Hamish Campbell is an activist and filmmaker who gained attention for capturing footage of a police raid on the Independent Media Center in 2001. His footage was used in court and led to several police officers being disciplined and sacked. Campbell continues to work in media activism, founding the group #VisionOnTV, which aims to create…
The Runnymede Eco-Village
The Runnymede Eco-Village community have built a long house kitchen, geodesic dome communal space and other low impact structures made from the renewable timbers and recycled materials. We’ve also dug a well (where we draw water from), setup solar panels for producing electricity. Our food growing is in the early stages, but our plan is…
Greenham Common – Lucy Campbell, who participated in the march, reminisces about her experience
On August 27, 1981, history was made in Cardiff, Wales when 36 women and four babies in pushchairs embarked on a march to the US Air Force Base Greenham Common to protest the deployment of American nuclear cruise missiles. This small start led to the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, which became a major catalyst…
This was the thinking of the #OMN project ten years ago
This was the thinking of the #OMN project ten years ago: The proposed project is to reboot basic web tools and turn existing silos and portals into a network where data flows between different sites. The technology used will be #RSS and its lesser-known counterparts, allowing sites to link to each other and content to…
Talking about grassroots media as a step away from the current #techshit
Hamish Campbell, a veteran in radical media for the past 30 years, discusses the failure of current technology and mainstream culture. He highlights how the #dotcon boom commodified our data, resulting in closed technology silos like #Facebook and #Instagram that capture our attention and data for their own profit. Campbell argues that alternative technology built…
The problem with institutions funding the social side of #openweb tech
Almost all our #geekproblem software fails because they are building “control”, where all good societies are built on “trust”. We keep making piles of #techshit because we can’t communicate about this simple understanding #techchurn one way to address this is to fund the social side of tech. The problem which we need to solve is…
A large-scale protest against the construction of an open-cast coal mine in Fos-y-fran, South Wales
A large-scale protest against the construction of an open-cast coal mine in Fos-y-fran, South Wales. Climate activists from across Wales and local residents, took direct action by occupying the construction site and chaining themselves to the excavation machinery. The protest is a symbol of the battle against climate change and a challenge to the government’s…
Thnking about “communerty”
Reflecting on the history of community spaces and how they have evolved over time. In the 19th and 20th centuries, two main types of community spaces existed: village halls and church halls. Village halls were neutral spaces for community events run by a local group, while church halls had a moralistic and ideological focus and…
If people care, if people do not care.
The Hive Dalston was a grassroots community centre that was started as a collaboration between radical squatters and more mainstream arts groups. The aim was to take advantage of the Tory “big society” legislation, which offered incentives for the social use of empty properties. However, the project soon failed to maintain its radicalism and became…
Thinking about why #openweb projects fail.
Many #openweb projects have failed over the years, and there are reasons, first is the challenge of sustaining a project that is built on open-source principles and relies on community involvement and collaboration. In capitalism, without a clear and consistent funding model, it can be difficult to keep projects going over the long term. Another…