An ongoing project by Ela Kagel

The Free Culture Incubator explores the realm of free culture and the open web - with a focus on new forms of authorship, economics and legal ownership. The Free Culture Incubator was launched at transmediale.10, covering a broad range of topics and formats based on questions such as the price and value of cultural work, the identity of cultural enterprises, creativity as an economic resource and new forms of cultural organisation.

The programme was based on daily panel discussions, open workshops for freelance cultural workers and a broad range of artistic presentations examining new cultural exchange and value models. In addition, the students of the University of Applied Arts in Potsdam hosted a Cultural Exchange Service in the foyer of the House of World Cultures, where people could offer and search for creative services. What had been planned as a small info point became one of the central meeting and exchange points of transmediale.10. More than 300 people left their contact details which were then matched with those either offering or looking for similar services. You can find the complete Free Culture Incubator programme from transmediale.10 here.

Post-transmediale.10, many participants encouraged us to further develop the Free Culture Incubator programme, especially the workshops. It became apparent that there exists a huge demand for freelance creative workers to exchange and expand their knowledge - not only in their respective field of practice, but also in topics such as the utilising free software, creating business plans and assembling/managing creative teams.

We have therefore expanded the Free Culture Incubator project beyond just the transmediale festival context. This expansion includes a series of events held this year which have directly build on the results of the festival program. The Free Culture Incubator has been a focus of a number of conferences and events including:
- KomPost's Our Shared Factory festival, held on 27 May 2010 in Paris.
- Plattform 3's symposium KreativORTungen - Industry, Work and Life in the Cultural & Creative Sector, held on 29 May 2010 in München.
- The annual meeting of the cultural and creative industries initiative of the German Ministry for Economy, held on 10 June 2010 at c/o Berlin.
- a lecture series at the University of Applied Arts in Potsdam, where the program is currently being evaluated.

Besides these activities, a follow up event was also organised with many of the lecturers, artists and participants of the Free Culture Incubator on 8 April 2010 at .CHB Berlin. Please check the Facebook site for documentation of this event.

Amongst other plans, we have developed a workshop series which will continue the successful themes raised during the Free Culture Incubator at transmediale.10. These workshop series will be hosted by different partner venues around Berlin, each of them involved in the field of free culture and the open web. Find out more about the upcoming Free Culture Incubator workshop series, starting in October 2010.