Incubate loves to innovate. Incubate loves creativity. Charles Leadbeater is a leading authority on innovation and creativity. So put 1 and 1 together, and you’ll get… exactly…

Charles Leadbeater will open the Incubate festival week on Sunday the 12th of September. He will talk about the place of arts in an ever changing society, ruled by internet and digitalism. Leadbeater advised the Tony Blair administration about matters of the Internet and the knowledge-driven economy. He also wrote for the Financial Times and The Independent. As a writer for The Independent he devised the Bridget Jones Diary columns into a book. So he’s very versatile.

Where: NWE Vorst
When: 12 september 2010
Doors open: 19:30 uur
Start: 20:00 uur
Entrance: € 10,- (Dayticket Charles Leadbeater) or € 45,- (passepartout festival)
Tickets can be bought through the website http://incubate.org/2010/tickets

We’ve just confirmed Jiggy Djé to share his thoughts on copyright/piracy and the re-usage of culture at the Incubate Pirate Conference. Jiggy Djé will take seat in the panel following Matt Mason’s keynote speech on piracy in the arts. Other members of the panel are: Matt Mason, Martijn Arnoldus (Creative Commons Netherlands), Sander van de Wiel (Pictoright), and DJ /rupture. Atze de Vrieze (VPRO 3voor12) will moderate the panel.

Jiggy Djé is a Dutch rapper that started making hip hop in 1997. Together with DAC (De Amersfoortse Coöperatie) he released two albums: diDACtici in 2002 and Professioneel Chillen in 2005. In 2006, he won the public price at the Heineken Grand Prix, the oldest and most renowned Dutch music prize. The same year, Jiggy Djé released his debut album and founded his own record label; both titled Noah’s Ark. He signed artists like Hef, Önder and SpaceKees to this label. Follow Jiggy Djé on Twitter.

Tickets for the Pirate Conference can be bought trough the Pay What You Want principle. Through incubate.org and incubate-innovation.org visitors can indicate how many tickets they want to buy and what total amount of money they would like to pay for them. The payment can then be made via Paypal or bank transfer. The Pay What You Want principle is not applicable to the normal day tickets and passepartouts of Incubate. Incubate tickets can be bought through the Incubate website.

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

Naar aanleiding van ‘Embroidery’ van Rob Scholte schreef Rob van Gerwen een artikel dat (zoals veel werken van Scholte) sterk aansluit bij de thematiek van Piraterij. Getiteld “Een beeld is voor wie het waarneemt”, behandelt van Gerwen thema’s als beeldrecht, kijkplicht, merken(recht) en borduurwerk. In dit artikel vraagt hij zich onder andere af waarom het beeldrecht zo eenzijdig is en altijd uitgaat van degene die het beeld maakt, terwijl de betekenis van het beeld volgens van Gerwen juist wordt gevormd door diegenen die het beeld waarnemen.

“Misschien gaat die nadruk op beeld maken – in plaats van op beeld zijn – ervan uit dat alles in een gemaakt beeld er voor een welbepaalde reden zit. Maar misschien ook geldt dat alleen voor de zogenaamde meesterwerken – waarbij de kunstenaar zo geniaal is dat hij volledig bepaalt wat de aard en betekenis van zijn werk is – maar dat is een onhoudbaar idee, vindt ook Rob Scholte. Een kunstenaar bedenkt wel iets en stopt er ook heel wat energie en zorg in om zijn werk te realiseren, maar welke betekenissen dat werk vervolgens krijgt geeft hij uit handen. De betekenis van een beeld is altijd groter dan wat de maker voor ogen had. Ofwel: de maker bepaalt veel maar iets wat wezenlijk bij het beeld hoort, nl. zijn betekenis, komt pas tot stand wanneer mensen er gebruik van gaan maken.”

Download het hele artikel van Rob van Gerwen over ‘Embroidery’ van Rob Scholte hier.

Het werk van Rob Scholte is omstreden, mede omdat hij vaak gebruik maakt van bestaande afbeeldingen. Tijdens de Incubate Pirate Conference geeft Rob Scholte een lezing over de betekenis van piraterij binnen zijn werk en in de beeldende kunst in het algemeen.

Last week, we confirmed Hank Shocklee to be interviewed during the Incubate Pirate Conference on September 17. Hank will tell his story of the heavy-sampling production method he created mid ’80s together with the other members of The Bomb Squad. Their technique of engineering, sampling, scratching, constructing, deconstructing, reconstructing was groundbreaking at the time and still is a technique that has hardly ever been duplicated. Hank will also shed light on his views on copyright, sampling for the future and will offer artists an insight in how to deal with these developments.

Music platform Pitchfork shared some footage of Public Enemy performing the album live in 2008, together with some really interesting backstage interviews with the producers of this album: It would be difficult to overstate the importance of Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. As a political statement, as a sonic experience, as a hip-hop album, and as music, period, it just doesn’t get much better than this 1988 LP. Commemorating the 20th anniversary of its release this year, Public Enemy performed the record in its entirety, including on Friday night at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival, presented with All Tomorrow’s Parties. Chuck D, Hank and Keith Shocklee of the production team the Bomb Squad, and long-time associate and “media assassin” Harry Allen also appeared on a panel here in Chicago to discuss the record. Incorporating footage from these events and additional interviews, Pitchfork.tv presents the story of this album as told by the people who made it happen. Check out the videos below:

If you can’t get enough, also make sure to read this interview by Stay Free! with Hank Shocklee and Chuck D.

We’re really proud to announce that Hank Shocklee will share his views on copyright and piracy with all of us at the Incubate Pirate Conference. Hank Shocklee is Music Producer, founder of Public Enemy & The Bomb Squad. The Bomb Squad is a hip hop production team, mostly known for their groundbreaking work on Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. This album, released in 1988 (before the record labels and lawyers really started paying attention to sampling), is known for its dense, sample-heavy production, often utilizing dozens of samples on just one track. The Bomb Squad are also known for their ability to incorporate harsh, unmelodic sounds and samples into their songs, generally enhancing them. Because of this highly influential sound and productionmethod Hank Shocklee is viewed by some as the Phil Spector of hip-hop.

A worldwide role model for pushing the envelope and breaking new artistic boundaries, Hank Shocklee is looked upon as the leader of the pack. Whether via his production legacy which continuously ranks at the top of the ‘best of’ lists or throughout the academic circuit, Hank’s ideologies and techniques are studied amongst a wide cross section of people that include music fans, aspiring artists, audio technology developers, universities and media policy makers.

As a DJ, producer, composer and record company executive, Shocklee has managed to work with and develop a large variety of artists and musicians across many genres all while keeping a very innovative approach and a distinction for high quality productions. Shocklee has been a force behind some of the most significant music and film projects of the last two decades including Public Enemy, Ice Cube, Mary J. Blige, LL Cool J, Slick Rick, Anthony Hamilton, Ridley Scott’s American Gangster, Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, Ernest Dickerson’s Juice and countless others.

At the Pirate Conference, Hank Shocklee will be interviewed by Job de Wit (freelance pop/hip hop/house journalist) about his method of production, his view on (the future of) copyright, and sampling and the recycling of material to build a new work and a new context.

That same evening, The Bomb Squad will perform in the regular music program of the Incubate festival.

Tickets for the Pirate Conference can be bought trough the Pay What You Want principle. Through incubate.org and incubate-innovation.org visitors can indicate how many tickets they want to buy and what total amount of money they would like to pay for them. The payment can then be made via Paypal or bank transfer. Also visit incubate.org and incubate-innovation.org for more information on the program of the Incubate Pirate Conference.

The Pay What You Want principle is not applicable to the normal day tickets and passepartouts of Incubate. Incubate tickets can be bought through the Incubate website.

The Institute of Network Cultures Blog posted a very interesting interview with Paul Keller, one of the founders of Creative Commons Netherlands. This is a very interesting read in preparation to our Pirate Conference on September 17. At the conference, Martijn Arnoldus (another member of the Creative Commons Netherlands project) will also take part in the panel following the keynote speech by Matt Mason.

Copyright law usually makes the distinction between private and public. Private is what I show in my own house, legally defined as people I have personal bonds with, in a close community. A public performance requires permission from the copyright holder, while with a private doesn’t. The internet has of course dramatically enlarged the range of our public. If I look at my flickr collection of pictures, hundreds of thousands of people have looked at them, while it it is still essentially the same collection that started its life in a shoe box on my shelf that maybe 5 people looked at back in the days. You can argue that the private has become global, and as a consequence this public-private distinction doesn’t work well for triggering copyright anymore.

Copyright currently justifies a simple binary transaction. I have cultural goods, you have money, and we do a proper exchange, or otherwise I’m in violation of copyright. Given that everybody can make copies of pretty much anything, this is clearly not the smartest system for organizing knowledge transfer or the distribution of cultural goods.

Read the full interview at the website of the Institute of Network Cultures.

The pre sale for the Incubate Pirate Conference has just started! We want the event to be accessible for everyone. That’s why we chose to make use of the Pay What You Want-pricing mechanism. This way, our visitors have the control to determine the value of the conference and the social discussion that is involved.

You can indicate how many tickets you want to buy and the total amount of money you would like to pay for them. The payment can then be made via Paypal or bank transfer. You can pay 1 euro or 50. It’s your choice!

Get your tickets now via Incubate.org or at this site!

* The Pay What You Want principle is not applicable to the normal day tickets and passepartouts of Incubate. Incubate tickets can be bought through the Incubate website.