School of The Elephants in the Room
Escola d'Elefants dins de l'habitació
https://www.lacapella.barcelona/en
https://www.lacapella.barcelona/en/schools-context
Sesión II, 02/03/2023

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~ intersectional serverhood ~
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Hosts          : Cell for Digital Discomfort (aka CfDD, aka Cristina, Karl, Jara)
Resources link : https://nc.digitaldiscomfort.run/s/94oQYBm3rCKQjJF
Document Link  : on CCL's computer
Public pad     : https://pad.constantvzw.org/p/LC_escoladelefants

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AGENDA
| 11:00 – 11:15 | arrival time
| 11:15 — 11:30 | introduction to activity
| 11:30 — 12:00 | read & inspect together 3 problematics
| 12:00 — 12:45 | split into groups
| 12:45 — 13:00 | b * r * e * a * k 
| 13:00 — 13:30 | discussion
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HOPES
* re-define notions of 
* consider terms and conditions for our own server/services/serverhood (terms of trembling together in turbocapitalist times)
* expand the Trans*Feminist Servers Wishlist through intersectional & institutional axes
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READINGS
* A Wishlist for Trans*feminist Servers https://www.bakonline.org/prospections/a-wishlist-for-transfeminist-servers/
* Feminist Server Manifesto - https://areyoubeingserved.constantvzw.org/Summit_afterlife.xhtml
* Feminist Server Manifesto afterlife - https://pad.constantvzw.org/p/feministserver
* Collective Conditions reader - https://nc.digitaldiscomfort.run/s/94oQYBm3rCKQjJF
* The server by Markus Krajewski - https://nc.digitaldiscomfort.run/s/94oQYBm3rCKQjJF
* Whose land have I lit on now? Contemplations on the notions of hostipitality by Savvy Contemporary - https://nc.digitaldiscomfort.run/s/94oQYBm3rCKQjJF
* There is an elephant in the room https://constantvzw.org/site/Dear-student-teacher-worker-in-an-educational-institution,3347.html?w=https://constantvzw.org/wefts/elephant.en.html
* Dear student, teacher, worker in an educational institution https://constantvzw.org/site/Dear-student-teacher-worker-in-an-educational-institution,3347.html?w=https://constantvzw.org/wefts/distant-elephant.en.html
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README

Dearest remote neighbours of the cohort,

For next Monday's session, we wanted to continue the proposal of practicing collective annotation, and to apply it to a very dear and specific text: the collectivelly written Feminist Server Manifesto (2013). It is a short and dense piece that would really benefit from our polyphonies and diverse contexts.

It also aligns *a lot* with our research thread on Digital Discomfort, and help us keep the conversation about mutual services warm.

The server manifesto was triggered up in the context of Are You Being Served?, a summit organised among several feminist server groups at Constant, Brussels (https://areyoubeingserved.constantvzw.org/Summit.xhtml) and actually written in its afterlife at Art Meets Radical Openness (AMRO <http://radical-openness.org>), ESC in Graz. 

By server we mean a technoecology which has in the center a computer that can be connected to the Internet, run a website and provide file storage. But it also means a thick number of semiotic and material relationships, and the activation of a set of protocols and conditions for togetherness. Serving and being served, hosting and being hosted, being response-able and careful, computationally speaking or not, are relationalities which invoke/reproduce/stimulate specific worlds. How do we break from the cycle of serving and subalternity?

It will be so juicy to speak about all this together with you, providing ourselves with a session for an intersectional analytics to detect distribution of oppression and privilege, revolving around concerns on what an intersectional serverhood might imply.

We will use an online annotation tool, all together and in break out rooms, and will allow ourselves to get lost in-between the lines.

Please find below the schedule for the day. This is the pad we prepared for the session, with access to a further reading list in case of interest only :) 
You're welcome to add other related references to the folder!

Warmest triangular wishes from the paranodal in-between of our many angles,
Karl, Cristina, Jara (aka CfDD)

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Notes from La Capella

response-ability
idea of responsibility; didn't have to understand servers
not yet - is it the server or us?
pause as a desire
where is the limit of production?
confusion between people, hosting, the space - what is the server?
computing within limits
server and an institution; people as servers vs the institution as a server

hosting
what does it even mean for a server to exist?
what's wishful? what does the server want?
in spanish wish and desire is the same; but in english desire is more corporeal
what is host? what is hosting?
modes of hosting: eviction, not ever being allowed to leave, how someone is invited inside, how you enter a place without knowing
what would be a trigger warning or a safe word when making a user?
"if it's for free, you are the product"
freedom in sense of price is a red flag
terms and conditions as grey literature
"not everything needs to be understood" -> from where are you saying this?
it has to do with discomfort, it's not inhabitable. maybe you have to make an effort to enter a space of discomfort
not wanting to be understood is not the same as something not needing to be understood; 
claim for opacity, where does it come from?
where should the complexity go? in explianing technical aspects or in the metaphors/fiction used?
"don't make me think" as a paradigm of not making the user think
how are we setting up the conditions of what we want to think about and what we consciously/actively choose to think about?

serving
change the word for server; not because we don't want to think about servers, but because language is so powerful that it will bring itself with other connotations
why not use traps of capitalism: you say co-working when you do not own it; or co-living;
co-server: serving constantly each other
"more than human" -> "animals, objects, environments, and many more than exit"
"continuously re-negotiate" - today we think about one thing and think it's ok, and in the future this may be different
every second is a change and negotiation
self-exigency/self-demanding is also a drag; perfection is fascism, perfection is not interesting
doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't have to be now
the mythical "we"