Summary of Lote3 community call #12

Workspaces LOTE3 “The unPilgrimage”
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Attending: Dorotea, Bembo, Ilaria, Rita, Ben, Nadia, David Ridge, Michael Dobbie, Giuseppe, Ksenya, Alberto, Noemi

Hi everyone, today’s call had a very familiar touch to it – friends meeting to discuss concrete things, and get to work immediately after (or almost, since a bunch of us remained to chat after the call ended :)).

The gist of it is that we now have just enough buffer space to find and work with resources onsite, in Matera; Rita Orlando who has just taken a role as liaison between unMonastery and Matera 2019 committee is the key person to help.

Food! She and Ilaria have been doing a lot of scouting work, they’re in touch with local food providers and farmers, and will try to organize weekly Saturday parades to collect materials for pasta party and snacks; we can offer offer smth symbolic in return, like an invitation to Lote. (! very cool idea, endorsed also by hosting team who’d be arriving to Matera early to help)

On venue & capacity: the number of registered participants is now at 104, but not everyone is sure to attend. Starting September 25th we’ll reach out to see who is definitely coming (community management task assigned to myself). The unMonastery building is far from being able to attend to this many, but either way, we want and we will manage to get everyone in. To do so, Ilaria and Rita will be booking additional venues nearby. Some options that have been mentioned: Palazzotto: hosts 10 people, Incubatore: 30 people, Le Monacelle: 30 people, Casa Cava: 80 people.

Accommodation: although the intention was there to collect information about everyone’s arrival and match people’s dates with available B&Bs, we agreed the organizational effort is too big, people are planning their trips at different moments. So in the end we’ve decided to publish a list with places and the cheapest rates negotiated and encourage everyone to book on their own. More on this as soon as we have the list. Thanks to Giuseppe for helping out with ideas!

Event agenda: Bembo and Dorotea in particular are in favor of having a very loose program framework, with many empty slots and possibility to come up with topics ad hoc, like at past Lotes. One way to do it is follow the Reboot conference example, where they listed only proposals in advance, and the schedule was made on spot. What we do need as soon as possible is an aggregated, easy to read table view of the sessions and their coordinators so far, and how much time is required per session. An internal deadline to arrange all existing sessions in a very tentative timeframe has been set to September 15th. Alberto, Ben and Noemi – the three track coordinators will take care of this, unless someone else wants to coordinate the tracks.

Am I missing something? Lots of things are happening in Matera and getting an overview on all the loose ends there is getting difficult, so all efforts to communicate that are highly appreciated. That way many more Edgeryders could help, even from the distance! :slight_smile:

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Taking shape!

This is really starting to feel concrete… thanks Noemi for the immediate follow-up!

Just wanted to add, specify and ask a couple of questions:

  1. For the “re-collection parade” I see it like in 2 phases: the first for plates, forks, pans, glasses ecc. (like every Saturday morning) the second for food (wouldn’t be collecting bread and vegetables 1 month in advance. We would need a supermarket caddie and then parade around the city with musicians, artists and stuff. However, my opinion is that we give something in exchange: like a MOO Card (in Italian) which gives u access to something, or put an unMon sticker on the window which means that the people at LOTE will privilege spending there money in those cafes rather than those who didn’t give anything (I’m thinking out loud). What’s important here is that I would like to break the idea that since they are giving something, we owe them a favor. It’s more like showing them that this is a real opportunity for them too… For example, I know the daughter of the guy that owns the supermarket chain in Italy (and MAtera): if I ask her stuff as Ilaria, she will give it to me, but then I will be caught up in this favor exchange thing which has been devaluating our projects, profesionnalism ecc. Other thing is going up to her and explaining the LOTE and telling her this is a great opportunity for you too but you have to figure out why, and if you do, well, it’s free of charge but everybody’s contributing with something so… here’s the supermarket caddie! For this, what is needed?
  • the locals: gimme the artists and the creative paradors: where are they? The ones I know will say they are to old for this :-)
  • flyers & stickers & catchy stuff we can exchange with the objects given to us: We start in October, can the vectorials be ready by then? Anybody up for this? Rita, can the MT2019 Committee pay for the printing? It's not much... counting that this would make them gain money in buying plates and stuff. 

  1. Ben made us some unmonastery emails in a glimpse: I wrote to Sviluppo Basilicata to ask for venue (the Incubatore in the Sassi) + explain the concept + ask to start doing the connection with local enterprises and help out with communication: in case they need an official protocol (they have one with mt2019 but it’s not working that good) would Edgeryders social enterprise be interested in signing one or better not?

  2. Was thinking it could be interesting to convey ressource people from Europe and Italy, such as Bart from De Waag (he confirmed he’s coming to Nadia), to specific panels. For example, there’s a slot on makerspaces and crafts? Well, I am sure Stefano Micelli would love to be there. Once certain slots are decided, and the communication material is done, we could build on Matera’s networks to convey specific people to specific slots. This would enable participation in an intelligent way (hopefully): all the people from the ER coming, discussing, chatting, showing, exchanging… probably Materani will pop up but be to shy to participate. If we manage to convey them with their works and their project to a place where there are also some names which represent the interesting change that is going on in Italy, maybe there are some good chances to overcome the dillusion and the scepticism that still prevails in many people.

  3. I’ll finish with a story. Last night in Matera was hell. It had all started out greatly: a couple of phone calls, a vague appointment, one indiciation: bring whatever you want to make a dinner in the Via delle Beccherie. A friend brought the ciambotta, another brought the bread, another tables, some others the chairs. In no time we were having dinner in the middle of the road, happily talking about many things, untill… the discussion fell on the unMonastery. For those who don’t know, Nadia’s video in English, was followed by my amateur one in Italian, which brought some friends of mine to produce hilarious parody which was viewed over 800 times in a couple of hours. This was great pubblicity. But then the discussion went totally rotten. Bottom line is the following, and it came from very enthousiastic people who participated in the first workshops of the unMonastery: these guys get a whole venue, and the local operators which have been trying for years to organize events and do stuff have never had any support actually they got only obstacles. Now I am entitled to know how much the locals can be negative and sceptical and “permission-dependant”. However in this case I understood their point. For example, a guy said (speaking more in general about mt2019): instead of having us present ourselves to eachother 20 times why don’t they start by going to the Municipality and ask the Culture Office for all the project proposals which have been deposoted in the 5 past years, and start from there in order to get to know who’s who and who is allowed to do what? The question was: why should we come for the xxth time to stuff that comes from abroad and see how great these people are when they are put in conditions that we can’t even dream about? And you’re even asking us to make stuff for free for them? This “us-them” dynamic is something that has to be overcome, and the LOTE is there to do so. But, on my side, I know that building on personal relations and words is not sustainable any more - neither for the LOTE, neither for the unMon, neither for Matera itself. Stuff has to be done, there is no better engagement than action.

With these words, my fellow friends, I leave you and wish you a good weekend… shine on!

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No obligations!

Some answers to @ilariadauria and the rest of us.

  • If Sviluppo Basilicata want a letter from ER sure, they can get one. But don't think they care. Actually, this would be a great way to put some meat into their collaboration with MT2019.
  • There's plenty of slots. Anyone wants to do stuff on makerspaces and crafts, she's more than welcome. For now, we are engaging with several makers (guerrilla knitting; designing the unMonasterians clothings; I asked [Costantino], a prominent Italian harware hacker and one of the founders of WeFab ("Make things, not slides"), to do something at \#LOTE3 (it would be great to make wearable gadgets together, for example... ). But there's plenty of space.
  • I am determined not to be apologetic with disgruntled citizens of Matera. It is not our problem if they have a bad relationship with their city authorities. We managed to make \#LOTE3 the unMonastery happen for all. The doors are wide open. People that want to use them need only show up (or apply for residencies to the unMonastery). Materans that want to team up with edgeryders from all over to make new projecs will be met, I am sure, with a welcome and an open mind. We are making every effort to connect with anyone in town who wants to play ball: and those who show up are our friends and partners, and we will try to keep each other happy. Those who don't show up under these conditions are nonparticipants; they can complain and grumble and whisper, but they can't have my attention. So: some of us will want action anyway, and they will make some action happen. But I don't recommend taking action (or doing anything that feels contrived) just to keep happy people who don't engage with us: you'll waste valuable time, and they will keep grumbling, seeing how this gets them attention.
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CATCHY STUFF AND MORE

Hi Ilaria

I love so much this collection parade! I’ll try to ask some artists that I know if they’d like to do it! Too cool!

About printings: I’ll ask, as you suggest, to the Commitee if they can pay. Anyway, we’ve to consider that budget is really low (see more at https://edgeryders.eu/node/1492) and it is finalized to finance UnMon: so, what we use now we won’t use later. However, I’ll talk to them: let’s try to figure out how many prints we’ll need and I’ll make some quotations (I’ve made some graphic works so I can contact typographies and check the web too).

About the rest I’ll finish tomorrow, I’m too tired now!

Baci

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instead of prints?

Hello Rita,

I have an online project called SweetClarity. It was an attempt to demonstrate an alternative outlet for fringe arts. Creatives were invited to upload their visual works (currently still frames) and edit them into story-telling presentations (there is an online editing environment which makes this easy to do). Then any public (or private) screen could be used to project these works for audiences to experience. It didn’t get very far (I am currently having thoughts to take it down) but it is a prototype that works.

This can be an alternative to printing. To use the system to present you need a screen connected to a computer connected to the internet. It runs in a browser (see link above and click “visitors”). All of the presentations there (except one) are currently of my works. However I can create accounts for others to upload their works … and you wouldn’t need to spend money on prints.

Just wanted to present this alternative option to you :slight_smile:

All Things Good

Ronen

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very cool project!

I love it, Ronen, even though i’d probably be the last one to create the visual stories in there since i’m nowhere near of an artist…

I agree with Rita and I’d add that sometimes when negotiating at street level the easiest way to get merchandisers’ attention is to offer something palpable, as small as it is…

But maybe we could use that idea post Lote to mix and remix photographic or video outputs . maybe artists who’ll be present would like to play around with somehting like this and we could even leave it as heritage at the unmonastery door. so everyone who will enter as visitor could see a screen with this art work. i’d leave this open and thanks for pointing out to this tool :slight_smile:

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prints are needed!

Hi Iamronen, ty for the tip! I had a look at your project, really nice, and I’ll take it in mind for further uses. Unfortunately, prints are so necessary in this case 'cause we need to have a material sign for what it is meant to be.

But ty so much for your involvement, meet you in Matera!