KRAX MEETING 2009

:: OUT OF CONTROL ::

power to transform, power to create

3rd meeting of urban creativity in response to the city’s transformation

:: 20 - 23 May 2009 ::

RAI - c/ Carders, 13, Barcelona

http://krax-jornadas.citymined.org

It's a beautiful moment when an

assault against the world order is set in motion.

Guy Debord.

+ TALLER DE CARTOGRAFÍA DE LA BARCELONETA » 18 HASTA 29 DE MAYO, CC. BARCELONETA » CHECK HERE !!!!!

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For the third year, KRAX organises the KRAX Meeting, from the 20th to the 23rd of May 2009 in Barcelona.

The KRAX Meeting is an international meeting of creative citizen initiatives. The KRAX Meeting visualizes and connects different independent initiatives who develop new formats of political, cultural and economic organisation and participation in the city. During the 4 days of the Jornadas, groups of 7 different cities meet in Barcelona to share and to debate, among them and with initiatives from Barcelona, creative experiences of political thought and action.

We understand these new ways of independent participation, emerging from the cracks in the city, as the “collective urban creativity”: practices that generate knowledge, new ways to do and propose alternatives in response to a unitary interpretation of the city and its complexity.

From KRAX we want to compile, connect and to inform at a horizontal level these new visions and practices on the city, culture and politics, to share, empower and to stimulate the work of these independent initiatives.

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The first KRAX Meeting, in April 2007, tried to define that collective urban creativity that emerged in response to urban conflicts, showing the capacity and potential of the cracks as ruptures of the hegemonic discourse and as places of citizen appropriation. In the second Meeting, in April 2008, we decided to focus on those independent groups and spaces where that collective creativity becomes common, where new formats of debate, participation and management of the collective are rehearsed and experienced.

More than 40 initiatives have passed through both editions of the “Jornadas”, meeting, knowing, sharing, debating...

For the KRAX Meeting 2009 we want to continue with this collective questioning, guided by several concepts of the social processes and relations, as autonomy, power-to, self-institution, commons...

We know the ways we have of acting: multiple, heterogenous, experimental, proposing alternatives... We also know the formats of creation, production, management, communication of knowledge, our forms of free cooperation. Now, and especially in these restless times, we want to ask on the capacity of transformation of that “diffuse power” that we own, how to open and multiply the power of the critical social networks, how to exceed the critic and go beyond it, how to empower the diverse citizen proposals, that power-to that already exists and that is outlined from different cracks and different contexts, how to make that latent power manifest...

In order to work these questions, we will invite creative initiatives of several cities (Iconoclasistas from Buenos Aires, Toronto School of Creativity and Inquiry, AulaAbierta from Granada, The Change You Want to See from New York, Nosotros from Athens, CSA Atreu! from A Coruña, The Commoner from London...). With all these initiatives, and along with collectives and people of Barcelona, we want to ask ourselves, to debate and to know different definitions and realities of these new forms of political creation that are arising and showing possible changes.


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The KRAX Meeting 2009 program includes workshops, presentations by guest initiatives, guided tours, meetings with local initiatives and a Documentation Centre (KRAX Cargo) with the material compiled through the research process.

*: KRAX comes from the concept “cracks in the city”.

KRAX is an initiative of City Mine(d) Barcelona.

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PROGRAM:

»» Guided Tour: Barceloneta

The inhabitants of the neighbourhood will show and explain the urban and social changes this popular neighbourhood is going through.

This activity is free of charge, of course, but places are limited. To participate in the tour, please register by sending an e-mail to krax(at)citymined.org.

»» Collective Mapping Workshop: Barceloneta

Iconoclasistas (Buenos Aires, http://iconoclasistas.com.ar) will be in charge of the Collective Mapping Workshop, in which inhabitants of Barceloneta and others interested in the current situation of the neighbourhood will participate. The goal of this workshop is to create a space of collective reflection and self-knowledge, in order to explore the neighbourhood's potentials and to work out proposals for its transformation. This map will become a useful tool for the neighbourhood to visualize the debate, the proposals, the different identities, the critics and the potentials of the neighbourhood... This tool has to confirm and formalize the neighbours' power and position in the city's debate!

Contact us at krax(at)citymined.org for more information.

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»» Work Sessions / Debates

KRAX wants to take advantage of all the knowledge and experience from the different urban contexts that will come together at the KRAX Meeting, to discuss the strengths, weaknesses and legitimacy of autonomous citizen's groups as tools for urban creation, debate and transformation.

Places are limited, please register by sending an e-mail to krax(at)citymined.org.

Session 1: “A potential glossary”

This work-session will be used to create an overview of critical terms from concepts such as self-organisation, autonomy and self-institution. This compilation will be structured in order to function for practical use and as an applied tool in the activities of the different initiatives, and in relation with its strong and weak points. This work-session will discuss some of the practices of the groups in relation to the local experiences to explore the efficiency (or not!) of the working terms.

Moderators: Javier Rodrigo (Artibarri), Jim Segers (City Mine(d) London).

Session 2: “Organisation, communication and political action in the era of web 2.0”

A critical analysis of the socio-technical-political transformation of social movements and technological tools used during the last 10 years. Thinking about the limits and the possibilities: starting from the birth of Indymedia in Seattle in 1998, the evolution and the drifts of techno-political associations in a context of a rapid development and transformation of the net and of the movements, collectives and networks...

To explain this with an example, we will give a short presentation of the project n-1.cc -“a techno-political project of the multitude”-, an attempt to overcome these limits.

Moderators: Arnau Monterde (Communia, Ateneu Candela), Javier Toret (n-1.cc, Universidad Nómada), Manje (n-1.cc, Patalata.net).

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»» Presentations of the invited groups

We do not think that the guests can be seen as “models”. Instead we understand them as examples, as interesting citizen's experiences and as different ways of thinking and acting, sharing interest in creating and fostering an independent public sphere.

- Iconoclasistas, Buenos Aires, Argentina, http://iconoclasistas.com.ar

This “laboratory of communication and counter-hegemonic resources” generates graphical resources oriented to establish ruptures in the hegemonic structures, as a way to resist and influence in the social imaginary, but also as a proposal of change and transformation. Their sociopolitical cartographies are made from the socialization of experiences and knowledge, and are thought like instances of construction and open participation: a bet on learning, thought, organization and collective transformation of a territory and its context. The “Cosmovisión Rebelde national tour” deserves special attention, with collective mapping workshops in more than 10 different argentinian cities.

- Not an Alternative, New York, U.S.A., http://notanalternative.net

Not An Alternative integrates art, activism and theory in order to create a popular understanding of the dominant interpretation of events, symbols and history. NAA interferes in these meanings using the media and 2.0 techological tools as new ways of political mobilization. “Likely the single largest problem facing the left has been its inability to build cohesion”. In order to create this cohesion among social movements, they focus in campaigns of strategy and organization: “The different themes make part of the same political battle”.

- AulAbierta, Granada, Spain, http://aulabierta.info

AulAbierta is a pedagogical project and process that questions and intervenes in the role of the institutions of learning. AulAbierta is a community of learning and research, self-sustained by the students themselves: a machine of collective production of knowledge. “A place of collective production and critique of the traditional structures where is decided what must be learned and how it must be learned. Our objective is to be critical of dominant representation and its ways or forms of projection. That’s where we are...” .

- Nosotros Free Social Space, Athens, Greece, http://nosotros.gr

A horizontal and democratic space, where reflections are connected with daily life. The duties and tasks are replaced by personal responsibilities and initiatives, so that the consistency of the project becomes a matter of consciousness. The objective of this free, public and social concept is to bridge gaps between different social movements to create ways towards “a true freedom”. This is achieved through diverse activities, as debates, conferences, workshops, projections, readings… Their open-door policy, its social extroversion and its action throughout the years have made of Nosotros a space of freedom.

- Toronto School of Creativity and Inquiry, Toronto, Canada, http://tsci.ca

A process of reflection on the metropolitan social wealth and potential. An approach to diverse activities that operate inside, against and beyond the imposed social protocols: precarity, representative policies, commodified social relationships… TSCI inquiries about the urgency of creating new institutions in the face of the crisis of the left and neoliberalism. “Our hope is to increase the use of these alternatives so that in our everyday lives more of us might reproduce what we value rather than what we oppose”.

- CSA Atreu!, A Coruña, Galicia, http://atreu.info

Politics and life are mixed in this social center. Its intention is to socialize common problems to find articulated solutions. Solutions for hetero-normativity or precarity, and proposals for free culture or social rights. “A space where the antagonistic strategies from the past are re-thought to make them operative, in a constituent and desiring form, in the daily praxis”. New hybrid social formats, new political ideas outside of ideologies: new institutions of the common.

- The Commoner, London - Bologna, http://www.commoner.org.uk

In times of the privatization of the commons, we must think about the alternatives. How can we obtain direct access to means of existence, production and communication? How do we organize social relations around the commons? “There are no commons without (re)producing in common. But it is through (re)production in common that communities of producers decide for themselves the norms, values and measures of things”. How do we set limits to the system while building an “outside”? The online magazine The Commoner moves between these lines...

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»» KRAX Cargo

KRAX Cargo is the archive and visualization of all the information and data from KRAX research, especially from the different groups we are working with with. During the Meeting, KRAX Cargo will be available so you can consult, add and copy material.

http://cargo.citymined.org

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»» KRAX Translation: some remarks...

This year we emphasize the importance of having Spanish and English translations during the presentations and debates. Together with the interpreters we have decided to invest a part of the budget in simultaneous translation equipment, that after the KRAX Meeting can be used for other presentations, conferences and meetings of cultural and social movements with limited resources. The equipment has been developed by the ALIS project (Alternative Interpreting System) in Greece and works with radio-frequencies to transmit the interpretation to the audience holding FM receivers. This system, based on free software and the DIY principle, is relatively cheap and works great! It is an important step in facilitating communication and respect for the linguistic diversity in the events of the social movements. Lyre and the Observatori RiSc are the groups that will manage this system in Barcelona after the KRAX Meeting.

- - - IN ORDER TO BE ABLE TO LISTEN TO THE INTERPRETERS, BRING YOUR FM RECEIVER (RADIO OR MOBILE WITH RADIO) AND YOUR HEADPHONES! - - -

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Thanxxxx for your collaboration and patience: Valentina, Nuria, Eva, Gemma, Patricia, Kate, Javier, Toret, Dani, Ux, Hadda, Khalil, Nico, René, Montse, Leo, orianomada, Ursula, Erika, AA.VV. L'Ostia y Plataforma en Defensa de la Barceloneta, Iuri, Iconoclasistas, Marcelo, Nelly, Jim, Giulia, Anita, YP, RAI, riereta.net, Luis...

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:: Info KRAX Meeting ::

c/ Riereta, 5

08001, Barcelona

(0034) 93 443 7470

krax(a)citymined.org

http://krax-jornadas.citymined.org

20th till 23th of May 2009, in RAI (c/ Carders, 13), Barcelona

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We must abandon all models, and study our possibilities.

E. A. Poe.