Whoops…. being too enthusiastic with blogging I was half an hour early and entered an empty theatre hall. The Screenings for tonight started at 8.30 pm with a Shrek/Ice Age-like movie titled Big Buck Bunny.  The movie is directed by Sacha Goedegebure and produced by Ton Roosendaal from Blender.org. Big Buck Bunny is the surprise act while I was expecting a live performance. I deeply recommend to check out their movie, those guys are doing some seriously good stuff.

At first there was just a small number of fanatics but the cinema slowly filled with more people, and right before the main act started there were about 40 people sitting in the cinema waiting for what would be shown next. However, there was no fixed schedule because we had to vote in a ‘new democratic’ way… The instructions: scream as hard as possible when you hear the title of the movie you would like to see. Wow! We had two choices; The oXcars or a screening from Upgrade!. The voting was pretty much settled because a group of 10 people who made The oXcars were in the theatre clearly stating their preference. ‘Now this is a democratic way of voting! This is how it works nowadays.’ That was blasted loudly through the theatre out of the corner of The oXcars’ fans. No doubt it was their moment of fame!

The oXcars is a hilarious parody on the annual big happening in the US. It is a very nice piece of mixed work with good music performances, good sketches, interviews and a lot more. It was a good mixture of entertainment and at the same time bringing a strong political message to the audience. ‘Don’t be afraid to spread those who really create culture!’ To conclude the screening night of Winter Camp 09 I have four Free’s for you:

1. Free Music
2. Free Cinema
3. Free Culture
4. Free Communication

For those who missed the hilarious screenings of tonight, don’t worry! As we are all connected to a network, you will be able to find them everywhere and this is one way.

Big Buck Bunny

The oXcars with English subtitles
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7419355515443899802

The opening ceremony of Winter Camp 09 began last night at Studio K in Amsterdam. The 12 groups that had been invited to participate came from many countries from around the world and filled the small stadium-seating theatre (typically used for screening movies) to its maximum capacity. Interestingly, not everyone within each of the groups had met in person before Winter Camp, so for each of the 12 groups it was an amazing opportunity to shake hands with group members who were previously separated by wires and oceans.

Geert Lovink welcomed all 150 participants, and then went into a brief explanation of the funding and planning for Winter Camp over the past year. 115,000€ had been raised of which 25,000€ went to the transportation costs for brining the participants to Amsterdam, 100,000€ was used for the venue and accommodations, and the other 25,000€ was used for miscellaneous functions such as the brochures, supplies etc.

Ned Rossiter, Associate Professor of Network Cultures, followed Lovink with his hope that over the next few days we could attempt to address the important question, “how do we move beyond the current phase of the network condition?” The question of the network vs. the institution has been one of the key motivations for Winter Camp. Rossiter reminded us of how the institutions have been taking advantage of networks and open-source technologies for many years, and wondered why the networks shouldn’t take advantage of what the institutional model may or may not have to offer?

Shortly after Rossiter, each of the 12 groups had a five minute lighting-round introduction, while in the background a PowerPoint shot through the details of each network’s scope, goals, members and financing. The artist collective GOTO10 somewhat timidly filed down to the stage, but soon warmed up as they professed their love for spreading FLOSS to “digital creatives and art geeks” around the world.

Next came DYNE.ORG who relaxed the tone of the evening as they rapidly handed off the mic – each shouting out the first word that came into their head that describes DYNE.ORG. They used words like “video”, “copyleft”, “activism”, “openness” and “whatever”. After all 12 networks had introduced themselves, it was clear that the words activism and openness are what lie at the heart of everyone here at Winter Camp.

Get started Thursday with the world’s smallest 3D user generated offline community.

Het Harde Potlood (The Hard Pencil) will give an old school cut ‘n paste workshop. We will be turning trash into space and avatars, conjuring up a network of ideal working environments.

Materials: cardboard, plastic, bottle caps, rope, tape, etc. *
Duration: 2 hours
Number of participants: max. 20
* ) all material is available at the spot, but don’t hesitate to bring stuff along.

Het Harde Potlood is an Amsterdam-based artist collective, founded in 2006. The members are: Richtje Reinsma, Roosmarijn Schoonewelle and Heleen Wiemer. We make installations, performances, wall drawings, decors and illustrations. In our collaboration, we explore the way in which we can connect our contrasting ideas and styles. The work process is often visibly part of the final work.