The Money Problem: Idea for a no-workshop

The idea for a no-workshop I got from interact2006, a danish initiative. They propose to organise a workshop for soundartists/composers and visual artists who will work together, helped, stimulated and inspired by curators. The rest of their wordings can be read on their website.
The most inspiring part of their initiative I found the fact that in order to participate the various sound - and visual artists had to pay 500 euro. Twelve times 500 euro makes for 6000 euro.

The idea for a no-workshop is to send out an invitation to art-professors, art-critics, curators, museumdirectors.
In the no-workshop the participants will be able to exchange ideas with soundicians, get involved in their social environment and witness their creative process.
They will be offered a profound insight in the methods of organising a concert.
Art-professors and art-critics are encouraged to write an essay about their experiences during the days of no-workshop. Curators and museumdirectors will be invited to take care of the visual aspect of a concert.

No program will be offered. Everything will be decided at the last moment, of course including a place to stay, where and what to eat, who to invite.

If any of the participants decides to contribute to the no-workshop with a work that can be digitalised, he will receive his work as a cdr in an edition of twenty-five. Visual artists will help him/her with the artwork of the cdr. If he agrees on sharing his work, it will be put on-line.

There is no limit to the number of participants, nor do participants have to apply with an introductory paper or a proposal/concept/project.
Each participant has to pay 500 euro in advance. This amount will be used as budget for the no-workshop.


interact2006: www.interact2006.net

Tanz den Mussolini + 50 euro please + racconto siciliano

Antonio Mainenti has sent me a short story. It is in Italian. Set against the background of a big military operation called 'the sicilian vespers', it tells how young Antonio's tennisshoes drew the attention of a policeman, while he was waiting outside a barbershop.

Tanz den Mussolini: http://home.pages.at/blacky/ndw/mussolini.html
Taormina-Arte: http;//www.taormina-arte.com


Dear people at Taormina-arte,

First of all I would like to praise you for dedicating time and
energie to the good cause of bringing such diverse expressions of art
to the public. Helped by the beautiful setting of the greek theatre,
it is almost unimaginable that wittnessing the productions you offer,
leaves you without a feeling of fullfillment and intense satisfaction.

My name is Rinus van Alebeek. I come from a background where the
(sonic) artforms dissolve themselves, and become a way of living.
I have invented The no-budget Foundation, for those who dedicate time
and energy to their sonic art without getting paid for it. One of the
scopes of The no-budget Foundation is to ask money from organisations
that work with a budget, and give it to those who work without a
budget.

Alas, I am asking you. I ask for a 50 euro donation, to be subtracted
from your budget. You don't have to give it to me. I would appreciate
it very much if you gave it to Antonio Mainenti, a folksinger from
Ragusa, who tries to incorporate experimantral music into his
compositions.

I will publish this letter on www.no-bf.blogspot.com. I will offer
space for your answer, and once Antonio has received your donation, I
will ask him to publish on my website how this 50 euro has helped him.

Thanks for your attention,

yours sincerely,

Rinus van Alebeek

To introduce you further to Antonio, it is my honour to include a
short storie by him, in which he explains how he became a cook.
Further information on Antonio you will find through his website:
www.mainenti.net

Ecco il suo racconto:

mio cugino rinus si sta sempre più politicizzando; anche lui ha capito
che la nostra musica non può fare a meno di mangiare sovversivi con le
scarpe o senza, con la sciarpa e con gli stivali.
La prima volta che mangiai un "sovversivo", ero maledettamente
giovane, avevo ancora il sorriso puro di chi non ha mai sbattuto la
faccia per terra sfregiandosi.

Il mio amico Giummy era un famoso meccanico, l'unico inghippo stava
nel fatto che Giummy, per campare, doveva lavorare in campagna.
All'inizio se ne fotteva: la notte andavamo tutto il tempo in giro e
la mattina ci alzavamo presto; io andavo a scuola e, come tutti i
pendolari della zona mi svegliavo alle 6 e quarantacinque, dal lunedì
al sabato, Giummy pure, ma d'estate, quando io al massimo lavoravo
mezza giornata lui si svegliava alle 4 e mezza (nelle serre d'estate
c'è caldo, si lavora la mattina presto).

A quel tempo si era in piena operazione "vespri siciliani", i
militari, la polizia, i carrabbinieri, i vigili urbani, insomma tutti
gli sbirri, quasi ogni notte ci controllavano. Cercavano…che cazzo
cercavano? Cosa volevano da un quindicenne senza casco?
Niente, facevano solo commenti sulla mia folta capigliatura che ad
andatura umidamente costante si manteneva gonfia e possente. Giummy
pure aveva la chioma, lo chiamavano Roberto Formaggio per via del
codino: Giummy era tamarro e io freak (che ridere questa
terminologia).

Un sabato pomeriggio, io e Giummy andammo a Modica (senza nessun
motivo) con l'Americano; appena entrati in città, America ferma la
citroen AX, scende e ci dice di aver visto un salone da barbiere e che
la sua barba è troppo folta per fare il cameriere quindi, la va a
tagliare (l'Americano è un'altra persona importante).

Giummy e io, scendiamo ad aspettare ma ci fermano gli sbirri (che
qualcuno simpaticamente ha chiamato), era polizia ma questi erano
stupidi come i carrabbinieri. Io indossavo scarpe da basket americane
fatte dai bambini coreani, lo sbirro adulto e baffuto dopo aver
sentito l'assurda storia che "il nostro amico è andato dal barbiere
perché, essendo cameriere, non può lavorare col barbone" si è sentito
preso per il culo e mi rivolge delle domande tipo: - che piede grosso
che hai? –
Molto alla cappuccetto rosso, io rispondo: - sono solamente slacciate –
Lo sbirro: - non ci credo, secondo me ci nascondi qualcosa! –

Ecco, io vorrei concludere la storia qui a mo di barzelletta ma lo
sbirro mi ha fatto togliere le scarpe, tutte e due…io gli ho pure
messo il piede in faccia ma non mi puzzava.

Imparai a cucinare in quella occasione, così per necessità; nessuno
voleva mangiare uno sbirro stupido, vecchio e baffuto ma dovevo
impratichirmi.
Come quando un pacchetto di esportazione senza filtro costava lire
1.500 e le compravamo per imparare
--

an extra s

The title of this blog is changed in order to stay more close to reality.

Pluralisating is maybe one of the reasons
that so many sonic activities are taken care of.


rinus

Report from Bologna – Raum

The first days of november I met my friend Antonio Mainenti in
Bologna. The idea was to do some recording sessions with Manuela
Barile. Which we did for two days.
Being hosted gave me the opportunity to witness how students have to
live in this city with the oldest university of Italy: Five persons
were stored in an apartment where a family with a growing up kid would
get attacks of claustrofobia.

One evening we went out to have a drink.
Apart from not liking Bologna particularly, because every street gives
the impression to be a dead end street, also local politicians do
their best to make you dislike the city.
Local politicians tend to take in serious consideration the complaints
of people they need most. One of the results is that after midnight it
is not allowed to find yourself outside a bar with something
containing alcohol. Also the few small restaurants that are still open
are not allowed to sell a bottle of beer (taps closed) to take away.

The recordings went fine. Antonio provided for some imaginary
geographic movements. When on the phone he was connected to his
friends in the very south of Sicily. They were trying to offer help to
a boat full of economical refugees from Africa, who had just landed
there and were welcomed by the police.
His dreams sent us to Berlin where he wanted to try himself as a singing cook.
The reality sent him to Milan, and to Napels the day after that, to do
some concerts that would hardly pay him the trainfares.

While in Bologna I thought I could meet Valerio from Raum, introduce
myself, give him a cd and ask him if I could perform there at the end
of january/start of february. I sent him a mail, and got a mail back.
He told me he was not in Bologna at the moment, and that Raum wouldn't
organise concerts for a long period next year.
I watched the program. It was the 1st of november. The 3rd of november
they had two concerts scheduled. Two solo-concerts by Bolognabased
soundicians. Part as a provocation and part out of curiousity I
proposed myself as a last minute-act.
I had all my gear with me, and I was willing to play for some food and
a place to sleep.

Maybe those two conditions couldn't be covered. Valerio never answered
that mail, which was his good right, because he was not obliged to
react to my provocation.
But one thing remained unsolved. Why did Raum close their activity?
And what was exactly their part of such a well-organised enterprise as
Xing? Were there any plans to continue organising concerts with
soundicians coming from the ultramargins of experimantral music?
I asked Valerio.
















( ... )








valerio?




















manuela: www.manuelabarile.com
antonio: www.mainenti.net
friends of antonio: www.sicilialibertaria.it
raum is part of xing: www.xing.it

Some Words on the Money Problem

Salvatore Sanfillipo has sent me some usefull links.

http://problogger.net explains how to make money from blogs

In a long article he explains how you can earn (some) money, adding advertisemants to your blog or website. This is a part of it. The complete article can be found on his website.

"The AdSense program is not the only available on the internet but it is in general the best both in terms of how much you can earn, and impact from the point of view of the site's visitor. AdSense ADs tend to be very informative, fast to load and not annoying, expecially if the site is not overloaded with advertising. There are a number of AD formats so it is very likely you can find one that fits well in your current or future site layout. The question is, is it really the best you can get? Is it possible to earn more money with a different program where you can actually sell things related to your software project? As usually this depends on your project, for example the WordPress blog engine is sponsoring web hosting providers. Every time an user purchases web hosting starting from the WordPress home page link, the project earns some money. This makes sense because most WordPress users are naturally interested in hosting. Following the same idea, GnomeMeeting may sell webcams via the Amazon Associates program, while a site about a programming language (be it an implementation of this programming language or a very important extension) may try to sell a book about programming on that language. If your software is not clearly related to something you can sell this starts to have little chances to work. The good news is that actually you can have AdSense units and other associates programs, but in general advertising works better then programs where you try to sell something in affiliation. At this point you may wonder how much it is possible to earn with AdSense with different types of free software projects. Don't think this data is going to be very accurate, but there is a pattern in newsgroups, malinglists and online forums: people ask how much it is possible to earn roughly, and everybody will reply with "it depends". Sure it depends, but I think I can give an order of magnitude: if your project is about a topic where there is some advertising interest (i.e. not Scheme Continuations nor Haskell Monads) and it is well tuned to have some chances that interested users will see and click on ADs, you can earn from 10$ to 150$ for month if you have 100 unique visitors every day. I know... from 10 to 150 is not going to be an accurate guessing, but this is the best I can give you, and I'm sure there are people that will experience less than 10$ and more than 150$. This business is, as you can guess, strictly proportional to the number of visitors you get, so the other parameters being fixed, with 1000 unique visitors every day you can earn from 100$ to 1500$ dollars for month, and so on. What is interesting is that you can try to change the other parameters in order to make your earning nearest to 150$ and not 10$. The rest of this article will try to give some advice about how to optimize your project for AdSense. Before to continue I want to stress a point: to have 1000 unique visitors a day means you have a very successful free software program. This is not common, so what you can expect from most projects is 100 or 200 dollars for month. Not so much but you will be able to pay for a domain name, and have some hour every month to spend for your nice free software customer, and being it a very special customer I bet you will charge very little for hour when you work for him. If you think 100 dollars for month are too little, think that it is enough for a programmer doing software about webcams to buy a new webcam every month, like the author of an application useful to control some kind of device (like an mp3 player) under Linux may be able to buy the new model every six months (assuming it costs 600$). In general this is able to buy you a new laptop every year, and of course if your service to the community is very high (so your program is well know, and you get a lot of visitors) this is going to be more than 100$ for month. "

Salvatore's website: www.invece.org