NODE.London 2006 in a nutshell
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[edit] Hello, welcome to NODE.London.
NODE.London is a speculative infrastructure for organising an open season of media arts in London.
The hope of developing an infrastructure rather than curating a festival is that the ethos of forms of open cultural production and debates about free infrastructure that have always inspired media artists and media art be reflected in how a media arts season is organised.
This doc - and initial meeting is to let you know what the proposed structure is, how it works, and how you can get involved.
[edit] Why and Who:
In early 2004 there was talk of having a media arts festival in london in 2005. A group of voluntary organisers (VOs) decided we'd like to see something like NODE.London, so we made a proposal to the Arts Council and began to develop ideas. The list of VOs so far is on our wiki here: http://smal.omweb.org/modules/wakka/SmalVoluntaryOrganisers. We are hoping that through this meeting, and further communication, others people will join the VO group, in which case we need to explain what it is - and how the infrastructure we're proposing works.
[edit] The Structure
Our shared goal is to organise a season that is inclusive in an opt-in way, and where decision making about core issues is consensual and negotiated. However, while as many core decisions as possible are flexible and up for negotiation, some fixed structure is absolutely necessary - so that 'openness' actually means something - we have a model to refer to when working out where we all stand in the structure, and so we can identify and change the structure if it doesn't work.
This is the structure we've envisaged:
Smal Subscribers
This is the wide group that includes everyone who wishes to be involved with NODE.London in some way. To become a smal subscriber, you simply have to opt-in and then explain what you want to do for the season. Subscriber gatherings are held on the 1st Monday of each month starting on the 2nd May. During these gatherings Subscribers are invited to present what they want to do at NODE.London, and what they need in order to do it. These are sessions for constructive feedback on ideas, where everyone can schedule, be aware of each other's ideas and and work out how to share and distribute resources. People can become subscribers at any time - and when a new person joins, an existing subscriber will help them.
Voluntary Organisers
The Voluntary Organisers self-select from the subscriber group. Maybe a group joins the subscribers, and sends one member to be an organiser, but basically anyone can join - but this is more of a committment to help on an organisational level. VOs will have a separate monthly meeting to co-ordinate, all aspects of communications, design, scheduling, publicity etc. All VO activity will feed back to the subscriber group through the website, and in monthly meetings. Anyone may join the VO group at any time - and will be helped by an existing VO to get up to speed. The VOs get to make lots of the fun decisions, but the really important ones - like theme, title, dates, and content of the Season will be made in public meetings. The VOs have to make sure that all subscribers have enough information to make good decisions through consensus.
[edit] Budget
The hope is that through this process, the Subscribers can subsidise each other's productions in kind, and we can all cross-schedule and gain awareness of each other's ideas beforehand. There are also funds (£55k) from an Arts Council application we applied for successfully which we will throw into a 'pot'. Everyone can contribute to the pot – in kind or in cash, and resources will be distributed in the most equitable way possible – taking everyone's needs and participation into account.
The fund-holders for NODE.London at the moment are Da2 - http://www.da2.org.uk who are ultimately responsible for spending the ACE funds. At some stage it might be useful to set up a company, or a charity, to fund-hold for NODE.London in subsequent years. Da2 conform to charitable standards in their accounting and structure, have fully audited public accounts and are overseen by a board of directors.
[edit] Mutable and Immutable decisions:
There are some decisions that are already determined for this year- mostly because of funding requirements, although through a long process of negotiation, the initial VO group has secured funds without promising exactly what is going to happen, when, and with whom. Also, some decisions have been made (about this structure, for example) simply because there has to be someting on the table for us to talk about; or at least there has to actually be a table. These are mutable decisions - we can change them as we go along, solving problems as we come across them, through group decision making. Of course ideally, next year we might not need funding to do this - and all of the decisions will be mutable, or a different set of VOs kick it off and make different immutable decisions.
Here is a list decisions.
[edit] Immutables:
- 15k pre-allocated (by ACE) to work on software tools to facilitate SMAL.
- 55k total to work with.
- 5k – publicist.
- 4.5k – tech support.
- 10k – co-ordinator. (but role outline is mutable)
- 30k – projects
- 2k – contingency
- £500 – meeting expenses & hospitality
[edit] Mutables
- title
- dates
- theme
- content & distribution of project resources
[edit] Decision Making Process:
Consensus. This is an experiment, we would like to use consensus to decide mutables. See http://seedsforchange.org.uk/free/consens for a really good explanation, or ask questions in the forum. In the pre-meeting invite, there was a link to Jo Freeman text 'The Tyrrany of Structurelessness'. It was brought up in the first meeting on the 21st March 05 and seemed very relevant, so here's another link to it: http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
[edit] Dates:
See SmalMeetings for latest dates.
All communication will start at the website: http://smal.omweb.org. In the first meeting it was agreed that we need an announcement list - as it turns out registering for this site with a valid email subscribes you to a list automatically, so we can use that to announce things and the bulletin boards to discuss things.
