Context: Dropping Knowledge.org (dk), an international non-profit organization based primarily in Germany ( In the U.S., dk is a project of the Tides Center ), gathers 112 thinkers, artists, writers, scientists, social entrepreneurs, philosophers and humanitarians from around the world on September 9th, 2006 in Berlin to answer 100 questions in an experimental forum.

Set upon an historically loaded stage, Dropping Knowledge has constructed the world’s largest (non-governmental) roundtable at Bebelplatz in Berlin Mitte (the central district). Less than half a kilometer from the Brandenburg Gate which only 17 years ago was the dividing line between East and West Germany and the east and west political “operating systems” following WW II, this square, lying between the State Opera house and the Humboldt University, is the infamous location where books were burned during the most reported, documented and referenced fascist regime of modern times.

This “Table of Free Voices” is an unusual technological and social experiment in freedom of expression, which may reveal more about mass media games and informational battlegrounds than actually providing a penetrating archive of solutions regarding critical global issues.* The obstacle course that truths and diverse voices must run in order to engage in a functioning global discourse is a massive dilemma as our high-speed society attempts to access, link, and distribute all possible perspectives in today’s collision of worlds.

Structured rather ironically like a Matrix movie set turned inside-out, each guest speaker has a camera and microphone placed before her/him to archive 3-minute answers to “the 2 million Euro” questions ( just glanced at the Spectacle funding, which comes in large chunks from Allianz- a “progressive” insurance corporation - oxymoron?- in germany ) simultaneously. In considering either the inchworm progress of live-streamed events or the internet’s inability to adequately re-imagine “broadcast” communications, I presume this is primarily for Creative Commons re-use later on, though last i heard there was somewhere upwards of 10,000 viewers logged on, which is substantial as far as these things go.

Since I am right now in the midst of it, I will have to take some time to assess the goals and achievements further on, but in the meantime, the words of one of the speakers, famed techno-critic Jerry Mander, captures the challenges alluded to above and a bit of the personal experience as it’s happening:

” A dismal reality of modernity is that most information and “experience” is processed through technology. The effect is seperation, in ever more distant stages, from direct interaction with primary sources of concrete truth, reality, sustenance and power, as in nature or via direct unmediated contact with other humans. Like astronauts afloat in space, dependent on distant sources for all ( controlled) information environments, leaving us politically and psychologically vulnerable to whomever controls the imagery.”

The fact that he is here, among a whole cornucopia of deep thinkers from Anuradha Mittal to Thenmozhi Soundarajan to Wim Wenders to Cornel West, is a sign that the enthusiasm for trying ANYTHING new is not just a hope and a smile but an urgent necessity that no one here needs to debate. And while the event clearly has a number of gaping holes, this rare convergence ( and curatorially-speaking a counter-cultural meisterwerk! ) is a highly illuminating event to analyze. And again Mander’s words land precisely,

“The choices for media activists today are either to try and avoid mediated (preselected) information - passed through technology - or to make ” strategic embraces” of technology, given the environmental and political emergencies of this moment. ”

Mander admits he usually opts for the former, and in many globalized struggles that holds a powerful message. And yet for those whose work is now nearly entirely immersed in the “media ecology” and/or perhaps pushed to contained corners by national agendas, borders, economics and war, online access to such ventures and progressive thought may provide invaluable information and inspirational models, even perhaps some clue to various Exit strategies. For those at the technological epicenter, and for those who will go beyond the often distracting glossy cover of celebrity activ-isms, this event is ripe fruit for “1st world” media analysis and deconstruction.

Interactive lab rats and media surfers beware, the colorful, shiny and heavily-laden labyrinths await: http://www.droppingknowledge.org

If the archive innovations here can inspire the users and media-makers to invent new concrete paths for rippling the databases into The Realtimes, their massive efforts will not be lost. The fact that the organizers have embraced the thriving CopyLeft movement is a clear sign that they are counting on You to take it further.
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* One of the deeper contexts that i would like to return to investigate here, is the angle whereby : if dk was shaped by a technological innovation “target” adventure rather then the other way around - a question which relates invariably to how Technology + Spectacle funding is derived- then one will ultimately need to critique an archive that was designed to cater to the limited attention span of the (systemic) net user. That is, there are no answers here which arrive out of dynamic human Dialogue and organic intersections of varied perspectives, rather a staging to accumulate 3-minute sound+video-bytes, Monologues, which are designed as web-size “munchies”. Is that a clever use of the medium, or has the medium once again imposed its limitations ? Not to diminish the reality that there are exceptional nutrients gathered, BUT in terms of an economy of the struggle, how much time should really be invested in this (corrupted?) harvest of information?

Note an earlier version of this article was posted at:
indybay.org/newsitems/2006/09/09/18307307.php

And more pics Coming Soon!

1.Bill Joy 2. Hafsat Abiola, Dj Spooky, Willem Dafoe 3. The inside-out Matrix: the 112 camera roundtable