Federico-project proposal

Project Proposal

What do you want to make?

The first draft of the Project Proposal was mostly a pure list. I would like to keep those three points for a few reasons:

• A series of tools to dwell the territory or and the hyper-territory and or the meta-territory (ongoing-urbanism)
• A series of tools to narrate the territory or and the hyper-territory and or the meta-territory (past-urbanism)
• A series of tools to change the territory or and the hyper-territory and or the meta-territory (urbanst-ing)

This summer I was in Habitat[1], the residency organized by Jacopo. I spent almost a month there because I couldn't stay more than three days in my hometown, situated in the Po Valley, a valley well-known in Italy for its very foggy winter and very humid summer with quite diffused boredom. Something strange happen: I brought, after the first week of the residency, my violin (which I haven't played for like 10years) and my watercolors (I haven't used for 5 years). I started to play and draw daily, in different situations.

Internet was only in a room, provided by a little parabola which uses the service "Eolo", a long wifi range service. Let's say I'm well known for the amount of time I spend in front of the computer: in Habitat, I realised I preferred just to do different stuff instead of stay in that room (a lot of people would say "of course you would!" but it's not so obvious). Also, only one cellphone provider had (bad) connection there, so most of us didn't have any kind of connection at all in our smartphones. No, I'm not going to say that we live better without technology or start to celebrate Ted Kaczynski.

I want to say that we, this summer, experienced just another form of sociability that we are just not used to anymore - but this again is not the point - But the point is:

if we want to reactivate this area (the topic/long term goal of Habitat) we should not push to have an internet fiber connection but we can rethink of alternatives and experimental ways of connections. Habitat could be the frame where we can experiment with a collective knowledge experience based on the three points above: dwell, narrate, change the territory, in different scales, in different terms. The urbanism which is going on is completely different from the one that is present in Milan and it's related to the architecture of the walls but also the architecture of digital (and not) infrastructures.

Everything started with the Collective Portfolio: a wireless local hotspot, an access point created with a Raspberry Pi where people could upload the projects they were doing during their stay. It was the first attempt of a (not yet there) series of self-management infrastructures for Habitat. The system fully worked but it was developed basically the last week of residency, so never really started.

After that month in Habitat, president Jacopo baptized me as Minister of infrastructures of Habitat next to the vice-president Ilaria, the grand official adviser Enrico and the Minister of the arts Lorenzo.

Jacopo and I would work together the final project, which would consist of the building of different infrastructures, from a solar-powered server to an ultra-local access point, radio AM communication experiments with the neighbors, Satellite tracking studies, and esoteric performances at the 5g antenna which is at the top of the hill. (yes, there is a 5g antenna and no cellphone works)

The main focus is to create a repository of tools for Habitat that could potentially be set in a similar situation. It should be a playground of waves, a magic circle where we can play but we are aware of the global captivity. The infrastrucutures would be thought for a new way of living in an ecosystemic manner, embracing the complexity around a place like a rural Italian hill.

This would be our future-building.

How do you plan to make it?

Preparation: Testing out different network's protocols and prototype different devices, from the diy/diwo to the hacking.

Research: with Habitat crew define what we need and what we can have fun with.

Making: blasphemy every night for a few months / go back and forth to Habitat to test

Testing: think about a worksop in Rotterdam before the

Activation: go to Tredozio and learn with its ecosystem the potential of the tools

Pirating: subvert the neo-liberal hegemony [beta]

What is your timetable?

Have in mind: I hope always

Preparation: NOW - December Try to understand at first what I can do/get there (from technicality to documents) since I will spend a week in Tredozio for NY eve

Research: End of December (in HABITAT) There will be also people from the summer, so it would be a nice moment to critically think and ask feedbacks about what we are dealing with

Making: January - April Do Test Sleep Repeat

Testing and Activation: April/June Final tests of infrastructures, organize workshops there and here, propose portals between Tredozio and Rotterdam, documentation!

Pirating: 4 ever

Why do you want to make it?

From the Special Issue 14 I started to dwell the radio spectrum with wifi local networks. Data packages were floating nearby. We installed five access points in the center of Den Haag which worked without the Internet. People could connect to them through a WPA (Wireless Protected Access) (but without passwords) and then look for http://<name_of_the_hotspot>.wlan to browse the pinball-menu. Collections of our publication [games, guestbooks, images, texts] (XPUB1 20/21) were hosted around the city, provoking extraordinary situations -- especially because the hotspots were not really stable :) -- everyone had a little beacon, to understand who was in the game: a fluo publication

an AccessPoint at the Spinoza Garden

Pinball-homepage

I was experiencing the same struggle of Gilles Ivaine about the urbanism of the postwar period but in the wifi: Messing around with backend taught me about the core of what we are dealing daily with wireless. The possibilities are a multitude; the network is not only big platforms such as big social media and streaming services, it's also a caring space for collective publications, without a central power.

In Habitat, I experienced a subtractive version of the adventure in Den Haag. We did use digital technologies, but we dwelled them in an extreme decelerate way. We really also enjoy non-digital technologies as well. In the hill Ca' de Monti, at the really top, there is a little rock plateau surrounded by pines... but next to it there is a big antenna, for mobile cell.

Well the antenna relies only upon one operator in Italy and nobody really has this operator anymore The owner of the build where Habitat is located told us that the microwaves from the antenna let the bees move to another place __ now: we have to really understand how this is true

I would then propose different approaches to (wireless) tools imagining a reconstruction of infrastructures (architecture) and their dwelling (urbanism) avoiding a monolithic approach to technology and reality.

Data are not only big data, data are not aimed at a violent extraction, "Data is a relational tool". Every interaction is data, and also in the offline world. (It is possible to imagine and explore different models, based on generativity, expression, and collaboration. [2])

can we embrace and experience a new dwelling of the radio waves spectrum? Think about a multitude of networks ecosystems? Build different infrastructures and inhabit them with different protocols?

Who can help you and how?

Dennis De Bel, Roel Roscam Abbing ==> for their works, for technical and sensemaking feedbacks
Oriana Persico, Salvatore Iaconesi ==> for their attitude on the activation of situations

Relation to previous practice

Special Issue 14!

Hotspots and instructions

Wifi's scream

Wifi's scream it's a sound-printer, a tool to sonification the moment of any single wireless data exchange. When there is an interaction on the browser, different requests are sent to the router and the router sends back data. This creates invisible chaos of waves, but it can create an audible scream.

DING

During the first Arduino Club, I created the DING, an idea that came up with Kamo. "DING" is a tool to have a physical/metaphysical understanding of the urbanism of our sandbot. "DING" is composed of a Tibetan bell, a servomotor, and a wifi ESP32 module. I created an Access Point from our sandbot and connected it to the wifi module, and thanks to a socket (a protocol) which connects directly the homepage of the sandbot to the wifi module, when anybody accesses the homepage of the sandbot a signal is sent to the wifi module and consequently the servo motor is triggered to play the bell.

EtherAxis

EtherAxis Board, pic by Emilia Tapparest

For the game EtherAxis, in collaboration with Louisa, Camilo, Liminal Vision, and Erik Peters, I'm working on dramaturgy and web design. Is a hybrid board game + LARP Game which works with a web app.

The structure of the gameboard emphasizes four main axes, each connected to multiple ancient symbols of alchemy, hacked to uncover their original meanings. In this constellation of four interlaced geographic grids, the dreamer wanders through bridging fields on a spatiotemporal axis. Throughout the Overkill Festival, EtherAxis lures you into the streets to find its messages hidden in plain sight, stepping over to the worlds floating in the ether.

The Ether is the liminal space where the contact between our reality and possible realities happens. You have to go around Enschede to find the ether-access-point, you will enter through different (wireless-)riddles through your smartphone.

The core tool of the game is The Device, which is simulated into your smartphone:

The Device is a device built with different components aimed to send and receive knowledge
The Device communicates through the ether, via radio waves, with esoteric and exotic encryption systems, with multidimensional protocols
The Device speaks the language of the ancients, subverting its original essence
The Device is always looking for beacons to navigate through waves' ocean
The Device translates signals from different potentially realities
The Device uses multiple protocols, the most are unknown and incomprehensible for our species
The Device is a part of the ecosystem and is looking for also other potentially ecosystems

an entity + devices = subjectivities
devices have the capacities of capturing, orienting, determining, intercepting, shape, control, ensure gestures, ensure conducted, ensure opinions [G. Agamben]
At the root of each device there is a desire and the subectivity of this desire constitutes the power of the device
our desire -> futurebuilding
device as -> speculative tool for positive feedbacks [F. Polak]

Relation to a larger context

• Global Tools
• (AOS Art is Open Source)
• Dennis and Roel works
• Christoph Wachter and Mathias Jud works: "Tools for the next revolution", Qual.net
• https://www.neme.org/projects/respublika/exhibitions/open-community-open-networks

References/bibliography

• Roel&Denis a low-end rich media publication
• Magic and Technic by Federico Campagna
• Bestiario Haraway by Federica Timeto
• New Dark Age by James Bridle
• Political Interventions AAVV