Perth Barcamp 3
BarCamps are informal "unconferences" with an open format: rather than having a pre-arranged list of speakers and sessions, they're organised during the conference itself and are flexible enough to accomodate someone suddenly deciding to present (or not to). They've come out of geek communities, so they're often fairly technology-focused, but they don't have to be. It just depends on who turns up.
Perth BarCamp 3 was fairly tech-focused, and quite often I was completely mystified by what was going on*. Still, there were a couple of sessions that I could get something out of. One was Trent Lloyd's presentation on hardware hacking with Arduinos. I've been curious about Arduinos for a while now, especially the Lilypad, which is designed for use with 'wearables and textiles'. Lloyd's presentation was interesting, but pitched a bit above the 'how to use Arduino boards for absolute beginners' session that I need.
I also ran into David Cake of Electronic Frontiers Australia, which I'm very glad of. We were both thinking of doing a presentation on similar issues, so we ended up co-presenting a session on digital liberties activism. EFA has been active on the Internet filtering issue I've written a bit about, and is keeping its eyes on the proposed '3 strikes' legislation that has popped up as a possibility.
As with Bangalore Barcamp, this BarCamp set me off thinking about the links between more left-oriented activism and geek communities. I would love to start seeing more of a crossover between events like this and others happening around Perth, including Perth Praxis. There's a cultural gap that it might be a challenge to bridge, and I think some dialogue about what each community wanted out of the interaction might be useful...but despite (possible) difficulties I would be delighted to see it, and help make it happen. This kind of bridging is happening elsewere, and I'd love to see more of it in Perth.
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* I actually found this very soothing. After spending a lot of time grappling with new bodies of literature and trying to fit arguments together after the last few months, it was a restful experience to think, 'I have no idea what that means. And it's not at all necessary for me to know.'
Photo from Bekathwia.