alt.SPACE workgroup: What + When + How

Hey y'all...

This email goes out to people so far who want to be part of the alt.SPACE workgroup!
(that's the Philadelphia workgroup for this Summer's project: "alt.SPACE Festival 2007, The Radical & The Revolutionary" ).

This email contains info about:
1) What (intro to the collaboration)
2) When (timeline)
3) How (our methods for working together)

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1) What

For those of you who weren't at Basekamp this past Saturday, I gave a "show-n-tell" about the overall alt.SPACE Festival project which will be the major focus of Basekamp activities between now and the end of July.

I gave a brief presentation about the relationship between the London version of the project, and the different options for what will will able to do in Philly.
Starting with a brief update on where the London version of the project is at so far, we discussed the origins of the alt.SPACE project, the recent changes in venue (no longer at SPACE media centre, but in many venues throughout London), and how they have recently consolidated their research groups from about 10 to now 4, and finally last week arrived at their program for July (including a calendar of events printed as a poster, which I'm attaching at the end of this email).

I then made clear how the Philadelphia group has been planned to (and also ways we don't necessarily have to) fit in with the London program. Afterwards, we began for the first time to discuss the interests of the people in the Philadelphia workgroup, what sounded interesting to any of us, and ideas about some things we could do with this project that would be interesting to us. I also suggested that we could bring others into the project soon, but only after we get some sense as a smaller group of where in general we would like to go with the project. We also discussed the idea of potentially holding events at other venues in Philadelphia in addition to the Basekamp space -- but again, only after we develop some direction of where we plan to go as a core group.

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2) When

The most important overlap we should stick to, between the London and Philadelphia workgroups, is the timeline (this, in addition to the basic concept, is in fact the only thing that necessarily links the two cities in this project). We have scarcely 1 & 1/2 weeks left in June to finish planning the major elements of what we will ultimately to do in Philly, since the major programming should take place through the month of July, and will culminate in a 24 hour conference between London and Philadelphia the end of July, where both cities will present all of what happened over the course of that month. We may also have connections with London between now and then (such as the "skype dinner parties" we discussed, as an example of how these events can be more experimental than the standard "video conferencing" rituals we're borrowing from the private sector!).

I think it's also important to get started soon on promoting the alt.SPACE Festival in Philadelphia, so others can have the opportunity to know about it and join in with us this July - not only other artists who may become involved, but also the wider local public. For promotions in the papers, listings (etc), we will end up describing the Philadelphia version in one of several different ways, depending on what we end up deciding about the basic structure. For instance if we only plan to do a few events here, we should probably describe Basekamp as an "outpost" of the alt.SPACE Festival in London. But it we end up deciding a more ambitious program (which more or less matches the scale of the London version) then we should promote it as a Festival based in both cities (basically on equal footing).

Here's a brief suggestion for a timeline for Philadelphia:
June 19 (tonight)
--> Another informal "think tank" meeting for all of you who can make it, during our weekly potluck at Basekamp.

(In between)
--> Rapid fire discussions on Forum & Skype (see "How" section below) to let creative process quickly shape basic structure and number of events.
--> Phone calls are ok too, especially during this time. Whatever we can do to have lots of discussion about this.

June 23 (this Saturday)
--> Philadelphia workgroup meeting (including Skype with others in our workgroup who will be in other cities, like Erica, Mylinh, and Kiva), to decide the basic structure and number of events.

(In between)
--> Speak with other spaces and groups in Philadelphia, who may be interested in participating in, or hosting some of the Philadelphia events.
--> Brainstorm all the possible events we might like to include in the Philadelphia alt.SPACE Festival.

by June 30 (following Saturday, and last day in June)
--> Final Philadelphia workgroup meeting to finalize the outline of events for July's program.
--> Goal of arriving at a schedule, and sending out our own a poster with that schedule to our mailings lists, press, etc. (normally we would promote more in advance, but this will be a more spontaneous project, and will last for an entire month, so we should probably put up posters, get a 1-day turnaround postcard printed, and plaster Philadelphia's schools, bars, cafes, telephone poles, etc, with info about the events).

the month of July
--> Events! (yet to be planned)

July 28-29
--> 24 hour "conference" between London and Philadelphia, where both cities will present results of all the events, which by then will have already happened, over the month of July.

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3) How

The second part of the presentation last Saturday was an overview of the web-forum we will use to plan, discuss, and contribute to the Philadelphia version of the alt.SPACE Festival this Summer. I'll briefly recap in this email (with a few extra bits of technical instructions) about how we can use this communication tool. This is important because we have a very short timeframe to plan the basic elements of the Philadelphia version of this project -- and we won't all be in the same place over the next week+ before July.

By the way, for those of you who were there, a few people already wrote responses to my "show-n-tell" about the alt.SPACE Festival last Saturday. I think these will be helpful for the rest of you who will be involved in the project, but who couldn't be there on Saturday. I'm thinking perhaps each of us who were there could post our thoughts on the new forum we're making for the Basekamp website. That way all of our ideas can be more like an open-ended discussion, which we can each respond to as the project progresses. Sammetria already made a forum topic for the discussion about Saturday's presentation. To get started, feel free to post your responses as a comment to that forum topic. Here's some more info about the website:

I just made profiles for all of you on the new website, and added the user-role "alt.SPACE workgroup" (and for those of you who are Artists-in-Residence this summer, I also added the user-role "Basekamp Residents"), which will give you access to each of these forums, respectively. You may have received an email with specific info on about your profile (but let me know if not, and I'll send you the details). Just a reminder -- the site with the Forums I'm talking about isn't on our current website, but is on a testing website (because it's in development, and it will be there until we finish it and use it as our main site):

http://basekamp.aharonic.net/drupal

So in addition to the "alt.SPACE workgroup" forum, you'll also see the public forums. Overall it's a good idea to think of contributing to the forums in terms of what discussion you want to contribute to, and which specific group will have access to that. My suggestion for now is to keep alt.SPACE workgroup discussion (at least until we have the basic structure in place) within the alt.SPACE workgroup forum.

• For example, the "Public" forums will be discussion that you can invite others to join in on - it's open to the public (anyone can read them, and anyone can sign-up to write their own posts in response).
• The "Residents" forum is visible only to Basekamp residents and staff - so for things relating to the residency program, practicalities, ideas for the common areas (etc), that you only want to discuss with the people staying at the space.
• The "alt.SPACE workgroup" forum is just for people who will be involved in this Summer's project. There will definitely be more people involved by July, and if appropriate, we can add that user-role to their profile so they can participate in the discussion. We will at some point also make available info on the project that's accessible to the public... but that will probably be more concise info so people know to come to the events, etc, and we won't show all of our discussions about making this particular project (so my point is, don't hold back in the alt.SPACE workgroup forum, because only we will see it -- the more we use this, the the better it will be!).

Let me know if you have any trouble, and I can help with tech support (you can email or call me).
Otherwise, we have a short deadline, so let's get started -- see you on the forum!

>:-)
Scott
scott@basekamp.com
+1 215 206 8176