28.02.2008
Eclectic Tech Carnival
May 25-31 2008, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Call-out
Inviting All Women.Including gender minorities and female-identified persons.
The seventh Eclectic Tech Carnival will be held from Sunday the 25th until Saturday the 31st of May in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
The /ETC is a unique tech skill-share that has been held annually since 2002. The emphasis has always been women sharing their experiences, knowledge and skills around free software, open hardware and universal interoperability of systems in a fun way.
In addition to the skill-share program, this year the Eclectic Tech Carnival will be focusing on a number of specific political issues: the "life cycle" of hardware from mining, to labour practices in the manufacturing industry, to waste management. In addition we will explore why there seems to be so little public interest in Privacy, or lack of, on the Net. And what can we learn from the Creative Commons movement?
The seventh Eclectic Tech Carnival is taking place in the Plantage Dok (Plantagedoklaan 8-12) in Amsterdam from Sunday May the 25 until Saturday May the 31st 2008. The /ETC is an event where women interested in technology meet each other to exchange experiences in a fun and educational manner. It is a combination of a female hack meeting and skill-share.
The program consist of a series of workshops, performances, exhibitions and public events. The evening programme is free and open to the public. Men and women of all ages and backgrounds are welcome, so join in!
26.05.2008
/ETC online
Watch and listen us at: http://giss.tv8000/genderchangers.org
20.06.2008
About
Eclectic Tech Carnival (/ETC) is focused on the exchange of computer-related skills, ideas and art by women and for women - including gender minorities and female-identified people. Ever since the first /ETC meeting happened in Pula (Croatia) in 2002, this nomadic transnational carnival has been bringing together women who are interested in free computer software, open hardware and the universal interoperability of systems. The 8th Eclectic Tech Carnival hosted around sixty women from Europe and United States, many of whom are well aware of the discouraging reality reflected by statistics: the 2006 Wizard of OS conference estimated that the share of female programmers varies between mere 0.5 and 1.5 percent. The cooperation and mingling of women interested in computer-based technologies in real time and space thus fulfilled the primary goal of /ETC. Since few participants can claim that they have a local community of women to support their interests, the gathering and peer-to-peer exchange of knowledge at the 8th /ETC was a most precious experience.
In addition, the space is a testing ground where women can become accustomed to the techie sub-culture before experiencing it in the 'real' or mixed world. When talking about skill-sharing and learning, a context sensitive, peer environment generally results in better levels of skills and knowledge acquisition." At the 8th /ETC, another perspective was offered by Claudia Ossandon, a media activist and member of the Spanish video art collective Generatech!: "To work in women-only groups is not very important for me. I worked with queer groups consisting of women and men of different gender identifications. What is important for me is the feminism, and to be a feminist you don't have to be a woman. When I started using free software, I became aware of the gender aspect of it. In general, I am more interested in the political aspects, social action, critical theory, queer theory, etc., than in actual sex and physical issues in feminism."
The /ETC is based on the 'curriculum' of The GenderChanger Academy which also offers a theoretical foundation for reflecting the relationship between women and technology - including the ways in which they merge as a political subject of feminism today. /ETC's theoretical platform is based on the belief that computer technology, and especially open source software is a site from where new forms of subjectivity and women's empowerment can be articulated. The principles of open source programming can be connected to feminist politics in several ways: the unlimited use of programs is comparable to political struggles for autonomy and women's rights, the public accessibility of programs is related to the right to public and political participation, the possibility to copy codes freely to feminist solidarity with other disadvantaged groups, and the possibility of upgrading codes can be read in the light of long-term changes brought by feminist movement: the access to education, reproductive rights, workers' and other rights.
Connections between women, art, activism, and technology were further elaborated by artists, theorists, curators, media activists and art historians, whose interventions took the form of workshops, presentations, lectures, performances, discussions, exhibitions, and ad hoc collaborative events such as the Cuisine Interne Keuken media lab. Media activist Marty Huber interviewed several /ETC participants about their creative work, the material conditions in which they work and their views on art and technology. "I can't really define it," commented composer Lize De Clercq, "I think it's the feeling. If I feel that there is poetry in combination with, let's say, singing and reforming the sound through a program, and that arrives to me as poetry, I think it is a good combination of art and technology. But a lot of times I don't feel the poetry in it, I only feel the technology." In her contrasting view, Reni Hofmuller said that "art and technology are completely connected in the way how I work. The decision is not so much if I want to combine it, but rather what is the idea and the conceptual spark at the beginning, then how I am going to develop it. It can be with digital or analog tools, with electricity or without, so there is a huge range. But everything is technology; knowing how to use a pen is also a technology." However, /ETC was focused on specific computer technologies. Workshops were given on Ubuntu, Phyton, HTML, open code programs (UpStage, Ubuntu Studio, Audacity, Pure Data, etc.), and a number of environmental and social issues that surround them, such as the 'life cycle' of hardware (from mining and the labor conditions in the manufacturing industry to waste management) and the absence of public interest in privacy on the internet.