This newsletter is sent out to SUMMIT delegates and interested guests who have registered for ‘SUMMIT non-aligned initiatives in education culture’ or subscribed to the newsletter.
SUMMIT will take place from May 24 to 28 in Berlin and we will provide you with detailed information about the progress of the preparations and exchange relevant material. This newsletter is supposed to be distributed at least once a week. It is not a discussion list, but a moderated publication that seeks to communicate the ongoing debates and preparations in a digest mode.
Dear SUMMIT participants and delegates!
You are receiving this newsletter because you have registered for ‘SUMMIT non-aligned initiatives in education culture’ or subscribed to the newsletter.
SUMMIT will take place in exactly one month and we will from now on provide you with detailed information about the progress of the preparations and exchange relevant material. This newsletter is supposed to be distributed at least once a week. It is not a discussion list, but a moderated publication that seeks to communicate the ongoing debates and preparations in a digest mode.
First of all we would like to thank you very much for your interest in the SUMMIT project.
PREP MEETINGS
The SUMMIT project started with a series of prep meetings in Eindhoven, Berlin, Vienna. At the moment we are planning at least three further meetings, one in London on May 10th and two in Berlin, the first one on May 3rd, the second one on May 12th. In the next newsletter we will publish the exact hours and locations.
REGISTRATION
If you are planning to actively participate and contribute to SUMMIT it is absolutely essential that you are registered as a "delegate". The registration process is quick and painless but provides you with access to the areas and tools which we are setting up to organize the SUMMIT forums. For a small symbolic fee to be paid when you arrive you will have access to all events, lunch rebates etc.
In case you have not signed up and registered yet for SUMMIT please do so by filling in the required data at our website.
http://summit.kein.org/user/register
If you plan to suggest an activity that you want to organize at the summit, please add your suggestions here:
http://summit.kein.org/node/add/activity
We will contact you with further details and procedures as soon as possible.
PROGRAM
SUMMIT is not a conference in any conventional sense, but a gathering in a rather adventurous fashion. It is an experimental format that gets shaped and developed in its making and by its contributors and contributions.
As facilitating comittee we are currently in the midst of planning and setting up the program. With the next edition of this newsletter, end of this week, you will receive a first version of the program. The formats discussed below are open for suggestions , both for themes and subjects and for particpation.
SUMMIT starts with an opening session on Thursday, May 24 8pm. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, there will be summit events from 11 am to the evening. Between 3pm and 4:30pm of each day, there is a slot for "urgent thought" presentations. At 8pm the public evening program starts.
Every night there will be a party at one of the venues. SUMMIT consultations take place in different formats. If you have porposals for the program or want to organize your own session, you may also create and develop your own format.
- Workshops
Two large scale discussions will focus on “Rethinking Art Academies” and “Self Organisation”. We are also planning a series of smaller workshops which foreground a fragmentary vocabulary for a radical pedagogy. For example, Adrian Rifkin, Rob Stone, Susan Pui San Lok are planning a workshop on "curiosity", Joseph Vogel on "dithering", Lawrence Liang on "collegiality", and others.
- Caucuses
A "caucus" can be understood as a situation when disputants retreat to a more private setting to process information, agree on strategy, or simply gain "breathing room" after sometimes difficult interactions that usually occur in public politics. One example of a caucus is the "Organizing" platform which will discuss questions of precarization, networking and labor organizing in a series of sessions during SUMMIT. While the workshops will examine the conceptual and the theoretical the caucuses will provide a ground for strategic interventions in the field.
- Drafting of the declaration
The drafting process of the declaration is not supposed to happen behind closed dors in some kind of expert group. Our proposal is to invite each evening a group of editors to publically discuss different paragraphs of the draft on stage. Their drafting work is projected on a screen and what was formerly known as the audience should be able to contribute through a local area network.
- Working groups
Working groups are smaller, open or closed sessions to discuss and formulate concrete plans or projects. We expect a number of participants that will not miss the opportunity to focus on rather specific questions in special working groups on topics such as "video syndication", "p2p-libraries", "hacker knowledge" "Social Learning in the Net Age" etc.
- History lessons
History lessons are moments of actualization of historical debates on education. How did the working class movement discuss "education" in the 1920s and how was it different to a romantic and omnipresent bourgeois notion? Why did German "re-education" after world war II fail? What can we learn from May 1968? How were Feminism and Post Colonialism moments of break with inherited knowledge ? What was the moment of ‘Black Culture ‘ in Europe and how has it transformed our understanding of the location of culture?
- Old school
During the entire program there will be sets each featuring two DJ's who play songs and records while trying to explain what they learned through them.
REMOTE PARTICIPATION
We are currently working on various ways for remote participation. There will be audio and/or video streams as well as IRC channels for chat. Please stay tuned!
Dear SUMMIT participants and delegates!
here comes the second issue of the newsletter that is supposed to provide you further information about the event in Berlin from May 24 to 28.
PROGRAM
We are still working on a first stable version of the program. Like we announced in the last issue of this newsletter, SUMMIT will start on Thursday, May 24th, 8pm in Hebbeltheater with an opening event and contributions by Kodwo Eshun, Susanne Lang, Irit Rogoff, Nora Sternfeld, Florian Schneider, Nico Siepen as facilitating comittee. SUMMIT will close on Monday, May 28th around noon with the issuing of declaration and action plan.
There is a raw, unedited and undesigned snapshot of the program which you can access at: http://summit.kein.org/program
Please note, that this is everything but final and reflects the current state of the planning. These days we are going to contact those of you who announced to actively contribute sessions, presentations or debates regarding exact dates and hours.
MAILINGLIST FOR ACTIVE CONTRIBUTORS
In the next few days we are going to set up a mailinglist for summit delegates and participants who want to join the debates about the main topics of the program, the declaration and the action plan. This list is not going to be moderated and shall be used for the direct communication among the participants before, during and after SUMMIT.
You can subscribe directly to that mailinglist at: http://idash.org/mailman/listinfo/contrib-l
PARTICIPANTS
The number of registered participants and delegates is constantly growing. Currently we received more than 200 registrations and there are 350 people who requested to be informed through this newsletter. The participants range from labor activists, migrant organizers, media activists, art students, student activists, artists, free and museum curators, teachers and lecturers. We are very excited about the scope and the potential of SUMMIT and we are looking forward very much to see you in less than three weeks.
Due to the number of participants and the limited space we will certainly not have the chance to introduce every project and registered participant. Therefore we kindly ask you to please use the opportunity to edit your profile, post a short cv or biog, promote a link to your project website. You can access and change your profile once logged in with your username and password at the summit website: http://summit.kein.org by clicking on "My account" in the top of the rightbar column under "registration". Please help us keeping an overview of who is really planning to attend SUMMIT in Berlin by providing this information by carefully checking the checkbox "I will attend SUMMIT" or not in case you cannot make it or you want to particip?ate remotely.
Soon we are going to publish a complete list of all delegates and participants on the website.
SUMMIT PRESENTATION IN LONDON
On May 10th between 12 and 2 pm Irit Rogoff, Kodwo Eshun and Florian Schneider will do a presentation on the Summit at Goldsmiths College London, in room 137A. Please come along to see whether you might be interested in offering a concept or an issue with which to take part in the Summit itself.
PUBLIC PREP MEETING IN BERLIN
On Sarturday May 12th 2007, 8pm, the next public preparatory meeting for SUMMIT will take place at bootlab, Tucholskystrasse 6 in Berlin-Mitte. The meeting offers the possibility to discuss and introduce proposals for collaborations, workshops, or other ideas to plug into.
Dear SUMMIT delegates!
please accept our apologies for the slight delay of the third issue of the newsletter. With this newsletter we try to keep you posted on news and important informations regarding the preparation process. If you have not received the first two issues you can access them through the archive: http://summit.kein.org/newsletter_archive
REGISTRATION
Meanwhile 300 delegates have registered at the website for SUMMIT. We are still expecting a large number of contributors who repeatedly confirmed their participation but have not sign up yet. If you are receiving this newsletter, want to join us in Berlin and you are not yet a registered user of SUMMIT please make sure that you create your account at: http://summit.kein.org/user/register
With registering, you confirm your participation in SUMMIT and you will be free to attend all SUMMIT events, parties, workshops, working groups, caucuses and lectures. There are some working groups that require a sign-up, since there are limited places, but this will be indicated in the next version of the program.
For various reasons we are obliged to ask you to settle a registration fee of 10 Euros or a 5 Euros reduced fee (for the whole time and all events). There will be a registration desk at the theatre bar WAU, open from Thursday 24th in the morning on, where you can pay the fee and get your SUMMIT ticket. If you don't want to participate in the entire SUMMIT, but visit maybe one of the events of the public program, you can buy a regular ticket at the cash box of the Hebbel Theater. We will send you directions, phone numbers, addresses and maps of all locations as a pdf document attached to the next newsletter -- early enough before SUMMIT starts.
PROGRAM
A first and hopefully somehow stable version of the SUMMIT program is available at http://summit.kein.org/program Please keep in mind that this version is still under construction and subject to changes.
We are going to produce a printed version of the program that is supposed to provide participants and guests with a well-designed overview of what is happening where and when. This program will be available from latest from May 23 on.
If you have additional suggestions or program changes please submit or edit your program proposal as soon as possible at: http://summit.kein.org/node/add/activity (please note that you need to be logged in as a registered user or delegate in order to submit an activity)
REMOTE PARTICIPATION
Like we announced a few times, SUMMIT will offer the opportunity to participate remotely. We kindly ask those of you who cannot make it to Berlin but want to contribute remotely to indicate this properly on your account information page in the section "participation" http://summit.kein.org/user
We will inform you then under separate cover about the actual facilities to join the event and contribute remotely.
DECLARATION AND ACTION PLAN
One of the goals of SUMMIT is to issue a declaration and an action plan. The declaration is supposed to reflect the very conditions of its drafting which is not based on the logics of representation. The format of the declaration is to be defined in the process of its making. We can envision a variety of different options that turn the impossibility of speaking on behalf of organizational bodies or within identificatory frameworks into a creative challenge that may reach out far beyond the actual wording of a text as smallest possible denominator.
At the same time we see an urgency to intervene into the current debate about education with new terminologies in order to propagate our demands, commitments and aspirations.
We suggest that the drafting process is going to take place in at least two phases:
- pre-drafting process:
The goal is to collect and evaluate ideas, material, texts, contributions and comments that build the basis for the actual drafting process during SUMMIT. The pre-drafting process is supposed to happen within the next ten days alongside the four themes of SUMMIT "Knowledge and Migrancy", "Self-authorization, -organization, -valorization", "Creative Practices" and "Education unrealized and ongoing". We set up forums on the website that allow registered delegates to post statements and texts, display them in a threaded view and offer the opportunity to comment and discuss them. Please do not hesitate to use these forums, submit what you find useful in this respect and discuss the exisiting postings! http://summit.kein.org/forum
- actual drafting process during SUMMIT
From May 24 on the actual drafting of the declaration is going to take place on several wiki webpages that can be edited by registered SUMMIT delegates. We would like to invite you to join the drafting process by reporting from the working groups, workshops and caucuses you will participate. If you are interested in contributing to the declaration as a correspondent or rapporteur, please contact us and choose the events you would like to report from.
Every night from May 25 to May 27 there wil be public editing sessions of the declaration. Each night between 22:00 and 23:00 we are inviting several editors to work publically on the draft. We also ask those who contributed to the current state of the draft to be present and join the debate.
SUMMIT RADIO
We understand the documentation of the entire SUMMIT process as a very important task. We suggest the form of an open archive that should contain audio and video recordings of the different events but also additional material that can be produced, stored and published. We are going to set up wireless LAN and access points at the SUMMIT venues which allow you to contribute audio-visual material. Various delegates are currently working on specific projects which will be presented and announced in the next few days. If you have an idea or a proposal in that respect or if you want to join the SUMMIT radio team, lease get in touch with us soon!