As I described in an earlier post, FLOSS Manuals focuses on the documentation of Free / Libre / Open Source Software. In the final plenary session, Adam gave us a short history of his collective and then went deeper into the outcomes of their week of labour, which they presented via a diagram.
FLOSS Manuals outcomes’ of the Winter Camp are both internally, located within the organizational structure of the network and externally, located within the new FLOSS Friday – sessions. How these new organizational structures will turn out and when their new project will actually start, we will soon read on their website. So it might be a good thing to keep an eye open at the upcoming projects page.

Blender’s final presentation started with announcing the coming of the new inteface. In fact, the Winter Camp event came just at the right time for them to work on the 2.5 release. By improving their interface they aim to be ready to attract the best designers, pushing the product to the next level. Referring back to the Winter Camp networks theme, Tom Roosendaal has four keys focus point to build up a good community. The first is to understand and facilitate people’s self-interest, that people want to also get something out of it or will leave. The second point is to not take yourself to seriously but, and this is point three, set ambitious goals. In Blender’s case this means saying to Hollywood… “up yours” and produce high quality animations without the dominating Hollywood business model. Point four is to stop the navel-gazing, to jump out of the ivory tower and get those feet wet, go where the things actually happen without thinking to much on a abstract level about who you are and how to do thing different and, and this is the last point, don’t listen to people who talk, but look at what they do

…so get to work!

Blender finished with a series of their productions, showing what they can do and how they have evolved during the last two years. Although they have set out to become a serious competitor to Hollywood, I did think it left a bit too strong of a Hollywoodesque feeling; differentiating from Hollywood might also be a good strategy. For now however, it seems a smart way to show there is an alternative to the big players and at the same time get a free ride in the slipstream of the Hollywood animated movies marketing apparatus.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Thursday plenaries will be about conditions: concrete potentialities. Friday will be session about cartographies: networks in progress. On Friday, the plenary has the theme of collaborations: beyond networks. If you miss some key things on the clouds, please leave a comment!

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.