Eddie Codel
area: Film
Key Facts
nationality
USAarea
Filmresidence
San Franciscorecommending institution
monochromtime period
November 2008 - November 2008Eddie Codel is a videographer, documentary filmmaker, technologist, political activist, open source evangelist, robot enthusiast and occasional conference organizer who strongly believes in the notion of empowering others through open information exchange. Codel currently resides in San Francisco where he makes online videos for political campaigns, blogs, Internet startups and produces Geek Entertainment TV, a weekly videoblog on passionate geeks. Codel was previously in Vienna & Graz in 2006 presenting on videoblogging, underground robotic art of San Francisco and zombies. Codel's video work includes the upcoming Big Sur Fire documentary, various productions for Geek Entertainment TV, Boing Boing TV, Digg, Revision3, io9, Current TV, Mahalo Daily, ChannelFlip, Nokia Productions, the San Francisco Chronicle and LunchMeet TV. Codel has presented at numerous conferences including SXSW Interactive & Film, SF Music Tech Summit, Northern Voice, Roboexotica, Pixelodeon, Netsquared, Webzine, Podcast Hotel and the Consumer Electronics Show. Codel co-founded and organized the Webzine conference series which began in 1998 in San Francisco. The mission of Webzine is to empower individuals and artists through storytelling and media creation on the Internet. Codel has been a member of the machine arts group SRL since 1999, is a guestblogger for cuture blog Laughing Squid and maintains his personal website and blog at eddie.com.
Project Description
SUMMARY
I will be creating a master survival and resource plan to be used in the event of a natural disaster, civil disturbance or other situation in which the role of government breaks down and commercial services cease to operate. BACKGROUND In the modern age, we have come comfortably accustomed to all the amenities a thriving post-industrial society enjoys. The food and drink we consume comes from many kilometers away, usually as the product of highly efficient, massive scale factory farm and processing system. News and information is at our literal fingertips as we only need a smart mobile phone to stay informed of global events. Our ability to communicate with family and loved ones anywhere around the world instantly is something we have to come to assume is the natural order with global telecommunication networks and the Internet.
What happens when this breaks down? What does one do when a natural disaster strikes and the roads to the next town are closed? What does one do when the telephone networks are overloaded and you can't call your wife or mother? What does one do when you have no idea what is happening, how long it will go on for and whether the essence of your survival is in question? These are all questions that have many answers and with a little forethought do not have to be daunting or scary. Sure, government and aid organizations will help out to the extent they can, but as recent history has shown, that is not something that can be relied upon for survival. My project aims to broadly collect, index and publish as much information that would help mitigate these questions BEFORE the answers are needed.
The project will be open source, live on a wiki and be specific to Vienna in it's humble beginnings. The intention is for the project to be a template that can be replicated and localized to any town or location around the world. Of course, each location will have different needs and requirements and that is to be expected. A plan specific for a large, modern, bustling European city will be different than one for a small rural African desert community. This project grows out of research I gathered during the production of my documentary film on the recent forest wildfires in Big Sur, California.
For a period of time, Big Sur was under a government mandatory evacuation order. Several local residents chose not to obey the order and had to find creative ways to help themselves and their neighbors survive during this tense period. The documentary film is still in production, with release expected sometime in early 2009.