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Title: About
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# A Nourishing Network
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*A Nourishing Network* is a publishing project that aims at documenting
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and circulating current research done by a network of artists, activists
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and programmers that collaborate with the Austrian net culture
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initiative *servus.at*. Especially in this moment of reduced mobility
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and physical encounters, the publication stimulates the circulation of
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materials and their further development in a community that usually
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gathers in small-sized events and festivals.
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The project is a continuation of *Art Meets Radical Openness*--*AMRO*
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in short--a bi-yearly festival organized by servus.at in Linz
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([https://radical-openness.org](https://radical-openness.org/)). The
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festival creates space for discussions around the current impact of
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internet technologies and platforms. It aims to imagine possible (real)
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sustainable models for computational infrastructures, as an alternative
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to the growing techno-solutionist trend.
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*A Nourishing Network* is produced as a hybrid publishing process
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realised by Manetta Berends and Alice Strete from the Rotterdam
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initiative Varia ([https://varia.zone](https://varia.zone/)).
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The project emerged as a response to the following three departure
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points:
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**Another lost occasion for degrowth?**
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At the beginning many thought that the spring lockdowns of 2020 might
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have been a great opportunity to embrace less impactful lifestyles and
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production models. As soon as the measurements loosened up, the level of
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consumption rose to pre-lockdowns levels. Was the emerging environmental awareness overshadowed by a „sort of" return to normality?
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**Re-centralization or blooming alternatives?**
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During the first wave of lockdown, data-avid proprietary services gained
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a more central role within online ecosystems and daily life. Faced with
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this new context, communities dealing with free and open source software
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continued to work on alternative platform models. What happened? And
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what could be further explored?
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**Artdiversity loss: is now Zoom the best art gallery 2020?**
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In 2020 many cultural initiatives were forced to shift towards online
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videocalls, where often the materiality of bodies and matter is
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deprioritised. As the spectrum of technical possibilities offered by
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(centralised) digital platforms currently shape and actively format the
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field of the arts, how can we make space to experiment with alternative
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formats?
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## How the nourishing network works:
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The publication is in itself an experiment: one in peer-to-peer
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publishing starting from the *feed* as a potentially multi-directional
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circulation device. Through web-syndication protocols and mail art
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practices, this publication engages with complex circulation flows,
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thereby exploring the social dynamics of such networked forms of
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publishing. Borrowing from food terminology, the activity of
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*nourishing* translates into an act of continuous care within the
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network and for the network itself.
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A subscription to the digital and/or postal feed, nourishes her
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subscribers with a stream of essays. The feeds are available at
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[https://](https://a-nourishing-network.radical-openness.org/)[a-nourishing-network.radical-openness.org](https://a-nourishing-network.radical-openness.org/)
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and can be digested in different ways: as RSS, Atom and ActivityPub
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streams, or as a stream of physical publications which are distributed
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through a "postal feed" throughout Europe.
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## How to circulate within the Nourishing Network?
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The project is an invitation to stimulate circulation by further
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disseminating the material in online and offline ways. Each subscriber
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to the postal feed will receive two copies of the publication in order
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to extend the circulation network with one step -- by sending it to
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someone who might appreciate it. Similarly, the feed is prepared to
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circulate in online networks.
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