Dear friends and fellow Anarcho-Americans,
It has been a week since election day. That means it is time to stop waiting for those in office, or those in the corporate office, to get a start on the projects we’d like to see remake and re-enchant this world. It is time to get the ball rolling on making changes for ourselves, our families and our communities. It is within our power to do so. Often times these types of projects and community initiatives that aim at being in it for the long haul have an initial burst of steam that kicks things in to gear, but like carbon based fuels, energy and resources are quickly depleted. With the vast external pressures and seemingly endless distractions of our techno-consumerist culture it is also easy to feel pulled in many different directions at once. So after an initiative is started, say a community radio station, a bicycle co-op, community garden, hacker space, local small press, or non-profit dedicated to noise music and the avant-garde, what strategies exist to help these groups reach a level of sustainability that also allows them to have a continuing beneficial effect in our culture? And how can these collaborative efforts be made more resilient in face of the eroding power of capital?
Enter The Art of Free Cooperation. Many of us were told as kids, as kindergärtners, to cooperate with adults, with teachers, and with other kids. To get along and behave. Cooperation however, should only be given freely, otherwise it becomes co-option. If there are things we don’t like in life we have the choice to not cooperate with those things. So it is that free cooperation is intimately tied to free association. But these free associations and cooperatives don’t always go easy. As with any other part of life conflicts turn up. There are skill sets and tools that can help groups to prepare for the challenges of collaboration.
The DVD I’ll be showing came with the book, The Art of Free Coopeartion. The book is a collection of papers that grew out of the Free Cooperation Conference held by the State University of New York. The book examines the politics, technologies, and semiotics of Free Cooperation. This film explores the ideas and principles through the language of science fiction films, edited into a humorous collage. This collage is narrated in part by Tony Conrad. Tony is an experimental video artist and filmmaker and musician among many other things. In the realm of music, as an improviser collaborating with the likes of Faust (as Outside the Dream Syndicate) Charlemagne Palestine and many others he has put into practice many of the themes running through the Art of Free Coopeation.
This film will be screened today, November 15, at 6PM in the basement of the Northside Library (4219 Hamilton Ave.).
For more along these lines check out:
The Institute of Network Cultures
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