Public spaces [and digital technologies]
Yesterday, full moon, was the last night - by now - at WikiPlaza Bastille. It ended up kind of early for dj culture standards. Just around 1 - 1:30 h. Most of the people wanted to go on, really wanted to go on - but we had made an agreement with the organization and the City to stop early.
It became somehow a debate on what a public space should-could be. And also made us realize some limitations of the experiment. So, this is somehow the reasen of the plural in the title. We tend to talk about public space, as an absolute category, but somehow it is more a question of public spaces, - multiple, networked, with multiple degrees and qualities... Some of them really largescale public as in public domain, Others more of a creative commons texture, more closely related to a community of active participants-contributors to its construction - also demanding of certain know-hows and personal involvement - to actually be able to feel that you belong to it, that you can be an actor and builder in it - and not just a passive consumer or spectator...
For this, not only the space has to be accesible and open, but protocols should be open as well, readable, manipulable,appropriable - very much like the classic liberties of free software - and the control of the tools that make this new kind of fluent, connected, expanded spaces should be transparent, accesible in a democratic, non-priestly kind of way... Much has to be done in this sense... By now, we are barely managing to have a friendly, good-willing management of rather opaque interfaces and matrix of uses... However, this is already far away from the regular management of technological machines by corporate, scientific, engineering, media and governmental elites...
