YouthLAB '07

testin

Sebastian — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:43:27 +0000

Check Out Our New WRDL Swarm List

mindy — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:16:36 +0000

Using an awesome new tool called Wordle, we transformed out Deli.cio.us tag cloud from YouthLAB 2007 into a Wordle tag Cloud . Here it is. Check it out.

Mindy Faber Receives Independent Filmmaking Award

mindy — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:40:08 +0000

OYN Director, Mindy Faber was just awarded a $25,000 independent filmmaking grant for her documentary work-in-progress, ChicagoYouth 2.0, a video about how young people are using digital culture to mobilize youth toward social change and civic activism. The grant has been awarded by the Chicago Instructional Technology Foundation (CITF). The video documentary, being produced in collaboration with Open Youth Networks members, showcases the stories of Marisol Becerra and her Map of Environmental Justice, The Fair Use Remix Institute and YouthLAB. If you know of other youth in Chicago using new technologies and participatory culture for social change, please let Mindy know at mfaber@chicagofilmmakers.org.

McCormick Awards Grant to OYN

mindy — Wed, 28 May 2008 19:04:53 +0000

The McCormick Foundation of Chicago has awarded Open Youth Networks, a program of Chicago Filmmakers a $40,000 grant to produce YouthLAB 08: The Fair Use Remix Institute to be held July 7-18th at Chicago Filmmakers. FURI (pronounced furee) will be taught by Mindy Faber, NY-based political remix artist Jonathan McIntosh, with visiting lectures by Chicago’s own Gordon Quinn (Kartemquin Films) and Patricia Aufderheide of American University Center for Social Media in DC. We are thrilled to have their support which is making this exciting and cutting edge program possible!

In the next several weeks, you will see several changes. Open Youth Networks will launch a new and improved website. The Fair Use Remix Institute (FURI) blog will be up and running at www.remixinstitute.net and we will announce upcoming appearances at conferences and in publications!

Thanks McCormick, one of the most important stewards of youth media around! To learn more about McCormick Foundation’s work in youth media, check out their blog at Youth Media Chicago Network.

About YouthLAB 2007

mindy — Wed, 21 May 2008 15:56:12 +0000

YouthLAB (Listening Across Borders) is a unique summer institute that brought together 23 young people from Chicago and Barbados in a virtual contact zone to create a collaborative online cinema project on the living legacies of slavery. Mindy Faber is the Director of YouthLAB (www.youthlab.net), Matt Schick is the Web Developer, Mela Berger is the Barbados Facilitator and Mary Trimble is the Evaluator. YouthLAB is a project of Open Youth Networks (www.openyouthnetworks). It is made possible by grants from the McCormick Tribune Foundation and individual contributors.

The Pre-YouthLAB Digital Training Institute took place at the Caribbean Institute for Culture and Healing Arts in Barbados from July 9th-13th . Mindy Faber and Mela Berger were joined by Youth member, Zane Scheuerlein and Dr. Pedro Welch, Professor of History from the University of the West Indies. The catalyst for this youth investigative citizen journalism work is the mark of the 200th anniversary of Britainâ€™s abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. (This event has been marked by a series of events throughout the Caribbean, Britain and parts of the US.)

Participants in YouthLAB explore the question: Do you believe that the legacy of slavery explains the racism, culture or inequalities of today?â€ They will conduct this investigation in their own communities and contexts and will share their perspectives and research through online citizen journalism and participatory media practices. This opulent mix of new digital communication methods include:(google maps mashups, blogs, podcasts, on line chats, high resolution video streaming through Democracy.tv and a range of new peer-to-peer social networking and digital sharing technologies [Facebook, WordPress, Flickr, Creative Commons])

YouthLab at DIY in LA

mindy — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:21:16 +0000

In February of 2008, YouthLAB 07 members, Ameenah Muhammad, Sadia Nawab, Zane Scheuerlein and Mindy Faber went to the DIY Video Summit to present their curated program YOUTUBE-SIZED. Here are some clips from the Summit including excerpts of our interviews, works and presentations:
You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Listening Across Borders Pedagogies and Practices

mindy — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:38:39 +0000

This article by Mindy Faber appeared in Youth Media Reporter. It outlines some of the goals and key pedagogical strategies behind the program.

Listening Across Borders: Creating Virtual Spaces for Youth Global Exchange
By: Mindy Faber
Published: November 14, 2007
Category: Trends
Photo by YouthLAB

As we transition into an increasingly global and technology dependant society, new participatory media networks have the potential to affect an international youth-led social justice movement. Because youth media programs are consistently at the forefront of technological innovation as well as the development of youth-centered educational practices, as a field, we are in a unique and exciting position to facilitate and incubate new youth-centered forms of global exchange.

However, there are few spaces where young people of different backgrounds and global perspectives can interact under conditions not mediated and controlled by adultsâ€”even in youth media. Innovative models that provide instruction on how such interactions can take place must be thoughtfully discussed, tried out, and shared among educators, which requires learning new pedagogical approaches.

As youth media educators, how can we create a different kind of pedagogical space where young people from around the globe can use the tools of participatory media (blogs, wikis, social networks, digital sharing sites, etc.) to connect politically and socially? How do we learn to â€œlisten across bordersâ€â€”the first step in creating a youth platform for global social justice?

These sets of questions inspired me to create YouthLAB, a program where youth are in charge, conceptualizing how to use participatory media as a springboard for youth leadership, activism and organizing.

About YouthLAB
YouthLAB, (Youth Listening Across Borders), an intensive two-week program, took place in summer 2007. Twenty young people from Barbados and Chicago came together in a virtual space to create global exchange using peer-to-peer networks and other tools of participatory media.

Each day during these two weeks, youth from Barbados and Chicago would meet physically in each of their respective locations but would also come together in a variety of wired worlds as well (such as online video chats, blog posts and comments, video letters, GoogleMaps, and Facebook).

Before the official start of the two-week exchange, a 16-year-old Chicago-based member of YouthLAB traveled with me to Barbados to provide computers, cameras, high-speed Internet service and skill training for eight young people at Mela Bergerâ€™s Caribbean Institute for Cultural and Healing Arts (CICHA). During that time, we shared knowledge on how to produce journalistic videos using iMovie and Final Cut Pro, shoot digital photographs, use social networking sites, and upload content to blogs and Google MyMaps.

Despite the high incidence of poverty on the island, the Bajan youth were digitally literate. Most youth access technology such as YouTube and satellite television regularly, although few had ever worked on Macintosh computers or software. While all the Bajan participants were black (as is 98% of the population), they were diverse in terms of socioeconomic status, schooling opportunities and the parish in which they each lived. In Chicago, the participants were comprised of 12 youth, 16-18 years of age (African-American, white, Latino, Muslim, and from a range of income levels).

Physical and Virtual Contact Zones
The diversity among the youth participants, within and across sites, is a critically important component of the YouthLAB model. As the work of Michelle Fine, Maria Elena Torres and others in the Participatory Action Research Collective have shown, â€œcontact zonesâ€â€”in which different cultures meet, clash and negotiate meaningâ€”are not always neat and conflict-free. In fact, these messy spheres are necessary in order to create the kind of conversations that kindle democratic dialogue and richer forms of cross-cultural understanding.

Bringing youth into conversation about oppression and injustice both in physical and virtual spaces fosters critical consciousness. In such â€œzones,â€ new relationships form across previously uncomfortable differences. This is an area that is essential for educators to support if we are to â€œlisten across bordersâ€ and help build global social justice movements by and for youth.

Pedagogical Approach
Part of YouthLABâ€™s mission is to provide a space where young creators and activists in Barbados and Chicago could engage in meaningful talk and listen and learn on their own terms, using their own tools and cultural forms of communication. The intrinsic properties of open source and Web 2.0 technologies are perfectly suited for this form of global learning.

While far from being naÃ¯ve about the problematic aspects of social networking sites, most youth still perceive YouTube, social networks and other â€œaffinity zonesâ€ (Henry Jenkins, MIT Comparative Media Studies) as having ample â€œstreet credâ€ precisely because of the way they exist outside the control of adult authorities and institutional gatekeepers.

In creating new spaces for young people to conceptualize their creative media & dialogue, I drew inspiration from the work of Harvard law professor, Yochai Benkler and his book, The Wealth of Networks, where he expands on the theory of â€œsocially-motivated commons-based peer production.â€ Benkler describes a new public sphere, in which the creative flow of many people is galvanized into large-scale, participatory projects, but without the baggage of traditional hierarchies and profit motives. In other words, commons-based peer production supports many voices coming together to shape an idea or product.

Benkler identifies several defining features to commons-based, peer-to-peer production; however, in designing YouthLAB, we focused on the following:

â€¢ Make the work â€œgranular.â€ Everyone should contribute something of value that advances the overall cause.
â€¢ Make the work modular. Divide the tasks into self-selected individual projects so that the work is divvyed up equitably and progress is clear.
â€¢ Make the work capable of integration. Individual contributions can be assimilated efficiently into a meaningful and publicly shared final product.

YouthLAB put this theory of socially motivated, commons-based, peer production into pedagogical practice. All 20 participating youth joined together to create media and dialogue about racism, segregation, inequality, migration, and social justice through the collective authoring of a central multimedia blog.

For example, this cadre of teens co-created an interactive multimedia GoogleMap on migrations, which contained both personal and historical travel and migration routes, embedded geo-tagged photos, stories, and videos and placemarkers indicating past, present and future landmarks. In addition, teens raised and answered questions in the form of videos, online chats and blog posts for a global exchange.

YouthLAB developed a networked system that allowed youth to see themselves as contributors to a shared political discourse. Integrating collective intelligence into the participatory framework, youth became actors in a public global arena rather than passive recipients of mediated information.

Emerging Practices for Youth-Centered Global Exchange

1. Start with a leading, genuine question. For example, in YouthLAB our exchange was launched through a joint inquiry: â€œDoes evidence of the legacy of slavery, injustice or inequality exist within in your everyday lives and communities today?â€ This leading question spurred research and dialogue and led to a new set of questions posed and pursued by youth participants.

2. Enter into â€œinterpretive discussionsâ€ about youth-made videos. Several videos and clips were posted on the YouthLAB blog and youth participants engaged in â€œinterpretive discussions,â€ analyzing the meaning of videotexts. For example, a fascinating exchange centered on the video, A Girl Like Me, where the teen filmmaker raises the question, â€œWhy do so many of the Black children in the social experiment choose the white doll to play with?â€ The videotext can operate as a fulcrum for a shared discussion in which everyone contributes. In this way discussions can move beyond limited and non-interactive comments towards real exchange and communication. http://youthlab.net/category/interpretive-discussions/

3. Pose cross-cultural questions and responses through video. For example, the youth in Barbados produced a video asking a series of questions of their U.S. counterparts in Chicago and vice versa. Each YouthLAB team then created videos responding to these questions. The questions ranged from lighthearted, to social, political and educational. Some of the more complex topics incorporated research and street interviews, which teens posted onto YouTube or on the YouthLAB blog.

4. Use â€œskypingâ€ and online chats to build intimacy. The immediacy and realness of these interactions through live video chats provide personalized exchanges and visceral experiences across borders.

5. Use online mixing and mashup tools for collective authorship. In YouthLAB, we created a split-screen video with images of Bridgetown Barbados on one side and Chicago on the other. We also began experimenting with a video online mixer tool housed on the video-sharing site, Motionbox. The possibilities for new forms of creative collaboration through digital content-sharing applications are endless.

6. Step back and give young people the lead. In YouthLAB, peer-to-peer teach-ins, collective intelligence-sharing, and co-construction of â€œtag cloudsâ€ through social bookmarking were important ways that youth participants not only created media products but shaped their own curriculum and instruction as well.

Key to this work is that youth media educators become â€œinvisibleâ€ in the learning processâ€”which is different from most of the training we received as educators. As youth interpret the meanings and questions their peers bring up, they bring their own perspectives, informed by a complex set of experiences, seen through the lens of race, class, privilege, gender, and nation. Young people in global exchanges hear challenging and different perspectives, which lead to new questions and understandings that can strengthen the social justice field.

Conclusion

The YouthLAB participants needed no persuasion to merge social activism with cultural production using digital networks. They did not need to be coaxed to talk about the issues affecting their lives with peers from a different country or prodded to sit down and watch media made by other youth. On the contrary, they couldnâ€™t get enough of it. Clearly, youth with access to the tools of participatory culture experience new international and media-based sites as powerful and vibrant, fostering imagination, youth activism, and international exchange.

As an educator I was schooled in the methods of backwards-design; however, in a learning environment built around youth-led, commons-based, peer production, adult facilitators need to relinquish predictable outcomes in favor of a more elastic approach. We need a different type of pedagogical spaceâ€”one where youth are in charge at the outset to use media as a springboard for leadership, activism and organizing. Using tools like commons-based peer production, interpretive discussion, and virtual contact zones, we can provide the types of environments for online global youth media to develop.

By creating these pedagogical spaces where hierarchies are flattened out but differences are not erased, youth media makers can provide a global example of dialogue by listening across borders.

Mindy Faber is an educator, curator, consultant and award-winning media artist. She is the Founding Director of Open Youth Networks and the designer of YouthLAB (Listening Across Borders). Faber lives in the Chicago area with her husband and 16-year-old son.
Comment on this article.

Making Networking Work for Youth Media
April 15, 2008
Practitioners can create large scale impact by joining forces and creating networks in the field.

The Benefit of Short One-Time Projects
February 14, 2008
A five-day youth media project can have long term effects.

Using Media, Fair Use and Copyright
November 14, 2007
A report on how fair use can reduce copyright confusion for youth media and media literacy educators.

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Fiona said:

â€œ What a great project and really interesting reflec… â€

November 17, 2007 01:18 AM

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Ten Radical Things About YouTube

mindy — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:14:21 +0000

YOU-TUBE-SIZED: 10 Radical Things About YouTube
By Open Youth Networks youth members Ameenah Muhammad, Sadia Nawab and Zane Scheuerlein (Editing help from OYN Director, Mindy Faber).

OYN nurtures youth to empower innovative micro-enterprises that mobilize their peers from awareness to action. By helping youth imagine new ways of engaging in socially-motivated commons-based peer production, Open Youth Networks aims to strengthen youth participation in democratic decision-making through critical media production and analysis.

[Qualifier: Actually, YouTube here is a stand in word for any online video sharing site. We actually view videos on many different sites similar to YouTube so we refer to YouTube in the generic sense like saying Kleenex instead of tissue.]

1. Creating a Freer Youth Culture or Democratizing Media

We create our own entertainment and use our voices as a vice to expose issues within the communities that, otherwise, would not be viewed. In the last few years internet sites such as YouTube have been flooded with videos from youth expressing ideas and showing the world that we are the leaders of a new revolution.

Look, when You-Tube was invented, we went from a top-down profit driven corporate broadcast system to a free open source userâ€“driven on-line Mecca, like overnight. Whatever, its flaws and there are many, YouTube has democratized media.Â Okay, we know we have to challenge YouTube when it caves into the political pressures and removes controversial content, but still, the level of gatekeeping going on by corporate owned mass media television networks… We are no longer forced to listen only to â€œthe manâ€ and seeing other people do it makes us realize we can do it too.. In our opinion, you canâ€™t have a real democracy without dialogue between people with differing points of view and sometimes, at its best, YouTube makes dialogue happen.

EVIDENCE
The Revolution Will Be Televised by Open Youth Networks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfJd0Q8HjPw)

2. Counter-surveillance
Everyday at our schools, we are being watched by cameras and surveilled by adults. Posses of parents spy on our Facebook pages.Â Academic researchers study our “online behaviors”.Â Marketers spy on our subcultures and consumer habits so they can sell what we create back to us. Police arrest us just for “being in public.” But with camera phones in our pockets and with YouTube as our witness, we can take the private abuses of authority that we as youth endure on a daily basis and make them public for all to see.

EVIDENCE:
Angry Teacher
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymBz1pwSEnw

Police Brutality: Skateboarders vs. the cops http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH6AYVn2yw4

ThePrincipals Office
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRu7FVX41aQ

Mr. Schwartz Imitation by Adam Norway
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpPsPRIqU44

# 3- Bedroom Cinema â€“ Lots of the videos we watch online are quite simple. They showcase one person in their bedroom with a camera, often one that is built into the computer and instantly uploaded to YouTube. No special effects. No broadcast TV equipment. Just totally raw. We all vent in different ways whether it be in journals or on videos. Showing the world your personal views on an issue is radical and venting can be personally calming. We can play, experiment and try on new personas or react to and reframe the ones that are marketed to us through commercial media. We are clever and witty and sexy and smart and honest or not. You decide.

Evidence
Dax Flame
http://www.youtube.com/user/Daxflame

Miss West Carolina goes to Hollywood http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PzmLELu0RM

#4. Our Culture Kicks Ass
YouTube allows us to celebrate our own subculture, show off our talents and challenge the hegemony of sameness. On YouTube you will see youth doing parkour, cup games , quadrupal kickflips, speed-stacking, animation, and break dancing.

EVIDENCE
Urban Ninja by Evolved Monkey Combat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2kJZOfq7zk

Daft Hands: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cYWfq

World Champion Speed Stacker http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VizrAgSI4O0&feature=related

Cheeeeeeeeez
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5XQxf8quGg&feature=related

Cup Game DOS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhFyQjVsq3U&feature=related

5.Â Monetizing Makers, Not the Corporates Takers â€“ No ads on YouTube.
Okay, yeah there are little ads found throughout the site but you aren’t forced to click on them. Viewing all your favorite episodes and music videos without having to see an AXE body spray commercial is simply a blessing. And there is no limit to what you can and can’t watch, no compulsory or maximum amount of videos that can be viewed at one time.

Compared to other forms of media, YouTube is freer- we need to make sure we keep it that way. But if someone makes a really great TV ad, you can view it on You-Tube, because trust us, if its worth seeing, it will be there. But then when shameless commercial interests try to corrupt the YouTube user-driven spaces, they must be prepared to suffer.
When the Dove Evolution ad became viral, its hypocrisy was exposed.

YouTube is Talk-back TV. So even though it isnâ€™t really the point to make money, some YouTubers hit a nerve â€“they are real artists, actors and political geniusesâ€“ so when they become successful and develop a subscriber base in the thousands and get hundreds of thousands of views then why shouldnâ€™t they be able to make a living off their art or bring attention to their talents, messages and music. Revver.com shares 50% of its ad revenue with is content providers. We should monetize the makers not the corporate takers.

Evidence
Midwest Teen Sex Show - http://midwestteensexshow.com/

Chongalicious new Video by Laura DiLorenzo and Mimi Davila
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/chongalicious-girls-new-video/2002947577

6.Â Social Sanctuary
What you share is who you are. We define our identities and build our social networks by creating affinity groups through the culture we make and consume and share!

For example, there is this familiar, “Pssssttâ€¦have you seen that video??” Chainletters no longer circulate in our inboxes, instead its chain videos! [fwd fwd fwd fwd fwd] â€œSo&so sent you a video on YouTube!â€ Sometimes it is just entertainment, sometimes political, but politics is in everything, so whatâ€™s the difference?

And these videos are the ones that can bring out the haters. Actually, haters are everywhere on YouTube and sometimes if you get a lot of haters, it is actually a compliment because those are actually paying attention on some level. Who said democracy and dialogue isnâ€™t messy? Besides the really stupid haters end up being dissed and exposed by everyone anyway. The worst haters we face are found on our streets everyday â€“ some of them criminalize youth for hanging out in public. At least on YouTube and MySpace, there are no curfew and anti-gang loitering laws. YouTube is a sanctuary.

Evidence
Hater Comments from the Sarcasm Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSYw4dUVb1E

Leave Britney Alone Trace Remix
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FAuJod1XmY

7. Political Remix
With the right tools, YouTube is a digital burying ground for all sorts of treasures- ripe for the reusing. It puts anything from embarrassing flubs to hilarious images in the public eye, to be remixed, reused, and thrown back into the world with a fresh spin or biting political commentary. One of the absolutest coolest things about YouTube culture is when people immediately respond to some insane TV news segment or political speech through brilliant remix.

I mean, they canâ€™t get away with their spin machine like they used to now that we are watching them. Plus, we trust the remix version more than the source footage, if you know what I mean. Through political remix, we expose lies and critique the mass media. To quote copyrighted text is to be a good American.

Evidence
Political Hillary WASN’T LYING! Bosnia gunfire footage discovered…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHVEDq6RVXc&

Sunday Bloody Sunday Song by George W. Bush http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5vZ-2xpmXs

8.Â Alternative News and Analysis
Lets face it. A lot of the 24-hour news programs are bullshit. No one, especially teens gives a crap about what a bunch of boring old people jabber on about. Enter YouTube. Now youth can produce and feature their own news about what matters to them. This appeals to many kids because we want to stay in touch and aware, but not become brainwashed and comatose.

For example, politics! As busy young people who usually arenâ€™t in front of a TV to watch the presidential debates, so we tend to get on YouTube to stay up to date. Sometime we like to look up world issues and get a quick summarizing documentary of whatâ€™s going on around the worldâ€¦ like in Sudan, Palestine, etc. This means we see all the media views on the issue â€“ not just the corporate TV news version. Itâ€™s interesting to see what crazy videos people make either making fun of rivalâ€™s parties or of expressing their position on a certain issue. It gives you a whole different perspective.

Evidence
George Bush Donâ€™t Like Black People
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XjHS6yUdio

The Jena 6 by Youth Radio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqse_Yhmlrw

9.Â Laughter and other Guilty Pleasures
Not to complain but to 1) survive high school emotionally, 2) get into a good college and 3) afford the insane tuition of that college means that we have to get awesome ACT/SAT scores, do â€œMother Theresaâ€ type levels of community service, achieve â€œa strong B averageâ€ in our GPAs while avoiding the gang crossfire in our neighborhoods, all while having to put up with a high school that operates like a prison system or police state.

And if you are out in public with a bunch of other kids who are not playing soccer, you are immediately suspected for gang activity. But it doesnâ€™t matter because we have so much homework. So we multi-task and in between figuring out the quadratic formula and memorizing dates, we go to YouTube and escape by watching little puppies fall asleep or Japanese televisions programs called â€œHow to Poopâ€. Adults need to grant us that. Its okay to laugh, really.

Evidence
Sleepy Spudgy, The Best Cat Video Youâ€™ll Ever See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvo-g_JvURI

10.Â In Bed With Embedding
We can embed YouTube videos into our blogs, our MySpace and facebook pages, our websites and our Google MyMaps. In other words what is sent to YouTube doesnâ€™t just stay on YouTube â€“ you can cross-fertilize. For instance, some of our members are creating videos about environmental racism that they post on youtube but then embed onto OurMap of Environmental Justice (link below). We can network and build peer to peer movements through shareable media.

Evidence
See Our Map of Environmental Justice
http://www.elcilantro.org/?page_id=6

Youth Media Exchange the Hidden Cost of Cashmere
http://ymex.org/video/

Go Army: Bad Guys by Jonathan McIntosh
www.politicalremix.wordpress.com

10 Radical Things About YouTube

mindy — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:00:58 +0000

The Journal of Radical Aesthetics and Protest recently asked Open Youth Networks members, Ameenah Muhammad (18), Sadia Nawab (18) and Zane Scheuerlein (17) to write an article for their upcoming issue.

Click here for a sneak preview of their piece, 10 Radical Things About YouTube.

FURI: THE FAIR USE REMIX INSTITUTE

mindy — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:01:34 +0000

PARTICIPATE IN FURI (THE FAIR USE REMIX INSTITUTE)

Mix and Mash your way to a freer youth culture
OPEN YOUTH NETWORKS IS NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR SCHOLARSHIPS

Click here to download your application. application-scholarship-furi.doc

Click here to download the Flyer

FURI [pronounced fury] is a two week digital media workshop for socially-conscious Chicago teens.

Up to 15 Scholarships are available to Socially-Active Youth worth $1,000. (Scholarships cover entire costs of tuition, travel, equipment fees, free copies of publications and yearly access to equipment and editing facilities)

WHEN: July 7th-July 18th 2008 (Monday-Friday 11:00-4:00)
WHERE: CHICAGO FILMMAKERS â€“ 5243 N. Clark, Chicago
DEADLINE: Submit SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATION by June 1, 2008.

NEED MORE INFO?: Call Mindy Faber at 847-902-9158 or write her at mindyfaber@comcast.net

IN FURI YOU WILL:

Create several remixes and mashups that are critical or satirical works of art focusing on political, social, and cultural issues, from a youth perspective
Learn to use both on-line and offline editing and remix tools such as Kaltura, Adobe Premiere, and Final Cut Pro.
Learn how to download or appropriate media from television and the web, including the Creative Commons and Remix America
Work with various styles of remix including music video, movie trailer, short film, tv commercial, news and artistic
Learn how to â€œquote copyrighted materialâ€ as Fair Use in order to reclaim First Amendment and Fee Speech rights
Learn how to advocate for flexible and fair copyright laws, network neutrality and other public policies that impact your cultural rights
Meet, converse and collaborate with a diverse group of socially-active youth from all over Chicago
Reach and impact audiences in the hundreds, if not thousands, including: teachers, students, education administrators, scholars, activists, artists and journalists through conferences, web distributions and speaking tours. Some travel to cities such as DC, NY, LA, Boston and San Francisco may be involved.

MEET YOUR FURI Facilitators
Jonathan with YouthLAB 07 member Zane Scheuerlein at the LA DIY Video Summit in February

Jonathan McIntosh
Jonathan McIntosh is a digital media artist, photographer, and activist working in Boston and New York City. His digital video worRecut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Videok focuses primarily on transforming corporate media images by remixing them to tell alternative political and cultural narratives. This Political Remix Video work has appeared in independent film festivals, on community TV programs and at new media conferences. Jonathan currently teaches art and technology courses at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. You can find his political remix videos and photography work on his website www.politicalremix.wordpresscom
Patricia Aufderheide
Patricia Aufderheide, PhD is a professor in the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C., and the director of the Center for Social Media. She is the author of Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video, a report that shows that many uses of copyrighted material in todayâ€™s online videos are eligible for fair use consideration.
Mindy Faber
The Founding Director of Open Youth Networks is Mindy is an award-winning independent video producer, curator and educator. She is a co-recipient (with Youth for Social Action) of the George W. Foster Peabody Award in 2007 and is the 1996 recipient of the Rockefeller Intercultural Media Fellowship.

About Chicago Filmmakers and Open Youth Networks

Chicago Filmmakers is a 33 year-old media arts organization that fosters the creation, appreciation and understanding of film and video as media for artistic and personal expression, as well as media of important social and community impact. The space is equipped with cameras, green screens, a theatre, a classroom and computer lab with state of the art software housed on new iMacs.

Open Youth Networks at Chicago Filmmakers assists young people and their allies in the design and use of digital media tools that enable them to create innovative peer-to-peer projects of dialogue, art, education and action.

What did last yearâ€™s youth participants of open Youth Networks gain from their involvement in lastâ€™s year YouthLAB workshop. Read their quotes:

YouthLAB was not only about learning media technology but also about the experience of working with a diverse group of teens my age. The program gave me the opportunity to teach media executives how to blog and a give a talk on how the youth use You-Tube in Los Angeles, California!! â€”Sadia Nawab

Youthlab helps one to become more self-aware of your environments and other communities; while teaching us new skills for video and how to be active in the ever-growing social network. â€”Kevin Eme

Youth Lab is the coolest summer program I have ever participated in! It is an enriching experience that motivated me to use media for youth activism. Because of YouthLAB I was able to receive a grant to produce a video for an international television series on environmental justice!
-Marisol Becerra

“I like the process of learning media and editing techniques in order to display important issues to the world. YouthLAB gave me the hands-on media experience and social opportunity to get my voice out to the world.” â€“Andres Quiroz

… being as creative as possible and then to just sit back, relax and enjoy our works of art <— that has to be the most rewarding.. Sadia Nawab

In YouthLAB, youth are put in charge of what they create and what they discuss. I met other kids from different backgrounds and neighborhoods that I never would have met otherwise ..I learned as much about social issues from them as I did about digital DIY media. â€“Zane Scheuerlein