Incubate Innovation

On September 12, Charles Leadbeater will open the Incubate festival week with a lecture on social innovation and the role the arts can play in this process. Charles Leadbeater is a leading authority on innovation and creativity. He is Tony Blair’s favourite corporate thinker. He has advised companies, cities and governments on innovation strategy and drew on that experience in writing his latest book We-think: the power of mass creativity. This book charts the rise of mass, participative approaches to innovation from science and open source software, to computer games and political campaigning.

In 2009, Charles Leadbeater wrote the essay ‘The Art of With’; a most interesting and highly recommended text on the practices of the (avant garde) art and how it stands in opposition to the art and the world of to and for:

Often in the name of doing things for people traditional, hierarchical organisations end up doing things to people. Companies say they work for consumers but often treat them like targets to be aimed at, wallets to be emptied, desires to be excited and manipulated.

The arts, and the modern avant garde in particular, has stood in opposition to this commodified, regimented world of to and for. The arts offer a space for contemplation and reflection, challenge and controversy, higher meanings and deeper purpose. Yet in its way the modern art world and modern arts institutions embody the principles of to and for just as powerfully as the modern factory or school.

The modern, iconoclastic avant garde starts from the idea of separation and specialism. To produce good art, artists have to separate themselves off from the society around them – physically, emotionally, morally, socially – the artist as a self-styled resistance fighter pitted against the trivialising distractions of popular culture. The untrammelled imagination of the avant garde artist is one of the last redoubts against bourgeoise, traditional, commodified culture.

Further on in the essay, Leadbeater goes on talking about the resemblances and role of the web within this context; how the art and the web of with drive innovation:

The appeal of the web, however, stems from the way it connects to and amplifies the idea of with in other areas of life. The working ethos of open source communities, Wikipedia and the web more generally is a culture in which people work with people. In the world of the web the main principle is that you can freely communicate with anyone you need to regardless of title or hierarchy.

Innovation invariably comes from a version of with: creative collaboration and conversation in which people share and blend their ideas. With should be the guiding principle of politics in liberal communities: politicians working with people to find solutions to shared problems. People want a more gown up, bottom up, conversational politics rather than being spun messages or broadcast to from on high.

Download the full essay by Charles Leadbeater here in a pdf file. The text is licensed under Creative Commons. Presale for the Charles Leadbeater lecture & panel has begun. Tickets are for sale through the website of Incubate.

In September 2010, The Asylum will be a guest at the Incubate Festival in Tilburg. The American company has become notorious in recent years for making their so-called mockbusters, cheap pirated versions of major Hollywood films.

These mockbusters are immediately released on DVD, even before the original movies screen in cinemas. Besides a large number of claims and lawsuits, the studio also enjoys a large fan base.

The Asylum’s way of working fits perfectly with the central theme of this year’s Incubate; piracy in the arts. Besides various readings and discussions on the subject, Incubate has also compiled a very diverse film program around this theme under the title ‘Pirate Cinema‘.

Watch an interview we did with David Rimawi (Sales and Distribution at The Asylum) on their company, there method of production, business model and piracy below:

During the festival week visitors can enjoy the pirated counterparts of The Da Vinci Code, Snakes on a Plane, Transformers and Alien vs. Predator among others. One of the highlights is the European movie premiere of Titanic II. The film premieres in the U.S. on August 24 and will be featured in a cinema in Europe for the first time during the Incubate festival on Thursday, September 16.

All screenings take place in the Filmfoyer Tilburg and are free. Check out the whole Pirate Cinema program at www.incubate.org/2010/event/19

“Seriously I thought it was a spoof when i saw it at the rental store”
“it was hilarious in the stupidest way, Don’t BUY JUST RENT“
“This movie is way more fun than the movie that it obviously rips off”
(user reviews imdb.com)

Piracy in the arts is the overarching theme of Incubate 2010. This theme is visible throughout all different parts of the festival program and will be especially investigated at the Pirate Conference on Friday September 17. Tickets for the conference are sold seperately from the festival tickets through incubate-innovation.org and you determine the ticket price. Arrr!

Here’s an interesting talk we found on Ted.com by Johanna Blakley. Blakley is the Deputy Director of the Norman Lear Center (a media-focused think tank at the University of Southern California) where she spends much of her time exploring the impact of intellectual property rights on innovation and the ownership of creative content. In this speech Johanna explains how the fashion industry actually benefits from the lack of copyrights in terms of not only creativity but, in the end, even sales as well. She therefore suggests that other creative industries should take an example from fashion by incorporating the fashion industry’s copyrightless way of working and then create their own model from there.

This blogpost is in Dutch, because the article it refers to is also in Dutch.

Xandra Schutte, hoofdredacteur van De Groene Amsterdammer, zal dagvoorzitter zijn op de Incubate Pirate Conference op 17 september. Schutte is sinds 2008 werkzaam bij De Groene Amsterdammer. Eerder werkte ze als hoofdredacteur bij Vrij Nederland en als uitgever bij Uitgeverij Meulenhoff.

Eind 2009 publiceerde De Groene Amsterdammer een artikel over (internet)piraterij, dat we middels deze weg nogmaals onder de aandacht willen brengen. Het artikel gaat naast het downloaden uit ‘illegale’ bron vooral over de achtergrond van deze vorm van piraterij. Hierbij komen o.a. de onderwerpen Vrije en open gemeenschapscultuur, Privatisering van land, Openbare ruimte en Coöperatieve creatie aan bod. Het artikel laat zien dat er meer schuilgaat achter het up- en downloaden; dat het bijvoorbeeld ook gezien kan worden als een boodschap tegen de cultuurindustrie als het gaat om het uitbuiten en privatiseren van eeuwenoude gemeenschapscultuur.

Het artikel is getiteld “De Hydra is terug: Het veelkoppige monster van de internetpiraterij” en is hier in zijn geheel te lezen. Lees hieronder een fragment uit het artikel:

“Het Romeinse recht onderscheidde verschillende eigendomsvormen, waaronder res publica (staatseigendom), res privata (privé-eigendom) en res communes (eigendom van niemand, de commons). De geschiedenis leert dat als de laatste niet tegen de eerste twee wordt verdedigd zij onherroepelijk het onderspit delft. ‘Dingen in het gemeen bezeten, worden van elkeen vergeten’, luidt niet voor niets een oud gezegde.
De eerste, klassieke aanval op de commons was onderdeel van het door Marx beschreven proces van ‘oorspronkelijke’ of ‘primitieve accumulatie’, dat de weg vrij maakte voor het ontstaan van het industriële kapitalisme. In de moderne maatschappij is de strijd om de commons terug van weggeweest. Het neoliberalisme poogt de winstmarges op te vijzelen en nieuwe markten aan te boren door een praktijk die omschreven kan worden als ‘accumulatie door onteigening’. De term is van David Harvey. Het onteigenen van gemeenschappelijk bezit is volgens de bekende geograaf niet iets eenmaligs, behorend tot het verleden, maar een praktijk van alledag. Dus wordt gemeengoed als de lucht, bossen, het klimaat of drinkwater meer dan ooit bedreigd door verstatelijking of privatisering. De openbare ruimte staat onder druk van zowel overheidsregelgeving als commercialisering. En het gaat verder. Vrije tijd wordt duur betaalde leisure. Ook het leven zelf blijft niet gevrijwaard van commerciële belangstelling. Genetisch erfgoed van mens, dier en natuur wordt gepatenteerd en geprivatiseerd. Dat medicijnen die het verschil uitmaken tussen leven en dood eigendom zijn van farmaceutische bedrijven wordt reeds lang als normaal ervaren. Met de kredietcrisis is duidelijk geworden dat zelfs het laatste gemeengoed, de toekomst, niet gespaard wordt voor ‘commodificering’. De schulden die staten nu maken, leggen beslag op de publieke middelen van volgende generaties. Niet voor niets sprak Marx al over de publieke schuld als ‘een van de krachtigste hefbomen van de oorspronkelijke accumulatie’.”

At the Incubate Pirate Conference on September 17, Xavier Le Roy invites Mårten Spångberg to discuss copyright from the perspective of performance arts: how to deal with re-usage, re-interpretation and re-enactment? Xavier and Mårten will discuss three different subjects within the context of piracy: dance/ownership, theatre/war-machine, and invention/art.

Mårten Spångberg (1968) lives and works in Stockholm as essayist, performance critic, dramaturg and choreographer. For the discussion at the Pirate Conference, Mårten wrote an article as an introduction to his views on piracy:

Piracy And Desire, Lack Is Strategic

One can think of two kinds of breaks with the confinements proposed by the law. Prison break, a breach with a conventional and continuous imprisonment without exception results in the subject always looking over his shoulder waiting for the law to catch up. The subject will inevitably return to his original imprisonment where he also will feel relief. The prison break operates on the basis of breaking through and leaving a trace, whereas a clean break implies a shift of discourse, i.e. the prison guard will not even know that the subject has disappeared out of the field of vision. The result is identical, but after a clean break the subject will continuously look over his shoulder hoping that at least somebody will appear. A clean break implies sovereignty, a lonely place without anybody to gossip with.

Piracy can be considered as simple prison break, a crossing of a conventional restriction in order to get away with some or other thing, or simply obtaining value. It can also be understood as a clean break, especially considering digital media where a copy is not destabilizing value. Is it however possible to instead consider piracy not only as strategic endeavor, but rather as operations either on structural or tactical levels? We would like to understand piracy as concept, as a heterogeneous huddle of incompatible connections raising questions that cannot be answered within our present predicament or as a cluster of mutating lines carrying the potentiality of ungrounding established capacities of dualist-based discourse.

The language apparatuses that define present political contexts have over the past twenty-five years lost its deterritorializing agency, i.e. any political emergence or social movement can but be canonized due the dominant discourse of Western representational democracy, hence the multiplicity has made itself invincible. As long as tomorrow is designated by yesterday’s idioms, difference can only operate on levels of degree, in particular in a reality where capitalism has become omnipresent.

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We are more than pleased to announce that Roy van Dalm will moderate the panel after Charles Leadbeater’s keynote speech at De NWE Vorst on September 12. Roy van Dalm helps cities and regions define economic and cultural strategies. Through workshops, seminars and dialogue tables Roy guides city and regional authorities, cultural institutions and development boards in defining an authentic and competitive identity.

Roy worked with the Richard Florida Creativity Group for 3 years. Currently he is working with Charles Landry on the roll out of an in-depth creativity index for cities. Roy van Dalm is a senior lecturer at HAN University of Applied Sciences, a research fellow of ARCCI and guest lecturer at over 10 universities and academies.

Roy’s knowledge is based on over 15 years of work as an economic research journalist. With a team of seven Roy van Dalm worked on profiling 80 European cities for the weekly Slimme Steden (Smart Cities) series in Het Financieele Dagblad – the leading Dutch economic newspaper. 50 cities were selected for the bestselling book Slimme Steden.

The panel will consist of of experts from the fields of arts, economy and politics. Panelmembers are: Charles Leadbeater, Prof. dr. Wim van de Donk, Dick Rijken, Wout Withagen and Bas van Heur. You can get tickets for this event at the Incubate website (Dayticket Charles Leadbeater). Let us know you will be attending at LinkedIn.

After the success of his book The Pirate’s Dilemma, Matt Mason is of course talking all over the world about innovation in the cultural scene, youth cultures and how to compete with pirates. Here are some interesting videos on some of his talks, in preparation to his keynote speech at the Incubate Pirate Conference on September 17. First off, here’s a great promotional clip for his book, which is a great introduction in the subject of his book, if you haven’t read it yet:

Remember, you can still get a digital copy of the book via the Pirate’s Dilemma website, and you’re able to name your own price for it. Next is a video of a speech Matt gave at the Deutscher Trendtag last year. In this presentation, he discusses the topics of his book. Entitled The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism, he talks about how underground cultures have brought on the most innovative ideas, which later often have been adopted by many businesses. He also explains how to compete with piracy, stating that it not only has negative effects but that pirates sometimes also create solutions that literally change people’s lives. Again, his conclusion is very clear and clever: if you want to beat pirates, copy them:

Hi there. Here is a nice update on our Pirate Conference on September 17: the time schedule for this day is now official and you can view it below or download it in a pdf file. This will be a most interesting day with subjects/developments within copyright and piracy being covered from different backgrounds. We’re very curious about your opinion on the program, let us know in the comments.

In other related news: we’ll have Flat Fee Coffee available at the Pirate Conference for all of you. For 7 euros, you can get as much coffee as you want during this day, and you’ll also receive a free Incubate mug to take home with you!

While you’re at it, take look at the backchannel that Freshheads made for the Pirate Conference. You can send updates using Twitter with hashtag #ipc10 for this. The backchannel will be beamed in the main room of Midi Theater.

If you will be attending the Pirate Conference, we would advise you to buy a Pay What You Want ticket in pre sale, because we expect the event to be sold out. See you September 17!

(for a bigger jpg version of the time schedule, click here. To download a pdf file, click here)

Innovation is a keyword at Incubate. Therefore Incubate and BKKC will organize the Incubate Innovation Lecture 2010, which will take place in De NWE Vorst on September 12. We’re very honored that Charles Leadbeater will hold this year’s lecture.

Charles Leadbeater is a leading authority on innovation and creativity. He is Tony Blair’s favorite corporate thinker. He has advised companies, cities and governments on innovation strategy and drew on that experience in writing his latest book We-think: the power of mass creativity. This book charts the rise of mass, participative approaches to innovation from science and open source software, to computer games and political campaigning.

In 2005 Charles was ranked by management consultancy Accenture as one of the top management thinkers in the world. He advised a wide range of organizations including the BBC, Vodafone, Microsoft, Ericsson, Channel Four Television and the Royal Shakespeare Company. As an associate editor of the Independent he helped Helen Fielding devise Bridget Jones’s Diary. He wrote the first British report on the rise of social entrepreneurship, which has since become a global movement. His report on the potential for the web to generate social change led to the creation of the Social Innovation Camp movement.

Brabant Stad has the ambition to become cultural capital in 2018. To become cultural capital, cities also have to invest in innovation. Whereas, for instance, the Eindhoven region emphasizes technological innovations, Tilburg wants to invest more in social innovation as part of this ambition.

The web is creating a more open, participative and collaborative approach to culture. In his keynote, Mr. Leadbeater will focus on the role the arts can play in this social innovation process. What’s the role of a changing arts practice in a changing society?

After Charles’ keynote lecture, a panel of experts from the fields of arts, economy and politics will take place. The panelists in the discussion are Wim van de Donk, Dick Rijken, Bas van Heur and Wout Withagen.

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Here is a very interesting talk by Hank Shocklee which serves as great introduction material for the Incubate Pirate Conference. At the Red Bull Music Academy, Hank Shocklee talks about how The Bomb Squad founded their sample-collage production methods in the 1980s, and about making Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. Here, you can hear Hank talk about more technical stuff; how they would go around the studio, putting all sorts of different found sounds together, without even being able to digitally edit their works. He goes on talking a little bit about maintaining full creative control while signed to a major, the role of Chuck D within these sample-heavy productions, the difference between digital and analog sound, and what Hank looks for in sounds that he re-uses in his own productions.

“I remember mixing a bunch of records and we were just bringing people that were out in the lobby to help us, like make our mutes, you know? I mean, one time, Fab 5 Freddy was happening to hang out in the studio: “Yo, Freddy, come on,” run in the studio and we would all grab like three faders or something each. And we needed to do like a mute way, you want a mute at all the instrumentation and just have the vocal in there and then come back on. You have to wait for that part of the song going by and then everybody goes: “OK, one, two…” and everybody had the beat on, the same beat the same time because the minute you got somebody coming a little late or a little early, that whole take has got to get done over. So everything has got to get started over again. So the process of making records back then was very much a team method. This is why we had the Bomb Squad, because everybody at the time had to have a specific function and a specific duty. And especially from the things we were doing with records, combing through records, finding the right sound or the right part or the right drumbreak or the right turnaround or the right horn hit or the right tambourine loop or the right spoken word piece, the right bass piece. That’s hours amongst hours on top of hours of combing through the records.”

In relation to this talk, you can download the full sample set that The Bomb Squad used for the production of It Takes a Nation of Millions… via this page. Make sure to catch Hank Shocklee at the Incubate Pirate Conference if you want to hear more about his productions and his views on copyright and piracy. Tickets are still available for Pay What You Want right here.