Backers as Co-Owners of Kickstarter and Verkami Projects

Since my article “The TriBall Case: ‘Okupación Creativa ¡Ya!’ vs.
Okupa Hacktivismo,” I keep returning to the notion of co-authorship of the city with city developers, co-authorship of software with software developers, and co-authorship of culture through the abolition of copyrights. Urban space and the body are connected by the practice of the city as open code, as co-author who can alter the city. Crowdfunding programs like Kickstarter and Verkami are also platforms through which to become co-owners of culture.

Jon Reiss, producer and director of Bomb It, a documentary about graffiti and public space, has just completed his highly-anticipated follow-up, Bomb It 2. In order to be able to widely distribute his second feature film on graffiti, he is currently conducting a Kickstarter campaign. The Bomb It team is fighting for the right to succeed at filmmaking outside of the studio system, and need help. In Reiss’ “Appeal Video Flubs,” he talks about backers as co-owners of his film. I like that. He also discusses how difficult it is to make appeal videos.

The following call to finance la Galeria de la Magdalena, an art project to give new life to an abandoned lot in Barcelona, is an example of an interesting and effective appeal video.

 Crowdfunding is another tool that activists can use along with art to reactivate spontaneous social cooperation and unexpected engagements with the cityscape.

A Documentary and a Tattoo

THE HUMAN RIGHTS FILM FESTIVAL OF BARCELONA (May 16-26) brings together art and activism. The impetus behind the event is, accordng to its website, “to show films that make us think, awaken our conscience, denounce injustice and reflect the social and cultural diversity of humanity.” If you feel inspired to take action in defense of human rights after viewing one of the more than 100 films, the festival provides an interesting art project, the Human Rights Tattoo, with which to participate.

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The complete text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights contains 6773 letters. The goal of the Human Rights Tattoo art project is to find 6773 people willing to have one letter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights tattooed on their corresponding bodies. An individual action, the tattooing of an single letter, and the personal story behind it only makes complete sense when connected with the other letters and people. The individual and community become entangled and indistiguishable. According to Human Rights Tattoo, “having a letter of the Human Rights Declaration means you are reminded of yours and everybody else’s rights. It is a way of putting your signature under the Declaration of Human Rights only this time a piece of the document is signed on you. You will carry it with you. For the rest of your life.”

Talk about making texts come alive!!