I spend a bit of time copying conversations off transient communication, microblogging, #failbook, chat etc. and archive this on my blog. I don’t tend to do “good practice” in this as I do it #DIY and don’t get paid for my time 🙂
I have two ways to “anonymize” text, if I keep the flow then I take the names out and put Q. and A. as the voices, if it’s out of the flow I just put “from the #openweb” this makes it quick and simple to archive things of value without jumping though impossible conversations each time. If people won’t credit and ask, I add it, it’s the polite thing to do.
Now if someone made code to automate credit and archiving work just as well, I would be happy to use it 🙂
Hamish Campbell, an independent journalist, shared his experience selling footage to corporations in an interview. He explained that corporations often contact them to buy footage, but they won’t generally take the edited programs as a whole because they are too conservative. They ask for the price, the corporation often did not want to pay, Campbell’s team tells them to “f*** off.” However, if they want the story, they’ll pay for it. It’s a game that has to be played, pretending to be independent and not part of the campaign, and always saying the video was shot using professional equipment, no matter what camera was used. Please remember to send the invoices after the negotiation, we tended to, forgets this bit.
Interviewer: Can you tell us about your experience selling footage to corporations and how you handle those negotiations?
Hamish Campbell: We used to sell some footage here and there, but it was mostly just enough to pay for broken cameras and equipment repairs. Corporations often contact us asking to buy our footage, but they won’t generally take the edited programs as a whole because they are too conservative. We tell them the price, which is usually around 400 pounds a minute, and if they don’t want to pay it, we say “f*** off”. If they want the story, they’ll pay for it, and if they don’t want it, they’re not going to broadcast it anyway. It used to happen all the time, and we always say “f*** off” to corporate media repeatedly till they agreed to pay.
Interviewer: How do you navigate the process of selling footage to corporations?
Hamish Campbell: It’s a game you have to play. You have to speak a certain language and pretend to be a certain person, and everyone knows it’s pretending. You’re an independent journalist, you’re professional, it doesn’t matter if the footage was shot on a tiny camera or a professional one. You have to present yourself as independent and not part of the campaign. After a bit of back and forth, we usually end up telling them to “f*** off” three times, and then they’ll pay us some money. But I always forget to send the invoice.
Hamish Campbell, the founder of #VisiononTV, began his journey into copyleft video through his project called #RoughCuts. In a recent interview, Campbell shared how RoughCuts started as one of the first copyleft video projects that encoded activist video in MPEG-1 format, an early standard format for video. He would burn CDs with an hour of different films and create a user interface using HTML to make it easy for people to watch them on their computers.
The CDs were sold for five pounds each, the project was designed to be a sustainable #DIY media distribution platform. People were encouraged to buy the CD, copy it, and give it away for free, and the revenue generated from the CD sales would help fund national screening tours, pay for travel expenses and equipment repair.
As the technology of the web advanced, people could watch videos online at a reasonable quality, which made the CDs obsolete. Hamish took a break from RoughCuts until the technology caught up a year or two later, and he started VisiononTV, a webTV project distribution platform for on-the-ground screenings. People could watch the videos on the web, but the primary focus was on taking the content offline and showing it on big screens to an audience in the same room.
Hamish Campbell’s RoughCuts project was a pioneering effort in the field of copyleft video, which paved the way for his later project, VisiononTV. His approach of creating sustainable DIY media distribution platforms continues to inspire and influence media activists around the world.
A interview with Hamish Campbell on grassroots media and tech
Interviewer: Can you tell us about your project #RoughCuts and how it started?
Hamish Campbell: Before I did #VisiononTV, I started a project called RoughCuts, which was offline copyleft video. It was one of the first copyleft projects with video, encode in the MPEG-1 an early standard format for video, about VHS quality video. You could fit an hour on a cheap CD. I would burn these CDs with different films, and an interface to the front of it using an HTML page, so you put the CD in your computer, and this web page would pop up with a list of all the films with a bit of information and a link to play the film. Then I would copy these in a CD burner. I’d go around the country doing screenings and I would sell the CDs for five pounds if people wonted to support the project.
Interviewer: How did you fund national screening tours for Rough Cuts?
Hamish Campbell: I funded national screening tours by selling these CDs, which were available for free if people wanted to copy them. So, I said, buy the CD, then go home, and copy it and give it all to your friends. It was a take-it-away-and-distribute-it-yourself project. It was sustainable DIY media distribution, so the person who was doing it could be sustained and could actually make a little bit of money to travel around and pay the expenses, repair cameras, etc.
Interviewer: How did the technology change of the web impact RoughCuts?
Hamish Campbell: The technology of the web moved on, so people actually could put video on the web and watch it on the web in reasonable quality. So then, why buy a CD? Why have a physical medium? It became an obsolete project. So then I kind of stopped doing that for a while, but then a year or two later, the web technology caught up, and it was really easy to do web video. So I thought, let’s do a webTV project distribution project for on the ground screenings, so people can watch on the web, but what it’s really about is taking it off the web and showing it on a big screen to a bunch of people in the same room. That’s how #VisiononTV came about.
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 a more horizontal media that challenges traditional gatekeepers. He believes that corporate media will continue to exist, but that we can build a different kind of media that is more open and democratic. Campbell is less interested in traditional media, and more focused on creating a new kind of media that is based on a more #4opens collaborative, decentralized model.
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 to become as self-sufficient as we can.
Interview with Phoenix, a member of the Runnymede Ecovillage community:
Hamish: Hi Phoenix, can you tell us about the history of Runnymede Ecovillage and why it was established?
Phoenix: Sure, about 30 people walked out of London after some of the Occupy London movement, and the main mission was to get disused land to grow food and create low-impact homes. This was a response to the issue of land distribution in this country, where 1% own 70% of the land. The idea was to use disused land for sustainable living and experiment and learn about low-impact living.
Hamish: How did the community come about, and how long has it been here?
Phoenix: After some diversions by the police, we ended up at Runnymede, a historic place, and set up a camp. There were initial camps on other bits of land, but we eventually settled here. We were here for about a month before we were taken to court and got a possession order. We moved further down into the woods and set up here, and we’ve been here for about a year now. It hasn’t been easy, as we’ve been evicted multiple times, but we’re still here and still digging in.
Hamish: What is the issue with disused land, and why is it important to use it for sustainable living?
Phoenix: Disused land is a problem because it’s not used by anyone, and there’s a vast amount of it in the country. The idea behind the campaign is to use some of this land to grow food and provide a place for people to live sustainably and in a low-impact way. We’reliving very high-impact lives, and we need to learn to live in a more sustainable way.
Hamish: Can you tell us about the space and structures at Runnymede Ecovillage?
Phoenix: There’s a reproduction Anglo-Saxon longhouse about 50 foot long, built by one of our members who has experience in woodland skills. There’s also a big geodesic dome and various other structures and homes, including Hobbit-like homes, teepees, and benders. We’ve also cleaned up a lot of the area, including an old area covered in rubbish and old fridges, and made things beautiful.
Hamish: How has the community been received by visitors and the authorities?
Phoenix: We’ve been very friendly with all the people who come and visit here, and they see that there’s a good thing going on. We’ve had visits from the authorities, and they’ve been impressed with what we’re doing. We’ve also been evicted multiple times, but we keep coming back and keep networking with other communities. There’s another diggers camp over in the Forest of Dean, and we need more of these communities all over.
Hamish: Thank you for talking with us today, Phoenix. It sounds like Runnymede Ecovillage is doing some really interesting work.
They were evicted, by property developers
Runnymede Eco-Village: Sustainable Living on Disused Land
The Runnymede Eco-Village community was a group who walked out of London after the Occupy London movement to create a space for sustainable living and low-impact homes. The community aimed to use disused land to grow food and experiment with low-impact living.
The community was at Runnymede, a historic place, for about a year. They built various structures and homes, including an Anglo-Saxon longhouse, a geodesic dome, Hobbit-like homes, teepees, and benders. They also dug a well, set up solar panels for electricity, and were in the early stages of food growing.
The community faced challenges, including multiple evictions, but they dug in and networking with other communities. The idea behind the campaign was to use disused land for sustainable living and experiment and learn about low-impact living. The Runnymede Eco-Village community was doing some really interesting work, and there is a need for more communities like it all over the country.
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 in the worldwide anti-nuclear movement throughout the 1980s. In August 2001, the original Greenham women gathered to unveil a life-size bronze sculpture commemorating their original march. Lucy Campbell, who participated in the march, reminisces about her experience, recalling the camaraderie and friendship she found among the women, as well as the challenges they faced on the journey, such as the windy Seven Bridge and the need to take down their banners. She also remembers the felt-tip version of the banner they created to inform those behind them about their cause. Looking back, she now appreciates the experience, though at the time, it was something her mother wanted her to do.
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 appear on multiple sites. The project aims to provide an alternative to the #dotcons and to serve alternative grassroots media by creating open tools and processes. The project will start with the addition of a sidebar to existing sites and the building of new aggregating sites with overviews on subjects. The long-term goal is to expand into other networks.
Don, provided a space for people to gather and connect, he was a free-spirited person who made his own choices and lived life on his own terms. He passed away, and many people who knew him gathered to remember him and the impact he had on their lives. The memories and connections that Don created have continued to endure even after his passing.
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 around an #encryptionist agenda has gone nowhere and that the world is dominated by these tech giants. He argues for the importance of the #openweb, which was born open but is dying closed over the last 20 years, and advocates for rebooting grassroots media as a solution. Campbell uses the Oxford #IMC as an example of how a simple federated network can work by sharing content, using trusted link flows, and allowing content to be moderated or rolled back. He believes that the beauty of the #openweb is based on free flowing links, unlike the #closedweb of our current dominating technology. Campbell concludes that the #OMN project is more important for what it does not do than for what it does, and highlights the need to take small steps towards a solution by rebooting grassroots media as a example project.
What you can do
In the last few years there have been events and gatherings in the US, Portugal, and Madrid, discussing the possibility of #rebooting#Indymedia. The current history of Indymedia has been primarily written by academics and is very Americanized, so there is a need to retell the stories and provide a wider perspective. To successfully reboot Indymedia, I think it needs to return to its open and serendipitous roots, rather than the bureaucratic and closed structure it became. Fortunately, most of the technical tools needed for a decentralized and federated system, such as ActivityPub and Scuttlebutt, already exist. To maintain its radical grassroots philosophy, the #4opens principles should be used to ensure openness and accessibility. To get involved, one can search for #indymediaback or “reboot Indymedia” and find useful links #OMN
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 the institutions funding of the social side of #openweb tech, if we do this now most of this funding will feed parasite #NGO’s rather than anything useful. This is also a problem of the existing funding for coding, it pushes the #geekproblem when it funds anything outside the basics.
We have a mess because our world is messy, current funding plays little role in composting this mess.
That’s the job of people with shovels – who funds them.
Most of our software fails because it is built with a focus on “control”, rather than “trust”, which is the foundation of a good society. This leads to an endless cycle of creating useless technology that we can’t communicate about. To address this problem, we need to invest in the social side of technology.
The challenge lies in funding the social aspect of #openweb technology. Currently, most funding goes to non-governmental organizations (#NGOs) that are not always effective. Additionally, the existing funding for coding primarily focuses on the basics, which perpetuates the problem of the #geekproblem.
Our world is messy, and the current funding plays little role in cleaning up this mess. People with shovels – those who do the work – need funding to make a difference.
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 stance on the issue, with the protesters accusing the government of hypocrisy for participating in international talks on reducing carbon emissions while supporting the development of new coal mines at home. The protesters believe that the use of coal, the dirtiest fuel, will have a devastating impact on the global climate and will undermine efforts to address the issue.
