A specter is haunting the media world – the specter of the freedom of content. All the powers of content production and distribution have entered into a holy alliance to exorcize this specter drawing legitimacy from Romanticism and monopolistic Commercialism in the West and the North, and from Ideology and pretension of ultimate Truth in the East and the South: publishing houses, movies producers, autocratic regimes and all the others for which freedom is anathema. Meanwhile many authors have fallen into the traps of corruption and fear and have taken the side of their oppressors.

But the tyrants have no chance. The middle ground between content creation and content consumption vanishes, left behind by new technology moving ahead at a speed beyond that of light. The new power of connectivity is sweeping away all monopolists. A new parallel universe is unstoppably emerging in which content creators and content consumers can deal directly with each other. As the old world crumbles the middlemen find themselves walking on quicksand.

No longer is access to distribution restricted. No longer can content remain hidden. No longer can censorship be enforced. This new media universe calls for new concepts. Copyright must be reinvented. Literature must find its place, learning to leverage the new technology, no longer leaving it to the masters of trash.

We call authors and readers from all continents and cultures to engage in a revolutionary experiment at the occasion of the 2012 Frankfurt Book Fair. The 2012 Poiesipedia.com booth will be dedicated to the theme of “collaborative creativity: the future of writing and publishing in the digital age”. We will show how easily accessible new technologies can be bundled into a novel platform that allows authors and readers to directly connect with each other.

Authors will be able to write and publish, individually or in groups, electronically or physically, and to price their content as they whish. Readers will be able to choose content, and selectively assemble the books they want to own, and pay on demand. At the booth authors and readers will additionally be able to interact either physically, or virtually via Skype.

We have chosen the theme of “Literary Cities” as the field on which to experiment. We call for authors to join and contribute by writing pieces about cities, imaginary or real, past, present or future, utopian or dystopian. The intervention shall take place between Aug. 1st and the end of the Book Fair on Oct. 12th. The results of the intervention shall be published using the Poiesipedia.com platform. Authors shall be retributed in proportion of their contribution and actual sales.

Authors and readers of the world, unite!