It took me a while to catch up on the Brico reads, but it has been great to
learn what everybody is up to. I actually just realized me and Felipe
applied to the same PhD in Scotland! I ended up landing a position in
Helsinki, though. I also realized that I know basically the Brazilians of
the network, and only a few in the rest of the world.I hope I have the
chance to meet more bricos now that I'm based in Europe.

The last years have been seriously bumpy. I was running Nuvem, and art and
technology rural space in the countryside between Rio de Janeiro and Sao
Paulo, which started in 2011. But after the coup in 2016 it became
increasingly more difficult to secure funds for art, specially experimental
and DIT actions like we proposed. So I had to give up the house in the
beginning of 2017. On top of that, my first son arrived that same year, and
then 2018 was chaos: the economy plummeted, my partner lost her job and
Brazil got an actual fascist elected. So I think, maybe this is a good time
to finally get that PhD.... I finished shooting a project at the end of the
year and she got a job in Barcelona, where we are based for now. And at
some point we will move to Finland where I'll study AI applied to creative
imagery for a couple of years.

I'll miss Tropixel this year, but I hope to meet you all (and Felipe)
around the old continent.

Abraços
Bruno

On Fri, May 10, 2019 at 2:15 AM Felipe Fonseca <felipefonseca@???>
wrote:

> My turn then...
>
> As most in the list are boringly aware, I live in Ubatuba since 2008.
> Most of this time I spent talking to people, coming up with ideas,
> putting them in practice, seeing what happens. There was the last (more
> or less "official") meeting of the MetaReciclagem network; the four
> editions of Tropixel; one research-action project on open and
> collaborative science; maybe hundreds of meetups, workshops and
> discussions. We organized UbaLab (fluid experimental
> space/articulation); ninho (collaborative working environment);
> inc.ubalab and ninhada (collaborative incubators); and a lot lot more. I
> have worked with rural and traditional communities (indigenous,
> quilombolas, caiçaras). I represented "digital and urban culture" in the
> municipal board of public policies for culture for four years. I even
> wrote legislation (pretty interesting sort of code, but in the end of
> the process it was not approved). And yeah JNM, I set up a conversation
> website not paying that much attention to google spyware, will look into
> it when there is time.
>
> Meanwhile, the macro scenario has been evolving fast in the wrong
> direction. Five years ago, even the pessimist among us couldn't see
> (all) that shit coming.
>
> From my personal perspective, it had another side to it. I've always
> done a lot more than I had resources to. Up until some years ago, I was
> still able to use about 70% of my time doing things that would not give
> me any money. I would compensate that by getting extra funding somewhere
> else, and of course by living in a city much more affordable than São
> Paulo, Rio or Brasília. So in a sense, and again responding to JNM's
> irony towards Jaromil, I would get money from research agencies,
> cultural institutions and the occasional international body and invested
> it around here: in my own "free" time to work with different communities
> for instance; or hiring people to help with stuff; also buying equipment
> to be used collectively; or paying a higher share in the rent and bills
> of our collective space. That's one aspect of "abundance" as I see -
> leveraging opportunities to respond to unbalances. I wasn't thinking
> decroissance, but instead using my own network of institutional contacts
> to bring money into a place otherwise very dependent on cheap mass tourism.
>
> Well, with the increasing political and economic turmoil, things started
> to dry out. A lot of interesting people started to move out of Ubatuba,
> as there was no way to fund "creative" and "intellectuall" work anymore
> due to the lack of funding. A couple years ago I spent about six months
> making little to no money, and accumulating personal debt. In order to
> remain here while things didn't get better, I accepted a "job" in a
> private tech business from abroad (had managed to stay away from
> for-profits for about 15 years before that). And while I do like the
> product and have been learning a lot with them, it's far from fulfilling
> me as a whole.
>
> Early this year, I found about a PhD programme on "open design of
> trusted things", organized by the University of Dundee in Scotland and
> the Mozilla Foundation. I applied, and was finally offered the position
> to work with the topic "smart cities". That's why the mini tropixel next
> month will be a sort of goodbye to Ubatuba and Brazil, before I move
> abroad to a colder place with my partner and two kids (aged 8 and 4).
>
> In any case, it's not a bad idea to reactivate this list. I hope to meet
> everyone again in the coming years...
>
> Heh, sorry for the long letter. Haven't sent one of those in years, I
> guess.
>
> efeefe, still in Ubatuba
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Brico mailing list
> Website on http://www.bricolabs.net
> Unsubscribe: https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/brico