The Medios Caminantes Network of 15 grassroots immigrant organizations in the U.S. and Mexico formed at AMC2010 to connect local organizing efforts through radio and other participatory media tactics.  Check out this short film about the Medios Caminantes track at AMC2010:

The Network's first action will be 12-hour radio broadcast in solidarity with nation-wide protests against the racist policies of the government of Arizona and the absence of a clear immigration policy at the federal level.

Tune in!

Thursday July 29, 2010

10am - 10pm (Central)
8am - 8pm (Pacific)

To listen, just open any of the following links with your music player. We recommend using VLC, which you can download by clicking here.

http://radio.indybay.org:8000/medioscaminantes.ogg
http://radio.indybay.org:8000/medioscaminantes.mp3
http://giss.tv:8000/amc-latina.ogg
http://gisst.tv:8000/amc-latina.mp3

Participate!

Each group during its transmission will advise listeners how to connect via chat to make comments and shout-outs. There will also be phone numbers where you can call.

More Info:
medioscaminantes@gmail.com
https://we.riseup.net/amc-latina

Spread the word!

Share the links above far and wide on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Crafting our story of what happened at this year's AMC is the first step towards planning for next year. Please contribute your experiences, insights and suggestions through the AMC2010 Reflections Survey.

Click here for an English version of the survey:

The 2011 Allied Media Conference will take place June 23-26 in Detroit, MI. Save the date! Spread the word! Email us and we will send you a stack of these hot little cards, conveniently sized to fit inside most pockets, to distribute around your town. 

The 12th Allied Media Conference is now history, and the ripple effects of new relationships, skills and strategies spread out in front of us.  The four days of AMC2010, June 17-20, brought together 1,500 folks from across North America and beyond to Detroit to share and innovate media strategies for social change.  Those media strategies were 2D and 3D, digital and non-digital, ancient and new. They were local and inter-galactic.  They were presented through 130 hands-on workshops, strategy sessions, tours of Detroit, presentations, and incredible performances and dance parties.  We uplifted the creativity of a sprawling network of people who are using media to transform themselves and the world.

–Ron Scott, co-founder of the Black Panther Party-Detroit Branch; chair of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality. Watch the full interview on Paper Tiger TV (VIDEO)

The conference began Thursday evening with the opening of "language. power. difference.", a solo exhibit at Re: View Gallery by Allied Media Projects graphic artist, Joe Namy. Using manipulated images, video and sounds from his beloved Detroit and his homeland of Lebanon, Namy told a story of life in two worlds, persisting amidst devastation. Attendees took home free prints of his gorgeous work. Radio Ríos, DJ Ren and Mikey Eyebrowz provided a soundtrack of classic soul and old school hip hop for the event.

  

Workshops kicked off bright and early Friday morning. We learned about investigative reporting and using media tools for LGBTQ youth organizing. We explored poster art for ending the prison industrial complex, learned how to make radical comics and learned the practice of collaborative mural design. 

photo credit: Youth in Action

Mobile Voices/Vóces Móviles (L.A.) shared the ground-breaking cell-phone journalism tool they use to organize in their community of day laborers. We learned how building wireless Internet mesh networks can strengthen neighborhoods, and how to play the dumbeck at the kid-friendly Arabic drumming class.

We explored the important differences between “disability rights” and “disability justice” and the role that independent media-makers can play in building an inter-dependent world for all bodies.

photo credit: Peace Is Possible

Kids were everywhere at the AMC, with a stellar crew of childcare volunteers and a Kids! track that included many intergenerational sessions. Check out the super cool youth performances from the “Puppet Uprising!” workshop (VIDEO).

The Friday evening Opening Ceremony welcomed visitors to the cultural and political landscape of Detroit with remarks by Ron Scott (VIDEO) and performances by Sterling Toles and the Katherine Dunham dance group, the PG Institute. 

AMC Program Director, Jenny Lee introduced the track structure of the conference:

Each track evolves in its own way out of a community's need for convening, creating and sharing space together.  Those spaces are transformative and healing and productive.  What makes the AMC beautiful is the intersection and the rubbing-up-against of all these tracks and communities, creating a whole that is even more complex and powerful than its parts. While each are beautifully unique, all share a common pattern of practice, that is reflected in the AMP Network Principles.

In the Opening Ceremony, we heard framing remarks from coordinators of six of the 14 AMC2010 tracks: The Art and Practice of Disability Justice, Creating Safe Communities, Media Policy for Social Justice, Radio Active: From the Streets to the Airwaves, Do-It-Yourself Technology, and Indigenous Media & Technology.  They shared the visions that inspired their tracks.  Listen to excerpts from the Opening Ceremony (AUDIO) courtesy of KPFA.

On Saturday, artists from the JustSeeds Artists' Cooperative taught an environmentally and kid-friendly technique for street art campaigns: mud stencils!

Multimedia spoken word duo Climbing Poetree reminded us that “art is our weapon, our medicine, our voice and our vision,” performing excerpts from their 50-city Hurricane Season tour.  We learned how Indigenous communities are adapting traditional communication practices for community organizing in form of the Southwest Indigenous Listening Forum. 

The Medios Caminantes: Medios Creando, Fronteras Derrumbando track convened organizers from Spanish-speaking communities in the U.S. for intensive hands-on media-production trainings and strategy sessions to advance immigrant rights organizing. Maegan La Mala blogged about her experience in the Medios Caminantes track at VivirLatino.com.

The always-popular Detroit graffiti tour was led by Detroit artist, Katie R. later that afternoon, making a stop at the epic North End mural, which Katie and youth from Vanguard CDC created last year. 

photo credit: Media Sanctuary

The Eco-Justice Media Making for Sustainable Communities track featured such ingenious sessions as "How to Create a Multi-media, Renewable Energy Demonstration Vehicle."

Detroit youth from the Student Conservation Association were inspired to use the video-making skills they learned at the AMC to document the environmental friendliness of the conference (VIDEO).

The room was filled wall-to-wall for workshops on how to build your own Drupal and Wordpress-based websites, led by Alicia and Melissa, the sisters behind Toronto-based Pixelpowrrr. 

photo credit: Diana J. Nucera

The "Open Source for Open Communities" panel discussion challenged assumptions about who is or can be a "techie" and discussed how open technology can create empowered, accessible communities. Read reflections from Nathaniel James of the Mozilla Foundation about the session.

The Media Policy for Social Justice track showed us how and why to participate in shaping media policies at the local and federal level. We learned how media policies impact the communication rights of people in prison and detention camps, how broadband access relates to struggles for healthcare and education, and how to build healthy local "digital ecologies." Chance Williams, in the newsletter of the Media and Democracy Coalition (PDF), reflected on his experience returning to D.C. after the AMC and continuing the fight for an open Internet: 

When I arrived back in Washington, I was confronted with the reality that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided to broker a backroom deal between Internet Service Providers like AT&T and content providers like Google on what rules for the Internet should be. There would be no input from the public interest community. Our ability to communicate and learn in the digital age would be decided by corporations. What does it mean when the purveyors of consumption and waste are at the table while those who work to protect of creativity and responsibility are pushed to the side? ...While I was at the AMC I saw the ways that communities can use technology to improve their lives and get a little closer to justice. We have to demand a seat at the table so the FCC can make rules that are informed by the people and communities they seek to protect.

The Creating Safe Communities track used the model of a “science fair” to present a "media-rich exhibition of resources and tools developed during our experiments to create safety and justice within our communities." Participants browsed each station, learning about the work of projects such as Challenging Male Supremacy, Durham Harm Free Zone, Communities United Against Violence, and others. 

The "M/others, Mamaz and Community Care-givers Unite Through Truth-Telling" workshop, which was part of the the INCITE! / To Tell You the Truth track, used a similar "Knowledge Fair" format to share media, practical skills and organizing models.  This session created a powerful space for participants to build community and honor their whole selves. 

The Allied Media Conference was one of the first outlets where I was able to explore the “Sierra” part of myself and merge it with “Mommy” in a surprisingly fluid way. This identity continuity happened on the second day of the conference, when I plugged myself into the “Radical Mamaz and M/others” group...It only took two hours with these awesome mothers for me to feel thoroughly inspired both by motherhood as a role, but also by motherhood as a communal force, with Mothers uniting to support, empower and encourage one another.
–Sierra Cameron, ImMEDIAte Justice

INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence is in the process of gathering reflections and report-backs from members of their network and will be posting them here.

The two-part "Community Mapping" workshop offered case studies of how communities can use online maps to challenge inequality, unearth buried histories, and document neighborhood culture.  One participant left asking how such tools can be used to intervene in sexual violence.

We learned how ex-offenders are using "guerrilla publishing" for economic self-determination. Author and activist Yusef Shakur took AMC participants on a tour of Detroit's Zone 8/Northwest Goldberg. He shared the story of his Urban Network bookstore and community center, exploring the community economics happening at the grassroots and the connected legacy of Motown Records, whose former headquarters is located in the same neighborhood. Watch a report from the tour from The Real News (VIDEO).

Organizers from fifteen groups from across the U.S. converged at the AMC through the Communication Strategies to End the Prison Indisutrial Complex track.  Through the track, they developed infrastructure that connects local media-based organizing efforts in a visible, powerful network. 

This track grew, in part, out of sessions at past AMCs about how media can be used to connect with people in prisons. Vikki Law, an independent publisher and prison activist, coordinated conference participants at AMC2009 to create a zine that shared the stories of the AMC with incarcerated people who could not attend. She then distributed copies of the zine, titled Using Media to Connect People Inside and Out (PDF), through books-to-prisoners programs and through the mailing list of the Tenacious: Art and Writings from Women in Prison newsletter. The distributed zines included a request for artisitic and written responses. These collected responses were compiled in Using Media to Connect People Inside and Out: Responses from People in Prison to the 2009 Zine, distributed at AMC2010.  Click on the image below to download a print-ready PDF of this second edition. Distribute freely!

The AMC2010 Media Lab buzzed with the magic of the electromagnetic spectrum all weekend-long.  People built mini radio transmitters, produced 1-minute radio stories (here’s a nice example of one [AUDIO]), built seven "super computers" from salvaged parts, made their own gender-inclusive video games, learned how to make electronic musical instruments and much more.

The We Are Ready Now (WARN) Radio Broadcast, a collaboration between Prometheus Radio Project, KBCS Community Radio and Radio Rootz, captured the voices and visions of dozens of AMC participants. Listen to the WARN hour-long broadcast recap (AUDIO).

photo credit: Diana J. Nucera

We honored late science fiction writer, Octavia Butler, whose work has deeply shaped the way we imagine, prepare for and work to shape the future. Adrienne Maree Brown hosted an "Octavia Butler Symposium," inviting critical discussion of Octavia’s work and its lessons for survival and transformation, with a focus on the Patternist series.  Read the comprehensive notes from the Symposium here.

On Sunday, Detroit musicians Invincible and Monica Blaire, and community business-owners DJ Sicari and Hubert Sawyers III, hosted a strategy session about creating a music-based economy in Detroit. Members of Local 782–a musicians union in San Antonio–were on hand to share their experiences.  Journalists Jonathan Cunningham and Tamara Warren shared insights on how the Detroit diaspora can leverage its talents to support creative community-based development from afar.

The Palestine Education Project, 7th Generation Indigenous Visionaries and SNAG Magazine hosted their 3rd annual Skype conversation between youth in Palestine and youth at the AMC. The conversation advanced their ongoing work of building solidarity across borders through Hip-Hop, art and media. The conversation led to plans for joint actions on Columbus Day to draw connections between colonization in Palestine and the U.S.  

During the AMC2010 Closing Ceremony we heard from 8 of the 14 conference tracks, reporting-back on media created and plans hatched throughout the weekend. These report-backs were delivered by the tracks Trans & Queer Youth Media, Eco-Justice Media Making for Sustainable Communities, Medios Caminantes, INCITE!/To Tell You the Truth, Communication Strategies for Ending the Prison Industrial Complex, Rad Art: 2D Images for 3D Movements, Pop Ed Power: Intergalactic Teaching & Learning for Liberation and the Kids! track. We loved seeing in these report-backs the youth leadership of the Trans & Queer track, the Eco-Justice track (VIDEO), the Rad Art track and the Pop Ed Power track.

We stood before many of the people we had interacted with, and many we didn’t. As we were on stage, looking toward the audience, we stood before our movement and we sang our song of strength and beauty, knowing we would soon have to say goodbye to each other for now.  But at the same time, we also said hello to the inspiration, work, hope, connections and accomplishments made at the AMC—and this is just the beginning.
–Rudy "Elegost" Rosado, Youth Leader, FIERCE

photo credit: FIERCE

Conference participants went home loaded with t-shirts, posters and other art that they bought in the AMC Exhibition Area or that they made themselves in the Mobile Silkscreen Lab. 

Many brought home zines and books from long-time AMC vendors such as AK Press and new enthusiasts such as Aorta Magazine.

As hard as we worked throughout the days on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we may have worked even harder at night–on the dance floor!  In one of their articles leading up to AMC2010, the Metro Times explained that “the AMC...[fuses] music and media — not just by encouraging bands to embrace technology and run with it, but by making sure there's awesome live music for conference attendees each night.”

On Friday night, we threw our annual Bowling & Karaoke party at The Majestic. This year we took the event a step further, throwing a rockin’ show in the adjacent Majestic Café. Midwest punk darlings Defiance, Ohio played an early set (VIDEO) that segued into a performance by one of Detroit's best rock bands, I, Crime, celebrating the release of their new LP. Then Brooklyn rock diva Tamar-kali took things to the next level with a bold hardcore soul performance.

As always, there was a raucous Karaoke session happening over in the Majestic Garden Bowl, featuring such liberatory anthems as Whitney Houston's “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.”

The theme of Saturday night's show at MOCAD was: AWESOMENESS! Performers from Chicago's Street Level Youth Media, Detroit Summer's Live Arts Media Project, Peoples Production House and the Palestine Education Project in New York opened up the night, along with Kiwi from the Oakland-based Native Guns. 

Flint, MI-based Stereoluxxx left locals and out-of-towners alike stunned with their utter fabulousness.

DJ Rimarkable vs. Durandy's Afro-Cuban house set and jessica Care moore's rock 'n' roll poetry set were equally stunning.

Then Miz Korona took the stage with a performance announcing the drop of her debut album The Injection. The show became a city-wide celebration, as the Detroit Hip-Hop scene and AMC participants packed out the MOCAD like it's never been packed before. Of the performance, the Metro Times reported:

Long-time Detroit rapper Miz Korona couldn’t have planned her album release party any better than this. ...Anybody who attended her performance this past Saturday night in conjunction with the Allied Media Conference would probably agree that the Museum of Contemporary Arts and Design (MOCAD) was the perfect setting on a perfect night for the queen of Detroit hip-hop to throw down. ...Every punchline hit with aplomb. There’s a reason people think she’s one of the best rappers in the city regardless of gender. Throughout her set you could see that look on faces of non-locals who were in town for AMC. The expression said:  “Dammnn, who the hell is this?”

Invincible, who helped curate the evening's line-up, came through with a special guest cameo, debuting her newest track, "Detroit Summer" (VIDEO). Underground Resistance DJ Mark Flash closed out the night, lighting the dance floor on fire in a grand finale to an epic night of music.

In a post-show interview, Korona explained why the night was so important to her (VIDEO).  The performances during the Saturday night show were enhanced by the turntablist skills of DJ Sicari, the crowd control of host Mz Jonz, the excellent event management of our partner FreshCorp, and the other-worldly custom stage design, coordinated by Wes Taylor (EMERGENCE) and his team of artists from Cranbrook Academy of Art. In their report-back on AMC2010, Fusicology wrote of the MOCAD event:

Even the audience at this party was just as entertaining as the talent on the bill – we even got down in the dance cypher like it was 1993 all over again, wanting more from DJs Sicari, Mark Flash and Rimarkable. To call this gig diverse and colorful would not even do this after-party at the MOCAD gallery justice. Packed with renewed energy and fresh faces, the former warehouse saw visitors experience Detroit legends they’d only heard about before and Detroiters reassured that there is life after death. 

We see the evening music events as equally important to the workshop content of the AMC. Music and politics journalist Davey D explored this intersections of independent music, new media and media policies in a series of interviews with AMC participants.  Here's an excerpt from his write-up for the Future of Music Coalition:

Many artists have come to understand that the industry has changed dramatically. There’s a sense that musicians and other creators have to step up their efforts and “do for self” when it comes to pursuing their craft. Yet it has been difficult for some to fully grasp that the end goal isn’t just to get airplay or TV time on a major outlet. Instead, the objective should be to forge stronger ties with a fanbase without the interference of middlemen. Here at AMC, I’ve attended workshops that described easy-to-follow and relatively inexpensive ways to set up your own broadcast station, publish and sell your own book, set up your own wireless network and the current angles regarding public access TV. In 2010, any artist not doing his/her own media and directly interacting with fans, is like someone who still rocks Cross Colours and 8 track tapes.

 Also Check out Davey D's...

• interview with Kiwi of Native Guns (VIDEO), who performed at the Saturday night Music Showcase
• interview with journalist Jonathan Cunningham (VIDEO)
• interview with artist Tamar-kali (VIDEO)
• interview with Malkia Cyril of the Center for Media Justice (VIDEO)
• interview with DeAnne Cuellar and George Garza of San Antonio Local 782 (VIDEO)
• blog post about the relationships between fanzines and electronic books, reflecting on the workshop "Electronic Books: Creating Your Own and Preparing for a Paperless Society"

With the U.S. Social Forum happening in Detroit two days after the AMC, people seized the opportunity to build “bridge” projects that spanned the 10 days of the AMC and USSF, making us wonder if the AMC should always be 10 days long!

These “bridge projects” grew out of the workshop tracks of the AMC.  The "Hot Mesh" workshop of the DIY Technology track led to the construction of a 6-node community wireless network in Detroit's North Corktown neighborhood by the end of the USSF.   Detroit Summer's Live Arts Media Project (LAMP), as part of the AMC’s Rad Art track, pulled-off one of their most ambitious and innovative youth leadership programs ever, resulting in street art all over the city that tells the story that “Another Detroit is Happening.” Read the Detroit Free Press article about the LAMP project and watch the Democracy Now! Interview (VIDEO) with coordinator Jon Blount. Prometheus Radio Project, with the Radio Active track, broadcasted live throughout the entirety of the AMC , then went on to cover the USSF out of the forum's Peoples Media Lab.

This year the Art and Practice of Disability Justice track demonstrated how the kinds of spaces we create when we come together are just as important as what we do in those spaces. Leading up to the AMC, a group of organizers from the track developed a vision of collective access: "We envision a community-built-and-led collective access network of crips and our comrades! We want to help create access in ways that also build community, care, crip solidarity, solidarity with non-disabled comrades and is led by crips!” They spent the 10 days of AMC and USSF living together in the Wayne State dorms, putting that vision into practice.

photo credit: Quirky Black Girl Photography

In a blog post, Phoenix and Tree reflected on the community we are building through the AMC: "Being at the Allied Media Conference filled me with such hope, with the knowledge that we can and are building another world because I saw it happen. I saw amazing fierce beautiful people come together across the differences the system tries to use to separate us and instead we built a space of love and radical possibility and deep dreaming and shared joy and power."

Every year we get better at sustaining the conference's connections and community throughout the year, through the collaborative projects that grow out of each AMC. 

COMING SOON: the call for AMC2011 track proposals AND updates about the emerging year-round organizing initiaitive, the Allied365 Training & Exchange Bureau. 

If you have media created during the AMC or other documentation, please send us links to it!

Help us plan for AMC2011 by completing the AMC2010 Reflections Survey.

A scrappy team of community radio journalists and Allied Media Conference participants has produced an hour-long program of selected interviews and features from the annual AMC in Detroit, Michigan.

You'll hear about the latest innovations and new ideas from popular educators, community organizers, media makers and more.  Over the past twelve years, AMC participants have evolved the idea of media and the role it can play in our lives from communicating solidarity to creating justice. 

In the program you'll hear from Ron Scott with the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality about community transformation and healing. Listen to clips from the radio broadcast streamed live from the AMC Media Lab, where participants interviewed each other about how they are organizing in their communities. We’ hear from a poetry team traveling around the country, melding sustainability with spoken word. Hear from a group focusing on an often overlooked segment of the activist community, moms.   

56k mp3.  59:00. Music breaks at 21:58 and 46:25, both are 1 minute in length.

This program was produced in three different venues across the city of Detroit as a collaboration between the Prometheus Radio project, Community Radio KBCS in Bellevue/Seattle, and Allied Media Projects.

We present below all presenter bios for the 12th annual Allied Media Conference. We have a massive number of presenters for this year's conference. You'll find all these presenter bios in the online PDF version of the AMC2010 program, but for our print edition, we unfortunately could not fit all of these.

2009 Indigenous Youth Delegation to Palestine

PALESTINE IS TURTLE ISLAND: INDIGENOUS MEDIA ORGANIZING TO END OCCUPATION / WE HEAR YOU! A LIVE VIDEO CONFERENCE WITH YOUTH IN PALESTINE
In August of 2009, SNAG Magazine, 7th Generation Indigenous Visionaries, Huaxtec, Palestine Education Project, and MECA joined a network of youth organizations in Palestine for the first Indigenous Youth Delegation to Palestine. We recognize the connections between the indigenous communities in the United States and the Palestinian community: both the corporations and governments that have oppressed us and the strategies of resistance that we've used to fight back. Committed to creating solidarity networks across the borders/walls that divide us, we have been connecting Native and immigrant youth in the U.S with youth in Palestine through different media-based forums for us to reflect together and bridge our experiences. Basic introduction to the history of indigenous struggle in the U.S./Turtle Island and looking at what it looks like now – including solidarity with other indigenous struggles such as Palestine.

Adrienne Maree Brown

OCTAVIA BUTLER STRATEGY SYMPOSIUM
AMC 2010 OPENING CEREMONY Adrienne Maree Brown is the Executive Director of the Ruckus Society, a national coordinator of the US Social Forum, and a board member of Allied Media Projects and Common Fire. She's into transformation and science fiction.

Detroit Digital Justice Coalition and MOCAD present "DiscoTech: Discovering Technology"

Click the image below to download the full PDF program of the 12th Allied Media Conference. Printed versions of the 116-page program are free to all registered conference participants.

We throw incredible events every evening of the AMC. Here's whats on deck for 2010:

• JUNE 17: Joe Namy - language. power. difference. @ Re:View Contemporary
• JUNE 18: AMC2010 Bowling/Karaoke Party with performers Tamar-kali, Defiance, OH, I, Crime, and more TBA @ The Majestic
• JUNE 19: AMC2010 Music Event featuring Miz Korona (release event for The Injection LP), Mark Flash (Underground Resistance), jessica Care moore, DJ Rimarkable vs. Durandy, Stereoluxxx @ MOCAD
• JUNE 20: ALLIED MANIA: AMC2010 After-Party @ Cass Cafe

SEE ALSO: schedule overview | workshop tracks.

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Building Blocks of Music Production and Beatmaking (Kid Friendly)

Presenters: Lisa Lust, Bobbie Harris, Tristan Tucker & Christopher Lee, Street Level Youth Media
Are you interested in expressing yourself through music but confused about the different types of production tools available or even how to begin?  Come join Street-Level Youth Media in a workshop that will get you into a music-making frame of mind quickly—whether you’re looking to create music through a beat machine, production software, or your voice.  This session will cover various hardware, software, and writing techniques that are used in music and audio production, as well as concepts that are transferable to other creative platforms.  We will provide hardware and software demonstrations of Ableton Live, GarageBand, and the MPC 2000xl.  By the end of the session, you will see the bigger picture involved in the creative process and no longer be intimidated by the emerging technologies used in music production.  Finish off your projects on Sunday in the Music Production and Beat Making Meet-up!

Cultivating Our Digital Ecology: From a Community Vision to a Broadband Plan

Presenters: Juliet Fink, Ed.M, Philadelphia FIGHT; Danielle Chynoweth, Prometheus Radio Project; Lottie Spady, East Michigan Environmental Action Council; Denise Wellons-Glover, the Family Place
Moderator: Hannah Sassaman, Allied Media Projects
TRACK: Media Policy for Social Justice
Following a strategy session at AMC2009, a number of AMC participants helped form broad coalitions in their communities to apply for federal funding to expand the Internet. Some have already received grants and are beginning to implement their vision. In this session, we will draw on those experiences to examine how we develop community-led visions for large-scale projects and turn those visions into workable plans. From our experience working around Internet policy and infrastructure, we will share the general lessons we've learned about community coalitions. We will discuss how to use grant opportunities as organizing opportunities that have an impact whether or not you are awarded. We will discuss when it make sense to pursue grants, and when you can take direct, immediate action to implement your vision with the resources you already have.

Comics: How to Make 'em (Kids Only)

Presenter: Josh Sanchez
TRACK: Kids!
This session is not just for "artists."  Anyone can make comics! Comic books and comic strips are everywhere theses days and are a perfect way to tell a story, maybe even your own story. What are comics? Why do people like them? How can I make my own? Come learn about some of the different styles of comics and find out the many ways people create them. Then try your ideas out and draw one.  No artistic skills necessary. Even if you can't draw a stick figure, you can draw a comic.

Kids Club Meet-up (Kids Only)

TRACK: Kids!
Do you want to hang out with other kids (ages 9 - 13) during the AMC?  Kids Club will be a space for everyone who is waaay too old for childcare, but not quite a high schooler.  We will go to workshops together, make art, play kick ball and 4-square, and work on Kids newspaper together throughout the weekend.  Meet-up with us in Room A each day to join the club.

Seed Bombs as a Form of Media (Kids Only)

Presenter: Kibibi Blount-Dorn
TRACK: Kids!
Create explosive seed and soil capsules for hassle-free germination in abandoned lots, road mediums, or any hard-to-reach nooks. Reduce blight, heal the earth and transform your natural media landscape with this fun and simple way to cultivate wildflowers in your city.

Let's Draw! With the Beehive (Kids Only)

Presenters: The Beehive Collective
TRACK: Kids!
The session will begin with an informal question and answer period with one of the large-scale banners laid on the floor for children to walk on and investigate. After discussing ways to tell stories with pictures, the children will engage in a collaborative drawing session drawing on one piece of paper together with various mediums. The drawing with attempt to answer the question "What is the USA?". This open ended question will allow children to use their imaginations to investigate what exactly the USA is. Is it a person? Is it a food? It is a kind of music? Is it a place? How many places are there within the USA? What do they look like? Which ones do you call home? The drawing will then go on display during the USSF the following week.

Arabic Drumming (Kid Friendly)

Presenter: Joe Namy
TRACK: Kids!
Learn dumbeck (hour-glass shaped Arabic drum) techniques and rhythms from across the Middle East.  Ages 5-adult. 

Build a Mini Radio Transmitter

Presenter: Maggie Avener, Prometheus Radio Project
TRACK: Radio Active: From the Streets to the Airwaves
Building a radio transmitter is a great way to learn about basic electronics and radio waves. In this session, we'll talk about some of the theory behind radio transmission and build our own circuit boards to turn into transmitters later on. No radio or electronics background is needed! This is an introduction to building a mini radio transmitter , so plan on coming back for 2-3 hours later in the weekend to finish your transmitter.

Game Design Meet-Up (Kid Friendly)

TRACK: Do-It-Yourself Technology
This will be a creative station where participants can work on games they started in earlier sessions or pick-up additional advanced game-design skills.  

Open Internet Meet-Up

Join Mozilla in a media lab meet-up to put the walk in the talk. Help build classes for the Peer 2 Peer University, a Mozilla Drumbeat project. In this meet-up participants will design an open technology class together for the community of AMC participants.