Impressions of PICNIC ‘06

Looking back over the 20,000-plus words I wrote covering the 3 days of speaker presentations, there were a number of themes that emerged that have bearing on future Picnic editions, as well as to the (Amsterdam) creative industries:

Activism – many speakers pointed out that we are in a critical period of techno-social development, that politicians basically have no understanding of the issues involved and are delegating decision making to corporations that do not have the best interests of citizens at heart. Yes, we’re having fun building and making, and the user-generation revolution was exhaustively referenced, but there was also a strongly articulated view that we can use this stuff for better, more pressing, more noble ends too.
“Why should we care? Because this is about the future world that we will be living in. It is about taking control of our lives, building a DIY culture, a mapping of opportunities. The stakes are high, said Julian Bleeker, “involving changes to power and politics, the boundaries between leisure and play being re-drawn. We have seen and can see this happening on the Net, and this will also happen with the Net of Things.”

Cognitive changes (also referenced as ontological change, where what we regard as real/unreal, alive/not-alive are being changed). The risk is that in the rush to Second Life (broadly speaking, not exclusively referring to the site of that name) we risk losing out First Life values, of freedom, privacy, etc.
“We are looking for protection, meaning, authenticity, trust and resonance with other voices. Discernment, allowing what we eat and what we buy to reflect our values. We are asking ourselves more: what do I have to lose (in this situation or transaction) than what do I stand to win?” (Stone).

Entrepreneurialsim in NL/Europe is changing too, and has already changed immensely since the Web 1.0 gold rush. Having been scared of growth in the 1990s, overly dependent on following a US lead, the model is now was: create a hit in one country (e.g. Finland), then localise it and export it to a new European country or market (e.g. Benelux), said Loic Le Meur. Other (European) brakes on business success - attitudes to failure, jealousy of success - are eroding too. Whatever its cultural effects, Big Brother changed our perspectives on what is achievable for ever.
Mayor Cohen pointed out Amsterdam’s historical strength at exporting ideas, but referenced the same Big Brother (which along with speed cameras is surely one of the most divisive and unpopular of the country’s achievements). Where was all the other great Dutch thinking? Amsterdam has always been loved by foreigners for its ability to bring the underground above ground, is well regarded for the quality of its design, research, its left-field take on issues to do with liberty and freedom.
The anti-business side of alternative culture (hackers, squatters, artists) has to relax and stop equating making money with corporate hegemony, make common ground with their better dressed colleagues with a mortgage on the line, and realise we’re all in this together. If we don’t create jobs and wealth, we’ll remain poor and insignificant in the political debate, or dependant on state handouts, or become bogged down in oppositional stances when imaginative, positive solutions are needed.
At the least, Mr Cohen, having praised the city’s squatting, hacking, Tiesto-lovin’ population, should be made aware of what compulsory ID, mass searches and arrests at Awakenings parties and closing late night watering holes (Diep) do to the desire of creative individuals to want to live here.
Does a commercially successful XS4ALL have more lobbying influence that Hacktic? Would John de Mol have exhilarated a packed room with his (passionately presented but only slightly above ‘run-of-the-mill’) observations if it hadn’t been for Big Brother? Would he be so widely reviled at home and abroad for his achievements if his company ever produced imaginative, interactive programs that acted as if life was about more than money, sex, celebrity and ‘amusing ourselves to death’?

Passion is back – there was an excitement and guarded optimism that I have not seen at a conference since the mid-90s. This time the excitement is among a broader demographic – i.e. not just technically-minded artists, hackers and telecoms execs, most of them men. With the growing interest in TV, Adland, fashion and other applied creative industries, there is more glamour, money and business savvy than there was a decade ago. There is also a wider appreciation that ‘all this’ is about more than the technical hack, the IPO, the shifting of units; it’s about how safe we feel, how under observation we are, how our children are being raised, what the glue that holds society together is, and so on, recursively into the wider political issues of our day (immigration, terror or fear of it as a political tool, climate change, etc).
So this optimism has to be grounded in reflection, debate and action - or stronger still, in activism, Whether it is “media nerds demanding better broadband” (Wintzen), “creatives taking responsibility for building a better world, because only they understand it” (Summerskill), or demanding some form of oversight in and say over the explosion of sensors, tags, cameras, databases, smart blogjects, and the (mis)use these are being put to and will be more put to in the near future (Bleeker). It is ultimately in the interests of no-one to just focus on the fun, entertaining, money-making side of the industry (with a bit of ‘creativity’ tacked on for credibility), without asking again and again: what are we doing? Why are we doing it? Who does this benefit? Or my personal favourite: will our kids end up living in a ‘virtual concentration camp’ that I have inadvertently helped build, or allowed by my inaction to be built?

I see all these issues as being connected.

Passion with out ideals will lead us into (greater) vacuous irrelevance (at best), or drive us more quickly off the cliff of eroded civil liberties even faster.

Ideals without action will just lead to cynicism, apathy, and addressing these issues together will inevitably lead to cognitive and political change individually and society-wide. Action, if it is to scale up through society, needs to be effective and sustainable.

Celebrating entrepreneurialism enables effective activism. Rather than criticising or disdaining those who create wealth, jobs in new creative businesses, creating new and successful business models will be the best way (for individuals in our industries) of gaining credibility and power to effect change. Traditional disdain for business by the alternative and creative communities just leads to their/our arguments being sidelined, and good critical thinkers simply preaching to the converted.  By the same argument, seeing Web 2.0 as just a great new way to make money, or merely to produce entertainment, without looking at the wider social situation in which this is being done, will be polarising to society and a selling short of the potential of this techno-social revolution.

The above linkages suggest that cognitive, ontological, political changes will happen any way, and are already underway (the often-referred to differences between ‘digital natives’ and ‘digital immigrants’). Some can be predicted or researched, others will come out of the blue. To what extent these are accidental, or forced from above (by clumsy governments or bottom-line obsessives like Wal-Mart) or (most preferably) guided by creative, passionate, engaged individuals is an issue – the defining issue – of my impressions of Picnic ’06 and beyond.
In short, it’s about the money, about the motivation, it’s about doing, making, lobbying, informing and caring. It’s about all of these at the same time, or there will be trouble ahead. Fun for a while maybe; lucrative too, but bad for everyone in the medium term if the social and power issues are not tackled for the benefit of all and not the few. I could go on and on about this, as I believe it is the key issue of this century for the whole planet, but I won’t here.

The natives and the immigrants need to talk to each other, as do the Suits, the Fashionistas and the old Cyberpunks. Take what is best from each culture and present coherent arguments, effectively lobbied at local, government and intergovernmental level. Amsterdam is well placed as a ‘trusted society’ that has historically walked the line very successfully between alternative/critical and mainstream/capitalist to contribute considerably to that debate – and provide the perfect environment at Picnic ’07 to start talking face to face.

Download an overview of all blog entries posted by Jules Marshall (PDF format): PICNIC weblog.pdf