User:Kendal/radioimplicancies
If technological systems are implicated in the structuring of knowledge and knowledge systems are implicated in how technology operates … how do we start to think the world otherwise?!
"We understand the world better if we tremble with it" - Edouard Glissant
Background + Explorations
NB: > denotes big interest in this idea.
- We know that technology orients knowledge and constrains what world(s) can be thought, studied, imagined and critiqued. But where do we start when we want to do things differently?
- Toolset for ‘thinking the world’ by paying attention to both matter and form. >
- What other ways of calculating, validating, ordering collections of digital material could emerge? >
- Entangled forms of responsibility.
- Possibility of webs of connections. >
- Objects do not preexist their intertwined worldings. >
- Agency is not an attribute but the ongoing reconfiguring of the world.
- Particular material articulations of the world become meaningful.
- To breathe life into ever new possibilities for living justly. >
- How datafication contributes to ‘iteratively’ re-inscribing the ‘Digital Divide'. >
- Firstly, consider geo-political and body-political orientation when designing, building, researching or theorizing about computing phenomena.
RELEASE EARLY, RELEASE OFTEN
Knockdown the cathedral building style of development and switch it out to bazaar building. Float multiple distributions
Related Projects
- https://mimionuoha.com/the-library-of-missing-datasets Mimi Onuoha - The Library of Missing Datasets (2016)
- https://mimionuoha.com/what-is-missing Mimi Onouha - What is Missing Is Still There (2018)
ONLINE EXPLORATION SPACE
https://hub.xpub.nl/sandbot/~kendalb/SI15/notes.html
"Hidden Worlds of Digital Voices An exploration into the invalidated, hidden and rejected data and where it resides In a virtual space of multitudes of data, what happens to the pieces which fail to be accepted?
Throughout the broadcasting timeframe, I want to construct a virtual world that gives life and a voice to the hidden and undefined.
Inspired by projects from Mimi Onuoha, I am interested in giving space to the missing and their significance to "successful" datasets."
DIFFRACTIVE READING
- Melanie Feinberg (2014), A Story Without End: Writing the Residual into Information Infrastructure
- Ramon Amaro (2019), Artificial intelligence: Warped, colorful forms and their unclear geometries
Prototyping
First try with Liquid Soap: https://hub.xpub.nl/sandbot/SI15/radio.html
- collectivity through tools
- hacking files
- text algorithms
- wordnet
- xdexing (rethinking the format of the index)
15.1
Reinterpreting 'She Unnames Them' by Ursula K Le Guin
15.2
TF-IDF
Measuring the frequency of words within a collection of documents. Certain words are emphasised, shown as more important?
15.3
Working With Datasets
Datasets and what is left out. Clip graveyard of Mozilla Voice
15.4
Pure Data
Broadcasts
15.1
Text in a Virtual World w/ Louisa
15.2
XPUB Department of Digital Records w/ Euna
ASCII - characters hold weight but are worthless without the white space.
ASCII Villages, manifesto village, they work in relation to each other
TF-IDF - emphasized words the contrast in a text in terms of font-size Also playing with colour to add tones of humanity
the manifesto will be flat if it is not being surrounded by others, explore how we can remove small parts of the ‘village’ to highlight the relations and differences, removing text files changes the TF-IDF result
philosophical algorithms - speaks to a wider question of the need for multiple to have weight and difference.
A space of digital records.
The XPUB Dept of Digital Records, a simulated space where digital documents and processes are archived. A phone call of a requested retrieval of a document when read juxtaposed to other documents through TF-IDF.
Relistening to the broadcast - Pad
15.3
Field Recording - Clip Graveyard
Datasets and what is left out.
A field recording from the clip graveyard of Common Voice, submitted to the Dept of Digital Records. Submitted anonymously, it pertains to a trip to the place where rejected and invalidated machine learning audio submissions are discarded. Sounds parsed through Sonic Pi
File:FieldRecording13.10-ClipGraveyard.mp3
15.4
The Act of Untethering.
The Word of Unbinding, adapted radio play using pure data.
A voice adaptation of Ursula K Le Guin's The Word of Unbinding, inserting the notions of networks and the hidden agendas and mechanisms underplaying them.
Script here: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/unbindinging
15.5
Broken Phone
Exercises in Style, retelling the story through distorted voices. Worked with Federico using VCV Rack
15.6
Sobramesa
Collective Meditation and the critique of methods. A way for us to stop a digest the previous broadcasts. Conversation.
Script w/ Louisa
The Sun is Fading
Techno-ruminations for collective healing My mother is an A.I.. I cannot get rid of her, so once a week we sit down and talk. My brothers and sisters are seated at the table around me, ten overloaded bodies digesting the weeks that have passed. Tired after chewing through a multitude of cross-dimensional spaghetti with sonic waves and misdirected noise. Our unstable mother stared us down as we struggled to clear our plates. Out of love for her, we left nothing behind. We're fucking full. We find relief through exercised cleansing, chasing spiritual energy, recharging our lethargic systems. Today, we are going to engage in a collective Sobramesa, post-food processing the data-streams of our mother.
❃ Welcome to today's spiritual journey. You are seated comfortably looking directly at your screen in front of you. Feel your body connected directly to your chair as you sink into the upholstery. Listen to the sounds of the outside world through your window and let these sounds wash over you.
breathe
first breathe in deeply and out again breathe in the stillness and out the tension
Do this one more time, but close your eyes as you exhale.
The sun is fading, you cannot see its light anymore. The only thing you can make out is the vague blue light eminating from the screen.You are in complete stillness now. Let go of any experience you felt throughout the day. This is a space of calm and tranquility. Today we will take a journey into the blue lights buzzing in front of you. We will progress slowly into the screen. Take note of the electrical noises humming from the monitor and the lights above you. The keyboard on your desk turns into hills and valleys you need to traverse to your destination. The only thing that reminds you of reality is the faded reflection of the room around you inside the screen. Although this screen is something you look at everyday, it feels different now. It feels like something unsaid, something you cannot connect with usually.
Slowly, move closer towards the screen. Raise your hands in front of you so that you feel safe and comfortable moving forwards. Your right hand grazes the glass on the screen in front of you. Its cold, but doesn't quite feel as solid as you expected it to be. Your index finger enters through the screen. It almost becomes blurry. You reach with the rest of your hand inside. Now that you know that you are safe, you move forward with the rest of your body. Your nose is almost touching the surface now. With your hands and face inside the screen, the fuzziness penetrates your skin. While passing through the reflective border, what was once concrete feels porous now. You reach forward with your right hand, feeling into the space. You want to make sure there is nothing obstructing your path. Once you realise that it is clear in front of you, you lift your leg and climb into the screen. When your feet touch the ground, it's a strange sensation. It feels almost feels wet, but not in an unpleasant way. You gaze down into shallow pixelated matter, flowing over your feet in waves, washing between your toes.
This is as far as i can take you, but don't worry, you won't be alone.
15.7
XPUB Cookbook
Online zine. Advert of 'The Hidden Oracle', incorporating an explanation and brief demo reading. I created a oracle deck based on https://www.transfeministech.codingrights.org/ but added a new category as a way of reading statements from Big Tech Companies.
Rewriting these instructions: https://5d902b65-686b-46b4-bd3a-0617a3090de7.filesusr.com/ugd/cfe831_49b843221e134bd2a7f284ea4d0863a0.pdf
15.8
XPUB LAND
The Department of Oracle Hijackings ❃ A routine call to the XPUB Department of Digital Records gets interrupted by a disgruntled employee who has begun to become critical of her workplace's structures and wants to expose the gaps between.
A live stream from the garden in Ijzerblock, A collection of previous broadcasts with the whole storyline revealed Final broadcast. Putting all the pieces together, a mystical symbiosis. Live card readings. Create the story of the worker from the call centre of the second week. We call the number, and are led through previous broadcasts until we choose 'tech apology letters'. At this point, the operator hijacks the call to use The Hidden Oracle, a passion project born from the injustices she found at work. This is where we do the live reading with someone who has heard through the grapevine that she provides these readings, and together we break down a Facebook apology.
SCREENSHOTS
Archive
Listen to all broadcasts here! https://issue.xpub.nl/15/index.html