Re: <nettime> sad news

[David garcia <davidg@xs4all.nl>]

I heard just yesterday upsetting (given his youth the shocking) news
of Ricardo's death.

I came to know Ricardo first through reading and admiring his writing.
His texts (I refuse to say was) are so valuable because they offer a
window into vibrant world of Brazilian free media activism. They are
illuminating precisely because he refuses to buy into the hype of the
revolutionary 'open source Brazil' that is maybe still fashionable.
The writing is critical but without rancor his observations always
diffused the observed through a sensibility which is simultaneously
gentle and rigorous, affectionate and skeptical.

But because his critique is delivered not in text alone but by
practicing alternatives it is able to show the particular power and
potential of Brazilian media activism. My encounter with this aspect
of Ricardo's work came from the piece which Brian Holmes describes
earlier in this thread. The Autolabs project in which he was part of a
team and a passionate advocate. Worked actively mentoring teen agers
in free media practice in the poor districts of Sao Paulo The power
of the Autolabs project is that embodied everything which the state
sponsored Telecenters claimed to be but in Ricardo's view were not.
I know he did many other things which have been identified by Lucas
Bambozzi and I am sure there is much more that will emerge but these
are my memories

While I stayed in Sao Paulo Ricardo (and others in the team) gave me
so much in terms of hospitality, warmth and education, changing the
way I saw many things.

As Ricardo is no longer here in person nettime (I hope he might agree)
is as good a place as anywhere to say goodbye.

David Garcia




#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net