Openness, Videos, Impressions

The notion of free and open is under great debate even underthat, and I think even when you side with a camp, there are going to be furthersplinters. There are many ways of defining the free and open, and I think that thetension, rather than being resolved, needs to be sustained and creativelyperpetrated to keep an internal checks and balances on not getting carried awaywith it. All the groups did indeed circle around this in different,often tangential ways – that there is need to define, variously and almostendlessly, in defining the context of the free that we are dealing with.

Open video, in that matter, has gone through differentiterations, and I think it is nice that different stakeholders have defined itvariously, and also looked at the problems that it might lead to. However, forthe sake of synthesis, I am going to let you have your own idea of free andopen but instead look at five key words which have emerged, in my selectivehearing, through the day: Access, Archive, Share, Remix, Repurpose. And it is these five that we need to nowimbricate these concepts across different thematic that emerged in the groupstoday.

Access has been one primary question that almost everybodydealt with; Access has its legacies in the Open and Free culture movements,where technological access, dealing with questions of open standards andcontent, of bandwidth and infrastructure. More interestingly, in an emerginginformation society like India, there are other concerns of language, access,privilege, bandwidth, education etc.  Tocontextualise access and to put it into different perspectives is somethingthat different participants have voiced the need for.

Archive is a preoccupation with most people becausearchiving has close relationships with knowledge and subsequently retrieval andusage. If knowledge is being digitised so that it is made accessible todifferent people, there are older questions of representation, voice,empowerment, participation, ethics, privacy, ownership etc. Crop up. Ineducation archiving has to do with the curricula building and knowledgeproduction. In networking, collaboration and film making, it is the kind ofissues that pad.ma is trying to tackle with. It also leads to notions ofaccess, distribution etc.

Sharing is what is almost defining the spirit of the Openand Free culture movements. There is a need to understand and explore whatsharing means. When does it infringe laws and what kind of regulation needs tobe advocated so that sharing becomes possible. How does one overcome questionsof piracy, stealing, IPR etc? More interestingly, what do we share and who dowe share it with?  Tools by which sharingleads to innovation? How does it lead to new participation and learningpractices and pedagogies? What kind of open distribution models and networkscan be built up?

Remix has been of great value because it means that you arebeing converted into some sort of a stakeholder or a contributor to theprocess. Networking and nodes, network-actor, collaborator , peer 2 peer – thepossibility of looking at questions of internet and digital traces isinteresting. Or imagine that the act of sharing is also a remix. Sometimes justputting it into new contexts, making it available to newer constituencies, etc.can also be looked upon as remixing. Remix as a knowledge production aestheticand mechanics seems to have emerged.

Repurpose is my additional reading of something that perhapsneeds no mention to this group, but nonetheless needs flagging. The factremains, that the technology is not a solution in itself. It is a tool thatenables the solutions which one is seeking for. The processes, paradigms,protocols and practices are indeed shaped and mediated by technologies andthere are new solution possibilities which are produced. However, there stillseem to be anxieties, concerns, questions and problems which are cropping upand need to be addressed outside of technology but within technology ecologies.