https://meet.jit.si/gedis

Feedback Meeting

-- Wondering about the Kit -- 
-- if she thinks it could be used - to do another pass over it -- make it available for people outside the workshop-- 
-- Remove the specific questions, we could make it available on the website and blog for download, and we could also put it on the mailinglist -- we send the notes, and people can add their own thoughts -- 
-- got another life through the mediation, but its interesting -- but that's not explicit in the kit -- 

-- wth the renaming/reframing exercise, is an example of what those vocabularies would be -- when she says vocabulary, and when it starts to talk about dance as movement, how that happened -- the desire to stablise, which then brought whole new questions and operations into the game and the exercise -- in a different direction and a new focus- and the materiality of the exercise changed -- how to catch the things that shifted -- how to make those legible, or is this is something that should 

-- how you can catch the shifting as a learning, and an understanding 
-- question/mediation/who's in the group 

-- the takeaway for Femke is, the listing of the methods - that meant that even when it was quickly done, that was quite fast, so she'd like to do another pass, that everyone had all those different methods, and the picking of the approach, and understanding what something could bring. -- It would have been super nice if we had been able to switch groups, and take each other's question and use a different method to experience those relations between mediation, question and chosen method and to have some view on those relations -- started to fantasize on a situation where this could happpen, and that could be very nice -- It was dificult to understand what was happening in the mediation, because of floating, how would it have been if she would have been in group a or b 

--it would have been very interesting to look a bit more carefully with the time we spent with their question and what does that do? 
-- weather we would have had breakfast with them the next morning - to undersatnd how 

Images for her to send us

Does it somehow come back to their research, new agents were introduced in the case of NKD - from how she asked the question - it became more clear there was more questions that needed to be asked 

-- the question he asks has many assumptions about where that comes from -- how each of the assumptions and movements are being unscrewed, and rewound and tested and asked differently -- 

-- to have organised a meeting with them in an ideal world, at the end -- 
-- She had the possibility to observe, 

Phone numbers:
    Loren: +49 173 4171865
    Goda: +49 173 4171866
    Femke: +32 495125526

Updated Schedule for Day
    
12:00 -          Introduction GeDIS -- Claude and Nana Kesewaa -- 
12:20 -          Intro & Lecture from Femke Snelting: Possible Bodies, Constant – m-e-t-h-o-d-o-l-o-g-i-e-s (or not)
13:00 -           Questions & Remarks
13:30  -          Break - Bring Your Own Lunch
14:00 -            Presentations of collaborators:
                        Nana Kesewaa Dankwa's Presentation
                        Phillip Lücking's Presentation
14:30  -           Hands On Workshop
16:15  -           Debrief Post Workshop and presentations of workshop results
16:45  -           Break
17:00  -           Network Meeting and discussion
18:00  -           Rounding up and informal dinner at Trimurti

 
Questions

Imagining other technological futures and utopias is an urgent challenge for technology design and development at a practical and structural level. How can there be a relation to our networked realities that allows an engagement with technology that takes feminism as a given?

In many kinds of technology - including smart home technology – there is the problem that those who are most marginalized are not included in the research that further produces and develops these technologies. This problem re-enforces the stigma that these technologies are for some and not for others, and end up re-oppressing those marginal groups that end up engaging with these technologies. What strategies, coming out of Participatory Design methods, can include marginalized communities in the research developing smart home technology and how can this method inspire urgency within these communities to understand the importance of this research?


Reading

Driving Smart Home innovation

Situated Algorithms Bias article

Karen Barad, Diffracting Diffraction: Cutting Together-Apart (2014) and/or Interview with Karen Barad (2010) https://quod.lib.umich.edu/o/ohp/11515701.0001.001/1:4.3/--new-materialism-interviews-cartographies?rgn=div2;view=fulltext


To Do Tonight: 

Choosing Text Femke 

2 groups, 2 questions


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE PACK 

Welcome to the workshop part of this CF+ Lab Meeting!

The intension of this workshop is to use different methodologies to interrogate the questions and challenges that comes from computational practice and interdisciplinary work. The goal of this is to see how the question itself and the possible answers to it changes with different methodology: what new aspects become visible? What new ideas can emerge with a shift of lens? What strategies do different methodological lenses point to?

Below you will find the question, proposed structure of the workshop and a list of methodologies. The total time for this workshop is 1h 30 mins. We ask you to please prepare a brief presentation at the end, of the main discussion points, insights, ideas, etc. from this workshop. We encourage you to use non-linear forms of presentation - see some suggestions for possible presentation formats below.


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Question 1: Imagining other technological futures and utopias is an urgent challenge for technology design and development at a practical and structural level. How can there be a relation to our networked realities that allows an engagement with technology that takes feminism as a given?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I. Introduction exercise 
Suggested time: 10 minutes

We suggest the following exercise for an introduction: Becoming-Network

• For 5 minutes, each person chooses to embodies a different non-speaking device connected (or not) to a network. Use this as a space of play to enter the room together, move around, and interact in non-verbal ways.
• After 5 minutes of doing this, come back to the group and do a round of introductions: state your Name, pronoun, what device you selected, and how you related to the network.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

II. References to think with
Suggested time to review: 5 minutes

Fiction
Nalo Hopkinson, Non Utopian Utopias

• Quotes from Text: 

References and resources
From steel to skin, A four-handed raw manifesto by Nanda from Vedetas, transhackfeminist brazilian server and Nadège from Kéfir, a feminist libre tech co-op.

• • • https://fermentos.kefir.red/english/aco-pele/

open_nsfw is an Open Source neural network algorithm that scores images on a scale of O to 1 on whether they contain 'objectable' content, i.e. nudity.

• • • https://possiblebodies.constantvzw.org/inventory/?009 

Mario Klingemann, Machine Learning Faces

• • • https://www.fastcompany.com/3062016/this-neural-network-makes-human-faces-from-scratch-and-theyre-terrifying

- example practice, rolemodels ...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

III. Possible activities/methodologies
Suggested time: 1 hour

We suggest you take a few minutes to read through this list and pick one or two methodologies that you wish to apply/activities that you wish to do. 
You can also split into smaller groups if you would like to try out several methods.

Some things to keep in mind when working in groups include
    
-Keep in mind that not everyone feels comfortable speaking in all situations - so try and practice the "step up, step up" method - meaning: if you are someone who like to speak and finds it easy to do so, step up, by giving space for others, and if you are someone who has a harder time speaking in groups, step up and speak more! 
-If there are topics that come up, but are off track for the methodology that you have collectively decided on: make a "garden" and fill this with other ideas that you can come back to later that are important, but off topic. 
-If there comes to be a moment where there are disagreements about how to move forward, don't hesitate to break, write for a few moments and then return to the group to keep processes of thinking open to different ways of speaking/knowing/learning. 

Brainstorming techniques: 

•     Associative thinking: begin with a word or a idea, and anyone in the group - connects to a web on a large sheet of paper, other associations that come for them - this helps to create a map or web of associations to think anew from.
  • Word Storm: begin with one word, and write down the next word that comes to mind when you see the above word - this generates a large list of words to build from. 
  • Speed Dating Brainstorm: split into couples and time yourself - you have 1 minute to come up with one or two ideas/answers to the question that you are brainstorming about. After 1 minute, switch your pair. Proceed untill you have talked to everybody in your group and document your findings on a board or sheet of paper.

m-e-t-h-o-d-o-l-o-g-i-e-s (or not)

1.) Expanding resource-toolbox: brainstorm on possible sources and resources for imagining other futures

• What kind of processes and sources are usually used for imagining future technology deisgn, and how can these sources be expanded? 
  • for example - typical sources for imagining include: personal experience, expectations, science fiction, building personas (data driven methods), innovation and desire to invent 
• What other positions can one start thinking from? 
• How could it look like? 

2.) Bugreporting: where to complain about what. Locating spaces for intervention.

• Ask a series of questions to the question that you are dealing with, looking to see where the inconsistencies in it may be. 

3.) Field Reports and Concern Studies

• Think of projects and structures that already operate from the position that feminism is a given.
  • What did these projects or examples do well?
  • Why do you remember them?
  • What seemed innovative or exciting about their framework? 
  • What can we learn from these emanciapatory technology practices?
  • What kind of important concerns do they bring out? 

4.) Renaming/redescribing/re-expressing

• In HCI (Human Computer Interaction) the method of „metaphors“ entails thinking about which metaphors lead to what kind of HCI design ideas. The most famous example: the desktop metaphor. Donald Norman stated that there are usually two main ways to think about HCI, depending on whether you follow the „world metaphor“ (a new world is opened up through engaging with the interface - "digital" as the world in itself) or the „conversation metaphor“ (interface/machine/robot as a conversation partner). As Claude Draude pointed out, with new interfaces, social robots, augmented reality etc. those metaphors become combined. However metaphors also matter in a sense of Lakoff and Johnsen, “Metaphors We Live By”: technology embodies meaning and dominant thought systems. What kind of metaphors, semantings, figurations or imaginaries are needed to imagine technologies otherwise?

• Pick a current relation to neworked realities and think in a group: how could it be re-described, re-formulated through different imaginaries? Try to put your thoughts in a material form: use post-its, drawings, record sound pieces, make string figures, etc. Think how can this new imaginary be embodied in a different technologcal relation. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IV. Prepare a brief presentation of what you discussed, insights/issues/ideas that came up
Suggested time: 15-20 minutes

We encourage you to think of different presentation formats that are not limited and even avoid the linear format of a summary or a bullet-point list.

You could try out:
    - make a cartography with post-its of main ideas/issues and string to indicate relations and overlaps between these issues
    - embody your main points: could a diagram of your findings be formed out of your bodies and objects in the seminar room space? You could try it and then present by each person/node explicating their position and their relation to other points


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Question 2:  In many kinds of technology - including smart home technology – there is the problem that those who are most marginalized are not included in the research that further produces and develops these technologies. This problem re-enforces the stigma that these technologies are for some and not for others, and end up re-oppressing those marginal groups that end up engaging with these technologies. What strategies, coming out of Participatory Design methods, can include marginalized communities in the research developing smart home technology and how can this method inspire urgency within these communities to understand the importance of this research?

I. Introduction exercise 
Suggested time: 10 minutes

We suggest the following exercise for an introduction: Becoming-Network

• For 5 minutes, each person chooses to embodies a different non-speaking device connected (or not) to the network. Use this as a space of play to enter the room together, move around, interact in non-verbal ways.
• After 5 minutes of doing this, come back to the group and do a round of introductions: state your Name, pronoun, what device you selected, and how you related to the network.

II. Some possible references to think with:
Suggested time: 5 minutes

Fiction:
Octavia Butler, Liliths Brood

References + resources
- https://dynamicland.org/#project [check!]
- https://www.medialab-prado.es/en -- find an example
- citizensense https://citizensense.net/ specific example

III. Possible activities/methodologies
Suggested time: 1 hour

We suggest you take a few minutes to read through this list and pick one or two methodologies that you wish to apply/activities that you wish to do. You can also split into smaller groups if you would like to try out several methods.
- Cartography: draw out dynamic tensions (string), and what happens on their intra-section

- Bugreporting: where to complain about what. Locating spaces for intervention.
- Expanding resource-toolbox: brainstorm on possible sources and resources for imagining other futures
- Listing rolemodels and example practices

IV. Prepare a brief presentation of what you discussed, insights/issues/ideas that came up
Suggested time: 15-20 minutes

We encourage you to think of different presentation formats that are not limited or specifically even avoid the linear format of a summary or a bullet-point list. You could try out:
    - make a cartography with post-its of main ideas/issues and string to indicate relations and overlaps between these issues
    - embody your main points: could a diagram of your findings be formed out of your bodies and objects in the seminar room space? You could try it and then present by each person/node explicating their position and their relation to other points
    - 

---

Presentation forms:
Orienting towards material, spatial, non-linear

Outcomes:
Framing, observations. Big group, in the end.







Orit Halpern, Robert Mitchell, Bernard Dionysius Geogheghan, "The Smartness Mandate: Notes toward a Critique" (2017) https://www.academia.edu/34600648/The_Smartness_Mandate_Notes_toward_a_Critique

Heather Love, Queer Messes. in: Queer Methods. WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly, Volume 44, Numbers 3 & 4, Fall/Winter (2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAL7KhZq7y4
Heather Love, Deviance Studies, Description and the Queer Ordinary (2015)

Philip Irani + Dourish, Postcolonial computing (or: Postcolonial computing: A lens on Design and Development)
Syed Mustafa Ali, A brief introduction to decolonial computing


Meeting 7/3/2019

Femke, Loren, Goda, Claude, Nana Kesewaa, Phillip: Breakfast: 9:30 – Gedis – extended future of CF+ with Femke  
  
12:00 – Introduction GeDIS  
 
13:00 – Intro Possible Bodies & Constant – Methodologies or not 
 
13:45 – Break 
 
14:15 – Intro Nana Kesewaa & Phillip - 15 min each: presentations ending with a question
 
14:45 – Workshop – Hands On / What Object / What idea

2 sets of materials
- relevant methodologies
- case/context
- texts

Goal: re-formulating the question

- Imagining other technological futures (context: Algorithmic systems)
2 groups

- How to involve marginalised groups in Smart homes discussion/research (context: participatory design)
2 groups

16:30 - Reading/Discussion
 
17:30 – Network Meeting 
 
18:00 – Finish & head to Trimurti  
 
Facilitation Ideas – Group Processes – to be developed with Femke, Phillip & Nana Kesewaa 

• Use our bodies to embody an idea – through walking, mirroring/mimicking, acting,  
• Become a forest in the space as a way to enter the room (each person embodies a different part of the forest for 5 – 10 minutes, use this as a space of play to enter the room together) 
• Use the "stacking" technique of writing down names to make sure different people are called on to speak  
• Teach hand signals as a way of making decisions communally 
• Think/Pair/Share as a way of sharing information or entering into group discussion 
• Group brainstorm based on the questions from Nana Kesewaa & Philip interacting with the articles that we send out  

Notes from Phillip - Robotics, How Algorithms Perpetuate Social Inequalities - Big data, appropriated for other possibiliites of social change

--when you say Emanciapatory - you mean how Machine Learning will liberate humanity? 
-- Emanciapatory - use of inequality, and independence, whihch are ways of thinking about the relation bout technology through connected/disconnected - "Freed from" so, rather than freed from, but rather with other dependencies, but how to stay connected but in a different way, how to be not always the consumer, or to be the agent without agency - 

With the center for emanciapatory technology - what do you do? 
-an advesory board, how digitalisation changes capitalism

q from Phillip
1.) about where the different relation to technology would be possible, and what would that mean? 

the urgency of doing technology  through the possibilities of other realities, and then we could connect the other question as well - how knowledge is produced today, and how reality is produced today as well, how technology needs to be different, has to do with the problem that appears in the second question, she will try to somehow to bring stuff  

• -- talk about methodologies that are about how to engage with technology, examples of projects or methods - partially things she's done and also references, working with queer computing, with decolonial computing, working on different methodologies  frameworks that are sometimes already formed, and sometimes not yet - thequestions are 

2.)  the perpetuation of ML, and the conditional character of this, Femke's answer would be "yes"  - confirming how these processes come about and are self-confirming, could be interesting to try - 

-- working with participatory design method - the thing about this is that it is supposed to give a voice to everybody, ad in the end 

Meeting 22/02/2019
Loren, Goda, Femke

Nana Kesewaa Dankwa -  https://www.uni-kassel.de/eecs/fachgebiete/gedis/team/nana-kesewaa-dankwa.html non-bias in technology innovation. How paying attention to gender might produce innovation in CS. Smart Home.
Phillip Lücking - https://www.uni-kassel.de/eecs/fachgebiete/gedis/team/phillip-luecking.html
Machine learning. Social machine, robotics. Thinking critically about tech. Emancipatory technology design. Algorithmic bias.
(cs from Gedis)

Not so much theory, but activism.

[morning: breakfast Gedis -- extended future]

https://pad.constantvzw.org/p/possiblebodies.depthsanddensities

12:00
Introduction Gedis
12:15 Intro PB + Constant -- methodologies or not
13:00 [break]
13:30 Intro Nana + Phillip
14:00 Hands-on? What object? 
15:30 Reading/discussion
18:00





Possible readings/reader

Karen Barad, Diffracting Diffraction: Cutting Together-Apart (2014):
"We might imagine re-turning as a multiplicity of processes, such as the kinds earthworms revel in while helping to make compost or otherwise being busy at work and at play: turning the soil over and over – ingesting and excreting it, tunnelling through it, burrowing, all means of aerating the soil, allowing oxygen in, opening it up and breathing new life into it. It might seem a bit odd to enlist an organic metaphor to talk about diffraction, an optical phenomenon that might seem lifeless. But diffraction is not only a lively affair, but one that troubles dichotomies, including some of the most sedimented and stabilized/stabilizing binaries, such as organic/inorganic and animate/inanimate."

Donna Haraway - Promises of monsters (1992)  [on diffraction and in/appropriation] 
Karen Barad, Getting Real -- from Meeting the universe halfway [diffraction + agential cut; measuring instruments/phenomena] 
Jacob Gaboury, Critical Unmaking: Toward a Queer Computation (2018)
Syed Mustafa Ali. A brief introduction to Decolonial Computing (2016)
Lauren Berlant. Intuitionists - Histories of the present. in: Cruel Optimism (2011) [???]
Katherine McKittrick, Diachronic loops/deadweight tonnage/bad made measure (2014) https://www.dropbox.com/s/ul6may1p6db86oq/McKittrick_Diachronic%20Loops.pdf?dl=0
Luciana Parisi, The Incomputable and Instrumental Possibility (2016) https://www.e-flux.com/journal/77/76322/the-incomputable-and-instrumental-possibility/

Reference materials Femke/Possible Bodies/Constant

Possible Bodies feat. Helen Pritchard "Ultrasonic dreams of Aclinical Renderings": https://adanewmedia.org/2018/05/issue13-possiblebodies/
The Techno-Galactic Guide to Software Observation (introduction): http://observatory.constantvzw.org/tgsoguide_1806051351.pdf
Proposal for the Extended Trans*feminist Scanning Program @ Furtherfield, London (attached)
Draft for 'Invasive imagination and its agential cuts' (attached)
Depth and densities -- notes, readings and other materials https://cloud.constantvzw.org/s/3bmJMbjm3d7bdy8
The Possible Bodies Inventory: dis-orientation and its aftermath https://www.inmaterialdesign.com/index.php/mag/article/download/27/22
Somatopologies (multi-screen installation, webversion) https://possiblebodies.constantvzw.org/somatopologies/

Possible bridges to Computer Science / Electrotechnical departments at Kassel University

Hartmut Hillmer
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartmut_Hillmer
http://forschung.uni-kassel.de/converis/portal/Person/327043?lang=en_GB

Hartmut Hillmer worked on the project "Kunst mit Nanostrukturen". Part of the Center for Interdisciplinary Nanostructure Science and Technology (CINSaT) [includes Peter Lehmann -- https://www.uni-kassel.de/cinsat/en/projekte/sp4-photonik.html ]

Software Engineering Research Group Kassel (Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering)
https://seblog.cs.uni-kassel.de/

Software methodologies for collaboration.
Agile programming, extreme programming

ITeG (the research center where we are located) team:
    http://www.uni-kassel.de/eecs/en/iteg/people.html

Measurement Technology Group - we (GK and LB) will double-check if we have any connection to this group

Kirstin Baum
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233839384_Three-dimensional_surface_reconstruction_within_noncontact_diffuse_optical_tomography_using_structured_light [pdf available]
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/252567900_3D-Surface_reconstruction_method_for_diffuse_optical_tomography_phantoms_and_tissues_using_structured_and_polarized_light

Measurement Technology Group projects

Measuring uncertainty
https://www.uni-kassel.de/eecs/en/faculties/messtechnik/research/high-resolution-3d-optical-profilometry.html

Nowadays, 3D optical profilometry is faced with increasing demands concerning lateral and axial resolution as well as measuring uncertainty. Optical approaches, especially interferometric and confocal [multiple lenses with the same focus] techniques are promising candidates in order to meet these demands. Analysis of the limiting physical effects allows us to assess the limitations of current instruments systematically. Based on these results, we develop and study novel instrumental concepts. The main goal of our research work in this context is to avoid systematic measurement deviations, to improve lateral and axial resolution, to adapt measurement systems to the requirements of specific surfaces, and to increase the measuring speed.
Examples for high-resolution 3D measurement systems developed in our group are the Linnik interferometer and the interferometric line scan sensor displayed in the figure below.
The Linnik interferometer is equipped with 100x microscope objectives with a numerical aperture of 0.9 and thus reaches a lateral resolution in the sub-micrometer range. Using a digital micromirror device (DMD), confocal and structured illumination scenarios can be realized and the lateral resolution can be further improved. In addition, using LEDs of different colour allow to investigate the dependence of the measurement results on the illumination spectrum. 
The line scan sensor takes topography data along a line of 2 mm [slice]. It is designed in collaboration with PTB (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt) to measure optical surfaces, e. g. aspheric lenses, which are put on a rotational stage. Based on an oscillating reference mirror the sensor takes 800.000 height measurement values per second.

Systematic deviations
https://www.uni-kassel.de/eecs/en/faculties/messtechnik/research/modeling-and-simulation.html

In three-dimensional optical measurements sometimes systematic deviations between measured topography data and the real topography occur. This is especially true for surfaces with steep flanks and high curvatures but also for inhomogeneous surfaces, e.g. combinations of different materials. In order to avoid or at least to reduce these deviations a deep understanding of the relevant physical effects and mechanisms plays a key role. 
For this reason we develop mathematical models describing the interaction between the incident light and the current measurement object realistically. Besides the spectral and the coherence properties of the light, the parameters and the aberrations of the optical measuring system must be taken into consideration. Finally, simulation models which allow to generate optical measurement signals result. These signals can be analysed by use of the same signal processing algorithms as real measurement signals. 
As shown in the figure below, batwings are an example of typical measurement artefacts, which occur in white-light interferometry at steep flanks and perpendicular edges. The diagrams obtained from simulation and measurement results are in a good agreement.

https://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2228307
Related current project: https://www.uni-kassel.de/eecs/en/faculties/messtechnik/research/current-projects/hokami.html

Notes from reading EECS publications:

interferometric measuring
occurring measuring deviations (artifacts)

------------

Possible program

Morning: 
09:00 Presentation and discussion of disobedient action research: Constant, Possible Bodies
11:30 Short exercise: Signs of clandestine disorder in the uniformed and coded crowds https://pad.constantvzw.org/p/possiblebodies.bau.disobedientbodies
12:30 Lunch
13:30 m-e-t-h-o-d-o-l-o-g-i-e-s (or not) for measuring with interference
Presentation of project and its problematics followed by a conversation on measuring uncertainty and its consequences. 
Diffraction. 'known unknowns' vs unknown unknowns?
14:30 (parallel) reading sessions
16:00 discussion + finding ways to report back / communicating back to the Measurement Technology Group. Should we write a letter? [ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optics_Letters ;-)]
18:00 end

---
https://www.uni-kassel.de/eecs/fachgebiete/gedis/research/cf.html

Notes session with Cornelia Solfrank:
https://bit.ly/2B4InaV 


m-e-t-h-o-d-o-l-o-g-i-e-s (or not)

We kindly invite you to take part in the xxxx lab meeting of the project “Re-configuring computing through cyberfeminism and new materialism” (CF+) that will take place on March 14th, 2019, in Kassel. CF+ is a project of the Gender/Diversity in Informatics Systems research lab at the University of Kassel, Germany. The project aims to lay the groundwork for revisiting dominant modes and practices of knowledge and artefact production in computer science through cyberfeminist and feminist new materialist lenses. It also aims to consolidate a network of researchers, artists and designers working on and interested in these issues for on-going collaboration.

At the lab-meeting we will discuss m-e-t-h-o-d-o-l-o-g-i-e-s (or not) for knotting together the expertise of artists, activists, theorists and software developers. Through collaborative projects such as Cqrrelations, The Techno-Galactic Software Observatory, The Libre Graphics Research Unit and Queering Damage, Femke Snelting will argue that it is urgent to create situations for thinking-together about what is going on with digital technology. How can we imagine forms of proximate critique that stay with the trouble of computation and informatics?

Femke takes Free Software serious as a trans*feminist invitation to explore how digital tools and practices might co-construct each other. Constant (association for art and media), Possible Bodies (with Jara Rocha) and a.pass (advanced performance and scenography studies) are some of the constellations through which this disobedient-action-research operates. 

The afternoon will be dedicated to a collective reading of an everyday computational object.


Notes from call, 14/12/18

important that a networked practice,
different projects that intersect
constant possible bodies and others
something on: all is 

because of the way that computation is intertwined with lives and futures (futurity) it is urgent to make spaces for thinking togethher for what they do and what they could do, its both 

approximate critique -  invented term - a sort of affirmative - stay within the processes, not critique from outside
try to think with the tools and the things that we already have

characteristics, is that it is always done with free software, it helps to look at the work - it means that we can study and further develop, its part of the type of computation that is already somehow, has the potential of thinking toegether, the work is trying to trying to take that potential seriously

the fact that you don't want to seperate tasks, in the making of computation, not to make equal the expertise that people have, or the desires that people have to be involved, but to not assume, to assume that everyone has something at stake - and how do you do that? 

4 or 5 examples here - of what that could mean 

showing how historically we have been doing that 
-and then we could make some exercises, and we could talk some methodologies  m-e-t-h-o-d-o-l-o-g-i-e-s (or not) 

trust that examples come up, of what we could look at - something that crosses different practices/users - everyday 'objects' 

----something that is already in the room, and already functioning (or not) -

preparing a reading with open access - 
something that has either open license or open standard (could be PDF, could be streaming, could be...etc...) 

---could still collaborate with a computer scientist from Kassel - we could really draw out the word blocks and how these conversations are usually framed (or not) - 

---we could then show better how this can work --  extend from banal objects, working a lot on 3D stuff - more about the person 

We kindly invite you to take part in the first lab meeting of the project “Re-configuring computing through cyberfeminism and new materialism” (CF+) that will take place on November 8th, 2018, in Kassel. CF+ is a project of the Gender/Diversity in Informatics Systems research lab at the University of Kassel, Germany. The project aims to lay the groundwork for revisiting dominant modes and practices of knowledge and artefact production in computer science through cyberfeminist and feminist new materialist lenses. It also aims to consolidate a network of researchers, artists and designers working on and interested in these issues for on-going collaboration.
 
This first meeting is dedicated to exploring cyberfeminist legacies and technofeminist as well as computational practices today. The lab meeting will start with a contribution by conceptual artist, interdisciplinary researcher and educator Cornelia Sollfrank. She was founding member of the collectives frauen-und-technik (Women and Technology, 1992) and -Innen (1994) and initiated and ran the world-wide cyberfeminist network Old Boys Network (1997-2001), including the co-organisation of three international conferences on Cyberfeminism (1997, 1999, and 2001).
 
The second part of the meeting will take form of an in-depth workshop the goal of which will be to share ideas and flesh out critical questions for further investigation and lay grounds for the network consolidation.



Why computer scientists should think about this?


Caroline Sinders 
https://carolinesinders.com/ 



Structure of the meeting:

Start with lecture CS, Cyberfeminism as a common ground

Two discussions: 
    What concepts are people interested in exploring, what questions, what interesctions
    How do you make/do alliance between feminist theories to computation (and the other way around?). What tactics


What computational objects are alread in the room?
- https://personal.onlyoffice.com
- networks
- wordprocessing
- streaming media

How to connect different kinds of knowledge.

Where does the intersection happen between the social and the techncal?
What models of thought does computing propose


https://apass.be/monday-readings/

https://apass.be/textprocessing/




How to do the work of translation