Dr Laura James's writings

I started October at the third Festival of Commoning , in Stroud again.  As seems to be normal now at the Festival, there was discussion about what this commoning thing actually is (I blogged them too -  Commoning and Festival of Commoning take two ). But this year it felt like maybe it didn't matter so much, or the tent is just tacitly agreed to be a big one. In the welcome session it was described as "a global movement, acting locally," and the poster had some examples.   What if we had more say in the things we depend on? That's where commoning comes in. You are already commoning, whether you know it or not.     My rough notes follow - these are my attempt to capture things and so may be wrong, focussed on specific aspects that caught my attention, etc.    

On Thursday I went to FLIPIM , the grassroots regeneration conference, handily hosted in Birkenhead. I didn't really know what to expect, but I felt like my interests were kind of regeneration-adjacent, so it seemed like a good way to find out what's going on locally. Well, it was excellent, and I left with a full brain and feeling much more connected. I met people working on things I'd vaguely heard about or admired from afar ( Kitty's Launderette ! Metal Culture !) and finally figured out what some things I'd heard about but not really understood were ( Kindred ). It was a glorious sunny day for wandering between event sites up around Argyle Street, and including  Joy which has only just opened.  I didn't move back to Liverpool City Region because of the lively social economy, entirely through ignorance. I now feel even more lucky to be here, amidst so much energy and activity (Kindred track more than 1,500 socially-trading organisations). As the event site s...

Mandy Brown argues that the attention economy is misnamed (HT Sentiers). Reading is the art of attention. What a mess we’ve made of that word. From the earnest effort of a mind reaching for the world to a mindless, exasperated skittering through the slop. The attention economy is misnamed. Our attention is not being harvested but rather suppressed, flattened out, demeaned into submission. We do not attend anything when we doomscroll or binge watch or tap tap tap one notification after another; we abandon—ourselves, our bodies, our kith and kin. Nor do we read when we slip through the stream or flick through the feed. Reading is an awakening of attention, not a deadening of it.  ... Maybe there’s a clue in the way we talk of paying attention, rather than giving it. An older form of that verb also means to appease. We pay attention to the angry gods of capitalism in the hope that they will turn their anger elsewhere. ... It is the skill...

EMF was great.  Everyone has a different EMF, and arguably a very different EMF. This makes it almost impossible to describe to anyone who hasn't been. This time there were lasers and LEDs and robotic things, and also embroidery and a plant swap and a planetarium. I didn't go to any scheduled talks or workshops and I took hardly any photos. I chatted to lots of very diverse people, went to and organised some meetups, danced, wrangled with (and a few times solved) puzzles, volunteered, and wandered around admiring the art.  Many folks (including but not limited to the astonishingly hard working orga) talk about how they were too busy creating/sharing/helping to actually do or see anything. And there were so many things to see or do - thanks to everyone who made or convened or performed things. The field never quite feels like there are really 3,500 people there, but they are around, somewhere, having totally different combinations of experiences. All  curious people ...

First, calendars. This is of interest as I find my way around the communities in my new area .  LAUTI has written a generous how-to on running a community calendar — the hard work of keeping a list of what's happening locally. It's all about the people, and talking to people is step 1. You don't have to roll your own software as they did;  Mobilizon is a federated solution, or there's Gancio  ('a shared agenda for local communities', AGPL). Martin Hamilton noted the gap for 'weird nerd' type event listings and the thread up and down includes some other maker-world examples.  A new local friend for me is the Liverboard .  Lots of lovely things - almost too many. Social Liverpool's email events list has been good too.  DoES Liverpool also has an events system (as well as the maker calendar ), which is good except you don't get an email confirmation, which has somehow become part of the events culture that my brain expects, leaving me baff...