Journal of Peer Production at 4S/EASST, Barcelona, 31/08-03/09 2016 - a status report
4S/EASST is a conference held jointly by the American and the European Science and Technology Studies (STS) associations every fourth year. It is the key event within the STS community and draws two-to-three thousand attendants. 4S/EASST was held at a conference center in Barcelona. Journal of Peer Production pursued a very ambitious and high-profiled program at the conference, where several initiatives converged at one time and place.
The special issue of JoPP #9, subtheme: Alternative Internets, and edited by Felix Treuger, Panayotis Antoniadis, and Johan Söderberg, was rescheduled to be released on the date of the conference. When this time plan was decided on, only three week remained to the conference. And although the review process of the seven articles and the one experimental piece had already been finished, much work remained with the finish. Especially JoPP volunteer copyeditor Bryan Hugill made a heroic spurt these last weeks to get all the papers copyedited, and the authors too were very alert, to respond on such short notice.
In conjunction with this, a hardcopy preview of the special issue was being produced for free distribution at the venue. Again, we came up with this idea just a few weeks before the conference was about to start, forcing a frenetic work speed on the editors and, not the least, from Luisa Lapacciana, the graphic designer. The money for paying for the prints and for the designer's work came from the netCommons Project, part of EU Horizon 2020, where Panayotis is a participant researcher. The content of the preview was made up of the special issue editorial + a 2-page summary of each of the articles + snapshots from some of the reviewers + a description of the special review process practiced by JoPP, making up 24 pages, printed in monochrome orange and black, in total 150 copies.
At the conference, a panel connected to JoPP was held, titled "Digital fabrications amongst hackers, makers and manufacturers: whose 'industrial revolution'?". The conveners were Maxigas, Adrian Smith and Johan Söderberg. The panel consisted of two sessions with five papers in each and the audience numbered an estimated 40-50 listeners (the room was full). In addition to this panel, several more sessions were held at the conference about hackers and makers, where JoPP associates and authors participated, as presenters or discussants.
JoPP's local associate in Barcelona, Maxigas, had arranged with a JoPP-stand in the hallway of the conference, next to book publishers and trade associations, on the last day of the conference (Saturday). At different times of the day, it was staffed also by other JoPP-associates (Maurizio Teli and Francesca Musiani). An even more ambitious scheme was to have a book-scanner at the table, but this had to be abandoned due to logistics.
On Saturday evening, a demo-night was held at an artist-maker space near the conference centre, the Hangar. Many participants from the conference came, and among the hacker and artist projects presented there, JoPP had a table. This was the night of the official launch and to celebrate this milestone, the visitors were given the opportunity of chatting with authors of the special issue (it was another great idea hatched at the very last moment, and so only one of the authors, Sophie Toupin, was present over IRC, while one other author, Paolo Magaudda, were present in person).
Before the conference, it had been communicated to the presenters at the "Digital fabrications"-panel that the presentations could, pending on interest, be made into a special issue of JoPP. At lunch time on Friday, a meeting was held to discuss this idea. More than 10 people attended, showing a strong interest in moving forward with this idea. A team consisting of Adrian Smith, Evelyne Losthe and Kat Braybrooke agreed to write a proposal for a new special issue to be submitted to the JoPP editorial board. However, as the theme of the panel was rather close to the theme of a recent special issue edited by Maxigas and Peter Troxler two years ago, the subsequent discussions centered on finding a different angle for the new special issue.
The printed preview JoPP was distributed at all of these events, at the JoPP-table, and during the demo night, plus that copies were strategically placed on coffee-tables and water-tanks during breaks. In spite of this, I did not see a single JoPP-flyer in the paper bin, and many came to me asking to have a copy (no doubt much thanks to the high quality-look of the publication). An estimated 140+ copies were distributed at the conference. Thanks to these many activities, the journal was by far the most visible entity at the conference.
Johan Söderberg
