Trebor Scholz (TS) Open content, open distribution, open
knowledge, open media, open archive, open history, open
access. Publications are in the making that focus on the open
content projects and the concept of openness. Comparisons
are made to the historical revolution of print culture.

Saul Albert (SA) Firstly I should make some kind of self-institutional
disclaimer. The University of Openess is a self-institution
of researchers and intellectual interlopers who have
decided to socialize certain aspects of their research. I am
speaking only for myself and from my experience
as a member of several of the UofO's faculties.
The name 'University of Openess' (sic) has several associations to
me that might help to clarify where it sits in the terms of
'Openness' that you've outlined above.

The name was initially chosen after a great deal of debate and
disagreement (the history of which is documented here:
http://uo.theps.net/NameChange). The re-spellin g of
'Openness' to 'Openess' and the fact that in English the phrase
is awkward and uncomfortable to say endeared it to us, and
seemed to distance the initiative from two interpretations or
inflections of 'openness' that worry me. One is the neo-liberal
doctrine of Soros' 'Open Society Institute,' the other is the
dogmatic idea you refer to above - that adopting certain licensing
structures or re-applying 'open' utilitarian software engineering
principles to other forms of cultural production is
inherently viable or beneficial.

1. One that trespasses on a trade monopoly, as by conducting
unauthorized trade in an area designated to a chartered company.

2. A ship or other vessel used in such trade.
The word also has a useful etymology*

By proclaiming ourselves a University we get access to a
whole set of relationships and ways of communicating that are
usually difficult to access, and closely guarded. In the
University, the models for academic research are sufficiently
self-evident that the UofO is not consumed by a constant need
to define who we are or what we do. Trespassing on the
increasingly proprietary territory of higher education systems
and setting up a rogue franchise is also a bonus.
As to what constitutes the UofO, the words 'socialized
research' seem to make most sense. On a purely functional
level it works like any learning environment: communities of
interest form, share, assist and review one another's work.
However, this form of the 'University', and the institutional language
that is used when we talk about 'Faculties' or 'Lectures'
both evokes and destabilizes a set of preexisting relationships
and ideas about education.

I think it is crucial to emphasise the importance of affect in
these exchanges as it is most often missed out or mechanised
out of all recognition by the open source, or 'social' software
We are also linked to our Sister Universities
(http://uo.theps.net/SisterUniversities) and organizations
that we exchange a great deal with. The Copenhagen Free
University particularly has been an inspiration in my understanding
of the UofO, self-institution and affective labour. (see
http://copenhagenfreeuniversity.dk).

TS: The Copenhagen Free University points to an escape from
vocational training, 'not obsessed with consensus, order,' the
'higher education being no longer the domain of the bourgeoisie
and its children,' 'we are the people in the house,' 'to
be productive in the knowledge economy one has to speak,
one has to express oneself, one has to cooperate,' ... 'the
artist in the knowledge economy - the 'unorganized highly
skilled individualized worker without solidarity as the ideal raw
model.' They 'valorize the disgust, the poetry, without internal
structure, aesthetics beyond disciplines.' All power to the
Open Copenhagen University-- but how do these high ideals
play out in reality? What is taught and by whom and in which
space? What is their stand on new media education? What
about Beuys, Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy and Klee together with
Fluxus practices and Ted Nelson's passionate views in
Computer Lib/ Dream Machines to a collaborative situation in
the new media class room?

My interest in open content initiatives and Umberto Eco's idea
of the open artwork is based on a collaborative mapping project
'Twenty-Four Dollar Island ' (http://24dollarisland.net) of
local histories of Lower Manhattan that I just launched. The
anywhere and nowhere of the Internet is countered by the
specificity of the locale. This project is not a passive official
map held between thumb and finger but a constantly changing
online environment. 'Twenty-Four Dollar Island' is the place
where you can contribute what you know about your local history.
Here, in a few steps, you can become an historian or a
cartographer. Your Distributed Library Project invites input of
different kind.

SA: To answer your questions about the Copenhagen Free
University (although they would be better suited to that job), I
think their research methods; withdrawal, refusal, escape from
mass education, are not really 'high ideals.' In 1968 it made
sense to follow a pschogeographic drift in the city, the CFU are
drifting into knowledge domains, establishing themselves as
an educational self-institution and finding out where it takes
them. This is how I understand their slogans.

In reality Jakob Jakobsen and Henriette Heise pay the rent
because the CFU is based in their flat, up a narrow staircase
by the river in Copenhagen. They hold seminars and screenings
in the CFU campus (a partitioned off half of their bedroom
and corridor) but also go out and present in other contexts,
and their research circulates widely as booklets, websites,
publications and available-to-use ideas.

from: Free Cooperation Reader, 2004