<p>SECOND READER(S): <br>Marloes de Valk, Michael Murtaugh</p>
<p>WRITTEN BY: <br> Erica Gargaglione</p>
<p>2023</p>
<p>FAL 1.3 2023</p>
</div>
@ -51,19 +51,22 @@
<td>Introduction</td><td>6</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Clumsy legs</td><td>8</td>
<td>Clumsy legs</td><td>7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Maintenance as radical administration</td><td>13</td>
<td>Maintenance as radical administration</td><td>12</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Maintenance as caregiving</td><td>16</td>
<td>Maintenance as caregiving</td><td>15</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Maintenance as hacking</td><td>5</td>
<td>Maintenance as hacking</td><td>19</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>An approach beyond survival</td><td>5</td>
<td>An approach beyond survival</td><td>24</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>References</td><td>26</td>
</tr>
</table>
<h3>Attachments:</h3>
@ -87,26 +90,23 @@
<divclass="intro">
<h2>Introduction</h2>
<p>
In this thesis I will explore how self-organized cultural initiatives find ways of maintaining themselves, while at the same time trying to sustain some form of collective care. In particular, I will dedicate special attention to those groups whose artistic, cultural and activist practice heavily relies on FLOSS (Free Libre Open Source) software and self-hosted (community) infrastructure, for a series of reasons. Firstly their technological choices and their ways of organizing are often formalized into collective guidelines (e.g. Codes of conduct but not only) which avowedly critique capitalist modes of cultural production, and its consequent commodification (Wark, 2019). Secondly, I think they might provide realistic examples of alternatives to proprietary software, hierarchical and exploitative organizational models, and poor or alienating working conditions in the arts and cultures. And thirdly, through my studies and personal experience I got close to these kind of practices myself, and I sadly started to observe the many difficulties and burnouts that these groups are facing anyways due to the pressures coming from the drastic rise of the costs of life.
In this thesis I will explore how self-organized cultural initiatives find ways of maintaining themselves, while at the same time trying to sustain some form of collective care. In particular, I will dedicate special attention to those groups whose artistic, cultural and activist practice heavily relies on FLOSS (Free Libre Open Source) software and self-hosted (community) infrastructure, for a series of reasons. Firstly their technological choices and their ways of organizing are often formalized into collective guidelines (e.g. Codes of conduct but not only) which avowedly critique capitalist modes of cultural production, and its consequent commodification (Wark, 2019). Secondly, I think they might provide realistic examples of alternatives to proprietary software, hierarchical and exploitative organizational models, and poor or alienating working conditions in the arts and cultures. And thirdly, through my studies and personal experience I got close to these kind of practices myself, and I sadly started to observe the many difficulties and burnouts that these groups are facing due to the pressures coming from the drastic rise of the costs of life.
</p>
<p>
A condition of generalized precarity seems to be depleting all sort of resources necessary to keep running projects of these kinds, which often count on a good amount of generosity of their internal community for an extra, vital, spin. In this context of permanent crisis the issue of maintenance becomes a really delicate one, especially for forms of organization whose autonomy and freedom is gradually threatened by tighter relations of dependency with capitalism through its socio-technical infrastructure. These groups might inadvertently replicate a condition of crisis and precarity, whenever their same socio-technical infrastructure turns out to be highly demanding, and even unsustainable, in terms of energy costs, voluntary and affective labour, and spare time consumption.
A condition of generalized precarity seems to be depleting all sort of resources necessary to keep running projects of these kinds, which often count on a good amount of generosity of their internal community for an extra, vital, spin. In this context of permanent crisis the issue of maintenance becomes a really delicate one, especially for forms of organization whose autonomy and freedom is gradually threatened by tighter relations of dependency with capitalism through its socio-technical infrastructure. These groups might inadvertently replicate toxic dynamics and poor working conditions, whenever their same socio-technical infrastructure turns out to be highly demanding, and even unsustainable, in terms of energy costs, voluntary and affective labour, and spare time consumption.
</p>
<p>
Through the thesis I will therefore try to address and unpack the following dilemma:
• How to practice maintenance at the margin of capitalism while trying to include practices of collective care, in self-organized cultural initiatives that work in solidarity with free software and self-hosted technology?
Through field research the exercise of maintenance is inquired as a form of situated, and collective knowledge that on one hand pragmatically points towards the how-to’s of collaborative survival, and on the other hand it addresses the status quo as the whole of the systemic relations of dependency.
Through the thesis I will therefore try to address and unpack the following dilemma:How to practice maintenance while trying to include practices of collective care, in self-organized cultural initiatives that work in solidarity with free software and self-hosted technology?
Through field research, the exercise of maintenance is inquired as a situated and collective form of knowledge that on one hand pragmatically points towards the how-to’s of collaborative survival, and on the other hand it addresses the status quo as the whole of the systemic relations of dependency.
</p>
<p>
The research is conducted through a series of conversations, interviews and collective evaluations that I will metaphorically frame as “Boiler inspection”. The thesis is the result of a process of journaling along with the inspections, collecting some anecdotes and reflections on ways of maintaining.
</p>
<p>
After an introductory chapter on the general context of the research within the many shapes of self-hosting and self-organization, maintenance is explored as a conflicting practice through which administrative principles and strategies are tried and tested, in the attempt of conciliating the need for a gentle survival and the urgency of a more unapologetic exercise of care. I will then refer to maintenance as caring labour, that often remains invisible within the community/organization itself, and that is rarely validated and supported by external entities, like funding bodies. Lastly, maintenance is discussed in relation to the issue of autonomy and cooperation.
</p>
<p>
In order to embark on this exploration of what is maintenance I will try to embrace the role of the radical admin as described in Kate Rich and Angela Piccinini's RADMIN Reader (2019). Eventually, I will contaminate the profile of the radical admin with that of a caretaker and that of a hacker, to better align with the spirit of the self-organized cultural initiatives I'm going to research, and to finally summarize maintenance as systemic view in which the perspectives of these three roles converge.
After a necessary contextualization of the research, maintenance is explored as a conflicting practice through which principles and strategies of radical administration are tried and tested out, in the attempt of conciliating the need for a gentler survival and the urgency of a more unapologetic exercise of care. I will then refer to maintenance as caring labour, that often remains invisible within the community/organization itself. Lastly, maintenance is discussed as an issue of autonomy and cooperation in relation to hacking practices.
</p>
</div>
@ -314,20 +314,20 @@
It's early morning of 31st of March 2023.
</p>
<p>
I found myself at Varia, again, preparing some coffee for a meeting with L., a member of Varia but also of another organization called Autonomic, which we are planning to boiler-inspect together. Autonomic is a cooperative owned by its workers dealing with the hosting, development, training and audits of free software, websites and digital infrastructures. The cooperative supports, in L.'s manners, "nice™ people", which is a shortcut for the intention of collaborating with whoever shares its core values and, most importantly, agrees with the statement "We Are More Important Than The Work" published in Autonomic's handbook. <supclass="note"></sup><spanclass="footnote">https://docz.autonomic.zone/s/handbook/doc/we-are-more-important-than-the-work-F6wzI0fUt3</span>
I found myself at Varia, again, preparing some coffee for a meeting with L., a member of Varia but also of another organization called Autonomic, which we are planning to boiler-inspect together. Autonomic is a cooperative owned by its workers dealing with the hosting, development, training and audits of free software, websites and digital infrastructures. The cooperative supports, in L.'s manners, "nice™ people", which is a shortcut for the intention of collaborating with whoever shares its core values and, most importantly, agrees with the statement "We Are More Important Than The Work" published in Autonomic's handbook. <supclass="note"></sup><spanclass="footnote" id="16">https://docz.autonomic.zone/s/handbook/doc/we-are-more-important-than-the-work-F6wzI0fUt3</span>
</p>
<p>
Before commenting on it, though, I would like to give space to a long anecdotal detour, that will hopefully contribute to further situate the reflections written so far, and complement some last thoughts emerging from the interview with L. about Autonomic.
</p>
<p>
So, I'm now sitting with my coffee, while the Dutch version of The little mermaid's soundtrack is playing from an old audiotape recorder. L. is standing in front of it and is telling me of how someone brought a huge box full of dusty audiotape cassettes a few days before, and how, because of that episode, he discovered they had an old tape recorder, which somebody else in the collective probably brought long time ago and since then it was camouflaging between an audio interface and a beamer. — Anyways, it's gonna be a bit hectic today — says L. changing side of the tape — but feel free to hang around during the meetings and let's try to organize the boiler inspection for Autonomic on the fly. In the meanwhile, a research group from KABK (Royal Academy of the Hague) knocks at the door. L. welcomes them inside, and while entering, one of them comments cheerfully surprised how the space has changed since last time he saw it, and how it seems much cozier now, with the two couches and the tiny table in the center, arranged like a living room. — Yeah, the space often changes, depending on the events, or the needs of whoever comes here to use it — answers L. offering some tea or coffee to B., one of the researchers — oh coffee, please — who later explains to me that during the morning he would have presented his research project on “computing otherwise” within art and design education to the rest of his group. Hopefully a few members of Varia would have helped him with the presentation, and would have introduced their artistic practices in relation to their local server, as what he sees like a living example of a community that collectively develops and maintains their own internet infrastructure, and therefore as source of inspiration for the group's research project. And indeed another member of Varia shows up at the door, but in fact he is intented to meet another artist together with L., in order to provide her technical support for yet another project with local servers and trees. A woman appears behind the glass of the entrance. Both L. and D., the last person who entered, hurry to open the door thinking she is the one they were waiting for, but when she introduces herself she turns out to be looking for M. instead (another member of Varia), with whom she agreed to meetup later on, but she was unexpectedly early. The little mermaid is still playing in the background. One of the researches notices it: "wait, is it the little mermaid playing in the background?". The question creates even more confusion, which allows me to sneak away from the previous conversation and reach the newcomer, who I actually knew to be a guest of the master Experimental Publishing, and while inviting her to join for the coffee, I also let her know she is indeed in the right place, regardless of the other two hosts' hesitation. The researchers arrange a big meeting table on the other side of the room. and The little mermaid is stopped by L.. In the meanwhile, the missing characters M. — the other member of Varia — and S. — the artist of the local servers and trees — arrive too and join the table. Finally the presentation starts, with great surprise of B, who didn't expect the presence of a much larger public outside his research group — but I guess this is what happens when you are in an open space like this — he comments.
Open for who? I'm wondering, but B. already talks about his desire of installing a local server that the students of the academy could use according to their own needs, host their communal website, for example, instead of relying on the institutional one, and a series of other projects inspired by open source principles. — is this a dejavu? — M. kindly conduces the group through the contents of Varia's server using the command line. She demonstrates the many digital tools that the collective is using like Etherpads, Wiki, and publishing software that would turn html pages into pdf files. As the presentation unfolds slide after slide, and command after command, the facial expression of the others starts to contort as if all of a sudden a labyrinth full of rooms and corridors and stairs, each with its own peculiar function and style, materialized inside Varia, which until few minutes ago appeared to be a simple v-shaped room on the ground floor, with huge windows facing the street. Even M's terminal doesn't match at all with the usual imagery of a hostile dark window on the screen with bright monospace characters, but it is instead a colorful and extremely playful interface, much more inviting. As inviting as the soup that a few moments later we cook together on a small electric stove, and which two members of the Woonstad group, who enter the space in that moment to use Varia's printers for their flyers — There's soup in the kitchen! — enjoy as well.
Open for who? I'm wondering, but B. already talks about his desire of installing a local server that the students of the academy could use according to their own needs, host their communal website, for example, instead of relying on the institutional one, and a series of other projects inspired by open source principles. — is this a dejavu? — M. kindly conduces the group through the contents of Varia's server using the command line. She demonstrates the many digital tools that the collective is using like Etherpads, Wiki, and a publishing software that would turn HTML pages into PDF files. As the presentation unfolds slide after slide, and command after command, the facial expression of the others starts to contort as if all of a sudden a labyrinth full of rooms and corridors and stairs, each with its own peculiar function and style, materialized inside Varia, which until few minutes ago appeared to be a simple v-shaped room on the ground floor, with huge windows facing the street. Even M's terminal doesn't match at all with the usual imagery of a hostile dark window on the screen with bright monospace characters, but it is instead a colorful and extremely playful interface, much more inviting. As inviting as the soup that a few moments later we cook together on a small electric stove, and which two members of the Woonstad group, who enter the space in that moment to use Varia's printers for their flyers — There's soup in the kitchen! — enjoy as well.
</p>
<p>
Eventually, the whole bustle of planned meetings resolves into a serendipitous combination of encounters, in which the interests and the purposes of those present this morning are exchanged within a chaotic, yet pleasurable, dynamic. The experience of these moments certainly enables a feeling of commonality that is perhaps a fundamental aspect for the livelihood of self-run cultural organization like Varia. The simple fact of "being" in the same place at the same time creates already unintentional assemblages of stories, intentions, and values which juxtapose organically, creating unique conditions for participating to a shared reality. Without being rehearsed, that shared reality just manifested itself as the most natural unfolding of a series of events in sync with each other: M has met her guest during the research group's presentation, which was about the setup of a local server, same object of interest of the artist who came to meet L. and D., with whom I'm finally having a conversation about Autonomic, while eating a collectively cooked soup.
Eventually, the whole bustle of planned meetings resolves into a serendipitous combination of encounters, in which the interests and the purposes of those present this morning are exchanged within a chaotic, yet pleasurable, dynamic. The experience of these moments certainly enables a feeling of commonality that is perhaps a fundamental aspect for the livelihood of self-run cultural organization like Varia. The simple fact of <spanstyle="font-style: italic;">being</span> in the same place at the same time creates already unintentional assemblages of stories, intentions, and values which juxtapose organically, creating unique conditions for participating to a shared reality. Without being rehearsed, that shared reality just manifested itself as the most natural unfolding of a series of events in sync with each other: M has met her guest during the research group's presentation, which was about the setup of a local server, same object of interest of the artist who came to meet L. and D., with whom I'm finally having a conversation about Autonomic, while eating a collectively cooked soup.
</p>
<p>
The morning spent at Varia, and the Boiler Inspection with L. make me reflect on a more generous and expandend image of maintenance as a “collective endeavour” (Mattern, 2018), in which self-organization is able to activate a "process [...] of joint action, of creating things together, of cooperating to meet shared goals", which scholars and activists David Bollier and Silke Helfrich described as commoning (2015). In parallel, Silvia Federici defines the production of commons as “the creation of social relations and spaces built in solidarity, the communal sharing of wealth, and cooperative work and decision-making” (2019, p. 183). When it comes to digital networks, the practices related to the maintenance of socio-technical infrastructure could surely be candidates for a model of commoning, but in fact they often struggle to fully accomplish their project due to their entanglement with a as larger as suffocating socio-economic reality, dominated by the logics of efficiency, competition and extraction. While productivity and profit are normalized expectations, the difference between “working-with” and “working-for” remains obfuscated, threatening to turn these practices into a huge dead-end endeavor. In other words, "Commoning involves so much idiosyncratic creativity, improvisation, situational choices, and dynamic evolution that it can only be understood as aliveness." (Bollier, Helfrich, ), yet it would be naive to believe in such aliveness as an automatic result of commoning. Helfrich picks up from the work of the political economist Elinor Ostrom, emphasizing how "[h]er question was not whether people want to cooperate, but rather how to help them do so" (Helfrich, 2015) ". It is indeed important to be wary of the full package this commoning comes with. As observed in previous boiler inspections, in self-organized cultural initiatives aliveness is often wrapped into so many layers of inter-personal frustration, financial instability and dependency on other institutions that it might eventually suffocate in its own box before the delivery time.
The morning spent at Varia, and the Boiler Inspection with L. make me reflect on a more generous and expandend image of maintenance as a “collective endeavour” (Mattern, 2018), in which self-organization is able to activate a "process [...] of joint action, of creating things together, of cooperating to meet shared goals", which scholars and activists David Bollier and Silke Helfrich described as commoning (2015). In parallel, Silvia Federici defines the production of commons as “the creation of social relations and spaces built in solidarity, the communal sharing of wealth, and cooperative work and decision-making” (2019, p. 183). When it comes to digital networks, the practices related to the maintenance of socio-technical infrastructure could surely be candidates for a model of commoning, but in fact they often struggle to fully accomplish their project due to their entanglement with a as larger as suffocating socio-economic reality, dominated by the logics of efficiency, competition and extraction. While productivity and profit are normalized expectations, the difference between “working-with” and “working-for” remains obfuscated, threatening to turn these practices into a huge dead-end endeavor. In other words, "Commoning involves so much idiosyncratic creativity, improvisation, situational choices, and dynamic evolution that it can only be understood as aliveness." (Bollier, Helfrich, 2016), yet it would be naive to believe in such aliveness as an automatic result of commoning. Helfrich picks up from the work of the political economist Elinor Ostrom, emphasizing how "[h]er question was not whether people want to cooperate, but rather how to help them do so" (Helfrich, 2015) ". It is indeed important to be wary of the full package this commoning comes with. As observed in previous boiler inspections, in self-organized cultural initiatives aliveness is often wrapped into so many layers of inter-personal frustration, financial instability and dependency on other institutions that it might eventually suffocate in its own box before the delivery time.
</p>
<p>
Now, I would like to bring the attention back on Autonomic as a cooperative model. While talking with L., we go through the same questionnaire used for the previous boiler inspection with Varia, and some of the main points of discussion are the pros and cons of working with others according to a series of principles that put at the center the freedom of cooperating, the well-being and the autonomy of the group. He explains how central is defending the cooperative's own financial and infrastructural autonomy from technology industry. However, maintaining such freedom is not always so easy. In Autonomic, they need to be flexible in order to capture the so called "apply wind" of leads, open calls and funds, which makes them vulnerable to precarity too. However, it seems that by pushing forward their values through their webpages, and with their statement "We Are More Important Than The Work, Autonomic managed to be surrounded by "nice™ people". Their handbook and their statement "We Are More Important Than The Work", take the next step in constituting an entry point for an unapologetic negotiation of their desired working conditions. It is indeed vital for them to recognize how refreshing it could be to chose their own collaborators, and to work on projects that they find meaningful, even if this implies a chaotic and at times overwhelming process.
@ -379,42 +379,92 @@
<p>
Through the journal in this thesis, I reflect on these methods of maintenance as contradictory: they only partially work if considered in their relation to the larger context of financiarized cultural production. In parallel I describe maintenance as integral to the practice of the radical administration, of a caregiving and of a hacking, in order to organize common tropes within the chaotic chain of systemic implication and complications intersecting organizing, infrastructuring, resourcing, care-taking, curating, creating and collaborating in autonomy. The provided ideas of maintaining as a radmin, a caregiver, and a hacker do not expect to provide an exhaustive analysis of the concerns of maintenance, but rather propose, in their combination, an approach that could point towards the need of maintaining livelihood, wellbeing, and solidarity beyond the mere survival of their material, social and technological conditions. Certainly, as an extremely valuable form of vital knowledge, maintenance deserves to be further investigated both theoretically and practically along with other forms of commoning practices in (not only) the cultural field, and to be supported with more appropriate policies and funding models.
</p>
<p>
Finally, I would like to suggest a list of starting points to instigate further considerations: <br>
• Maintenance is situated within... <br>
• Maintenance is distributed across... <br>
• Maintenance is a systemic ... <br>
• Maintenance is sensitive to ... <br>
• Maintenance changes through scales of... <br>
• Maintenance is a form of practical knowledge open to ... <br>
• Maintenance is a form of reactive care responsive to... <br>
• Maintenance is labour, and it calls for the same rights of the worker <br>
• Maintenance is a shared social space for … <br>
• Maintenance is the commoning of … <br>
• Maintenance is contradictory and therefore … <br>
• Maintenance is ...
</p>
</div>
</div>
<divclass="references">
<h3>References</h3>
<h4>Bibliography</h4>
<ul>
<li><spanclass="author">VV.AA.</span>, <spanclass="ref-title">A Transversal Network Of Feminist Servers</span>, ATNOFS, 2022</li>
<li><spanclass="author">Coleman E.G.</span>, <spanclass="ref-title">Coding freedom. The ethics and aesthetics of hacking</span>, Princeton University Press, 2013</li>
<li><spanclass="author">Constant</span>, <spanclass="ref-title">Are You Being Served? (notebooks)</span>, edited by Anne Laforet, Marloes de Valk, Madeleine Aktypi, An Mertens, Femke Snelting, Michaela Lakova, Reni Höfmuller, Constant, Brussels, 2015</li>
<li><spanclass="author">Federici S.</span>, <spanclass="ref-title">From Crisis to Commons: Reproductive Work, Affective Labor and Technology, and the Transformation of Everyday Life</span>, in Federici S., <spanclass="ref-title">Re-enchanting the World. Feminism and the Politics of the Commons</span>, PM Press, Oakland, 2019</li>
<li><spanclass="author">Helfrich S.</span>,<spanclass="ref-title">Patterns of Commoning: How We Can Bring About a Language of Commoning</span>, in Bollier D. Helfrich S. (Editors), <spanclass="ref-title">Patterns of commoning</span>, The Commons Strategies Group, Amherst, Massachusetts / Jena, Germany / Chiang Mai, Thailand, 2015</li>
<li><spanclass="author">Piccinini A. Rich K.</span>, <spanclass="ref-title">Radmin Reader</span>, Feral Business Research Network, 2020</li>
<li><spanclass="author">The care Collective</span>, <spanclass="ref-title">The care manifesto: the politics of interdependence</span>, London, Verso, 2020</li>
<li><spanclass="author">Wark M.</span>, <spanclass="ref-title">A Hacker Manifesto</span>, Harvard University Press, 2014</li>
<li><spanclass="author">Autonomic.zone</span>, <spanclass="ref-title">We Are More Important Than The Work</span>, URL: https://docz.autonomic.zone/s/handbook/doc/we-are-more-important-than-the-work-F6wzI0fUt3 (last access, April 13, 2013)</li>
<li><spanclass="author">Iaconesi S. Persico O.</span>, <spanclass="ref-title">L'insostenibie inefficienza del calcolo</span>, 2022, URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vb9_sQvMDUYqwL-R48WM8HDRxdw-6_6FDKZWOxuNkkM/edit#heading=h.mikpo8fyarb8 (last access February 27, 2023)</li>
<li><spanclass="author">King E., Zimmerman J.</span>, <spanclass="ref-title">Hacking with Care</span>, URL:https://hackingwithcare.in/about-2/ (last access April 12, 2023)</li>
<li><spanclass="author">Mattern S.</span>, <spanclass="ref-title">Maintenance and Care. A working guide to the repair of rust, dust, cracks, and corrupted code in our cities, our homes, and our social relations</span>, in <spanclass="ref-title">Places Journal</span>, 2018, URL: https://placesjournal.org/article/maintenance-and-care/ (last access April 12, 2023)</li>
<li><spanclass="author">Bollier D., Helfrich S.</span>, <spanclass="ref-title">Patterns of commoning</span>, 2016, URL: https://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/patterns-of-commoning (last access March 30, 2023)</li>
<p>This publication carries with it the precious contribution of Lídia Pereira, Marloes de Valk, Michael Murtaugh, Cristina Cochior, Manetta Berends, Joseph Knierzinger, Thomas Walksaar, Davide Bevilacqua, Luke Murphy, Aymeric Mansoux, Chaeyoung Kim, Francesco Luzzana, Mitsa Chaida, Nami Kim, Gersande Schellinx, Ål Nik, Jian Haacke, Kimberley Cosmilla, M.C. Julie Yu. I cherish and I'm grateful of all the conversations, the feedbacks and the time you shared with me, from which I learnt a lot.</p>
<!-- </div> -->
<!-- <div class="c-info"> -->
<p>This publication carries with it the precious contribution of Lídia Pereira, Marloes de Valk, Michael Murtaugh, Cristina Cochior, Manetta Berends, Joseph Knierzinger, Thomas Walksaar, Davide Bevilacqua, Luke Murphy, Aymeric Mansoux, Chaeyoung Kim, Francesco Luzzana, Mitsa Chaida, Nami Kim, Gersande Schellinx, Ål Nik, Jian Haacke, Kimberley Cosmilla, M.C. Julie Yu. I cherish and I'm grateful of all the conversations, the feedback and the time you have shared with me, which I have learnt a lot from.</p>
</div>
<divclass="c-info">
<h3>Colophon</h3>
<p>Other info about the publication:</p>
<p>The title has been inspired by the project Hacking with Care <br>
https://hackingwithcare.in/ </p>
<p>You can find the publication online as well and print it at home: <br>https://project.xpub.nl/hacking-maintenance-with-care/home.html</p>
<p>The design is made with Pagedjs by Coko (https://pagedjs.org/), and it uses some default elements from the browser DuckDuckGo. It might slightly change or break completely when downloaded from different browsers ;)</p>
<p>TYPEFACE: <br>Fluxisch Else</p>
<p>This work has been produced as part of the graduation research within Experimental Publishing (XPUB), a two year Master of Arts in Fine Art and Design that focuses on
the intents, means and consequences of making things public and creating
publics in the age of post-digital networks.
<br>
<divclass="c-container">
<p>Other info about the publication:</p>
<p>The title has been inspired by the project Hacking with Care <br>
https://hackingwithcare.in/ </p>
<p>You can find the publication online as well and print it at home: <br>https://project.xpub.nl/hacking-maintenance-with-care/home.html</p>
<p>The design is made with Pagedjs by Coko (https://pagedjs.org/), and it uses some default elements from the browser DuckDuckGo. It might slightly change or break completely when downloaded from different browsers ;)</p>
<p>TYPEFACE: <br>Fluxisch Else</p>
<p>This work has been produced as part of the graduation research within Experimental Publishing (XPUB), a two year Master of Arts in Fine Art and Design that focuses on
the intents, means and consequences of making things public and creating
publics in the age of post-digital networks.
<br>
https://xpub.nl
</p>
https://xpub.nl
<p>LICENSE: <br>Free Art License 1.3 (FAL 1.3) </p>
<p>
This publication is released under the Free Art Licence. This means you are free to use, copy, distribute, transform, contribute to the work, and exclusive appropriation is prohibited. <br>Read the full license here: <br>https://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/
</p>
<p>LICENSE: <br>Free Art License 1.3 (FAL 1.3) </p>
<p>
This publication is released under the Free Art Licence. This means you are free to use, copy, distribute, transform, contribute to the work, and exclusive appropriation is prohibited. <br>Read the full license here: https://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/
</p>
<p>For any other information feel free to reach me out at this address: <br> grgr [at] ikmail [dot] com</p>
<p>Erica Gargaglione</p>
<!-- </div> -->
<p>For any other information feel free to reach me out at this address: <br> grgr [at] ikmail [dot] com</p>
<p>Within a context of generalized precarity and massive rise of the costs of life, maintenance has become an extremely delicate and contradicting practice for self-organized cultural initiatives which run and maintain independent digital infrastructures. <br> The present form is a tool to inspect the current status of infrastructural well-being within such initiatives. It is an attempt to zoom-in into the everydays struggles and contradictions emerging from the self-administered survival of digital solidarity networks. The hope is that of triggering discussion and elaborate on questions like WHAT NEEDS TO BE MAINTAINED AND HOW? WHAT IS DIFFICULT TO MAINTAIN? WHAT NEEDS TO NOT BE MAINTAINED? WHICH COLLECTIVITY IS ACTUALLY INVOLVED IN THE MAINTENANCE?</p>
<p>A boiler inspection is a situated and collective observation of the problem of maintenance in self-organized cultural initiatives which work with and gather around free software and self-hosted technologies. </p>
<p>The present form accompanies and supports the inspection and it functions as a prop to trigger and facilitate further discussion on WHAT NEEDS TO BE MAINTAINED AND HOW? WHAT IS DIFFICULT TO MAINTAIN? WHAT NEEDS TO NOT BE MAINTAINED? WHICH COLLECTIVITY IS ACTUALLY INVOLVED IN THE MAINTENANCE?</p>
<p>The boiler inspection embraces the aesthetics of maintenance in the hope of addressing invisible labor or neglected well-being, starting from the infrastructure as a boiler-body to be inspected.</p>
<p>Any form of collectivity is hereby simply addressed as "the organization". </p>
<p>The questions in the form are calibrated on issues like governace, autonomy, administration, working conditions and well-being, but FEEL FREE TO ANNOTATE AND FORMULATE NEW QUESTIONS, using the existing ones as a starting point. You can use the stickers in the attachment "Sticky form" if you prefer</p>
<h3>WARNING!</h3>
<p>The boiler inspection will take around <spanclass="highlight">60min</span>, but obstacles and difficult conversation might stretch the <spanclass="highlight">inspection time up to 3 hours.</span>
The questions present in the inspection might not encompass all the issues and might generate even more questions; yet they might be used to address internal and/or external unspoken conflicts in a formalized way. Answers to the questions do not pretend to be exhaustive, and solutions <spanclass="highlight">MIGHT NOT BE GRANTED.</span></p>
@ -73,12 +77,12 @@
<inputtype="text"name="date"placeholder="date">
<labelfor="inspector">by</label>
<inputtype="text"name="inspector"placeholder="name/alias of the inspector">
grgr
10 months ago