Free and Open Source Technologies, Arts and Commoning Practices:
An Unconference about Art, Design, Technology, Making, Cities and their Communities

Organized by the University of Nicosia Research Foundation as part of PHYGITAL project.
Co-organized in collaboration with the Fine Arts Programme, Department of Design and Multimedia, and Lakatamia Municipality/hack66.

For up to date information please refer to http://www.unrf.ac.cy/ or https://fineartuniccy.wordpress.com/

What kind of creativity comes after today's digital cultures? After the smart city, post-surveillance, post-innovation, when social entrepreneurship discourse has ran its course?

In the last few years there has been a sharp momentum in the growth of groups and spaces that operate under collective and community- driven structures of collaboration and shared learning processes (onsite and online). This is happening in parallel to greater debates around the fate of the commons, openness, freedom of access and how new digital scapes are influencing how we shape socially and community orientated art, design and technological practices.

In our times of digital communalities bringing together issues related to art, design, technology, governance, and the commons, makes apparent the need to critically reflect on contemporary discourses of openness and freedom, and redefine the ways we produce and share knowledge, not least about new possibilities of production and sharing in themselves.

Considering our digital realisms and increasingly disparate lived realities we wish to explore approaches and examples to activism in relation to social movements around making and sharing, critical artistic practices, and their related technological shifts. Especially as pockets of our cities are being transformed into creative and entrepreneurial hubs, reflection becomes necessary in how the setup of these collective hubs of knowledge production effects and affects urbanisation, regeneration and issues related to the smart city and its mechanisms of surveillance.

Unconference Format
The unconference brings together scholars and practitioners across fields, to convene, share, and collaborate on issues around the physical and digital commons, the free and open source art and technology movements, as well as collective and community- driven structures of collaboration and shared pedagogic processes (onsite and online).

This unconference follows the momentum of a broader movement rethinking the academic conference format towards a more connected model of knowledge sharing, peer learning and collaboration. This allows presentations of research while it also allows participants to work together and set their own agenda in workshops that respond to previous proposals as well as spontaneously emerging priorities. We will be hosting participants from a broad network of researchers and activists across fields, and connecting remotelywith others.

The unconference participants are invited to contribute to an Open Access Online Masterclass with the same theme. The event will connect with a local makeathon and later lead to an Exhibition that aims to communicate visually and interactively the outcomes of these debates. Developing a publication is one of the conference's main aims.

We invite 15-20min presentations, panels, abstracts, posters, and workshop/unpanel proposals by 28/02/2019. Updates can be found on http://www.unrf.ac.cy/

To propose something please send:
Panels: 250 word abstracts of all presenters, short bios, contact details and panel title
Paper: 250 word abstract, short bio, contact details and paper title
Workshop: 250 word abstract, short bio, contact details and paper title
Other ideas: 250 word abstract/ concept note, short bio and contact details
Submit the above information to: cycommonsprotonmail.com
For any queries do email tselika.eunic.ac.cy or chrystalleni.loizidougmail.com

Provisional Themes:
- Openness, Freedom in social, art, design and tech initiatives
- Hack-art-visms, hack the art and art the hack
- Contemporary questions around community and civically driven art, design and technology
- Hacking as culture- hacking-repurposing / Hackerspaces and Maker culture- Makerspaces, hackerspaces, and their politics
- Shared learning- peer to peer, common
- Design global manufacture local
- Local vs global dimensions in community practice
- Tech and Art Resistance discourse and their directions and overlaps
- Activism, freedom tech, tech freedom
- Making and the commons: Redefining public art, Maker-culture, Openness
- Digital Commons
- Digital governance and social movements
- Self-organisation discourse
- Open data discourse
- Networked cultures
- Tech and Policy / Policy tech

Scientific Committee
Evanthia Tselika, University of Nicosia. (Chair)
Chrystalleni Loizidou, hack66/ Lakatamia Municipality. (Chair)
Maria Hadjimichael, University of Cyprus.
Niki Sioki, University of Nicosia.
Eva Korai, Cyprus University of Technology.
Marios Isaakidis, University College London.
Thrasos Nerantzis, Future World Centre.
Leandros Savvides, Leicester University.
Gabriele de Seta, Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan.
Helene Black and Yiannis Colakides, NeMe.org.