REFF was born in Italy in 2008. Since then it continuously operated using fake, remix, reinvention, recontextualization, plagiarism and reenactment as tools for the systematic reinvention of reality.
Defining what is real is an act of power. Being able to reinvent reality is an act of freedom. REFF promotes the dissemination and reappropriation of all technologies, theories and practices that can be used to freely and autonomously reinvent reality.
To do this, REFF established an international competition on digital arts, a worldwide education program in which ubiquitous technologies are used to create additional layers of reality for critical practices and freedoms, a series of open source software platforms and an Augmented Reality Drug.
REFF collaborates with art organizations, student groups, research institutions and all other subjects wishing to promote the freedoms to reinvent their world. REFF has received several official recognitions worldwide: it was hosted in the Cultural Commission of the Italian Senate, and was an official initiative of the European Community's Year of Creativity in 2009.
REFF produced a book, a collaborative effort among FakePress, DeriveApprodi, Art is Open Source and 60 authors, academics, artists, hackers, journalists, lawyers, activists, designers, performers, architects.
The book describes through theory and practices the possibilities, technologies, methodologies and opportunity for critical reinvention of reality. Mutating cities, bodies, objects, spaces, ethics and relations for new humans that take their future and imaginaries back into their hands.
REFF book is not only a book, but also a platform for expression. All the technologies used throughout the book are released as open source software products, to be used by anyone wishing to easily and accessibly produce cross-media content that can be used on paper, on bodies, objects and spaces.
GET REFF BOOKREFF – Romaeuropa FakeFactory is an act of artistic and technological hacking, a platform for global discussion and a performance that, beginning in 2009, has dealt with the themes of active, critical and creative innovation, confronting the management of cultural and technological policies related to these areas. The story begins with the opening of the Romaeuropa WebFactory, a digital art competition launched in 2008 by the Romaeuropa Foundation (Fondazione Romaeuropa) and Telecom Italia. Oppressive copyright conditions, such as the unilateral transfer of the rights to the works submitted and a ban on the use of techniques like mashup, cutup, remix but conversely giving the Romaeuropa Foundation and Telecom Italia the right to remix the works, inspired the creation of a Fake capable of becoming a point for multi-disciplinary analysis of the possibilities offered by freely available knowledge, contents and resources: a chance to reverse the logic of the competition and bring to light the contradictions, limits and implications of such a typical, reactionary cultural policy.
“Remix the world! Reinvent Reality!” is one of the principal themes that has inspired the REFF, from an act of détournement and cybersquatting – that brought to life the creation of a remix skills competition determining in 2009 a reversal of the Romaeuropa Foundation and Telecom Italia’s policy on the management of intellectual property rights – to the presentation of REFF’s instances and methodologies to the Cultural Commission of the Italian Senate (Commissione Cultura del Senato della Repubblica Italiana), up to the current production of the REFF book, as a global effort to create a working business model that implements the concepts and demands expressed by the RomaEuropa FakeFactory. Supporters of the REFF are found all over the world: over 80 partners among universities, artists, academies, associations, hackers, researchers, designers, journalists, politicians, magazines, networks, activitst, art critics, architects, musicians and entrepreneurs together with all the people who share a belief that art, design and new technologies can unite towards a critical, yet positive vision of a world that can create new opportunities and new ways of being, collaborating and communicating.
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Book: REFF. The reinvention of the real through critical practices of remix…
REFF – un vero libro in realtà aumentata
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On ARBlog – Realtà Aumentata o Alterata? – La Droga AR targata REFF
