<h3>Reflections on the self-administered survival of digital solidarity networks</h3>
<h4>Erica Gargaglione</h4>
</div>
<divclass="inside-front">
<p>HACKING MAINTENANCE WITH CARE <br> Reflections on the self-administered survival of digital solidarity networks</p>
<p>Thesis submitted to the Department of Experimental Publishing (XPUB) <br>
Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy</p>
<p>THESIS SUPERVISOR: <br>Lídia Pereira
</p>
<p>SECOND READER(S): <br>Marloes de Valk, Michael Murtaugh</p>
<p>WRITTEN BY: <br> Erica Gargaglione</p>
<p>2023</p>
</div>
<!-- ////////////////////THE THESIS TO BE PRINTED//////////////////////// -->
<divclass="thesis">
<divclass="tb-content">
<h2>table of contents</h2>
<h2>Table of contents</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td>Introduction</td><td>6</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Clumsy legs</td><td>8</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Maintenance as radical administration</td><td>13</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Maintenance as caregiving</td><td>16</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Maintenance as hacking</td><td>5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>An approach beyond survival</td><td>5</td>
</tr>
</table>
<h3>Attachments:</h3>
<ul>
<li>Boiler Inspection</li>
<li>Sticky form</li>
</ul>
</div>
<divclass="opening-quote">
<pstyle="font-style: italic;">
"More and more of us looked up one day and realized that the emperor had no clothes. It is in this dilemma that new tools for noticing seem so important."
</p>
<p>— Anna Tsing, <spanstyle="font-style: italic;">The Mushroom at the End of the World</span></p>
</div>
<divclass="opening-quote">
<p>
Anna Tsing's quote
</p>
</div>
<divclass="intro">
<h2>Introduction</h2>
@ -72,19 +121,23 @@
<p>
A friend just sent a message in the group chat — Soupboat{1} has now legs. And then: — 4x faster now. <br>
A friend just sent a message in the group chat — Soupboat<supclass="note"></sup><spanclass="footnote"data-ref-id="1">Soupboat is the name of a web server that has been set up in the context of the fine art and design Master called Experimental Publishing (XPUB), in Rotterdam, where self-organizing is encouraged along the focus "on the acts of making things public and creating publics in the age of post-digital networks". https://xpub.nl/</span> has now legs. And then: — 4x faster now. <br>
<figcaption>[ ] Photo of the Soupboat</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>
Back in September 2021, when at the beginning of my masters I had the very first experience of setting up a web server on a raspberry pi 4, which then became "the Soupboat", I admit I could barely understand how digital networks worked in practice. I could only see in front of me a small single board computer attached to the network of the school via an Ethernet cable. The setup was accompanied by a so-called "infra-tour" that mapped the technological infrastructure to which Soupboat was connected. This included another much bigger server located in a datacenter in Rotterdam, which also hosted a Wiki, a Jitsi{2} , Etherpad{3}, Gitea{4} and the VPN (Virtual Private Network) through which our local web server could be visible from the rest of the internet, bypassing the protected network of the school. I've been told not to worry if all of that wouldn't make sense on the spot. What was essential to understand in that moment was that the little palm-sized printed circuit board was in fact a shared computer which we (my classmates and I) could make use of collectively, that it could be fragile and that it would need to be taken care of by us as a group.
Back in September 2021, when at the beginning of my masters I had the very first experience of setting up a web server on a raspberry pi 4, which then became "the Soupboat", I admit I could barely understand how digital networks worked in practice. I could only see in front of me a small single board computer attached to the network of the school via an Ethernet cable. The setup was accompanied by a so-called "infra-tour" that mapped the technological infrastructure to which Soupboat was connected. This included another much bigger server located in a datacenter in Rotterdam, which also hosted a Wiki, a Jitsi, an Etherpad<supclass="note"></sup><spanclass="footnote">Jitsi is a collection of free and open-source voice, video conferencing and instant messaging applications. Etherpad is an open-source, web-based collaborative real-time editor, allowing authors to simultaneously edit a text document. https://etherpad.org/. While Gitea is a hosting service for software development and version control.</span> and the VPN (Virtual Private Network) through which our local web server could be visible from the rest of the internet, bypassing the protected network of the school. I've been told not to worry if all of that wouldn't make sense on the spot. What was essential to understand in that moment was that the little palm-sized printed circuit board was in fact a shared computer which we (my classmates and I) could make use of collectively, that it could be fragile and that it would need to be taken care of by us as a group.
<figcaption>[ ] XPUB's infrastructure drawn by Aymeric Mansoux in 2020, readapted in 2021 to include the Soupboat</figcaption>
<p>
Later on, by learning and practicing some basics of programming, it gradually became clear to me that the answer to the question “what is a server?”, would actually call into question the subject-object relation that the use of a server entails, generating more and more questions, tongue twists, and brain teasers like “what is the server for and who decides it?”, “who creates the services inside the server and which other services the server relies on in turn?”, “who can be served?”, and “who makes sure that the server keeps serving?”. In relation to such questions the ideas of “collective use”, “fragility”, and “need of care” began to assume concrete weight and meaning beyond the material dimension of a web infrastructure made of motherboards, cables and fragile electric switches. I slowly recognized how both self-hosting and the use of FLOSS (Free Libre Open Source) software in education, and in the cultural field in general, are also a political choice encompassing the continuous negotiation of collaboration, freedoms and power dynamics. Take for example the massive use in education of proprietary and commercial software like Microsoft and Adobe. Meant to be used in business-oriented working environments or creative industries, they shape a type of learning calibrated on values like optimization, competition, and hyper specialization among others. It should be well known how these huge trans global companies transform schools into markets where "Software as a Service" (SaaS)5 can be sold as necessary productive tools, going far beyond the scope of pedagogy and learning. Providing totalizing quick solutions to its users, GMAFIA{6} legitimate their products as the best competing innovation. Saas is a model which prevents its users from articulating a systemic and more critical perspective on its digital infrastructure, much less imagining how the latter could be collectively inhabited without having to compromise on the security, the surveillance and the commodification of the users' flow of data.
Later on, by learning and practicing some basics of programming, it gradually became clear to me that the answer to the question “what is a server?”, would actually call into question the subject-object relation that the use of a server entails, generating more and more questions, tongue twists, and brain teasers like “what is the server for and who decides it?”, “who creates the services inside the server and which other services the server relies on in turn?”, “who can be served?”, and “who makes sure that the server keeps serving?”. In relation to such questions the ideas of “collective use”, “fragility”, and “need of care” began to assume concrete weight and meaning beyond the material dimension of a web infrastructure made of motherboards, cables and fragile electric switches. I slowly recognized how both self-hosting and the use of FLOSS (Free Libre Open Source) software in education, and in the cultural field in general, are also a political choice encompassing the continuous negotiation of collaboration, freedoms and power dynamics. Take for example the massive use in education of proprietary and commercial software like Microsoft and Adobe. Meant to be used in business-oriented working environments or creative industries, they shape a type of learning calibrated on values like optimization, competition, and hyper specialization among others. It should be well known how these huge trans global companies transform schools into markets where "Software as a Service" (SaaS)<supclass="note"></sup><spanclass="footnote">Software as a Service (Saas) is a centralized model of software distribution based on the Cloud</span> can be sold as necessary productive tools, going far beyond the scope of pedagogy and learning. Providing totalizing quick solutions to its users, GMAFIA<supclass="note"></sup><spanclass="footnote">GMAFIA is an acronym used to refer to the Big Tech: Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, IBM, Apple</span> legitimate their products as the best competing innovation. Saas is a model which prevents its users from articulating a systemic and more critical perspective on its digital infrastructure, much less imagining how the latter could be collectively inhabited without having to compromise on the security, the surveillance and the commodification of the users' flow of data.
</p>
<p>
Self-hosting and free software could be a great pedagogical challenge instead. I'm not only talking about the technical knowledge required to run and maintain a web server. When I think for instance of the Soupboat, which now looks like a slow, trouble-making and goofy little critter with its 3d printed clumsy legs, I think of it as a learning and exploratory tool. Yes, it's a very specific type of learning based on code and software, but it is capable of questioning, validating or completely cracking the social reality that gathers around it, even, and especially, if such reality is not entirely made by individuals with a computer science background or other geeks{7}.
Self-hosting and free software could be a great pedagogical challenge instead. I'm not only talking about the technical knowledge required to run and maintain a web server. When I think for instance of the Soupboat, which now looks like a slow, trouble-making and goofy little critter with its 3d printed clumsy legs, I think of it as a learning and exploratory tool. Yes, it's a very specific type of learning based on code and software, but it is capable of questioning, validating or completely cracking the social reality that gathers around it, even, and especially, if such reality is not entirely made by individuals with a computer science background or other geeks.
</p>
<p>
With a bit of attention, the web server is able to reveal and activate the extremely delicate ecosystem of infrastructural relations entangling communities, institutions, and economies on different scales, where power dynamics are constantly negotiated. Differently than SaaS, whenever Soupboat is down, — because of software updates, because the network of the school changed its IP address, because someone would modify its .config file with some errors, because it simply crashed with no apparent reason and the "Is-anyone-in-studio-to-check-if-Soupboat-has-been-unplugged?" would be the SOS message in case of emergency, seeking for the activation of the whole group in order to verify what was the cause of malfunctioning — it would bring visibility not only to its demanding infrastructure, but also to anything else in its surroundings that has established relations of co-dependency with it. When things break and interrupt the flow, it is necessary to slow down, which brings into question the need to take accountability for such relations.
@ -99,8 +152,10 @@
"We are trained to expect smooth and seamless on-line experiences that require the kind of deep pockets, longevity and vision that politics chose not to engage with and public institutions fail to provide. It has become near impossible to imagine a different type of life with digital tools, let alone to dream of solidary digital infrastructures that can be collectively owned, maintained and used [...] Infrastructural solidarity only starts with [...][developing] relationships with technology that acknowledge vulnerability, mutual dependency and care-taking." (2019, p, 45-47)
</p>
<imgsrc="img/8.jpg"alt="lurk-infra">
<figcaption>[ ] Lurk's infrastructure drawn by Aymeric Mansoux, readapted including Soupboat to show where it is connected in a bigger independent web infrastructure</figcaption>
<p>
Zooming out from the Soupboat's infrastructure a series of other cultural initiatives appear on the map through their web servers. Running and maintaining independent internet infrastructure in the cultural field is certainly a niche practice, nonetheless there are numerous cultural initiatives who decided to engage in such activity. Their genealogy is the result of different histories from FLOSS (Free Libre Open Source) software to hack labs, from artist-run autonomous spaces to Cyber feminist groups, to name a few; they constitute such a rich and extremely heterogeneous constellation, that grouping them under a commonly accepted umbrella term would be already a great endeavor. Some of the recurring terms used to refer to them are: community network, collective infrastructure, feminist servers, art server, cultural datacenter or even community software. These may be inhabited by figures like activists, programmers, artists, designers, teachers, learners, amateurs, enthusiasts and other cultural workers who try to self-organize in solidarity around the "delicate balance, between becoming a service provider and providing much needed space for other experiences with technology." (Snelting, 2021). Among these initiatives, for example, several Feminist Server Manifestos8 have been published with the idea of articulating a series of fundamental principles calling in for the creation of safer, situated, and more sustainable digital spaces, like "A feminist server [… T]ries hard not to apologize when she is sometimes not available". (2015)
Zooming out from the Soupboat's infrastructure a series of other cultural initiatives appear on the map through their web servers. Running and maintaining independent internet infrastructure in the cultural field is certainly a niche practice, nonetheless there are numerous cultural initiatives who decided to engage in such activity. Their genealogy is the result of different histories from FLOSS (Free Libre Open Source) software to hack labs, from artist-run autonomous spaces to Cyber feminist groups, to name a few; they constitute such a rich and extremely heterogeneous constellation, that grouping them under a commonly accepted umbrella term would be already a great endeavor. Some of the recurring terms used to refer to them are: community network, collective infrastructure, feminist servers, art server, cultural datacenter or even community software. These may be inhabited by figures like activists, programmers, artists, designers, teachers, learners, amateurs, enthusiasts and other cultural workers who try to self-organize in solidarity around the "delicate balance, between becoming a service provider and providing much needed space for other experiences with technology." (Snelting, 2021). Among these initiatives, for example, several Feminist Server Manifestos<supclass="note"></sup><spanclass="footnote">One version of “The Feminist Server Manifesto” was included in the publication Are You Being Served ? (Constant, 2015), but there are different variations of the the same manifesto as result of workshops and research projects, like the “Whishlist for trans*feminsit servers”, URL:https://www.bakonline.org/prospections/a-wishlist-for-transfeminist-servers/</span> have been published with the idea of articulating a series of fundamental principles calling in for the creation of safer, situated, and more sustainable digital spaces, like "A feminist server [… T]ries hard not to apologize when she is sometimes not available" (2015)
</p>
<p>
Yet the effective implementation of these principles more than often conflicts with the actual possibility of being implemented. In practice, it seems really hard to introduce vulnerability, mutual dependency and care-taking as fundamental values for a working environment that is self-organized in the cultural field. These initiatives are embedded into a larger socio-political and economical context characterized by a general rise of the costs of life and by precarious working conditions. Within such reality, the livelihood of solidary digital infrastructure altogether is deeply affected by tighter and gradually more unsustainable relations with cultural funds promoting the financiarization of not-for-profit cultural projects, on top of a huge amount of affective and voluntary labor coming from their already overworked community. Nonetheless, the Feminist Server Manifestos inspired several cultural organization to gather in order to problematize the issues of maintenance and administration, and share practical knowledge around how to self-organize in solidarity without perishing.
@ -134,23 +189,24 @@
As luck would have it, today I have the chance to talk with D., who since very recently has become the administrator of a cultural association in Linz (Austria) called Servus.at, or just Servus, which is involved in different activities including hosting, server maintenance, tech support, artistic research and the organization of festivals.
</p>
<p>
Servus's digital infrastructure starts from a so called "cultural datacenter" grafted onto the first floor of the Stadtwerkstatt (STWST)1, also known as "The House", and growing through the whole building where a radio station, a club and a cafè are hosted as well, interconnecting a whole ecosystem of singular users (120), other associations (70), FLOSS software and services developed over time since 1996 (27 years!). Given the circumstances, and the role of my generous interlocutor, this first pilot of the boiler inspection takes the format of a drawing. I ask D to map Servus's technological infrastructure, and to situate the figure of the admin in relation to it, in order to visualize and understand how the “boiler” functions in the first place.
Servus's digital infrastructure starts from a so called "cultural datacenter" grafted onto the first floor of the Stadtwerkstatt (STWST)<supclass="note"></sup><spanclass="footnote">https://stwst.at/</span>, also known as "The House", and growing through the whole building where a radio station, a club and a cafè are hosted as well, interconnecting a whole ecosystem of singular users (120), other associations (70), FLOSS software and services developed over time since 1996 (27 years!). Given the circumstances, and the role of my generous interlocutor, this first pilot of the boiler inspection takes the format of a drawing. I ask D to map Servus's technological infrastructure, and to situate the figure of the admin in relation to it, in order to visualize and understand how the “boiler” functions in the first place.
</p>
<imgsrc="img/servus boiler.jpg"alt="">
<figcaption>[ ] Map of Servus's "boiler"</figcaption>
<p>
While drawing, D comments on how the numbers mentioned above are actually quite impressive for a small independent datacenter — and scary at the same time — especially considering that there are only two sys-admins2 taking care of the whole digital infrastrucure. But it is also important to mention that, in parallel to the core team and the Board 3, a series of temporary guests circulating in and out of the building in guise of technicians, residents, collaborators and/or simply friends, are also playing an important role when it comes to determining Servus's actual capacity and workforce. And indeed the map seems to explode in all directions, as if to express the dynamic overcrowding of the datacenter, indicated by a tiny box with the abbreviation "DC".
While drawing, D comments on how the numbers mentioned above are actually quite impressive for a small independent datacenter — and scary at the same time — especially considering that there are only two sys-admins<supclass="note"></sup><spanclass="footnote">A system administrator, or sys-admin, is responsible for the management of servers</span> taking care of the whole digital infrastrucure. But it is also important to mention that, in parallel to the core team and the Board<supclass="note"></sup><spanclass="footnote"id="8">My personal interpretation of the board is a more or less informal esoteric committee that holds the ancient knowledge of both the organization and the datacenter since their very origins. It is at times contacted in order to seek for consultancy and wisdom in difficult moments or tasks. The core team, instead, is composed by those who are more formally running Servus.at and its digital infrastructure as a cultural association.</span>, a series of temporary guests circulating in and out of the building in guise of technicians, residents, collaborators and/or simply friends, are also playing an important role when it comes to determining Servus's actual capacity and workforce. And indeed the map seems to explode in all directions, as if to express the dynamic overcrowding of the datacenter, indicated by a tiny box with the abbreviation "DC".
</p>
<p>
In the same drawing, the green color indicates the admin's movements through the infrastructure: from the center, the admin's office, it spreads across the whole STWST in a continuous attempt to interface the many and different parties of the whole ecosystem.
</p>
<p>
Typical dynamics of this role may look like 4: user member X sends an email to the admin office concerning the malfunctioning of a web service provided by Servus ⟶ the admin attempts to establish a connection through helpdesk with the first sys-admin ⟶ the first sys-admin is currently unavailable for working hours exhaustion ⟶ first attempt of connection failed ⟶ second attempt ⟶ the board is invoked to establish a new connection with the second sys-admin, whom is the only guardian of the keys of the datacenter together with the first sys-admin ⟶ the second sys-admin seems to be responsive and executes a first analysis of the problem ⟶ its resolution is apparently not possible ⟶ the issue is sent back to the admin via helpdesk, where in the meantime other issues have been queued as well ⟶ the admin receives the information ⟶ after a consultation with the board the admin asserts that further action is required ⟶ the second sys-admin proceeds to a second analysis of the issue, this time with an on-site inspection of the datacenter ⟶ a series of switches appear to be broken following an anomaly in the electricity system ⟶ there is a water leakage ⟶ the water leakage comes from a flooded apartment above the datacenter ⟶ and so on and so forth...
Typical dynamics of this role may look like<supclass="note"></sup><spanclass="footnote">Disclaimer: the following description has been dramatized for argumentative purposes, nonetheless it is based on the account of real difficulties that Servus had to face in the past.</span>: user member X sends an email to the admin office concerning the malfunctioning of a web service provided by Servus ⟶ the admin attempts to establish a connection through helpdesk with the first sys-admin ⟶ the first sys-admin is currently unavailable for working hours exhaustion ⟶ first attempt of connection failed ⟶ second attempt ⟶ the board is invoked to establish a new connection with the second sys-admin, whom is the only guardian of the keys of the datacenter together with the first sys-admin ⟶ the second sys-admin seems to be responsive and executes a first analysis of the problem ⟶ its resolution is apparently not possible ⟶ the issue is sent back to the admin via helpdesk, where in the meantime other issues have been queued as well ⟶ the admin receives the information ⟶ after a consultation with the board the admin asserts that further action is required ⟶ the second sys-admin proceeds to a second analysis of the issue, this time with an on-site inspection of the datacenter ⟶ a series of switches appear to be broken following an anomaly in the electricity system ⟶ there is a water leakage ⟶ the water leakage comes from a flooded apartment above the datacenter ⟶ and so on and so forth...
</p>
<p>
After losing track of the endless spiral of queued issues and communication tasks, I ask D if he could tell something about the budgeting process and he replicates the spreadsheet he generally uses to record Servus's entrances and expenses. Even if in this reconstruction the numbers are fictional, they immediately materialize several financial disproportions and related survival difficulties.
</p>
<p>
For instance, it might happen that cultural grants and public funds dedicated to cultural programs need to be cleverly redistributed in order to secure 1) the coverage of infrastructural costs, 2) an almost-fair-fee5 for collaborators and participants, 2) and the almost-unfair-wages6 of the organization’s members. It follows that the realization of festivals and other cultural programs is often undertaken in a deliberate condition of scarce resources7 and financial support.
For instance, it might happen that cultural grants and public funds dedicated to cultural programs need to be cleverly redistributed in order to secure 1) the coverage of infrastructural costs, 2) an almost-fair-fee<supclass="note"></sup><spanclass="footnote">Admin jargon</span> for collaborators and participants, 2) and the almost-unfair-wages<supclass="note"></sup><spanclass="footnote">Admin jargon</span> of the organization’s members. It follows that the realization of festivals and other cultural programs is often undertaken in a deliberate condition of scarce resources<supclass="note"></sup><spanclass="footnote">Admin jargon</span> and financial support.
</p>
<p>
On top of this, the current rise of energy costs is adding up a good dose of extra worries, and jousting with gray zones between bureaucratic requirements and informal agreements becomes a necessity, in order to make all the loose ends meet at the end of the year. The financial situation could be improved by either increasing the membership fee coming from the users of the datacenter, or increasing the number of users. But in this case the dilemma is that on one hand Servus wants to limit the excessive rise of fee costs, and on the other hand a bigger amount of users would further contribute to the overwork of its core team.
@ -168,7 +224,8 @@
I’d like to pay more attention to the neglect of wellbeing in the next boiler inspection, but for now I will close today's journal with a small excerpt from the open letter that artists Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico wrote last year. Here they report the need of contacting a professional psychologist in order to observe in a systemic way their relational and communicative work:
</p>
<pclass="quote">
"For a year we only talked about work: not about ts precarity nor of its absence, but about the struggle of dealing with bureaucracy, calculation, administration, and the violence of cultural farm-like planners, which organizations are pushed to become in their race to grants and funds. Our psychologist was a business cost. For this reason, in our experience the first sustainability to care of is the psychological one. In doing so, we will be compelled to deal with the raw nerves of our societies, down to the marrows" {8} (2022)
"For a year we only talked about work: not about ts precarity nor of its absence, but about the struggle of dealing with bureaucracy, calculation, administration, and the violence of cultural farm-like planners, which organizations are pushed to become in their race to grants and funds. Our psychologist was a business cost. For this reason, in our experience the first sustainability to care of is the psychological one. In doing so, we will be compelled to deal with the raw nerves of our societies, down to the marrows" <supclass="note"></sup><spanclass="footnote"id="13">my translation from Italian. Original: "Per un anno abbiamo parlato solo di lavoro: non della precarietà o della sua assenza, ma della sofferenza di avere a che fare con la burocrazia, il calcolo, l’amministrazione e la violenza dei progettifici della cultura in cui le organizzazioni sono spinte a trasformarsi nella corsa a bandi e finanziamenti.
Il nostro psicologo era un costo aziendale. Per questo,nella nostra esperienza la prima sostenibilità di cui prendersi cura è quella psicologica. Facendolo, saremo costretti ad occuparci dei nervi scoperti delle nostre società, fino ai midolli." (Iaconesi Persico, 2022)</span> (2022)
</p>
</div>
@ -184,6 +241,7 @@
Varia is a collective space in the south of Rotterdam that is self-run by a group of artists, designers and programmers dealing with "everyday technology", someone once said, and it is closely connected to the master Experimental Publishing through many of past and present students and tutors of the course. This morning several members of the collective and other friends joined me for a public version of the boiler inspection and now eight people are crumped together inside the small kitchen of Varia, looking at the small storage space where the real boiler is located. We all try to fill up a form without a comfortable surface. The form addresses Varia's socio-technical infrastructure as "the boiler" — wait, which boiler? — which creates a series of funny misunderstandings between the metaphorical and literal meaning of the word every time it is pronounced. A yellow vacuum cleaner is also looking astonished at the whole situation, with its eyes made of paper, as if it would have never expected the presence of other human beings in such a committed proximity to that one square meter, which is normally used to rest in the dark together with other boxes, shopping bags and fermentation jars.
</p>
<imgsrc="img/2.jpg"alt="boiler-room">
<figcaption>[ ] Boiler inspection at Varia</figcaption>
<p>
After a brief introduction, the inspection starts with an initial indexing of the facilities and infrastructural elements in Varia, which allows external people to get acquainted with the space and the kind of activities the collective is involved in.
— other: zine-rack, cleaning tools, physical and digital library, collective guidelines1, electronics depot2 — check, check, check, check, check and check.
— other: zine-rack, cleaning tools, physical and digital library, collective guidelines, electronics depot<supclass="note"></sup><spanclass="footnote">A wall made of little drawers containing components and other materials to work with electronics</span> — check, check, check, check, check and check.
</p>
<p>
Then the inspection proceeds with questions that gradually concern the verification of sustainability issues eventually present in the collective. For this part, we all move to a more comfortable setup made of a couple of couches around a small table with snacks on it, to better release the tension provoked by the questionnaire.
</p>
<p>
"Is the current funding model/schema collectively sustainable? (please elaborate)"
— no. —
— nope. —
— mmmmmm NO * 1 of the biggest trauma point —
— no, maybe too much relying on public funding? !!! p r e s s u r e p o i n t !!!—
— No. maybe? too much relying on public funding, episode 2 —
— Remains to be seen. Too reliant on public funding. ALERT TRAUMA POINT —
— NO too relying on to public funding ... the biggest pressure point —
— NO. too reliant on public funds... TRAUMA ALERT! ⚠️ —
— no. —<br>
— nope. —<br>
— mmmmmm NO * 1 of the biggest trauma point —<br>
— no, maybe too much relying on public funding? !!! p r e s s u r e p o i n t !!!—<br>
— No. maybe? too much relying on public funding, episode 2 —<br>
— Remains to be seen. Too reliant on public funding. ALERT TRAUMA POINT —<br>
— NO too relying on to public funding ... the biggest pressure point —<br>
— NO. too reliant on public funds... TRAUMA ALERT! ⚠️ —<br>
</p>
<p>
@ -225,8 +283,9 @@
“[a]cross the many scales and dimensions of this problem, we are never far from three enduring truths: (1) Maintainers require care; (2) caregiving requires maintenance; and (3) the distinctions between these practices are shaped by race, gender, class, and other political, economic, and cultural forces. Who gets to organize the maintenance of infrastructure, and who then executes the work?" (2018)
</p>
<imgsrc="img/6.jpg"alt="group_inspection">
<figcaption>[ ] Boiler inspection at Varia, comfortable setup</figcaption>
<p>
Interestingly enough, the word maintenance originally means "holding with hands" (from Latin "manu tenere"), support and preserving, recalling an infinitely intimate and caring dimension of touch connecting one's hands to another body. Despite such image, nowadays maintenance rather signifies "holding with handcuffs", enslaved within the gears of technology, efficiency, and security. Along with that, it is necessary to acknowledge that behind the word care resides a long history2 of misuses and abuses too, through which our ability to care and being cared in our own terms has been gradually disenfranchised. In line with the Care Manifesto, I would like to reconsider the meaning of maintenance oriented within a dimension of care as
Interestingly enough, the word maintenance originally means "holding with hands" (from Latin "manu tenere"), support and preserving, recalling an infinitely intimate and caring dimension of touch connecting one's hands to another body. Despite such image, nowadays maintenance rather signifies "holding with handcuffs", enslaved within the gears of technology, efficiency, and security. Along with that, it is necessary to acknowledge that behind the word care resides a long history<supclass="note"></sup><spanclass="footnote">From the tradition of invisibilized women's domestic, reproductive and affective labour, to all kinds of devalued and informal work of preservation and mutual aid, to the financiarization of care including the reorganization of all aspects of life around the interests of financial capital (The care collective, 2020, p.3).</span> of misuses and abuses too, through which our ability to care and being cared in our own terms has been gradually disenfranchised. In line with the Care Manifesto, I would like to reconsider the meaning of maintenance oriented within a dimension of care as
</p>
<pclass="quote">
"a social capacity and activity involving the nurturing of all that is necessary for the welfare and flourishing of life [... ; including] political, social, material and emotional conditions [allowing] to thrive" (2020, p. 5-6).
@ -255,7 +314,7 @@
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.1
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>
</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.
@ -274,6 +333,7 @@
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.
</p>
<imgsrc="img/3.jpg"alt="we are more important than the work">
<figcaption>[] Autonomic.zone We Are More Important Than The Work</figcaption>
<p>
Here, I would like to suggest a more optimistic idea of maintenance, that is rooted in the discourse of commoning practices, but also in the tradition of hacking practices as well. The hope is that of bringing back joy and playfulness as fundamental values into the issue of what needs to be maintained and how. Gabriella Coleman extensively wrote about how hackers have built a practice of pragmatic and technical production that would playfully and experimentally turn a system against itself (Coleman, 2013, p.98-99). Similarly, the internet activist Jèrèmie Zimmerman proposes, in collaboration with Emily King and the collective Hacking with Care, a definition of hacking that reflects Coleman’s writings:
@ -288,7 +348,11 @@
In closing, I would like to propose a definition of maintenance as a playful reworking of the statement n. 70 made by McKenzie Wark in her “A Hacker Manifesto”:
</p>
<pclass="quote">
“To [maintain] is to express knowledge in any of its forms. [Maintainers’] knowledge implies, in its practice, a politics of free information, free learning, the gift of the result in a peer-to-peer network. [Maintainers’] knowledge also implies an ethics of knowledge open to the desires of the [maintaining] classes and free from subordination to commodity production. […] When knowledge is freed from scarcity, the free [maintenance] of knowledge becomes the knowledge of free [maintainers].” (2004)
“To [maintain] is to express knowledge in any of its forms. [Maintainers’] knowledge implies, in its practice, a politics of free information, free learning, the gift of the result in a peer-to-peer network. [Maintainers’] knowledge also implies an ethics of knowledge open to the desires of the [maintaining] classes and free from subordination to commodity production. […] When knowledge is freed from scarcity, the free [maintenance] of knowledge becomes the knowledge of free [maintainers].”<supclass="note"></sup><spanclass="footnote">The original recites:
“To hack is to express knowledge in any of its forms. Hacker
knowledge implies, in its practice, a politics of free information, free learning, the gift of the result in a peer-to-peer
network. Hacker knowledge also implies an ethics of knowledge open to the desires of the productive classes and free
from subordination to commodity production. [...] When knowledge is freed from scarcity, the free production of knowledge becomes the knowledge of free producers.”</span> (2004)
</p>
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<h3>Acknowledgments</h3>
<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>
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<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>
https://xpub.nl
</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>
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grgr
1 year ago