Oxcars 2011

Barcelona much like Berlin has a personal & internal competition to become Europe’s sharealike cultural capital. The Freecultural movement is alive and year after year the Oxcars night reminds us of such need. Artists and performers from all areas of Spanish and international culture take part in a “Gala” with all kind of surprises, pooling their efforts to demand a stop to culture being treated as merchandise by royalty management organisations and cultural industry lobbies.

Internet criminalization, limiting access and sharing of digital media has certainly become a massive issue most governments don’t know how to deal with, and so it’s always good social movements like La Ex remind public institutions of their real responsibility with the final end user… protection not prosecution.

The Oxcars are defined as “The First Non-Competitive Awards in the History of Culture” drawing attention to the fact that applying competitive criteria to the cultural sphere distorts its very essence. By highlighting different aspects of artistic creation, the “Gala Ceremony” shows that culture exists thanks to all of these complementary approaches that exist side by side.

Presented by Agnés Mateus the 4th edition of the Oxcars will see an even richer program this year with some well known artists like Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia, Aleix Salo or some directors working at Al Jazeera (the BBC news competitor who much like their English counterpart release big part of their content under Creative Commons).

The List of participants is quite impressive (full details this way), and much like previous years the event is free and should be streamed live the night of October 27th. In case you happen to be around Barcelona drop by Sala Apolo, and make sure you’re punctual… and you don’t work on Friday as the event runs for many many hours.