and through independent networks. The objective of the website is to support a community involved in the research, production and motivation to circulate collaborative cultural goods. Works can be freely distributed, remixed and retransmitted legally by the authors without any restriction to access - including monetary access. Therefore, we can assume that Estudio Livre is involved in the production of new forms of media and in information technology research.
All the tools in the estudiolivre.org environment are based on the concepts of free software, free knowledge and technological appropriation. The tools of interaction in this environment are personal weblogs, media for download, user manuals, forums, research groups, mailing lists and other collaborative tools.
At estudiolivre.org , information exists not only in portuguese, so interactive communication throught its network is available. Hence users feel less isolated and can more easily integrate into the process. The idea is to turn this web site into a reference for research in the portuguese language into multimedia production in open environments and to motivate collaborative works in between members of the community.
To interact in the website, the users must register their personal data, specify the type of material material that is being published (phonograms, images, audiovisual, softwares, texts, samples, etc.), and authorize, without exclusivity, its exhibition and electronic distribution at
http://www.estudiolivre.org respecting the terms of the website use policy. They have to confirm that they agree with the collaborative licence, take responsibility for complaints about the merits of the material.
They have to be conscious that estudiolivre.org does not have any obligations regarding the distribution or exhibition of the material (it should happen with the flow of the community inside the website ) and will not own or be rewarded by the licensed material. This warning is a summary of the website "Terms of Use".
/* o paragráfo sobre aproximação entre desenvolvedores e produtores culturais ( "usuarios") esta desenvolvido abaixo...
3.Community
Developers: Open Source, Arts and Science.
The utilization of open source software, with licenses that allow sharing and recombination of their source codes is potentially a great asset in the search for a more interdisciplinary community that could put arts and science closer together.
Stimulating this model of production, we support a space where science can operate with more innovation and arts can work with better understanding of development techniques. A big problem of human relationships within arts production technologies is the non-questioning of repetition mechanisms, characteristic of the "professional media industry". The computer is seen by artists in many cases as a "closed box", that will always dictate the aesthetical paths of its interfaces, attaching the cultural producer in a blind dependency to mass culture industry patterns and products.
In the case of open source software production follows a demand rhythm and mutual collaboration, where the developer has an immediate feedback from the artist and the artist can have advanced knowledge about the development of his working tools. This occurs because as the production of these tools is not in a eternal cycle of "industrial secrets". In this case a deeper self knowledge about the tools allows for customisation and a deeper interest in the techniques that made it possible.
Similarly, the scientists and especially the programmer, can find in this environment a huge motivation creatively to break the boundaries between his techniques and the artists methods, stimulating visions which produce code, project an interface or build a machine so poetic and lucid as painting a canvas or playing a guitar. It brings back the image of the inventor, in this cold age of seemingly automated mass production industries.
Artists and cultural activists: Collaborative Production Environments.
The way that free software is developed is for sure one of the most successful models of organic and participative management of a collective project known. The idea of collaborative production using an internet interface which allows code edition, version control, discussion forums and mailing lists allowed the creation of complete operational systems which today are in some cases more efficient than proprietary software. This happens because there is more intelligence and faster sharing of problems and "bugs" with an open community than there is with "secret" methods and decisions.
This vision influenced the way of artistic production in the beginning of this century. It's explicit that artistic production could reach its public directly without middlemen and getting directly to those interested, without have to mold itself to "marketing" aesthetics demands from its distributor ( in most cases suppositions made full of prejudice and fear of creativity). Artists could understand their own field of influence. Therefore, this generated the need to go deep inside the question of licensing this sharing authoring, as every "consumer" is also a potential distributer or even a collaborator in their own works.
One of the proposed solutions is that Estudio livre works in practice to encourage this collaborative production using the sharing licenses of the Creative commons, when dealing with copyrights. In this way the producer gives in advance to his "public" the rights to be his partner in creativity and/or distribution of his works. In this way we can create the relationship where production and consumption are parts of the same cycle, where profit is acquired knowledge and stronger and stronger social network that sooner or later will be supported by reliability between community members. This production chain can pass through cultural and geopolitical borders, becoming autonomous networks more self-conscious of their direction and more able to think in terms of their social and economic role in production.
4.Conclusion
The scope of Estudio Livre is concentrated on supporting thee approximation of cycles of free media production software and on the motivations for sharing and collaboration in this production and development. After all, it's a collective that counts on community volunteers with shared interests for the autonomy and principles of its existence. On the other hand it encourages the participation of its more active members into consultancy and supporting other projects that want this work methodology, utilizing the material and documentation of the website and bringing more self evolution into the production of more content for the website.
Estudio Livre also accepts volunteer donations and institutional partnerships, when it's not against the collaborative policies and in the case of institutional profits the authors of content will be contacted.
The objective is to encourage cycles where the collaborative development of free software for multimedia production and the goods generated with these tools find a distribution flow, support the sharing of theory, practical and creative knowledge, creating a scenario with a more participatory cultural and technological production, generating a kind of consumption non-alienation in the mass entertainment industry. We expect that with this will come consciousness of social roles, as part of an interdependent, open and collective process.
KEYWORDS
Media Activism, Collaborative Environment, Free Culture, Open Knowledge
