Deadline: 6 February 2016

http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/laborofdivisions
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/darmstadt.sandbox
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/darmstadt.solitude

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Let's first get things done!

How can we re-tell narratives of social justice activism and struggles for just technologies in a way that they converge rather than divide? What stories of collective authorship can we produce in those 'sneaky moments'? For the Darmstadt Delegation, the short workshop at »(Re-)Constructing Authorship« was an occasion to discuss what design artefacts, computational tools and language devices are available in moments of crisis. The workshop functioned as a prism on our continuous work on the divisions of labour and techno-political practices of delegation that occur in times of crisis [http://twentysix.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-196-lets-first-get-things-done-on-division-of-labour-and-techno-political-practices-of-delegation-in-times-of-crisis/]. The graph is a snapshot that shows the intersections between the discussion that happened at the workshop, and a vocabulary built over time between members of The Darmstadt Delegation.

For the workshop, we asked participants to propose relevant anecdotes for collective analysis. Using "time", "separation" and "labor" as orientation devices, we divided over three groups. "Time" (yellow) was used to look at those sneaky moments as a situation of urgency and intensity; the group discussing "separation" (pink) focused on processes of fragmentation happening at those moments. Through the lense of "labour" (blue) we could zoom in on the way power relations are re-enforced at sneaky moments. Purple, green, orange and grey ovals represent overlapping points of orientation.

This labyrinthic graph is not a data-visualisation, but a thinking device: it is a playful text [http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/darmstadt.thinkingmachine] that is readable but also writable and executable by a number of agents. Lines, colours and contours act as a semiotic gesturing of thought, generating multiple promiscuous concepts. The image was made with the help of Graphviz, short for Graph Visualization Software [http://graphviz.org]. It distributes items diagrammatically and automatically over a surface, attempting to minimise the amount of crossings and scaling to fit. The graph mediates a sneaky kind of thinking that keeps on changing position, re-orients the conversation on purpose, directs the reader and willingly loses the stream of recognizable, hegemonic, artificial, collective consciousness.

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All Darmstadt files
http://cloud.constantvzw.org/index.php/s/CmSl4miaIkxJUVP

Latest version we did in Stuttgart: http://cloud.constantvzw.org/index.php/s/PxKFuujCXZR6HtK

http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/darmstadt.thinkingmachineThis is the graph produced from that page:  http://cloud.constantvzw.org/index.php/s/S6xsVN0qmebxBUm (updates every 60sec; reload page to see changes)

L E T ' S  F I R S T  G E T  T H I N K I N G  T H I N G S  D O N E

How can we re-tell narratives of social justice activism and struggles for just technologies in a way that they converge rather than divide? What stories of collective authorship can we produce in those 'sneaky moments'? For the Darmstadt Delegation this short workshop was an occasion to discuss what design artefacts, computational tools and language devices available in moments of crisis. [LINK TO ARTICLE]

Using 'time', 'separation' and 'labor' as orienting devices, participants were invited to bring relevant anecdotes that they wanted to analyse collectively. Through "time", understanding 'sneaky moments' as a product of urgency and intensity; through "separation", trying to understand processes of fragmentation happening at those moments, and "labor", seeing how 'sneaky moments' re-enforce labor-divisions and xxxxxx tensions/questions

The graph presented here results from the intersection between the discussions during the workshop, and the vocabulary build over time within the The Darmstadt Delegation. It is important to note that it is not data-visualisation, but a thinking device for promiscuous concept generation. The image is a snapshot, generated with the help of a live-instance of Graphviz, a diagramatic distributor of items that bases its outcome on the parameters of optimisation of the limited surface, the minmisation of line-crossings, and the size-scaling depending on the amount of contained items (explain old and new usage) tool xxxxx. It mediates a sneaky kind of thinking that keeps on changing position, reorients the conversation on purpose, undercoverly directs the reader and willingly loses the stream of -recognizable, hegemonic, artificial, collective- consciousness.

This graph is actually a text [http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/darmstadt.thinkingmachine] that is not only readable, but also writable and executable by a number of agents. Arrows, colours, contours act as commands of semiotic gesturing for pointing directions of thought that distribute (thinking) agency: "our tools will be our interlocutors" (active archives: Kurenniemi archives).

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Arguments, thoughts

complex  assemblage of agents implied in the execution of thoughts and actions:  "Knowing is a matter of inter-acting" (Karen Barad): "in some instances,  "nonhumans" emerge as partaking in the world's active engagement in  practices of knowing" (...) "Knowing is not a bounded or closed practice  but an ongoing performance of the world" (ibid)

*Giorgio Agamben with respect to gesture: mediality is "the process of making a means visible as such" (Agamben, G., Means Without end: Notes on Politics)

[Constant: Active Archives]: "a dynamic force field of potential human and machine interpretation" 

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Rehearsing (of the) enemy; rehearsal and efficicieny and sufficiency
On the spot experimenting. New element, moment of uprising -- changes hardware, infrastructure. Plants become weapons. "Thick theory" vs moments of change. Sneaky moments, and what we mean by it; inviting dissent and dissensus -- sneaky moments as opportunities. If we want, urgencies and time ... life + death a constant paradox; if it is ... contradiction
instititutionlising progressive forms of doing

The main forces to decide what is a magnet, what words appear attitude: assertivity / flatness / symmetry / promiscuous concept generation with still a strong sense of writing fidelity to tensions/questions [bridge between issues discussed and tools/method] 

, directed towards the divisions of labour evidenciated through technological unfoldings in times of political urgency.

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add-on questions / problematics:
blocking mechanisms for the machine? needed at all? / dark angles / cut-off points: privacy, security, ... 

Intro/description/legend (mentally embedded into the graph: not turning it into an illustrative image!)

- darmstadt delegation
- magnets; a line on the workshop
- thinking machines (machinic delegates)
- graphviz 
- status of this graph ... warning note: processual state of it


The Darmstadt Delegation Thinking Machine


===

publication context:

http://schloss-post.com/
http://schloss-post.com/category/issues/authorship/

// MAGNET VOCABULARY
S = Separation
L = Labor
T = Time

S "accountability"
"activist-using-tech"
"affecting infrastructure"
S "affirmation"
T "affordances"
S / L "autodidaxie"
S / L "automatising"
S "being taken from within"
"care-taker"
L"care-taking"
S / L "co-laboration of asymmetrical agencies"
S / L "collaboration"
S "collective"
"collective learning"
S / L "community of professionals"
S / L / T "conditions"
S "consensus"
"crafting"
T "crystalization process"
"culpable innocence"
S / T "delegation"
"democracy"
S "difference"
S / L "difference work"
S "diffraction"
"digital technology"
T "direct experience"
S "disambiguation"
S "discipline"
T "dismantling process"
S "dissent"
S "divisions"
T "durability"
T / S / L "efficiency"
S "end-user"
S "expertise"
S / L "Fordism"
T "free labor"
S "generalist"
T "generations"
T "grammar of action"
S "handing over"
S / L "heteromation"
S "human"
S "indifference"
S "insecurity"
L / S "institutionalisation"
T "intensity"
S "interface"
"interpreting infrastructure"
S "intersectionality"
S / L "invisible work"
"job description"
L "labor"
T "learning process"
"learning from failure"
"liberation technologies"
T "life in a finite incarnation"
"machine"
S "making discrete"
"making invisible"
"making visible"
S "mastery"
S "mediating"
S "meritocracy"
"modest witness"
S / L "optimisation"
S / T "organising tiredness"
S / L "outsourcing"
"owner"
T "persistence"
"political economy"
T "preservation"
L / T "process"
S / L "production"
"relationality"
S / L / T "repetition"
"reproduction"
S / L / T "resistance"
S "responsibility"
S "role"
S / L "rotating"
L "ruler"
S "segmentation"
"self-management as learning"
S / L "separation"
T "settling process"
"situated knowledge"
T "situation"
T "sneaky moment"
"social media"
S "solidarity"
S / T "specialisation"
S / L "specialist"
S / L "specialization of work"
"student/learner"
T "subjectivation process"
L "supply chains"
T "survival"
"taking from within"
L "teacher"
"tech-developer"
S "technocracy"
T "temporality"
T "time"
"tool"
S "transdisciplinarity"
"trust"
T "urgency"
"user"
S "vocabulary"
L "worker"


/////////////////

// INDIVIDUAL WORD CONNECTIONS
"activist-using-tech" -> "liberation technologies"
"affecting infrastructure" -> "mastery"
"care taker" -> "care taking" -> "mediating" 
"care taking" -> "process"
 -> interface
"care taking" -> survival
"teacher" -> "care taking"
"care taking" -> "responsibility" -> accountability" -> "trust" -> "solidarity"
"collective learning" -> "accountability" -> "intersectionality"
"collective learning" -> "affirmation"
"community of professionals" -> "specialist" -> "specialization of work"
"culpable innocence" -> "modest witness" -> "situated knowledge" -> "responsibility" ->  "intersectionality" -> "interpreting infrastructure"
"delegation" -> "rotating"
"delegation" ->"divisions"
"digital technology" -> "machine" -> "social media" -> "liberation technologies"
"digital technology" -> "interface"
"digital technology" -> "making discrete" -> "divisions" -> "automatising"
"liberation technologies" -> "digital technology"
"digital technology" -> "tool" -> "mastery"
"discipline" -> "specialist"
"dissent" -> "consensus" -> "mediating"
"dissent" -> "resistance"
"dissent" -> "diffraction"
"end user" -> "activist using tech"
"end user" -> "end user"
"Fordism" -> "supply chains"
"free labor" -> "invisible work" -> "making invisible" -> "difference work"
"grammar of action" -> "optimisation" -> "efficiency"
"grammar of action" -> "vocabulary" -> "disambiguation"
"interpreting infrastructure" -> "making visible" -> interface
"institutionalisation" -> "separation" -> "specialization of work"
"machine" -> "tool" -> "human"
"making discrete" -> "optimisation"
"making discrete" -> "separation"
"making discrete" -> "vocabulary"
"making invisible" -> "making visible" -> "diffraction"
"making visible" -> "affirmation"
"making visible" -> "diffraction"
"mastery" -> "expertise" -> "specialist" -> "technocracy"
"mediating" -> "interface" -> "divisions"
"organising tiredness" -> "self management as learning" -> "grammar of action"
"outsourcing" -> "delegation" -> "making visible" -> "diffraction" -> "making invisible"
"process" -> "survival" -> "sneaky moment" -> "preservation"
"relationality" -> "transdisciplinarity" -> "rotating" -> mediating
"resistance" -> "divisions"  -> "diffraction"
"segmentation" -> "generations"  -> "diffraction"
crafting -> "grammar of action"
"situated knowledge" -> "grammar of action"
"sneaky moment" -> "divisions"
"sneaky moment" ->"grammar of action"
"sneaky moment" -> "insecurity"
"sneaky moment" -> "separation"
"sneaky moment" ->  "free labor"
"sneaky moment" -> "urgency"
"social media" -> "free labor"
"social media" ->"machine" -> "tool" -> "human"
"specialisation" -> "specialization of work" -> "divisions"
"specialist" -> "expertise" -> "meritocracy" -> "mastery" -> "culpable innocence"
"tech developer" -> "activist-using-tech"
"technocracy" -> "institutionalisation" -> "taking from within" -> "being taken from within"
"technocracy" -> "democracy"
"sneaky moment" -> survival
"sneaky moment" -> "technocracy"
"institutionalisation"  -> "technocracy"
"tool" -> "preservation" -> "care taking"
"tool" -> "resistance"
"transdisciplinarity" -> "intersectionality"
"affecting infrastructure" -> "interpreting infrastructure" -> "diffraction"
"preservation" -> "collective learning"-> "interpreting infrastructure" 
"user" -> "end-user" -> "tech-developer"
"vocabulary" -> "urgency" -> "diffraction"