Network of Commons

"Network of Commons" shows an excerpt of the many and diverse activities and projects that have originated in the past years on the Internet surrounding the debates on intellectual property, the generation of alternative forms of access, communication and knowledge platforms, the production of non-proprietary tools, and the genesis of commons, i.e. activist communities.

The intention is not to present an art show of the best projects on the net, but an impression on different projects that operate distributed across the globe and can be read (hypothetically in their entirety of an imagined "Network of Commons") as alternative conceptions to global corporate structures.

Eleven nodes, which we highly regard as net-specific and media-activist places to turn to, were selected by the curatorial team. We deliberately tried to create a balance between the well-known "players" of the Western European and US-american Internet scene and groups from other regions. We asked each of them for five relevant links they preferred in regard to the mentioned themes. It was at the discretion of the participants to comment on these links, select their own projects, or recommend other projects.

With the list of the "Network of Commons" initiated by the biennial, we hope to give insights into the current debates, relevant practices, and ideas on the exchange and linking within the net-activist scene. At the sites of the involved nodes themselves, there are very often more links and information sources that can serve as a starting-point for doing research on the potentials of "Commons online" that go beyond the five presented addresses. P.Z.