Does Information Really Want to be Free?debating access and openness in the digital landscape

1Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

images by: scorp84 & sjairo bd @ flickr

2Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

image by nsobject @ flickr

“On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.”

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“I believe that all generally useful information should be free. By 'free' I am not referring to price, but rather to the freedom to copy the information and to adapt it to one's own uses... When information is generally useful, redistributing it makes humanity wealthier no matter who is distributing and no matter who is receiving.”

image by maneo @ flickr

Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

4Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

“Information wants to be free.”

image by monkeyc @ flickr

5Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

“The opposite of a free culture is a ‘permission culture’—a culture in which creators get to create only with the permission of the powerful, or of creators from the past.”

web 2.0social networking | remix culture

6Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

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image: clappstar @ flickr

Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

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image by dawn endico @ flickr

Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

permission culturelocked-up, chained-up, hoarded

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images by: thomas hawk & kenn wilson @ flickr

Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

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image: kazee @ flickr

Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

open access

freedom

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images by: daveybot @ flickr & mohan.m. @ flickr

Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

Indigenous claimsalternatives to free/permission culture binary

12Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

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Tennant Creek

Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

14Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

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Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Culture Centre

Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

museum projectsold & new collections and exhibitions

16Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

Behind the Scenesvirtual repatriation & knowledge management

17Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

Warumungu system of accountability

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OPEN CLOSED

gender

country connection

ritual affiliations

family relations

death of kinancestral relations

Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

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permission culture

Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

image: twon @ flickr

20Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

21Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

22Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

23Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

24Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

25Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

an analoginformation

management system

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file cabinet at the Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Culture Centre in Tennant Creek

photo by Kimberly ChristenFeb. 2006

Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

Digital version of already-existing system

27Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

Archive installed in the Warumungu community in Central Australia August 2007mukurtu website @ www.mukurtuarchive.org

online archive demo @ http://demo.mukurtuarchive.org

28Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

step 1: upload (single/batch)

29Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

step 2: metadata + narratives30Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

step 3: sharing protocols

31Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

set restrictions = determines access

32Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

step 4: added to archive

33Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

extensive user profile system34

individual

relations

Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

‘mini-archive’ =my family items

35Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

pop-up warnings

36Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

community-driven features

37Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

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image: nuno ibra @ flickr

Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

Mukurtu

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‘a safe keeping place’

dilly bag: South Australian Museum collection

Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

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alternativesbeyond free/permission culture

images by: mag3737 & darwin bell @ flickr

Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

41Kimberly Christen | kachristen@wsu.edu | Does Information Really Want to be Free? | UCLA | GSEIS Guest Lecture | 01.28. 2009

thank you

www.kimberlychristen.com