know how 2006 day 1
strange day indeed. i think i have gotten over my jet lag, after crashing out yesterday at a respectable 12am, and waking up at 7. god.. why aren't i ever this organised at home?
anyway. almost the entire team was present at breakfast. hugs hugs. big grins. tired and overpaid for half a bun and soggy cornflakes. marched off to palacio de mineria and set up our table at the community booth. freak out! forgot to bring genderIT brochures. i'm useless. but thankfully ms. effecient tornado brought a whole wheely suitcase of stuff. so at the end of it, it looked pretty decent. had to hang around in case the press who were at the opening poke their head in, and the organisers didn't want an empty table. since i wasn't really doing anything for the FOSS workshop, volunteered to hang around and look busy. i'm not sure if it worked.
so the FOSS workshop was a huge success i think. by the time i walked over, the session was in full swing. the room was full. and there were even some dudes who wandered into the wrong thing and decided to stay. the building where this was held is wonder-full enough. it's called palacio de autonomia, and it built like an accelerated evolution of civilisation with the middle bit missing. glass structures meet ancient inca ruins and an old church spire of uneven stone against concrete and metal. quite a mindfuck. almost too much to take in. and so far, all i have seen of mexico city is like that.
the popular protest against the elections result brought mexicans from all over the country (foreigners who are found participating in local politics will be instantly thrown out) come to the city and set up a camp site. tents are set up, tvs streaming with documentaries about how the election results were rigged against the protestor's favourite, andres manuel lopez obrador from the opposition party. lots of the usual dodgy things happened, and no one's buying it. i can't imagine something like this happening in KL. coming together, hiring cranes to put up speakers, wall sized caricatures, temporary beds, more and more people, sustaining such a protest into permanence in the imagination. it's just awesome.
while they chant in protest, one street away small traders are shouting their familiar slogans for this product or that for this peso or that. life goes on. walked into a church for a short while, and it's as though the chaos never existed. a lot of silences, scary jesuses bleeding in solidarity with his worshippers, organ, small gestures, muted rapid words of secret gossip shared with a kind creator. i'm not sure.
but i think i am digressing from the event. as usual.
what was most interesting i suppose are the conversations. the lunch with friends of the network was just a moment of sudden energetic unfolding of questions, of different people's projects and actions. spoke to margaret of FIRE, and she's did this amazing interview with a grrl blogger from lebanon and how she went from one of those 'let's keep each other connected about our lives through our blogs' into a seriously powerful writer. and she's not the only one. imagine friendster transforming into a community for socio-political writers who are completely engaged. speaking about the contradictions of online communication. the trust, where does it come from? why is it implied? why when it comes to certain relationships, it just disappears? speaking about VAW & shifting masculinities.
getting my yahoo account maybe phished, maybe hacked. who knows? i cant remember. having to spend the rest of the night changing all my accounts that used a similar password. speaking to another feminist communication rights activist about her recent experience of being harassed through intrusion and theft of her online communication activities. how privacy is disintegrated. and how she responds to this by organising a campaign on ending VAW on the internet with her group. it's just awesome.
while another prominent advocate feels the quandary of desiring to blog and wanting to say what she wants to say in her name, but feels that the association of her name and the group she belongs to can hardly be separated. what does this mean when what you do mean that you lose your right to your own name? it is inevitable in some ways. but what does it mean when you can find a new name, create your own name, through the anonymity provided by blogs? how is this authentic? how is this courageous? how is this not?
i'm tired. but there was so much i wanted to get into. tomorrow is the FIRE VAW Campaign launch. i'm supposed to speak about my paper for about 5-10 minutes. i cant even remember what i wrote about.
shits.
anyway. almost the entire team was present at breakfast. hugs hugs. big grins. tired and overpaid for half a bun and soggy cornflakes. marched off to palacio de mineria and set up our table at the community booth. freak out! forgot to bring genderIT brochures. i'm useless. but thankfully ms. effecient tornado brought a whole wheely suitcase of stuff. so at the end of it, it looked pretty decent. had to hang around in case the press who were at the opening poke their head in, and the organisers didn't want an empty table. since i wasn't really doing anything for the FOSS workshop, volunteered to hang around and look busy. i'm not sure if it worked.
so the FOSS workshop was a huge success i think. by the time i walked over, the session was in full swing. the room was full. and there were even some dudes who wandered into the wrong thing and decided to stay. the building where this was held is wonder-full enough. it's called palacio de autonomia, and it built like an accelerated evolution of civilisation with the middle bit missing. glass structures meet ancient inca ruins and an old church spire of uneven stone against concrete and metal. quite a mindfuck. almost too much to take in. and so far, all i have seen of mexico city is like that.
the popular protest against the elections result brought mexicans from all over the country (foreigners who are found participating in local politics will be instantly thrown out) come to the city and set up a camp site. tents are set up, tvs streaming with documentaries about how the election results were rigged against the protestor's favourite, andres manuel lopez obrador from the opposition party. lots of the usual dodgy things happened, and no one's buying it. i can't imagine something like this happening in KL. coming together, hiring cranes to put up speakers, wall sized caricatures, temporary beds, more and more people, sustaining such a protest into permanence in the imagination. it's just awesome.
while they chant in protest, one street away small traders are shouting their familiar slogans for this product or that for this peso or that. life goes on. walked into a church for a short while, and it's as though the chaos never existed. a lot of silences, scary jesuses bleeding in solidarity with his worshippers, organ, small gestures, muted rapid words of secret gossip shared with a kind creator. i'm not sure.
but i think i am digressing from the event. as usual.
what was most interesting i suppose are the conversations. the lunch with friends of the network was just a moment of sudden energetic unfolding of questions, of different people's projects and actions. spoke to margaret of FIRE, and she's did this amazing interview with a grrl blogger from lebanon and how she went from one of those 'let's keep each other connected about our lives through our blogs' into a seriously powerful writer. and she's not the only one. imagine friendster transforming into a community for socio-political writers who are completely engaged. speaking about the contradictions of online communication. the trust, where does it come from? why is it implied? why when it comes to certain relationships, it just disappears? speaking about VAW & shifting masculinities.
getting my yahoo account maybe phished, maybe hacked. who knows? i cant remember. having to spend the rest of the night changing all my accounts that used a similar password. speaking to another feminist communication rights activist about her recent experience of being harassed through intrusion and theft of her online communication activities. how privacy is disintegrated. and how she responds to this by organising a campaign on ending VAW on the internet with her group. it's just awesome.
while another prominent advocate feels the quandary of desiring to blog and wanting to say what she wants to say in her name, but feels that the association of her name and the group she belongs to can hardly be separated. what does this mean when what you do mean that you lose your right to your own name? it is inevitable in some ways. but what does it mean when you can find a new name, create your own name, through the anonymity provided by blogs? how is this authentic? how is this courageous? how is this not?
i'm tired. but there was so much i wanted to get into. tomorrow is the FIRE VAW Campaign launch. i'm supposed to speak about my paper for about 5-10 minutes. i cant even remember what i wrote about.
shits.