I count on you

Photo by Julio Albarrán (cc)

Report of Belén Gopegui Audiovisual Source Code: The Pitfalls of Fiction. Original language: spanish («Cuento contigo»)

«She learned the notion of commons at the ’Prosperidad’ Popular School» as Lucas Tello pointed out in Belen Gopegui’s biography during his introduction. It was the second time the Popular School appeared at the 17th ZEMOS98 Festival. A while earlier Silvia Nanclares, mediator of the Fanzine Group at the Hackcamp #ReclaimtheCommons, had taped a sheet of paper on a wall of the Seville Arts Centre. On that paper I had drawn a plan, freestyle and not respecting scale, of the ‘Prospe’ Popular School. All this happened because Nanclares had asked us to think of our favourite place in a city. And I thought of my city, Madrid, and my neighbourhood Prosperidad, and of the place where I currently have the best time cultivating the commons: the School. And as in the case of a loom woven by different weavers, it seemed like we were touching common places and the image of the tapestry started to make sense. I could already see the ship come in.

Not just clowning around

Photo by Julio Albarrán (cc)

Report about table 2 of the #ReclaimtheCommons Hackcamp: Guerrilla Care Campaign

I was never going to turn down an invitation to a conference in Seville called Caring for the City: Reclaiming The Commons . It promised to combine so many of my interests: the need to return public space to the public, the astonishingly successful anti-eviction group PAH and the wider Spanish left, and the arguments advanced by David Harvey and Anna Minton on late capitalism’s sustained assault on civic democracy. Also, tapas.

At the digital barricades

Photos by Julio Albarrán (cc)

Report about table 4 of the #ReclaimtheCommons Hackcamp: WebDoc Prototype.

A report from the 17 ZEMOS98 Festival #ReclaimtheCommons Hackcamp, Seville 2015.

Over the summer of 2013, the UK Home Office began the groundwork for an enforcement crusade, Operation Vaken, geared at encouraging illegal immigrants to volunteer for repatriation. As vans toured the streets, with the slogan «In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest», the Home Office also tweeted photos of migrants being arrested, adorned with the #immigrantoffenders hashtag. The campaign backfired spectacularly, ricocheting across the social network, with the emergence of a #RacistVan hashtag, alongside spliced images of the vans that drew attention to more pressing issues instead, like tax evasion.