[spectre] This is the Public Domain - A discussion about common land - Wattis Institute, SF - Dec 5th 7pm

[WILL BRADLEY]

The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts
presents:

*This is the Public Domain*

7pm December 5th
Timken Lecture Theater
California College of Arts, 1111 8th Street, SF, CA
94107
Free admission

A panel discussion organized by San Francisco-based
artist Amy Balkin to debate and explore ways to
achieve a viable practical framework for common land
in the 21st century.

with

*Keith Aoki*, UC Oregon law professor and co-author
of, among other works, the comic book 'Bound By Law -
Tales From the Public Domain'.

*Iain Boal*, Director of the Environmental Politics
Colloquium at the Institute of International Studies,
UC Berkeley, and co-editor of the recent book
'Afflicted Powers'.

*Ramon Sender*, writer, activist and participant in
the Morning Star Ranch open land experiment.

Amy Balkin's art practice combines cross-disciplinary
research and social critique with a search for
unrealized possibilities outside conventional systems.
Her ongoing project This is the Public Domain
(www.thisisthepublicdomain.org) is an effort to create
a permanent international commons from 2.5 acres of
land purchased near Tehachapi, California.

As part of the Wattis Institute's exhibition *Radical
Software
*(http://www.wattis.org/exhibitions/2006/software/),
Balkin has organised a public conversation between
artists, legal experts, and people who have been
engaged personally and politically with open land and
commoning, exploring the search for a real-world
framework for —with the aim of proposing a solution
that the artist will then implement.

Balkin's recent projects include Invisible-5, a
collaborative environmental justice audio tour of the
I-5 corridor between San Francisco and Los Angeles,
and Public Smog (www.publicsmog.org).

For more information, call: 415.551.9251