Upgrade! NY is a monthly programming series co-produced by Eyebeam and Not An Alternative. Since June 2009, Upgrade! NY has been organizing a thematic series on open source as it relates to activism and creative practice. Upgrade! NY is the New York node of the international Upgrade! network.

Upgrade! is an international network of autonomous nodes located throughout the world that are united by art, technology, and a commitment to bridging cultural divides. Its decentralized, non-hierarchical structure ensures that Upgrade! (i) operates according to local interests and their available resources; and (ii) reflects current creative engagement with cutting edge technologies. While individual nodes present new media projects, engage in informal critique, and foster dialogue and collaboration between individual artists, Upgrade! International functions as an online, global network that gathers annually in different cities to meet one another, showcase local art, and work on the agenda for the following year.

Upgrade! NY Background: Since April 1999, a group of new media artists and curators have gathered in New York City. The first meeting took place at a bar in the east village with Tim Whidden & Mark River [MTAA], Mark Napier and founder, media artist Yael Kanarek. Upgrade! NY partnered with Eyebeam Art + Technology Center in March 2000, and is currently co-produced by Eyebeam and Not An Alternative.

For more information about upcoming and past Upgrade! NY events, visit upgradeny.net.

	Upgrade! NY: Improperly Named Upgrade! NY presents a panel and discussion on “multiple singularity,” or when a group of people makes work or takes action under a singular name. Panelists Marco Deseriis, Leónidas Martín Saura, and Janez Janša will present and discuss radical strategies in the construction of singularity by...
	UPGRADE! NY: Collaborative Futures book launch & talk Upgrade! NY presents the Collaborative Futures book launch and talk. Collaborative Futures, book about free collaboration written collaboratively over five days during the 2010 Transmediale Festival, locked six writers and one programmer in a Berlin hotel room to collaboratively write a book about...
	Upgrade! NY: Crowsourcing Labor - Distributed Democracy or Centralized Sweatshop? Upgrade! NY continues its series on open source as it relates to activism and creative practice. Within activist and creative practice there is a range of models for mobilizing the labor and creativity of the crowd (aka "crowdsourcing"). Both practices experiment with a spectrum of autonomy and...
	Upgrade! NY: Free as in what? A debate on open source vs. free culture What do we mean by 'freedom'? Should Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) necessarily be powered by radical politics of ownership and collaboration? Or is the latching of "Free Software" ideological baggage limiting the full transformative power of "Open Source". How are these questions informed...
	Copyright and creative practice in Jamaica and beyond Upgrade! NY continues its series on open source as it relates to activism and creative practice with a conversation between Larisa Mann and Karl Fogel followed by a DJ set by Larisa Mann (aka DJ Ripley). The discussion will examine how Jamaican music has developed in the absence of an effective...
	UPGRADE NY!: How To How To Upgrade! NY July 23, 2009 At the previous Upgrade! New York gathering, writer/theorist Clay Shirky suggested that the most successful open source collaborations are those that use recipe-like methods to share information. In order to explore this idea further, this month’s discussion examined...
	UPGRADE! NY: Talk by Clay Shirky: Forking, Failing, and Open Source Upgrade! NY June 18, 2009 As an introduction to this season’s theme for Upgrade! New York, Clay Shirky discussed the concepts of forking and failure in the open source process, and its value to the context of activism and the creative process.
	Upgrade! New York 10th Anniversary Upgrade! 10th Anniversary Celebration: Thursday, May 21, 2009; 8 – 9:30PM
	Art in the Age of Terrorism Art in the Age of Terrorism Dr. Steven Kurtz, the artist accused by the US Department of Justice of “bioterrorism” stemming from his use of scientific materials in his award-winning art practice, joins Eugene Thacker and George Annas for a panel discussion on the ethics of scientific and...