activefreemedia

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February 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

National “Free Culture” Tour Kicks Off at South by Southwest Festival
Tour to Visit Colleges and Youth Media Groups

The highly anticipated Free Culture Tour kicks off at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival on March 13, 2005 launching a one-month tour of southern and eastern colleges and youth media organizations. A multimedia performance and lecture by Brooklyn-based artist and web producer Colin Mutchler, the Free Culture show mixes music, images, and spoken word to demonstrate the complex and entertaining cross section between cultural property and freedom. The tour will also highlight the groundbreaking work of Creative Commons, a project of Stanford Professor Lawrence Lessig that offers flexible copyright for creative work.

The tour will kick off at the main stage of the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, TX, and then travel through the Southeast and up the East Coast visiting colleges and youth media centers from the Listen Up youth media network, culminating at Free Culture, Phase 2: Next Generation Strategies for Media Democracy and Participatory Culture, hosted by American University on April 22nd.

Hailed by Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig as “a very important creator in the space of building digital freedoms,” Mutchler is a bridge between the arcane legalese of copyright law and the new wave of popular interest in everything from mash-ups to remixes. Says Mutchler, “The Free Culture Tour is about self-expression and the freedom to build upon each other’s work. While DJs and filmmakers have been remixing music and culture for decades, the current state of copyright law makes this kind of creative expression legally challenging.”

The Free Culture movement recently sparked a media-frenzy when Downhill Battle, a music activism group, temporarily released the landmark film “Eyes on the Prize” for free download on the internet. Traveling through more than 10 states, the Free Culture Tour is also bolstered by the student movement for free culture, which now boasts chapters at campuses across the U.S. and is best known for suing electronic voting-machine manufacturer Diebold in 2003. The tour is also supported by a project of the Center for Social Media at American University.

Tour Dates include
• Feb 19: Bryn Mawr College (Bryn Mawr, PA)
• Feb 26: Bowery Poetry Club (New York, NY)
• Mar 13: SXSW Interactive (Austin, TX)
• Mar 24: Duke University (Durham. NC)
• Mar 30: Belmont College (Nashville, TN)
• April 5: University of Pittsburg (Pittsburgh, PA)
• April 7: Muhlenberg College (PA)
• April 15: Chelsea Art Museum panel with Paul Miller (DJ Spooky) (NYC)
• April 23-24: Free Culture, Phase 2 Conference, American University (Washington DC)
• May 5-7: Listen Up! Youth Media Workshop (Litchfield, CT)

PRESS CONTACT AND BOOKINGS:
Colin Mutchler
65 St. Felix Street, #4
Brooklyn, NY 11217
347-731-6240

colin@activefreemedia.com
To book the Free Culture performance and tour, please visit www.freeculturetour.org or contact Colin Mutchler directly at 347-731-6240 or colin@activefreemedia.com.

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