OpenMute:About

From OpenMute

OpenMute is a web resource project aiming to support cultural practice in the information age. Through the provision of server space, tools, practical guidance and critical contextualisation, we seek to develop open and collaborative ways of working, and contribute to the kind of public knowledge architectures that will serve practitioners' needs over the long term.

Why We Do It

Cultural communities have often been stymied in their efforts to build links with technical communities due to a basic skills-gap and problems of translation (technical and cultural languages being deemed incompatible). As a host of powerful, free online tools became available, individuals and groups without the relevant technical skills are often unable to independently engage with them. Having come from a cultural background, Mute sought to share with other cultural practitioners the experience it acquired automating Mute magazine's web publishing activity and familiarising itself with open source web tools.

Learning by doing

In its development of a sustainable economic model and decision making structure, above all OpenMute seeks to acknowledge and learn from the diversity of contexts its users are working within, and to build its efforts on a collaboration between beneficiaries, rather than the classical customer-provider relationship.