Weisner hypothesized that, “to understand invisibility the humanities and social sciences are especially valuable, because they specialize in exposing the otherwise invisible.” Technology activists, like those at the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), understand this power of technology as well. Largely constituted by technical members, both organizations, like humanists studying technology, have struggled to communicate their messages to a less technologically savvy public. Before one can argue for the importance of individual control over who owns technology, as both FSF and EFF do, an audience must first appreciate the power and effect that their technology and its designers have. To understand the power that technology has on its users, users must first see the technology in question. Most users do not. Both the EFF and the FSF have struggled in their appeals to technology users who are not also technologists and developers — the communities both organizations are explicitly dedicated to serve. Errors are underappreciated and underutilized in their ability to reveal technology around us. By painting a picture of how certain technologies facilitate certain mistakes, one can better show how technology mediates. By revealing errors, scholars and activists can reveal previously invisible technologies and their effects more generally. Errors can reveal technologies and their power and can do so in ways that users of technologies confront daily and understand intimately. Benjamin Mako Hill, Revealing Errors in: Error: Glitch, Noise, and Jam in New Media Cultures (2011) Alex Hache We don't value tech work, like in food: Marga Padilla: Alors pourquoi les gens ne s’organisent pas pour avoir leurs fournisseurs technologiques, en achetant directement le support technologique nécessaire à leur vie, tout comme ils achèteraient leurs carottes ? L’essayiste féministe Jo Freeman a élaboré des théories sur cette “tyrannie de l’absence de structures” en expliquant que ce soi-disant vide vient souvent accompagné d’un “leadership informel, non reconnu et inexplicable qui est pernicieux, car sa propre existence lui a été niée.” Il est donc important de prendre conscience des rôles et des tâches exercées par les participants du projet, et voir la façon dont ces derniers s’auto-responsabilisent. Le terme technopolitique signale la nécessité d’un équilibre entre les connaissances sociales et politiques, la programmation, l’administration, la divulgation et la création de synergies N-1. Un collectif technopolitique qui valorise le travail et les contributions de toutes les parties, et qui est conscient des relations de pouvoir qui le traversent, a possiblement plus de chance de perdurer. From washing the dishes to cleaning the toilets: Concernant l’application de principes anarchistes dans des projets technopolitiques, nous pouvons penser, d’une part, que la liberté individuelle de chacune de nous est plus importante que tout le reste, que chacune devrait faire seulement ce qu’elle souhaite en laissant le collectif suivre un développement organique. D’autre part, les anarchistes du domaine social pensent que la liberté individuelle ne s’acquiert que si nous sommes toutes plus libres, et cherche à créer des communautés (physiques ou cyber) où l’on pense et où l’on auto-organise l’effort entre toutes pour atteindre cette autonomie et cette liberté. Ce second modèle exige d’établir des canaux pour l’auto-organisation et de reconnaître que si personne n’aime nettoyer les toilettes, il faudra bien trouver un moyen de le faire entre toutes. SpiderAlex: Do what you say and say what you do R E S E T T H E N E T Where are we? The Resetthenet campaign is developed by Fight for the Future: Fight for the Future is dedicated to expanding the Internet's transformative power for good. Our goal: to build a grassroots movement to ensure that everyone can access the Internet’s many resources affordably, free of interference or censorship and with full privacy. Our vision: a world where everyone can enjoy the basic freedom to express, create and connect online. It is not mentioned anywhere (not even in their Who We Are https://www.fightforthefuture.org/aboutus/index.html ) that Fight for the Future is US-based. Their 'issues' reveal a certain pre-occupation: *Copyright and patent laws are outdated and overzealous. They hurt artists and innovation, shifting control of our art, media, and ideas to large corporations. *Slow speed and limited access: Lack of competition in the U.S. broadband market has resulted in an Internet system that is among the slowest, most expensive and least available among developed nations. *Tracking and Spying: People can’t express themselves freely online when they feel like they are being watched. In an extreme form, government and corporate surveillance can lead to political repression. Under What others are saying we find three people mentioned: Edward Snowden (US), Jennifer Granick (US) and Bruce Schneier (US). All 40 supporting organisations are US-based. No translations of the campaign are offered, no invitation to translate is being made. Who takes back from who For the campaign, several commercial services are employed: Github, tumblr, Youtube. There's a #ResetTheNet Twitter brigade and a Facebook cover image. The Privacy Pack is available from google play + app store. Throughout the website: Share on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Google+ Site does not use Google Analytics, but Piwik. Design choices seem deliberately 'neutral' and indistinguishable from corporate designs. Tasteful blue and white, state of the art fluid webdesign, lots of javascript. Fonts are served through Adobe's proprietary Typekit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typekit On first page: Don't ask for your privacy. Take it back. "Mass surveillance is illegitimate. I'm taking steps to take my freedoms back and I expect governments and corporations to follow in my footsteps and take steps to stop all mass government surveillance." After you sign, protect yourself here. Interesting emphasis on government surveillance by omission of corporations in second phrase. Unclear which government, what corporations, in what context mass surveillance is seen as illegitimate. From the campaign video: *Governments are building fences (What governments? What happened to corporations?) *Mistakes we can fix (Is it our fault/responsibility? Is it 'us' against 'them' (the government) *"Turn off government spying, turn on freedom" *NSA resistant features?! *Safe = Open = Free Privacy is The Solution Not the Net but Privacy is lost, and needs to be taken back. Hence after you signed the pledge (why not 'petition'?) you are invited to go straight to the Pack. Maybe not Privacy but encryption is the solution? Not all tools offered are based on encryption Packaging privacy The Privacy Pack: It's logo retakes the universalist fluid webdesign image one step further: whatever your device (read: context), the net should be equally taken back. Compare https://pack.resetthenet.org/ to https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fluid%20web%20design ... but is it a pack? Of course not. It is actually a bunch of tools developed in/for different contexts but presented with a similarly styled logo, and text. In that way, the pidgin bird blends well with the onion, and some cryptocat 'fun'. The part that is presented first and looks most 'pack like' comprises of four apps for smartphones, available on google play + app store. To find more about criteria, I am sent to a tumblr page that is designed to look the same as the mainsite http://resetthenet.tumblr.com/post/84331967485/the-privacy-pack At the bottom of the page: If you have any thoughts on how to improve the privacy pack, be in touch. (Though be aware that we don’t have a lot of flexibility here. We need tools that a broad community of experts can get behind.) Imagined users, that's how we win On the home page of Resetthenet, users are never explicitly mentioned. Video uses stick figures, turning globes and 'we'. * Under How to #ResetTheNet: The solution we find: We can't stop targeted attacks, but we *can* stop mass surveillance, by building proven security into the everyday Internet. In lists of options for various operating systems, routine distinctions are being made between tools for 'savvy', tech savvy and non-descript users but no distinction between what type of situation or political reality a user might be in. On the tumblr page (seems to be written/edited before actual campaign happened), the universalism of the Privacy Pack is made explicit: The Reset the Net privacy pack will be a selection of software and tips tailored to common computers, phones, and tablets that literally anyone can use. Our goal is to accommodate literally everyone, and offer bonus tools and instructions for more technical users. Since the tools will be pretty much universal, it should be easy for people to share the privacy packs with friends. Interesting connection between the universalism of the tool, and the ability to share. Later on, a distinction between levels of sophistication: as a bonus for more sophisticated users as a bonus for sophisticated users or those with anonymity needs Under the header Important notes a disclaimer halfheartedly evokes an imaginary user that may be 'the specific target of surveillance' but excuses the inclusion of not-so-safe tools with the remark that they are unusually easy to use. Who are those 'auditors looking at the code' by the way? It also repeats a phrase used on Cryptocat site that you should never trust any piece of software with your life, which is a tough thing to say to those experiencing surveillance based violence. Your infrastructure might kill you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-qU6_Q_GCc Important notes Re: Pidgin and Adium, if you believe you may be the specific target of surveillance, these aren't the tools for you. Pidgin has had a large number of remotely exploitable vulnerabilites recently, and auditors looking at the code believe there are likely to be many more. Still, these tools are effective against passive mass surveillance, and they're unusually easy to use. Cryptocat is not a magic bullet. Even though Cryptocat provides useful encryption, you should never trust any piece of software with your life, and Cryptocat is no exception. Cryptocat does not mask your IP address or hide your identity, and, like all software, cannot fully protect against a targeted attack on your person or electronics. On homepage, under What others are saying, Bruce Schneier is quoted, saying: "The NSA and others do mass surveillance because it's easier than targeting. Initiatives like Reset the Net force governments into targeted surveillance. That's how we win." Deduction: Subject has a smartphone, lives in the US, speaks English and is not subject to targeted surveillance. (HAHAHAHAHAHA) ======================================================== Seems interesting to look at attempts to 'make tools for activists' rather than looking at specific tools. Project needs to be in EN or FR; necessary to have (at least) one in Spanish, Turkish or Arab. *https://guardianproject.info/ *https://tacticaltech.org/security-box or https://tacticaltech.org/gender-tech-institute *https://techtoolsforactivism.org/ *... Just ask and that will be that How to imagine a form of technological development beyond 'solving needs' of users? What does it mean to develop an imagination of what someone else might need, is capable of? How to create more interesting forms of dialogue between user needs and tech developers? (SEDA: I THINK THESE ARE POWERFUL QUESTIONS AND IT WILL BE INTERESTING TO DISCUSS HOW AND WHERE WE CAN ADDRESS THEM IN OUR PAPER!) I would like to look at existing efforts within F/LOSS communities that try to respond to needs of activists; how do these platforms actually make a dialogue, conversation possible and how the kinds of technologies resulting from those situations might be different. *Tactical tech collective https://www.tacticaltech.org/ *Liberation tech http://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/libtech/ *http://kune.cc/ *Constant + Libre Graphics (?) *Transhackfeminism! *EFF *Backbone 404 *... Where and when is 'user input' located, expected (and where not) From bug report (after the fact) to thinking together about what technology is needed How is a language between user and developer communities being developed Might be interesting to look at related, but different existing strategies of (FLOSS?) orgs to diversify community, or to be more inclusive. Specific targeted campaigns (ie: involve 'women', 'minorities'). This is not necessarily the same as bridging user-developer divide, as it mostly means: involving 'users' so they eventually become 'developers', or 'contributors'. Olia Lialina: Turing Complete User http://contemporary-home-computing.org/turing-complete-user/ In “As we may think”, while describing an ideal instrument that would augment the scientist of the future, Vanevar Bush mentions: For mature thought there is no mechanical substitute. But creative thought and essentially repetitive thought are very different things. For the latter there are, and may be, powerful mechanical aids Opposed to this, users, as imagined by computer scientists, software developers and usability experts are the ones who’s task is to spend as little time as possible with the computer, without wasting a single thought on it. They require a specialized, isolated app for every “repetitive thought”, and, most importantly, delegate drawing the border in between creative and repetitive, mature and primitive, real and virtual, to app designers. There are periods in history, moments in life (and many hours a day!) where this approach makes sense, when delegation and automation are required and enjoyed. But in times when every aspect of life is computerized it is not possible to accept “busy with something else” as a norm. … There is nothing one user can do, that another can’t given enough time and respect. Computer Users are Turing Complete. http://blogs.lgru.net/ft/conversations/just-ask-and-that-will-be-that Devs that are (not) users and users that are (not) devs Where are divisions of labor located in software? Looking at the way divisions between users and developers is inscribed into software, interfaces, infrastructural architecture etc. Path dependency: histories of use Soft forms of access management Expectation management Distribution of work/tasks/responsibilities/risks through 'sending different users to different files' Three tier architecture - separation of tasks Efficiency, comfort: division of labour Ways users/developers can share, exchange, swap tasks. Difference between flexible and rigid divisions of work. *User: it would be nice if feature x could work in such-and-such a way *Developer: Already fixed in the dev version *(User installs dev version) *User: Feature x is great, but crashes when I do y *Developer: Can't help you; you should use the stable version Conversation with SpiderAlex From division of labor to distribution of labour. Transhackfeminist! event + anarcha server before, during, after Dreaming of a feminist server http://esc.mur.at/de/node/1229 Delegation vs distance, possible divisions of work - dividing and/or sharing http://note.pad.constantvzw.org/public_pad/spideralex Conversation with Reni Hofmuller Reni (speaking from esc as a practice) Important to ask: Who can delegate? Who has the power to delegate? Delegation is necessary; it can be a way to rotate, involve people. It is a way to empower. To be involved means you can think through different layers, connect them (practical and conceptual). So needing moments of involvement, and moments to specialise Specialisation is good; experts are necessary. People that have a routine, an expertise. Connecting that knowledge to a project. Reni: I will invite all people involved in technical realities of a project to take part in decision making project. Making the network of expertise visible. It is important for people to (learn to) understand when technical decisions impact conceptual decisions. Things that have to happen before the artists arrive. Can we prepare or not? Realising a work vs. supporting a work. What can we offer? Dreams vs realities. Not so much developing new tools? Actually ... yes. Who can solve tech projects Delegation for time reasons or skill/knowledge: difference? I have no intention to become a programmer, but learned some python to be able to speak to a programmer. Example: Valentina. She has experience; she knows what she needs. (experience is not expertise and vice versa?) How well can you describe the abstract layers of the work you want to do / be done? Ability to differentiate between optional, desirable, must not happen. Art and politics share this decision matrix. The importance of routine ... routine as experience. What cannot be delegated ... she speaks about the opening of exhibition. Reni: I need to take my role as buffer serious. Delegation and responsibility? Can continuity be delegated? Different roles in a collective, constellation. Taking over, and/or working together. In moments of crisis, how do you 'seduce' someone to help out. That's a sneaky moment. When you are tired, too busy ... that is difficult, to confront complicated situations. No action/attention means often that things are staying, going the way TODO before October 1 Read 3 fibreculture articles Reread notes Darmstadt Reread Tyranny of structurelessness + discussion after Reread Fibreculture call Interview Spideralex Diff of abstracts ==================== Let's first get things done: on division of labor and practices of delegation in times of mediated politics and politicized technologies Be it in getting out the call for the next demonstration on some "cloud service", or developing a progressive tech project in the name of an imagined user community, scarcity of resources and distribution of expertise makes short cuts inevitable. But do they really? The current distance between those who organise their activism to develop "technical infrastructures" and those who bring their struggles to these infrastructures is remarkable. The paradoxical consequences can be baffling: (radical) activists organize and sustain themselves using "free" technical services provided by Fortune 500 companies. At the same time, "alternative tech practices", like the Free Software Community, are sustained by a select (visionary and male) few, proposing crypto with 9-lives as the minimum infrastructure for any political undertaking. The naturalization of this division of labor may be recognized in statements about activists having better things to do than to tinker with code or hardware, or in technological projects that locate their politics solely in the technology and infrastructures as if they are outside of the social and political domain. What may seem like a pragmatic solution actually re-iterates faultlines of race, gender, age and class. Through the convenient delegation of "tech matters" to the techies or to commercial services, collectives may experience a shift in the collective's priorities and a reframing of their activist culture through technological decisions. The latter, however, are typically not open to a broader political discussion and contestation. Such separation also gets in the way of actively considering the way in which changes in our political realities are entangled with shifts in technological infrastructures. We want to use this day to resist the reflex of "first getting things done" in order to start a long term collaboration that intersects those of us with a background in politics of society and politics of technology. ---------- miriyam: why we are here, how we are doing this what brought us together: unique experiment a combination of coincidence and commitment some of us knew each other before from political engagements from political and technological engagements representing a group different political backgrounds in terms of our activism, our idealogical training, and shaping from different disciplinary backgrounds we also come from different political causes we feel that very strangly: how certain causes are more prevalent what brought us together is understanding how these different backgrounds can help us in reinterpreting the discussions deal with the discussions we engage and share with you is the dilemma and reality of division of labor within activism, technological invention, activism, practice based on division labor we were discussing this in the last couple of months in a critical way criticizing the usual division between thinkers and doers also in the tech community: where the techies may be absent from the ground of activist environments this produces different tensions we want to approach this dilemma of division of labor not only as a negative but also how these tensions can produce new and progressive forms of operation division of labor we initially spoke about, in simple manner the techies and activists there are other kinds of division of labor that has to do with what you think you are fighting or against interrogating the logics of division of labor you can maybe come to a productive, progressive division of labor that is not reproducing convention divisions labor and exporting hegemonic power relations the reproduce race, class, gender hierarchies we place this in a wider discussion about time and timing one of the reasons that these division of labors reproduce conventional mainstream hierarchic forms is part of the time pressure and moments of urgency so, let's first get things done we don't have time the timing of this discussion is not a coincidence this has been a permanent feeling 2011 revolution indignados wall street forced on us to act quickly we can't afford the privilege of thinking through politically correct issues throughout these moments of urgency we see that normative ideas are weaved through them it also means normative ideas about what is political what issues are politically relevant, and not what are taboo this has been very clear in the last years islamophobia/palestine are difficult of course,the techies have their own set of ideas and ideals seda reminds me, they have a particular idea about what politics is whether you want to be seen as political a universal approach to politics, that is applicable to everyone, without takings sides getting your hands dirty what are dominant forms of organizing and producing knowledge how do we overcome the tensions that this division of labor brings about in a progressive way t is not that division of labor should cease to exist but how do we redefine division of labor understand the long term solution has to be sacrificed for the short term survival how do we make sure that the long term is not always sacrificed this is a privilege we want to do it also in a way that is not conventional, but in an interactive way which jara will explain jara: we designed a tiny experiment based on the division of labor, we want you to be part of it what is the labor? two tasks... the first one and then we go to the second one you see the abstract of this meeting where we gathered the key ideas and questions that have brought us together we want to re-write it this is our artifact that we want to put our hands in we invite you to put your hands in, too during this journey, meeting perhaps we manage to finish the task of re-writing the abstract reads out the url does everyone know what a pad is: it allows you to work in a collective way you can write your name, but you can also participate anonymously once you have entered you can go into the text and manipulate it you can maybe also help us document this session you can add some information and continue writing we are going to work on the abstract as our artifact jara: i am going to start with the title: i can present my position from there you practices of delegation in times of mediated politics and politicized technologies why? as i introduced earlier, i tend t frame my activism of professional and activism in mediation but i understand mediation in a wide sense what is mediation and who or what is a mediator? we usually imagine a diplomat, who is in charge of making decisions, and act in a goodist way how about mediation that provokes dissensus, that id not so goodish and, how about a media that is not made by a human, but by a technology how about understanding an institution/infrastructure as mediator itself objectologias: a school in spain what are about practices of delegation? not a delegation to a collective that makes it on you, but also the power relationships we have with technologies while delegating to technologies, we are making strong political decisions we are doing things with them i tend to fame my activity, professional and activism, after 15m eruption, i learned that there is pretty much similar way of doing i could see certain common gestures of what i was doing by then i was working in a media lab, doing cultural mediation working with communities that do not speak the same languages artists/scientists/techies/theorists we ended up understanding that the media lab is a form of mediation that was the professional side when you jump to the square you find yourself there with your body and thinking you see that discourses are agents the square is an agent, architecturally the assembly has strong protocols inhabits consensus and dissensus we have to look closer at these practices of mediation i was lucky to do so in professional and rest of the life a way of looking at the 15m situation it is important for bringing this wide definition of technology/politics and politicized technologies here practices, because this is performative rather than representational, performative way of bring in the world femke: half sentence: the naturalization of this division of labor may be recognized in statements as a graphic designer i made the decision to reinstall (2006) my operating system: linux political decision i was interested in the relationship between tools and practice i wanted to understand what that relationship was in proprietary tools there was very little space for interrogation adobe at the time was using sharing, creativity and similar mantras that happened in 2006 i started to get involved in something called the libre graphics community developers and users of tools that i was starting to use gimp/inkscape -> larger communities people involved in w3c standards bodies people interested in image and color correction very fascinating gathering of people sometimes very touched by the politics of this work and mainly touched by the technical issues of this work this was a super exciting environment: all these layers come together since i got involved, in the way people were speaking to ech other: the relation between tool and practice was under merged there was not a lot of exchange between artists and developers there was a general interested by the artists and designers that showed up or were developing tools so i started events that could facilitate this kind of discussion there was the us/uk dominance 85percent of the participants were male bodies were not really on the table and more and more problems started to erupt discussions didn't go anywhere i have been working on ways: how for me, as a feminist woman, a non-tech developer and artist these three divisions of labor started to come together when organizing was there food, was the situation right? i want to talk about a situation, and think through how you can make a situation, and documents free software communities are often busy with documents how could you make documents that would somehow make the naturalization of the division of labor visible, in a way that would not stop them from working, but also refuse to accept that the division of labor is the way it is. to deal with the conventional roles that we find ourselves in. miriyam: the sentence that says activists have better things to do than tinker with code or hardware. and the end of the paragraph i come from a different site my thing is very much informed by the activism on the ground in the context that i work on and involved in is not very technologically advanced the division of labor in terms of geography becomes really sharp i am talking about syria, morocco, and some of the work i have done in egypt the notion of "we have better things to do" is not about i choose to do but the sense of urgency pre-dominates most of the decisions they are not just something to criticize see they are short-sighted, they don't think about the larger picture but they are questions about life and death now that we are three years further from the eruption of the protest, we are in a position to reflect and to reconsider decisions that were made we are very fortunate to be able to make these reflections based on that, i propose that the time, the moment of revolution determines how you engage with this division of labor and teaching yourself as a movement or a group to use technology as a way to avoid oppression the phase of the revolution, i will later in the anecdote part of how i think of a pre-moment and post-moment helps to critically reflect pre- and post- protests, yu have more space to be critical about we have better things to do at the tipping moment, it is understandable to say we have better things to do the root of the current problems lies in that phase in 2011, it really was now and never there was no time to think about the negative side effects of technology the need and necessity was to mobilize as many people as possible in terms of what is the tool that makes that possible the mainstream commercial tool is what makes that possible you are not in a position to philosophize about whether it is correct, we should create our own alternative you have to, i consider that we are now in a post phase: there is a counter revolution everywhere the backlash appears it now becomes clear that it is easier to ... the corporations give data to states the arab region is in the top 5 states requesting information from Facebook and receiving them so in the post phase, we have better things to do, we see the backlash of that we can reflect on that it is still very difficult to say what should we have done then should they have not gone on Facebook and then missing the tipping point then it would have been 5000 people rather than 500.000 people and would have been crushed anwyays we were discussing about collective practice as one entry point of discussing this phenomena but changing our political economy, to think about situated practices thinking of regional and class differences are important the situated practice of a group in a society that has 40percent penetration vs. 80percent penetration so situated practices, and not just collective practices where literacy is very different i would like to see that acknowledged in the abstract as part of the self-critical definition of what we are doing that this abstract will mean very different things in different contexts explain what we will do this afternoon: we will share with you four real life anecdotes one by one it is to talk about something specific and try to bring everything together the situations will be different one way we decided to help ourselves not to go too wide: each anecdote will pick maurizio: i know people coming from the internet industry they are coming from companies that started designing security for the internet, they are based in buenos aires but they work globally short story on how i met them: we were trying to set up a conversation about political issues specifically about urban issues with a global guests, discuss certain issues in europe and south america these guys were enthusiastic to help us in the beginning they were very excited, because there is a trend in the industry about prediction models all the excitement about big data is because they can provide, they forecast behaviors of things and people this was for me interesting, it was a very different approach i was trained as an architect compared to these technologies, prediction technologies, you cannot even start to talk about the problem the variable you manage as 3-4 people is very few they could show us movement in buenos aires in real time based on mobile phone data this is fascinating but they are using this data to build companies and sell to telecommunication parties this information is amazing but how can we make this public otherwise there is a lot of talent, engineering and infrastructure just to make a company sell to a telecommunications company that was the beginning it was related to other people working in the "predictive market" this is super interesting, that you can predict something, that technology will prevent some problem that we have to face this was in 2006-2007 last year i went to a meeting in london of the mozilla community it was the first time for me it was very interesting there was the paranoia about surveillance if you come from the global south you don't care that much about surveillance if you need to work with public data sets, they are not available in fact the idea of surveillance, they have nothing, they can't set up an infrastructure why should i be worried about how they are handling my data when they can't handle their own data femke: seeing prediction is great as a topic technologies that are ready for anything that will happen, that can transgress time ruth: quite mundane level what you were saying about collective design vs. design for the collective as someone who works with the history of design having taken that on as an artist, and critiquing colonial design in the sense that madina uses colonial obviously i am struggling with the challenges of making the design for this very forum but also as it gets converted to the web and to the internet as someone who is producing content all the time there are simple practicalities, the choosing of a font employing people to do new fonts, that are relevant these are the nuts and bolts stuff it is a tricky negotiation berno: i am chewing on something it is related to the bits and pieces related to temporality it connects to my current research and future plans for a moment, look at temporality as a mode of production as a politicized space and medium of production what you bring up here in the title and text is part of a burning, scattered and complex set of problematics relating to temporality its mechanization its networked structure and capitalization i am about to start a practice based research project on the politics of temporality in the form of a festival i would be interested in connecting on this issue this socially organized space is one of the drivers of acceleration, of a different temporality, i would like to put that on the table jara: we also found very interesting discovery these sneaky moments the notion of short cut the pre-occupation of resisting certain reflexes like the pre- and post-moment temporalities are interesting also regarding what maurizio was saying about predicting this practice of speculation and speculative design thinking like in science fiction, but not through scientific method as a method of designing technologies that stretches the question of time and our relation with time when we think of the digital, we think about it as space but how about thinking of it as time you can connect now but again, without going out of our triad of technology, sneaky moments, collective practice it is important, we are starting to find some crossings valentina: all this data, there must be some material existence, are there forever, stored forever to think of this materially and what does it mean this is maybe also something to think about in the situatedness, maybe we need to think about the specific space this cable, this factory which allows us to do a transversal thinking and not the division between the doers and thinkers femke: this is where we thought about path dependency, that could be something that we can use jara: we decide to the things like this, because of a decision that was there before where something becomes a way of doing it path dependency is this notion that calls an alert on how dependent we are on this path, especially in these sneaky moments make decisions, change it, we have the opportunity, because certain items of the world have changed this could be a key situation where we can change the path dependency or go ahead in the normal way of doing things femke: trained graphic designer looking at software i look at layout software you see on the level of interface but also code Gutenberg is there the origin of print is completely embedded into the tool and comes out in the way you work with it how do you know, how do you read, and does it need to be like that? maurizio: the web page, it is a page and also a plot it is a way that we are used to reading there are tools trying to challenge things cartography is trying to do a lot with this it is difficult, because all the interaction with the information, changes the quality of the objects that are based there we rely so much on this miriyam: i don't if this is an example of too detailed the mainstreaming is also related to political economy and cultural hegemony the universal and web is a western conception the left to right logic of writing the ngoization of politics in the 90s visual campaigns to raise awareness and whatever they loved posters and then you had these funny moments like 4 steps of hygienee but you read it from an arabic context, you have to be clean, but the objective is to be dirty femke: all of us have been looking at standards looking at them as histories, and genealogies other things that needs to be on the agenda jara: another example of dependency, which is related to this notion of identity fixed identities are present all around the technological world naming, making decisions on gender it is so present how about looking at that as a path dependency, as well if we think of collectives as not a bunch of humans with fixed subjectivities maybe we can start from a different perspective anna: temporality how do you prevent, how do you anticipate, what filters do you use to anticipate danger? the rotten part that will infect our good society it would be interesting to understand how tech activism, is approaching if there is any you can expand in this idea of writing cryptography, to prevent the future these predictions is this a way, is there an alternative possibility of doing other predictions, or is prediction in itself problematic it is very western, this perspective in which we are, also as an alternative which we are, we need to apply this category present, danger and future temporal link, to create a society, to define society, and to define what is not society to confirm what is danger and breaking it alternative thoughts, or circles, we fall into these illusionary paths, it is very difficult not to fall for it how do you deal with this problematization, with this super fear? christof: this conference, which includes some ethics in engineering making engineers, to make them aware of the implications in other domains how much can you imagine people using technology without becoming engineers themselves with a certain amount of knowledge i had an impression that if we think about apple, by sealing computers, looking like a cosmetics you can use it like a magical object that you have to hand to the sorcerer if it fucks up is it possible to use tech responsibly without becoming engineers? mauricio: how the web explains itself in order to keep it open... it was born in one way or another as an open ecosystem it is not becoming more closed there are some initiatives that try to tackle this modzilla foundation is an ngo they are developing this language of blocks like lego metaphor for the web so that it is easy for them to spread the word that you can be part of the web if you understand it if you can build with these blocks this is an approach they also develop: a way of navigating through the web you can see third parties that can extract information while you are navigating they are taking information from your navigation called "spotlight" maybe? civil society initiatives to make the web more open i don't know if they will succeed but they are trying to make the gap between experts and non-experts less wide femke: if you think about ways to speak between experts rather than to become experts to find forms of dialogue, forms of interrogation, that you can probe and call for help there is also this discourse of technology is important we need to learn, if we don't learn we will be excluded it is not about becoming someone or something else but finding ways to demand dialogue to demand an exchange that means you need to know something and you need to know when you need to demand a dialogue if you don't know what crypto with 9 lives is, how can you know that it is wrong you should be careful not to think that becoming engineers is the path mauricio: the engineers have this problem, they are not citizens they are engineers they tend to believe in the problems their expertise does not demand a civic integrity this is my profession, i am doing what i am asked to do sometimes they don't consider themselves citizens berno: i think what you said is important try to find a situation only for learning together but also find ways to bridge gaps that will increase the eigendynamics of expertise is directed to go deeper i wanted to ask before the response of the one guy that this is not about death but life... oh no there are concepts used, even within western homogenized sphere of thinking are not normal.... things come from economic theory rational individual assuming that he has at his disposal all possible knowledge and assumes he is making a decision on all possible knowledge the guy probably did not understand the concept of biopolitics one would say this was a political statement against the issue you were raising maybe the guy has no idea what you are talking about i am interested in situations, time, temporality where one could bring together a set of important concepts, pertaining to a certain problematic before we can svn think together yesterday the clash with letear was telling in this respect which relates to another problem that we see which is about a blindness about the difference between the common and the different NEXT ANECDOTE: miriyam: it was difficult to think about anecdotes as concrete outbursts expose things in the movement i had thousand examples related to the dilemmas of division of labor in the movement in concrete circumstances i was involved in as an academic and an activist on the ground the city i am most active is in oxford which is connected to londong a rich political scene with one leg in amsterdam, which is where i grew up and am from the other leg in morocco where my parents are from and i do field work which raise questions about alliances and political principles instead of simplifying and start with one anecdote i thought it would be good to go back to the beginning of a time when most of the movements that we are involved in have started and that was 2011 which led to the both of many different campaigns, committees, new political groups and new political parties you were talking about podebos as a consequence of the indignados i want to go back to give you a feeling of what it meant what revolution means to a lot of people where now they think that it is all over who are mourning that time who are talking in terms of post-revolution, counter-revolution including myself i selected two videos which capture the moment this hyper-optimism i think also shows the bravery of people at the time which probably was a translation of their belief that they were going to win a revolution otherwise they wouldn't have taken these risks that they regret now one is from morocco and the other one from syria the first place people were able to congregate on the streets was a big deal that people were bodily present on a square what this video does it is not subtitled but it is part of the archival attempts of the movement that has been called 20february movement all our movements are related to months we are not very creative the moroccon version is called the 20february movement just play for a few seconds show video this freaked out the regime what they are saying is the slogan of the arab uprisings was the people demand the fall of the system/regime (nizam) he is saying, the people the fall of the parliament the fall of the corrupt at the end he says, listen to the voice of the people that was the moment this was in the capital and this was the biggest demonstration for domestic reasons in a very long time a moment in which the power of new media and political opposition began to emerge it was shared on many platforms it sends shivers everywhere but especially to the regime this was an archival project to collect and put them on youtube to have them available for mobilization what is interesting and partly a bit sad now they have become sources of nostalgia they are watched and referred to in past tense this is not part of what we are doing but something that happened in 2011 it is also showing the power, besides all the negative implications of new media, it shows the power that it provides temporary vitamins for moments of despair a source of stamina this send video is even more important the arab revolutions are very different in each country one of the most difficult one is the syrian uprising syria is in a political triangle a nexus of geo-political interests russian, iranian, french ... interventions a lot of interests played out here and syria became a proxy for other wars syria is also one of the most oppressive of arab regimes it is really brutal political expression is very hard the history has shown that the regime does not shy away from committing massacres as we saw in the recent years the numbers of death are above half a million worst case scenario in comparison to others it was shocking for activists that the syrians were early on, march 2011 following in the footsteps of the tunisian and egyptian revolution they were quite early in going out to the streets and did things that nobody imagined that they would do it became the anthem of the syrian revolution a song by ibrahim kasjus "come on go basher" the music is very simple folklore, dabka music in order to attach to the sentiments of ordinary people, workers the text is a hippo critical political agenda and this is done in open air if you can see form the spot lights everybody is filming this and taking pictures the whole idea of security and anonymity that is part of the reflex of activists in syria have disappeared almost over night i show you the most famous song of the revolution this is i think the product or the pill that many of us used to increase the stamina it is shared a lot among activists in nostalgic moments but also in moments of mobilization so, he literally says that freedom is at the door it is important to sketch this context before i continue to say something about something related to our previous discussion about time and temporality basically the dictatorship of imposes on activists whether they use technology or not certain engagement with tools and discourses, whether they want it or not it is difficult to come together and say we should engage in our technologies in this or that way it is almost always the case that you come to that realization in reflection you finish and reflect that notice we are beyond the tipping point now it is hard to realize the momentum when you are in the momentum to apply certain reflection i tried to visualize what the internet means in these moments of reflection is internet a tool to mobilize or is it a way to go deep into debate and fight and make friends so i thought it was important for researchers and activists to deconstruct the internet in a simple way as a space and as a tool sns are a space where things are shared they are more than a tool, in 2011 Facebook did not offer the ease with which you open groups and pages that is now normal, t was not yet developed to that extent technology as a tool in the arab revolution cases that depended on the penetration rate with higher penetration rate like tunisia and egypt it was an organize part of the movement in other places like libya, it was not part of the movement, it was an elitist form of organizing and engaging more than time, to see a revolution, the term revolution has become problematic in itself is it maybe uprising, is it not more than a political transformation this division, if it still works my attempt to make it easier to engage with to divide between a pre-tipping point and post. and the debate is now, is it post, is it finished, or is it the time of counter-revolution we need to now get rid of the economic and political system that is how i use this matrix to understand the development within which we find ourselves it needs another grid, what is the concrete context this is still too general when we know hw many people have a mobile form, and have access to social media and other forms of means and mediation then we can redefine and address some of those questions this was very much influenced by my engagement with egyptian and tunisian activists where mobile penetration was 100percent the penetration of social networking sites tripled between january and february even twitter was 2-3 percent but it made a huge leap people thought it was a key to the revolution even if you don't understand what it is this is the concrete environment that activists have to maneuver through if we take internet and technology as part of our environment these are the points that activists have to maneuver through the internet is a moment of corporate complicity: a pace for government propaganda and the mukhabarat makes use of these networks for their own means this is how you have to maneuver to still use the technology but not be captured there are 100s of dilemmas in this story we have 5 minutes for some questions again jara: to start the discussion from this very interesting picture we can start talking about the material conditions in which tools are produced if you look at durability and continuity in post-revolution situation it is also important to look at the material conditions of who tech is produced by libre tools are produced in precarious material conditions in terms of the post- and counter- if we are talking about durability sustainable time it is ket to talk about material conditions and also reproductive issues of those spheres how are the production of tools maintained by whom this is an extension only this is so interesting, your narrative of the space i would like to expand the space to the physical material conditions in which tools are produced berno: how would you briefly describe the, you are exposed to the western media reports and the different discourses exploiting the events there is a thick cloud of ...we don't need to call it manipulation at the same time you are closed to the situation on the ground what narratives are forged and what do you see between these narratives? miriyam: that is an important point one of the critiques when this exploded in 2011 we can call it "cyber-orientalism" a sudden interest in the region after for years being portrayed as meak, feeble were now seen as agents they were allowed to be part of the mediation by inserting technology as the actual agent hence the label Facebook revolution which started in iran in 2009 the selective choosing of spokespersons in egypt, for instance, whaled ghanim, who was a google manage of the region who had started a Facebook group secretly he was the ambassador of the arab revolutions he quickly we need to name and shame he was quickly invited by the us state department the internet freedom campaign is that really bad? we should be opportunistic also but the price is that the actual actions of the 100.000s of people who created the tipping point is not part of the narrative it is a way to de-politicize the revolution to not talk about class and the reasons why people revolted but to see it as a coincidental moment that coincided with the introduction of a certain technology this is why people are very angry irony is that the response to that anger is redefined as techno-distopian the people whoa re outspoken against this narrative are the internet techies people who really the designers who made that harsh critique the wikileaks came out 2 months before the uprising in tunisia so people said that wikileaks shows the people that their president is corrupt the same people who are writing about the arab spring are now writing about the arab winter and saying they are now all doomed your point about material conditions the material conditions include different forms of technology the oldest form of communication this is in homes, syria the fact that isps are state companies his maternal cousin (basher's) is the own of the isps XXXX people rediscovered and learned how to use pigeons we don't think about this as technology so that is the other form of material tech so what do you do when they cut the lines we think this is natural, but there are a lot of phantasmic examples that were invented on the spot the egyptian revolutions discovered that when the lines were cut in january/february, some of the activists, marxist and socialist, who write a lot about political economy they knew that not all lines can be cut ut the stock market cannot be shut so they started looking for those cables these were discovered on the spot using lamp polls to recharge phones and were shared with activists in the region that is one of the most understudied part of the revolutions the reason that thy were spreading by fire is another language which is so powerful like in latin america, which are connected by a basic language so that really helped mauricio: there was an issue crawler to show where the issues came from how media was operating with that issue in another context when you talk about cyber-orientalism it is also a strategic ... when political problems change and they are no longer the subject of solidarity what happens is like a black hole i don't know what happened in tunisia or even with what is going on in syria we are dependent on the media collectives who go to these places and this is also a problem also the use of social networks is contradictory it is very useful in a way you can develop your own social network but they cannot scale up it doesn't work if it doesn't work who is going to use it a comment about why things appear and disappear from the net jara: we are going to share our anecdotes one after the other they dialogue very well we decided to share the questions and answers there is a connectivity issue now i wanted to show you fragments i will paste the links on the pad my anecdote is, somehow a mix of a fairytale and a tragedy it is about the activity of a collective of developers called komunes they are software developers you can even talk today about the tragedy of komunes i am going to start on the fairytale why is it beautiful and interesting as an anecdote it somehow collects all the axis that we took as a framework it is a collective practice, it is based on tech and it has some sneaky moments this is a collective practice for collective practice they are developers of software who are building tools for social movements their main activity as activists was to facilitate the organization and administrational issues/ administration of time, sharing documents for social movements, for other collectives which are not technology centered it is through the manifesto on their website that you can read paragraphs such as this "the komnes collective ...is for the coordination of grass roots collectives. komunes attempts by building tools to reach this goal." there is a tool that they built: kune.cc it is a social network that is oriented towards movements not the social in the sense of socializing these kinds of smooth relationships but social networking for movements so, also on their about they say, i selected this paragraph it fits with what was brought here today you depend on professional companies and techies that make websites like we used to depend on professional photographers if you want ... use kune use or participation in the creation are both options regrding temporality and kune i found it very interesting, in their website they have an entry of thursday august 4th 2011 back to where miriyam was the 15m situation was very recent so, they publish this post new release of kune published, called 15m so they released a version of their social network on the occasion of 15m after some empirical knowledge and testing in the square itself in this sneaky moment they understood that a number of their items can be modified and fixed they saw the square as a beta-testin place they were so happy that they named the version 15m also in this post, you can see that they are technological reasons and what tools were developed if we zoom out a bit on their activity the collective of kune we were debating whether this moment was sneaky or not it shows or makes visible how certain crossings or political decisions are moments of continuity, path dependency or change in 2009, google started a project for collective editing called google waves they were working on it in a distributed way they were thinking of what we have to know as google drive this was the germ of that idea at some point, they abandoned the google wave project they freed the code, the apache foundation published it all, so, this is an interesting moment, a sneaky moment kune as a project is born there, when the code of google waves opened up and this collective of people who worried in helping other social organizations with their tools they opened a whole page, and made it possible to intervene in the code with a political base this is what i wanted to say: the time is 15m as a sneaky moment for gathering together citizens that are located in the different points of technological expertise some of us closer to the direct practice: the user position some others closer to the techie position you are not an on/off engineer there are degrees, we cannot think any more on those closed identities especially if we are in these new politics that try to fix identities also in material terms if you engage in programming, or free wifi nodes, for facilitating an open connection you can do it three hours day for 15m temporality, this is a fairytale it is also a tragedy because they had an internal collective problematics they are at the moment debating the continuity or the durability of the project due to much older collecive/community issues apart from their advanced thinking about tools i wanted to end with the "tragedy of komunes" femke: i made an offline taste of what this is about i liked you reading the mission statement we often collaborate with people who are not in the same space n many levels different technological, physical, financial environments first of all licences, to make explicit that you can reuse code for whatever you need but other types of documents are important i have been active in the free software community for creative work image processing to standards to artists projects to fonts, typography is a big part these communities are dispersed, they work across time zones over irc so, conferences, meetings play an important role they are a moment for people to physically to get together they are somehow demonstrations it is an opportunity to show your body and then people go away into their own space meetings are important moments they are politized and commercialized projects a few years ago, two things happened at the same time the community was growing older: more mature this maturity was starting to become visible in two ways trying to be more mature as in reliable and business friendly, approachable it also started to realize that there are large problems with the community the mozilla foundation saying if we won't diversify we will die if they don't act in widening the community, the project will stop at some point we haven't taken care of who is here, we need to do something the yearly gathering that would be 50 people who know each other they started to grow to 200 people but they started to have issues with scale we needed to start getting organized in different ways people were feeling that they couldn't thinking about hobby projects they wanted professional designers using their tools this is happening in the growing up of these communities at some point the python foundation, the organization that manages and governs the python software code that is used by hackers but also Facebook it is mainly us based started to come up with this document: the python community code of conduct in this document they state who are we, and how do we want to communicate to each other and the rest of the world if you read closely you will see that it is a business document, about limiting risks when a lot of people are coming together these meetings are awkward people that normally communicate through very poor communication basically text are now meeting in the flesh that is part of why it is important that is why it is also full of sneak moments: the sneaky moment festival to deal with this vulnerability/liability because python is afraid of liability these documents start to appear also of interest by feminist but also those who have business interests geek feminists for example transformed into the ada initiative and were promoting these documents to expose, deal with, prevent and respond to sexism in these kinds of situations but also python interest in making these events safe for business when on the mailing list, in which this community communicates with each other a long time organizer posted a message i asked for funding at the python foundation they require us to have a code of conduct python is exporting that document to other organizations the viral idea of free software is the way they treat a code of conduct and a flame war exploded aggressive and violent process there are archives of this: how did you dare to say this? if we respond to this: i thought i need to step out of this community i thought a code of conduct is a way to discuss these issues in a civil manner, to have a conversation i lobbied with people i knew in different communities to back me up i wrote a little message to the mailing list mail from femke: we will discuss this issue, we are taking it offline, and we are preparing the meeting (there are other things) michael schumacher responds, pre-arranged a community that is lazily anarchist, there is no membership, there is no leadership defined this was kind of a careful treading i will show you where it stopped we managed to make a document resembling the python type of reassurance which inserts some thoughts on difference and communication some issues that maybe are not solved but addressed these documents are mission statements, but they are also active documents at the moments of crisis so that the person that feels harassed can ask a community to act when you are harassed, you have to make a case on the spot these documents are active agents to give people the possibility to demand action this is hard so, from the feminist groups working on these things, one of the important things was to include actual concrete examples of what could go wrong if you think about it, if you don't do that, then the one that is harrassed, has to describe what is wrong to go from an abstract definition of conduct to the situation where you are having trouble to act in the meantime, the people responsible for writing the document were falling away the process was harder than people expected and became political then these people started to drop out of the conversation they wouldn't respond to emails, say they are busy so there i was, woman, non-tech, feminist, political, on my own with this document trying to make it work when this question came to include concrete issues mainly do your own homework i slipped a link to the geek feminism of accidents that have been happening in the free software community it is only judgmental in that is says what is an incident then the discussion started again how could i in this code of conduct refer only to feminist issue wasn't this much larger than gender shouldn't we think of more than gender why did i use geek feminism as a link and not everyone felt alright with the term this is 3 months ago and i haven't answered that question cause i didn't know what to do i knew none was going to pick it up i also didn't feel that it was my taks that i should make a list of anything that can go wrong it was a way to discuss and bring things to the table it became another dead end i don't know how to move on with this is another wish you were here is there another way to think through time and space that could help us hack such moments so that they don't become impossible to resolve this is the interesting part, this is all public there is no, my emotional response is not so legible but maybe that is good berno: this regime is openness in such a culture, in a complex architecture of organizations to what extent is this being questions in face of challenges... this is also an issue f vulnerability is the security discussion or issues go with a certain closure of this sort of discussion best example: if you put this all online, is there an issue raised that this could weaken the organization certain kind of closure as a strategy to disguise strategies collective privacy, the privacy of a movement this community has been ignorant of surveillance cyberattacks, surveillance and all of this is this paradigm of these open communities, is this being questioned? femke: there are many things to say to that ada organization plays the game of exposure they will out sexist behavior it is important that this happens but it can completely disrupt communities who are not used to speak about bullies or if there is sexual language, it is banned i think that is really wrong talk about how you talk about this that is a part i am not unhappy that this is in the open it allows me to talk to you about this maybe as some point this will be useful it is scary to talk about these things that matter for me again the openness: the fact that it is in the public if it goes over a border, i can call in others if it is on a private mailing list in a private space in this specific situation, i am not unhappy that this is publicly available jara: this is another comment i am interested in understanding code as an infrastructure and not just informatics code but also this kind of code if you stick to this nice definition of infrastructure being invisible taking care with its invisibility code of conducts are very interesting as infrastructure they are technologies that are constructed collectively it is very weird to notice in anecdotes like this how hierarchies work for putting one code over another why is the code of conduct under the code of python why is this hierarchy happening? do we have to deal with this in this way? is this politics going on, in which certain codes are over other codes mauricio: i think in that way, web communities have a long road of learning on how to organize themselves and also how they are embedded in a new way of doing politics in organizations i saw this problem in the, with the community i am working with they are more oriented, business oriented, and, they sometimes they don't read the newspaper in that way, technology becomes the only factor that create a self-consensus but that consensus is very opaque we use python, we are part of python comunity i don't code, so i am not part of the python community so what does it mean to be part of the python community convergence without a consensus that we can set up rules, practices in a space that creates a community but we need to debate about this sometimes tech plays this role that we become a part of this community you need to go through conflicts the conflicts create a public situation not only open openness and publicness are not the same there is something going on there sometimes the conflict is a key to create publicness otherwise it is too much encrypted communities are mainly formed by experts if you are not an expert on python you are not part of the community how do you create diversity in these femke: for whom is something a conflict who has the right to define when the conflict happens conflict for me was clearly not a conflict for others so it is, i am trying to think my way back to the matrix to moments of conflict crypto currency person: the hacker community is very exclusive i was in a meeting in bologna last month i cannot read code but i do software design, so i can speak with them you cannot read code: so we treat you like peace of shit so i say i am going to fight back and when you fight back, they start to respect you this is an experience on code of conduct women were 10percent no colored black guy apart from me my conclusion is that hackers become hackers because they have difficulties entertaining human relations and when they see humans they get scared i don't know, i see the symptoms it is their strength and their weakness they know so much, they are so jealous of what they know that they don't want to share it jara: brief comment about these social situations complicated relationships especially geek communities this si one of the main reasons of the tragedy of komunes it has a lot to do with what seda is proposing to do now and i will explain why joe freeman's text the tyranny of structurelessness not having structures, not having over organizing we are not seeing the structure, but they are there we are not seeing them they are that code, those infrastructures that are working that work in a perverse way through friends that take decisions class divisions by people who don't have to work: who can spend more time on political action she wants back the political structures, because there is a certain amount of tyranny in structurelessness that has a lot to do with physical meetings like this of course, there dis time with the mic there are different ways of being present we have been doing this experiment of thinking together we brought this question, and the three axes we would like those who haven't taken their part, we invite you do to so. hamish: i was thinking of a matrix of how the activist and the tech people work together tech and activists on an x-y axis savvy in tech and activism or activism savvy, but not so techy etc how do these groups relate this si a spectrum i am maybe here my work is political in a soft way it brings people together i use Facebook and google docs my engagement feels quite trivial but maybe that is very common place do i just follow the wash of these wider discussions i am aware that, it is useful for me to use Facebook i am aware that directs the work i make i feel limited how do we deal with this, which might be the majority miriyam: this is really important the time of revolutionary momentum what happens in a short time is that people move from -x/-y to x/y/-y people who were not active at all that are all of a sudden activists and post-revolution maybe they go deep in the -x/-y position and they become more alienated mauricio: this happens with a lot of professions in the past we can put architects, politicians, technicians what we have seen in the last decades, sooner or later you will have to find ways to speak between the different positions that involves conflict it will not be that technology will be waiting for you in architecture there were 40 years of plans ruth: the reference to architecture, comparingarchitecture to code might help in conceiving of problems especially in problems where there is a show of transparency which is real in a certain level but when using those kinds of spaces it really is a show the space exists, we can dialogue, but there is a problem it is there to stop any actual resolution it is there to enforce the hierarchy it is incredibly present in the art world the institutional critique to make everyone feel better about themselves i always had the illusion, with the internet in the 90s that there was a possibility for new spaces and time and time again we keep getting shut down i am not going anywhere with this other than that there needs to be a space that is really transparent to build the code yourself it simply must be possible yesterday we kept on coming up against the argument: that is another planet i don't understand why that should be the case those are the solutions that we can gradually start coming to madina: it is not my subject i should maybe say something i was lucky, i have a lot of students who are activists and into programming and hacking so i don't see a problem between these things we have this media impact activist art festival i got 10 messages from them before the internet was cut one of the students is precisely that he is a hacker, he has been prosecuted he is a wonderful guy and an artist recently i visited him in st petersburg i found my students in three years people also in ... were first using Facebook and now we don't there are people called hamsters who are paid like internet trolls so a lotos people stopped using social networks because of all the fake messages if we want to have an assembly we don't use facbeook and we have our own codes even if we use email we don't say things explicitly we have problems but it is solvable we will have more people who will be activists and techies and there is this problem that we discussed today and yesterday we see people who do social engineering and economics, and don't think in terms of value this is an old human problem kurt vonnegut writes exactly about that the guy who invented the bomb he is making houses for cats he cannot think of what this could lead to i learned a lot christoph: i had to think about, which is very trivial the tragedy of the structurelessness community getting a certain scale certain values, and mirror a common reference what a constitution is on the level of a country some kind of agreement that would serve in terms of trouble it has to be some form of superior level that at the same time we have to also think of the most trivial level of this a couple, no matter how much they love each other will have problem with washing up being thrown back into dirty business communities in the internet, have very precise and specific problem a certain kind of code, the res t is not talked about, only when conflict comes up that is the problem, i had to think about dishwashing take care of the idea that everybody washes their own dishes we are not able to do it continuously we are not busy with this because we have better things to do we have to deal with the dirty dishes somehow anna: community: this homogeneity in the good sense of paradox and contradiction how to deal with contradiction and difference within, to be efficiently not to have the tyranny of the structurelessness to be able to do something together within the contradiction, paradox, conflict how to keep the conflict alive i am happy that you are not community christoph: tyranny and tragedy of sctructurelessness imaginary of the open internet that we have to come back to some old fashioned ways of agreeing that we maybe had the impression that we could escape this valentina: maybe i am naive i am in the third quarter (-x/-y) is it possible to conceive of a structure that is not rule based we had red... who is a historian of sexuality once we were discussing ... is underestimated of course you exchange data but to film and what we saw we can maybe another way of gathering around things which are not around rules or rules that can be on purpose vague and generative of a question and what does it mean rules that always ask to the human being to talk about it rules that will bring together attention and energy that is not about the before and after like the hackers that need some human interaction mauricio: reference to living and thinking together one of the best methods to achieve self-organization is building that is why the first part of the project was concentrated on that if you want to think about what is living together like the story of the babel tower they could not finish the building there are architects using open source as an example how urban planning can be open but building: what happens is very hierarchical architecture is related to arche, which is also the commander it is about hierarchy so it is whoever you go, people will agree with you it is a powerful metaphor of bring people together to give people rules, to organize ourselves that is very difficult it is not easy, the set of tasks that we need to distribute technologies also work with a regime of erotics it is crossed with ethics if you talked about the organized body or an organized body of technology you start to look for differences the regime of fidelity in the property sense i am faithful to this system, to this tech, to this way of organizing the world how about loyalty as a much more promiscuous way of relating but more durable let's thing wider treason and appeal we looked at three quarters of the spectrum, but not the complete thing are situations of hackers/activists in other countries different... gender balance/racial balance is not an issue??? resources