May 2021 - State of the (distrikt) union and a couple of points

Witness Building Witness
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A couple of things are happening in the city of Witness in this period.

The Europarama podcast series is ready to start. The trailer is out today and it rocks.

The first episode, An introduction to Witness, will be “aired” on Friday 4 June and the series will continue on the biweekly basis (the 2nd episode will be out on 18 June and so on) in the following order:

  • Hygge
  • The Covenant
  • Avantgrid
  • Aethnography
  • History

The good people from Are We Europe are working on its promotion but we would like to give them our full support, so don’t be shy - promote and prosper.

On the 8 June @hugi and I will be joining the Globus Opstart meeting to brief and be briefed on the progress of their projects.

In spite of the general sensation of relief the vaccination dynamics is creating in Europe, the European governments - sharing the skepticism of the rest of the world which still cannot access the vaccines - are still not releasing visas. This postpones the organisation of our Sicilian residency once more.

There is a linkage between Witness and the POPREBEL project we are working on, connecting the two moments for the POPREBEL’s final impact conference.

In regard to all this, following a conversation with @alberto on the matter and considering it has been good six months since the building had begun, I would like to propose a meeting of the core team in the following two weeks to gather thoughts and impressions and draw a couple of guidelines for the continuation of the project.

@yudhanjaya, @joriam, @nadia, @hugi, @giacomo.pinaffo, @alberto

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I will really try to attend, but might be stuck in travel as I’m currently in Denmark. @ivan - did you have time to add some “pulses” yet? And we should also add the podcasts as pulses - both when they were recorded and when they are released.

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Hi, sure - feel free to sign me up

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I added the parts on the origins. I can do the release moments for the podcast, could you do the recording one? I have never joined the calls, you have more things to say on that side.

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So two updates ahead of our call.

1. Building Witness, making it easier to engage:

We have webpage where content is presented dynamically to gives uptodate overview of current state of conversations, upcoming events etc with little effort. The site is autogenerated from platform categories, and curated through tagging.

  • Events to build witness (tagged: Event),

  • Participant entries to the dicussion - i.e new posts, and soon, comments (tagged: News),

  • Curated content to be presented e.g instructions to participants etc (tagged: Page)

  • Live site here: Edgeryders | Start

We can do this for any category on the platform. For witnesspedia we would add much shortened versions of the wiki entries as pages - with simple instructions for how to contribute at bottom of each one. Each time a summary is done - it is posted on platform, and tagged Page. While the longer source wiki is untagged and disappears from the live site (i’ve used the current wikis as placeholders right now)

2. Planned “BIG” Event: End of November (tbc)

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On 8 June, I participated in Globus Opstart working group organised by Bespoke and presented ER and in particular the SciFi Economics Lab work around Witness.

Other organisations funded by Nordisk Kulturfond present were:

Fix & Foxy with the project Avatar Me, a personal 1:1 live performance where for 45 minutes you live someone else’s life. A “first-person”, live-streamed experience where you for a moment affect another person’s actions elsewhere in the world.

All That Is Solid Melts into Water (although everyone knows it is air :slight_smile:) - A “hard core” interdisciplinary project which aims to explore the links and parallels between Sápmi and Nubia.

Glomus Glocal, an interdisciplinary and intercultural artistic camp for young artists and art students, that focuses on the global in the local

Inopiné II – a dance project by Mia Habib about ecological grief, cultural panic and the feeling of collapse.

Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus/Aalborg

The workshop’s goal was to permit the participants to share experiences, insights and challenges of their respective projects. The results can be seen on the miro board.

These are all courageous, interesting and high profile projects. I will explore them further, their artistic nature could have possible synergies with Witness.

@hugi and I have been keeping track of our progress since the beginning on the Bespoke Horizon platform. Its system of short signals allows to take a snapshot of relevant moments in the building of the process and this patchwork is actually a nice collection of reflections.

A particularly appreciated moment on Bespoke’s side comes out of our way of exchange – screenshots from our platform illustrate in a vivid way the conversations and the process of co-creation.
Our strength is in the capacity of instantly showing / sharing everything we discuss – the process is under everybody’s eyes.
We will keep on with these “signals” until the month of August.

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Ciao Ivan,

I’m sorry for the late reply, I was waiting for updates from the Embassy in Sri Lanka, which I resume here below:

“Kindly note that Schengen visas are suspended till further notice due to prevailing situation, only tourist visa for couple in stable relationship can be submitted.
Please note that Italy Visa Application Center in Colombo will remain closed till the 11th June 2021 due to imposed travel restrictions by Sri Lankan Government”

firme_email_GP3.png

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Ciao Giacomo,

no worries, Alberto had sent me your notice. We tried both Sweden and Estonia after that, but it is the same (in different declinations).