Prior pad: https://etherpad.hackersanddesigners.nl/p/HNI-Dutch-More-or-Less 

1 April 2025
DMOL Workshop and presentation
- talk about collaborative method
- teach some of the methods of seaming - ask for sewing machines as well as tech for the e-ink displays to be there - maybe we make something that can be in homage to the installation we created?
- speak through the various seams we are researching: grid/power resources + git related/ structure of collaboration / step by step / instrumental + community relation (depth of connection) + invention / hacking / dismantling 
---> these themes will be the organizing factors for the workshop


Meeting with Arianne & Anja & Ramon
Honey will be working with HNI till the 1st of June
Planetary Poetics - Energy Storage Workshop
Solar Energy Biennale in Lausanne
-- tracing in order to own it, but not to own it --

25th of September -
- before summer they need to upload some information for communication - rough outline of the evening
- -1 Ramon's space
- scope, timeframe, additional budget if we wanted to organize the workshop

- can be any format - Research Night - re:curring event - state of research - more about exchanging with the audience - can be 15 - 70 people - prefer a bit smaller and experimental -

-- what would we like to get out of it --
-- we're making this piece together, the legibility to how its made, the collective practices we're involved in --

-- continuation and connected - priority on the process of making it - invitation of the public to join in that process - very difficult thing about having a static exhibition that demonstrates the kinetic process - how that choroegrpahy from the visitor will happen --
-- soft type of interface, that carry displays, you can connect to them with your phone & leave messages behind - visitors can log onto these webservers - the visitors can log into - esp e-ink modules - they syncronizing - choreography, the messages kind of wander - collective pool of messages, all the messages that have been sent before --

-- the prompts for them to interact with become a type of wayfinding in itselves - interactivity, anything keyboard based - people will type something - its the something they type tends to be removed from the content from itself - when was the HNI built - the prompts themselves be wayfinding - get the responses based, limit them in how much they can write - a keyword they can add - the interaction is as low barrier as possible - showing someone doing that - connect to Wifi --> not as intuitive as we have hoped - wayfinding connection - different levels of interaction - nothing against also engaging in various levels --

-- pay attention to what we want to get out of it - we end up getting things that aren't relevant - having a clear idea about it

-- kara keeling, its just the encounter - where we want to draw a convesation around different elements out of it - follow their lead on the interaction

-- perhaps its also tour based - could also be moments of activation

-- not bound to one way or another, we'll think through it

-- are these traces we want to leave behind that are elemental to the screen - what are the traces pulled into the work itself

-- would affect the documentation 

-- aim: research process? / do you want to show the pre process? 

-- this is about the process of making this work, is this an invitation for someone to join that process, or to observe that process?

-- cosplays with the installation as a random person walking in, if its helpful to pull out of that - reflection on what someone is getting out of it -- dramaturgy / choreography / flowing out of the space / end of the exhibition activating. bow or card wheel? how do people leave? 

-- we're the end work in the show! 

-- its a space we can design :-) you are designing choreography 

-- maybe we let them go gently rather than keep them captured! yes! 

-- showing research process (video of us meeting making quilt?) 
-- Gabriele Fontana - the screen is showing the game play & the documentary of the process

-- 1,5 hours for the event on the 25th
-- research night -- think of the mood - lights off, sit on cushions - what kind of vibe do we want for the night --

-- plan a visit to HNI in May to review the rooms 
-- something about a text, practical deliverables - images, texts etc.


19 March 2025
Textile: 
Attachments: 
Distance / perspective / viewing
Printing

Color scheme

Each seam is seaming to something specific (the grid, another text,...)
Connection and reaching out / looking for points of connection (patchwork)
volume / thicker things meeting other things 
attaching pins to screens 
Different seam stand for ways of connection: 
  1. connecting to the grid / power / resources 
  2. git related, structured collaboration, step by step, instrumental 
  3. community relation (depth of connection)
    1. close / structural / always present 
    2. returning / continued conversatons
    3. large / ephemeral 
  4. invention / hacking / dismantling (connection through understanding/studying something up close and from the inside)

> labor of connecting 

color:
    motherboard green
    cabling colors
    orange and grey 
    metal 
    plastic blue
        
structure to hold it:
    potentially a curved bar at the top so its kind of like a mini-enclosure, creates a different kind of shape https://www.etsy.com/se-en/listing/1212495995/changing-room-curved-fitting-curtain
(but instead of connecting to the wall, hanging from the ceiling)
https://framerframed.nl/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Setareh-NooraniJelmer-Teunissen_I1A8705%C2%A9EvaBroekema-695x463.jpg

open questions:
    - what's on the esp modules
    - what to print on the textiles

-> think of different ways of connection vis-a-vie the seams - git-workflow, use the material experimentation for us to understand what forms of connection we are involved in through our practices.
-> reflect on this structured designed work flow on git - I make a commit, how can I merge etc - how to do that with a fabric etc.

The work plays with the backsides and seamfulness of technology through using visual aesthetics that are metallic, of the collected copper, feel like broken open motherboards & stitched together ethernet cables. Stitched into these various aesthetic forms are e-ink displays that are refreshed throughout the exhibition with statements/thoughts on who and what we are connecting to. Seams in this work become a way to think about what we are connecting to: each other, collective technical inventions, the grid which powers them, the seemingly endless layers of computational infrastructure we move through.

-- a few formats we want to hold onto, and some formats have text printed on them, some have fluffly or volumnous, and some get really fragile and they fall apart a little
-- 

-- material research how we could link together 

11 March 2025
Meeting with Pernilla, Ren & Anja

- have another meeting with Honey etc. 
--> we could have a meeting on the 27th, studio visit doesn't seem so useful - 

home work
- relation to support structure
- relation to collaborative / distributed making
- write one sentence describing the work
- how elements are connect

what things do we know / align on
- textile / fabric / soft 
- seams / how things connect / different pieces coming 
- support structure (as a concept) ... allows the elemens to connect / could be the seams could be something else / objects attached to it. 
- not standardize / no modular universalized system
- eps modules / e-ink display 



time/planning from Honey & internal
conceptual framework - something to work towards - conceptual framing
colors -- material 

different phases:
    - material phase
    - methods / technique phased
    - 


fluidity of the expert
not a front and not a back - something you can move around
focusing on the seams
making a support structure <3
grid or loom structure / elements not connecting to each other but to a grid 


- email from Honey below -
As promised, but with a little delay (my apology!), please see my proposed planning as below. As we spoke during the video call, the idea is to finish everything in the last week of June.

17.03 - 21.03        First idea have already proposed -- 27.03.
31.03 - 04.04        Studio visit (if applicable)  no
21.04 - 25.04        Final proposal and format
28.04 - 02.05        1st draft artist statement + caption (Nieuwe Instituut will edit the English texts and translate them to Dutch)
12.05 - 16.05        Technical drawing
02.06 – 27.06        Pre-production
23.06 - 27.06        Delivery of digital files (if applicable) is this for communication? --  
25.08 - 26.08        Installation of the work in DMOL (Done mostly on Monday, 25.08 as the museum is closed)
25.09                Launch as part of Research Night

In the attached file, you will see an example of an artist statement and a caption.
We also mentioned about textile. I’ve a good experience working with Crea Textiel. They can think along and are familiar with fire retardant material. I’d recommend contacting them.

All the best,
Honey


19 February 2025
- Potential Dates for Ren's visit to Amsterdam
March 19 - 23
May 5 - 7
May 14 -18

18 February 2025
Meeting with Pernilla, Ren, Anja, Arianne van der Veen & Honey Kraiwee
how to present H&D in the geonology of design
a way to interact with the work that they're showing

less of a display of works but a connection of practice

exploring wifi modules with e-ink displays, local networks

noncommerical tools & technologies - open source technologies
discomforts of using alternative tools

how to give space to voice these technical discomforts

how people have passed through and left something behind

signature, iconographies, recognizable, notion of competition - making sure you're visible within the hemisphere of design -

could challenge some of the assumptions about what design practice can do

having a workshop around the opening - to be activated - research night - on the 25th of September
- already open from end of August -

- some for sale, some as viewing copies in the bookstore - the bookstore is not "theirs" - we'll have to be put intoch with them to discuss this

- for the bulletin --> smaller riso, zine like publications 
- making them regurarly - its a small edition - essays & interviews that inform the work they do - 

Anja- to check how much they spend on it, can share a bit of an estimation around this (for the bulletin) let's see how they can realize it

Production
- it is possible to use the height of the space
- the gray banner with a lot of typefaces will stay next to the work
- floorplan - 7 meters tall (might be lower) - Honey will send the floorplans - the block will somehow be in the space (can be used as a bench, or as a wall - can decide what to do with it too)

one block to put a caption text & an artist statement on it

materials - we can ask them for help too

has to be fire retardent, Honey will send the list of this

Installation
    25th of August (last day of previous show)
    Build up/down - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday 
    Thursday - open for public - August 28th (opening)
    there are builders to help install - also lighting
H&D event on 25th of September - during the Research Night (can be a workshop/talk etc) - they have -1 the digital lab from Ramon, has streaming radio station set up (different budget, different project)

format, drawings, feedback - Honey will send this

finish holidays: Before July //  Anja is off from the 27th of June - deadline of finishing the work // 

caption text / statement: HNI will send us a format 
follow-up meeting with ramon 

mountain-ish 

https://elanatsui.art/
https://www.amysuowu.net/content/radio-slumber-stedelijk-museum-amsterdam
https://www.artforum.com/columns/candice-lin-on-collective-grief-and-the-consolation-of-cats-250755/

need to try out some stuff, visual research on how banners could be placed, fabric that becomes volumous, could lay on these cubes and could sit on rather than look at

https://www.artforum.com/columns/candice-lin-on-collective-grief-and-the-consolation-of-cats-250755/

-- for Ren (Thursday & Friday) -- suggest some times 
-- rough allocation of budget, material & other costs (50EUR/hour fee)
-- Anja to look at bulletin costs - conversation & small text writing between us three 

16 February 2025
Anja: 




Email to HNI
Dear Ramon, dear Arianne, 

We are looking forward to our check-in meeting tomorrow, where we will share some initial ideas and look forward discussing them with you.

Additionally, we would like to introduce Ren Britton to the project, a long-term collaborator of H&D, who will be joining us for the call. You might have met as they have been research fellow before at HNI before and are working on some writing for HNI at the moment. Our plans for the exhibition very much grew out of ongoing conversations with Ren about the (im)possibilities for anti-ableist technologies, prior work we did together around our criptastic hack meetings and hacking clocks to relate to the concept of crip time. 
Here are some initial thoughts that we concocted:
    
Looking forward to speaking with you soon.
Anja, Pernilla, Ren 

[add images from the textile-work we made recently, perhaps the ether-knitting ref.(https://www.instagram.com/p/DE2vKKYSJFW/) and also some of ren's work like: 'counting feelings' https://www.medienwerk.nrw/en/articles/podcast-counting-feelings/ and 'unforgetting as caring'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcWKcOHgVKU  'mining meisspelling' https://lorenbritton.com/projects/mining-meisspelling?token=08b0fff8dc732e5f3d012f30046e8c60a77c186

10 Feb 2025
Hey Hey :-) you two, okay so this morning I did a little dreaming/thinking about what we could make for HNI. I was thinking about this work from Otobong Nkanga that I sent you a photo of in our signal group - I had wondered if the liquid that could creep up through this textile might be electric in some way, so that as the liquid crept up the textile - it could turn on the e-ink readers? haha! that would be amazing. sounds like a complicated thing to do... i would think it would instantly short circuit? but my knowledge is limited :-))) 
I like the idea of liquidity, perhaps we could try something with natural dye?  Oh wow yes! to prevent shortcirc, what if the liqid is in transparent tubes? messy tubes mixing with cables. or instead of cables? with e-inks poping out. using the tubes/cables to spell something? Also could be inetresting to look at conductable glues.

looking back through our notes I thought about the alignment & misalignment between values I hold around disability justice and the open source technologies that we work with - thinking about charting the overlaps of user unfriendly softwares & hardwares and how they often are 'unfriendly' because they hold specific politics within them (yes!)

-- a series of affirmations came to me --
supple but not agile (quick)
resiliant but not ableist (centering back to norms)
seams with pleasure
pain that connects to the collective
discomfort for those routinely excluded
discomfort with extraction
friction with standardization
panic with the assumption that it would stay the same
seamfulness towards other worlds

from the work that Pernilla and I had done on the technical therapy one question really sticks out with me --> when you fix a broken tool, what do you fix? Do you fix the world that rendered that tool necessary for navigating that oppressive system? Or do you restore it to its previous function so that it can continue doing what its designed for? 

it doesn't lead towards a specific outcome - but perhaps some ideas - I was playing with the idea of a woven 'intake form' like I sent in the images. Trying to throw out some ideas here that you can both bounce off of. I hope its fun & helpful!

With joy,
Ren <3

Okay - i'm back - reading right now: https://damaged.bleu255.com/Disability_Driven_Development/

Disability Driven Development from Amelia Laumann and Marloes de Valk

"Disability Driven Development (DDD) is a practice that reimagines computing from a disabled perspective, challenging its seemingly seamless and stable hegemonic operations. It asks who is left out of creating (and joyfully using) digital technology, and how this can be changed. It is a practice by and for those who did not get to shape computing to meet their needs. It is a work related to crip technoscience, a practice of critique, alteration, and reinvention of our material-discursive world1. It is also heavily inspired by "fourth wave" womanist thinkers like EbonyJanice Moore, drawing on the notion of "a revolution that does not cost us our whole spirit, soul, and bodies."2 DDD was coined by Amelia Laumann to describe her work on SpoonStack 3."

--> this immediately made me think of what you were sharing around seamfulness - Anja, as well as this notion of a revolution that does not cost us our whole soul, spirit and bodies -- am thinking about this carefully right now! oef, yes, such a good entry to the damaged earth catalog.

also Pernilla, this from the same text: "Although they fully support protecting the rights of people to do what they like with their devices and software, they want to point out that nothing in the FLOSS space is actively anti-ableist in any way. The worst aspects of hegemonic tech go unchallenged in that space and most notable projects are riddled with issues of sexism, misogyny, racism, classism, and so on. There are pockets of people who do better, but overall, FLOSS is behind the curve when it comes to its politics." -- reminds me so much of this converation we were having about open source and access around our TM panel :D !!

7 Feb 2025

- bring things together a bit
what HNI is expecting a bit
budget

comission-> Ramon Amaro - Black Technical Object, Senior Researcher at HNI

Invited to the H&D summer academy in 2019

Ramon is curating this exhibition around dutch design

alternative timelines - questioning of time
display timeline exhibition - goes on for several years

shows also icons of design - also wunderkammer vibes too

NL as a place of cultural production, how do you show what's happened

September --> 6 months 

things in place before the summer
there are production people there for making something for us 

they're interested in H&D a collective that challenges individual authorship, that they work a lot with workshops etc. -- its the end of the exhibition that they'll be positioned within -- show the concept of design will be problematized and questioned

the projects are never meant to be displayed, they're meant to be activated - its not just 9 people making something, its always part of a whole network of relationships - 

turn towards alternative tools are often considered less "user friendly" - build resilience around these tools & other relationships and vocab - pay attention to the affect emotional relations that these have on their bodies - pain, discomfort, friction, panic etc.

Ren did fellowship in 2021, HNI currently stopped it temporarily. Ren asked to write an article 2025. 
https://www.koozarch.com/

Anja, juju and heerko: E-ink displays. displays the last 10 messages.
seamfulness - showing the edges - showing how technology comes together, the practices to not hide away where things are not perfect

ways that you can enter the exhibition, and feel that people have been there before and people will come in the future - 

https://celinecondorelli.eu/text/support-structures/

clouds, pully system

care webs. non-disabled community care is temp. temporality. Time spand. Streaching of time. Having the recorces to resist loooOOOooong term.

Default is tricky situation. Long and short terms resistance. relationship to time, as well as eachother. 
Why did we excpect things in the first place? 

find a format - work on something material - something that takes some time
https://www.mcad.edu/events/visiting-artist-lecture-sheila-pepe

water soluble fabric -> made as a temporary support -- as a host in a way 

Anja, Pernilla & Ren are working together
Ju & Heerko--> are more supporting

Ren to send something by Monday end of day on the 10th -- 
Pernilla & Anja will respond Wednesday/Thursday

Budget: 7,500EUR for everything (fee + production) - activation moment or workshop - could be at the opening - extra - additional budget in September

1. Tools for survival meetup: 'Technical therapy'
Do you have technological problems? Do you want to code something but don't know where to start? Do you need to use a new tool, but aren't sure how to? Try technical therapy!

This meetup, builds upon Denise Ferreria da Silva & Valentina Desideri's 'Political Therapy' and will take up 'Technical Therapy' as a practice that thwarts normative colonial measures of technological practice like: quantification, efficiency and productivity. Instead in 'Technical Therapy' sessions, either group, or individual; we will consider what the problem is; identifying tools we might need to approach problems and generate possibilities for attending to these problems that are in constant flux. Sometimes the 'therapists' will be intentionally unseating hierarchies between patients/ therapists/ tools we consider each position as mutable so it can become undone in what it comes to normatively represent. Tools will have problems that need solving, therapists will too - patients will become therapists and have answers and methods of approach. A question will be played with in our practice around what it means to fix: when you fix a broken tool: what do you fix? Do you fix the world that rendered that tool necessary for navigating oppressive systems? Or do you restore it to its previous function so it can continue doing what it's designed for-work? 

Questions that might prompt someone to sign up for a therapy session could be: 'How do I build up the confidence to start working with the terminal on my computer more rather than the GUI?' or 'How do I use this jackhammer?' or 'How do I refuse technical (GAFAM) giants in my working processes?'.

Participants: A roaming ambulant therapy pop-up where people can try different tools to approach or 'expose' problems as well as different kinds of 'medicines' like 'coding', 'opening up the technology'. These low threshold engagements become a way to promote our workshops next to our regular H&D channels. 

Dates: August 2025 – December 2025
Partner/collaborator: Ren Britton
Ren Loren Britton (Ren Loren Britton is a trans*disciplinary artist-designer who holds values that reverberate with trans*feminism, technosciences, radical pedagogy and disability justice. Their work practices with loving accountability towards collaboration, accessibility, trans*gender politics and critical technical praxis. https://lorenbritton.com/) 

Location: H&D Studio, NDSM

Pernilla to Ren: this really got chopped. But maybe we can squeeze in a bit more to make it flow a bit better? I hope you dont feel discoraged by the chopps and changes. We can make it anyway we like once the application is through

______________________________
END :) 
______________________________


______
Proposal Activity: Technical therapy
    Do you have technological problems? Do you want to code something but don't know where to start? Do you need to use a new tool, but aren't sure how to? Try technical therapy!

Technical "Therapy" problematizes both terms within its title. Technical, meaning those practices that engage with care in socio-technical systems that world the kinds of worlds around us and have to do with the tools that we use that shape our worlds as we shape them back. And therapy, a practice of attuning to and identifying what the 'problem' is in group and individual settings and trying out possible strategies to change the 'problem' into a 'possibility' - without the presence of "real" therapists. This research line, intended as a riff off on Denise Ferreria da Silva & Valentina Desideri's 'Political Therapy' will take up 'Technical Therapy' as a practice that thwarts normative colonial measures of technological practice like: quantification, efficiency and productivity. Instead in 'Technical Therapy' sessions, either group, or individual; we will consider what the problem is; identifying tools we might need to approach problems and generate possibilities for attending to these problems that are in constant flux. Working against notions of expertise, we will define who takes up each of the roles in each of the therapy sessions. Sometimes the 'therapists' will be 'patients' and 'tools' will sometimes be 'therapists' too. By intentionally unseating hierarchies between patients/ therapists/ tools we consider each position as mutable and so that it can become undone in what it comes to normatively represent. Tools will have problems that need solving, therapists will too - patients will become therapists and have answers and methods of approach. A question will be played with in our practice around what it means to fix: when you fix a broken tool: what do you fix? Do you fix the world that rendered that tool necessary for navigating oppressive systems? Or do you restore it to its previous function so it can continue doing its designed for-work? 

Questions that might prompt someone to sign up for a therapy session could be: 'How do I build up the confidence to start working with the terminal on my computer more rather than the GUI?' or 'How do I use this jackhammer?' or 'How do I refuse techincal (GAFAM) giants in my working processes?'.

Through a series of imagined roles through dedicated sessions we will queer what 'help' means and open up the space to question the series of operations that led us to feel like we don't have the confidence to pick up the tools and play around. In this way we will refuse care dynamics that stabalize who needs help and who is the helper. In Technical Therapy we are not offering a service, rather we are opening up a shifting set of relations where the 'problem' is located and what is the 'problem' are open to interpretation as well as what the 'solution' might be remains open for invention too. The therapy sessions might look like: confidence building workshops, coding something together, daring to type something into the terminal or working with bread boards and simple electronics. Throughout this research we will develop roles for ourselves  like 'technical expert', ' bibliomancy expert', 'novice fake therapist', 'experienced fake therapist'. By assembling these roles and playing with 'how to do things' and 'what to do' we will invent new practices of questioning technology that move towards unpacking the messy relations of what problems and technical solutions look/feel like in the first place and explore co-learning skills along the way. Questioning 'knowledge production' by looking at the multiple ways that knowledge is passed on, by/to whom it is passed on and what methods can be used. Embracing the joy of being/feeling brave, with the support of peers and the warmth and myth of external experts.

___

Activity:
- Individual Therapy Pop Up -

- Group Therapy Session -


Dates: August 2025 – December 2025
By: Ren Loren Britton (Ren Loren Britton is a trans*disciplinary artist-designer who holds values that reverberate with trans*feminism, technosciences, radical pedagogy and disability justice. Their work practices with loving accountability towards collaboration, accessibility, trans*gender politics and critical technical praxis. https://lorenbritton.com/) & Pernilla Manjula Philip (H&D)
Location: Amsterdam 


Budget suggestion:
PERSONNELE COSTS 50 Euro p/h:
 
MATERIAL COSTS:                      

INCOME: 
    200 Euro? – lunch contribution + merch sales

____
From Loes: Hey @all when making your budgets could you also think about possible income? This could be eg.
Especially the last one (audience income) is important because per project the accountant looks if theres VAT taxed income from 3rd party (i.e. ticket sales) as a condition for being able to get VAT returns on our expenses within that project. If you dont love the idea of entrance fee maybe it helps to do some construction where entrance fee includes drinks/lunch/a publication/merch. That way visitors pay for that, not for the event itself but we can still apply for the tax benefit. Cheers!


Activity:

- Individual Therapy Pop Up -
(LB) maybe add: who is it for? how many people? duration? locations (and why those?) It could help to illustrate with one concrete scenario, something along these lines:
(LB) NDSM Open in October next year could be really great occasion? There's lots of performative stuff happening and we have the open studio. 
- Group Therapy Session at (H&D) NDSM -
(LB) suggestion: maybe this could be worded a little more concretely while keeping it open. E.g.something like "we will play a game using character cards developed to think through and question what tech therapy might mean and establish all the knowledge present in a given space." 
>> I imagine this will be more in depth. How do the 3 sessions progress? It doesn't have to have a concrete result or outcome but maybe you can make more concrete what you want to make space for/explore and how they follow-up on one another. What you hope people take away from it: maybe reframe how they look at something, find confidence, find peer support, other?
>> also here: who is it for? Do you imagine different participants for the individual vs the group therapy sessions? 

Dates: August 2025 – December 2025
By: Ren Loren Britton (Bio), Pernilla Manjula Philip (Bio) + H&D
Location: Amsterdam 

Flexible Roles:
    - therapists
    - patients
    - tools

- Traveling theater/therapy (an ambulance more than a hospital) --> Varia was making a promotion for a kid, a van - a bakfiets
- Coding something together, daring to type something into the terminal or working with bread boards and simple electronics
- Could we give some love and attention to the look of the tools? Like paint the jackhammer with colours, stickers and text. Maybe we can do this to rental tools from the Blauwe Duime so others who rents the tool after its therapy session will get ripples from our vibe. And also testing out the tools brrrrrrap
- Group and Individual Therapy
- Pop up in places? we come in, where people normally go, a quick therapy session in a pop up tent
- social workshops?

Setting:
    - What is therapy? (good question, now that you say it I realize so many things are theraputic. Does it need to be framed at this stadge?) 



References:

Making Referrals:
"The crip analytic of interdependence helps us understand how technoscience can simultaneously be entangled with global networks of domination and also provide opportunities for kinship and connection" Crip Technoscience Manifesto, Hamraie, A., & Fritsch, K. (2019)

"Crip technoscience struggles for futures in which disability is anticipated and welcomed, and in which all disabled people thrive, regardless of their productivity. By endorsing accessible futures, we refuse to treat access as an issue of technical compliance or rehabilitation, as a simple technological fix, or a checklist. Instead, we define access as collective, messy, experimental, frictional, and generative. Accessible futures require our interdependence" Crip Technoscience Manifesto, Hamraie, A., & Fritsch, K. (2019)


Comment:

Reference: https://faketherapy.wordpress.com/political-therapy/






Notes from meeting between Ren & Pernilla
11 August 2024
—> self education — look further at that
—> maker culture - squatters and design justice - maker spaces from Jamaican Sound Systems, that often gets overlooked, - maker spaces that don’t look like makerspaces — tool rental place 
—> analogue system for filing and archiving, squatter mentality — no no no no you can do this, in a commercial space wouldn’t be daring 
—> making, the hands-on making <— 
—> material and technique and making things —> 
—> Fake Therapy
—> There’s the tools and there’s the confidence to pick up the tools. Coding and hammering and reading and speaking. 
—> Confidence building
—> technology confidence building workshops for disabled and trans* people
—> power tools, coding, going into the terminal in your computer, different things for different people, learning and achieving goals 
—> daring to type something into the terminal 
—> Solar Punk - working with these ESP’s - pick up signals with a 30 meter range, treasure hunt - would decorate these boxes and servers and code them, something really nice about having this both together
—> quick reference to the Audre Lorde, the masters tools - interesting somehow, ownership and tools and literally tools 
--> Pernilla performance "Dr. Philip" 

counter propositions to techno-optimist desires for social progress through normative measures of quantification, efficiency and productivity. 

Ren's Draft Proposals:
Draft 1:
Technical "Therapy" (Me and H&D love this direction. Ren, should we focus on shaping this as an activity?)(Ren here, yes would love to! I also apprecaited the comment from below about problematizing 'fake' and also I was thinking we could problematize the role of the doctors that are brought up too, maybe through unseating ideas around expertise? Also seems like there is a world we could get into if we wanted to around referrals etc.?). Pernilla: YES!
    Do you have technological problems? Do you want to code something but don't know where to start? Do you need to use a new tool, but aren't sure how to? Try technical therapy!
Indended as a direct fork from Denise Ferreria da Silva & Valentina Desideri's 'Political Therapy' and 'Sensing Salon' projects - 'Technical Therapy' will take on the role of the fake therapist by suggesting "solutions" to techno-optimist desires that thwart normative colonial measures of technological practice like: quantification, efficiency and productivity. A question that someone might bring to us could be 'How do I build up the confidence to start working with the terminal on my computer more rather than the GUI?' or 'How do I use this jackhammer?' Through a series of imagined roles through dedicated sessions we will queer what 'help' means and open up the space to question the series of operations that led us to feel like we don't have the confidence to pick up the tools and play around. The therapy sessions might look like confidence building workshops, coding something together, daring to type something into the terminal or working with bread boards and simple electronics. Throughout this research we will develop roles for ourselves  like 'technical expert', ' bibliomancy expert', 'novice fake therapist', 'experienced fake therapist'. By assembling these roles and playing with 'how to do things' and 'what to do' we will invent new practices of questioning technology that move towards unpacking the messy relations of what problems and technical solutions look/feel like in the first place and co-learning skills along the way. Simultaneously we will be working with  Questioning 'knowledge production' by looking at the multipul ways that knowledge is passed on, by/to whom it is passed on and what tools can be used. Embracing the joy of being/feeling brave, with the support of peers and the warmth and myth of the extrenal experts.

"The crip analytic of interdependence helps us understand how technoscience can simultaneously be entangled with global networks of domination and also provide opportunities for kinship and connection" Crip Technoscience Manifesto, Hamraie, A., & Fritsch, K. (2019)

"Crip technoscience struggles for futures in which disability is anticipated and welcomed, and in which all disabled people thrive, regardless of their productivity. By endorsing accessible futures, we refuse to treat access as an issue of technical compliance or rehabilitation, as a simple technological fix, or a checklist. Instead, we define access as collective, messy, experimental, frictional, and generative. Accessible futures require our interdependence" Crip Technoscience Manifesto, Hamraie, A., & Fritsch, K. (2019)


Comment:

Reference: https://faketherapy.wordpress.com/political-therapy/

Draft 2:
    Do you have technological problems? Do you want to code something but don't know where to start? Do you need to use a new tool, but aren't sure how to? Try technical therapy!

Technical "Therapy" problematizes both terms within its title. Technical, meaning those practices that engage with care in socio-technical systems that world the kinds of worlds around us and have to do with the tools that we use that shape our worlds as we shape them back. And therapy, a practice of attuning to and identifying what the 'problem' is in group and individual settings and trying out possible strategies to change the 'problem' into a 'possibility' - without the presence of "real" therapists. This research line, intended as a riff off on Denise Ferreria da Silva & Valentina Desideri's 'Political Therapy' will take up 'Technical Therapy' as a practice that thwarts normative colonial measures of technological practice like: quantification, efficiency and productivity. Instead in 'Technical Therapy' sessions, either group, or individual; we will consider what the problem is; identifying tools we might need to approach problems and generate possibilities for attending to these problems that are in constant flux. Working against notions of expertise, we will define who takes up each of the roles in each of the therapy sessions. Sometimes the 'therapists' will be 'patients' and 'tools' will sometimes be 'therapists' too. By intentionally unseating hierarchies between patients/ therapists/ tools we consider each position as mutable and so that it can become undone in what it comes to normatively represent. Tools will have problems that need solving, therapists will too - patients will become therapists and have answers and methods of approach. A question will be played with in our practice around what it means to fix: when you fix a broken tool: what do you fix? Do you fix the world that rendered that tool necessary for navigating oppressive systems? Or do you restore it to its previous function so it can continue doing its designed for-work? 

Questions that might prompt someone to sign up for a therapy session could be: 'How do I build up the confidence to start working with the terminal on my computer more rather than the GUI?' or 'How do I use this jackhammer?' or 'How do I refuse techincal (GAFAM) giants in my working processes?'.

Through a series of imagined roles through dedicated sessions we will queer what 'help' means and open up the space to question the series of operations that led us to feel like we don't have the confidence to pick up the tools and play around. In this way we will refuse care dynamics that stabalize who needs help and who is the helper. In Technical Therapy we are not offering a service, rather we are opening up a shifting set of relations where the 'problem' is located and what is the 'problem' are open to interpretation as well as what the 'solution' might be remains open for invention too. The therapy sessions might look like: confidence building workshops, coding something together, daring to type something into the terminal or working with bread boards and simple electronics. Throughout this research we will develop roles for ourselves  like 'technical expert', ' bibliomancy expert', 'novice fake therapist', 'experienced fake therapist'. By assembling these roles and playing with 'how to do things' and 'what to do' we will invent new practices of questioning technology that move towards unpacking the messy relations of what problems and technical solutions look/feel like in the first place and explore co-learning skills along the way. Questioning 'knowledge production' by looking at the multiple ways that knowledge is passed on, by/to whom it is passed on and what methods can be used. Embracing the joy of being/feeling brave, with the support of peers and the warmth and myth of external experts.

_____
Workshop ideas:
- Coding something together, daring to type something into the terminal or working with bread boards and simple electronics
- Could we give some love and attention to the look of the tools? Like paint the jackhammer with colours, stickers and text. Maybe we can do this to rental tools from the Blauwe Duime so others who rents the tool after its therapy session will get ripples from our vibe. And also testing out the tools brrrrrrap
- Group or Individual Therapy
- Traveling theater/therapy (an ambulance more than a hospital) --> Varia was making a promotion for a kid, a van - a bakfiets
- Pop up in places? we come in, where people normally go, a quick therapy session in a pop up tent
- social workshops?

- Individual Therapy Pop Up -
- Group Therapy Session at H&D -

Setting:
    - What is therapy? (good question, now that you say it I realize so many things are theraputic. Does it need to be framed at this stadge?) 

Flexible Roles:
    - therapists
    - patients
    - tools

Dates: August 2025 – December 2025
By: Ren Loren Britton (Bio), Pernilla Manjula Philip (Bio) + H&D
Location: NDSM Amsterdam

References:

Making Referrals:
"The crip analytic of interdependence helps us understand how technoscience can simultaneously be entangled with global networks of domination and also provide opportunities for kinship and connection" Crip Technoscience Manifesto, Hamraie, A., & Fritsch, K. (2019)

"Crip technoscience struggles for futures in which disability is anticipated and welcomed, and in which all disabled people thrive, regardless of their productivity. By endorsing accessible futures, we refuse to treat access as an issue of technical compliance or rehabilitation, as a simple technological fix, or a checklist. Instead, we define access as collective, messy, experimental, frictional, and generative. Accessible futures require our interdependence" Crip Technoscience Manifesto, Hamraie, A., & Fritsch, K. (2019)


Comment:

Reference: https://faketherapy.wordpress.com/political-therapy/



De Blauwe Duim Collaboration (think this could complement the Technical "Therapy" activity)
This would be a collaboration between H&D and the 'De Blauwe Duim' tool borrowing shed. I think this could both be a chance to work with a local context and perhaps also study their system for filing & archiving. Maybe a comparison could be drawn between the archiving practices with H&D. I would propose some hanging out as method here, and also a kind of building/technical/accomplice project. Maybe when someone goes to borrow a tool, they also get a flyer from us that is like - 'do you also need your hardware/software fixed? we can't promise anything but a lot of interest and becoming accomplice in understanding your technical problems'? It could be a way to connect to the community around this tool shed - and also a practice of expanding the kind of tooling up and supports that can be imagined to be supportive of this space? There is something about this idea that realtes to 'flipping of the script' prioritizing those without the means -- which is a practice against big tech who, as the proposal writes alwasy prioritizes those with the means.

If a leading principle can only set us back, how can we imagine a post-progress configuration for our techno-social fabric? Together with our large and diverse community of critical makers, H&D sets out to develop constructive counter propositions to techno-optimist desires for social progress through normative measures of quantification, efficiency and productivity. 

Post progress
unpacking what has already been there
making accessible what is already there
making smaller 

Tooling Up with What We Already Have
Something about this idea around 'post progress' makes me think about all of the work that H&D has already done. I wonder if there are some echoes of research or projects that could be turned into little tools that could be shared? I'm thinking about the worksheet we made for the Crip Time Clock workshop - what if that was forked and used as a worksheet for another purpose? Or with my idea around the Coalition Bouquet project, what if this practice i'm developing around telling stories between coalitions that have gone well between different parties became something H&D hosted over time - as a way to collect these stories and host them in a library. I guess I'm trying to think here of making the resources we already have around more accessible as tools for each other - though how to do this is a bit unformed so far. 

Other ideas not yet formed:
🍀shifting the archive of who is the teacher, moving towards the plantropocene as a direction of research
🍀World Wide Web rather than Wood Wide Web 
🍀how about movement towards education as a practice of freedom? what are the tools of community liberation? 
🍀how about a 'flipping of the script' prioritizing those without the means 

Some notes on the language in the document that Pernilla sent me -- what about moving from the framweorks presente to: 
🍀self-sufficiency --> community-sufficiency
🍀ecology --> including and naming as such, more-than-humans as collaborators in our practices
🍀alternative education --> education as the practice of freedom
🍀"do it yourself" --> from DIY to DIWO "do it with others" 
Thank you Ren, great points! 


___feelings. frustration, 
no judgement
-should clean up computer, 
- one workshop + exhibition
- interactive messageing board, leave behind, 


Seamful design


https://meet.jit.si/Plansandapplication2025