Wordquilt

Chop Chop

Definition by Wikipedia

"Chop chop" is a phrase first noted in the interaction between Cantonese and English people in British-occupied south China. It spread through Chinese workers at sea and was adopted by British seamen. "Chop chop" means "hurry" and suggests that something should be done now and without delay.

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chop_chop_(phrase)

Beautiful Chop Chop

Definition by XPUB Chop Chop is the name we have chosen for our dear Raspberry Pi. This is because we want our server to be quick and do what we want it to do. Chop-chop!!

To discover the contents of Chop Chop go to https://hub.xpub.nl/chopchop/

See also SSH

((in)ter)dependence

To be inextricably linked, in a way that is impossible to disentangle. Because the term care has it difficult and violent history, interdependence arose as a term in the disability justice community to signal not just that they need to depend on (a social body, network of support, individual people) but that there are "structural conditions that shape gendered, racialized, and globalized care work."[1]

((in)ter)dependency tree

             interdependence
     inter ──┘             └── independence
in ──┘-------------------------┘          └── dependence

     ┌─────────────────────┐
    ─┴─           ─────────┴─────────        
( ( i n ) t e r ) d e p e n d e n c e
 ───────┬───────  ─────────┬─────────
        └──────────────────┘

inter

▚ Prefix: Used to form adjectives meaning "between or among the people, things, or places mentioned" ▞ 

┌ between; among; in the midst
│
├ reciprocal; reciprocally
│
├ located between
│
├ carried on between
│
├ occurring between
│
├ intervening
│
├ shared by, involving, or derived from two or more
│
├ between the limits of : within
│
└ existing between

in

░░░░░░ ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
░    ░                                                                                             ░ 
░    ░ <-- you are often not here ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░         ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ ░ outside
░ in ░ <-- isolated           └───but instead in the space ░ between ░ categories ░ ░ topologies ░ ░
░    ░ <-- apart from             ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░         ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ ░
░    ░ <-- inside of                                                                               ░
░░░░░░ ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
 
░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ ░░░░░░░░░░░░░ ░░░░░░░
░            ░ ░           ░ ░     ░
the space between categories is erased
░            ░ ░           ░ ░     ░
░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ ░░░░░░░░░░░░░ ░░░░░░░

independence

The state of wanting or being able to do things for yourself and make your own decisions, without help or influence from other people.

dependence

when you can't go about it on your own
                                    └┅when you need┅┅┅┅┅┅to lean on┅┅┅┅depend on┅┅┅┅rely on┅┅survive with
  ┏┅others┅┅loved ones┅┅strangers┅┅groups┅┅communities                                                                         
  ┇ 
  ┗┅resources┅┅material┅┅substantial┅┅substances┅┅help┅┅support┅┅mutual aid
     ┏┅immaterial structures┅┅coping mechanisms┅┅
     ┇
     ┗┅abstract systems┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┓
                ┇ ┇ ┇ ┇             of education                        
     of justice ┛ ┇ ┇ ┗ of support                          
        of health ┛ ┗ of care

Borderlands and Monsters

Monsters:

A monster occurs when an object refuses to be naturalized (Haraway 1992)

I'm struck by this sentence, because:
A monster could be:

• a plant brought into a region it is not native or indigenous to. And this plant cannot co-exist with the other plants, it either takes up all the resources or grows uncontrollably, or just refuses to grow. When it spreads around and was brought by humans intentionally, it becomes naturalized.

introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species...

• a person who asks a lot of questions when encountering how things are done here, and refuses to just accept the how but asks the why
• an immigrant living in this country for 5 years, who has in slight yet persistent ways, refused assimilation and the next step naturalization. Not learning the language, not participating in the culture, carving out a space for themself where your own culture could exist.

Borderlands:

a borderland occurs when two communities of practice coexist in one person (Anzaldúa 1987)

• When you have to code-switch
• When you use an entirely different language depending on the context you're in
• When you're split between what your day job needing you to use adobe while still trying to use free software in your downtime
• When you live on the hopscotch your way between on the border, between the lands, practices, communities and people who create them.

Care

Care is a loaded term. It's being thrown around a lot these days in the arts and design sphere; everyone is talking about facilitation with care, curation with care, designing with care... The term 'care' has it's own difficult medical history. Especially for folks with disabilities, the associations with care and the medical-industrial system is often grim, riddled with abuse, and uneven power dynamics. The term cannot be simply tossed around (imho) without a sense of a dedication to it. But equally, because of its grim history, disability justice activists have often turned towards using interdependence instead to emphasize a world we can all work towards . One in which relying on each other and building networks of care, is more important than independence.

(Un)availability

We live in a time where constant availability is expected, especially with social media. In Glitch Feminist Manifesto, Legacy uses AFK (away from keyboard) instead of IRL (in real life), because the the digital is as much a part of real life as the physical interactions we have are. But you are not given the option to be away from the keyboard or log off anymore. In working environments, it is stressed that it is your own responsibility to not reply outside of working hours. What has spoken to us is the line [a feminist server...] tries hard not to apologize when she is sometimes not available.

Check-ins

Within the ((in)ter)dependence editorial team, a lot of our conversations quickly turn in on themselves, and serve not only as a moment to exchange ideas related to the Special Issue, but also on how we can make this exchange pleasant and fruitful for us all. This week, when invited to write a Code of Conduct for our editorial team, we discussed check-ins, among other things. It turns out: we feel some anxiety surrounding these moments.

+ First off, we do appreciate the invitation of the check-in, the moment it creates to share and touch-base, as well as practice moments of care where the personal meets the political; 

+ We see the value of this moment allowing us to update each other and the tutors with our work, signaling what would be useful for us to get out of this class, and what (individual) wants and needs there might be; 

+ Besides, it allows for a moment to have opened our mouths. The first time in a day is often the hardest. 

- But then, even when the intentions are right, these check-ins are a moment to perform. A performance that is often anxiety-inducing. For some, this might stem from a language barrier. For others, this might introduce difficult pressures in not having been able to do as much for the SI over the weekend as they had wanted to, or feel like was expected of them. Or for some, a third reason altoghether; 

- The 'moment to open your mouth' goes both ways: this moment can set a tone. If a pressure has been introduced, this might linger for the rest of the day. 

~ Aside from practical updates, it can be useful to have a moment to give a personal update, as a way of getting that out of your system to allow for a better focus on the SI afterwards. Such a moment serves to express, not necessarily to be heard (particularly, to be heard by a large group of people). 

It is unfortunate that this check-in, valuable and appreciate as it can be, can also become an obstacle. We discussed some alternatives, e.g. one-on-one check-ins, but no alternative yet has managed to tick all the boxes.

Code of Conduct

This is an in-progress Code of Conduct. From the paper we were writing on: [TO ADD PHOTO OF MAP]

Encourage the following:

• Respect differences
• Practice active listening
• Provide support and care (update those that have been absent)
• Be aware of the space you take up.
• Try not to dominate conversations and care about giving everyone space to speak or just be.

Discourage the following:

• Discrimination
• Violence

How to react when the code of conduct is not respected:

1. Do not host interventions of the collective kind
   1. Try to communicate one-on-one where the situation allows for it (non-immediate intervention)
2. De-escalation
3. Diverging
4. Asking others for help

Additional:

• Try not to assume and address people based on appearance, or name. An author is not strictly female because their name ends with a. Attempt to use words that emphasize where your assumption of gender expression comes at play, eg. by using 'male-presenting' instead of male.

Communities of Practise

Appears in Misplaced Concretism and Concrete Situations: Feminism, Method, and Information Technology (Susan Leigh Star, 1994, find it here on the bootleg library), that builds on the concept from Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation (Lave and Wenger, 1992).

A community of practise...
    ... is composed of people and things, 
        themselves in ecological relation...> > > check ecological relations
    ... as a term emphasizes the ways in which people work together and act together to form communities
    ... is a way of talking about a linked web of actions, people, and artifacts

Objects in a community of practise...
    ... come to be only in the context and action and use
    ... exhibit a level of familiarity, 'taken-for-grantedness'
    ... are on a trajectory of naturalization 
                ─┬─────────────┬─────────────
                 │             └ the removal of contingencies of an object's creation and its situated nature 
                 │              [first computer rolls around and we're all Really aware of it but now smartphones are 
                 │               just a part of us, they have become naturalized, a part of our lives 
                 │               and the landscape, it's historical context is no longer that important]
                 └ it is not predetermined an object will ever become naturalized or how long it will remain so

People in a community of practise...
    ... are considered 'newcomer' 
        not through their relation with other people in the community
        but through their relation with the objects in the community
    ... are on a trajectory of membership
        ─────────────────────────────────
        (which ranges from illegitimate peripheral participation
                      to   full membership)
        that consists of a series of encounters with the objects in the community
        and increasingly being in a naturalized relationship with them

Ecological Relations

Those interactions that are analysed by Social ecology, the study of how individuals interact with and respond to the environment around them, and how these interactions affect society and the environment as a whole. So are those systems where ecological relations are highly taken into account those that have a deep interconnected connection between society, their members and the ecosystem that is formed around them?

We look at the text again, page 152. Editorial team member C is taking notes.
A: Could you break this question down?
B: which one?
A: 'So are ... around them?'
B: I googled: where [noisenoisenoise]
C: Sorry I missed it, the explanation
B: Me as well aaah
All: hahaha
B: Where people care a lot about building a good environment. Togetherness. Flexible in relationships.

So could it be that social-ecological systems are those that are more flexible? \can absord better turbolescences. Are they less vulnerable as systems, do they accept their vulnerabilities?

A: So those ecological systems are more flexible than other systems?
B: Yes?
A: The last question I don't fully understand, because it starts with a statement.
B: I found this piece that talked about social problems, vulnerabilities... Ecological means that as well, talking about vulnerabilities and care... I think I should write hours and hours to get a really good explanation.

In the text ecological relations emerge as the author describes her point of view of what information is, in the context of feminist method, and connected to the communities of practices.

So ecological relations within the communities of practice, communities where people work in cooperation to form groups

Digging into the meaning of the term "ecologically" we see how it can mean taking everything, every aspect of an outcome into account.

A: I really like the last sentence, 'how it can mean taking everything, every aspect of an outcome into account'. Maybe we can put it on top or somehow highlight it...

Editorial approach

1. We will preserve the spatial approach to writing that we have started with (but not every text needs to fully embrace this). We started writing spatially to make sense of every part of a given keyword and its origin.
2. We will not strive for objectivity or a lack of contradiction.
3. We will attempt to preserve multiple voices—who is coming from which point of view. The conversational element in our writing is already heavily present.
   1. Stay anonymous, while keeping some kind of visual cue (eg. colour, text alignment) to distinguish voices.
4. Non-text formatting is allowed. This includes images, memes, audio, and video (on a conditional basis) as long as you do the translation work to another medium afterwards.
5. Everything could be an entry or quilt patch. Nested patches are allowed.
1. Every patch needs to follow a yet to be decided upon structure.

Adding Keywords

(from the first editorial team meeting 2024-01-24, first patch creation)

Protocol for writing the keywords:

It seems like the protocol can differ per keyword. To start, we have chosen the keyword ((in)ter)dependence (our name). We will go about this quilt patch as follows:

   0 We have the idea to use 'recursive definitions'
   1 On paper, discuss how we want to dissect this word and how these subwords relate to each other
   2 Each with a different color, place a mark next to the subword you would like to contribute to
   3 Create a wiki page: https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/((in)ter)dependence
   4 Populate the wiki page with sections for each of the subwords, and a section for the tree
   5 Start wikifying for each of one of your selected subwords

How does ((in)ter)dependence think of a feminist server

• A feminist server is a server that is equally a learning ground, in which the people who are a part of it are dedicated to each other and to learning with and from each other.

• A feminist server is one that also makes use of its idle time to dream, so not to have a life geared towards productivity and efficiency, but one where there is enough time to take a breather and actually imagine and dream of what an alternative could be.

• A feminist server as a shared digital place for information and communication with trusted people to gathering, supporting each other.

On the Neutrality of Data

Or a virtue of language: a letter to editorial group ((in)ter)dependence

I feel a bit responsible for our confusing stance on the neutrality of data. In fact, I have confused myself quite a bit. So let me attempt to put to paper some of our discourse.

I think it's in line with the feminist approach to consider data inherently not-neutral. The first part of the feminist server manifesto refers to the situated nature of technology. Any statement is made through its context, as is any choice of representation, as is any choice or reflex of interpretation. I can accept this way of thinking. In fact, I believe this is my way of thinking, too, at this very moment.

However, that is with a caveat. 'The neutrality of data' implies a universal quantification, a statement regarding all data. And in this universal sense, I feel the confidence in this stance crumble.

Personally I'm inclined to accept an idea of 'data' as a much broader concept, as something that's not necessarily the product of technology, not necessarily the product of human labour, not necessarily anything related to any worldy intent. I can accept data to be anything that hold information through representation. I gave the example of a grain in the wood of the bench we were sitting on: this grain tells us about the history of the wood, about the manufacturing of this bench, about the people sitting on it. That information is carried through these data, and that information can arguably seen as not-neutral. But this not-neutrality is obtained through interacting with the data. The grain itself just 'came to be'. Yes, it is situated. But is it partial?

In the past, I have considered the example of Platonic ideals as neutralities. This is a difficult case to make. In language and philosophy, these 'perfect originals' cannot be captured faithfully in any wordly occurance, and therefore seem (to me) to be inherently susceptible to interpretation. And therefore, not neutral in any wordly occurance. That said, a more mathematically inclined voice inside of me still believes these ideal Forms exist in some functional sense. In set theory, for example, there is a notion of an empty set. This is an ideal in the sense that there is no faithful representation possible. Yet we accept its existence in a conceptual sense (in ZF through the axiom of separation (combined with extensionality to see it is unique, a Form)). I can accept the empty set as data, a representational form. And I can accept it as neutral, I think.

But does that even matter at this point?

I tread on the verge of pedanticality. I'm not saying this to nitpick on the discourse around neutrality and feminist methods. I am not saying this just to conjure up new problems. I'm not saying this to drench our discourse in difficult language, to consequently simultaneously mask and highlight a futility at the core of it.

And this is what it is: a 'problem' of language.

I am saying this to challenge this concept, 'neutrality', to challenge our understanding of it. But more so I am saying it because I feel confused, and anxious, and frequently succumb under the pressure of this looming futility. I am saying this, because expressing this is, to me, valuable. I am saying this because we've encountered barriers of language again and again and again, and this is yet another example. But to me, this example illustrates that through language's shortcomings, we can find new, meaningful insights. And that is beautiful and reassuring. And that is something I hope to share with you with this writing.

We near the end of the trimester, and find ourselves in a web of (linguistic) confusion, spun not only by the topics at hand, but also by us through our careful and thoughtful nature of conversing. Now that we've done our intellectual homework, now that 'the data' is there, I feel encouraged to focus on this 'us'. The data itself is interesting, sure. But it's how we interact with it that holds even more value.

> Each of us come with their own deeply subjective and biased point of view. Each POV has been influenced by countless things; different cultural background, families, and the hosting and cooking practices we were raised with. Instead of pretending that objectivity is anything but acknowledging our biases, we decided to make them, and our subjectivity, explicit.)

Play

It is always interesting to observe how play is interpreted in humans in a practical sense while in animals as an instinctual response.

We can talk about the little miniature kitchens, baby dolls to take care of, coloured plastic carpenter sets, these toys reflect a child's exploration of their future roles within society, mimicking adult behaviours. To train oneself to be the grown-ups, to behave like the grown-ups, it is normal for that to happen, to reject that and to try to distort the game itself as just manipulation goes to failing to analyse the very heart of what it actually means to play, to what might be its real utility, which always turns out to be only social. Play is always social, and when a person plays alone it always goes to recreate situations of artificial sociality. A child who plays with a doll imagine it as alive, a man who inserts a coin into the slot machine relishes the idea that by becoming rich he will inevitably improve his life, and except in rare cases it is always about improving one's life in the eyes of others and to improve one's relationship with others. It all sounds trivial to say, in the end as social creatures we are inclined to be like that, loneliness leads the game to become a distraction overcoming that conception of didacticism. To waste time, not to think.

> Here there is a friction between viewing play as social, and viewing play as a phenomenon that just exists for itself. The writer of this patch sees the parallel play as another social game, and argues that each game has a role and a societal purpose.

>> 'He found his four-year-old son sitting at the front of a row of chairs, playing "trains". As he hugged him the boy said: "Don't kiss the enginge, Daddy, or the carriages won't think it's real."' In Huizinga's Homo Ludens, the second characteristic of play is that play is not 'ordinary' or 'real life'. The adult gambling their way to fortune is curious, as the implications of this 'play' are hoped to be carried over to 'real life'. Arguably, this example also doesn't satisfy Huizinga's first characteristic: all play is a volunatry activity. In a world ever increasing in complex and interwoven social dynamics, we can wonder if we need to reconsider our idea of play: not just as a voluntary act, but as a necessity to cope with and traverse these dynamics. And, maybe, something we need a ((in)voluntary) break from time to time.

Reflecting on my own understanding of playing with dolls, at 23 years old, I don't think I will play with them anymore (I would never admit it anyway). My play is pastime, with friends, to exercise sociability to the point of colliding with unsociability, or waste of time, and there I try not to fall into the trap as it is definitely part of a system that constantly reminds you how time is of the essence, it's all about money, money is important, I don't need I guess to say more, we're all in the same stifling situation. Then you try to play and make the game useful, coscently, while at an early age you are not aware of how much your playing affects your personality. I want to improve my knowledge of Dutch, to become a better person, understand people better, I play duolingo. I want to learn programming, I play mime. I create games by myself to force myself to wash dishes, get up in the morning. To block intrusive thoughts I create a thousand different games.

> This speaks to me as well, I often try to gamify my life through a rigid routine, this routine appears to me as levels to come to, battle and overcome. It's stupidly boyish, yet these are the early web games that motivated me into spending time with friends.

>> The gamification of life, in my mind, goes hand in hand with the ongoing trend of the illusory optimization of life. The idea that wellbeing can be min-maxed, that time can be used to 'a full potential', that there is an orderly notion of routines and activities that are ranked in a society's (sub)consious mind. I fall victim to this way of thinking, too. I don't know better and don't know how to live without it.

It is good to see how creativity itself is a coping mechanism. Could it be? Creativity seems intrinsic, we simply cannot escape it. In a world brimming with stimuli and hyperconnectivity, the sense of overwhelm amplifies. There is no end to it, it is an abyss, loneliness expands in such a world, loneliness leads to confusion, boredom. Play is the most straightforward instinctual way to evade the awareness of that abyss.

> 'No one is bored, everything is boring' is what Mark Fischer voiced in his writing . This also connects to the '(Un)availability' patch, the pressure of being 'connected'.

I watched a classic MrBeast's video where he locked himself in a room for a week without any stimulation from the outside world and resolved, after losing track of time, to count the grains of rice on his plate, and then at some point he stopped. There is no more utility in the game the moment there is no more stimulation to deal with. Right now I'm reading this book, I'm reading it because I like to read, I love to analyse things, talking about it with a fellow editorial team member makes the game more interesting, I'm putting myself out there trying then to describe what I've figured out, asking for their opinion, meanwhile another layer of the game is added, we're creating this messaging platform with wiki pages, I'm reading to not think, to block out the realisation maybe that this doesn't make sense anyway, all the result of a combined obsession between my and my fellow editorial team member's personality. Would I be reading this book without this game? No, I would be playing other games. You never play alone even when you claim to be.

> If it has been said that  'method is a way to survive experience'  can the same not be said of games? Games could merely be a method to survive stimuli and facilitate sociality. Although I do not know whether I would agree that all games are inherently social.

>> Same for me. Ultimately, this essay seems bleak and cynical to me, and it leaves me saddened. I am not ready to give up on the merit of play.

Sorry fellow editorial member for making you saddened (づᴗ _ᴗ)づ

Terminal Games

Kanishka Goonewardena's entry for space in Keywords for Radicals makes a case for the spatiality of politics, the social and politcal power that a space has, and the undeniable, inevitable connection between them.

A terminal interface is the portal to many a communal technology, in particular many servers. It is a space much like any physical space, and thus, holds a power just like any such physical space. As a result, there are implicit social dynamics at play. For example: not everyone might be as familiar, comfortable and confident with the way one typically interacts with the space of a terminal interface.

The zine The Map is the Territory is a webgame that served as our introduction into thinking about making a terminal a more accessible, inviting and inclusive space. This led us to explore games as a medium more.

Electrifying

Screenshot of Electrifying gameplay

A terminal game created as an escape room, in which you have to find a way out of a server room in which you, and sleeping server (chopchop), are located in. You navigate only using the terminal command 'cat', which is normally used to print out the content of a file. In this game, files are comprised of ASCII art that builds each wall of the room you're trying to escape out of. Instead of typing cat, you use the alias for 'look' for it (typing look left, look right, look up...). With each each look you are given breadcrumbs, clues of what you can do to not only free yourself, but wake up a sleeping server from it's 'undesirable' slumber.

At the end the player is stuck with a question about whether they should take the server with them, which would require them to cut its life force (unplug it) or leave it to remain in the claustrophobic server room.

Digital Quilting

A terminal game, you weave a digital quilt with ASCII art characters and emojis. You can use fabric and scissors, fabric creates the patterns and that become a quilt, while scissors cut it in half. The digital quilting game was a first step in thinking how all of this different information, elements of texts that have had an influence on us, can start to unravel a narrative together. The idea is that when you finish a quilt in the terminal, you could print it out and get a physical outcome, a patchwork of quotes, decorations and cut outs.

Seamless and Seamful

We read the text "Beautiful Seams": Strategic Revelations and Concealments, that talks about the seeming dichotomy between seamful and seamless.

Roughly, seamless design emphasizes
    clarity, 
    simplicity,
    ease of use, 
    and consistency to facilitate technological interaction.

In contrast, seamful design emphasizes 
    configurability, 
    user appropriation, 
    and revelation of complexity, 
                      ambiguity, 
                      or inconsistency

To us, the properties of seamless and seamful are not mutually exclusive. For example, thinking about seams in software: if everything was open source, everything would be 'perfectly configurable'. However, without a certain ease-of-use, this configurability wouldn't be accessible to many. So for there to be this seamful configurability, there has to be a certain ease of use, a certain level of seamlessness.

Similarly, we are experiencing this tension between seamless and seamful in our editorial group, in our reading and communicating.

Language is a complex thing.
We need to cooperate with eachother as individuals,
    in a seamful way,
        by keeping an eye out for configurability through access needs,
        finding appropration of communication together,
        cherishing revelations of complexity, ambiguity or inconsistency
    but require a certain seamless,
        for example in clarity of access needs and communication.

The text proposed to make seams “into explicit resources for interaction" (Chalmers), meaning that users are able to interact with information that is usually hidden away. The example of showing that the wi-fi connection is bad is a fruitful one, because when the strength of the signal is displayed, people had agency and suggestion in terms of how to get better connectivity. They could move with their electronic device to find better signal, instead of remaining both passive and without enough information on why something is not working 'properly'.

How might we find seamful agency in our editorial approach?

Quilt Inc.

To print the page with the quilt inc stylesheet.

curl https://pad.xpub.nl/p/quilt-inc-print-styles/export/txt > print.css | weasyprint https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/Quilt_INC reader-quiltinc.pdf -s print.css

Code of Conduct

How do we communicate with each other when we are not in the same physical space? Zulip

Break protocol Whenever but break is great! Flexibility with respect to taking breaks, normalising break culture. make a sleep mode for chopchop, or a wall message every hour to initiate the break

How do we make sure everyone is heard? using pads more making notes for others

How to read together/apart? (As in, slow vs. fast readers)

Read out loud or alone? It would be helpful to read in advance so we are able to discuss it Would be nice to share notes/annotations with each other then Maybe dividing a text into smaller sections and focusing on these sections?

- do we keep or throw away the , after the inc Quilt INC +1 +1+1+1+1

how do we update (about being) absentees We do not have to say in advance if we are not there, and no need to share a reason But check in with the team and see if there is anything to be done

How do we fill people in on what happened? - How do we document? Summarising the TL;DR also we are making a lot of pads, which is not helpfull. Riviera was making a padlist shell script; and can share this. From now on we will use one pad to rule them all https://pad.xpub.nl/p/editorial-team-3 but not today

(going back to the discussion from earlier) how do we create a more inviting (ChopChop) space to work in? In relation to chopchop; could it be that we add our code of conduct to chopchop? perhaps as oracle messages?

how do we know if we're on the same line of knowledge / confusion? if we are all confused we are still on different lines of confusion education = knowing how much you dont know (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETmpCWDKKlo) the dunning kruger effect/ mount stupid but text can be inaccessible

• how do we make decisions? (About code of conducts, "editorial approaches" e.g.)
• How do we divide the labour? (devide?divide?) → How do we spellcheck without being an a**hole divide i think thx+1 app. we do it this way! +1
• what is our prefered communication are na when not physically attending the space, do we stick to the groupzulip? [SOLVED]
• What changes or additions can be made to the physical or virtual workspace to make it more inviting?
• How can we ensure the Code Of Conduct stays up to date/relevant
• what are the limits of team quilt inc, as in, what do we do together, what do we not, for how long are we together? What is the afterlife of our CoC?
• how do we edit in a coherent way while "showing the seams"
• do we communicate by typing when an external being is in the same space? lol yez
• How could we make chopchop(shopshop) became a cozy neighborhood spiderman?
• how can we make the peeps outside shut up initiate closing door protocol in 3 2 1 > people still too loud sry
• How to deal with FAILURE
• What do we do about unfinished activitis?

introduction for a visitor of the Feminist Data Center

Prompt: As an editorial team, work on an introduction for a visitor of the Feminist Data Center We wrote 3 entries by each writing some lines and then swapping papers, divided by the various project groups we are in.

/var/shelf

As you can see on your right, we've now reached "The Shelf". Here, we keep our feminist administration of what happens in our datacenter (stays in our datacenter). But watch out for the emoji's. They offer insight into how the server is doing. We're taking the conventional customer experience survey and flipping it on it's head. This in order to reveal the range of emotions a server is capable of experiencing. To access FemAdmin, consider reading our code of conduct. Or open our shelve as FemAdmin. But you'll need to learn to gain access anyway. We use the administration as a method of documenting. To trace back where the server came from, and offer insights to the servers that are in our care, into their context (neighbours). You are more then welcome to join one of our admin sessions, to see how we try to maintain the documentation. Of course, the political and radical implications of administrations should not be overlooked. Administrative processes are value-laden, often bureaucratic activities wth far reaching consequences/. By opening these facets of maintenance and allowing you to have a say in the running of the datacenter we aim TO DISRUPT!!!! the mundane banality of admin-work. And to emphasize the inaccessibility, breaking open the source and to share what isn't given for granted in order to share our resources of knowledge of our bubble/or shelve.

/var/kitchen

Hello and welcome to /var/kitchen here we are serving at a sustainable scale. Here you have the opportunity to interact with a server through a terminal interface, make digital food and sample our chickpea curry. Please don't hesitate to ask abut the Chef's special and the soup of the day. I hope you brought your own plates as we kind of ran out. But, if you're okay to wait for a bit, I'm sure we some will free up soon! We've never made curry before, but an earlier visitor made a proposal an were happy to try if this works for us. We strive not to let our services to fall to the sidelines or the sphere of the invisible. Feel free to fork your knowledge with your fellow visitors in order to grow a community after our shared dining experience. Ah, a question from the group: Yes, this dinner, is it a self-service buffet or an all inclusive dining experience?

/var/door

How do you enter? Which port do you leave? And what do you bring and take? Will you be exchanging or at least be open for exchange? Can you enter? Do you have access and know the right address? Are you only here to take or do you have something to post? are your ports open, or can we expect an access denied from you? Do you have a key? If so, what's the password? Do you want to see some random art? What will you do once you are in the space? you're standing in at the precipice, on the threshold, this place might not be for you... Get on line command in line. Browse up down left right along and on our terms. interact from multiple windows and try to localize what you see or pin point of your interest. By entering the front or back-end, you have license to enter / comply to our code of conduct, and our values. as a feminist data center, you'll be able to find the values written on the windows. Doorkeeping is a skillful craft it requires understanding who may and may not enter. It illustrates differences and offers us places to meet.

Misplaced Concretism and Concrete Situations: Feminism, Method and Information Technology

Membership

In Star's Misplaced Concretism, the discussion of 'membership' is sandwiched between writing on objects/communities of practice and borderlands/boundary objects. Membership is integral to Star's discussion of marginality - understood in the technical, sociological sense. But what is membership? Star reflects on Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger's discussion of membership which they take to be the polar opposite of 'illegitimate, peripheral participation'. However, for Star, membership would not exist without the processual naturalisation of objects. This differs to Lave and Wenger's concept and contributes to Star's argument that membership has both individual and collective dimensions. '[I]ndividually', membership can be understood 'as the experience of encountering objects and increasingly being in a naturalised relationship with them'. 'Collectively membership can be described as the processes of managing the tension between naturalisation..., on the one hand, and the degree of openness to immigration on the other'.

Boundary Objects

Boundary objects are, as described in the Misplaced Concretism and Concrete Situations: Feminism, Method, and Information Technology, 'things' that are part of multiple Communities of Practice, but have a different meaning for each community. The thing itself does not change when being passed around communities, but the way the 'thing' is interacted with or approached, (so the relationship with the thing) changes, or the reason why the thing is used changes.

Boundary objects are only boundary objects if they are acknowledged as boundary objects, when various communities of practice collaborate/intersect. If this doesn't happen, we might actually be dealing with a monster.

Coming from a programmers community of practice, the idea of a thing having various meanings has it's difficulties, as explained in the text as well. In the community of practice, we assign variables all day long, but they can only have one value. How can these various meanings be "handled" and can they even? Maybe this is the spot to show the seam, instead of trying to achieve the "seamless" experience. Are boundary objects created by showing seams, acknowledging the various interpretations and that they are open to change (use let not const)

Method(ol(atry)ogy) is a way of surviving experience

Method is a way of surviving experience. The post-coping mechanism of someone on a journey to the center of the data. How does one look. Is it the landscape of hexadecimals, binaries, flying bits or deeper digging. A mole goes into depth in a different matter than the human does.

As I kinda recalled in my 'essay'(as Rosa called my methods remark ;)), this word or experiment/experience has been quite the quilt on its own, I'm a bit confused but it also feels like the step after coping? Method on its own feels like a way to practicalize whatever the ---- I'm struggling with.

Yes, I'm currently linking this sentence to my own surviving experience as I'm trying to create my own method in how to live this

◹xpub / ◹carer / ◹own life ◹triangle◹.

...But about the text; the word first makes an entry in the title. And it introduces feminist methodology as a radical alternative.

../

My current method is just doing a quick scan through the text and react quickly and associative through the text. (Whilst making comments on the side)(to process text, this worked, to read, it didn't work

)/..

When searching for methods vs methodology;

"Methodology vs. method. 'Methodology' is not just a fancier-sounding term for 'methods' – it refers to the school of thought by which you conduct research. Method, on the other hand, is all about practicalities: surveys, experiments, observations and so on

Luckily the text goes back to the nature of method, which contextualizes it to 'normal everyday life stuff' as a cleaning habit towards radicalizing (mobilizing) in order to protest injustice. As I'm writing about Methods, I hear Victor talk about methods and I'm not sure if I'm doing this right but I'm doing it in my own method?

It mentions methodolatry; "Worship of a method that employs it uncritically regardless of ever- changing particulars and steadfastly ignoring past negative results."

---

---

---

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Text I'm responding to / with:

"A method is distinct from a recipe or formula, in exactly the sense that science is not embodied in a textbook and cooking is not a cookbook. It is a real-time, lived, and experiential form of ordering practice. In the words of Isabelle Stengers: Indeed, you do not follow a challenge, you do not obey it, it does not direct you. You have to invent the way to answer it, it proposes risks for your answers, but gives you no model. Thus it is consonant with my conception of science. It is consonant because our “social experience,” the moral and political options which situate us cannot become self-conscious just by a process of honest self-examination. It must be created through an active process of learning. Learning how we are situated, inventing the situations from which we can learn more about our situation does not give power to emancipation over cognition. It associates both emancipation and cognition. (1993, 46)"

"... It is a word at once stronger than para- digm, in the sense that it often crosses, both historically and spatially, most uses of the Kuhnian term. It may be part of several paradigms; it may persist after other attributes of a paradigm have fallen away. Methods considered in this fashion may have many of the features of surviving experience, depending on the values of the community using them: they can become imperialistic or monolithic (if one only has a hammer, the world becomes a nail, etc.); they can become a means of enforcing fundamentalism (reducing the world to that which can be perceived using the method); or they can become ways of encompassing multiplicity, complexity, and ambiguity. It is in this latter sense that feminism is important methodologically, I think, although we have sometimes used it in the monolithic or reductionist senses. Feminists have written some extremely powerful methodological pieces, not always recognized as such..."

"Considered formally, then, the attributes of feminist method that are particularly important are: 1. experiential and collective basis; 2. processual nature; 3. honoring contradiction and partialness; 4. situated historicity with great attention to detail and specificity; and 5. the simultaneous application of all of these points."

 

Validity

- bit of a fictional intro

Validity comes in multiple badges. It has the sacred I P R V code imprinted in its labels. These four labels stand for the four regions of the tanssgressiv validitrain. it is something to be found in the real world but could it be that Validity is also based on the journey

Ironia / Paralogia / Rhizomia / Voluptia are all areas waiting to be explored.

   - what is the keyword? our definition TL;DR

noun: validity; plural noun: validities

   - the quality of being logically or factually sound; soundness or cogency.
   - the state of being legally or officially binding or acceptable

   - annotation of text/(the reference of the source)   

"Patti Lather, a brilliant feminist methodologist, has written about this under the rubric transgressive validity ( Lather 1993 ). Her map of attributes of a feminist method, which I read after I wrote the passage above, has some remarkable resonances. She asks the question, where, after poststructuralism, can we find validity? Her answer has four points that together equal a validity which rests reflexively on the contemporary crisis"

"Her answer has four points that together equal a validity which rests reflexively on the contemporary crisis of representation: Ironic validity (which problematizes the single voice, realist representation of nature); paralogical validity (which emphasizes paradox and heterogeneity); rhizomatic validity (which undermines the taken-for-granted and keeps opening up new ways of situated seeing); and voluptuous validity (which precisely goes too far , and

joins ethics and epistemology)"

VALIDITY DEFINITIONS, CITED AND ASKING QUESTIONS

"Transgressive validity" -> "here, after poststructuralism, can we find validity?" is validity the same as validation? searching for distinction I find that one is a verb an the other is a noun, but both seem to be tags? https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1659/what-is-the-difference-between-tags-validity-and-validation

"Ironic validity" > "which problematizes the single voice, realist represen- tation of nature)" ... "would demand that the representation of pregnancy as an illness be challenged in the encoding, and include multiple views of what in fact constitutes a pregnancy. " 

"Paralogical validity" > "(which emphasizes paradox and heterogeneity); .. "might at the same time acknowledge that for some women an aborted fetus never constituted a pregnancy at all, while for others it did, and there is no resolving that question in any simple fashion." 

"Rhizomatic validity" > "(which undermines the taken-for-granted and keeps opening up new ways of situated seeing. " ... "would seek out the range of what we take for granted about pregnancy, childbirth, and sexuality, and keep challenging us to break boundaries of what we think we know about these processes—perhaps cross-culturally, but also in phenomenological explorations of daily routines connected with them, denying the taken-for-granted “every woman feels X”: and being sure to listen for com- plex differences and similarities." 

"Voluptuous validity" > "which precisely goes too far, and joins ethics and epistemology" .. "in this sense might bring entirely other conceptions of birth and pregnancy, such as the kind of spiritual birth found in some religious cultures, or dreams and visions. From this base, feminism has some important things to say about technology, and especially information technology, in its capacity creatively and ethically to mingle people, things, and experience."

Standard(ization)

- bit of a fictional intro

Bzzzt bzzt error of approval. This bug does not have followed standardized procedure.

   - what is the keyword? our definition

From what I read / think / assume, standardization means to bring things, stuff, objects into one standard. And that to me is quite troublesome because when a norm or standard is made, there always will be conflicts with the things that are not standard. But then again, adaptation, nuance and contextualization are in place.

   - annotation of text/(the reference of the source)   

Four questions before introducing:

1. how can objects inhabit multiple contexts at once, and have both local and shared meaning?
2. how can people living in one community, and drawing their meanings from other people and objects situated there, communicate in another
3. what is the relationship between the two?
4. what range of solutions to the preceding three questions are possible, and what consequences attend each of them —cui bono?

Standardization has been one of the common solutions to this class of problems: 3 if the

interfaces and formats are standard across contexts, then at least the first three questions

become clear, and the fourth becomes moot. But we know from a long and gory

history of attempts to standardize information systems that standards don’t remain

standard for very long, and that one person’s standard is another’s confusion and mess

( Gasser 1986 ; Star 1991 ).

Noun. solutionism (uncountable) The belief that all difficulties have benign solutions, often of a technocratic nature. quotations ▼ The providing of a solution or solutions to a customer or client (sometimes before a problem has been identified).

important question:

how to preserve the integrity of information without a

priori standardization and its attendant violence

Naturalization in response to standardization:

I mean stripping away the contingencies of an object’s creation and its situated

nature. A naturalized object has lost its aura of anthropological strangeness, and is

in a sense “de-situated” in that members have forgotten the local nature of the object’s

meaning. 4 We no longer think much about the miracle of plugging a light into a socket

4

and obtaining illumination, and must make an effort of anthropological imagination

to remind ourselves of contexts in which it is still unnaturalized.

..

Objects exist, with respect to a community of practice, along a trajectory of naturalization,

which has elements of both ambiguity and duration. It is not predetermined

whether an object will ever become naturalized or how long it will remain so—rather,

practice/activity is required to make it so and keep it so.

...

Anomalies or interruptions, the cause of contingency,

come when some person or object interrupts the flow of expectations. One

reason that “glass box technology” or pure transparency is impossible is that anomalies

always arise when multiple communities of practice come together, and useful technologies

cannot be designed in all communities at once. Monsters arise when the legitimacy

of that multiplicity is denied.

Transparency is in theory the endpoint of the trajectory of naturalization, as complete

legitimacy or centrality is the end point of the trajectory of membership in a

community of practice. However, due to the multiplicity of membership of all people,

and the persistence of newcomers and strangers, a well as the multiplicity of naturalization

of objects, this is inherently nonexistent in the real world. For those brief historical

moments where it seems to be the case, it is unstable.

But what are the things that make objects and statuses seem given, durable, real?

Several things coalesce.

Generalization is also named in relation.as well as denaturalization

Reductionism

Reductionism, akin to a pervasive gender binary, exerts its influence across society, culture, and literature, giving rise to stereotypes amid the remnants of past homophobia. This simplifying lens distills the intricate tapestry of human experiences, confining them within rigid boundaries and perpetuating societal norms. In literature, reductionism constrains character portrayals, limiting them to narrow archetypes that reinforce pre-existing prejudices.

Against this backdrop, some resilient social movement has emerged, determined to challenge and dismantle these reductionist paradigms. These movement strives to create a more inclusive and accepting societal fabric, one that recognizes and celebrates the diverse and fluid nature of individual identities. By pushing back against reductionist thinking, it aims to cultivate a culture that appreciates the multifaceted spectrum of human experiences, transcending the limitations imposed by binary perspectives.

Articulation work

Articulation work, also known as invisible work, involves managing complexities arising from multiple memberships and naturalized objects. It is a methodological and often unseen effort that reflects on differences in methods and techniques. In symbolic interactionism and computer-supported cooperative work, the term "articulation work" describes the invisible juggling required to handle real-time contingencies and unexpected situations. It plays a crucial role in various contexts, from head nurses and air traffic controllers to everyday tasks performed by individuals.

Articulation work is essential in maintaining the flow of work by managing contingencies and accommodating unexpected situations. It becomes particularly challenging in designing complex computer and information systems where real-time contingencies constantly influence technology use. This type of work also deals with managing mismatches between memberships and naturalization, emphasizing the importance of addressing anomalies and interruptions in various communities of practice. When articulation work is overlooked or made invisible, it can lead to the suppression of voices and the formation of master narratives, hindering a comprehensive understanding of diverse perspectives and experiences.

Hello this is my (Anita) Quilt INC page for methods and the reader.

Picnic at the data center

Universal computability

A transition into a world which created a divide between communitites which are either supported and developed by computing, or are not, in which the idea of the 'Sidewalk lab' urban ricontruction program is based.

Algorithmic solidarity

According to the text, is the answer to a hypothetical question existing in a world where all profits are collectively shared deciding where to administer funds. This includes using networks as a way of trying new methods of solidarity, global outsourcing is 'turned inside-out' making geographical distance less relevant if relevant at all.

Outsourcing

Looking for labour and infrastructure elsewhere, creating structures of monumental size to store data, that create their own micro-climate in other countries. Having an 'army of programmers' being viewed as a 'good' to sell, being exploited for their skills that are used by companies or organizations to make more and more profits. What is produced is does not belong to the producer but instead to the employer.

Distributed sovereignty

A possible result of an economic model based in economic algorithms created from neutral networks, allowing for a distributed power and resources.

Feminist Server Manifesto

Situated technology

A technology that explores the interconnections between social and technological practices, considering context and human interaction.

Maintenance

Taking care of. Specifically, reciprocal caretaking of a community where the technology has a place. As the community takes care of the technology, it takes care of the it, billing and growing onto its surroundings. The maintenance might not be straightforward, as the technology is open to showing its inner workings.

Seamlessness

Hiding the inner workings of a technology, not exposing its processes and computations. A feminist technology strives to do the opposite and open itself up for observation of its operations. It does not mean that it is inaccessible to newcomers, but that it shows what is happening while it is happening, informing the community about its inner workings.

Autonomy

The ability to decide for itself, the possibility of establishing its own dependence to the different components it might need to function in a certain way. It does not ‘serve’ the community it is situated in and examines the conditions.

Exposing insecurities

Showing all inner workings, even the ones it is unsure about. This can mean taking a rest as it exposes vulnerability.

Transparency

A feminist server is skeptical about transparency as it could be a signal for hidden or invisible infrastructure. It instead shows its seams, infrastructure and inner workings.

Availability

A feminist server, doesn't always have be ready for use, and does not apologize for it. It analyses the relations between clients and serves, challenges them and experiments with what it means to be a server and serve.

Marginality, nauraliation and membership

Marginality can have multiple different meanings. In the text, Star refers to it not as sitting on a margin being limited in significance, far from the centre of a group, but as a person belonging to more than one community, having more than one identity they can recognize. According to Webster dictionary, the term can apply to an individual who assimilates habits from multiple cultures in an incomplete way; an interpretation could be holding a sense of belonging to communities that feel different from each other, who perhaps share commonalities but remain very distinct.

In the text, the term is closely related to naturalization and naturalization of objects in diverse groups and communities of practice. This meaning not finding an object strange or ambiguous any more, taking it for granted and already knowing its use inside of a specific community of practice, not challenging its purpose or inquiring around its function.

Invisibility

Star (1999) writes that ‘infrastructure as a system of substrates … is by definition invisible, part of the background for other kinds of work’. In other words infrastructure ‘is an often taken for granted part of everyday life until it breaks’ (Chetty, 2011). When it breaks, infrastructure becomes visible. Is this a feature of infrastructure specifically or tools more generally? Is every tool which ‘becomes visible upon breakdown’ (Star, 1999) an infrastructure? Marc Weiser, a scientist who ‘prefigured the critique of seamlessness’ (Inman and Ribes, 2019) wrote that ‘[a] good tool is an invisible tool’ (Weiser, 1994). Is infrastructure, in its visibility, a bad tool? Did it ever really function as it was supposed to?

Infrastructure

What is Infrastructure? According to Martin Brauch (2017) ‘Infrastructure is the underlying system of structures, facilities and services that are essential to the functioning of an economy’. Brauch’s definition is commonsense following Susan Leigh Star’s statement that ‘[p]eople commonly envision infrastructure as a system of substrates’ (Star, 1999, p. 380). Such a perspective resonates with the definition of ‘critical infrastructure’ detailed in the Sendai Framework Terminology on Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR, 2017). Nevertheless, Star casts doubt on the usefulness of an everyday understanding of infrastructure in the context of the production of ‘large-scale technical systems’ (Star, 1999). Instead, she foregrounds the relational quality of infrastructure; that it appears differently to different people based on their relationship to it. In concordance with Star, the adequacy of the commonsense understanding of infrastructure is reiterated by Lauren Berlant. Berlant writes, ‘[i]nfrastructure is not identical to a system or structure …. It is the living mediation of what organizes life: the lifeworld of structure’ (2016).

Bibliography

Berlant, L. (2016) ‘The commons: Infrastructures for troubling times*’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 393–419 [Online]. DOI: 10.1177/0263775816645989 (Accessed 14 March 2024).

Brauch, M. D. (2017) Sustainable Infrastructure: Definition and Co-Benefits, International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) [Online]. Available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep14773.4 (Accessed 14 March 2024).

Chetty, M. (2011) ‘Making Infrastructure Visible: A Case Study of Home Networking’, Georgia Institute of Technology.

Inman, S. and Ribes, D. (2019) ‘“Beautiful Seams”: Strategic Revelations and Concealments’, Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Glasgow Scotland Uk, ACM, pp. 1–14 [Online]. DOI: 10.1145/3290605.3300508 (Accessed 13 March 2024).

Star, S. L. (1999) ‘The Ethnography of Infrastructure’, American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 377–391 [Online]. DOI: 10.1177/00027649921955326 (Accessed 13 March 2024).

UNDRR (2017) ‘Critical infrastructure’, http://www.undrr.org/terminology/critical-infrastructure [Online]. (Accessed 14 March 2024).

Weiser, M. (1994) ‘The World is not a Desktop’, ACM Interactions, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 7–8.

Colophon

/var/reader SI #23 Peripheral Centers and Feminist Servers Spring 2024 Anita, Lorenzo, Rosa, Riviera, Wang

Editorial Services LTD

From the depths of the corporate world, bringing efficiency, ease-of-use and scalability to the tips of your fingers, Editorial Services LTD come to offer you their exclusive, but also limited, editorial services. Covering at least five languages, working collaboratively and independently at the same time, we are masters in our field and aspire to lift your texts, visual graphics and webpages to unprecedented heights, and with them the price of our stock. Why do we do it? To express our passion for editing and for the money, of course.

Here you can find samples of our top notch work:

Code of Conduct

Tone: / strict / welcoming / enthusiastic / humoristic / corporate / kind | form: dialogue / script / list /

Contents Methods can always be changed to meet different needs, therefore this code of conduct is never finished

To which activities does this Code apply?

   -knowledge building and sharing

   -editorial services provided

   -dunch

   -mapping and/or counter-mapping

   - brainstorms

   -collaboratively annotating

To whom does this Code apply?

   These codes of conduct may apply to anyone who may engage in and/or interact with Editorial Services LTD

   Date of entry into force and transitional provisions

   7.02.2024 - no transitional provisions

Principles

   1. Honesty vulnerability

   2. Scrupulousness /  leaving room for engagement and experimentation 

   3. Transparency ??

   4. Interdependence

   5. Collective responsibility

   6. Collaboration

   7. make it enjoyable

   8. Curiosity

   9. Process-oriented approach

   10. Welcoming learning environment / inclusivity

   11. Be respectful

   12. Try to stay enthusiastic

  13. Harassment is not tolerated in any form

  14. adjusting the rules if needed --> methods can always be changed to meet different needs 

Standards for good editorial practices

3.1 Design

   -Acceptable formats: all, including images, maps, sound

3.2 Conduct

   - Fabrication is part of the editorial process

3.3 Reporting results

   - Part of internal communications, in the form of chit-chat

3.4 Assessment and peer review

   - All decisions are collaborative, thus assessment and review happens simultaneously with getting the job done

3.5 Communication

   - Clear, inclusive, respectful

3.6 Standards that are applicable to all phases of research

   - Loving each other

Institutions’ duties of care

4.1 Training and supervision

   - abolish power structures and hierarchies

4.2 Editorial culture

   - All suggestions are valid and valuable

   -ask questions

   -answer questions

   -let questions remain unanswered

   -let answers remain unquestioned

   -experiments are very welcome, even if they fail spectacularly

   -If you find something difficult, you can try first and then give up with peace of mind.

4.3 Data management

   - The pad manages all and we all manage the pad

4.4 Publication and dissemination

   - Word of mouth, wiki, hub, print, plot

4.5 Ethical norms and procedures

   -don´t be an asshole

   -listen actively and attentively

   -see each other

   -people feel safe to express themselves and participate and stay silent

   -share what you´ve got

   -feel free to ask for help

Non-compliance with standards: measures and sanctions

5.1 Research misconduct, questionable research practices and minor shortcomings

   - You have to make your own tea for a day

5.2 Sanctions and other measures:

   - Stand alone in the corner ----nooooooooooo

   - economic sanctions/boikott

5.3 Complaints and investigations

   - We use a microscope for thorough investigation and complaints are protocolled and thrown in the bin, except if valid. In the latter case, we discuss over drinks and food and then throw in the bin.

Word-quilts

Autogestion

Imaginary definition

Autogestion: Traffic congestion that makes drivers and commuters secretly think about revolting against clocks and labor systems. It is often accompanied by indigestion, regardless of how much or what has been consumed, but studies have been inconclusive regarding the cause of this acute reaction. It has been suggested that it's the result of a discomforting combination of extended vehicular queueing and compulsive as well as untimely consumption of food, beverages, and useless goods and services. There have been reports of chain barfing in long traffic lines but they are unverified and the phenomenon is considered an urban myth by many sceptics. However, autogestion is taken seriously by the authorities, who try to find workarounds and give incentives to the labor force to prevent it from thinking while commuting or in general.

Actual Definition (a) Workers' self-management. It includes workers' collectives and cooperatives and it is connected to syndicalism. Classical economic philosophers, such as Stuart Mills (liberal) and Karl Marx noted the efficiency of the model. Funnily enough, while Mills believed that companies run by autogestion would eventually displace capital-managed firms, Marx didn't.

(b) (The construction of) a self-managed economy. Closely connected to the notion of social democracy, autogestion in this context aims at building an economic system that will avoid the inequalities, irrationalities and crises created by capital- and profit-driven economic models.

Where we came across it in its mundane sense Mentioned in Kanishka Koonewardena's essay "Space" (in Keywords for Radicals).

Corporate Property

John used to be a successful man. And that made him happy. Success, in the way he had learned it by his father and his father's father, was what he had aimed for since he was a kid. His purpose in life was to gain wealth: He bought houses, cars, huge televisions. And while all this was making him happy, one day, after a very heavy supper he had the night before, he woke up with a dreadful realization: As he owned his things, the company he worked for owned him: His time, his energy, his thoughts. Suddenly, John understood the true meaning of corporate property.

Go-Away-Green & Bye-Bye-Blue

Go away green (also knowns as no-see-um-green) and bye bye blue (also blending blue) are colors popularized by its (dis)appearance Disney Land, where they are used to obfuscate the non-attractive(attractions) infrastructures. Lamp-posts, loudspeakers, vents and fences are amongst the things that are painted these colors in order to blend in, much like military camouflage. [So that the guests don't question the illusion, but rather blissfully and oblivious go on spending their money.]

These colors also have proven useful(to governemnts and big tech maybe?) to conceal the digital infrastructure around us. We have been told that the cloud is infinite, omnipotent and immaterial. Yet enormous amounts of nature succumb at the hand(arm?) of bulldozers and excavators to facilitate data-centres, and as to add insult to injury painted to drown in the ruins(of nature).

If you want to read more about these colors you can check out this wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Away_Green

And here are some images with colors in action:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/alexanderalzona/46462856765/

Introductory text Feminist Datacenter

Results from task from Methods class 6th of March – making introductory text for the event

During the Methods class we were discussing what a feminist data center would entail. In the extension of working with this, we were prompted to make an introductory text for a visitor at the datacenter. After som discussion the team first took some time to make drafts individually, and then at the end we recombined them to one text. This is just a draft, but entails some of the key aspects that we would like to higlight in suc an introductory text.

Recombination:

Hi! Welcome to our feminist data center. Make yourself at home! The "Feminist datacenter (maybe a cooler name is cooler)" is a place for connections and comfort and although it often remains invisible, it's part of the infrastructure that underlies our online interactions: Just like any data center, it is a physical location containing all things related to computing, such as servers, data storage drives (and the data these include), and network equipment.

Drawing attention to materiality and real socio-economic implications, we would like to welcome you in our corners. Our feminist data center transcends the division between human and tool, emphasizes social relations and reimagines the datacenter as a space where people and technologies come together in empathetic symbiosis -- a community. As a feminist data center, we redefine what it means to be a good host and challenge the relation between server and client. We are aware of our surrounding environment, while our practices are sustainable, transparent and community- instead of profit-driven: The community is served by the sharing of knowledge, and the well-being of our (wo)manpower is prioritized over efficiency. This relationship is based on trust, kindness and active work to make this space more inclusive. Situated in the heart of Charlois, it acknowledges it's context by making itself visible (and) it's intentions clear(with a temper), (and it's footprint minimal).

So please come and engage in the maintenance and building of this community, we trust you! So do you trust us?

Initial drafts:

draft 1:

Hi! Welcome to our feminist data center. Just like any data center, it is a physical location containing infrastructure related to computing, such as servers, data storage drives (and the data these include), and network equipment.

In contrast to the usual data center, our feminist data center emphasizes social relations, is aware of its surrounding environment and actively tries to support instead of destroy it. Our practices are sustainable, transparent and community- instead of profit-driven. The community around it is served by the sharing of knowledge, and the well-being of its (wo)manpower is prioritized over the data-center's efficiency.

draft 2:

The "Feminist datacenter (maybe a cooler name is cooler)" is a place for connections and comfort. It transcends the division between human and tool, and reimagines the datacenter as a space where people and technologies come together in empathetic symbiosis, a community. Situated in the heart of Charlois, it acknowledges it's context by making itself visible (and) it's intentions clear(with a temper), (and it's footprint minimal).

So please come and engage in the maintenance and building of this community, we trust you! So do you trust us?

draft 3:

Make yourself comfortable! You are in a feminist data center, this place that often remains invisible is part of the infrastructure that underlies our online interactions. Drawing attention to materiality and real socio-economic implications, we would like to welcome you in our corners. As a feminist data center, we redefine what it means to be a good host and we challenge the relation between the server and a client. This relationship is based on trust, kindness and active work to make this space more inclusive. Make yourself at home

draft 4:

Low-mid-high-tech

These thoughts are reactions to some sentiments presented in these two texts:

Ursula K. Leguin, Rant about technology:

https://www.ursulakleguin.com/a-rant-about-technology

Donna Harraway, A cyborg manifesto: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fictionnownarrativemediaandtheoryinthe21stcentury/manifestly_haraway_----_a_cyborg_manifesto_science_technology_and_socialist-feminism_in_the_....pdf

In the rant about technology, Ursula K. Leguin wants to challenge how main-stream discourses understands technology. She makes a point that in these discourses (related to hard/non-hard sci-fi) seem to neglect the fact that technology not only entails the high-tech, but also the non-high-tech like clothes, paper or language. A point made in the text is that "technology is how a society copes with physical reality", and this coping may entail the clothes that you wear in order to fit in at the new school, or the phone you use to call your loved ones in another country. In other words technology permeates every aspect of life in a (modern) society to some extent.

This blurring between the lines of what is our material world and what is not (in the western late capitalist techno-scientific paradigm), resonates with Donna Harraways articulation of the cyborg in the "a cyborgs manifesto". The myth of the cyborg is used to challenge boundaries between human-animal human(/animal)-machine and ultimately physical-and non physical, which is propelled by (cybernetic) technologies. Again there is this sentiment that expanding our understanding of what technology is, and can be, and how it mediates our material, social and political reality is fundamental in a feminist approach to the cultural understanding of technology.

Mapping the Feminist data center

By working with maps refering to the surroundinigs of the data center as well as abstract maps we point that an alternative feminist data- center is not isolated from our everyday actions. It Acknowledges its role within a broader context, exposes vulnerability, challenges the conditions of serving. Our reimagine data center unveil the processes, tools, and sources aiming for seamfullness.

Methods for Collaborative Editing

Misplaced concretism and concrete situations:

In the text Misplaced concretism and concrete situations: Feminism, Method, and Information Technology, by Susan Leigh Star (2016), thematics such as feminist methodology, communities of practice and boundary objects are explored. The text can be a bit challenging to follow as the author invents and builds upon different terms. Our task was to extracts some keywords and then elaborate on these as entries for the word quilt. In this process we have discussed extracts, written and re-written, in order to explore the text´s matter in our context. From this process some Methods for collaborative editing and writing has been at the core of this process, that resulted in drafts regarding the chosen keywords (methods, Boundary Objects and Communities of practice), still questions remain unanswered.

Feminism, Method, and Information Technology 

K e y w o r d s - map

key words that help us to discuss the concepts

Selected fragments from the text: M e t h o d
   Susan Leigh Star, 1994
   Method; 
   "distinct from a recipe or a formula" its more of an approach rather than an exact way of achieving something.

   "It is a real-time, lived, and experiential form of ordering practice." it is situated.

   "Method is a way of surviving experience." [p. 148] [or experiment]

   "Methods considered in this fashion may have many of the features of surviving experience, depending on the values of the community using them: they can become imperialisstic or monolithic (if one only has a hammer, the world becomes a nail, etc.); they can become a means of enforcing fundamentalism (reducing the world to that which can be perceived using the method); or they can become ways of encompassing multiplicity, complexity, and ambiguity." [p. 148]

   "Feminism as a method thus creates robust findings through the articulation of multiplicity, contradiction, and partiality, while standing in a politically situated, moral collective." [p. 149]

   "attributes of feminist method: 
       1. experiential and collective basis;
       2. processual nature;
       3. honoring contradiction and partialness;
       4. situated historicity with great attention to detail and specificity; and
       5. the simultaneous application of all of these points." [p. 149]

Patti Lather: transgressive validity - where after poststructuralism, can we find validity? ironic validity (problematizes the single voice, realist representation of nature); paralogical validity (emphasizes paradox and heterogeneity); rhizomatic validity (undermines the taken-for-granted and keeps opening up new ways of situated seeing); voluptuous validity (precisely goes too far, and joins ethics and epistemology) [p. 149 f.]

   "The truth is not one thing. " Itś complex, woven carpet, with each strand a partial truth

M e t h o d (our definition)

Method is not a straightforward process as there is not only one way to go or one truth. Complexity should be taken into account when it comes to developing methods, which are very different than manuals or recipes, as it is crucial that methods can be changed along the way. For methods not to become totalitarian tools they must remain flexible and encompass multiple and often contradictory elements that may lack consistency and stability. In the heart of method lies experience, since method is "a way of surviving experience" (eg. pouring sauce over a dish baking in the oven without getting burned) but also experimentation, which will make the method viable, improve it, situate it in a specific setting or adapt it according to the tools at hand.

Selected fragment from the text - B o u n d a r y O b j e c t s

  "[…] activity is always mediated through tools and material arrangements." This gives us some insight in what is considered an object.

  "a community of practice is defined in large part according to the co-use of such objects" Objects have the power to connect community members, or facilitate for community.

   Objects can become natural in community of practices.
   can be abstract or concrete common norms, standards
  "...we can see that the source of boundary objects comes from a combined willingness of the community of practice to accomodate marginality and multiple naturalised objects..."  

  boundary object is information, such as specimens, field notes, and maps, used in different ways by different communities for collaborative work through scales. "Here I mean 'Object' to include all of these things: stuff and things, tools and techniques, and ideas, stories, and memories—those objects which are treated as things by community memebers"

Our definition - A b o u n d a r y o b j e c t A boundary object can challenge common norms and standards. Different methods can apply to these objects depending on the knowledge, interests and viewpoints of the groups (or individuals) approaching them. Different communities of practice have vastly different methodologies when dealing with these boundary objects. An example of such an object could be a dead bird seen from the viewpoint of an amateur ornithologist or a biologist. In this example the ornithologists (a community of practice) might want to preserve the birds appearance to admire it, and has certain methods for this. Whilst the biologists (another community of practice) might want to dissect the bird to learn more about it. A boundary object (can be abstract or concrete) and is not just an object, but a community of practices* as well as "stuff and things, tools and techniques, and ideas, stories, and memories" that comprise many different and maybe contrasting methodologies, and it is open enough that it can include even the smallest groups and approaches. Collaboration and communication are core functions of the boundary object, since it facilitates both and opens a dialogue that can lead to a better and wider understanding of the object at hand. In this sense, a boundary object can be also seen as a piece of information serving different communities in various ways and allows them to embrace collaborative work.

Fictitious event: strike against mobile payments 

Website Preview

Group discussion to have a virtual strike about using cash to boycott mobile payments.A promotional webpage for it.

• A community of practice is formed around such objects and methodologies, as "activity is always mediated through tools and material arrangements". Boundary objects must also be considered in terms of the motives of the people/community who choose them and their communicative role. The creation of boundary objects is always to a certain extent an expression of hegemony and as such cannot be considered politically neutral or necessarily consensual.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                m.  e.  t.   h.  o.   d.   s.

Phenomenology of Space

"Phenomenology is a philosophical approach initially developed by Edward Husserl that centers on understanding consciousness and experience. Anthropologists interested in space and the environment have drawn on phenomenology as a way of exploring people's direct experiences of the places they inhabit. This entry outlines key approaches, critiques, and current trends. It draws attention to studies of movement and politics that are generating new possibilities in the anthropological understanding of space and the environment." [1]

[1] Vergunst, Jo (2018b): Phenomenology of space and the environment, in: The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, S. 1–6. Doi:10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea2012.

(Un)conventional Cartographies

Unconventional cartographies are different ways of mapping the world, that push the boundaries of conventional cartography and include mapping that make sense to certain (perhaps marginalized) communities and groups, and let you experience and expand your view of the world in different ways.

Some examples of unconventional maps such the Dog World Map or the World Map of Tropical Diseases can be found all over the internet.

References

Murtaugh, M. (2021). Torn at the seams: vernacular approaches to teaching with computational tools. [online] Available at: https://vltk.vvvvvvaria.org/w/Torn_at_the_seams:_vernacular_approaches_to_teaching_with_computational_tools

Fritsch, Kelly, O'Connor, Clare, Thompson (1976), Keyywords for Radicals

Star, S.L. (1994) Misplaced Concretism and Concrete Situations: Feminism, Method, and Information Technology. In: Bowker, G. et al. (eds) Boundary objects and beyond: working with Leigh Star. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press (Infrastructures series). https://hub.xpub.nl/bootleglibrary/book/863

Smith, David Woodruff (2003): Phenomenology. In: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Online. URL: https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=phenomenology

Vergunst, Jo (2018b): Phenomenology of space and the environment, in: The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, S. 1–6. Doi:10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea2012.

https://www.nwo.nl/sites/nwo/files/documents/Netherlands%2BCode%2Bof%2BConduct%2Bfor%2BResearch%2BIntegrity_2018_UK.pdf

https://pad.xpub.nl/p/phenomenology-of-space

https://news.microsoft.com/stories/microsoft-datacenter-tour/lobby/?ref=azure-global-infrastructure-experience&target=https://datacenters.microsoft.com/globe/explore

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto

https://eeefff.org/en/projects/picnic-near-data-center.html

https://vltk.vvvvvvaria.org/w/Torn_at_the_seams:_vernacular_approaches_to_teaching_with_computational_tools

Imaginary definition

Autogestion: Traffic congestion that makes drivers and commuters secretly think about revolting against clocks and labor systems. It is often accompanied by indigestion, regardless of how much or what has been consumed, but studies have been inconclusive regarding the cause of this acute reaction. It has been suggested that it's the result of a discomforting combination of extended vehicular queueing and compulsive as well as untimely consumption of food, beverages, and useless goods and services. There have been reports of chain barfing in long traffic lines but they are unverified and the phenomenon is considered an urban myth by many sceptics. However, autogestion is taken seriously by the authorities, who try to find workarounds and give incentives to the labor force to prevent it from thinking while commuting or in general.

Actual Definition (a) Workers' self-management. It includes workers' collectives and cooperatives and it is connected to syndicalism. Classical economic philosophers, such as Stuart Mills (liberal) and Karl Marx noted the efficiency of the model. Funnily enough, while Mills believed that companies run by autogestion would eventually displace capital-managed firms, Marx didn't.

(b) (The construction of) a self-managed economy. Closely connected to the notion of social democracy, autogestion in this context aims at building an economic system that will avoid the inequalities, irrationalities and crises created by capital- and profit-driven economic models.

Where we came across it in its mundane sense Mentioned in Kanishka Koonewardena's essay "Space" (in Keywords for Radicals).

John used to be a successful man. And that made him happy. Success, in the way he had learned it by his father and his father's father, was what he had aimed for since he was a kid. His purpose in life was to gain wealth: He bought houses, cars, huge televisions. And while all this was making him happy, one day, after a very heavy supper he had the night before, he woke up with a dreadful realization: As he owned his things, the company he worked for owned him: His time, his energy, his thoughts. Suddenly, John understood the true meaning of corporate property.

Misplaced concretism and concrete situations:

In the text Misplaced concretism and concrete situations: Feminism, Method, and Information Technology, by Susan Leigh Star (2016), thematics such as feminist methodology, communities of practice and boundary objects are explored. The text can be a bit challenging to follow as the author invents and builds upon different terms. Our task was to extracts some keywords and then elaborate on these as entries for the word quilt. In this process we have discussed extracts, written and re-written, in order to explore the text´s matter in our context. From this process some Methods for collaborative editing and writing has been at the core of this process, that resulted in drafts regarding the chosen keywords (methods, Boundary Objects and Communities of practice), still questions remain unanswered.

Feminism, Method, and Information Technology 

K e y w o r d s - map

key words that help us to discuss the concepts

Selected fragments from the text: M e t h o d
   Susan Leigh Star, 1994
   Method; 
   "distinct from a recipe or a formula" its more of an approach rather than an exact way of achieving something.

   "It is a real-time, lived, and experiential form of ordering practice." it is situated.

   "Method is a way of surviving experience." [p. 148] [or experiment]

   "Methods considered in this fashion may have many of the features of surviving experience, depending on the values of the community using them: they can become imperialisstic or monolithic (if one only has a hammer, the world becomes a nail, etc.); they can become a means of enforcing fundamentalism (reducing the world to that which can be perceived using the method); or they can become ways of encompassing multiplicity, complexity, and ambiguity." [p. 148]

   "Feminism as a method thus creates robust findings through the articulation of multiplicity, contradiction, and partiality, while standing in a politically situated, moral collective." [p. 149]

   "attributes of feminist method: 
       1. experiential and collective basis;
       2. processual nature;
       3. honoring contradiction and partialness;
       4. situated historicity with great attention to detail and specificity; and
       5. the simultaneous application of all of these points." [p. 149]

Patti Lather: transgressive validity - where after poststructuralism, can we find validity? ironic validity (problematizes the single voice, realist representation of nature); paralogical validity (emphasizes paradox and heterogeneity); rhizomatic validity (undermines the taken-for-granted and keeps opening up new ways of situated seeing); voluptuous validity (precisely goes too far, and joins ethics and epistemology) [p. 149 f.]

   "The truth is not one thing. " Itś complex, woven carpet, with each strand a partial truth

M e t h o d (our definition)

Method is not a straightforward process as there is not only one way to go or one truth. Complexity should be taken into account when it comes to developing methods, which are very different than manuals or recipes, as it is crucial that methods can be changed along the way. For methods not to become totalitarian tools they must remain flexible and encompass multiple and often contradictory elements that may lack consistency and stability. In the heart of method lies experience, since method is "a way of surviving experience" (eg. pouring sauce over a dish baking in the oven without getting burned) but also experimentation, which will make the method viable, improve it, situate it in a specific setting or adapt it according to the tools at hand.

Selected fragment from the text - B o u n d a r y O b j e c t s

  "[…] activity is always mediated through tools and material arrangements." This gives us some insight in what is considered an object.

  "a community of practice is defined in large part according to the co-use of such objects" Objects have the power to connect community members, or facilitate for community.

   Objects can become natural in community of practices.
   can be abstract or concrete common norms, standards
  "...we can see that the source of boundary objects comes from a combined willingness of the community of practice to accomodate marginality and multiple naturalised objects..."  

  boundary object is information, such as specimens, field notes, and maps, used in different ways by different communities for collaborative work through scales. "Here I mean 'Object' to include all of these things: stuff and things, tools and techniques, and ideas, stories, and memories—those objects which are treated as things by community memebers"

Our definition - A b o u n d a r y o b j e c t A boundary object can challenge common norms and standards. Different methods can apply to these objects depending on the knowledge, interests and viewpoints of the groups (or individuals) approaching them. Different communities of practice have vastly different methodologies when dealing with these boundary objects. An example of such an object could be a dead bird seen from the viewpoint of an amateur ornithologist or a biologist. In this example the ornithologists (a community of practice) might want to preserve the birds appearance to admire it, and has certain methods for this. Whilst the biologists (another community of practice) might want to dissect the bird to learn more about it. A boundary object (can be abstract or concrete) and is not just an object, but a community of practices* as well as "stuff and things, tools and techniques, and ideas, stories, and memories" that comprise many different and maybe contrasting methodologies, and it is open enough that it can include even the smallest groups and approaches. Collaboration and communication are core functions of the boundary object, since it facilitates both and opens a dialogue that can lead to a better and wider understanding of the object at hand. In this sense, a boundary object can be also seen as a piece of information serving different communities in various ways and allows them to embrace collaborative work.

Fictitious event: strike against mobile payments 

Website Preview

Group discussion to have a virtual strike about using cash to boycott mobile payments.A promotional webpage for it.

• A community of practice is formed around such objects and methodologies, as "activity is always mediated through tools and material arrangements". Boundary objects must also be considered in terms of the motives of the people/community who choose them and their communicative role. The creation of boundary objects is always to a certain extent an expression of hegemony and as such cannot be considered politically neutral or necessarily consensual.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                m.  e.  t.   h.  o.   d.   s.

"Phenomenology is a philosophical approach initially developed by Edward Husserl that centers on understanding consciousness and experience. Anthropologists interested in space and the environment have drawn on phenomenology as a way of exploring people's direct experiences of the places they inhabit. This entry outlines key approaches, critiques, and current trends. It draws attention to studies of movement and politics that are generating new possibilities in the anthropological understanding of space and the environment." [1]

[1] Vergunst, Jo (2018b): Phenomenology of space and the environment, in: The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, S. 1–6. Doi:10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea2012.

Unconventional cartographies are different ways of mapping the world, that push the boundaries of conventional cartography and include mapping that make sense to certain (perhaps marginalized) communities and groups, and let you experience and expand your view of the world in different ways.

Some examples of unconventional maps such the Dog World Map or the World Map of Tropical Diseases can be found all over the internet.

Colophon

The Word Quilt Reader is a publication by XPUB1, written and patched together during Special Issue 23: Quilting infrastructures, led by Cristina Cochior and Alice Strete, between January 15 and March 28 2024.

The work on the reader was done by three editorial teams:

((in)ter)dependence

Senka Milutinovich, Alessia Vadacca, Thijs van Loenhout and Michel M.H. Wang.

Quilt INC

Riviera Taylor, Rosa Schuurmans. Anita Burato Colamedici, Lorenzo Quint and Ziheng Wang.

Editorial Services LTD

Maria Exarchou, Nianzu Su (Zuzu), Victor Stiberg, Maria Napiórkowska (Mania) and Bernardette Geiger.

The SI23 methods classes were led by Lidia Pereira, Steve Rushton and Marloes de Valk.