Simon Goldin writes:

Flack Attack on Autonomy

We invite you to contribute to Flack Attack, a new magazine coming out of The Port (http://www.theport.tv/), a community-driven space inside the online 3D world Second Life (http://secondlife.com/). The production process of Flack Attack will be continually featured on artport (http://artport.whitney.org/), the Whitney Museum's portal to Internet Art, as a gate page during the month of December 2005. Using The Port as a point of departure we are pursuing a series of investigations into the potential of networked public spheres and the organization of participatory production.PRODUCTION
The production model of Flack Attack magazine is based on the wiki concept and the workflow starts with the set-up of the wiki at http://www.flackattack.org.

==Theme
The theme of the first issue is "Flack Attack on Autonomy": Autonomy as a complex concept in any governed situation. What does it mean to be autonomous within predefined social codes? Does the notion of autonomy contradict a common language and shared references?

In the specific case of online worlds the challenge is readily illustrated by the fact that all interaction takes place inside someone else's programmed code. But the same basic dilemma can be applied to any institution we find ourselves in, be it a nation, a family or an economy.

Submissions
The wiki is open to all, and we encourage a wide range of contributions on the topic of autonomy: everything from the structural and analytical to the personal and anecdotal.

Contributions can take the form of
+articles
+comments
+images
+alterations / remixes of other contributions

Please submit your contributions between now and December19 at http://www.flackattack.org

==Editorial Meetings
An editorial office is being set up at The Port (inside the online world Second Life). Open meetings for discussing and editing the wiki contributions will be held at the office three times a week during December. All final decisions about the magazine and what will be included in the printed version will be made at the editorial meetings. The more you engage, the more you will be able to influence the outcome.

The editorial office will also function as design studio, community center, and place for further reflection.

The editorial meetings will take place every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday in December, starting on Thursday, December 1 (editorial offices will be closed on Sunday December 25). Meeting times will be as follows (depending on your time zone):

Tuesdays (December 6, 13, 20, 27):
1 AM West Coast USA
4 AM East Coast USA
9 AM UK
10 AM Central Europe
6 PM Japan

Thursdays (December 1, 8, 15, 22, 2):
5 PM West Coast USA
8 PM East Coast USA
Friday 1 AM UK
Friday 2 AM Central Europe
Friday 10 AM Japan

Sundays (December 4, 11, 18)
1 PM West Coast USA
4 PM East Coast USA
9 PM UK
10 PM Central Europe
Monday 6 AM Japan

==Directions
For those who will visit The Port and Second Life for the first time, please proceed as follows: Go to http://secondlife.com/ to get a free acount and a personal avatar (you need to give credit card details for security). Simply follow the instructions, download the customized software on your computer, and design your avatar. Allow yourself approx. 2 hours for this. Then click "Find" and search for "The Port" under "Places" (checking the "include mature areas" box). Click "Teleport" and you will arrive at The Port!

If you need help or have any questions when in Second Life, please send IM (Instant Message) to VoyeurOne Baron or Sorgaard Jacques.

The process of working with Flack Attack will be continually mediated through artport (http://artport.whitney.org/), the Whitney Museum's portal to Internet Art between 1 and 31 December.

PUBLICATION
By the end of December the first issue of Flack Attack will be published. We are planning to distribute it as PDF and print-on-demand via artport.
(In addition, free printed copies might be distributed through the bookstore of the Whitney Museum in New York).

Simon Goldin & Jakob Senneby
Initiators of The Port & Flack Attack

The Port: http://www.theport.tv/
Flack Attack: http://www.flackattack.org
Second Life: http://secondlife.com/
Artport: http://artport.whitney.org/"