London Mediascape

London has a plethora of multiform media projects with a potential to meet and converge in a variety of political arenas, from direct action and temporary art explosions, to socialising software and creating debate. Applied to Indymedia London in its present embryonic stage, the cross-fertilization of these skills and initiatives could lead to an incredibly exciting connection of political/art/media networks in London to wider social and political struggles.


Imc London convergence

The broad objective of the convergence is to explore the question: "what kind of Indymedia London corresponds to our needs"?

With an embryonic IMC London in transition from Global/Uk to Local, new challenges and opportunities are thrown up - how is Indymedia London different from other local Indy groups? Could Indymedia in London itself function as a network? How tactical should Indymedia London be? - what about media actions? interventions and culture jamming? What about visibility both on the streets and the airwaves? Why isn't there more (h)ac(k)tivism? What about promotion, outreach and training strategies to reflect local politics? The need for regular training sessions has repeatedly come up, and a number of people have offered to run sessions about skills like how to use a minidisk and do interviews - how to use open source media software - how to stream audio / video - wireless networks. How can Indymedia London reflect and feed the dynamism, creativity and energy found in London?

To start things off we invite short presentations about related projects like, for example, hacklabs, culture jamming, carnival, wireless projects.

We're aiming for a discussion about how and with what expectations we can utilise an open Indymedia London platform to project our particular approaches to communicative and political media.

Later we can chill out with a film screening, bar and music.


Participation – Let’s talk…

The London Indymedia list is open for general debate about current use of Indymedia London, and also for input for the convergence. Please feel free to share your ideas, questions and opinions. Your thoughts are eagerly anticipated. The outreach team will compile a rough programme closer to the event, and we hope that you'll recognise your own ideas in it.

If you're planning to come along, please let us know on  imc-london@lists.indymedia.org or, if you prefer an email that's not publicly archived, mail  imc-uk-contact@lists.indymedia.org


London background

The concept of a local London Indymedia has been floated for some time. At the moment Indymedia London materialises mainly through events based activities: occasional open meetings, stalls at festivals, parties, conferences and the anarchist bookfair, two monthly video screenings plus some one-offs, a weekly a radio show on Resonance FM and recently the coordination of the DSEi arms fair reporting. The website itself is active but needs more input and inspiration.

Indymedia UK has undergone several radical, positive changes in the last 12 months. Volunteers on the UK Indymedia website engaged in an active network building process across regions in the UK (regionalisation). This was a response to the need for more representative local indymedia websites in the course of the anti-war demos and inspired by the solidarity and interest shown by a number of new, local imc groups.

The move towards regionalisation was complemented by the implementation of new software to the indymedia uk website. This software is offering more flexibility and independence for regional sites, who are now feeding the UK site as local-national-global grassroots info streams. As a UK platform the site is now a cohesive network of local groups working with autonomy, diversity and shared visions and principles.

Many of the Indymedia volunteers in London are those that had worked on the UK site before the regionalisation, with a focus on UK-wide issues rather than london specifics. Now is the time to come full-circle - the technical availability of an imc-london site means that there is room for much wider local input. New tasks like localised political reflection, outreach strategy, or a thought-out design for the London page are calling for fresh input - your focuses, interests, ideas, anxieties and dreams.

Anything is possible! Do Indymedia! Reclaim Our Media!

Links

Imc UK website
 http://uk.indymedia.org

Imc London website
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/london/

Article: history of imc-uk
 http://www.wacc.org.uk/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=244