How Indy Are You ?! Digital Independence 2004

How Indy are You ?! DI 2004 Conference

The Digital Independence 2004 conference begins this weekend
Jan30-Feb.1st, opening tonight with a block party at The Battery Street Digital Space and then officially beginning on Saturday at a particularly inhospitable venue for independents , the San Francisco Marriott. A schedule that combines both subversive and compromising crossbreeds of technology sector meets entertainment industry meets an array of public interest panelists and democracy warriors , the location itself may already reflect an escalation of the crises and/or a desire to enter the crucible. While the first DI 2001 looked at the media migration from Analog To Digital at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts , this 2nd brainchild of media world surfer/ survivor David Rosen , perhaps best known as the author of "Off-Hollywood : The Making and Marketing of
Independent Films " and the odd television credits like ABC's "The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald" and Emmy award-winning " The American City" - imagines perhaps that a meeting of minds in the inescapable and ubiquitous market-driven cesspools is where the critical evolution of new and sustainable independent media communities might actually reach into the perilous core of mass culture and globalization.

For a full view of the schedule :
http://www.digitalindies.com
And an ECR interview w/ Rosen:
part 1: http://www.enemycombatantradio.net/ecr/0401252200lofi.mp3
part 2: http://www.enemycombatantradio.net/ecr/0401252300lofi.mp3

This multi-faceted program nearly spans our entire "mediated" culture: Film, video, tv, games, music, technology, media policy, and the arts. As they all migrate to digital production these media become more like a compass and the wheel of our post-modern lives. Particularly in light of the dot-com crash this conference is ripe with collisions and paradoxes that mirror the dilemmas faced by not just the independent media communities, but our society as a whole. And while it appears that this conference might address these issues from within the digital bubble there is exciting and rare potential to provide some navigation and perspective for regaining control of our future.

"Our goal is to stimulate a vigorous debate about the form and viability of independent media. Panels will explore new models of financing, intellectual property, distribution, marketing as well as new forms of creativity and the technology standards that underlie the digital media. We are doing this within a post-dot-com business environment that I call "the new sobriety" - an environment stripped of the fast-buck hype that distorted the 90's. " D. Rosen

"Distorted" sounds entirely understated, but perhaps there's some
intentional diplomacy at work to lure the silicon beasts and their foundations into the public arena. Whether this becomes a co-opting fest or a true forum for "a new era of creativity " and a "contest to the appeal of conglomerate culture " will ultimately depend upon the tenacity and challenges raised by the Indy participants themselves.

Unfortunately Rosen and a whole host of east to west coast planners ( ranging from broadcast executives to museum curators to film directors ... the list is available for viewing on their site and provides a sense of the massive planning scope ) have embedded the game with more industry players then vociferous voices for alternative worlds. While Rosen as an individual seems plugged pretty lifelong and sincerely into the long-haul visions for democracy, independence and community alliances, there also
exists this incredible weight of the industry underneath. So the featured panels and curated networks at play here may very well reveal an authentic microcosm : the 90's virtual fantasies boiling down into the hyper-real battlefields of industry, silicon valley and entertainment world capital desperately recreating themselves vs. true visionaries tearing down the old media rules and building an outsiders' playground.

Whether you see DI 2004 as an attempt to install a transmigration of commercial media into our already thriving Indy communities or opening pathways for more sustainable creativity is a bit like whether you perceive your media as half-empty or half-full , if not utterly and dangerously vacuous. In all cases, those voices thirsty for change should come prepared to steal back as many bottles as it takes for empowering the people and inciting a gleaming eye for whatever networks necessary!

Be sure to catch these guests most likely to shake up the system : the youth-empowering women of Third World Majority , Marko Peljhan of Ljubljana’s notorious Ljudmila media lab, Wendy Seltzer from EFF, Danny Schechter from MediaChannel.org and more we're likely to discover along the way.

And for the sheer entertainment and braincandy factor:
dj Spooky performs on Saturday night .

If you are unable to navigate through the obstacles of the digitaL information inflation or simply can’t attend :
SF Bay IMC will be on hand to archive the most relevant panels to our indy community and ECR will feature special guests from DI 2004 and assess the damage and/or gains this Sunday night
8-11pm.
http://www.enemycombatantradio.net
You can also call and join the conversation at :
ECR / IMC
415.864.1006

jam On !
pod p.