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Artists and creators around the world have been moved by the suffering of Haitians in the wake of last week’s earthquake. There are ways we can help, like giving to relief organizations to give them the capacity to respond wherever needed. The next crisis could be halfway across the world or in our own neighborhood.
The monome community is about more than just the button-grid, open-source controller with which they work. They’re an example of the kind of collective spirit that musicians, digital or otherwise, can share internationally (see the map of these artists below). And they’ve put together a really beautiful, Creative Commons-licensed compilation of music.
Artists (including one track from the co-creators of the monome, Kelli and Brian): einpuls, Visinin, The General, Pauk, Glimmertone, Watson, Math Rosen, Lokey, Island Dweller, Oldman Intel, Made By Robot, Auditory Canvas, I Am Genko, Raja The Resident Alien, Samuel and the Dragon, Damien Shingleton, Maersk, The Superorganism, Modulogeek+Shoemucker, Beatpoet, The B-Roll, Hypno|sapien, Kid_Sputnik, The Sweaty Caps, HenderSounds, Dat Niks Klank, Swimming, Kcain/Tehn.
Full album:
http://einpuls.bandcamp.com/
100% of the proceeds go to Médecins Sans Frontières; the 27-track is pay-what-you-wish for $1 or more, downloadable in high-quality MP3, FLAC, and other formats.
And that’s just one way to help; there are others.
From the monome compilation press release:
The monome user base is a collection of people from across the world, brought together via the innovative, open source music production hardware that is the monome, They pride themselves on a tight-knit, proactive, and helpful community (post.monome.org), where collaborations and projects are frequently happening, the outputs of which range from new software patches to share, to Creative Commons track and album collaborations.
When the community came up with the idea of a compilation album to generate charity donations in light of the terrible disaster in Haiti, einpuls started gathering tracks for the album and the monome community answered swiftly with more than 25 tracks being submitted in just a couple of days.
The community teamed up with Summer Rain Recordings to compile the compilation, with the end result being a 27 track album, each track contributed for free. The minimum price for the compilation has been set to $1 with no upper limit. Every penny helps, so please donate what you can.
View Monome Haiti 2010 in a larger map
Calls for the Red Cross, More
Ernst Nathorst-Böös, CEO of Propellerhead, noted that they were putting a call for the Red Cross into their newsletter:
…and he wondered what other members of the industry might be doing. Do let us know, as perhaps we can share ideas. (This is not an advertisement for Propellerhead; Ernst didn’t even ask me to publish this. I just like the way they did this, and personally find this an opportunity to run with the same idea.)
I’m going to use this as a reminder to do the same with the CDM newsletter, and also seek out ways we can generally devote some space to effective PSAs — not just those that you sometimes see by default from Google, but productive uses of our real estate. I couldn’t figure out whether there are official Red Cross badges to use, etc.; any ideas?
The Red Cross has a fantastic site that explains how you can give money:
http://www.redcross.org/en/givehere/
You can even walk into places like Starbucks and Walgreens and give there; see the full list. The other important thing about The Red Cross is their ability to plan resources for unexpected disasters worldwide. Haiti is a reminder of how fragile and unpredictable our world is.
The Red Cross does have to approve any fundraisers that use their name, though there is an application process and that doesn’t stop you from sending them money as you wish.
Other ideas for ways of proactively responding not only to this crisis, but others, as well? What are some of the tools we can use as a community to support the work these organizations do?