User:Artemis gryllaki/Project Proposal Second Draft

PROJECT PROPOSAL_Second Draft

What do you want to make

I want to develop a series of workshops to unveil and discuss gender roles in the Tech world. In parallel, I will explore tools and methods to document, archive, protect and publish these collective sessions, which carry stories, experiences, memories, conversations, and technical skills.

I am interested in making public and creating a public for issues around the underrepresentation of female contributors in the history of Information Technologies; the exclusions created by a stereotypical male, geek culture; and the need for feminist groups to form inclusive tech communities to encourage collective knowledge production and Do-It-Together practices.

Workshops: I will attempt to push the boundaries of technological circles, in order to include gender-diverse people, amateurs, or others who have experienced low or high levels of exclusion. I intend to create offline and online gender-inclusive spaces for discussion and cooperation, bringing together people who are already involved, or are interested in being involved in technology and the processes of shaping it. I believe in physical space meetings towards creating temporary, or long-term communities and creating bonds of trust among the participants. Furthermore, I regard these meetings as starting points for exploring and developing skills in information technologies in the context of free* software, free knowledge, and free culture.
*“free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer”, from the definition of free software in gnu.org.

During the workshops, I want to experiment with practices such as storytelling, collective reading and annotating, Wikipedia editing, role-playing, sound recording, DIT fanzine making, free software tutorials, cooking, etc. I will propose a variety of collective activities as methods to open up discussions, share personal and collective challenges, learn from each other and amplify vulnerable voices.

Archives: Another part of my project is to research how the collective knowledge and memories produced in physical space gatherings can continue to “live”, so that they can be revisited in the future, encourage other relevant projects, become an inspiration to others, and remain open for doubt or debate. I want to try different digital or analog tools and techniques to document, archive, curate, protect and distribute material from the workshops. Why multiple access levels (from fully public to fully private) to different kinds of information are useful or necessary? How can I curate parts of the gathered material in order to create publications? In what ways can we maintain this knowledge protected in our unstable and fragile community networks?

How do you plan to make it

At first, I will draft various ideas of activities and workshops in the context of the already mentioned topics. A next step is to design the structure of the gatherings and work on a "Hackpact" to test tools and methods I that can use during the collective sessions.

Examples of rapid prototypes:
Install an instance of Etherpad Lite on a Raspberry Pi; search for automated ways to convert the content of a pad to other file formats, in order to publish it online, or to print it for fanzine making; try out Speech-to-Text software to transcribe interviews or conversations; (more to come) I want to start testing my prototypes as soon as possible, inviting my comrades from XPUB and friends of mine to participate in small activities. Through trying out different possibilities, I can improve my drafts and workshop ideas. Later on, when workshop sessions are more defined, I would like to open them up for people outside of my circles to produce a variety of outcomes and get more feedback.

In October I will travel to Athens to participate in the "Eclectic Tech Carnival", a feminist tech skill-share event which was the trigger to activate me in researching this subject. Together with Angeliki, my fellow XPUB colleague, we will conduct a "show and tell" workshop, inviting women and trans, non-binary, intersex persons, active in the tech world, to share and discuss their experiences of exclusion. https://pad.xpub.nl/p/xperiences-in-a-box. Outcomes of this workshop will be archived in the "Communitism WLAN", which is a modified router. http://www.alexzakkas.me/portfolio/communitism-wlan/. This device uses wireless communication to form a local area network and hosts a growing digital archive of things and thoughts happening Communitism, an artist-run communal project space in Athens. Apart from organising "xperiences-in-a-box", I will also participate in several other workshops, to get inspired, meet and talk to people, trying to become aware of the difficulties a feminist collective faces while organising such an event.

During my project, I am also going to interview women, who are active in tech environments. I expect to encounter different points of view, notice conflicts or commons on people's narrations. I am interested in understanding and reflecting on the situation that women face in these environments, without necessarily being active feminists. The material from the workshops, meetings, and interviews hopefully will expand through time, to include experiences, stories, and skills of diverse groups of people. I plan to experiment with publishing my findings in various ways to create a playful diverse archive which speaks about matters relevant to my research.

Example reference projects:
https://eclectictechcarnival.org/, https://anarchaserver.org/, http://justfortherecord.space/, https://en.gendersec.train.tacticaltech.org/, http://www.grrrlzines.net/, https://obn.org/inhalt_index.html, https://transhackfeminist.noblogs.org/

Timeline

Sep: Defining the subject of my thesis, articulate the project proposal and draft rapid prototypes that can help my research.
Oct: Participate in Eclectic Tech Carnival (/ETC), gather material from workshops and discussions there, and start curating, archiving, experimenting with it as a first study case.
Dec: Reading and writing pieces of text, relevant to the topics I have suggested in my thesis outline. Continue prototypes. Interview people and work on publishing methods.

Why do you want to make it

My interest in researching issues related to gender and technology came as a natural continuation of my personal experiences. Since my early adult years, I got involved in activist movements in Athens, as a response to the social disruptions brought from the financial crisis of 2007-2008. The groups I was part of, focused on revealing and propagating social exclusions, according to race, ethnicity, social class, and gender. They had a tradition in using political practices of resistance that didn't change much from the '60s and '70s. They had highly skeptical approaches to new technologies and their use for surveillance, control, and oppression by power institutions.

After moving to the Netherlands and in parallel with my studies in XPUB, I also started working as a junior developer in an IT company. As a female and amateur developer, coming from an artistic background, I struggle a lot to prove myself among my male colleagues who constitute 90% of the employees. I find it hard to fit in their talks, as cultural or social issues seem to be "irrelevant". What matters is the code and how much money it can bring to the company. The goal is the ever-developing code, which produces more efficient, faster, impressive programs.

Technology and progress are often presented as neutral processes, however, the reality is much more complex. In my perspective, technology production needs people who care about who is being served, for what purpose, and at what -social and economic- cost. These questions are actually relevant and crucial to discuss. If we don't care about them, it is unlikely to be able to understand how the technologies we use everyday work, what impact do they have on our lives and behaviors, or if there is any possibility to change the current conditions. Shall we continue not having an opinion, as "ignorants, non-experts, or not geek enough"?

When I got familiar with the free-software movement and its suggestions, I got inspired by its proactive attitude. For me it offered a potential in the direction of changing the processes of developing technology, that's why I felt the need to dive more into it and possibly, become a contributor. Following discussions in forums where floss communities meet, conferences and meetups around free-software development, I was surprised to see how few women are present in these circles. I am curious to understand why this happens, what is the history behind it and if we can reverse this situation. Throughout my research, I would like to interact with people with similar thoughts and questions, learn from them and participate in communities that work on relevant projects. I want to contribute to feminist tech initiatives, which are opposed to the stereotypical "alfa-geek-hacker" attitude, the classical role model of the high-tech world.

Who can help you and how

XPUB tutors by giving feedback on my ideas, provide references for relevant projects and help with my prototypes
XPUB peers by participating in small activities I organise and discuss the development of my project
Manetta Berends has participated in workshops that are relevant to the topics I research and has useful references and experiences to share
Lidia Pereira is helping me with editing texts I write and giving feedback on my proposals

Relation to previous practice

During my previous studies, I researched the concept of the commons from an autonomous Marxist perspective, looking at the reasons why people meet and form communities in order to produce, protect and share their knowledge commons. As a former member of political groups in Athens, it would be a fortunate possibility for me, to get the future chance to enrich greek activist communities with the skills and knowledge that I acquire during my research.

My first try to develop a workshop was at the third Trimester of XPUB. With my fellow students, we structured the workshop "Marginal Conversations" (2019), exploring the potential of collective reading, annotating texts and performing our annotations. After being involved in the special issue "the Library is Open", and other workshops during the Urgent Publishing conference, I concluded that organising and participating in workshops is a very interesting and vivid way to acquire, share knowledge and initiate conversations.

Relation to a larger context

Sharing knowledge and skills within communities, debate in a democratic way, production, reproduction and protection of the commons are the main fields I'm interested in. Technology and software is a big part of my everyday life not only as an architect/designer interested in technology but also as a millennial woman living her everyday life in the post-digital era.

Inspired by the ethics and ways of thinking, collaborating and doing that the floss movement proposes, I aspire to understand its more complex processes and the problems which appear. How can an amateur, interested in computing woman like me be included in how technologies are shaped today?

I think that learning and producing knowledge collectively form a highly social and political action towards making knowledge common, against individualistic, career-making, efficient, ever-development tech production. I believe that by strengthening the commons, teach each other, and documenting our common processes, hopefully, can become an inspiration, a solidarity paradigm for other communities.

References

1. Life in Code: A Personal History of Technology by Ellen Ullman 2. Close to the machine: technophilia and its discontents by Ellen Ullman 3. When Computers Were Women by Jennifer S. Light 4. When Computers Were Human by David Alan Grier 5. Zeros and Ones by Sadie Plant 6. The Future Looms: Weaving Women and Cybernetics by Sadie Plant 7. Xenofeminist manifesto by Laboria Cuboniks 8. Feminist Server Manifesto, a collective outcome of the Constant December meeting in Brussels (December 2013)

Projects

1. Anarcha Server https://anarchaserver.org/ 2. Eclectic Tech Carnival https://eclectictechcarnival.org/ 3. Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology https://adanewmedia.org/ 4. Internet-in-a-box http://internet-in-a-box.org/ 5. Communitism WLAN http://www.alexzakkas.me/portfolio/communitism-wlan/ 6. PirateBox https://piratebox.cc 7. Are You Being Served? https://areyoubeingserved.constantvzw.org/Documenting.xhtml 8. Ethertoff http://osp.kitchen/tools/ethertoff.js/