*Please donate and help me spread the word!!! We have 15 days to raise $5000 *
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/163496660/local-autonomy-networks-find-each-other Local Autonomy Networks (Autonets) is a line of mesh networked electronic clothing with the goal of building autonomous local networks that don’t rely on corporate infrastructure to function, inspired by community based, anti-racist, prison abolitionist responses to gendered violence. The project is focused on creating networks of communication to increase community autonomy and reduce violence against women, LGBTQI people, people of color and other groups who continue to survive violence on a daily basis. The Autonets garments, when activated, will alert everyone in range of the the local mesh network and who is wearing another autonet garment that someone needs help and will indicate that person’s direction and distance. Local Autonomy Networks: Find Each Other is a collaboration between Micha Cárdenas, PhD student in Media Arts and Practice at the University of Southern California, Allison Wyper, Master of Fine Arts in Dance from Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, UCLA, Natalie Rosen and Claire Viele. *We need funding to support the production of 12 Autonets garments and the presentation of performances and workshops* at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit, MI, the International Symposium of Electronic Art in Albuquerque, NM, the HTMlles festival of feminist new media art in Montreal, QC and the American Studies Association annual meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The project has been invited to all of these venues, but none of them are able to provide funding for travel of materials to produce the electronics for future performances. The video above uses two early prototypes, but the actual Autonets garments are still in development. The devices will be made open source under an Open Hardware license and the designs will be made publicly available. We hope to be able to give working devices to people who need them through workshops once we feel they are working well enough to be distributed. -- micha cárdenas PhD Student, Media Arts and Practice, University of Southern California Provost Fellow, University of Southern California New Directions Scholar, USC Center for Feminist Research MFA, Visual Arts, University of California, San Diego Author, The Transreal: Political Aesthetics of Crossing Realities, http://amzn.to/x8iJcY blog: http://transreal.org
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