atoms&bits Festival is coming to Berlin!

atoms&bits festival

It’s official: atoms&bits Festival (a&b) is going to happen. It’s all confirmed and getting ready to go.

You may have read about it here, over at Nicole Ebber or on Hallenprojekt. You might have seen the pics on Flickr or read some tweets (see this link for a twitter search, @atomsandbits or @atomsandbits_de).

But all that doesn’t matter, since a lot has changed since the first blog posts and now we have all the info we need to really go public. Here’s the pitch:

What is atoms&bits? atoms&bits (a&b) are the smallest elements in our modern society. That’s what the atoms&bits Festival is all about: how we change society bit by bit, atom by atom – organized through the Internet and with real world results. a&b is a meet up for visionaries, tinkerers, activists, geeks, and artists – in short, everyone that celebrates a new culture of collective endeavor, and do-it-yourself. The five themes that everything revolves around are: (1) new forms of work (Coworking), (2) a fresh desire to tinker, (3) a new culture of openness (OpenEverything), (4) participatory politics, (5) the art of the production of art, as well as internet culture as the binding element that made all of this possible in the first place. a&b Festival is a decentralized event that stretches over 10 days (September 18-27th). Individual events are taking place in different locations from Berlin to Brooklyn, from Munich to Montreal. The festival will reach beyond the physical boundaries of the event, allowing participation throughout the world. Globally more than a thousand participants are expected. In order to foster sustainable networks and collaboration, we’re creating connections to other events that complement the idea of the a&b Festival: all2gethernow (Topic: music; Location: Berlin), Breakout (Topic: coworking; Location: global); OpenEverything (Topic: open source principles; Location: global); Transmediale (Topic: art & digital culture; Location: Berlin). a&b Camp is one of the central points of the a&b Festival. On the weekend of the German federal elections (September 26-27th) around 400 participants will meet at a&b Camp to discuss, plan projects, and to network. Borrowing from the Barcamp format, all participants will actively engage in the event; the presentations (“sessions”) are interactive and created by the participants themselves. In the open “Barcamp” area, participants will organize completely free sessions. Moreover, central themes of the a&b Festival will be addressed and discussed in several designated and curated rooms: Coworking, DIY, and OpenEverything. Spatial proximity and thematic ties will ensure intensive crossover among these topics. The highlight of the worldwide festival and the kick-off for atoms&bits affiliated projects will be the atoms&bits weekend on September 25-27th. In Berlin the a&b Camp around Moritzplatz and several nearby events will take place then. The program includes exhibitions, live screenings, the a&b party, tinkering workshops, live coverage of the elections online, as well as an election party and more.

I hope it all makes sense to you – if you have any questions, feel free to ask! Also, you can check out the progress on atomsandbits.net, where we’ll add info and the program step by step.

Next steps: We’ll publish the names of those who coordinate the five topical tracks. They will be able to invite a few people to the conference. The other seats will be open for registration, details about the best way to register will be up soon.

We’re also still looking for sponsors. The first bunch of sponsors is confirmed, but we need some more support. You won’t find a better audience than this. Please drop us a line at sponsoring@atomsandbits.net or get in touch with me directly and we’ll send you the sponsoring options.

Update 04 Sept: We put up a FAQ on the atoms&bits website that should answer a few of your questions. Otherwise feel free to drop me a line since a lot of the content is only available in German at this point. Email me at peter@web26.s295.goserver.host

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