[P2P-F] Fwd: Interview Fora Do Eixo.

Wed Aug 6 05:54:00 CEST 2014

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Neal Gorenflo <neal at shareable.net>
Date: Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 2:54 AM
Subject: Re: Interview Fora Do Eixo.
To: Felipe Altenfelder <felipe at foradoeixo.org.br>
Cc: Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>, Lenissa Lenza <
lenissalenza at foradoeixo.org.br>, Marielle Ramires <
marielle at foradoeixo.org.br>, Carol Tokuyo <caroltokuyo at foradoeixo.org.br>,
Dríade Aguiar <driadeaguiar at foradoeixo.org.br>, Pablo capile <
cuboplanejamento at gmail.com>

Hi everyone, Shareable has just published Michel's interview of Felipe here:
http://www.shareable.net/blog/interviewed-felipe-altenfelder-of-fora-do-eixo-on-mutualizing-music

Thank you Felipe and Michel for doing the interview!  It's quite indepth.
 And I hope all of you will:

-share the story on your social media channels

-blog it, excerpt it, or republish it with a link back to the original
story on Shareable.net.

--

Neal Gorenflo, co-founder Shareable <http://www.shareable.net/> | @Shareable
<https://twitter.com/@shareable> | 415.867.0429
Get Shareable's weekly e-news about sharing here
<http://www.shareable.net/signup-for-shareables-weekly-sharing-economy-e-newsletter>
.

On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 3:54 PM, Felipe Altenfelder <felipe at foradoeixo.org.br
> wrote:

> Ok Michel, Tank you for the aware.
>
> Hello Neal, here it is with the interview attached on . ODT format.
> And also the two Images with our Political and Estructural organization
> for the end of question 9
>
> Please Let me know if it works  now.
>
> Keep In touch.
>
> Felipe
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Em 03/06/2014, às 18:46, Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>
> escreveu:
>
> Dear Felipe,
>
> thanks for the replies, but actually, the text got clipped off, perhaps
> you can resend with also a copy in odt ? I'm copying Neal of Shareable
> where this will be published.
>
> Again, thanks for the effort!
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 1:57 PM, Felipe Altenfelder <
> felipe at foradoeixo.org.br> wrote:
>
>> Hey Bawens. How are you ?
>>
>> Sending you above our interview.
>>
>> Any other question or content that you think its good to ilustrate let us
>> know.
>>
>> Best Regards.
>>
>>
>> Felipe
>>
>>
>> 1. Can you tell us a bit about the prehistory of Fora do Eixo, what the
>> name means and implies, and how you got involved in it?
>>
>> It's hard to summarize the prehistory of Fora do Eixo, since it involves
>> a larger historical context that marked the turn of the twenty-first
>> century: The impact of the internet, the World Social Forum and a growing
>> belief that an alternative world is possible, the politics of inclusion and
>> recognition of Brazil’s interior regions driven by the Lula government, and
>> an understanding of the symbolic or “anthropologic” dimensions of culture
>> that came from the Ministry of Culture (MinC) under Gilberto Gil's mandate.
>> These factors generated reflections and accelerated the pace of
>> communication and sharing of social technologies among a new generation of
>> Brazilian cultural producers.
>>
>> With accelerated connection, and in a time where we watched the collapse
>> of the music industry through the bankruptcy of the LP record and CD
>> business model, independent festivals gained strength and began to create a
>> network that connected the different independent music scenes across the
>> country. In doing so, it also strengthening a new production chain, which
>> set the grounds for a “middle market” for music driven by the logic of
>> Chris Anderson’s concept of the "long tail"1. All this was forged in the
>> context of a favorable environment created by the ideals of progressive and
>> inclusive cultural policies such as Cultura Viva (Living Culture) and
>> Cultura Digital (Digital Culture) promoted by the Ministry of Culture and,
>> more generally, the popular government of President Lula in its entirety,
>> which clarified the many ways that politics is culture and that culture is
>> politics.
>>
>> In 2005, 15 producers of festivals throughout Brazil met in Goiania to
>> found ABRAFIN (the Brazilian Association of Independent Festivals). ABRAFIN
>> started as an association of festival producers, that still operated
>> according to traditional class structures, beholden to statutes and ready
>> to defend the interests of its members. Nevertheless it helped to put up
>> for debate the field of Brazilian musical production and the need to
>> establish collective thinking and collaborative project building.
>>
>> At that meeting there was a collective coming from Cuiabá, called Cube
>> Space. Cubo, as it sounds in portuguese, was raise by an innovative
>> management experience, bringing the logic of overcoming obstacles creating
>> and sharing collaborative solutions. This logic, which had as its purpose
>> the development of the cultural scene in general, made a clear
>> counterpoint to the majority of "businessmen" who made up ABRAFIN and
>> believed they could get rich in the process.
>>
>> At that time inspired and estimulated by the experience developed in
>> Cuiaba, 3 other cities, Uberlândia, Rio Branco and São Carlos (all of them
>> far away from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro)  started to bett on this other
>> logic, it was when began the  Off-Axis Circuit . The methodology was clear
>> and based on the experience of young people seeking to recover damages for
>> trying to do a festival, understood and began to put into spreadsheets some
>> simple and ingenious thing: The systematization of camaraderie (Solidarity,
>> Partnership).
>>
>> As we systematize the partnership it became clear how solidary enconmy
>> works. Imagine you need a poster to comunicate something from your work and
>> you also have a amplifier. If you have a friend who is a musician and a
>> designer, he needs the amplier to play music with his band. So you two can
>> trade a certain amount of hours of the amplifier for a new poster. Or even
>> if you don't need anything righ now, you have "credit" with that person.
>> The exchange happened without anyone taking anything from the wallet.
>>
>> While using the internet to systematize indicators of each territory
>> across cities like Uberlândia, Rio Branco, São Carlos and many others that
>> had similar challenges, you generate a secure environment to ensure minimal
>> empowerment, autonomy and leadership for each partner, in each location
>> that Fora do Eixo began to operate throughout Brazil.
>>
>> Organically and horizontally, we were beginning to build a network. We
>> were getting organized right at the moment not only to propose alternatives
>> to Brazilian music, but also for taking the first steps to create flows of
>> circulation, distribution and the production of content in the periphery of
>> Brazil. From this moment, Fora do Eixo was born.
>>
>> 2. What is de Fora do Eixo exactly and what does it want to achieve in
>> Brazil or elsewhere?
>>
>> The truth is that since we emerged, it has always been difficult to
>> define exactly what Fora do Eixo is; it’s a new, fast and dynamic movement
>> that is constantly changing since it started eight years ago.
>>
>> Currently we are structured such as a platform of festivals, collectives
>> and cultural venues as we are a social movement that debates social and
>> cultural policies. It due to this multi-faceted orientation, we are capable
>> of acting within multiple battlefields such as the Environment, Human
>> rights, Education, New Drug Policy, Secular State, Urban Mobility,
>> Communication and so on.
>>
>> I think what made us get here with such force, strength which will
>> continue, is the notion that if your goal is to arrive at some specific
>> place, when you do get there, you’ll forget your origins. We don’t want
>> that. Thus, the goal becomes much more about collecting and systemmatizing
>> new ways and solutions, which means we are interested in the HOW to act and
>> make social interventions much more than WHERE we want to reach.
>>
>> In terms of numbers, the cultural circuit that we are part of today
>> consists in a network of over 200 collectives, involving two thousand
>> people, 130 festivals performed annually, upwards of 5000 shows, and the
>> promotion and circulation of 30,000 artists per year. At least.
>>
>> 3. What is the history of Fora do Eixo after its founding. Are there
>> distinct phases in its development.
>>
>> I think a good summary of the flow which we live as an organization
>> begins with the centralization phase of the network from 2005 to 2010, when
>> some collectives coordinated a first process of expansion and national
>> management that culminated in the emergence of Fora do Eixo house in São
>> Paulo.
>>
>> The second phase, the decentralized network one, came in 2011 with the
>> expansion of the Fora do Eixo houses to different regions in Brazil, such
>> as Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Fortaleza and Belem. This stimulated the
>> autonomy of micro-regional networks, enabling the phase we're in now—the
>> distributed network— where centralized control gives way to each node
>> acting with autonomy.
>>
>> This maturation occurred with a construction of the network that was
>> performed by collective intelligence. That is to say, it was a form of
>> education that included the everyday learning experience of those inside
>> the network—gaining practical knowledge as they worked through solutions
>> everyday—as well as the increasing number of analyses of scholars and
>> researches approaching the technology, not to mention numerous public
>> debates that ocurred about the FdE process itself that have always been
>> taken up with intensity, and that serve as raw material from which FdE
>> reflects and builds upon.
>>
>> In practice, much work was invested in developing organizational and flow
>> charts that sought to faciliate the dynamics of people who chose to live as
>> agents in the durable core, always in conjunction with partners and
>> collaborators to manage the different thematic fronts in addition to the
>> music front that we are taking on, such as audiovisual, theater, visual
>> arts, literature and so on.
>>
>> Later, when at the 4th Annual Fora do Eixo Conference in Sao Paulo we
>> realized through debate that we were participating in the construction of a
>> social movement, we felt the need to broaden our capacity for dialogue with
>> other networks and movements.
>>
>> At that moment, it was essential that we could map out common themes and
>> visualize the intersection of these issues with our organizational
>> practices and to clearly indicate the socio-political impact of the broad
>> spectrum of fields of work that are involved in the cultural network. Thus,
>> we come to what we conventionally call “Simulacrum”, that is to say,
>> conceptual and practical fronts of managing new models in society, and we
>> identified initially four major fields common to the network:
>>
>> - Policy and Advocacy, named the Party.
>> - Sustainability and Resource Management, named the Bank.
>> - Free and Continuing Education, name the University.
>> - Communication, named Media that ultimately gave rise to Ninja Media.
>>
>> Every network, movement or collective, deals with these aspects defined
>> above, which generated a rich environment of dialogue and density of
>> reflections that gave rise to the Social Movement of Cultures. This
>> includes “Cultural Points” (organizations, collectives and other entities
>> that partake in the Cultural Points cultural policy program launched from
>> the MinC under the leadership of Gilberto Gil); Music, Performing Arts,
>> Visual Arts and Audiovisual collectives; the Hip Hop Movement; The Afro
>> Religion Communities ; Indigenous peoples; the Landless Movement; Street
>> Artists; Free Culture, Copy left, Free Media movement; the Urban Periphery
>> Movement, and a whole range of cultural operators. All of these, and more,
>> recognized these 4 “simulacrums” and began to jointly build new references
>> for each of the fronts.
>>
>> Building Public Policy (Party), finding new ways of survival and
>> sustainable management of resources (Bank), developing, training and
>> passing on knowledge to new generations (University), and presenting a
>> symbolic narrative that counters the dominant and hegemonic discourses of
>> the establishment (Media), are guiding principles of a movement with great
>> capacity for cohesion through a simple systematization of desires and
>> intentions in these 4 simulacrums presented above.
>>
>>
>> This way a set of social struggles finds in the cultural field an
>> environment of connection and articulation, and a communication source that
>> renews—even aesthetically—social movements and political debate. Agendas
>> and goals of other movements gain notoriety from the systematization
>> stimulated by Fora do Eixo. Examples like the Living Culture Law (Lei
>> Cultura Viva) and Veta Dilma moviment?? demonstrate how this synergy
>> occurred, and the potential of this new movement.
>>
>> Connect agents and collectives (Party), identify methodologies and
>> technologies and create social environments of exchange and interchange
>> (University), present these methodologies and social technologies to the
>> whole society (Media), and finally to create the conditions for the
>> existence and reproduction of such methodologies and technologies (Bank).
>> These are the possible stages of development and organization of Fora do
>> Eixo, and later the Social Movement of Cultures.
>>
>> However, this development and these phases should not be understood in a
>> linear and continuous line (one phase at a time, in a different historical
>> moment), but rather from a recursive and spiraling perspective, where we
>> are constantly forced to return to each of these same points in order to
>> advance, and they advance simultaneously. Like a whirlwind, like a
>> hurricane ....
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 4. What is the current status of the movement and where does it want to
>> be in the next few years?
>>
>> To view our current status, it’s worth taking a closer look at Fora do
>> Eixo’s trajectory. If we take into consideration the emergence of the first
>> collectives that formed the movement, we are talking about ten years of
>> operation.
>>
>> We started with a job that was basically mobilization, to venture out
>> into Brazil integrating points that shared the same logic and ways of doing
>> things. We started with five and now we are over 200 collectives. This
>> effort of agglutination was what later became known as the Culture Party.
>>
>> With the network mobilized and comprised of an incredible diversity of
>> experiences in different territories, we began an interchange and flow of
>> methodologies between collectives, understanding it as the formation of a
>> great interface within the network itself. It was the environment that
>> designed the architecture of our University.
>>
>> With the network mobilized and feeling increasingly more secure with the
>> shared knowledge and learning, we began to develop an awareness of the
>> power of the narrative and potential for inclusion in a field of symbolic
>> struggle that permeates society. It was this thought that led to the Media
>> Ninja.
>>
>> All along this path, by networking and guided by the principles of the
>> solidarity economy we built an inexpensive way to make culture and
>> democratize it's acess for the masses, directly confronting the dominant
>> industry established.
>>
>> At the same time the development of our independent communication system
>> has reached a very significant level of relevance and impact, opening
>> cracks directly in the disputes involving the democratization of
>> communication in Brazil.
>>
>> The explosion of visibility of Ninja Media and the exposure of FdE as the
>> network that created the initiative configured a posture of fear among
>> parts of the conservative sectors of Brazilian society, which through
>> corporate media let fire its discursive machine guns to criminalize the
>> network.
>>
>> In those moments, resentful testimonials from people who had participated
>> or interacted with FdE, and who left for a variety of different reasons,
>> flooded social networks with complaints. One way or another, the
>> opportunistic timimg that were posted (Two days after the interview of
>> Ninja Media on the national T.V. program Roda Viva) put the authors of
>> those complaints in an ingenous if not exploited role of attack, which in
>> reality had already been programmed by the Old Media. Anyway this
>> combination was explosive and put the network smack in the hurricane eye of
>> an intense debate that yielded several criticisms and compliments.
>>
>> We always had to be creative, developing the ability to do much with
>> little. Dealing with the lack of tangible resources and understanding the
>> value of symbolic capital as a source of protagonism.
>>
>> Although through this retrospective, it seems to me that we were already
>> in the center of large debates about the construction of the Brazilian
>> society, in areas that have been on the brink of paradigm shifts in
>> overcoming crises of intermediaries or of representations.
>>
>> It was like that when we were doing festivals, touring and releasing new
>> bands during the collapse of major recording labels. It was like that when
>> parties and movements intensely debated our paradigms of activism from the
>> provocations made during the Arab Spring and the global occupations of
>> 2011. It was like that when the Academy was put off by our logic of free
>> university education, and more recently it was like that with Ninja Media
>> that began shaking the debate about communication in Brazil. .
>>
>> Beginning in 2014, healed after the attacks of last summer, and after
>> mature reflection, we felt the force of the current moment in Brazil that
>> boosts whoever has always been in the networks and on the streets and
>> brings a very interesting environment for an entire perspective of global
>> projection and an ecosystem of networks to which we belong.
>>
>> In this context that configures the possibility of developing a new
>> prototype of potential capable of tackling challenges that confront the
>> existence of a possible new world in the twenty-first century, she/he who
>> is not afraid to be happy should progress without looking back, with no
>> plan B and with no possiblilty of retreating. In the direction of the
>> future is the only possible definition of where we think we may be from
>> here.
>>
>> 5. How influential is it? Are there any similar or sister organisations
>> you can relate to?
>>
>> With this trajectory understood, it may become easier to see our level of
>> influence, the dynamics of our relationship with other organizations, and
>> why Fora do Eixo is not afraid of the State.
>>
>> It is complex to speak of one’s own influence and to put yourself in the
>> perspective of self-reference. Our influence is determined and measured by
>> our actions and the impact of them in the debate on new forms of
>> sociability. More than an institutional influence, it is interesting to
>> understand the space-time connection between experience and its
>> (contemporary) generation, which is what characterizes innovation and
>> relevance of an action.
>>
>> We are part of the first generation of fully digital youth, that
>> incorporates this digital culture within organizational and life models.
>> More than an influence of FdE, we have a lab that tries to be logged in
>> space / time with our contemporary generation and the possibilities of
>> transformation brought about by this new historical context, and no doubt
>> it enhances the projection and influence that FdE has today in Brazilian
>> society.
>>
>> The fact that you supplemented that question about the influence
>> inquiring about the relationship with sister organizations, places the
>> innovative and pioneering character of our movement also in question, since
>> to conceptually define the term "sisters" we have to reveal that we are
>> virtually alone in Brazil , a new contemporary social arrangement: cultural
>> and digital networks with global perspective. The way the debate on our
>> experience is taken up also helps to think about it. As an unique
>> experience without empirical comparison in our country, the judments are
>> given from a logic of ideals.
>>
>> We are heaven and hell. We are loved and hated, leaving little room for
>> balanced assessments for lack of the ability to compare with other
>> organizations and due to an unawareness of the internal dynamics and
>> network operation. The idealistic judgment, and the agenda behind much of
>> what is written about the network, including establishing another sphere of
>> influence, especially in the intellectual field, which is obliged to
>> present definitive judgments for a process that began badly, playing the
>> Manichean heaven/hell logic thereby polarizing a debate that is in fact
>> much more complex, nuanced and full of contradictions.
>>
>> I believe that's why we were the most debated and commented movement in
>> Brazil in the last three years. The absence of comparisons and the idealism
>> transform FdE into something that everybody takes a stance upon. The
>> virtual environment, used so well by the movement, further expands this,
>> causing a broad debate to become consolidated and popularized, including
>> shaking up the cultural environment from which the movement emerged, and
>> reaching all of Brazilian society.
>>
>> I believe that's why we were the most debated and commented movement in
>> Brazil in the last three years. The absence of comparisons and the idealism
>> transform FdE into something that everybody takes a stance upon. The
>> virtual environment, used so well by the movement, further expands this,
>> causing a broad debate to become consolidated and popularized, including
>> shaking up the cultural environment from which the movement emerged, and
>> reaching all of Brazilian society.
>>
>> Above all we are mutants! Thus, judgments that seek to be definitive,
>> both from intellectuals as from the media—or equally from other movements
>> and organizations—lose consistency in the face of the everyday practice
>> that shapes and guides our movement. It is this understanding that makes
>> the value of "generosity" something fundamental that guides our
>> relationship with other groups and individuals, and that defines our
>> involvement with them, because we must always be prepared to be an
>> Post-Rancor movement. I think it's important to underscore this, so we can
>> understand the relationship we have with other movements and organizations.
>> As we repeatedly state internally within the organization, it is essential
>> to be a hostage of our own enlightenment.
>>
>> This whole environment of debate and influence is directly reflected in
>> the relationship we have with hundreds and hundreds of organizations
>> friends/sisters/partners, in relationships that we are building daily and
>> with layers of well-differentiated and organic exchange. At the same time,
>> there are another set of organizations that do not seek dialogue, and in
>> these cases it is impossible to talk with those who already have
>> preconceptions and established prejudices.
>>
>> The willingness and openness to debate and collective construction are
>> fundamental in defining relationships established with FDE. We are a
>> cultural movement that maintains dialogue across a very broad spectrum and
>> in a 360 degree directioin. We involve a wide range of actors, from
>> representatives of the Globo network to extreme anarchist groups. From
>> organized fans of Football Clubs to indigenous communities. From Landless
>> Worker movements to indie bands that hail from the middle class.
>>
>> This courage to deal with such different relationships without changing
>> the framework of our values and collective practices, provokes a scenario
>> that invariably establishes some kind of contact with organized groups of
>> culture, communication, environmental rights, and human rights in our
>> country. A privileged position in this historical moment, but at the same
>> time it comes with a great responsibility for all who are involved. It is
>> this awareness that which gives the commitment of each member within this
>> process of change an importance in merging the relationships within our
>> network.
>> In our last survey we recorded the incredible number of more than 2,000
>> partner organizations that have direct relations with FDE. These include
>> social movements, trade unions, cultural points, producers, indigenous
>> communities, quilombolas (Afro-Brazilian Maroon communities) and riverside
>> communities, free media collectives, independent media groups, university
>> research centers, bands, samba schools, Startup's, urban and rural
>> occupations, and a whole range of political, social, environmental and
>> cultural organizations that dialogue frequently with us through some of our
>> applications. There are thousands of daily exchanges established, which as
>> I said above, have different layers. This can be as simple as an email
>> exchange to solve to a specific question, to and complete symbiosis in the
>> planning of annual activities.
>>
>> A key point to understand these relationships, is also in understanding
>> the way we deal with resources and survival. We work with a Collective
>> Bank, so that all individuals have access to the minimum necessary for
>> their survival, and in this way they can dedicate themeselves to the
>> activities of the movement. This option, while it enables us to have a
>> group of militants with plenty of availability, is different from the
>> choice made by the other organizations that follow are organization based
>> on the capital/labor relation, from salary device that reproduces the
>> dichotomy between owners the means of production and owners of the
>> workforce. Some still use the so-called volunteer work. We can not lose
>> sight of that, if we want to synergize relationships with partner
>> organizations.
>>
>> This fact typically results in FDE having more availability and access to
>> resources and tools when undertaking some collective processes, and this
>> can construct a distortion in the relationship, which tends not to be
>> balanced if the parameters used are the same as when dealing with market,
>> or the state itself. Much of the criticism that arises about the
>> “appropriating” character of the movement are born from this point. How to
>> deal with a force that can employ more labor to a collective process, or a
>> bilateral partnership, especially when it’s not guided by money? This is a
>> challenge that we place back upon other movments, and that in our opinion
>> only finds good answers if we invest in generosity and confidence as
>> connecting elements and lights of our relations.
>>
>> But beyond relations with partner organizations of civil society, we have
>> another great organization where our relationship is often questioned, and
>> that I treat essential here: the relationship of FDE with the state
>> (understood here as well with a diversity of layers: municipalities, state
>> government, federal government, state enterprises, federal institutes,
>> universities, etc ...)
>>
>> To understand this, I first raise a question: Why would any Brazilian
>> collective have to remain "far from the state"? Instead, FDE has created a
>> new culture and practice of direct participation, including using the power
>> of social networks. It is a network that believes in governance, public
>> policy and participatory co-management, which seeks to intervene, press the
>> Brazilian state closely and participate in it, because the state is no
>> authoritative or total entity, but rather it is a "network" that should be
>> placed at the service of the common and for all. I consider this a
>> breakthrough approach, very different from the "desk" policy and the old
>> game of influences. It also moves away from the purists social moviments,
>> that discuss ad theorize, but have little ability for action.
>>
>> If today the FDE ruffles some feathers, it is due to its high visibility
>> and capacty for action. We do not ask permission and we do not kiss the
>> hand of anyone, we just do it. And if at some point we dialogue with
>> parliamentarians and managers, this is a political and not a personal
>> matter, because we have enough distance and autonomy to point out problems
>> with management or express criticism and dissatisfaction. This is new, this
>> is what we mean when we say that we need to hack the State. Participate,
>> intervene, and propose while simultaneously "inspecting" and observing with
>> detachment and distance the very managers we support. This is the beginning
>> of an experience of governance and co-management that need to be expanded,
>> to democratize and to include hundreds of networks and groups with
>> proposals that can influence public policy. Fora do Eixo vocalizes this
>> moment of a new generation without fear of dialogue.
>>
>> 6. As I understand it, Fora do Eixo is now much more than just a
>> musician's movement. What else does it do besides music festivals, and
>> besides culture?
>>
>> The answer to this question lies in understanding culture in its
>> anthropological aspect.
>> Historically, from the twentieth century on two trends have shaped the
>> form of viewing the production and management culture.
>>
>> On one side is an Anglo Saxon vision that sees the artist as the center
>> of creation, and that founded and defends conservative visions of copyright
>> and compensation. Their type of mode of production conditions the imaginary
>> of a reduced vision of art, accessible only to a few and special creators,
>> supposedly meriting an income that configures them as socially successful
>> and that gives them an on-going position that upholds the cult of the
>> author who in theory is revered by a public that consumes its creatioin.
>>
>> On the other side we have a more Latin American perspective that sees
>> culture not as a set of artistic languages but rather as behavior and as
>> a set of systematized social technologies that make possible the invention
>> of new forms and lifestyles.
>>
>> It was in this sense that Fora do Eixo developed as a network: Stemming
>> from music, and connecting initiatives act in areas scattered throughout
>> Brazil. Through organizing with the purpose to carry out activities and
>> cultural projects we mobilized a network and created new cognitive
>> environments, that is to say, all at once enjoyment and learning platforms
>> that enable the empowerment of citizens who quickly learn possibilities to
>> optimize costs and dispute means of production. It is what enables the
>> autonomy and emancipation from the logic of wages, where you want to earn
>> money to consume free time.
>>
>> Besides being about music, culture, solidarity economy or independent
>> communication, FDE is a availability network. As noted in the answer to the
>> previous question , we created a common environment where direct
>> participants , once freed the capital / labor ratio , gain a multitude of
>> possibilities for involvement. In this sense , we usually say that it is
>> possible to do everything from the FDE . If you have any specific interest
>> , for example, in UFO research , you can use the territorialized points ,
>> applications and tools developed by network , to build bridges and
>> establish a project that seeks to connect people interested in the same
>> subject , and in that way develop a working collaborative on “UfO-ology”.
>> Of course, for this you will have to employ your ability to construct and
>> articulate , but the network is not closed to any possibility of action by
>> its individuals .
>>
>> I think that's why a network that began working with music has unfolded
>> in so many different fronts in a short time. Of course, this radical labor
>> option ends up outlining a progressive territory and the major aggregate
>> themes (Culture, Environment, Communication, Human Rights) tend to be
>> oriented to the left of political debate since seeking to live collectively
>> is the desire of those don’t view the liberal project or the capitalist
>> system as a solution for a fair and righteous life on the planet. To make a
>> difference, it’s necessary to have a disposition for change, to be able to
>> leave one’s comfort zone, and for this reason conservatism hardly finds
>> room to proliferate in an environment that seeks to constantly bring about
>> change, both personal as well as social.
>>
>> 7. I hear Fora do Eixo have a university and are thinking of opening
>> schools as well. How are these different from what exists?
>>
>> Understanding the Free University of Fora do Eixo and our educational
>> prospects depends on understanding the whole history of our constitution.
>> We came from a re-organization of the Brazilian cultural sector, and the
>> issue of training has always been a major pillar of debate and is seen as a
>> necessity. The logic of turning difficulties into opportunities has been
>> the reference for the creation of our University, as well as for all of our
>> applications. Due to the lack of training processes in the cultural area in
>> Brazil, the debate around free training through experiences such as those
>> of collectives, gained strength and deepened a discussion with various
>> actors, both cultural producers and academics, who began seeing the
>> existing potential in the systematic and methodological organization of all
>> existing processes of free education and training in Brazilian culture.
>>
>> Faced with this opportunity comes the University , which quickly connects
>> to various experiences in Brazil, Latin America and beyond, including
>> winning the international seal of the Ministry of Culture of Cape Verde in
>> Africa , now officially accepting the training through the University of
>> the Free Culture . Undoubtedly , a new logic that inverts the relationship
>> between knowledge and practice is now somehow able to justify the
>> differentiation between our training process and those that are already in
>> place. This empirical logic extends the spectrum of training , it dissolves
>> the hierarchical structures of the educational model , and instead
>> recognizes in affective nature involved in this process. The individual
>> transfer of knowledge, and the extreme focus on competition between
>> individuals (Tests, Class Rooms, Awards ) is replaced by an organic logic
>> of learning through doing/living collectively. Here is the critical point
>> to differentiate our university or our school , from the existing hegemonic
>> model of education, since we can not fail to point out that there are also
>> several innovative experiences in this field around the world , but
>> unfortunately they are exceptions to the rule of education for the market.
>>
>> This is evident if we talk about the debate over a new school . Similarly
>> , as for the University , the need was to find ways to consolidate training
>> in the cultural field , recognizing the wealth of existing procedures, for
>> the School , which is at issue is the involvement of new generations in the
>> broader anthropological process of the network. Within a network of youth,
>> it is only natural that children should be born within the network, and
>> that these will be raised within our collective and in our group homes …
>> this is something that we have had to face. Once again it is creating
>> opportunities out of need. In this sense , the search for dialogue with
>> other fronts and movements that discusses new educational methodologies is
>> organic and necessary , and the theme is now taking shape within a new
>> front that we call Gurizada FDE (FDE Kids) . The solutions are presented
>> based on the needs that arise within the development process of the network
>> itself . Our values and collective practices are the basis for all
>> actions and thus , new structures need to be created to cope with these new
>> challenges . It's a world being created to handle the challenge of social
>> change in the twenty-first century . For its development , rather than
>> presenting a revolutionary methodology that is "ready-made” what we seek is
>> to join as many heads and hearts to live the construction of a new
>> experience , and thus find solutions to the challenges . Thus do we create,
>> and thus are we formed ....
>>
>> 8. What is the economic model of the Fora do Eixo?
>>
>> Our whole economic model is based on the idea of a Collaborative Economy
>> that is gaining wegiht in Brazil and Latin America through multiple
>> experiments. Beyond the discussion of a "universal basic income" within the
>> horizon of the new struggles of the cognitive precariat , we highlight the
>> experiences of complementary currencies or social currencies and the idea
>> of the solidarity economy and cooperatives. Among other forms of
>> empowerment and autonomy of the collectives and of the invention of new
>> worlds.
>>
>> It is within this universe of social technologies where we locate the
>> experience of the "Collective Bank". In practice there 2000 young people
>> from all over Brazil in the inner cities and / or capital that revert their
>> time and life for a common project with a Collective Bank that pays food,
>> clothing and housing without individual salaries, but with the autonomy to
>> withdraw money from the Bank according to the needs of each individual.
>>
>> It's a platform of sustainability that allowed many people to abandon
>> their precarious or "slave jobs" in traditional media, in commercial
>> production companies, advertising agencies, or any Fordist-style of
>> employment. In this new reality, the individual has to invent their own
>> profession. They have their life and time released, produced from another
>> distinct and community logic.
>>
>> It about the production of new worlds. The experience of producing with
>> your basics ensured changes logic of cultural management. In our network,
>> it's "returned" to us the time that capital, the state and “normalcy” have
>> stolen and which exist when we have to 'sell' our skills, communication and
>> affection for "dead work".
>>
>> The economic experience of FDE points to a radicalization of the sharing
>> model:
>> A summary of the Collective Bank is in the act of each participant
>> bringing all of their resources, tangible and intangible, and making them
>> available for collective decisions. Dedication, encouragement,
>> coordination, mobilization, expertise, patience, agility, cash, card,
>> check, name, cell, clothes, goods, products, contacts, plans, work,
>> conflicts and dreams under the full management of each individual, are seen
>> as resources for the Collective Bank. All of these should be placed "in the
>> pot" to be used in a shared manner, and as the driving force to sustain any
>> elementary step decided by the group.
>>
>> It is this radical williningness and the free time and autonomy invested
>> in the common which is the genesis of revolutions of cognitive precariat.
>> Anyone who has "lost" all or who has relinquished the “normalcy” of family,
>> a secure salary, or a university degree to invest her/his entire life in a
>> collective project, can do anything.
>>
>> New challenges appear in this radical model of group and common sharing
>> (security, management difficulties, horizontal relationships), but having
>> free time (collectively paid), not having to "sell" your time for food,
>> clothing and shelter is having a minimum basis of sustainable living (not
>> to be confused with 'voluntary work’, nor is it a minimum 'income' or a
>> minimum ‘wage’. This is about another economy and collective social
>> contract on the horizon for the invention of new worlds. In our case, the
>> Collective Bank is the basis for a new 'collaborative economy'....
>>
>> In the last 7 years, we have moved a minimum amount in Reais to keep the
>> activities of hundreds of collectives going, and to carry out thousands of
>> cultural activities. In disqualifying the complementary currency created by
>> Off-Axis, which enables cultural producers to exchange services and
>> undertake projects with minimal resources, is an affront to the solidarity
>> economy model, which in Brazil alone has more than 100 currencies in full
>> operation. FDE’s actions in creating circuits for independent music,
>> audiovisual production, and other forms of cultural production confront an
>> industry that overprices its services, and in this sense we are obviously
>> open and vulnerable to questions that try to de-legitimize us, both for
>> tinkering with entrenched economic interests, as well as promoting a shift
>> in values and concepts for the understanding of our way of life.
>>
>> 9. What is the internal governance model?
>>
>> Each collective basically organizes itself from a Group we call the
>> durable core. These are the people who live in the collective houses and
>> according to the Collective Bank. These members are distributed across
>> multidisciplinary teams in Communication (Photo, Video, Audiovisual,
>> Design, Network Management, etc.), event production, project design,
>> accountability and resource management, policy coordination, and cultural
>> residence (maintenance of homes).
>>
>> In each city, and always across integrated online platforms and face to
>> face meetings, these groups work with collaboraters, artists, producers,
>> journalists and activists from other movements, in the actions that the
>> network develops and participates in.
>>
>> In practice the decisive space is the everyday, in constant flux, and
>> from which each member builds their legitimacy to offer their opinion about
>> the process.
>>
>> In the day to day, the collective bank is sustained through the
>> production of values and through open cooperation, that is to say, all of
>> those who partake in the network have access to the distributed capital (in
>> cash or services). Our dynamic does not necessarily generate products that
>> seek an exchange value for the market, but rather strengthen processes that
>> can be used to broaden the very community of users.
>>
>> The distribution of resources is guided by a principle of universality,
>> we established a joint ownership, which is distributed evenly among peers
>> of the network. Someone who has been involved with FDE for ten years will,
>> inside the house, have the same conditions as a resident who has just
>> arrived. This is totally different from the logic of private property and
>> even public or state ownership.
>>
>> The mediation or administration of this process happens through
>> transparent and open meetings, broadcast on the Internet and in public
>> proceedings. Within these, all who are involved in the network, and even
>> observers, are welome to particiapte. The transparency and the deliberative
>> mix of this environment and training yields a completely different dynamic
>> than the existing environments that work in corporate hierarchies or that
>> have the market as their objective.
>>
>> The awareness and practice of developing narratives, makes our
>> communication logic an organic platform of governance. Our content is
>> produced by alternative systems of information and communication that allow
>> communication between autonomous agents that cooperate with the network.
>> The outlets of this production are the Web platforms that enable the
>> production, dissemination, and 'consumption' of written material, just as
>> podcasting and webcasting create an alternative infrastructure for
>> information and multimedia communication without the interference or the
>> intermediary of the classic means of communication.
>>
>> I also think it’s important to briefly comment on how the network deals
>> with the concept of " Leadership " , a theme that has been ardently raised
>> within the current crisis of representation and the search for more
>> horizontal processes . First , horizontality in our understanding is an
>> end, a horizon for social relations . Given this horizon , we must have the
>> clarity that we face enormous political challenges to overcome, not only
>> within the hierarchical structure placed by our institutions , but mainly
>> in cultural and human components involved in the processes of social
>> transformation . In this sense , we do not deny nor debate the existence of
>> Leadership , and recognize the role leadership plays in the political and
>> social process . In a political process determined by economic power, the
>> attack on behalf of the leaders of an uncompromising defense of
>> horizontalism as a "means " to make political attack is also a possibility
>> that the popular sectors to build viable alternatives to the process of
>> policy impact and achievements social .
>>
>> However , by maintaining that horizontality as an end and a horizon, we
>> can not simply legitimize hierarchical processes without seeking to build
>> consistent and generous internal dynamics , and to enable the full
>> inclusion of all individuals. So we try to understand the leadership not
>> from an index of merticrocacy, charisma, sanguiness or any element other
>> than every individual’s capacity for action and interaction with the group
>> and its dynamics . It is in action, in living the values and principles
>> of the network on a day to day basis that which will define an organic
>> notion of leadership . The quest to break the sphere of economic oppression
>> , not defining ownership and socializing the results of everyone’s work ,
>> is in our understanding a fundamental principle. In this sense , the
>> concept of leadership has an important place for us because what we seek is
>> to build a process able to release the full power of each individual, a
>> fundamental element in the consolidation of leaders.
>>
>> Furthermore, by building a network architecture completely distributed,
>> based on local creative arrangements, while simultaneously connected, we
>> have created a process of distributed influence and power that seeks to
>> constrain the centralization of powers. There are thousands and thousands
>> of decisions being made daily, distributed and in constant flux, which
>> enables each individual person a protagonism in the processes that are
>> involved in.
>>
>> However, the most essential element to the notion of leadership for us is
>> the understanding that it can not be dissociated from the notion of "Base".
>> As important as leadership is whether to make yourself available and
>> support others. You can't exclude in an political action an understanding
>> of its cultural component, and the ability of the individual to trust and
>> generously be willing to think and act for others is fundamental in the
>> combat against the evils of verticality and the abuse of power in the
>> political field, but mainly so that we can fight against the individualism
>> that numbs people to the existece of social injustice.
>>
>>
>> Estructural Organization
>>
>>
>>  <modo_org_estrtural.jpg>
>>
>> Political Organization
>> <modo de organização politico .jpg>
>> 
>>
>>
>> 10. What is the role of the Casas, i.e. the physical community houses?
>>
>> The houses are permanent Autonomous Zones, workplaces and simultaneous
>> dwellings that brings together multiple characteristics in the same space.
>>
>> Distributed throughout the country, the homes occupy a role of regional
>> coordination, in addition to being responsible for the production processes
>> of actions and articulation with local partners in each city in which they
>> are located. On the day to day, each house serves as the resident house for
>> the staff, it is the production base for the fronts of the network, and a
>> cultural and multimedia center, as well as being a flowing space of hosting
>> people who are not part of the network but that rely on the accommodating
>> space.
>>
>> The multi disciplinary dynamic and the constant flow of activities makes
>> each house act in synergy with the simulacrum of the social movement of
>> cultures, bringing together functions of the University Campus, the
>> Collective Bank, the Party Directory and core-making narratives.
>>
>> Within this architecture the houses are in constant contact via online
>> tools and also always promoting exchanges and meetings between its
>> residents. Interestingly, as places where people live with full
>> availability and dedication, the houses act as accelerators of flows and
>> action, making the experience of the passage of time in these spaces very
>> intense. One day seems like a week that looks like a month that looks like
>> a year.
>>
>> 11. I heard that every contribution to the Fora is accounted for,
>> recognized, and paid through some alternative currency. But I also heard
>> that people in the casas have free access to the official currency,
>> according to how they define their own needs?
>>
>> This currency is the Fora do Eixo Card and the word that describes it is
>> not “alternative”, but rather “complementary”.
>>
>> The mathematics that governs its operation is very simple, it is nothing
>> more than visualizing the resources obtained from the systematization of
>> partnership, or the available workforce for the construction of common
>> projects.
>>
>> The methodology and systemized worksheets make explicit the exchanges
>> between agents and organizations involved, enhancing through services the
>> budget available for the carrying out of projects and collaborations that
>> would have been difficult in the past.. And we have to remember that in
>> this case we are not talking about something new. The exchange between
>> services, the famous barter, is an ancient practice and underpins the
>> development of economic relations in society. In this sense, the proposed
>> creation of complementary currencies for the mediation of economic
>> relations in a sector of scarcity of resourses, such as the culture
>> environment, is a very effective tool for building local creative
>> arrangements, based on the stimulation of exchange and collaboration
>> between cultural agents. This tool, which carries a subversive component to
>> enhance not only the tangible exchange in a capitalist society, is already
>> part of the reality of the cultural groups that always exchange and
>> collaborate among themselves, but it was often seen as a voluntary act. The
>> creation of money as a means to systematize this process, is also in this
>> sense, in addition to being a practice that facilitates production, is a
>> pedagogical artifice that allows the productive agents to recognize the
>> economic component of their activity, often seen as a hobby or volunteer
>> service, thereby beginning to to understand the importance of building
>> collective and collaborative solutions in our lives.
>>
>>
>> However, the term " complementary" is appropriate, because even with the
>> systematization and organization of these trading systems, is very
>> difficult in our society to completely abandon the relationship with the
>> real world and its commitments. The radicalization of self-management
>> processes are part of our horizon, but we have to also work to the current
>> economic system, and its many commitments , including those related to
>> public tariffs, such as water and electricity, and basic services such as
>> rent , telephone and internet , not to mention power supply and
>> transportation, all of which are paid with cash. In this case, each
>> collective and its agents seek ways to survive and generate income for
>> itself and to fill its own Collective Bank, based on its own projects, and
>> often times an occupation of the market itself . In this sense , the same
>> way we see the need to build interface with the state, it is also important
>> to dispute the means of production so that the collective can develop
>> strategies to maintain and expand its activities .
>>
>> What distinguishes the collective and the houses off-axis from the other
>> organizations in this regard is how we treat the issue of capital, labor
>> and access to resources. For this, we developed the concept of the
>> “Collective Found" as a way to socialize and ensure adequate living
>> conditions and to free the potential of individuals. All funds managed by
>> collectives are socialized and each agent derives from the collective cash
>> their basic needs.
>>
>> Since the emergence of collective houses, the math got easier because
>> when linking to a house, as a resident, the person shall be guaranteed the
>> basic conditions for survival, no longer needing to worry about that. From
>> there, all of their availability and capicity is at the service of the
>> collective process, responsible for the valuation and projection of her/his
>> own uniqueness. The residents have no salary, and in the houses all
>> activities are divided without the need for hierarchy or depreciation of
>> one activity over another, and at the same time, there are no more owners
>> and non-owners.
>>
>> The entire workforce is employed in activities and projects that are in
>> accordance with the principles of the network. This creates a rupture in
>> the differentiation between work and life, because the borders determined
>> by a system that makes this separation based on the need to maintain its
>> very own operation, cease to exist and another economic environment where
>> profit and exploitation no longer make sense emerges. Amazingly, when this
>> separation between captial/work, characteristic of the capitalist system
>> model, is overthrown, what we see is a much greater engagement and
>> productivity on the part of individuals who come to see their productive
>> activity not a burden for their survival, but rather as the expression of
>> their uniqueness, and more than that, the expression of their struggle for
>> social transformation and construction of a project of society.
>>
>> By questioning money as the only component of economic exchange, valuing
>> the intangible, and building a system of the collective management of
>> resources, our intention is to develop a laboratory able to build
>> self-managed micro-experiments, and in that way moving forward in the
>> formulation of a new collective economy , a new economy of life, which may
>> give birth to a new possible world. A statement that might be perceived as
>> naive or pretentious, but that springs from a transparent way of living
>> collectively, which makes it real and full of humanity.
>>
>> 12. How is the Fora do Eixo different from a traditional capitalist
>> franchise system?  How 'political' is the Fora do Eixo. How do  you deal
>> with the government and big corporations, and possible funding from these
>> sources?
>>
>> The first basic difference is that we do not aim for profit, and this
>> element alone already invariably locates us within the political left. Now
>> this has to be analyzed from a more contemporary perspective, we are not
>> working in a paradigm of income distribution, we are talking about time
>> distribution. It is a matter of accelleration.
>>
>> The FDE house and the Collective Bank solved one of the main dilemmas of
>> activism, which is availability. We have a lot of people very excited and
>> passionate about the causes they believe in, which makes us work very fast
>> and efficiently. What we do with this speed is that instead of acting as a
>> self referent for our own projects we are all the time creating new
>> interfaces for joint action, and distributing time and services with other
>> movements, collectives and networks of people.
>>
>> With this potential, FDE has been decisive in detonating and
>> participatory processes of mobilization and working as a laboratory and
>> school of activism, mobilizing in the streets and across the networks and
>> following complex political processes.
>>
>> We incidence, that is to say, we entered the scene in order to intervene
>> and change the course. We are helping to build new forms of governance 2.0,
>> using social networks and the streets. We function as social and cultural
>> accelerators catalyzing actions that by their own collective building DNA
>> created independent circuits of music, audiovisual production, and many
>> other formats guided by economic logic that challenges the decadent,
>> patrimonial and culturally conservative industry that is currently in place.
>>
>> We struggle for a new culture and practice of direct participation,
>> governance and co-management. We dialogued with the state, which we
>> understand as a social application that must be placed in the service of
>> the Common. We have our causes, agendas and autonomy. We are not funded by
>> any political party or group, but even when we participate in public grant
>> competitions or we receive financial support from corporations, we have
>> full political autonomy.
>>
>> We are part of a new economy, we live from our Colletiv Bank, which in
>> turn raises funds from our own services (Event production, project design,
>> log in photo, video and live broadcast, writing texts and so on). We
>> transform the shortage into autonomy.
>>
>> We are not "authors" of works, nor do we assign individual names to our
>> products, only collectively, we are the protagonists of a process and of a
>> joint construction. We fight against copyright and all our services are
>> free for partners.
>>
>> Even without a unified program, we have a clear political project: We
>> struggle to democratize access to culture through a new regulatory
>> framework for the sector, to include the interior of Brazil in the symbolic
>> dispute of society, and create new ways of living and new relationships to
>> work, moving towards a society characterized by less unequal, less
>> prejudiced, more open to minorities and potential of differences. Defending
>> nature, cultural diversity and human rights are central points of our
>> network.
>>
>>
>> I see the FDE network as a laboratory of political imagination that has
>> not been seen for decades in Brazil. That is to say in practical terms FDE
>> makes a difference wherever it goes through the constant search for a logic
>> of relationship building guided by complementarity.
>>
>>
>> Together with networks and partnering collectives, we work as a
>> post-party, a collective that thinks about cities from the bottom up. In
>> towns in the interior of Brazil this accelerated technology produces
>> significant interventions in culture. For all these reasons, we consider
>> ourselves extremely political and politicized.
>>
>> About the dispute for public grants (one of the ways to obtain financing
>> in Brazil used by most organizations and cultural collectives), in our view
>> that there is nothing wrong in participating in them. This is one of the
>> most recurrent forms of financing cultural producers, networks and
>> collectives. The attempt to criminalize this mechanism relies on fallacious
>> arguments, conservative bias, attacking the construction of public policies
>> and funding.
>>
>> At the same time, this criticism can not be detached from the historical
>> perspective of consolidating public policy in our country. Until recently,
>> not just cultural policies, but much of the public policy were made in
>> palatial and cabinet agreements, made behind closed doors, where personal
>> relationships were the main substrate for its implementation. We live in a
>> patrimonial state, where the boundaries between public and private have
>> always been closed to the underprivileged and open to the elite classes.
>>
>> Public policy built through the mechanism of public grants was a
>> breakthrough in this direction, because it began to regulate the access of
>> resources in a way that was more transparent and republican. It is in this
>> historical context that we operate, and we compete, in full condition of
>> equality with other Brazilian cultural agents, for public resource that
>> help to carry out the development of our projects.
>>
>> All accounting of public funds used by FDE have been approved and are up
>> to date. We have occasional delays with suppliers, miniscule amounts
>> compared to the years of intense activity in the cultural scene throughout
>> Brazil. Like all culture producers, we are stewards of debt, our currency
>> is trust, without it there would be no credit. The public and private
>> sectors do not meet the minimum needs of doing culture. Thus, there still
>> exists in our relationship with the government a very strong component of
>> resistance to an obsolete law that does not recognize the new working
>> relationships.
>>
>> We create our own system to deal with all these gaps and lack of public
>> policies for culture. This system includes festivals, circuits, currency
>> and a unique way of life based on relations of exchange that are
>> independent of large capital investments and which are essential for us to
>> continue with our political autonomy.
>>
>> 13. Amongst the critiques I hear from some other movement activists in
>> Brazil is that Fora do Eixo has a charismatic and hierarchical leadership,
>> with a few leaders determining the actions of a group. Some people also
>> feel that Fora do Eixo members are exclusively concerned with their own
>> community i.e. that it suffers from some form of communitarian enclosure?
>>
>> This enclousure thing, or even Sect as we’ve been called, is very
>> contradictory, and at times even ridiculous. What I understand is that most
>> communities like ours close themselves off, just to not have to deal with
>> the external review that is often fraught with value judgments and moral
>> content.
>>
>> The central point is that the Off-Axis does exactly the opposite: We are
>> radically transparent, we are exposing ourselves all the time, from the way
>> we use social networks to the methodology of open code, having open
>> meetings, live broadcasts, publishing spreadsheets and accounting all the
>> time, and showing up to debate.
>>
>> The process of collective assessment has always been understood as an
>> input and making self criticism is intrinsic feature to a process like this.
>>
>> Since the first collectives started to work in their cities, we have
>> lived with the most diverse criticisms. The fact is that the kind of
>> availability we generate and how we solve the challenge of time in activism
>> and cultural management through the House and the Collective Bank is very
>> innovative.
>>
>> These questions raised are also somewhat dated, and correspond to the
>> opinion of people who lived in FDE houses or interacted with the network
>> around 2011, in particular with the experience of the São Paulo house,
>> which due to the fact of being in its initial and experimental phase,
>> likely produced an environment of strong pressure. What is interesting is
>> that the practice of self criticism as an organic process has corrected
>> these aspects. For example, all 22 people who started 2013 living in the
>> São Paulo house are still heavily involved in the network, but live in
>> other spaces across the network. The management is now undertaken by an
>> entirely new group while the space (the House) retains the same relevance
>> as before. This is only possible in a very dynamic organization with
>> capacity for a constant renewal of leadership.
>>
>> The extent to which this sum of practices translates into new political
>> aesthetics has given rise to a very interesting phenomenon wherein the
>> political right calls us leftist communists while the classical left points
>> to us as the new capitalists of culture. Nowadays we have to look at the
>> historical perspective of fundamental movements for the Brazilian culture
>> such as the Week of Modern Art in 1922, or Tropicalia, both of which
>> were also evaluated according to this duality. Therefore, when looking at
>> these things, I think it’s safe to assume: Yup, we are on track.
>>
>> After all this talk about criticism, I think that if we had not created a
>> network in a country of continental dimensions like Brazil , developed a
>> system of complementary currencies that works in collective houses with
>> collective banks, if this platform did not become the main protagonist in
>> the construction of a new map of Brazilian music, if several new artists
>> and events they had not emerged from the network , if we had not moved into
>> Sao Paulo and provoked a series of interferences without belonging to the
>> organic intellectuals of the city , if we had not engaged in the March for
>> Freedom, worked hard on ousting then Cultural Minsister Ana de Holanda,
>> articulated the first meeting between Marta Suplicy (de Holanda’s
>> replacement) and the social movement of culture, if we had not done Love
>> Exists in SP, if Haddad (the mayor of SP) had not mentioned the movement in
>> his inaugural address and if we had not unleased Ninja Media being ready to
>> cover the largest street demonstrations in recent Brazilian history,… if we
>> had not done all of that, perhaps we might not be receiving any criticism .
>>
>>
>> In our course we always seek to divert ourselves from a principled and
>> amateur political stance, which is a major limitation of movements today.
>> So as we were establishing ourselves in an ecosystem of networks and
>> movements, some positions and groups that were allocated more on the left
>> saw themselves as being overcome and overtaken in the ability to share and
>> act with solidarity. Thus, what we perceive is that often, by detonating a
>> crisis of leadership in sectors of the left that have trouble accelerating
>> their agendas, eventually opt to project their own frustrations pointing to
>> the defects of totally new experience and that is only eight years old.
>>
>> Since 2011, our ability to move collectively and en bloc has intesified,
>> as has our strong potential for communication, commitment and availability
>> for activism. This has placed us in a position to give support to and
>> actively participate in marches and mobilizations with bikers, stoners, the
>> student movement, movements struggling for land and housing, groups that
>> combat homophobia, environmentalists and several other agendas and issues
>> in joint work environments don’t characterize themselves without an
>> extensive process of dialogue and interaction.
>>
>> In other words, a network doesn’t grow and becomes dynamic with this
>> amount of potential and power if it’s not moved by a principle of autonomy
>> and a very strong capacity for dialogue with all of its members and with
>> people from outside the network. For the vast majority of people who
>> generously observe, they soon see that this is manifested in daily advances
>> and developments of all individuals who are part of the collective.
>>
>> We live in a time of great change. The “Journey of June” (of protest that
>> happend in 2013) in Brazil aligned with various movements that run around
>> the world today, and the recently experienced technological changes put us
>> in the eye of the hurricane, this dramatic process of social change brought
>> about by the digital.
>>
>> We are a unique laboratory of experience of digital networks in Brazil
>> and perhaps unique in the world. We worked heavily in the last 10 years
>> within the cultural circuit and at least 3 years we are in constant
>> dialogue with various sectors of Brazilian society. We do all this in an
>> open and transparent way that we understand as “Beta”, and we are constant
>> process of updating. And to top it off we had a huge amount of visibility
>> in recent days due to the success and the amount of questions that Ninja
>> Media sparked.
>>
>>
>> How movement strongly rooted in social networking, we also received the
>> bonus and burden of everything that happens there. Which is to say that it
>> is only natural that a movement that questions the system of rep
>>
>
> ...
>
> [Message clipped]

-- 
*Please note an intrusion wiped out my inbox on February 8; I have no
record of previous communication, proposals, etc ..*

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#82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/
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