[Nettime-bold] Shu Lea Cheang's latest project "St(r)eaming the fields" launches this weekend

[cristine wang <cristine_org@yahoo.com>]

[Shu Lea Cheang's latest project "St(r)eaming the
fields" launches this weekend
July 27-Aug 4, 2002 in New York

For those planning to attend, please contact me to
coordinate shared transportation etc.]

Phase 1: Harvesting Garlic Investing media
July 27-August 4, 2002
Friends of the media and green fields are invited to
harvest the massive 5th-generation garlic crops at
Andes. A day of harvesting brings together a labour
head (mentor) and 2 labours (respondents) in digging
up garlic and updating the current media production.
Infusing old and new ideas, the green encounter with
hands covered in dirt and thoughts floating in the air
is documented as streaming data. The green field is an
open space, we welcome friends to come by and join us
for harvest fiesta. We serve steaming vegetable and
garlic plus fish caught in the nearby streams. The
garlic cloves collected are dried and stored for
on-off-line trading in the following months.

http://www.rich-air.com

St(r)eaming the fields, 2002 -- a field harvesting and
public network project
conceived by Shu Lea Cheang
with "Challenge to the Field" Award from Lyn
Blumenthal Memorial Fund for Independent Media.

Background info:
The green field in Andes, New York will be harvesting
3000 garlic plants by the end of July this summer. The
garlic crops cultivated by organic farmer Tovey
Halleck have gone through generations of growth. Each
year, Tovey harvests the garlic field, sells some and
plants the rest. One plant of garlic can yield up to
10 cloves, each made up of 10 bulbs. Each bulb can be
re-seeded. Over the years, Tovey's garlic has
fertilized the land and multiplied .

Generations of independent media makers have
collectively developed a vibrant media field. As we
speculate on a post-capitalist, post-arts funding,
"after the crash" scenario, "St(r)eaming the fields"
calls for the media field to converge at the green
field for trans-generational recharging affairs.
Borrowing from Argentina's "El club del Trueque" (Club
of Exchange) that advocates parallel economy
reciprocity practices, we hope to realize a media
exchange network using organic garlic as alternative
social currency, the 'credito'. Using garlic credito
to exchange material goods and immaterial digital
bytes, we hope to stimulate media trafficking on the
net and sponsor green marketing on the streets. 

"St(r)eaming the fields" project will be held in 4
phases in year 2002.

Phase 2: Garlic=rich air <http://www.rich-air.com>
September 1-September 30, 2002 --- ongoing
After the crash (of dot com, of market economy, of
twin towers, of public funding), garlic is ordained as
valuable assets for the future generations of
independent media makers. Serving as 'credito' for
global shared network, garlic is traded for airwaves,
for bandwidth, for pixels and bytes. A website is set
up that allows the media makers to join Trueque club
where actual and virtual goods and service are listed
for exchange. Through the trading with garlic credito,
we provide the media field an alternative distribution
outlet, stimulate organic media growth and encourage
mutual ownership of digital commons. Each sign up
media maker in Trueque club is given Ticket Trueque
and 10 virtual garlic as assets, a heatmap, color
schemes profile, traces the trading activities of each
participant. By offering digital bytes for trading and
acquiring other makers' bytes, the garlic credito is
accumulated or decreased. By the end of September, the
virtual garlic credito can be exchanged for edible
garlic when we enter phase 3 of the project.

Phase 3: Trading garlic for wireless
September 27-28-29, 2002
Scattered in the small towns throughout Argentina are
local Trueque clubs, each with its own established
credito for local exchange. Promoting regional
self-sufficiency, the many Trueque clubs provide the
economic alternative to the failed Peso currency in
Argentina. 

In London's East End, DIY wireless rooftop networks -
based on radio links and the 802.11b protocol, are set
up by groups of hackers, artists, activists and
cultural workers. In the Bay area , Bay Area Wireless
User Group (BAWUG) and S.F. wireless; in New York,
NYCwireless, are busy setting up community network
nodes all over the city blocks; Committed to share and
consume bandwidth together, the new global/local
communities based on free/autonomous networks can
possibly bring about social internet revolution. Much
like the vegetable stands set up by country farmers on
the roadsides, wireless nodes at the street corners in
the cities are our 'networking' stands toward building
sustainable organic internet in the 'after the crash'
scenario. 

After the harvest, the garlic is dried and stored for
late September trading and distribution on the streets
of New York City and at the farm stands in Andes. We
will construct a flat truck loaded with garlic and
park at designated street corners with wireless nodes
set up for net access. Temporarily claiming a public
space for garlic congregation, we trade edible garlic
for wireless network. With mobile techonology, we
stream and showcase the harvest documents and trading
activity on the streets. Taking garlic credito one
accumulated through trading on rich-air.com, one
trades the virtual credito for edible garlic. On the
streets, the truckload of garlic can also be traded
with material goods as we invite local community to
join us at this harvest/netivity celebration.

Phase 4: Distribution of garlic credito and seeding
the garlic
October 2-October 6, 2002
Taking the multiplication of garlic cloves as starting
point, we hope to promote garlic credito for media
exchange and seeding garlic for future generations.
During the NAMAC Conference in Seattle (October
2-October 5), we will showcase garlic harvesting
documents and garlic credito at rich-air.com. We will
distribute edible garlic for nationwide and
cross-border seeding in the green fields. On the
weekend of October 5, we will gather again in Andes,
New York. With Tovey Halleck, we seed the remaining
garlic bulb by bulb, clove by clove.

http://www.rich-air.com

------------->>>>>>

best regards, cristine wang
mobile: 917.318.0081 http://cristine.org


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