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DIY Kiosk Module DIY Kiosk Module Variant 1 DIY Kiosk Module Variant 2

Distro:

Part one:
Introduction to a 'links' page

The Distro was originally an event where makers of zines and other DIY cultural producers met, to facilitate distribution of self-published work of minority interest. Trade and exchange in the distro is meant to create connections between people. Cultural production is meant, arguably, to connect the individual producer to the imagined historical and geographical collective, through her/his individual contribution.

Traditional market economy is supposedly based on balancing demand and limited supply through negotiating a price. But use by one person of a cultural product doesn't limit the supply for others. Exchange of digitally coded cultural products (like PDF:s, MP3:s or DVD-files) do not fit inside the model of the market economy, since there is no original, only copies, and supply is endless. So scarcity in f.x. videoart is artificially manufactured, in order to preserve an outdated mode of distribution, through the invention of a 'limited edition'.

If the whole of cultural production were to be viewed as a commons, a form of public space-and-time, then payment for contributing to the whole of cultural production is received in the form of partaking of the cultural products made by others, and through connecting the individual producer to the imagined historical and geographical collective - there is no need for negotiating a price.*)

The links-page of a website could be seen as a distro of the immaterial. Some information: The Gothenburg art scene, where I'm located when not travelling, is mostly funded by public money and volunteer work. Galleries are commonly run by artists - BOX, 54, 300M3, H-i-t, Galleri Oro - and some groups work without a set physical space - Bezdomny, Mobile Box, Framtidskonsten. The last three represent examples of apartment-exhibitions, mobile rooms temporarily cut out of public space, and web-based presentations, which are all dependent on a high degree of participation in events, as well as a networked spreading of information.

Short note under the influence of Brian Holmes on conceptual art and Martha Rosler on 70's videoart, relating to web-aided distribution of art, dated january 2008, Buenos Aires

*) Two links found in Holmes: 'The Revenge Of The Concept': Cultural production can be parallelled by the economy of the web as a cooking pot, described by Rishab Ayer Ghosh ("one product can be exchanged for millions at a time"). Other descriptions of the economy of the web, with consequences for possible venues for developing distribution of cultural products, is found in "commons-based peer production", as described by Yochai Benkler.

Distro of DVD:s and downloads from the web.

First up is the Case Of Callus DVD, modeled after a fanzine, and made to be priced and distributed as such. New cover for the DVD box. Check under 'Classics' for more info.

Case Of Callus new DVD boxcover LLP DVD001 'CaseOfCallus'

Second DVD is Roof Girls, with boxcover and the 'I See Roof Girls' badge. Check under 'Current' for more info on the film.

LLP DVD002 'RoofGirls'

One DVD disc is 5 Euros/50 SEK plus postage. Order by e-mail. Distro is closed when I'm travelling, open when I'm localized. Current status: Distro open from March 1:st 2008

Suggestions and offers for trading are welcomed.

Forthcoming are more DVD:s of my films - check back for release date.

First live distro at the open studios of Nordvästra Skåne late March 2008. Discs plus lots of posters.

Torrents of my films to be posted and hosted, for free downloads. Available shortly, check back for release of links.

Coming soon: more info on the Testpanel project

Downloads: Posters as PDF:s

Part two:
Eloisa Cartonera - another possible model for distribution

The financial crisis of Argentina, the heaviest period of which stretched from Christmas 2001 'til spring 2003, brought rapidly increasing rates of inflation and unemployment to a country where the social security systems had been successively dismantled. The crisis affected both the middle class, the working class and the unemployment class, and for a while many were reminded of the fact that they had common interests which stretched across class boundaries. Cultural producers also allied themselves with the broad social movements which arose during this period. Some artists started working collectively, in direct service of their close communities. One of the collectives which has showed the strongest durability is the publishingproject Eloisa Cartonera.

Javier and Miriam

The masses of unemployed were forced to invent their own means of survival from day to day, and one way was for them to collect recyclable materials, mostly paper and cardboard. Today the middleclasses have recuperated, but for the Cartoneros of Argentina the situation is more or less the same as during the crisis. In Buenos Aires, they commute in from the suburbs and spend the nights collecting garbage. When dawn comes, they bring what they've found to a recycling centre, one hours train ride from the city.

Another consequence of the inflation was an increase of 300% in the price of imported paper. At the same time, the decrease in disposable incomes made buying books an expendable luxury. Smaller publishing houses went bankrupt, and among many writers who were left without a publisher was Washington Cucurto. Together with the artists Javier Barilaro and Fernanda Laguna, he decided to start his own publishingproject, in collaboration with some of the Cartoneros of the city.

When I visit the workshop of Eloisa Cartonera in the La Boca area, just a block away from the footballstadium La Bombonera, I meet up with Javier Barilaro. Javier thinks that the publishingproject has developed from day to day, more or less organically. "In the daily work, we discovered many things, sure. I prefer to say that the politics built into this project is a 'politics of the possible'. We didn't start from preconceived ideals, it's just that this is the only way we can work, in this country and in this city, the only way that is possible for us."

Even though it wasn't constructed that way from the beginning, it is possible to see the project as a micro-ecology where at least four parts have melded:

A book published by Eloisa Cartonera is printed or copied, and then glued into a cover made out of cardboard. The cardboard is bought directly from local Cartoneros, at five times the price that the recycling centre would pay. In the combined workshop and bookshop, a group of Cartoneros work at copying texts, at cutting, glueing and painting covers, and at distribution. They run the publishingproject as a co-op, and each week the profits are split between those who work there (the three founders don't make any money from Eloisa Cartonera, and work at other jobs).

Writers from all over Latinamerica get a chance to publish odd and experimental material. Their texts, which would otherwise probably never have been printed, are donated to the publishingproject. Some of the works that the founders of Eloisa Catonera are most proud of having printed are the collected, previously unpublished works by Brazilian poet Haroldo De Campos. Another favorite of Javier Barilaro is the re-printing of Peruvian writer Martín Adáns La Casa De Carton (the cardboard house), a novel from 1928 set in the bohemian quarters of Lima.*) Unestablished and younger writers are also asked to hand in their texts for consideration. So far, Eloisa Cartonera has published more than 120 books, from novels and short stories to poetry, essays, and comics.

The books are sold so cheaply (they cost about one Euro) that anyone who wants to should be able to afford to buy and read them. The editions are as big as can be housed and sold for the moment, with more copies added as the older are shipped, call it print-on-demand.**) And after a while, Eloisa Cartonera manage to sell bigger editions of their books than the established, more businessminded companies do - mind also that this is poetry and avantgardematerial being sold. The books are distributed by streetsellers, by bookshops where Cucurto, Laguna and Barilaro have friends, and at alternative bookfairs - they are happy to be closer to the reader. "We prefer to avoid middle hands", says Javier.

The three abovementioned parts - the economy of the close community, the experimental character of the writing, and the choice of venues for distribution - interact through an ideal, which is built on an obvious and unproblematic approach to combining the avantgardist and the populist. The publishers choice of esthetics, the fourth part in the mix, sums up and makes clear this ideal. The covers are handpainted by the Cartoneros, making every book a unique copy. The colours are unmixed, straight from the tube, "happy colours", the esthetics of Cumbia.

Cumbia is basically the music of migrant workers in Latinamerica, built on a mix of Indian folkmusic and African percussion. Cumbia lyrics have similarities with those of hiphop, describing the hard life of the city slums, but are also built on a longer tradition of oral storytelling. Cumbia, according to Javier, is all about using the forms of cultural expressions that are at hand to strengthen your joy of life, even though you might be in a situation or environment where the joy to be found is not immediately obvious - from there comes the choice of colours, rhythms, motifs, and methods of peformance, whether it's in music, posters, dance, or possibly litterature. For example, you might say that handpainted covers of cardboard transforms garbage into art; or, that Cumbia might make you perceive potential art in cardboard.

Cumbia is pan-Latinamerican. It has spread from country to country, via the migrant workers, mutating and giving rise to local variations along the way. Eloisa Cartonera are also trying to mirror this. On the one hand, they publish writers from all over Latinamerica. In these texts, you find many stories of the pan-Latinamerican experience, and in some a preference for motifs from the world of Cumbia. But Eloisa Cartonera has also inspired though example, and exported their model of a publishingproject. When participating in the Sao Paolo-biennale in Brasil, they decided to help local recycling workers start up a new publishing project of their own. The new publishingproject, called Dulcinéia Catadora, has by now printed several titles by Brasilian writers. They are run by members of the Movimento Nacional dos Catadores de Materiais Recicláveis; independent from, but built on the model posed by the project in Buenos Aires. Javier tells me there are now also local versions in Peru (Sarita Cartonera), in Chile (Animita Cartonera), and in Bolivia (Yerba Mala Cartonera), all started on their own initiatives. But to inspire similar projects in Europe has been harder, something that Javier sees as proof of a specifically Latinamerican experience and culture. "Contemporary art, here in Buenos Aires, is mostly an expression born of European culture. But I can see that we are more than a European people, we are Latinamericans. It's a cosmo-vision which goes beyond esthetics. my work needs to reflect this. We need to develop our own concepts."

European interest in Eloisa Cartonera might be accused of making a virtue out of necessity. It might not be based on care for the situation of the Cartoneros, or on an interest in the esthetics of Cumbia, or on an interest in the avantgarde litterature of Latinamerica. But there is something in the ecology of the model posed by this publishingproject, in the potentiality for synergy between the different interests involved, and maybe in the possibility of generating a sense of meaning through working in the close community. And maybe the project speaks to us of our wishes for autonomy and our dependence on economics. "We've always had a crisis of one kind or another in this country", says Javier. "We're used to it. It doesn't have to affect us anymore, not in our publishing. Next time it happens, we will be here and we will just continue working the same way we're doing all the time."

Short note based on article written for Göteborgs Fria Tidning (Gothenburg Autonomous Newspaper), dated February 2008, Buenos Aires

*) Washington Cucurto once finished one of his poems with the line "My dream is to publish La Casa De Carton".

**) Check out the print-on-demand fanzine publishers Rollon, based in Malmö, Sweden. Although without the aspect of community art, it is a solid experiment in independent publishing. Publikation(35) - Orton Islington London was made by me.