Friday, August 13th 2010
1998 The Sonny Bono Act (Copyright Term Extension Act): Protecting Mickey Mouse or Helping the 'Beat Go On' in the Realm of Innovation?
Join Artist Shepard Fairey, Political Activist & Author Lawrence Lessig, Computer Scientist & Engineer Brandon Edens and AS220 Artistic Director Umberto Crenca in a discussion on"Free Culture."
Moderated by Action Speaks Host Marc Levitt.
5-5:15pm
"André the Giant Has a Posse" (1995) Film Screening
Brought to you by Providence Community Library and AS220
This year, as part of AS220's 25th Anniversary Foo Fest and Free Culture celebration, we will be extending the festivities into Friday, August 13th with a screening of Helen Stickler's film, "André The Giant Has A Posse" at 5:00PM and hosting a very special Action Speaks panel discussion at 5:30PM. The Providence Community Library has arranged for a veiwing of Helen Stickler's 1995 film, "André The Giant Has A Posse," a documentary short that features Shepard Fairey and his influential street art campaign throughout the city. The film was internationally screened, gaining considerable attention at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival. In 2003 Village Voice film critic Ed Halter described the film as "legendary ... a canonical study of a Gen-X media manipulation. One of the keenest examinations of '90s underground culture."
Photo: Viera Levitt, August 13, 2010
For more images click here
5:15 pm Seating, Friday, August 13th 2010 Action Speaks Special - A Free Forum on "Free Culture" Live Forum at the AS220 Performance Space, 115 Empire St Providence, RI 02903
As part of Providence's nationally known Action Speak radio show, the inaugural honorees of the AS220 Free Culture Award, Shepard Fairey and Brandon Edens, Harvard law professor, political activist, and "Free Culture" author Lawrence Lessig, and AS220 Artistic Director, Umberto Crenca will take part in a public conversation moderated by Marc Levitt, Host and Creative Director of Action Speaks. The conversation will include Fairey's work as a public artist and his influences and ideas on the creative process, Lessig's notion of the Public Commons and his thoughts on copywrite legislation and free software. Crenca will speak to the challenges of engaging with notions of Free Culture as the director of AS220, an unjuried and uncensored arts non-profit and Eden's will illuminate the complexities of free culture in the realm of technology from the perspective of a computer engineer active in hardware and software development. In keeping with the theme of Action Speaks' "Underappreciated Dates that Changed America," The panelists will be asked to comment on significant moments in their personal, artistic, professional and political evolution as well as dates in the world of public art and cyberspace that changed how we viewed and participated with the world. The public will be invited to join the discussion with comments and to ask questions.
Lawrence Lessig is an academic, author and political activist. He is best known for his work to reduce the legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications. He is the author of the book 'Free Culture'. Currently, Mr. Lessig is a director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University and a professor of law at Harvard Law School. Prior to rejoining Harvard, he was a professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of its Center for Internet and Society. Lessig is a founding board member of Creative Commons, a board member of the Software Freedom Law Center and a former board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Shepard Fairey is an American contemporary artist, graphic designer, and illustrator and graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, 1992. He first became known for his "André the Giant Has a Posse" and "Obey Giant" sticker campaign, in which he appropriated images from the comedic super market tabloid Weekly World News. His work became more widely known recently in the 2008 U.S. presidential election for his Barack Obama "HOPE" poster. His work is included in the collections at The Smithsonian, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He was prominently featured in the new Banksy film, 'Exit at the Gift Shop.' Fairey was arrested on February 7, 2009, on his way to the premiere of his show at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, Massachusetts, on two outstanding warrants related to graffiti.
Umberto Crenca is the founder and Artistic Director of AS220, a non-profit center for the arts in Providence, Rhode Island. AS220 was established in 1985 to provide a local forum and home for the arts. AS220 offers any Rhode Island resident the chance to exhibit or perform their work in an unjuried and uncensored all-ages forum. The organization maintains thirty two artist live and/or work spaces, four gallery spaces, a printshop, two darkrooms, a technology lab and a stage, and has established a powerful presence in the Downtown Arts and Entertainment District. Since 1998, Crenca has spearheaded efforts to bring more meaningful arts education programming to incarcerated youth. In 1999, Crenca established AS220's youth arts program, Broad Street Studio, which continues to serve and support youth transitioning out of state care with arts instruction and professional development at AS220's Empire St. location. Crenca was a visual art instructor at the Rhode Island Training School, the state's juvenile detention facility from 2000-2004. In the past two decades, Crenca has been a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, The Urban Institute, The Ford Foundation, LEF Foundation, Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Connecticut Council on the Arts, the New England Artists' Trust, and the Creative Cities Summit. In 2010, Crenca was honored to receive both the Rhode Island College's Charles B Willard Achievement Award and a 2010 Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts.
Brandon Edens began his work at AS220 as a volunteer in 2001 and has served as AS220's system administrator for the last three years. In 2005, Edens obtained degrees in both Computer Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Rhode Island. Edens' training in embedded systems landed him a position as an embedded firmware engineer with Zeo Inc., creators of the Zeo Personal Sleep Coach. He continues to develop his interests in 3d graphics, graphics processor units and game programming with Fluxamalabs, an indie game group. Edens' ascribes to the four freedoms attached to the Free Software movement - to run, study, redistribute, and improve software. One of Brandon's more recent projects, the AS220 jukebox, allows local artists to upload their music via a web interface to AS220.org. Music is made available for AS220 Foo(d) and bar patrons to play via a coin-fed physical interface and participating artists are directly compensated for all paid plays. The jukebox is licensed as free software and publicly available (see www.as220.org/jukebox). Designing and building all the components himself, Brandon created an elegant solution to AS220's boycott of music licensing agencies. As a resident of Rhode Island for the last fifteen years, Edens' was awarded the 2010 Biennial Free Culture Award designated for an outstanding local artist.
Bibliography
- Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity; Lawrence Lessig
- The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World; Lawrence Lessig
- The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind by James Boyle
- Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth; David Bollier
- Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own; David Bollier
- Brand Name Bullies: The Quest to Own and Control Culture; David Bollier
We hope you will join us as we celebrate a quarter century of unjuried, uncensored art in downtown Providence. Find out more about the Foo Fest taking place August 14th 2010 at the event's website.
