In response to Document Freedom Day efforts of promoting, adopting and raising awareness for Free Document Formats and Open Standards, the Philippines-based art initiative Korakora.org is organizing an open on-line dialogue entitled "Surfers or Serfs: Digital Freedom or Digital Feudalism?"

Within the context of issues addressed within the free, open-source, and open-standards community, "Surfers or Serfs" seeks to investigate realities of Freedom within the Culture of Ignorance: Are humans being turned into machines so others can exploit them without them questioning their own slavery? Why do we consider somebody "computer literate" when they can only operate the controls of a commercial computer system?

"Surfers or Serfs" also seeks to interrogate the methodologies of "free, open-source, and open-standards" from a broad philosophical perspective, in particular, the celebrated shift from the image of the computer as a complex rule based simulation system to a simple communication device that has enabled the computer to be commercially and politically exploited as a (postmodern) propaganda machine.

"Surfers or Serfs: Digital Freedom or Digital Feudalism?" opens 26 February and runs until Document Freedom Day March 26, 2008. The on-line dialogue is created and facilitated by Fatima Lasay (PH) and Trevor Batten (UK). To participate, go to http://korakora.org/proyekto/forum/4

Program Update (March 23, 2008)

Problematization 1: The Laptop Wars
http://www.korakora.org/proyekto/problematizing-the-laptop-wars

Problematization 2: US plans to "fight the net" revealed
http://www.korakora.org/proyekto/meaning-and-social-hierarchy

Problematization 3: Is media and the academic system a danger to intelligence?
http://www.korakora.org/proyekto/is-media-and-academic-system-a-danger-t...

Finding Linux
http://korakora.org/proyekto/finding-linux

About the Document Freedom Day:

The Document Freedom Day (DFD) is a global day for Document Liberation. It is a day of grassroots effort around the world to promote and build awareness for the relevance of Free Document Formats in particular and Open Standards in general. The DFD is supported by a large group of organisations and individuals, including, but not limited to Ars Aperta, COSS, Esoma, Free Software Foundations Europe and Latin America, IBM, NLnet, ODF Alliance, OpenForum Europe, OSL, iMatix, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, Inc., The Open Learning Centre, Opentia, Estandares Abiertos.

About Korakora Proyekto:

Proyekto is an exercise in mindful building and constructing (language-making) as antidotes to distortions of the mind: if it is true that language deceives us then maybe at least language-making may allow us to lay the land to see where deceptions and distortions lie. Proyekto is maintained by Fatima Lasay, artist/writer based in the Philippines.

Trevor Batten is a British pioneer computer artist, making his first computer drawing in 1967. From 1972 to 1984, he devoted study and research on his concept of Cross-Media Mapping at the Instituut voor Sonologie, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, the Netherlands. In 1987, he was invited to the International UNESCO Seminar "Synthesis: Visual Arts in the Electronic Culture" in Offenbach/Main FDR. Trevor Batten was teacher of Media Art at the AKI School of Fine Art in Enschede, the Netherlands,1988 to 1999. He now resides in the Philippines.

Fatima Lasay is an artist, writer, and independent curator. She was professor of industrial design, computer art and art theory (1996-2004) at the University of the Philippines where she developed its first computer art electives and organized the Digital Media Festivals (2000-2003). In 2004, she was artist-in-residence with Ecole Cantonale d'Art du Valais in Sierre, Switzerland, and NICA in Rangoon, Burma. She has curated exhibitions, conducted workshops, and has been invited and given grants to Europe and Asia to present her work and theories on the socio-political dimensions of technology.