Tutturu-ulotka
Tutturu is a tool for decentralized media distribution. It is an attempt to build an alternative to centrally administrated multimedia. Tutturu is based on open source software, using open source licences for published content and bit torrent - a popular data distribution protocol.
Why?
Web 2.0 means of distributing multimedia offer only an illusion of free sharing, while collecting content on a central server. The Youtube model allows only passive consumption and false participation, under Googles' central command. Centralized media display sites work like a new form of a remote control for a tv set. The user cannot easily download the work in a satisfactory format, manipulate it or do a remix. On the other hand these sites empower goverments and capital owners to censor our culture on a wide scale. Our content on media display sites in fact works as an attraction next to an advertising column; we cannot control the context of our uploaded multimedia. In 5 years most of our visual culture will be available through Youtube. This means that it will be impossible to just give it away while avoiding commercial or political context. There is not much time left: British Telecom already blocks Pirate Bay, a broad mode of access to P2P networks is under threat. But the alternative has existed for years: podcasting, P2P networks, open source licences and the semantic web. Tutturu combines them all to provide a complete device for an autonomous media propagation that might create an alternative to centrally administered multimedia.
How?
Tutturu is a physical tool making up an infrastructure used for non-hierarchic exchange of cultural assets (mainly in audio/ video form). Connected to the internet, it provides a platform to exchange them directly between the author or the publisher and audience, who in this setup are able to act as co-authors of a work and re-distribute it further on re-mix basis. This sharingoriented cooperation method is based on a direct contact amongst participants and on the inherent possibility to modify the received communications. The Tutturu tool can be treated as a TV transmitter and receiver, able to transmit about 2 hours of video recordings an receiving about five hours a day from people worldwide. The tool is based entirely on freeware, unrestricted with patents or technology ownership. The distribution relies on a combination of broadcathing and podcasting, i.e. syndication of metadata relating to media and torrents, which are subsequently downloaded to the local disc and sent to other users. Thus Tutturu is primarily a method for creating self-organizing networks of exchange functioning beyond institutional frames, in which everybody participates on the same conditions.
Get involved!
One of the basic guidelines of the Tutturu project is cooperation. You can get involved in various ways, first of all you can test Tutturu in your own studio or workshop and share your experience with us. Unfortunately so far the software is not very easy to set up, you need to be experienced with open source multimedia and web development. Therefore we are building a virtual machine, so that it will be easy to simulate normal conditions, this will be available on the website. If you are interested in getting involved, write an e-mail to: tutturu@obin.org we will let you know when the virtual machine will be ready.
polish version here
