NEITHER IN FAVOR NOR AGAINST (BUT THE OPPOSITE). INVASIONI of "sharing" is an idea inspired by the most recent and relevant changes of our times and by visions on the potential that free circulation of knowledge and the social use of new technologies might express.

Knowledge-sharing is something that has always allowed men and women on earth to achieve the most significant steps in cultural, scientific and economic development. Our collaboration, communication and cooperation are based on common knowledge but at the same time they process knowledge so that they re-elaborate and modify it each time. This "production" of knowledge tends to expand into every field and activity. Nowadays anyone working on information and knowledge is aware of dealing with a never ending process: we start from common knowledge and from there create a new common knowledge. If Shakespeare were working today in Manhattan or in The West End, he would probably be in trouble with trials and courts, as he turned in his "Romeo and Juliet", an Arthur Brooke poem which came from Pierre Boaistuau's French translation of various Italian tales. The history of creative works, whether it be "Romeo and Juliet" or the last LP by Chuck D of the Public Enemy, is the chronicle of works borrowed from others.

What today we refer to as "the digital revolution" was conceived "in the spirit of Berkley" whereas a group of enthusiasts, hobbyists and university researchers discussed and projected together the dream of "a computer for everyone", and actually started experimenting with it. The development and spreading of Kit Altair, the first calculator potentially affordable for everyone happened in times and in a context where the difference in between "mine and yours" had not yet stolen the place of a common aim for a comprehensive advancement. Technical questions regarding hardware or software were approached through collective comparison and discussion, so that anyone could make his contribution in addressing problems. Inventions at the time could not be attributed to a single scientist, as they where always expressions of the single, rectified, amended and supported by whole informatics community.

Today, "immaterial goods", knowledge and information, tend to represent more and more the fundamental mean of production, so that the selection of seeds in the agricultural sector as well as software development, are thought and regulated by the same standards as material goods: he who gains "intellectual property" is able to restrict it's accessibility and reproducibility to increase profit, in evident contrast with the relational and potentially unlimited nature of knowledge. Just when, thanks to digital technologies, knowledge and culture might be immediately available everywhere for everyone at the lowest cost, media, publishing and show business corporations have put under severe attack the spreading of knowledge as a common good. This is a process which determines a general impoverishment of society, as he who is not able to buy access to knowledge, culture and education is excluded.

Our program this year focuses on the concept of SHARING and we want to create reflection and critical discussion on the various aspects of knowledge sharing and circulation. As in the tradition of "INVASIONI", we will try to understand how the town of Cosenza and our past experience interacts with this line of reasoning. Which kind of perspectives and contradictions will our experience lead us to? What and how can we elaborate on the basis of these experiences? The aim should be one of opening the codes determining things, minds, people, situations and projects that involve us and which interact with our lives.

It was 1997 when "La Casa delle Culture" opened in the historic center of Cosenza . A place conceived to make any form of art and bottom-up expression possible, an environment characterized by communication, participation and sharing. Free internet access to introduce in the most backward and disadvantaged part of town the advanced tertiary factory of information. Cyberspace in the agora', as means of communication which helps recover the past wisdom of places.&
"Internet for everyone" was the first tangible approach to the concept of digital democracy. Yet, talking about democracy, today as well as in the past, means opening a new phase. Eight years have passed, and the forceful development of technologies imposes twofold action. The need for alphabetization should in fact be considered side by side with the defence and proposition of rights attached to new forms of intellectual production. We need to do this now! In times when Italy is moving in the direction of creating penal laws to protect intellectual property despite being in contrast with EU regulations, we need to be more democratic.

Opening the sources of codes regulating the mechanisms of our projects and parts of our lives could allow us to interact with these mechanisms more comprehensively. It could give us the chance to modify, spread, copy and link different codes in order to obtain something that goes far beyond the sum of its elements. This is what we are going to discuss through seminars, practical workshops and debates during the INVSIONI festival. Everyone is invited to participate by bringing their bits and pieces, in order to try and enhance the source code represented by collective discussion, and the work of constructing new projects and networks of human relations. NEITHER IN FAVOR NOR AGAINST (BUT THE OPPOSITE)