The technopolitical struggle for free culture 9 Favorite 

The Spanish 15M/Indignados movement represents a citizen break-up with the current political system while proposing an alternative one, changing the prevailing participation patterns while transforming the cultural, social and political structures in the country.

Nobody expected the Spanish r-Evolution and there it goes; still advancing and strong.

What are the elements that have cooked up this unique recipe?
One of them is the way it is being done: through a creative transformation of tactics, narratives and the use of the Internet that has spread not only through activists, but into the hands of active organised citizens.

Throughout the years, and more intensely with the 15M, a communication guerrilla group called XNET http://xnet-x.net/en has supported the creation and use of creative activist devices for specific actions, assisting civil society collectives in the designing of their campaigns.
Xnet is specialised in the development of the Internet’s tactical use, allowing capillary forms of counter-information and self-organisation as well as renewed forms of citizen organisation; technopolitics, understood as the practice of networking and taking action for empowerment, justice and social transformation.
The knowledge generated in this creative process, as well as the means by which this knowledge has reached media coverage and political incidence, are at the disposal of organised civil society:

TRAINING IN ONLINE ACTION

Xnet shares what they have learnt from the Network and how can it be extrapolated to all areas of action, helping to organise and amplify actions managing to reach, from the Internet, people that don’t necessarily use it while breaking with inbreeding on social networks.

New ways of communicating -within social movements and with the people- as well as how to build new and different narratives are also two key elements that have been determinant in the transformation process and are fundamental for new social movements.

All this knowledge has taken shape in the so-called “RADICAL COMMUNITY MANAGER” seminars; intensive courses on new narratives & memetics, digital tools & strategies and social networks: how to go deep into the Internet as a battlefield and how to gain the abilities to organise and amplify actions, taking advantage of the synergies of the networked society http://xnet-x.net/en/contactanos-para/entrenamiento-accion-online

FREE CULTURE AND DEFENCE OF THE INTERNET

Xnet also organises and works in the defence of sharing, of the free flow of information and of free culture, promoting a critical debate on copyright, copyleft and licenses. This work has allowed the generation of collective thought with very clear ideas, denouncing attacks on free culture and the attempts of private control of the Internet, offering alternative proposals in defence of the commons.

In this direction, they begin to celebrate annually from 2008 the OXCARS, the 'greatest free culture show of all times'. Each edition shows the most innovative work done that contributes to the affirmation of a culture and philosophy adapted to sharing and the digital era, as well as the use of the Internet as a tool for improving justice and the quality of democracy. It aims at "normalising" free culture and technopolitical action for a mainstream audience https://xnet-x.net/en/areas/free-culture/#oxcars

Since 2009, parallel to the Oxcars, Xnet celebrates the FREE CULTURE FORUM (FCForum); an international space for the development of proposals from civil society in the same areas. It brings together organisations and experts from the fields of culture and free knowledge to create an overall strategic framework and an international coordination structure. From this forum, and through working groups, a single document was created, known as the "Charter for Innovation, Creativity and Access to Knowledge" http://fcforum.net/en/charter
This year’s edition will be held from October 30th to November 2nd in Barcelona.

Save the date if you are going to be around! http://fcforum.net/en/

Xnet's programmatic documents:

- Working Notes for a r-Evolution (2011) by Simona Levi - Our historic and strategic contribution to 15M’s construction along with thousands of other people. http://conservas.tk/english/working-notes-for-a-revolution/

- Notes for a r-Evolution 2 (version 2.0): Stage two: Vices vs. New Tactical Virtues (2012) by Simona Levi - 15M as a validation of the innovations we propose. http://conservas.tk/english/tactics/

- The path to the Real World™ (2011) by Sergio Salgado - How online communication is changing offline politics. http://www.guerrillatranslation.org/2013/09/17/the-path-to-the-realworld/