### A narrative exploration of divergent digital intimacies
Water, stories, the body,
all the things we do, are
mediums
that hide and show what’s
hidden.
(Rumi, 1995 translation)
> Water, stories, the body,
> all the things we do, are
> mediums
that hide and show what’s
> hidden.
> (Rumi, 1995 translation)
## ꙳for you
@ -83,22 +83,22 @@ Safe dreams now, I will talk to you soon.
## 0. DIGITAL BODIES
I think the worst must be finished.
Whether I am right, don’t tell me.
Don’t tell me.
No ringlet of bruise,
no animal face, the waters salt me
and I leave it barefoot. I leave you, season
of still tongues, of roses on nightstands
beside crushed beer cans. I leave you
white sand and scraped knees. I leave
this myth in which I am pig, whose
death is empty allegory. I leave, I leave—
At the end of this story,
I walk into the sea
and it chooses
not to drown me.
(Yun, 2020)
> "I think the worst must be finished.
> Whether I am right, don’t tell me.
> Don’t tell me.
> No ringlet of bruise,
> no animal face, the waters salt me
> and I leave it barefoot. I leave you, season
> of still tongues, of roses on nightstands
> beside crushed beer cans. I leave you
> white sand and scraped knees. I leave
> this myth in which I am pig, whose
> death is empty allegory. I leave, I leave—
> At the end of this story,
> I walk into the sea
> and it chooses
> not to drown me."
> (Yun, 2020)
### a. what is a digital body?
@ -297,19 +297,8 @@ comments from Mandel on The Well—the Mandelbot.
In the topic he had opened to say goodbye, he posted
this message about the bot:
I had another motive in opening this topic to tell the
truth, one that winds its way through almost everything
I've done online in the five months since my cancer was
diagnosed. I figured that, like everyone else, my
physical self wasn't going to survive forever and I guess
I was going to have less time than actuarials allocateus
[actually allocated]. But if I could reach out and touch
everyone I knew on-line... I could toss out bits and
pieces of my virtual self and the memes that make up
Tom Mandel, and then when my body died, I wouldn't
really have to leave... Large chunks of me would also
be here, part of this new space.
(Hafner, 1997)
> "I had another motive in opening this topic to tell the truth, one that winds its way through almost everything I've done online in the five months since my cancer was diagnosed. I figured that, like everyone else, my physical self wasn't going to survive forever and I guess I was going to have less time than actuarials allocateus [actually allocated]. But if I could reach out and touch everyone I knew on-line... I could toss out bits and pieces of my virtual self and the memes that make up Tom Mandel, and then when my body died, I wouldn't really have to leave... Large chunks of me would also be here, part of this new space."
> (Hafner, 1997)
With the Mandelbot, Mandel found a way to deal with
what he later called his grieving for the community,
@ -345,10 +334,8 @@ In a tribute posted after his death, fellow Well member
and journalist Andrew Leonard tried to convey his own
sense of blended physicality and emotion.
Sneer all you want at the fleshlessness of online
community, but on this night, as tears stream down my
face for the third straight evening, it feels all too real.
(Andrew Leonard, 1995)
> "Sneer all you want at the fleshlessness of online community, but on this night, as tears stream down my face for the third straight evening, it feels all too real."
> (Andrew Leonard, 1995)
### c. bot-feelings
@ -489,10 +476,8 @@ Tonight, the dead light up your mind
like an image of your mind on a scientist’s screen.
‘The scientists don’t know – and too much.’
In the town square, in the heart of night (a delicacy
like the heart of an artichoke), a man dances
cheek-to-cheek with the infinite blue.
(Schwartz, 2022)
> "In the town square, in the heart of night (a delicacy like the heart of an artichoke), a man dances cheek-to-cheek with the infinite blue."
> (Schwartz, 2022)
### a. comfort care
@ -629,11 +614,8 @@ writer. You as the reader and you as the community.
Me and you, as a whole. Both exist, both separate but
in what is not of such importance.
Though many of these systems are different,
fundamentally, we can see similarities in the structure
of their data. It’s very easy to find differences. What’s
more interesting is to find out what’s similar.
(Chu & Dunkel , 2021)
> "Though many of these systems are different, fundamentally, we can see similarities in the structure of their data. It’s very easy to find differences. What’s more interesting is to find out what’s similar."
> (Chu & Dunkel, 2021)
Individuals who forge and inhabit these communities,
@ -29,13 +29,11 @@ In the second chapter, I unpack bureaucracy and focus on its bordering function.
In the third and last chapter, I bridge the written text with the ongoing project that runs simultaneously as part of my graduation work in Experimental Publishing, where I mainly speak through my prototypes. Talking documents(5) are performative bureaucratic text inspections, vocal and non-vocal, that intend to create temporal public interventions through performative readings. The intention is to underline how the vocalization of bureaucracies as a tool can potentially reveal their territorial exclusive function and provide space for the invisible vulnerability.
-----------------------------------------
“on the other side is the river
and I cannot cross it
on the other side is the sea
I cannot bridge it”
(Anzaldua, 1987)
> “on the other side is the river
> and I cannot cross it
> on the other side is the sea
> I cannot bridge it”
> (Anzaldua, 1987)
## borders
@ -68,8 +66,8 @@ I will share a personal story related to hospitality and bureaucracy. I was rece
All these questions provoked thinking around the concept of conditional hospitality as a behavior of the state towards strangers. I can see that on a smaller scale it is being applied to the hospitality I receive from my friends in the middle of an emergency. I am wondering, though, whether is it that important for the government to know on whose couch I sleep or where I store my belongings. The omnipresent gaze of a state who has the right to know every small detail about myself while at the same time questioning people's hospitality in case of emergency. It seems that forms of knowledge are inseparably related to forms of power. It will take 8 weeks for my request to be processed and for the government to approve or reject if I deserve my friends' hospitality.
> “Today as yesterday, her land and her time are stolen, only because she is told that she has arrived too late. Much too late”
(Khosravi, 2021)
> “Today as yesterday, her land and her time are stolen, only because she is told that she has arrived too late. Much too late”
> (Khosravi, 2021)
### waiting
@ -85,13 +83,13 @@ The notion of hospitality is excessively instrumentalized within the Greek conte
Hospitality can function as a filtration mechanism that permits access – lets in – the ones who deserve it, those who have “passports, valid visas, adequate bank statements, or invitations” (Khosravi, 2010). By doing this, unproductive hospitality is being avoided due to sovereign state’s border regulations and checks. Conditional hospitality, is about worthiness, is directed towards migrants deemed good and productive – skilled and capable for assimilation- or a tiny minority of vulnerable and marginalized asylum seekers who lack representation. Only in a world where the nation-state’s boundaries have been dismantled and where the undocumented, stateless, non-citizens are unconditionally accepted, only at this moment, we are able to imagine the “political and ethical survival of humankind” (Agamben, 2000). Hospitality does not seem a matter of choice but a profound urgency, if humanity desires to foster a future together.
#### “the right to have rights”
#### “the right to have rights”
(Arendt, as cited by Khosravi, 2010, p.121)
What about the crossers who managed to travel and reach the desirable “there”, the ones who transcended the borders and the control checks of the ministries of defense(7), the ones who enter but do not own papers, the paperless? What does it mean to be documented and what is inefficiently documented within a territory? They are threatened if they get caught by authorities and also according to the official narrative, they threaten. Since the physical mechanisms of bordering did not succeed in repulsing them, the bureaucratic border appears as an additional layer of filtration. The undocumented are non-citizens, they might be crossers or burners(8), both, or even none. “Undocumented migrants and unauthorized border crossers are polluted and polluting because of their very unclassifiability” (Borelli, Poy, Rué, 2023). The loss of citizenship, denaturalisation, makes somebody denaturalised, they are rendered unnatural. “Citizenship has become the nature of being human” (Koshravi, 2010).
According to Hannah Arendt, the right to have rights and claim somebody else’s rights is the only human right (Arendt, as cited by Khosravi, 2010, p. 121). The foundational issue with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is its dependence on the nation-state system. Since human rights are grounded on civil rights, which are essentially citizens’ rights, human rights are tied to the nation-state system. Consequently, human rights can be materialized only in a political community. “Loss of citizenship also means loss of human rights” (Khosravi, 2010)
“…<sup><spanclass="margin-note">This is a transcribed recording of my phone during a protest on migration at Dam Square in Amsterdam. I insert part of the speech of a Palestinian woman addressing the matter of undocumentedness. Date and time of the recording 18th of June 2023, 15:05.</span></sup> I am here for the rights of the children which haven't be in the taking part in the education since they have undocumented mothers and they are more than *<sup><span class="margin-note">“*” means undecipherable</span></sup> years. I am here to represent mothers who are looking for a place to have a sense of belonging or how long are you trying to continue humiliating them and the female gender. I am here to express my frustration with IND<sup><spanclass="margin-note">Immigratie- en Naturalisatiedienst - Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service</span></sup>. So frustrated. And I will not stop talking about democracy. Democracy is the rule of law where everybody feels included. Democracy is a rule of law where everybody feels * We, undocumented people, we don't feel a sense of belonging from the system."
> “…<sup><spanclass="margin-note">This is a transcribed recording of my phone during a protest on migration at Dam Square in Amsterdam. I insert part of the speech of a Palestinian woman addressing the matter of undocumentedness. Date and time of the recording 18th of June 2023, 15:05.</span></sup> I am here for the rights of the children which haven't be in the taking part in the education since they have undocumented mothers and they are more than *<sup><span class="margin-note">“*” means undecipherable</span></sup> years. I am here to represent mothers who are looking for a place to have a sense of belonging or how long are you trying to continue humiliating them and the female gender. I am here to express my frustration with IND<sup><spanclass="margin-note">Immigratie- en Naturalisatiedienst - Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service</span></sup>. So frustrated. And I will not stop talking about democracy. Democracy is the rule of law where everybody feels included. Democracy is a rule of law where everybody feels * We, undocumented people, we don't feel a sense of belonging from the system."
## bureaucracy as immaterial border
@ -109,13 +107,13 @@ I gradually started perceiving the bureaucratic apparatus as an omnipresent imma
The contradiction embedded in many cultural and educational institutions lies in the level of unawareness regarding surveillance via multiple bureaucratic rituals that (re)produce docile behaviors. How these mechanisms are masked and standing in the margins of the visible nonvisible sphere.
> “This is what makes it possible, for example, for graduate students to be able to spend days in the > stacks of university libraries poring over Foucault-inspired theoretical tracts about the declining > importance of coercion as a factor in modern life without ever reflecting on that fact that, had > > they insisted their right to enter the stacks without showing a properly stamped and validated ID, > armed men would have been summoned to physically remove them, using whatever force might be required.”
> “This is what makes it possible, for example, for graduate students to be able to spend days in the stacks of university libraries poring over Foucault-inspired theoretical tracts about the declining importance of coercion as a factor in modern life without ever reflecting on that fact that, had they insisted their right to enter the stacks without showing a properly stamped and validated ID, armed men would have been summoned to physically remove them, using whatever force might be required.”
(Graeber, 2015)
The genuine essence of education is not bureaucratic at all, neither does it have to fit and ground its foundations under a bureaucratic roof. “The pedagogical process runs counter to the hierarchical, impersonal qualities of bureaucracy” (Cunningham, 2017). However, people working in educational institutions acknowledge the fact that entrenched bureaucratic systems impose their material constraints on teaching structures and on how these actors in this process interact with each other.“Students and staff are treated as human capital” (Cunningham, 2017). This determination can dehumanize people involved, like when "faculty-as-labor" and "students-as-consumers" are marginalized and treated as just variables.
> “there is no document of civilisation which is not at the same time a document of barbarism”,
Walter Benjamin
> “there is no document of civilisation which is not at the same time a document of barbarism”
> Walter Benjamin
### the document
@ -139,14 +137,15 @@ There is a great materiality in bureaucracies. Bureaucratic procedures are often
Underneath every bureaucratic document, there is a good amount of graphic design labor. What kind of visual strategy is embedded in administrative objects that the design aspect of these artifacts appears to be invisible? The material decisions applied as well as the material constraints attributed to the document can transform or produce different textual meanings and consequently understandings.
> “This does not mean that constraints limit meaning, but on the contrary, constitute it; meaning cannot appear where freedom is absolute or nonexistent: the stem of meaning is that of a supervised freedom”, (Roland Barthes, 1983)
> “This does not mean that constraints limit meaning, but on the contrary, constitute it; meaning cannot appear where freedom is absolute or nonexistent: the stem of meaning is that of a supervised freedom”
> (Roland Barthes, 1983)
When I encountered the green logo of the municipality of Rotterdam I did not cultivate any feelings of enthusiasm or even boredom. A big calligraphic “R” with the flawless green ribbons that penetrate it on the left corner of a 229x162 mm standardized dimension folder with a transparent rectangle that reveals my inscribed name and surname from the inside part. I did not put any aesthetic critique over this but I rather felt this rush of stress for the expected response to my objection letter or a fine or a tax to be paid within a specific timeline cause another fine would come if I did not comply with this.
One month ago (from the writing present), my friend Chae made for my birthday this amazing Dutch-government-like biscuit forms, recreating the entire layout of the document using the interface of a crunchy biscuit. She used the same color blue scheme and she placed the biscuit form inside the same standardized dimension folder 229x162 mm with the same transparent layer that reveals my name and surname. According to literary critic and theorist Katherine Hayles:
> “to alter the physical form of the artifacts is to change the act of reading and understanding but mostly you transform the metaphoric and symbolic network that structures the relation of world to world. To change the material artifacts is to transform the context and circumstances for interacting with the words, which inevitably change the meaning of the word itself. This transformation of > meaning is especially possible when the words interact with the inscription technologies that produce them”,
(Hayles, 2002)
> “to alter the physical form of the artifacts is to change the act of reading and understanding but mostly you transform the metaphoric and symbolic network that structures the relation of world to world. To change the material artifacts is to transform the context and circumstances for interacting with the words, which inevitably change the meaning of the word itself. This transformation of meaning is especially possible when the words interact with the inscription technologies that produce them”
> (Hayles, 2002)
In the latter case, the inscription technology used is the sugar blue paste and the handwriting of Chae. The text in the white-blue government document forces a different reading from the white-blue biscuit document, even if they carry the same bits of information. If I do not read carefully the text in the folder and if I do not act according to the suggested actions there is a threat. The level of threat varies in relation to the case, the identities of the holder, the state, the context, etc. There is no room for negotiation in bureaucracy and this is the omnipresent underlying violence. The threat of violence shrouded within its structures and foundations does not permit any questioning but on the contrary creates “willful blindness” towards them<sup><spanclass="margin-note">I am referring to those people subjecting others to bureaucratic circles shaped by structurally violent situations as well as people in positions of privilege who deliberately ignore these facts.</span></sup>. Bureaucracies are not stupid inherently rather they manage and coerce processes that reproduce docile and stupid behaviors.
@ -168,10 +167,10 @@ I started working and engaging more with different bureaucratic material that my
Description: Some months ago my classmates and I received an email with a questionnaire aimed at preparing us for the upcoming quality assurance meeting within the school. Ada and I had a meeting, in an empty white room with closed doors, with an external collaborator of the university. The main request was to rate and answer the pre-formulated questions covering issues about performance, different and multiple topics related to the course, the teaching staff, the facilities, the tools provided. The micro linguistic experiment of highlighting, censoring and annotating this document aimed for an understanding of what a quality assurance meeting is within an educational institution.
@ -182,10 +181,10 @@ These 'rituals' are components of a larger “culture of evidence”, serving as
#### 2.
Title: “Department of Bureaucracy and Administration Customs Enforcement”
When: November 2023
Where: Leeszaal<sup><spanclass="margin-note">Community Library in Rotterdam West</span></sup>
Who: XPUB peers, tutors, friends, alumni
**Title:** “Department of Bureaucracy and Administration Customs Enforcement”
**When:** November 2023
**Where:** Leeszaal<sup><spanclass="margin-note">Community Library in Rotterdam West</span></sup>
**Who:** XPUB peers, tutors, friends, alumni
Description: During the first public moment at Leeszaal, I decided to embody and enact the traditional role of a bureaucrat in a graphic and possibly absurd way performing a small “theatrical play”. I prepared a 3-page and a 1-page document incorporating bureaucratic-form aesthetics and requesting applicants’ fake data and their answers for questions related to educational bureaucracy. People receiving an applicant number at the entrance of Leeszaal, queuing to collect their documents from the administration “office”, filling forms, waiting, receiving stamps, giving fingerprints and signing, waiting again were the main components of this act.
@ -197,17 +196,17 @@ The provided context of this “play” was a social library hosting a masters c
#### 3.
Title: “Passport Reading Session”
When: January 2024
Where: XML – XPUB studio
Who: Ada, Aglaia, Stephen, Joseph
**Title:** “Passport Reading Session”
**When:** January 2024
**Where:** XML – XPUB studio
**Who:** Ada, Aglaia, Stephen, Joseph
Description: This prototype is a collective passport reading session. I asked my classmates to bring their passports or IDs and sitting in a circular set up we attempted to “scan” our documents. Every contributor took some time to browse, annotate verbally, interpret, understand, analyze, vocalize their thoughts on these artifacts, approaching them from various perspectives. The three passports and one ID card were all coming from European countries.
Reflections-Thoughts: For the first time I observed this object so closely. The documentation medium was a recording device, Ada’s mobile phone. The recording was transcribed by vosk<sup><spanclass="margin-note">Vosk is an offline open-source speech recognition toolkit.</span></sup> and myself and a small booklet of our passport readings was created.
>“So the object here is like not by random it comes from the history of nation-states and how nation-states and nationalities created like a form of identity. So nation-state is actually a recent invention that came into existence over the last two hundred fifty years in the form as we know it nowadays, in the form of democratic capitalism, before like monarchies and so on and each citizen of such a nation-state got also kind of a particular identity”,
Joseph says about his ID card.
>“So the object here is like not by random it comes from the history of nation-states and how nation-states and nationalities created like a form of identity. So nation-state is actually a recent invention that came into existence over the last two hundred fifty years in the form as we know it nowadays, in the form of democratic capitalism, before like monarchies and so on and each citizen of such a nation-state got also kind of a particular identity”,
> Joseph says about his ID card.
We read the embedded signs, symbols, categories, texts, magical numbers in our passports that construct our profiles. Seeing someone's passport, ID cards, visas, travel documents might mean that you are able to understand how easy or not is for them to move, what are their travel paths, how departure or arrival is smooth or cruel. Are there emotions along the way? For some people these are documents “that embody power — minimal or no waiting, peaceful departure, warm and confident arrival” (Khosravi, 2021).
@ -216,10 +215,10 @@ We read the embedded signs, symbols, categories, texts, magical numbers in our p
[](../aglaia/passport2.png)
#### 4.
Title: “Postal Address Application Scenario”
When: February 2024
Where: Room in Wijnhaven Building, 4th floor
Who: XPUB 1,2,3, tutors, Leslie
**Title:** “Postal Address Application Scenario”
**When:** February 2024
**Where:** Room in Wijnhaven Building, 4th floor
**Who:** XPUB 1,2,3, tutors, Leslie
Description: This scenario is the first part of a series of small episodes that construct a bureaucratic story unfolding the processes of my communication with the government. The body of the text of the “theatrical” script is sourced from the original documents as well as recordings of the conversation I had with the municipality throughout this process. I preserved the sequence of the given sentences and by discarding the graphic design of the initial form, I structured and repurposed the text into a scenario. The main actors were two bureaucrats vocalizing the questions addressed in the form, in turns and sometimes speaking simultaneously like a choir, three applicants answering the questions similarly while a narrator mainly provided the audience with the context and the storyline constructing the scenery of the different scenes.
@ -248,24 +247,45 @@ My intention is to facilitate a series of collective performative readings of bu
As I sit in the waiting area at the gate B7 in the airport preparing to come back to the Netherlands, I am writing the last lines of this text. I am thinking of all these borders and gates that my body was able to pass through smoothly, carrying my magical object through which I embody power- at least within this context. However, I yearn for a reality where we stop looking at those bodies that cross the multifaceted borders and get crossed and entrenched by them, but on the contrary we start interrogating and shouting at the contexts and the frameworks that construct them and render them invisible, natural and powerful.
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