Federico-thesis outline

For a Cosmology of the wireless

Borders are symbols of protection and protection is an announce of death A. Bonanno

On June 18th 1815 Napoleon was defeated by the British in the battle of Waterloo. The same day, around Waterloo, there was a very thick fog as well. Communication between Belgium and the UK was impossible that day: to communicate, they used optical telegraphers, a system invented from Claude Chappe in 1794. It consists of a series of signalers in elevated positions that acted as repeaters, allowing the signals to travel hundreds of kilometers. A smart artifact that unfortunately doesn't work when the weather is... completely foggy, like that day in that part of Europe.

The Protocol of the optical telegrapher and its contemporary use

The key-character of this story is Nathan Rothschild, the person who basically was in control of the financial system of the UK. Actually, I have to correct myself: the key character is a carrier pigeon. Rothschild was in the possession of carrier-pigeons and they are faster than the optical telegrapher or any horse messenger. The pigeon brought him the news to London. Rothschild was the first to know (at least in London, 360km away from Waterloo) that the French were defeated, but in London he released the rumor of a fulminating French victory. This created a fall in share prices of the UK debt's bonds, because investors trusted Rothschild since he was always well-informed. But in this way Rothschild misled the market by selling bonds and assets. Later he bought the shares back for dump prices. That pigeon, used as a p2p medium, can be thought as knowledge's bearer and as power-maker.

That pigeon, in my personal constellation of fun facts, is the original sin which created two layers in the array of layers in Complexity.

1. A layer which contains the stock exchange dynamics, made by running people, animals, algorithms, (not anymore) noisy market "squares" and noisy data centers.
2. A layer in which wireless media and all their implicancies inhabit in it, from the contactless payment system to the deep space network, which in the middle there is an ocean of waves (literally, lol)

In this thesis I will focus on the second layer, the layer of the invisible, the layer of definable magic and of the ineffable knowledge.

OK SO?

Media and medium are at the core of communication, every communication tool shapes in different way the knowledge' flow and consequently the power' flow. Who got the best infrastructures has faster informations and then more knowledge. Then the application of power has different faces, usually it's forcing something (like the forced fall of value of a country, as it happened in UK thanks to Rothschild) or it's pervasive (like gps-tracking nowadays for capitalist purposes). Wireless media are covered, from my perception, of a kind of magic, full of dramaturgic cues: Firstly, for a human deficit, the impossibility to watch with sightseen the exhange of data through wireless generates an almost imputable aura of mistery and I think, paradoxically, trust.

The annunciation of Beato Angelico which shows the Arcangel Gabriel and the Madonna, but the sensationalist element is the ray from the sky. Data packages in form of holy spirit (or viceversa)

These tools have the capacity to effect physical reality at a distance, and the link to a telepathy desire is strong. Using our devices as natural extension of our body in the best cyber-tradition, from a communication point of view, this desire of telepathy is fully commited. It's not only the wifi, the cosmology of 'older' medium such as x-rays and radio can really suggests how the wireless way to distribute knowledge (in a very broad sense) generates and shapes superstructures.

Smoke signals, drums, flags, homing pigeons... outline a cosmology of wireless starting to investigate from ancient systems artifacts of high-range communication is aimed to understand how and why we arrived here and now with the media we use everyday. It would be a mix of technical, social, political + politics power analysis of wiereless infastructures (architecture) and its dwelling (urbanism).

I want to underline that the term Cosmology, in this text, wouldn't be considered as a branch of astronomy but as branch of metaphysics that deals with the multitude perspective and nature of the universe (in this text, of the Earth and what floats around it (yes, satellite and other waves)).

I found a nice chart of what I think should be considered as bounderies of cosmology:

In this text, I would talk about ecosystems as "social organizations" (the centered topic in the chart). Another Key concept is the attempt to understand the wireless media as as multitude instead of a universal thing: that's why I will often talk in plural.

ecosystem(s) = ['humans','other animals','machines','fungi','pizza boxes','alorithms','King Ubu',...]

As I pointed out above, since I think the wireless has a magic aurea I will focus on the left side keys of the chart: the magical narration applicable on wireless could be an alternative system of reality to Technic. While Technic attempts to capture the world through an absolute language, Magic centres its reconstruction of the world around the notion of the 'ineffable' that lies at the heart of existence. I'm aware that the tools I'm going to analyse have a technic cosmogony but this is the crucial point: re-read and try to re-write the essence of those tools in a malleable and plural perspective: rethinking their protocols using the meaning of Magic as another interpretation tool.

Finally, I'm not really sure (not at all) about the direct line (in the chart) which connects in both sides Habitat and Biome, since Biome is a global understanding of Habitat: but it something that I would talk about in the conclusion.

WELL...

We are low-tech technophili, but not technopositivists. We would reassmble the world from the obsolete rubbish: we embrace raccoons-accelerationism.

This thesis would be a reflection on how could be started a collective cosmogony. From a personal interests on wireless to the fact that wireless nowadays is mostly pervasive, my proposal of world/future-building would start with a demistification of the "webmaster", intended as a generic person who commits changes in infrastructures who states a border between users and tools; in other words, a practical understand (know-how) for everybody. Furthermore, I think the classic DIY attitude must be changed in a DIWO (do it with others) attitude. Finally, I'm aware that those dynamic could be duable only in a community scale; for example, a "can-tenna" can't communicate with space, and only big-investiments from big countries can arrange a parabolic antenna to communicate with the ISS. At the moment, the pure meaning of "coexisting" is enough between a local scale to a global scale.

Unfortunately I know that a 8000 words thesis cannot subvert the neo-liberal nightmare but at least can bring serenity in communities: when life and education will just match + the boundary between personal and collective knowledge will be unpracticle to think, well... we will ready for a global network

STRUCTURE

Introduction[500] I would like to introduce my thesis by talking about the fascination I have for wireless and then explain the intention of the text: between anecdotes, historical facts, alchemic bullshits outline various cosmologies.

Presentation of method[500] - EXPLAINATION OF THE PROTOCOL Analyse the stories with a cosmological and investigative attitutude, taking into account contemporary critiques to the historical and lingustic(idk if is correct) meaning of technic. The question to starts with is very technic-al, actually: what are the proprieties of those tools? What do they have in common and must have?

• Proprieties of the tools: BEACONS - ANTENNAS - FORM - PERVSIVITY - DISTANCE RANGE - JAMMERS - PROTOCOLS...
• 

  One kind of beacon

• 

  A Cantenna, an antenna made with a pringles tube

• 

  A stock image about gps tracking lol

• 

  Classic wifi chart of range

• 

  A suspicious box: a jammer

Wouldn't you like a palmantenna?

Handshakes [(6500)/ 3] - MIS EN PRACTICE OF THE PROTOCOL I will probably split the core of the thesis in three historical time-frames (with more sexy names):

• Long-range tecniques (before radio and x-ray)
• Navigating the waves (after Marconi and his hegemonic desire)
• Surfing the waves (The WiFi doesn't fall from the sky but it's nice to think)

Conclusion[500]

yet to come :)