Sharism

Sharism is a philosophy on sharing content and ideas, developed by Isaac Mao. Inspired by user-generated content, sharism states that the act of sharing something within a community produces a proper value for each of its participants: "the more you share, the more you receive".[1] As knowledge is produced through crowdsourcing, this new kind of shared ownership leads to the production of goods and services where value is distributed through the contributions of everyone involved.

Get It Louder Sharism exhibition in Shanghai

History

Sharism was coined by Isaac Mao in the essay "Sharism: A Mind Revolution" which was originally published in the book Freesouls.[2] Mao draws a comparison between the open distribution model of online information sharing and the neurological networks of the human brain.[3] Following the analogy of an emerging Social Brain, Mao argues that the process of empowering people through sharing leads to collective ways of rethinking social relationships.

Sharism has been particularly focused in China in order to promote the Open Web and combat Internet censorship.[4] Notable proponents of sharism as both a term and practice have included Larry Lessig and Ou Ning. In 2010 during a Creative Commons lecture in Beijing, Lessig mentioned sharism in the context of openness and innovation in creative industries and intellectual property law in China.[5] Also in 2010, Ou in his role as a curator choose sharism as the unifying theme for the Shanghai biennale exhibition "Get It Louder".[6][7][8] In an interview about the exhibition, Ou discussed sharism at length and described it as an "Internet concept" that explores the increasingly convoluted relationship between public and private realms."[9]

Sharism Lab was created in 2012 with the purpose of providing experimental and theoretical background for a real-world implementation of sharism.[10]

Events and by-products

Several types of sharism events have been created for people to meet and share things they like or things they make. Sharism Forum was held in October 2010 at the Get It Louder festival in Shanghai, and gathered international speakers, practitioners and activists to discuss the idea of sharism.

Another event called "Sharism Presents" offers an informal setup for people to share whatever they want with the attending audience. Since 2010, Sharism Presents have been hosted in many cities throughout the world, included: Amsterdam, Shanghai, Beijing, Madrid, Barcelona, Brussels, Berlin, Montreal, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seoul.

Sharism Workshops provide a framework for collective production through the act of sharing. Workshops have been held in Beijing, Doha and Warsaw and have included musicians, digital artists, and designers.

In order to offer an easy way to share any kind of work online, the Sharing Agreement has been created in order to work around the increasing complexity of licenses.

Criticism

Many academics point to the downsides of such uncritical belief in the transformative power of technology. User generated content has been reframed as "Loser Generated Content", as the value of this sharing often ends up with companies, and not in the public domain.[11] Within the art world, it has been suggested that there are "dangers of 'sharism", which "lead people to believe that whatever is contemporary must also be avantgarde."[12]

gollark: It's hardly going to be worse than use of Lua.
gollark: …?
gollark: Well, there goes my evil plan to use amulet for a project.
gollark: Amulet question: is there some easy way to, say, decode JSON? I know libraries for it exist but can you wrap them easily and safely?
gollark: Oh, *that*.

See also

References
  1. Philips, Jon (October 12, 2010). "Sharism: The more you share, the more you receive". Slideshare. Retrieved May 28, 2012.
  2. "Sharism: A Mind Revolution".
  3. Ito, Joi; Mao, Isaac & Adams, Christopher (ed.) (December 12, 2008) [1st. Pub. 2008]. "Chapter 8: Sharism: A Mind Revolution". Freesouls Captured and Released by Joi Ito. Freesouls.cc. pp. 115–118. ISBN 978-0982029114.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  4. "We Share. We Do Not Censor". Retrieved May 24, 2012.
  5. Lessig, Larry (November 14, 2010). Openness and Innovation - 开放与创新 (Speech). Renmin University of China Law School, Intellectual Property Institute. Renmin University of China, Beijing. Archived from the original on February 22, 2014. See also "Archived copy". Archived from the original on February 22, 2014. Retrieved May 21, 2012.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link), "Archived copy". Archived from the original on February 9, 2014. Retrieved May 21, 2012.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link).
  6. "Get It Louder: Sharism Forum Introduction". Retrieved October 22, 2012.
  7. ""Get It Louder" Exhibition Blasts Beijing and Shanghai with Contemporary Art". Retrieved September 19, 2012.
  8. "Get It Louder: China's Most Influential and Closely-Watched Exhibition of Emerging, Young Talent". Retrieved May 24, 2012.
  9. "Ou Ning on Get it Louder – new voice in China's visual arts scene". Retrieved May 24, 2012.
  10. Sharism Lab Archived May 29, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  11. Loser Generated Content: from participation to exploitation
  12. Interpreting Theory: Two Models For Importation
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