The Big #rp Review: republica 2010 – NOWHERE
We continue our journey back through time! Our big re:publica retrospective goes into its fourth round. Enter the year 2010, NOWHERE and... Bohemian Rhapsody!
In our last episodes we looked back at the following incarnation with its THE CRITICAL MASS motto, and began this year with a look back at the re:publica 2009, which saw the event being hosted at three different venues for the first time.
Today it’s all about 2010, the year where 2700 attendees made our conference the biggest event of its kind in Germany for the first time ever! The NOWHERE motto was an allusion to the real-time web. That year, the re:publica found a home in the Kalkscheune, the Friedrichstadtpalast and the Quatsch Comedy Club. From April 14th to 16th, participants gathered to watch and listen to 120 presentations and lectures, workshops, panel discussions and events, with an overall program running time of 50 hours spread over eight stages. Our international attendance also continued to grow steadily, with speakers from 30 different countries featured on stage and at the podiums.
The thematic diversity was growing as well. This was highlighted by the re:learn and re:campaign subconferences, or the “Hacks4Democracy – A hackday on opendata”, a two-day event held in the style of a BarCamp. The speakers tackled a similarly diverse range of topics. Peter Kruse, who sadly passed away last year, focused on the question of "How networks are revolutionizing the economy and society". Melissa Gira Grant established the relationship between "Sex and the Internet". Evgeny Morozov analyzed the potential of the Twitter revolutions and Miriam Meckel took on the change in human communication as affected through social networks. Just as it had done in the past, the re:publica anticipated many of today’s pressing issues, with Tim Wu giving his lecture on net neutrality.
Of course, there was always room for fun and jokes, like when the Twitkritik team did their Twitter reading. Thomas Wiegold took to Twitter recently and reminded us about the big lanyard question at the re:publica 2010 (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkthjXFKs6k). One of the highlights was the now legendary failed Skype broadcast with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone that Johnny managed to turn into a spontaneous Karaoke session. His dream of singing Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” with over a thousand people has now repeatedly come true over the years. That’s because, since 2010, we’ve closed out every re:publica with a mass rendition of the classic.
The re:publica 2010 website is still online, of course, as is the program. Our YouTube channel features a special playlist for the re:publica 2010, with a total of 60 videos from the conference.
There’s also a Flickr group and a special Flickr album. Take a look and have a little stroll down memory lane.
That was it for today’s look back at the re:publica 2010, maybe it inspired you? We’re still interested in your input for the next editions: What were your highlights from the past years? Which talks and sessions have stuck with you over the years? What are some of the gadgets, people and stories that you particularly like to think back on?
Get in touch! Use the #rpRevue hashtag on Twitter and the corresponding hashtag for the respective re:publica (#rp11, #rp12 etc.). You can also always send us a mail at redaction@re-publica.de. We’re looking forward to your submissions!
Graphic Recording by Anna Lena Schiller; photo by re:publica / Daniel Seiffert (CC BY 2.0)
Photo credit: with kind permission by Beate Firlinger: "mind map" (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Photocredit: with kind permission by bosh_hh: "Twitter – Das Leben in 140 Zeichen" (©)
Cover photo (on top) with kid permission by Mario Sixtus: "Miriam Meckel" (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)