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output
output/
output/*
print/
print/*
content/print/
content/print/*
print/*.html
print/*.pdf
__pycache__/
__pycache__/*
rss-to-ap/*.secret

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@echo ' '
@echo 'Usage: '
@echo ' make html (re)generate the web site '
@echo ' make clean remove the generated files '
@echo ' make regenerate regenerate files upon modification '
@echo ' make publish generate using production settings '
@echo ' make serve [PORT=8000] serve site at http://localhost:8000'
@echo ' make serve-global [SERVER=0.0.0.0] serve (as root) to $(SERVER):80 '
@echo ' make devserver [PORT=8000] serve and regenerate together '
@echo ' make ssh_upload upload the web site via SSH '
@echo ' make rsync_upload upload the web site via rsync+ssh '
@echo ' make print generate the HTML and PDF files '
@echo ' '
@echo 'Set the DEBUG variable to 1 to enable debugging, e.g. make DEBUG=1 html '
@echo 'Set the RELATIVE variable to 1 to enable relative urls '
@echo ' '
# Make on the server
html:
@echo '----------------'
"$(PELICAN)" "$(INPUTDIR)" -o "$(OUTPUTDIR)" -s "$(CONFFILE)" $(PELICANOPTS)
@echo '----------------'
python3 rss-to-ap/rss-to-ap.py
@echo '----------------'
clean:
[ ! -d "$(OUTPUTDIR)" ] || rm -rf "$(OUTPUTDIR)"
regenerate:
"$(PELICAN)" -r "$(INPUTDIR)" -o "$(OUTPUTDIR)" -s "$(CONFFILE)" $(PELICANOPTS)
serve:
"$(PELICAN)" -l "$(INPUTDIR)" -o "$(OUTPUTDIR)" -s "$(CONFFILE)" $(PELICANOPTS)
serve-global:
"$(PELICAN)" -l "$(INPUTDIR)" -o "$(OUTPUTDIR)" -s "$(CONFFILE)" $(PELICANOPTS) -b $(SERVER)
# Work-in-process mode
devserver:
"$(PELICAN)" -lr "$(INPUTDIR)" -o "$(OUTPUTDIR)" -s "$(CONFFILE)" $(PELICANOPTS)
devserver-global:
$(PELICAN) -lr $(INPUTDIR) -o $(OUTPUTDIR) -s $(CONFFILE) $(PELICANOPTS) -b 0.0.0.0
publish:
"$(PELICAN)" "$(INPUTDIR)" -o "$(OUTPUTDIR)" -s "$(PUBLISHCONF)" $(PELICANOPTS)
.PHONY: html help clean regenerate serve serve-global devserver publish
# Print
md=$(wildcard content/Essays/*.md) $(wildcard content/pages/*.md)
md=$(wildcard print/*.md)
md2html=$(md:%.md=%.html)
md2pdf=$(md:%.md=%.pdf)
%.html: %.md
pandoc --from markdown --to html -c themes/basic/static/css/print.css $< -o $@
%.pdf: %.md themes/basic/static/css/print.css
# pandoc -f markdown -t html -c themes/basic/static/css/print.css $< -o $@.html
pandoc --pdf-engine=weasyprint -c themes/basic/static/css/print.css $< -o $@
print: $(md2pdf)
# $(shell mv content/Essays/*.html content/print/)
$(shell mv content/Essays/*.pdf content/print/)
$(shell mv content/pages/*.html content/print/)
$(shell mv content/pages/*.pdf content/print/)
print: $(md2html) $(md2pdf)

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```
------------------------------------------------------------A-------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------- - - - - - -------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------N--N--N--N--N--N--N--N--N--N-------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------o----o---o----o---o----o----o---o----o---o-------------------------------------------
-------------------------------u----u-----u-----u-----u-----u-----u-----u-----u-----u-------------------------------------
-------------------------r------r------r------r------r------r------r------r------r------r---------------------------------
--------------------i-------i-------i-------i-------i-------i-------i-------i-------i-------i-----------------------------
---------------s--------s--------s--------s--------s--------s--------s--------s--------s--------s-------------------------
------------h---------h--------h---------h--------h---------h---------h--------h---------h--------h-----------------------
-----------i--------i---------i---------i---------i---------i---------i---------i---------i---------i---------------------
----------n---------n---------n---------n---------n---------n---------n---------n---------n---------n---------------------
-----------g--------g---------g---------g---------g---------g---------g---------g---------g---------g---------------------
------------ --------- -------- --------- -------- --------- --------- -------- --------- -------- -----------------------
---------------N--------N--------N--------N--------N--------N--------N--------N--------N--------N-------------------------
--------------------e-------e-------e-------e-------e-------e-------e-------e-------e-------e-----------------------------
-------------------------t------t------t------t------t------t------t------t------t------t---------------------------------
-------------------------------w----w-----w-----w-----w-----w-----w-----w-----w-----w-------------------------------------
-------------------------------------o----o---o----o---o----o----o---o----o---o-------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------r--r--r--r--r--r--r--r--r--r-------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------k-kk-kk-k-kk-kk-------------------------------------------------------
```
*A Nourishing Network* is initiated by <a href="https://servus.at" target="blank">servus.at</a> (Davide Bevilacqua) in collaboration with <a href="https://varia.zone" target="blank">varia.zone</a> (Alice Strete & Manetta Berends) and is published in the context of <a href="https://www.radical-openness.org/en" target="new">AMRO 2020</a> (Arts Meets Radical Openness). Many thanks to our <a href="https://a-nourishing-network.radical-openness.org/pages/thanks.html#partners">partners</a>, <a href="https://a-nourishing-network.radical-openness.org/pages/thanks.html#authors">authors</a> and the AMRO community.
This project is produced with Free Software tools: the feeds are made with <a href="https://blog.getpelican.com/" target="new">Pelican</a> & <a href="https://weasyprint.org/" target="new">Weasyprint</a>; typeset in <a href="https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/white-rabbit" target="new">White Rabbit</a>, <a href="http://unifoundry.com/unifont/" target="new">Unifont</a> and monospace; ASCII art made with <a href="https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/mb/ascii-art-but-with-unicode" target="blank">ascii-art-but-with-Unicode</a>; and just-in-case, this is the <a href="https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/mb/AMRO-2020-publication" target="new">Git repository</a> that holds the source files of this project.
-----------------------
© servus.at and Authors 2020; Published under the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" target="new">CC-BY-SA 4.0</a> license.

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Title: About Virtual Residency
Author: Inari Wishiki
Date: 26 February 2021
<p id="colophon_title">Colophon</p>
<div class="colophon">
<p>A Nourishing Network is a peer-to-peer publishing experiment starting from the feed as a potentially multi-directional circulation device.</p>
<p>A Nourishing Network is initiated by servus.at (Davide Bevilacqua) in collaboration with varia.zone (Alice Strete & Manetta Berends) and is published in the context of AMRO 2020 (Arts Meets Radical Openness). </p>
<p> Editing: Davide Bevilacqua <br> Design and development: Manetta Berends, Alice Strete <br> Paper: xxxx <br> Typeface: Gnu Unifont, White Rabbit, Ansi Shadow <br> Print and production: Varia <br> This project is produced with Free Software tools. The feeds are made with Pelican & Weasyprint.
</p>
<p> Davide is an artist and curator working is the blurry area between media and contemporary art. </p><p> Manetta Berends is a designer working with forms of networked publishing, situated software and collective infrastructures. </p> <p>Alice Strete is an artist and researcher interested in the intricate relationship between humans and the technologies they surround themselves with. </p> <p>Many thanks to our partners, collaborators, authors and the AMRO community. </p>
<p> Published under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.</p>
</p></div>
<div class="first-page">
<div id="title_edition"> A Nourishing Network - December 2020</div>
<div id="title">About Virtual Residency</div>
<div id="author"> by Inari Wishiki</div>
<pre id="ascii_blob">
----------------------------------a-----------------------------------
-------------------------- - - - - - -----------------------------
----------------------n--n--n--n--n--n--n--n--n-----------------------
--------------------o----o---o----o----o---o----o---------------------
----------------u-----u-----u-----u-----u-----u-----u-----------------
-------------r------r------r------r------r------r------r--------------
----------i-------i-------i-------i-------i-------i-------i-----------
-------s--------s--------s--------s--------s--------s--------s--------
-----h---------h--------h---------h---------h--------h---------h------
----i---------i---------i---------i---------i---------i---------i-----
----n---------n---------n---------n---------n---------n---------n-----
----g---------g---------g---------g---------g---------g---------g-----
----- --------- -------- --------- --------- -------- --------- ------
-------n--------n--------n--------n--------n--------n--------n--------
----------e-------e-------e-------e-------e-------e-------e-----------
-------------t------t------t------t------t------t------t--------------
----------------w-----w-----w-----w-----w-----w-----w-----------------
--------------------o----o---o----o----o---o----o---------------------
-------------------------r--r--r--r--r--r--r--------------------------
---------------------------- k-kk-k-kk-k -----------------------------
</pre>
<p id="subtitle">Defining our current network scenario: from “Telephone/Fax”, through “Early Internet”, to “Virtual Touring Software”, towards “a Slow-Speed Virtual-Physical Residency” </p>
</div>
<header id="pageheader-issue">A Nourishing Network</header>
<header id="pageheader-theme">About Virtual Residency</header>
<div class="essay_content">
<p><pre id="first_letter_mel">
<pre id="first_letter_mel">
█████╗
██╔══██╗
███████║
██╔══██║
╚═╝ ╚═╝
</pre>
s soon as the COVID-19 pandemic severely started to kick in Europe in March 2020, many of the local cultural events were switched to online. Like many others, It took me sometime to get accustomed to proprietary online meeting environments such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet (all of which I only use on the Windows side of my dual-boot Linux-base ThinkPad [Jitsi is an exception]). While I enjoyed the vibe of “anyone could attend anything from anywhere in the world”, I felt the novelty of “at home” or “remoteness” had quickly disappeared. These days, I still do book interesting-looking online events, but can barely get motivated to actually show up in front of the screen. When “online” has been rendered almost completely flat by the surge of repetitive Zoom conferences and streaming events, perhaps it is time to look back some of the first virtualization efforts of art in history. In fact, “available from home” was nothing new.</p>
<p>
In 1991, the Project InterCommunication Center (ICC), founded by the Japanese telecom giant NTT, hosted an event titled “The Museum Inside The Telephone Network” by inviting almost 100 artists ^[^1]^. Literally, it was an experiment to set up an invisible museum using telephone/Fax which were back then the most common and fastest ways to transmit audiovisual data. In the early 90s, telephones were mostly available from home and the level of mobility only stretched as far as a cordless landline phone. However, they managed to offer five different “channels”: Voice & Sound channel where prerecorded audio-based pieces could be listened to, Live channel through which you could attend live performances and talks, Interactive channel which involved interactions by physical telephone buttons, Fax channel by which you could print image-based pieces in black and white, and Personal Computer channel that allowed you to view computer graphics-based pieces on the computer screen. Some of the artists found optimal uses of the media: e.g. for Fax channel, the Japanese painter Tadanori Yokoo selected 1080 images from his extensive waterfall postcard picture collection and made them available to print at home ^[^2]^. As a result, a cascade of images incessantly came out of a Fax machine as though a real waterfall.</p>
s soon as the COVID-19 pandemic severely started to kick in Europe in March 2020, many of the local cultural events were switched to online. Like many others, It took me sometime to get accustomed to proprietary online meeting environments such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet (all of which I only use on the Windows side of my dual-boot Linux-base ThinkPad [Jitsi is an exception]). While I enjoyed the vibe of “anyone could attend anything from anywhere in the world”, I felt the novelty of “at home” or “remoteness” had quickly disappeared. These days, I still do book interesting-looking online events, but can barely get motivated to actually show up in front of the screen. When “online” has been rendered almost completely flat by the surge of repetitive Zoom conferences and streaming events, perhaps it is time to look back some of the first virtualization efforts of art in history. In fact, “available from home” was nothing new.
<p>
Following this, there was another virtualization attempt by ICC called “on the Web -The Museum Inside The Network-” in 1995 ^[^3]^. By this time, the Internet was becoming partially available at some homes and pieces of artwork were accessible through websites from personal computers. Some of the art projects foresaw the age of social media: Kazuhiko Hachiya presented “Mega-Diary” where the links to diaries written by 100 people were gathered and updated on a daily basis ^[^4]^, Kouichirou Eto made “Real Panopticon”, a web platform that worked on top of the exhibition website and allowed the viewers to observe what other visitors were currently looking at online ^[^5]^. I have always been thrilled by ambitious remarks made while speculating on the future of the Internet from 90s. One of the committee members of the project, theorist Toshiharu Itoh left a quote that lets us reflect on where we are today ^[^6]^:</p>
In 1991, the Project InterCommunication Center (ICC), founded by the Japanese telecom giant NTT, hosted an event titled “The Museum Inside The Telephone Network” by inviting almost 100 artists[^1]. Literally, it was an experiment to set up an invisible museum using telephone/Fax which were back then the most common and fastest ways to transmit audiovisual data. In the early 90s, telephones were mostly available from home and the level of mobility only stretched as far as a cordless landline phone. However, they managed to offer five different “channels”: Voice & Sound channel where prerecorded audio-based pieces could be listened to, Live channel through which you could attend live performances and talks, Interactive channel which involved interactions by physical telephone buttons, Fax channel by which you could print image-based pieces in black and white, and Personal Computer channel that allowed you to view computer graphics-based pieces on the computer screen. Some of the artists found optimal uses of the media: e.g. for Fax channel, the Japanese painter Tadanori Yokoo selected 1080 images from his extensive waterfall postcard picture collection and made them available to print at home[^2]. As a result, a cascade of images incessantly came out of a Fax machine as though a real waterfall.
<blockquote>The technology of information communications is a “technology of consciousness” that belongs to the realm of the spirit and the senses more than to the realm of practicality and function. Bearing this in mind, I hope to immerse myself within the fabric of the network.</blockquote>
<p>
My question now is: What is our current state of consciousness and how should it be expressed through the network available? As an example of a pandemic-ready practice, Norwegian visual artist/musician Lars Holdhus a.k.a TCF comes into my mind.</p>
<p>
I met TCF physically for the first time in 2016 at TodaysArt, an audiovisual electronic art festival hosted in The Hague, the Netherlands. I got to know him through a mutual friend and went to see him performing some compositions based on the same algorithms used for cryptocurrency mining ^[^7]^. At that time, TCF was already well-established both in the fields of contemporary art and music, often touring around Europe and beyond. Then he, such a talented musician, somehow stopped making music a couple of years ago and relocated himself back to Norway where he is originally from. Not having heard anything of him for quite some time, TCF, after the COVID-19 pandemic, suddenly appeared on the Internet radio run by Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art. He said he just picked 50kg of mushrooms last month (at the time of the interview) ^[^8]^.</p>
<p>
TCF said he is trying to localize his practice as much as possible, be self-sufficient, and lower his impact on the environment, while keeping himself as an active agent in the field of contemporary art. TCF apparently does not tour any more and instead distributes a piece of software in which his 3D avatar learns how to walk/run through machine learning and the AI composes music on the fly.</p>
Following this, there was another virtualization attempt by ICC called “on the Web -The Museum Inside The Network-” in 1995[^3]. By this time, the Internet was becoming partially available at some homes and pieces of artwork were accessible through websites from personal computers. Some of the art projects foresaw the age of social media: Kazuhiko Hachiya presented “Mega-Diary” where the links to diaries written by 100 people were gathered and updated on a daily basis[^4], Kouichirou Eto made “Real Panopticon”, a web platform that worked on top of the exhibition website and allowed the viewers to observe what other visitors were currently looking at online[^5]. I have always been thrilled by ambitious remarks made while speculating on the future of the Internet from 90s. One of the committee members of the project, theorist Toshiharu Itoh left a quote that lets us reflect on where we are today[^6]:
> The technology of information communications is a “technology of consciousness” that belongs to the realm of the spirit and the senses more than to the realm of practicality and function. Bearing this in mind, I hope to immerse myself within the fabric of the network.
My question now is: What is our current state of consciousness and how should it be expressed through the network available? As an example of a pandemic-ready practice, Norwegian visual artist/musician Lars Holdhus a.k.a TCF comes into my mind.
I met TCF physically for the first time in 2016 at TodaysArt, an audiovisual electronic art festival hosted in The Hague, the Netherlands. I got to know him through a mutual friend and went to see him performing some compositions based on the same algorithms used for cryptocurrency mining[^7]. At that time, TCF was already well-established both in the fields of contemporary art and music, often touring around Europe and beyond. Then he, such a talented musician, somehow stopped making music a couple of years ago and relocated himself back to Norway where he is originally from. Not having heard anything of him for quite some time, TCF, after the COVID-19 pandemic, suddenly appeared on the Internet radio run by Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art. He said he just picked 50kg of mushrooms last month (at the time of the interview)[^8].
TCF said he is trying to localize his practice as much as possible, be self-sufficient, and lower his impact on the environment, while keeping himself as an active agent in the field of contemporary art. TCF apparently does not tour any more and instead distributes a piece of software in which his 3D avatar learns how to walk/run through machine learning and the AI composes music on the fly.
TCF presented “Awne” at Unsound Festival hosted from Kraków, Poland in October 2020[^9]:
Awne is a system where natural farming, permaculture and biomimicry meets music and art. In recent years TCF has worked on setting up a way to compose art and music that draws inspiration from biological processes, natural farming techniques, the twelve design principles of permaculture, our understanding of nature, microclimates and how to lower your impact on the environment... It will be built around the software (Unity + Machine Learning) that TCF is currently using in parts of his live performances.
It was live streamed from YouTube and was embedded in the festival website. Someone commented on the video: “I don’t exactly know exactly how my awareness of agricultural processes is increased if I watch plasticky looking 3D models of mushrooms bounce on other objects 😅. Nevertheless some of the animations and sounds were fun to look at / listen to.[^10]”
I see our present network scenario to be somewhere between the following: reduced travel, an ever more powerful set of online tools, and environmental emergency (and urgency). Although Awne was a streaming event, I could still feel enough “flesh” of TCF, even compared to his live performance back in the day.
Based upon the above mentioned network components, I am currently in the process of setting up a “slow-speed” virtual-physical residency program between The Hague and Minamisanriku, a small municipality in Japan known to be one of the areas most affected by the 2011 Tsunami. It is an ethereal attempt to connect the two coastal regions beyond two vast oceans and one continent while setting “water management” as the common theme. “Virtual does not need to be fast” is the tag line and we are aiming to leave a “physical” trail in Minamisanriku through which the local residents can gradually shed the abominable image of a disaster-stricken area.
<p>
TCF presented “Awne” at Unsound Festival hosted from Kraków, Poland in October 2020 ^[^9]^:</p>
<p>
Awne is a system where natural farming, permaculture and biomimicry meets music and art. In recent years TCF has worked on setting up a way to compose art and music that draws inspiration from biological processes, natural farming techniques, the twelve design principles of permaculture, our understanding of nature, microclimates and how to lower your impact on the environment... It will be built around the software (Unity + Machine Learning) that TCF is currently using in parts of his live performances.</p>
<p>
It was live streamed from YouTube and was embedded in the festival website. Someone commented on the video: “I don’t exactly know exactly how my awareness of agricultural processes is increased if I watch plasticky looking 3D models of mushrooms bounce on other objects 😅. Nevertheless some of the animations and sounds were fun to look at / listen to. ^[^10]^”</p>
<p>
I see our present network scenario to be somewhere between the following: reduced travel, an ever more powerful set of online tools, and environmental emergency (and urgency). Although Awne was a streaming event, I could still feel enough “flesh” of TCF, even compared to his live performance back in the day.</p>
<p>
Based upon the above mentioned network components, I am currently in the process of setting up a “slow-speed” virtual-physical residency program between The Hague and Minamisanriku, a small municipality in Japan known to be one of the areas most affected by the 2011 Tsunami. It is an ethereal attempt to connect the two coastal regions beyond two vast oceans and one continent while setting “water management” as the common theme. “Virtual does not need to be fast” is the tag line and we are aiming to leave a “physical” trail in Minamisanriku through which the local residents can gradually shed the abominable image of a disaster-stricken area.</p>
</div>
[^1]: https://www.ntticc.or.jp/en/exhibitions/1991/intercommunication-91-the-museum-inside-the-telephone-network/
[^2]: https://monoskop.org/File:InterCommunication_91_The_Museum_Inside_the_Telephone_Network_1991_hires.pdf
@ -103,3 +52,7 @@ Based upon the above mentioned network components, I am currently in the process
[^9]: https://www.unsound.pl/en/intermission/events/tcf-presents-awne
[^10]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQucsMWYVnI
-----------------------
**Yoshinari Nishiki**. Born in an unacknowledged commuter town to Osaka, Nishiki had to invent his own ways to have fun and that ultimately shaped the foundation of his art practice. After irreversibly failing in the Japanese education system, Nishiki left the country for the UK and started to run art projects. Through a judgmental discount card scheme that actually worked on a main street of Liverpool, he met Graham Harwood who was to invite him to a masters program at Goldsmiths. Despite the lack of qualifications, Nishiki successfully made a legal train fare dodging system using racing pigeons and graduated with a merit. Nishiki relocated himself to Japan and began to be based in an international Augmented Reality laboratory in the middle of a mountain. He made Augmented Tree Climbing for the boy scouts and the research got published in a gaming conference. Since 2017, Nishiki has been based in Rotterdam and collaborated with researchers from TU Delft on artistic interventions into logistics systems. Projects pursued have included, among others, free transport by crowd, moving a mountain of agricultural produce with food couriers, and single-handedly flipping a 20-foot container. He is also known as Inari Wishiki.

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Title: How to Build a Low-tech Internet
Author: Kris de Decker
<!-- Status: published -->
<p id="colophon_title">Colophon</p>
<div class="colophon">
<p>A Nourishing Network is a peer-to-peer publishing experiment starting from the feed as a potentially multi-directional circulation device.</p>
<p>A Nourishing Network is initiated by servus.at (Davide Bevilacqua) in collaboration with varia.zone (Alice Strete & Manetta Berends) and is published in the context of AMRO 2020 (Arts Meets Radical Openness). </p>
<p> Editing: Davide Bevilacqua <br> Design and development: Manetta Berends, Alice Strete <br> Paper: xxxx <br> Typeface: Gnu Unifont, White Rabbit, Ansi Shadow <br> Print and production: Varia <br> This project is produced with Free Software tools. The feeds are made with Pelican & Weasyprint.
</p>
<p> Davide is an artist and curator working is the blurry area between media and contemporary art. </p><p> Manetta Berends is a designer working with forms of networked publishing, situated software and collective infrastructures. </p> <p>Alice Strete is an artist and researcher interested in the intricate relationship between humans and the technologies they surround themselves with. </p> <p>Many thanks to our partners, collaborators, authors and the AMRO community. </p>
<p> Published under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.</p>
</p></div>
<div class="first-page">
<div id="title_edition"> A Nourishing Network - December 2020</div>
<div id="title">The Philosophy of Warnings</div>
<div id="author"> by Santiago Zabala</div>
<pre id="ascii_blob">
----------------------------------a-----------------------------------
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-------------r------r------r------r------r------r------r--------------
----------i-------i-------i-------i-------i-------i-------i-----------
-------s--------s--------s--------s--------s--------s--------s--------
-----h---------h--------h---------h---------h--------h---------h------
----i---------i---------i---------i---------i---------i---------i-----
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----g---------g---------g---------g---------g---------g---------g-----
----- --------- -------- --------- --------- -------- --------- ------
-------n--------n--------n--------n--------n--------n--------n--------
----------e-------e-------e-------e-------e-------e-------e-----------
-------------t------t------t------t------t------t------t--------------
----------------w-----w-----w-----w-----w-----w-----w-----------------
--------------------o----o---o----o----o---o----o---------------------
-------------------------r--r--r--r--r--r--r--------------------------
---------------------------- k-kk-k-kk-k -----------------------------
</pre>
</div>
<header id="pageheader-issue">A Nourishing Network</header>
<header id="pageheader-theme">The Philosophy of Warnings</header>
<div class="essay_content">
<p>
Wireless internet access is on the rise in both modern consumer
societies and in the developing world.</p>
In rich countries, however, the focus is on always-on connectivity and
ever higher access speeds. In poor countries, on the other hand,
connectivity is achieved through much more low-tech, often asynchronous
networks. 
While the high-tech approach pushes the costs and energy use of the
internet [higher and higher](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/can-the-internet-run-on-renewable-energy.html),
the low-tech alternatives result in much cheaper and very energy
efficient networks that combine well with renewable power production and
are resistant to disruptions.
If we want the internet to keep working in circumstances where access to
energy is more limited, we can learn important lessons from alternative
network technologies. Best of all, there\'s no need to wait for
governments or companies to facilitate: we can build our own resilient
communication infrastructure if we cooperate with one another. This is
demonstrated by several community networks in Europe, of which the
largest has more than 35,000 users already.
[]{#anchor}Picture: A node in the [Scottish Tegola
Network](http://www.tegola.org.uk/hebnet/).
More than half of the global population does not have access to the
\"worldwide\" web. Up to now, the internet is mainly an urban
phenomenon, especially in \"developing\" countries. Telecommunication
companies are usually reluctant to extend their network outside cities
due to a combination of high infrastructure costs, low population
density, limited ability to pay for services, and an unreliable or
non-existent electricity infrastructure. Even in remote regions of
\"developed\" countries, internet connectivity isn\'t always available.
Internet companies such as Facebook and Google regularly make headlines
with plans for connecting these remote regions to the internet. Facebook
tries to achieve this with drones, while Google counts on high-altitude
balloons. There are major technological challenges, but the main
objection to these plans is their commercial character. Obviously,
Google and Facebook want to connect more people to the internet because
that would increase their revenues. Facebook especially receives lots of
criticism because their network promotes their own site in particular,
and blocks most other internet applications. \[1\]
Meanwhile, several research groups and network enthusiasts have
developed and implemented much cheaper alternative network technologies
to solve these issues. Although these low-tech networks have proven
their worth, they have received much less attention. Contrary to the
projects of internet companies, they are set up by small organisations
or by the users themselves. This guarantees an open network that
benefits the users instead of a handful of corporations. At the same
time, these low-tech networks are very energy efficient.
****WiFi-based Long Distance Networks****
Most low-tech networks are based on WiFi, the same technology that
allows mobile access to the internet in most western households. As we
have seen in the previous article, [sharing these devices could provide
free mobile access across densely populated
cities](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/the-4g-network-thats-already-there.html).
But the technology can be equally useful in sparsely populated areas.
Although the WiFi-standard was developed for short-distance data
communication (with a typical range of about 30 metres), its reach can
be extended through modifications of the Media Access Control (MAC)
layer in the networking protocol, and through the use of range extender
amplifiers and directional antennas. \[2\]
Although the WiFi-standard was developed for short-distance data
communication, its reach can be extended to cover distances of more than
100 kilometres.
The longest unamplified WiFi link is a 384 km wireless point-to-point
connection between Pico El Águila and Platillón in Venezuela,
established a few years ago. \[3,4\] However, WiFi-based long distance
networks usually consist of a combination of shorter point-to-point
links, each between a few kilometres and one hundred kilometers long at
most. These are combined to create larger, multihop networks.
Point-to-points links, which form the backbone of a long range WiFi
network, are combined with omnidirectional antennas that distribute the
signal to individual households (or public institutions) of a community.
Picture: A relay with three point-to-point links and three sectoral
antennae.
[Tegola](http://www.tegola.org.uk/howto/network-planning.html).
Long-distance WiFi links require line of sight to make a connection \--
in this sense, the technology resembles the [18th century optical
telegraph](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2007/12/email-in-the-18.html).
\[5\] If there\'s no line of sight between two points, a third relay is
required that can see both points, and the signal is sent to the
intermediate relay first. Depending on the terrain and particular
obstacles, more hubs may be necessary. \[6\]
Point-to-point links typically consist of two directional antennas, one
focused on the next node and the other on the previous node in the
network. Nodes can have multiple antennas with one antenna per fixed
point-to-point link to each neighbour. \[7\] This allows mesh routing
protocols that can dynamically select which links to choose for routing
among the available ones. \[8\]
Long-distance WiFi links require line of sight to make a connection \--
in this sense, the technology resembles the 18th century optical
telegraph.
Distribution nodes usually consist of a sectoral antenna (a small
version of the things you see on mobile phone masts) or a conventional
WiFi-router, together with a number of receivers in the community. \[6\]
For short distance WiFi-communication, there is no requirement for line
of sight between the transmitter and the receiver. \[9\]
To provide users with access to the worldwide internet, a long range
WiFi network should be connected to the main backbone of the internet
using at least one \"backhaul\" or \"gateway node\". This can be a
dial-up or broadband connection (DSL, fibre or satellite). If such a
link is not established, users would still be able to communicate with
each other and view websites set up on local servers, but they would not
be able to access the internet. \[10\]
****Advantages of Long Range WiFi****
Long range WiFi offers high bandwidth (up to 54 Mbps) combined with very
low capital costs. Because the WiFi standard enjoys widespread
acceptance and has huge production volumes, off-the-shelf antennas and
wireless cards can be bought for very little money. \[11\]
Alternatively, components can be put together [from discarded
materials](http://roelof.info/projects/%282014%29Pretty_Fly_For_A_Wifi/)
such as old routers, satellite dish antennas and laptops. Protocols like
WiLDNet run on a 266 Mhz processor with only 128 MB memory, so an old
computer will do the trick. \[7\]
The WiFi-nodes are lightweight and don\'t need expensive towers \--
further decreasing capital costs, and minimizing the impact of the
structures to be built. \[7\] More recently, single units that combine
antenna, wireless card and processor have become available. These are
very convenient for installation. To build a relay, one simply connects
such units together with ethernet cables that carry both signal and
power. \[6\] The units can be mounted in towers or slim masts, given
that they offer little windload. \[3\] Examples of suppliers of long
range WiFi components are [Ubiquity](https://www.ubnt.com/),
[Alvarion](http://www.alvarion.com/) and
[MikroTik](http://www.mikrotik.com/), and
[simpleWiFi](https://www.simplewifi.com/).
Long Range WiFi makes use of unlicensed spectrum and offers high
bandwidth, low capital costs, easy installation, and low power
requirements.
Long range WiFi also has low operational costs due to low power
requirements. A typical mast installation consisting of two long
distance links and one or two wireless cards for local distribution
consumes around 30 watts. \[6,12\] In several low-tech networks, nodes
are entirely powered by solar panels and batteries. Another important
advantage of long range WiFi is that it makes use of unlicensed spectrum
(2.4 and 5 GHz), and thus avoids negotiations with telecom operators and
government. This adds to the cost advantage and allows basically anyone
to start a WiFi-based long distance network. \[9\]
****Long Range WiFi Networks in Poor Countries****
The first long range WiFi networks were set up ten to fifteen years ago.
In poor countries, two main types have been built. The first is aimed at
providing internet access to people in remote villages. An example is
the Akshaya network in India, which covers the entire Kerala State and
is one of the largest wireless networks in the world. The infrastructure
is built around approximately 2,500 \"computer access centers\", which
are open to the local population \-- direct ownership of computers is
minimal in the region. \[13\]
Another example, also in India, are the AirJaldi networks which provide
internet access to approximately 20,000 users in six states, all in
remote regions and on difficult terrain. Most nodes in this network are
solar-powered and the distance between them can range up to 50 km or
more. \[14\] In some African countries, local WiFi-networks distribute
internet access from a satellite gateway. \[15,16\]
A node in the AirJaldi network. Picture: AirJaldi.
A second type of long distance WiFi network in poor countries is aimed
at providing telemedicine to remote communities. In remote regions,
health care is often provided through health posts scarcely equipped and
attended by health technicians who are barely trained. \[17\] Long-range
WiFi networks can connect urban hospitals with these outlying health
posts, allowing doctors to remotely support health technicians using
high-resolution file transfers and real-time communication tools based
on voice and video.
An example is the link between Cabo Pantoja and Iquitos in the Loreto
province in Peru, which was established in 2007. The 450 km network
consists of 17 towers which are 16 to 50 km apart. The line connects 15
medical outposts in remote villages with the main hospital in Iquitos
and is aimed at remote diagnosis of patients. \[17,18\] All equipment is
powered by solar panels. \[18,19\] Other succesful examples of long
range WiFi telemedicine networks have been built in India, Malawi and
Ghana. \[20,21\]
****WiFi-Based Community Networks in Europe****
The low-tech networks in poor countries are set up by NGO\'s,
governments, universities or businesses. In contrast, most of the
WiFi-based long distance networks in remote regions of rich countries
are so-called \"community networks\": the users themselves build, own,
power and maintain the infrastructure. Similar to the shared wireless
approach in cities, reciprocal resource sharing forms the basis of these
networks: participants can set up their own node and connect to the
network (for free), as long as their node also allows traffic of other
members. Each node acts as a WiFi routing device that provides IP
forwarding services and a data link to all users and nodes connected to
it. \[8,22\]
In a community network, the users themselves build, own, power and
maintain the infrastructure.
Consequently, with each new user, the network becomes larger. There is
no a-priori overall planning. A community network grows bottom-up,
driven by the needs of its users, as nodes and links are added or
upgraded following demand patterns. The only consideration is to connect
a node from a new participant to an existing one. As a node is powered
on, it discovers it neighbours, attributes itself a unique IP adress,
and then establishes the most appropriate routes to the rest of the
network, taking into account the quality of the links. Community
networks are open to participation to everyone, sometimes according to
an open peering agreement. \[8,9,19,22\]
Wireless links in the Spanish Guifi network.
[Credit](https://iuliinet.github.io/presentazione_ottobre_2014/img/barcellona.jpg).
Despite the lack of reliable statistics, community networks seem to be
rather succesful, and there are several large ones in Europe, such as
[Guifi.net](https://guifi.net/) (Spain), [Athens Wireless Metropolitan
Network](http://www.awmn.gr/content.php?s=ce506a41ab245641d6934638c6f6f107)
(Greece), [FunkFeuer](http://www.funkfeuer.at/) (Austria), and
[Freifunk](https://freifunk.net/en/) (Germany). \[8,22,23,24\] The
Spanish network  is the largest WiFi-based long distance network in the
world with more than 50,000 kilometres of links, although a small part
is based on optic fibre links. Most of it is located in the Catalan
Pyrenees, one of the least populated areas in Spain. The network was
initiated in 2004 and now has close to 30,000 nodes, up from 17,000 in
2012. \[8,22\]
Guifi.net provides internet access to individuals, companies,
administrations and universities. In principle, the network is
installed, powered and maintained by its users, although volunteer teams
and even commercial installers are present to help. Some nodes and
backbone upgrades have been succesfully crowdfunded by indirect
beneficiaries of the network. \[8,22\]
****Performance of Low-tech Networks****
So how about the performance of low-tech networks? What can you do with
them? The available bandwidth per user can vary enormously, depending on
the bandwidth of the gateway node(s) and the number of users, among
other factors. The long-distance WiFi networks aimed at telemedicine in
poor countries have few users and a good backhaul, resulting in high
bandwidth (+ 40 Mbps). This gives them a similar performance to fibre
connections in the developed world. A study of (a small part of) the
Guifi.net community network, which has dozens of gateway nodes and
thousands of users, showed an average throughput of 2 Mbps, which is
comparable to a relatively slow DSL connection. Actual throughput per
user varies from 700 kbps to 8 Mbps. \[25\]
The available bandwidth per user can vary enormously, depending on the
bandwidth of the gateway node(s) and the number of users, among other
factors
However, the low-tech networks that distribute internet access to a
large user base in developing countries can have much more limited
bandwidth per user. For example, a university campus in Kerala (India)
uses a 750 kbps internet connection that is shared across 3,000 faculty
members and students operating from 400 machines, where during peak
hours nearly every machine is being used. 
Therefore, the worst-case average bandwidth available per machine is
approximately 1.9 kbps, which is slow even in comparison to a dial-up
connection (56 kbps). And this can be considered a really good
connectivity compared to typical rural settings in poor countries.
\[26\] To make matters worse, such networks often have to deal with an
intermittent power supply.
Under these circumstances, even the most common internet applications
have poor performance, or don\'t work at all. The communication model of
the internet is based on a set of network assumptions, called the TCP/IP
protocol suite. These include the existence of a bi-directional
end-to-end path between the source (for example a website\'s server) and
the destination (the user\'s computer), short round-trip delays, and low
error rates.
Many low-tech networks in poor countries do not comform to these
assumptions. They are characterized by intermittent connectivity or
\"network partitioning\" \-- the absence of an end-to-end path between
source and destination \-- long and variable delays, and high error
rates. \[21,27,28\]
****Delay-Tolerant Networks****
Nevertheless, even in such conditions, the internet could work perfectly
fine. The technical issues can be solved by moving away from the
always-on model of traditional networks, and instead design networks
based upon asynchronous communication and intermittent connectivity.
These so-called \"delay-tolerant networks\" (DTNs) have their own
specialized protocols overlayed on top of the lower protocols and do not
utilize TCP. They overcome the problems of intermittent connectivity and
long delays by using store-and-forward message switching.
Information is forwarded from a storage place on one node to a storage
place on another node, along a path that *eventually* reaches its
destination. In contrast to traditional internet routers, which only
store incoming packets for a few milliseconds on memory chips, the nodes
of a delay-tolerant network have persistent storage (such as hard disks)
that can hold information indefinitely. \[27,28\]
Delay-tolerant networks combine well with renewable energy: solar panels
or wind turbines could power network nodes only when the sun shines or
the wind blows, eliminating the need for energy storage.
Delay-tolerant networks don\'t require an end-to-end path between source
and destination. Data is simply transferred from node to node. If the
next node is unavailable because of long delays or a power outage, the
data is stored on the hard disk until the node becomes available again.
While it might take a long time for data to travel from source to
destination, a delay-tolerant network ensures that it will eventually
arrive.
Delay-tolerant networks further decrease capital costs and energy use,
leading to the most efficient use of scarce resources. They keep working
with an intermittent energy supply and they combine well with renewable
energy sources: solar panels or wind turbines could power network nodes
only when the sun shines or the wind blows, eliminating the need for
energy storage.
****Data Mules****
Delay-tolerant networking can take surprising forms, especially when
they take advantage of some non-traditional means of communication, such
as \"data mules\". \[11,29\] In such networks, conventional
transportation technologies \-- buses, cars, motorcycles, trains, boats,
airplanes \-- are used to ferry messages from one location to another in
a store-and-forward manner.
Examples are DakNet and KioskNet, which use buses as data mules.
\[30-34\] In many developing regions, rural bus routes regularly visit
villages and towns that have no network connectivity. By equipping each
vehicle with a computer, a storage device and a mobile WiFi-node on the
one hand, and by installing a stationary WiFi-node in each village on
the other hand, the local transport infrastructure can substitute for a
wireless internet link. \[11\]
Picture: AirJaldi.
Outgoing data (such as sent emails or requests for webpages) is stored
on local computers in the village until the bus comes withing range. At
this point, the fixed WiFi-node of the local computer automatically
transmits the data to the mobile WiFi-node of the bus. Later, when the
bus arrives at a hub that is connected to the internet, the outgoing
data is transmitted from the mobile WiFi-node to the gateway node, and
then to the internet. Data sent to the village takes the opposite route.
The bus \-- or data \-- driver doesn\'t require any special skills and
is completely oblivious to the data transfers taking place. He or she
does not need to do anything other than come in range of the nodes.
\[30,31\]
In a data mules network, the local transport infrastructure substitutes
for a wireless internet link.
The use of data mules offers some extra advantages over more
\"sophisticated\" delay-tolerant networks. A \"drive-by\" WiFi network
allows for small, low-cost and low-power radio devices to be used, which
don\'t require line of sight and consequently no towers \-- further
lowering capital costs and energy use compared to other low-tech
networks. \[30,31,32\]
The use of short-distance WiFi-links also results in a higher bandwidth
compared to long-distance WiFi-links, which makes data mules better
suited to transfer larger files. On average, 20 MB of data can be moved
in each direction when a bus passes a fixed WiFi-node. \[30,32\] On the
other hand, latency (the time interval between sending and receiving
data) is usually higher than on long-range WiFi-links. A single bus
passing by a village once a day gives a latency of 24 hours.
****Delay-Tolerant Software****
Obviously, a delay-tolerant network (DTN) \-- whatever its form \-- also
requires new software: applications that function without a connected
end-to-end networking path. \[11\] Such custom applications are also
useful for synchronous, low bandwidth networks. Email is relatively easy
to adapt to intermittent connectivity, because it\'s an asynchronous
communication method by itself. A DTN-enabled email client stores
outgoing messages until a connection is available. Although emails may
take longer to reach their destination, the user experience doesn\'t
really change.
A Freifunk WiFi-node is installed in Berlin, Germany. Picture:[
Wikipedia
Commons](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Freifunk-Initiative_in_Berlin-Kreuzberg.jpg).
Browsing and searching the web requires more adaptations. For example,
most search engines optimize for speed, assuming that a user can quickly
look through the returned links and immediately run a second modified
search if the first result is inadequate. However, in intermittent
networks, multiple rounds of interactive search would be impractical.
\[26,35\] Asynchronous search engines optimize for bandwith rather than
response time. \[26,30,31,35,36\] For example, RuralCafe desynchronizes
the search process by performing many search tasks in an offline manner,
refining the search request based on a database of similar searches. The
actual retrieval of information using the network is only done when
absolutely necessary.
Many internet applications could be adapted to intermittent networks,
such as webbrowsing, email, electronic form filling, interaction with
e-commerce sites, blogsoftware, large file downloads, or social media.
Some DTN-enabled browsers download not only the explicitly requested
webpages but also the pages that are linked to by the requested pages.
\[30\] Others are optimized to return low-bandwidth results, which are
achieved by filtering, analysis, and compression on the server site. A
similar effect can be achieved through the use of a service like
[Loband](http://www.loband.org/loband/), which strips webpages of
images, video, advertisements, social media buttons, and so on, merely
presenting the textual content. \[26\]
Browsing and searching on intermittent networks can also be improved by
local caching (storing already downloaded pages) and prefetching
(downloading pages that might be retrieved in the future). \[206\] Many
other internet applications could also be adapted to intermittent
networks, such as electronic form filling, interaction with e-commerce
sites, blogsoftware, large file downloads, social media, and so on.
\[11,30\] All these applications would remain possible, though at lower
speeds.
****Sneakernets****
Obviously, real-time applications such as internet telephony, media
streaming, chatting or videoconferencing are impossible to adapt to
intermittent networks, which provide only asynchronous communication.
These applications are also difficult to run on synchronous networks
that have limited bandwidth. Because these are the applications that are
in large part responsible for the growing energy use of the internet,
one could argue that their incompatibility with low-tech networks is
actually a good thing (see the [previous
article](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/can-the-internet-run-on-renewable-energy.html)).
Furthermore, many of these applications could be organized in different
ways. While real-time voice or video conversations won\'t work, it\'s
perfectly possible to send and receive voice or video messages. And
while streaming media can\'t happen, downloading music albums and video
remains possible. Moreover, these files could be \"transmitted\" by the
most low-tech internet technology available: a sneakernet. In a
sneakernet, digital data is \"wirelessly\" transmitted using a storage
medium such as a hard disk, a USB-key, a flash card, or a CD or DVD.
Before the arrival of the internet, all computer files were exchanged
via a sneakernet, using tape or floppy disks as a storage medium.
Stuffing a cargo train full of digital storage media would beat any
digital network in terms of speed, cost and energy efficiency. Picture:
Wikipedia Commons.
Just like a data mules network, a sneakernet involves a vehicle, a
messenger on foot, or an animal (such as a [carrier
pigeon](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/02/sneakernet-beats-internet.html)).
However, in a sneakernet there is no automatic data transfer between the
mobile node (for instance, a vehicle) and the stationary nodes (sender
and recipient). Instead, the data first have to be transferred from the
sender\'s computer to a portable storage medium. Then, upon arrival, the
data have to be transferred from the portable storage medium to the
receiver\'s computer. \[30\] A sneakernet thus requires manual
intervention and this makes it less convenient for many internet
applications.
There are exceptions, though. For example, a movie doesn\'t have to be
transferred to the hard disk of your computer in order to watch it. You
play it straight from a portable hard disk or slide a disc into the
DVD-player. Moreover, a sneakernet also offers an important advantage:
of all low-tech networks, it has the most bandwidth available. This
makes it perfectly suited for the distribution of large files such as
movies or computer games. In fact, when very large files are involved, a
sneakernet even beats the fastest fibre internet connection. At lower
internet speeds, sneakernets can be advantageous for much smaller files.
Technological progress will not lower the advantage of a sneakernet.
Digital storage media evolve at least as fast as internet connections
and they both improve communication in an equal way.
****Resilient Networks****
While most low-tech networks are aimed at regions where the alternative
is often no internet connection at all, their usefulness for
well-connected areas cannot be overlooked. The internet as we know it in
the industrialized world is a product of an abundant energy supply, a
robust electricity infrastructure, and sustained economic growth. This
\"high-tech\" internet might offer some fancy advantages over the
low-tech networks, but it cannot survive if these conditions change.
This makes it extremely vulnerable.
The internet as we know it in the industrialized world is a product of
an abundant energy supply, a robust electricity infrastructure, and
sustained economic growth. It cannot survive if these conditions change.
Depending on their level of resilience, low-tech networks can remain in
operation when the supply of fossil fuels is interrupted, when the
electricity infrastructure deteriorates, when the economy grinds to a
halt, or if other calamities should hit. Such a low-tech internet would
allow us to surf the web, send and receive e-mails, shop online, share
content, and so on. Meanwhile, data mules and sneakernets could serve to
handle the distribution of large files such as videos. Stuffing a cargo
vessel or a train full of digital storage media would beat any digital
network in terms of speed, cost and energy efficiency. And if such a
transport infrastructure would no longer be available, we could still
rely on messengers on foot, [cargo
bikes](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/05/modular-cargo-cycles.html)
and [sailing vessels](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/sailing-ships/).
Such a hybrid system of online and offline applications would remain a
very powerful communication network \-- unlike anything we had even in
the late twentieth century. Even if we envision a doom scenario in which
the wider internet infrastructure would disintegrate, isolated low-tech
networks would still be very useful local and regional communication
technologies. Furthermore, they could obtain content from other remote
networks through the exchange of portable storage media. The internet,
it appears, can be as low-tech or high-tech as we can afford it to be.
</div>
Kris De Decker (edited by [Jenna
Collett](https://www.linkedin.com/pub/jenna-collett/1a/925/b3))
This article has been translated into
[Spanish](https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/es/2015/10/how-to-build-a-low-tech-internet.html).
****Sources & Notes:****
DIY: [Wireless networking in the developing
world](http://wndw.net/book.html#readBook) (Third Edition) is a free
book about designing, implementing and maintaining low-cost wireless
networks. Available in English, French, and Spanish.
\[1\] [Connecting the unwired world with balloons, satellites, lasers &
drones](https://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/09/03/214256/connecting-the-unwired-world-with-balloons-satellites-lasers-drones),
Slashdot, 2015
\[2\] [A QoS-aware dynamic bandwidth allocation scheme for multi-hop
WiFi-based long distance
networks](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186%2Fs13638-015-0352-z#/page-1),
Iftekhar Hussain et al., 2015
\[3\] [Long-distance, Low-Cost Wireless Data
Transmission](http://www.ursi.org/files/RSBissues/RSB_339_2011_12.pdf)
(PDF), Ermanno Pietrosemoli, 2011
\[4\] This link could only be established thanks to the height of the
endpoints (4,200 and 1,500 km) and the flatness of the middle ground.
The curvature of the Earth makes longer point-to-point WiFi-links
difficult to achieve because line of sight between two points is
required.
\[5\] Radio waves occupy a volume around the optical line, which must be
unemcumbered from obstacles. This volume is known as the Fresnel
ellipsoid and its size grows with the distance between the two end
points and with the wavelength of the signal, which is in turn inversely
proportional to the frequency. Thus, it is required to leave extra
\"elbow room\" for the Fresnel zone. \[9\]
\[6\] [A Brief History of the Tegola
Project](http://www.tegola.org.uk/tegola-history.html), Tegola Project,
retrieved October 2015
\[7\] [WiLDNet: Design and Implementation of High Performance WiFi based
Long Distance
Networks](http://tier.cs.berkeley.edu/docs/wireless/wild_multihop.pdf)
(PDF), Rabin Patra et al., 2007
\[8\] [Topology Patterns of a Community Network:
Guifi.net](http://dsg.ac.upc.edu/sites/default/files/1569633605.pdf)
(PDF), Davide Vega et al., 2012
\[9\] [Global Access to the Internet for All, internet
draft](https://trac.tools.ietf.org/group/irtf/trac/wiki/gaia), Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF), 2015
\[10\] This is what happened to Afghanistan\'s JLINK network when
[funding for the network\'s satellite link ran dry in
2012](https://www.wired.com/2012/05/jlink/).
\[11\] [The case for technology in developing
regions](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mattkam/lab/publications/Computer2005.pdf)
(PDF), Eric Brewer et al., 2005
\[12\] [Beyond Pilots: Keeping Rural Wireless Networks
Alive](https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/nsdi08/tech/full_papers/surana/surana.pdf)
(PDF), Sonesh Surana et al., 2008
\[13\] <http://www.akshaya.kerala.gov.in/>
\[14\] <http://main.airjaldi.com/>
\[15\] [VillageCell: Cost Effective Cellular Connectivity in Rural
Areas](http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~pejovicv/docs/Anand12ICTD.pdf) (PDF),
Abhinav Anand et al., 2012
\[16\] [Deployment and Extensio of a Converged WiMAX/WiFi Network for
Dwesa Community Area South
Africa](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.452.7357&rep=rep1&type=pdf)
(PDF), N. Ndlovu et al., 2009
\[17\] \"[A telemedicine network optimized for long distances in the
Amazonian jungle of
Peru](http://www.ehas.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Extremecomm_sig_ISBN.pdf)\"
(PDF), Carlos Rey-Moreno, ExtremeCom \'11, September 2011
\[18\] \"[Telemedicine networks of EHAS Foundation in Latin
America](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4197650/)\",
Ignacio Prieto-Egido et al., in \"Frontiers in Public Health\", October
15, 2014.
\[19\] \"[The design of a wireless solar-powered router for rural
environments isolated from health
facilities](https://eciencia.urjc.es/bitstream/handle/10115/2293/THE%20DESIGN%20OF%20A%20WIRELESS%20SOLAR-POWERED-2008.pdf?sequence=1)\"
(PDF), Francisco Javier Simo Reigadas et al., in \"IEEE Wireless
Communications\", June 2008.
\[20\] [On a long wireless link for rural telemedicine in
Malawi](http://users.ictp.it/~mzennaro/Malawi.pdf) (PDF), M. Zennaro et
al., 2008
\[21\] [A Survey of Delay- and Disruption-Tolerant Networking
Applications](http://www.jie-online.org/index.php/jie/article/view/91),
Artemios G. Voyiatzis, 2012
\[22\] [Supporting Cloud Deployment in the Guifi Community
Network](https://www.sics.se/~amir/files/download/papers/guifi.pdf)
(PDF), Roger Baig et al., 2013
\[23\] [A Case for Research with and on Community
Networks](http://www.sigcomm.org/sites/default/files/ccr/papers/2013/July/2500098-2500108.pdf)
(PDF), Bart Braem et.al, 2013
\[24\] There are smaller networks in Scotland
([Tegola](http://www.tegola.org.uk/)), Slovenia ([wlan
slovenija](https://wlan-si.net/)), Belgium ([Wireless
Antwerpen](http://www.wirelessantwerpen.be/)), and the Netherlands
([Wireless Leiden](https://www.wirelessleiden.nl/)), among others.
Australia has [Melbourne Wireless](http://melbourne.wireless.org.au/).
In Latin America, numerous examples exists, such as [Bogota
Mesh](https://www.facebook.com/BogotaMesh) (Colombia) and [Monte Video
Libre](http://picandocodigo.net/2008/montevideolibre-redes-libres-en-montevideo/)
(Uruguay). Some of these networks are interconnected. This is the case
for the Belgian and Dutch community networks, and for the Slovenian and
Austrian networks. \[8,22,23\]
\[25\] [Proxy performance analysis in a community wireless
network](http://upcommons.upc.edu/handle/2099.1/19710), Pablo Pitarch
Miguel, 2013
\[26\] [RuralCafe: Web Search in the Rural Developing
World](http://www.ambuehler.ethz.ch/CDstore/www2009/proc/docs/p411.pdf)
(PDF), Jay Chen et al., 2009
\[27\] [A Delay-Tolerant Network Architecture for Challenged
Networks](http://www.kevinfall.com/seipage/papers/p27-fall.pdf) (PDF),
Kevin Fall, 2003
\[28\] [Delay- and Disruption-Tolerant Networks (DTNs) \-- A Tutorial
(version
2.0)](http://ipnsig.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/DTN_Tutorial_v2.04.pdf)
(PDF), Forrest Warthman, 2012
\[29\] [Healthcare Supported by Data Mule Networks in Remote Communities
of the Amazon
Region](http://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn/2014/730760/), Mauro
Margalho Coutinho et al., 2014
\[30\] [First Mile Solutions\' Daknet Takes Rural Communities
Online](http://www.firstmilesolutions.com/documents/FMS_Case_Study.pdf)
(PDF), Carol Chyau and Jean-Francois Raymond, 2005
\[31\] [DakNet: A Road to Universal Broadband
Connectivity](http://courses.media.mit.edu/2003fall/de/DakNet-Case.pdf)
(PDF), Amir Alexander Hasson et al., 2003
\[32\] [DakNet: Architecture and Connectivity in Developing
Nations](http://ijpret.com/publishedarticle/2015/4/IJPRET%20-%20ECN%20115.pdf)
(PDF), Madhuri Bhole, 2015
\[33\] [Delay Tolerant Networks and Their
Applications](http://www.citeulike.org/user/tnhh/article/13517347),
Longxiang Gao et al., 2015
\[34\] [Low-cost communication for rural internet kiosks using
mechanical
backhaul](https://people.csail.mit.edu/matei/papers/2006/mobicom_kiosks.pdf),
A. Seth et al., 2006
\[35\] [Searching the World Wide Web in Low-Connectivity
Communities](http://tek.sourceforge.net/papers/tek-www02.pdf) (PDF),
William Thies et al., 2002
\[36\] [Slow Search: Information Retrieval without Time
Constraints](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~yubink/hcir2013.pdf) (PDF), Jaime
Teevan, 2013
\[37\] [Potential for Collaborative Caching and Prefetching in
Largely-Disconnected
Villages](http://mrmgroup.cs.princeton.edu/papers/isaacman-winsdr503.pdf)
(PDF), Sibren Isaacman et al., 2008
--
--
Posted on October 26, 2015 at 12:26 AM in [Access to
information](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/copyright_and_access_to_information/),
[Communications](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/communications/),
[Cover story](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/cover-story/),
[DIY](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/diy/),
[Internet](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/internet/), [Wireless
technology](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/wireless_technology/) \|
[Permalink](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/how-to-build-a-low-tech-internet.html)

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Title: The Pandemic's Dark Cloud
Author: Mél Hogan
<p id="colophon_title">Colophon</p>
<div class="colophon">
<p>A Nourishing Network is a peer-to-peer publishing experiment starting from the feed as a potentially multi-directional circulation device.</p>
<p>A Nourishing Network is initiated by servus.at (Davide Bevilacqua) in collaboration with varia.zone (Alice Strete & Manetta Berends) and is published in the context of AMRO 2020 (Arts Meets Radical Openness). </p>
<p> Editing: Davide Bevilacqua <br> Design and development: Manetta Berends, Alice Strete <br> Paper: xxxx <br> Typeface: Gnu Unifont, White Rabbit, Ansi Shadow <br> Print and production: Varia <br> This project is produced with Free Software tools. The feeds are made with Pelican & Weasyprint.
</p>
Date: 22 January 2021
<p> Davide is an artist and curator working is the blurry area between media and contemporary art. </p><p> Manetta Berends is a designer working with forms of networked publishing, situated software and collective infrastructures. </p> <p>Alice Strete is an artist and researcher interested in the intricate relationship between humans and the technologies they surround themselves with. </p> <p>Many thanks to our partners, collaborators, authors and the AMRO community. </p>
<p> Published under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.</p>
</p></div>
<div class="first-page">
<div id="title_edition"> A Nourishing Network - December 2020</div>
<div id="title">The Pandemic's Dark Cloud</div>
<div id="author"> by Mél Hogan</div>
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</div>
<header id="pageheader-issue">A Nourishing Network</header>
<header id="pageheader-theme">The Pandemic's Dark Cloud</header>
<div class="essay_content">
<p><pre id="first_letter_mel">
<pre id="first_letter_mel">
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</pre>s the pandemic settled into consciousness across the globe, humans devolved. People in countries where the response to COVID-19 was most mismanaged started to snack a lot.^[^1]^ Pre-sliced packaged charcuterie. Ritz crackers. Oreo cookies. In their growing helplessness, people also sharply increased their consumption of alcohol, especially women in the US.^[^2]^ For some it was drugs. Those lucky enough to keep their job doubled down on work, staying at their stations or desks for longer hours – part avoidance and part stuckness into systems that could offer no other plan.</p>
</pre>s the pandemic settled into consciousness across the globe, humans devolved. People in countries where the response to COVID-19 was most mismanaged started to snack a lot.[^1] Pre-sliced packaged charcuterie. Ritz crackers. Oreo cookies. In their growing helplessness, people also sharply increased their consumption of alcohol, especially women in the US.[^2] For some it was drugs. Those lucky enough to keep their job doubled down on work, staying at their stations or desks for longer hours – part avoidance and part stuckness into systems that could offer no other plan.
<p>
The dread by now is cumulative. Pick your pain: covid19, white supremacy, climate catastrophe. People are reaching new levels of “doomscrolling” on social media, playing online video games, and “binge-watching” Netflix as ways to pass the time, waiting on the virus to run its course, or for politicians to make a plan. As things shut down, Zoom quickly took over as the way to communicate at a safe social distance. Education quickly became clicking at screens. No more shopping in person meant ordering by way of interfaces. All of these screens more or less allowed things to continue, if not as normal, as a viable alternative in the meantime. It remains to be seen if this online world we’ve adopted so quickly is the new normal, and here to stay, or if it’ll reflect to us the inefficiencies of how we lived before and save us from ourselves. Or, maybe it will call into question the terrible inequities that are only made more evident by this pandemic.</p>
<p>
By April, the news media were already reporting that lockdowns had meant cleaner air and clearer water.^[^3]^ Satellite images showed less pollution over China and the US. Animals were found roaming freely in different parts of India.^[^4]^ “Nature is healing” became a popular meme celebrating the lessening of human impact and nature’s recovery.^[^5]^ But were the effects of lockdown, or quarantine, of humans being trapped in their homes, and of doing everything online, truly a more sustainable way of going about life? Had the turn to “the cloud” proven to be the weightless way forward? Social isolation and disinformation propagation problems aside, could the internet become a tool to inadvertently save the environment?</p>
<p>
In thinking of the internet and the many devices connected to it, these account for approximately 2-4% of global greenhouse emissions, which only promise to double by 2025.^[^6]^ Data centres and vast server farms (where data is stored and transmitted) draw more than 80% of their energy from fossil fuel power stations. Online video alone – porn, Netflix, YouTube, Zoom – generated 60% of the world’s total data flows before covid19 hit. A Google search uses as much energy as cooking an egg or boiling water in an electric kettle.^[^7]^ Yearly emails for work (and not accounting for spam) have been calculated to be equal in terms of CO2 emissions to driving 320 kilometres.^[^8]^ These numbers have likely gone up considerably since the pandemic.^[^9]^ This way of living wasn’t sustainable then, and it certainly isn’t now.</p>
<p>
There are search engines (eg. Ecosia^[^10]^) and add-ons (eg. Carbonalyser by The Shift Project,^[^11]^ green-algorithms.org^[^12]^) that help measure user impacts on the environment, but these miss addressing the bigger questions – such as moving away from confronting personal use to the systemic, material, and ideological issues baked into the internet. Why is the internet like this? The question is more political than it is purely technological. It’s more emotional, even, than it is political. Because we’ve drifted so far away from understanding nature as inherent to human and non-human wellbeing alike, towards unrelenting and exploitative capitalism and extractivism, it means we now have these massively entangled systems that reinforce one another, generate profit for the very few, but in the end benefit nothing and nobody.^[^13]^ These systems are harder to abolish or undo, so instead we turn to solutions that lessen their impacts, and we consider the rest inevitable – or worse, natural. We might, for example, shift data centers to cooler climates to save on cooling costs, we might develop more efficient software, we might offer carbon offsetting and plant trees, but none of these technofixes reach the heart of the our current predicament: our solutions and our problems originate from the same short-sighted, greed-driven, competitive, and market-driven agendas that caused this global deadly pandemic in the first place.</p>
<p>
In 2020, we are generating 50 million tons worldwide of electronic waste, with an annual growth of 5%.^[^14]^ This means that we produce e-waste at three times the rate that humans reproduce. Much e-waste is toxic and severely impacts land, water, plants, animals, and humans. This damage is permanent. At the other end of the supply chain, fields of wheat and corn have become lakes of toxic sludge to accommodate the rare earth mining industry.^[^15]^ From Mongolia to China to the Congo, people labour in dangerous conditions, mining through the ore-laden mud to find rare minerals to power our devices. Elsewhere, people work endless shifts to assemble computers, phones, tablets. It should be no surprise then that the internet that connects this all is toxic too, evidenced by both the work of content moderators who filter the internet, and the shady tactics used by Big Tech to evade taxes to get filthy rich off the backs of this global human-powered machine. As Ron Deibert put it recently in his 2020 CBC Massey Lectures, “If we continue on this path of unbridled consumption and planned obsolescence, we are doomed.”^[^16]^</p>
<p>
So we can either become extinct from the repercussions of our centuries old destructive neoliberal colonial institutions, as the planet pushes back with more pandemics, storms, and violence, or we can get together and admit to our failures as colonisers. These failures tap into something profound, deeply broken, about what settlers have historically valued and continue to enact. We are living largely in the dark fantasies of ghosts – and these old, settler ideas haunt and break us. We can imagine better. We can make other decisions. We can tune our emotions to move from awareness to anxiety to action. We return public lands to Indigenous peoples. We defund police and dismantle white supremacy. We transform ourselves, and our communication systems will follow.</p>
The dread by now is cumulative. Pick your pain: covid19, white supremacy, climate catastrophe. People are reaching new levels of “doomscrolling” on social media, playing online video games, and “binge-watching” Netflix as ways to pass the time, waiting on the virus to run its course, or for politicians to make a plan. As things shut down, Zoom quickly took over as the way to communicate at a safe social distance. Education quickly became clicking at screens. No more shopping in person meant ordering by way of interfaces. All of these screens more or less allowed things to continue, if not as normal, as a viable alternative in the meantime. It remains to be seen if this online world we’ve adopted so quickly is the new normal, and here to stay, or if it’ll reflect to us the inefficiencies of how we lived before and save us from ourselves. Or, maybe it will call into question the terrible inequities that are only made more evident by this pandemic.
</div>
By April, the news media were already reporting that lockdowns had meant cleaner air and clearer water.[^3] Satellite images showed less pollution over China and the US. Animals were found roaming freely in different parts of India.[^4] “Nature is healing” became a popular meme celebrating the lessening of human impact and nature’s recovery.[^5] But were the effects of lockdown, or quarantine, of humans being trapped in their homes, and of doing everything online, truly a more sustainable way of going about life? Had the turn to “the cloud” proven to be the weightless way forward? Social isolation and disinformation propagation problems aside, could the internet become a tool to inadvertently save the environment?
<div class="references">
[^1]: [[*https://www.convenience.org/Media/Daily/2020/May/1/6-Snack-Sales-Soar-During-Pandemic\_Marketing*]{.underline}](https://www.convenience.org/Media/Daily/2020/May/1/6-Snack-Sales-Soar-During-Pandemic_Marketing)
[[*https://news.italianfood.net/2020/04/02/pre-sliced-packaged-charcuterie-partly-offsets-pandemic-blow/*]{.underline}](https://news.italianfood.net/2020/04/02/pre-sliced-packaged-charcuterie-partly-offsets-pandemic-blow/)
[[*https://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/16078-the-snack-trends-predicted-to-persist-post-pandemic*]{.underline}](https://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/16078-the-snack-trends-predicted-to-persist-post-pandemic)
In thinking of the internet and the many devices connected to it, these account for approximately 2-4% of global greenhouse emissions, which only promise to double by 2025.[^6] Data centres and vast server farms (where data is stored and transmitted) draw more than 80% of their energy from fossil fuel power stations. Online video alone – porn, Netflix, YouTube, Zoom – generated 60% of the world’s total data flows before covid19 hit. A Google search uses as much energy as cooking an egg or boiling water in an electric kettle.[^7] Yearly emails for work (and not accounting for spam) have been calculated to be equal in terms of CO2 emissions to driving 320 kilometres.[^8] These numbers have likely gone up considerably since the pandemic.[^9] This way of living wasn’t sustainable then, and it certainly isn’t now.
[^2]: [[*https://nypost.com/2020/04/13/americans-are-handling-coronavirus-pandemic-by-binging-on-snacks/*]{.underline}](https://nypost.com/2020/04/13/americans-are-handling-coronavirus-pandemic-by-binging-on-snacks/)
[[*https://www.herworld.com/gallery/life/wellness/overeating-binge-eating-covid19-pandemic-work-home/*]{.underline}](https://www.herworld.com/gallery/life/wellness/overeating-binge-eating-covid19-pandemic-work-home/)
There are search engines (eg. Ecosia[^10]) and add-ons (eg. Carbonalyser by The Shift Project,[^11] green-algorithms.org[^12]) that help measure user impacts on the environment, but these miss addressing the bigger questions – such as moving away from confronting personal use to the systemic, material, and ideological issues baked into the internet. Why is the internet like this? The question is more political than it is purely technological. It’s more emotional, even, than it is political. Because we’ve drifted so far away from understanding nature as inherent to human and non-human wellbeing alike, towards unrelenting and exploitative capitalism and extractivism, it means we now have these massively entangled systems that reinforce one another, generate profit for the very few, but in the end benefit nothing and nobody.[^13] These systems are harder to abolish or undo, so instead we turn to solutions that lessen their impacts, and we consider the rest inevitable – or worse, natural. We might, for example, shift data centers to cooler climates to save on cooling costs, we might develop more efficient software, we might offer carbon offsetting and plant trees, but none of these technofixes reach the heart of the our current predicament: our solutions and our problems originate from the same short-sighted, greed-driven, competitive, and market-driven agendas that caused this global deadly pandemic in the first place.
[^3]: [[*https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/coronavirus-shutdowns-have-unintended-climate-benefits-n1161921*]{.underline}](https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/coronavirus-shutdowns-have-unintended-climate-benefits-n1161921)
In 2020, we are generating 50 million tons worldwide of electronic waste, with an annual growth of 5%.[^14] This means that we produce e-waste at three times the rate that humans reproduce. Much e-waste is toxic and severely impacts land, water, plants, animals, and humans. This damage is permanent. At the other end of the supply chain, fields of wheat and corn have become lakes of toxic sludge to accommodate the rare earth mining industry.[^15] From Mongolia to China to the Congo, people labour in dangerous conditions, mining through the ore-laden mud to find rare minerals to power our devices. Elsewhere, people work endless shifts to assemble computers, phones, tablets. It should be no surprise then that the internet that connects this all is toxic too, evidenced by both the work of content moderators who filter the internet, and the shady tactics used by Big Tech to evade taxes to get filthy rich off the backs of this global human-powered machine. As Ron Deibert put it recently in his 2020 CBC Massey Lectures, “If we continue on this path of unbridled consumption and planned obsolescence, we are doomed.”[^16]
[^4]: [[*https://www.planetofstudents.com/blog/social-awareness/effects-of-lockdown-on-the-environment/*]{.underline}](https://www.planetofstudents.com/blog/social-awareness/effects-of-lockdown-on-the-environment/)
So we can either become extinct from the repercussions of our centuries old destructive neoliberal colonial institutions, as the planet pushes back with more pandemics, storms, and violence, or we can get together and admit to our failures as colonisers. These failures tap into something profound, deeply broken, about what settlers have historically valued and continue to enact. We are living largely in the dark fantasies of ghosts – and these old, settler ideas haunt and break us. We can imagine better. We can make other decisions. We can tune our emotions to move from awareness to anxiety to action. We return public lands to Indigenous peoples. We defund police and dismantle white supremacy. We transform ourselves, and our communication systems will follow.
[^5]: [[*https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/coronavirus-meme-nature-is-healing-we-are-the-virus*]{.underline}](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/coronavirus-meme-nature-is-healing-we-are-the-virus)
[^1]: [https://www.convenience.org/Media/Daily/2020/May/1/6-Snack-Sales-Soar-During-Pandemic\_Marketing](https://www.convenience.org/Media/Daily/2020/May/1/6-Snack-Sales-Soar-During-Pandemic_Marketing)
[https://news.italianfood.net/2020/04/02/pre-sliced-packaged-charcuterie-partly-offsets-pandemic-blow/](https://news.italianfood.net/2020/04/02/pre-sliced-packaged-charcuterie-partly-offsets-pandemic-blow/)
[https://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/16078-the-snack-trends-predicted-to-persist-post-pandemic](https://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/16078-the-snack-trends-predicted-to-persist-post-pandemic)
[^6]: [[*https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think*]{.underline}](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think)
[^2]: [https://nypost.com/2020/04/13/americans-are-handling-coronavirus-pandemic-by-binging-on-snacks/](https://nypost.com/2020/04/13/americans-are-handling-coronavirus-pandemic-by-binging-on-snacks/)
[https://www.herworld.com/gallery/life/wellness/overeating-binge-eating-covid19-pandemic-work-home/](https://www.herworld.com/gallery/life/wellness/overeating-binge-eating-covid19-pandemic-work-home/)
[^7]: [[*https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/jan/12/carbon-emissions-google*]{.underline}](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/jan/12/carbon-emissions-google)
[^3]: [https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/coronavirus-shutdowns-have-unintended-climate-benefits-n1161921](https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/coronavirus-shutdowns-have-unintended-climate-benefits-n1161921)
[^8]: [[*https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think*]{.underline}](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think)
[^4]: [https://www.planetofstudents.com/blog/social-awareness/effects-of-lockdown-on-the-environment/](https://www.planetofstudents.com/blog/social-awareness/effects-of-lockdown-on-the-environment/)
[^5]: [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/coronavirus-meme-nature-is-healing-we-are-the-virus](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/coronavirus-meme-nature-is-healing-we-are-the-virus)
[^6]: [https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think)
[^7]: [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/jan/12/carbon-emissions-google](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/jan/12/carbon-emissions-google)
[^8]: [https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think)
and
[[*https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/technology-55002423*]{.underline}](https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/technology-55002423)
[https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/technology-55002423](https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/technology-55002423)
[^9]: [[*https://theshiftproject.org/en/article/unsustainable-use-online-video/*]{.underline}](https://theshiftproject.org/en/article/unsustainable-use-online-video/)
[^9]: [https://theshiftproject.org/en/article/unsustainable-use-online-video/](https://theshiftproject.org/en/article/unsustainable-use-online-video/)
[^10]: [[*https://www.ecosia.org/*]{.underline}](https://www.ecosia.org/)
[^10]: [https://www.ecosia.org/](https://www.ecosia.org/)
[^11]: [[*https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/carbonalyser/*]{.underline}](https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/carbonalyser/)
[^11]: [https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/carbonalyser/](https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/carbonalyser/)
[^12]: [[*http://www.green-algorithms.org/*]{.underline}](http://www.green-algorithms.org/)
[^12]: [http://www.green-algorithms.org/](http://www.green-algorithms.org/)
[^13]: [[*https://landback.org/manifesto/*]{.underline}](https://landback.org/manifesto/)
[^13]: [https://landback.org/manifesto/](https://landback.org/manifesto/)
[^14]: [[*https://www.thebalancesmb.com/e-waste-recycling-facts-and-figures-2878189*]{.underline}](https://www.thebalancesmb.com/e-waste-recycling-facts-and-figures-2878189)
[^14]: [https://www.thebalancesmb.com/e-waste-recycling-facts-and-figures-2878189](https://www.thebalancesmb.com/e-waste-recycling-facts-and-figures-2878189)
[^15]: [[*https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html*]{.underline}](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html)
[^15]: [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html)
[^16]: [[*https://munkschool.exposure.co/a-qa-with-ron-deibert*]{.underline}](https://munkschool.exposure.co/a-qa-with-ron-deibert)
[^16]: [https://munkschool.exposure.co/a-qa-with-ron-deibert](https://munkschool.exposure.co/a-qa-with-ron-deibert)
</div>
<p id="summary"> The Pandemic's Dark Cloud was written in November 2020 as a
-------------------------------
*The Pandemic's Dark Cloud* was written in November 2020 as a
reflection on the relationship between the pandemic and environmental
media, with a focus on "the cloud" and its undergirding networked
infrastructure. The central idea of this piece is to demonstrate the
interconnectedness of all things -- covid, care, community, nature,
ewaste, racism, greed -- in both the making and undoing of our modern
communication systems.
<br><br>
This piece is intended as a provocation, so your thoughts and feelings
are very welcomed! </p>
are very welcomed!
<div class="bio-mel">
--------------------------------
*Mél Hogan is the Director of the [[Environmental Media Lab
(EML)]{.underline}](https://www.environmentalmedialab.com/)* and [[Associate
Professor]{.underline}](https://www.melhogan.com/) at the University of Calgary,
**Mél Hogan** is the Director of the [Environmental Media Lab
(EML)](https://www.environmentalmedialab.com/) and [Associate
Professor](https://www.melhogan.com/) at the University of Calgary,
Canada. She is also an Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of
Communication. Career highlights so far include keynoting the 2020
McLuhan lecture at the Canadian Embassy in Berlin, and giving a plenary
at transmediale 2020.\
\@mel\_hogan / melhogan.com / mhogan\@ucalgary.ca* </div>
at transmediale 2020.
[@mel_hogan](https://twitter.com/@mel_hogan), [melhogan.com](https://melhogan.com), [mhogan@ucalgary.ca](mailto:mhogan@ucalgary.ca)

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Title: Re-Centralization of AI focusing on Social Justice
Author: Adnan Hadzi, Denis Roio
Date: 19 February 2021
<p id="colophon_title">Colophon</p>
<div class="colophon">
<p>A Nourishing Network is a peer-to-peer publishing experiment starting from the feed as a potentially multi-directional circulation device.</p>
<p>A Nourishing Network is initiated by servus.at (Davide Bevilacqua) in collaboration with varia.zone (Alice Strete & Manetta Berends) and is published in the context of AMRO 2020 (Arts Meets Radical Openness). </p>
<p> Editing: Davide Bevilacqua <br> Design and development: Manetta Berends, Alice Strete <br> Paper: xxxx <br> Typeface: Gnu Unifont, White Rabbit, Ansi Shadow <br> Print and production: Varia <br> This project is produced with Free Software tools. The feeds are made with Pelican & Weasyprint.
</p>
<p> Davide is an artist and curator working is the blurry area between media and contemporary art. </p><p> Manetta Berends is a designer working with forms of networked publishing, situated software and collective infrastructures. </p> <p>Alice Strete is an artist and researcher interested in the intricate relationship between humans and the technologies they surround themselves with. </p> <p>Many thanks to our partners, collaborators, authors and the AMRO community. </p>
<p> Published under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.</p>
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<div class="first-page">
<div id="title_edition"> A Nourishing Network - December 2020</div>
<div id="title">Re-Centralization of AI focusing on Social Justice</div>
<div id="author"> by Adnan Hadzi, Dennis Roio</div>
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<header id="pageheader-issue">A Nourishing Network</header>
<header id="pageheader-theme">Re-Centralization of AI <br> focusing on Social Justice</header>
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@ -55,31 +12,30 @@ Author: Adnan Hadzi, Denis Roio
n order to lay the foundations for a discussion around
the argument that the adoption of artificial
intelligence (AI) technologies benefits the powerful
few,^[^1]^ focusing on their own existential concerns,^[^2]^ we
few,[^1] focusing on their own existential concerns,[^2] we
decided to narrow down our analysis of the argument
to social justice (i.e. restorative justice). This paper
signifies an edited version of Adnan Hadzi’s text on
Social Justice and Artificial Intelligence,^[^3]^ exploring the
notion of humanised artificial intelligence^[^4]^ in order to
Social Justice and Artificial Intelligence,[^3] exploring the
notion of humanised artificial intelligence[^4] in order to
discuss potential challenges society might face in the
future. The paper does not discuss current forms and
applications of artificial intelligence, as, so far, there
is no AI technology, which is self-conscious and self-
aware, being able to deal with emotional and social
intelligence.^[^5]^ It is a discussion around AI as a speculative
is no AI technology, which is self-conscious and self-aware, being able to deal with emotional and social
intelligence.[^5] It is a discussion around AI as a speculative
hypothetical entity. One could then ask, if such a speculative
self-conscious hardware/software system were created, at what
point could one talk of personhood? And what criteria could
there be in order to say an AI system was capable of
committing AI crimes?</p>
<p>
committing AI crimes?
Concerning what constitutes AI crimes the paper uses the
criteria given in Thomas King et al.’s paper Artificial
Intelligence Crime: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Foreseeable
Threats and Solutions,^[^6]^ where King et al. coin the term “AI
Threats and Solutions,[^6] where King et al. coin the term “AI
crime”. We discuss the construction of the legal system through
the lens of political involvement of what one may want to
consider to be ‘powerful elites’^[^7]^. In doing so we will be
consider to be ‘powerful elites’[^7]. In doing so we will be
demonstrating that it is difficult to prove that the adoption of AI
technologies is undertaken in a way, which mainly serves a
powerful class in society. Nevertheless, analysing the culture
@ -88,76 +44,75 @@ philosophical and sociological focus enables us to demonstrate
a utilitarian and authoritarian trend in the adoption of AI
technologies. Mason argues that “virtue ethics is the only
ethics fit for the task of imposing collective human control on
thinking machines”^[^8]^ and AI. We will apply virtue ethics to our
discourse around artificial intelligence and ethics. </p>
<p>
thinking machines”[^8] and AI. We will apply virtue ethics to our
discourse around artificial intelligence and ethics.
As expert in AI safety Steve Omonhundro believes that AI is
“likely to behave in antisocial and harmful ways unless they are
very carefully designed.”^[^9]^ It is through virtue ethics that this
very carefully designed”.[^9] It is through virtue ethics that this
paper will propose for such a design to be centred around
restorative justice in order to take control over AI and thinking
machines, following Mason’s radical defense of the human and
his critique of current thoughts within trans- and post-
humanism as a submission to machine logic.</p>
<p>
humanism as a submission to machine logic.
The paper will conclude by proposing an alternative
practically unattainable, approach to the current legal system
by looking into restorative justice for AI crimes,^[^10]^ and how the
by looking into restorative justice for AI crimes,[^10] and how the
ethics of care could be applied to AI technologies. In conclusion
the paper will discuss affect^[^11]^ and humanised artificial
the paper will discuss affect[^11] and humanised artificial
intelligence with regards to the emotion of shame, when
dealing with AI crimes. In this paper we will aim at re-centralizing AI ethics through social justice, with focus on restorative justice, allowing for an advanced jurisprudence, where human and machine can work in symbiosis on reaching virtue ethics, rather than being in conflict with each other.</p>
dealing with AI crimes. In this paper we will aim at re-centralizing AI ethics through social justice, with focus on restorative justice, allowing for an advanced jurisprudence, where human and machine can work in symbiosis on reaching virtue ethics, rather than being in conflict with each other.
<p>
In order to discuss AI in relation to personhood this paper
follows the descriptive psychology method^[^12]^ of the paradigm
case formulation^[^13]^ developed by Peter Ossorio.^[^14]^ Similar to how
follows the descriptive psychology method[^12] of the paradigm
case formulation[^13] developed by Peter Ossorio.[^14] Similar to how
some animal rights activists call for certain animals to be
recognised as non-human persons,^[^15]^ this paper speculates on
recognised as non-human persons,[^15] this paper speculates on
the notion of AI as a non-human person being able to reflect on
ethical concerns.^[^16]^ Here Wynn Schwartz argues that “it is
ethical concerns.[^16] Here Wynn Schwartz argues that “it is
reasonable to include non-humans as persons and to have
legitimate grounds for disagreeing where the line is properly
drawn. In good faith, competent judges using this formulation
can clearly point to where and why they agree or disagree on
what is to be included in the category of persons.”^[^17]^
what is to be included in the category of persons”.[^17]
In the case of AI technologies we ask whether the current
vision for the adoption of AI technologies, a vision which is
mainly supporting the military-industrial complex through vast
investments in army AI,^[^18]^ is a vision that benefits mainly
powerful elites. </p>
<p>In order to discuss these questions, one has to
investments in army AI,[^18] is a vision that benefits mainly
powerful elites.
In order to discuss these questions, one has to
analyse the history of AI technologies leading to the kind of
‘humanised’ AI system this paper posits. The old-fashioned
approach,^[^19]^ some may still say contemporary approach, was to
primarily research into ‘mind-only’^[^20]^ AI technologies/systems.
approach,[^19] some may still say contemporary approach, was to
primarily research into ‘mind-only’[^20] AI technologies/systems.
Through high level reasoning, researchers were optimistic that
AI technology would quickly become a reality.</p>
AI technology would quickly become a reality.
Those early AI technologies were a disembodied approach
using high level logical and abstract symbols. By the end of the
80s researchers found that the disembodied approach was not
even achieving low level tasks humans could easily perform.^[^21]^
even achieving low level tasks humans could easily perform.[^21]
During that period many researchers stopped working on AI
technologies and systems, and the period is often referred to as
the “AI winter”.^[^22]^ Rodney Brooks then came forward with the proposition of
“Nouvelle AI”,^[^23]^ arguing that the old-fashioned approach did
the “AI winter”.[^22] Rodney Brooks then came forward with the proposition of
“Nouvelle AI”,[^23] arguing that the old-fashioned approach did
not take into consideration motor skills and neural networks.
Only by the end of the 90s did researchers develop statistical
AI systems without the need for any high-level logical
reasoning;^[^24]^ instead AI systems were ‘guessing’ through
reasoning;[^24] instead AI systems were ‘guessing’ through
algorithms and machine learning. This signalled a first step
towards humanistic artificial intelligence, as this resembles
how humans make intuitive decisions;^[^25]^ here researchers
suggest that embodiment improves cognition.^[^26]^
how humans make intuitive decisions;[^25] here researchers
suggest that embodiment improves cognition.[^26]
With embodiment theory Brooks argued that AI systems
would operate best when computing only the data that was
absolutely necessary.^[^27]^ Further in Developing Embodied
absolutely necessary.[^27] Further in Developing Embodied
Multisensory Dialogue Agents Michal Paradowski argues that
without considering embodiment, e.g. the physics of the brain,
it is not possible to create AI technologies/systems capable of
comprehension. </p>
comprehension.
<p>
Foucault’s theories are especially helpful in discussing how
the “rule of truth” has disciplined civilisation, allowing for an
adoption of AI technologies which seem to benefit mainly the
@ -165,9 +120,9 @@ upper-class. But then should we think of a notion of ‘deep-truth’
as the unwieldy product of deep learning AI algorithms?
Discussions around truth, Foucault states, form legislation into
something that “decides, transmits and itself extends upon the
effects of power”^[^28]^. Foucault’s theories help to explain how
effects of power”[^28]. Foucault’s theories help to explain how
legislation, as an institution, is rolled out throughout society
with very little resistance, or “proletarian counter-justice”^[^29]^.
with very little resistance, or “proletarian counter-justice”[^29].
Foucault explains that this has made the justice system and
legislation a for-profit system. With this understanding of
legislation, and social justice, one does need to reflect further
@ -176,66 +131,66 @@ its distributed nature in the modern state. Namely one has to
analyse the distributed nature of those AI technologies,
especially through networks and protocols, so that the link can
now be made to AI technologies becoming ‘legally’ more
profitable, in the hands of the upper-class.</p>
<p>
profitable, in the hands of the upper-class.
In Protocol, Alexander Galloway describes how these
protocols changed the notion of power and how “control exists
after decentralization”^[^30]^. Galloway argues that protocol has a
after decentralization”[^30]. Galloway argues that protocol has a
close connection to both Deleuze’s concept of control and
Foucault’s concept of biopolitics^[^31]^ by claiming that the key to
Foucault’s concept of biopolitics[^31] by claiming that the key to
perceiving protocol as power is to acknowledge that “protocol
is an affective, aesthetic force that has control over life itself.”^[^32]^
is an affective, aesthetic force that has control over life itself”.[^32]
Galloway suggests that it is important to discuss more than the
technologies, and to look into the structures of control within
technological systems, which also include underlying codes and
protocols, in order to distinguish between methods that can
support collective production, e.g. sharing of AI technologies
within society, and those that put the AI technologies in the
hands of the powerful few.^[^33]^ Galloway’s argument in the
hands of the powerful few.[^33] Galloway’s argument in the
chapter Hacking is that the existence of protocols “not only
installs control into a terrain that on its surface appears
actively to resist it”^[^34]^, but goes on to create the highly
actively to resist it”[^34], but goes on to create the highly
controlled network environment. For Galloway hacking is “an
index of protocological transformations taking place in the
broader world of techno-culture.”^[^35]^ </p>
<p>
broader world of techno-culture”.[^35]
Having said this, the prospect could be raised that
restorative justice might offer “a solution that could deliver
more meaningful justice”^[^36]^. With respect to AI technologies,
more meaningful justice”[^36]. With respect to AI technologies,
and the potential inherent in them for AI crimes, instead of
following a retributive legislative approach, an ethical
discourse,^[^37]^ with a deeper consideration for the sufferers of AI
crimes should be adopted.^[^38]^ We ask: could restorative justice
discourse,[^37] with a deeper consideration for the sufferers of AI
crimes should be adopted.[^38] We ask: could restorative justice
offer an alternative way of dealing with the occurrence of AI
crimes?^[^39]^ </p>
crimes?[^39]
<p>
Dale Millar and Neil Vidmar described two psychological
perceptions of justice.^[^40]^ One is behavioural control, following
perceptions of justice.[^40] One is behavioural control, following
the legal code as strictly as possible, punishing any
wrongdoer,^[^41]^ and second the restorative justice system, which
wrongdoer,[^41] and second the restorative justice system, which
focuses on restoration where harm was done. Thus an
alternative approach for the ethical implementation of AI
technologies, with respect to legislation, might be to follow
restorative justice principles. Restorative justice would allow
for AI technologies to learn how to care about ethics.^[^42]^ Julia
for AI technologies to learn how to care about ethics.[^42] Julia
Fionda describes restorative justice as a conciliation between
victim and offender, during which the offence is deliberated
upon.^[^43]^ Both parties try to come to an agreement on how to
upon.[^43] Both parties try to come to an agreement on how to
achieve restoration for the damage done, to the situation
before the crime (here an AI crime) happened. Restorative
justice advocates compassion for the victim and offender, and a
consciousness on the part of the offenders as to the
repercussion of their crimes. The victims of AI crimes would
not only be placed in front of a court, but also be offered
engagement in the process of seeking justice and restoration.^[^44]^ </p>
<p>
engagement in the process of seeking justice and restoration.[^44]
Restorative justice might support victims of AI crimes better
than the punitive legal system, as it allows for the sufferers of
AI crimes to be heard in a personalised way, which could be
adopted to the needs of the victims (and offenders). As victims
and offenders represent themselves in restorative conferencing
sessions, these become much more affordable,^[^45]^ meaning that the barrier to seeking justice due to the financial costs would
sessions, these become much more affordable,[^45] meaning that the barrier to seeking justice due to the financial costs would
be partly eliminated, allowing for poor parties to be able to
contribute to the process of justice. This would benefit wider
society and AI technologies would not only be defined by a
@ -243,30 +198,26 @@ powerful elite. Restorative justice could hold the potential not
only to discuss the AI crimes themselves, but also to get to the
root of the problem and discuss the cause of an AI crime. For
John Braithwaite restorative justice makes re-offending
harder.^[^46]^</p>
harder.[^46]
<p>
In such a scenario, a future AI system capable of committing
AI crimes would need to have knowledge of ethics around the
particular discourse of restorative justice. The implementation
of AI technologies will lead to a discourse around who is
responsible for actions taken by AI technologies. Even when
considering clearly defined ethical guidelines, these might be
difficult to implement,^[^47]^ due to the pressure of competition AI
difficult to implement,[^47] due to the pressure of competition AI
systems find themselves in. That said, this speculation is
restricted to humanised artificial intelligence systems. The
main hindrance for AI technologies to be part of a restorative
justice system might be that of the very human emotion of
shame. Without a clear understanding of shame it will be
impossible to resolve AI crimes in a restorative manner.^[^48]^ </p>
impossible to resolve AI crimes in a restorative manner.[^48]
<p>
Furthering this perspective, we suggest that reflections brought by new materialism should also be taken into account: not only as a critical perspective on the engendering and anthropomorphic representation of AI, but also to broaden the spectrum of what we consider to be justice in relation to all the living world. Without this new perspective the sort of idealized AI image of a non-living intelligence that deals with enormous amounts of information risks to serve the abstraction of anthropocentric views into a computationalist acceleration, with deafening results. Rather than such an implosive perspective, the application of law and jurisprudence may take advantage of AI’s computational and sensorial enhanced capabilities by including all information gathered from the environment, also that produced by plants, animals and soil. Thus one might want to think about a humanised symbiosis
between humans and technology,^[^49]^ along the lines of Garry
Kasparov’s advanced chess,^[^50]^ as in advanced jurisprudence.^[^51]^ A
legal system where human and machine work together on
restoring justice, for social justice. </p>
</div>
between humans and technology,[^49] along the lines of Garry
Kasparov’s advanced chess,[^50] as in advanced jurisprudence.[^51] A legal system where human and machine work together on
restoring justice, for social justice.
[^1]: Cp. G. Chaslot, “YouTube’s A.I. was divisive in the US presidential election”, Medium, November 27, 2016. Available at: https://medium.com/the-graph/youtubes-ai-is-neutral-towards-clicks-but-is-biased-towards-people-and-ideas-3a2f643dea9a#.tjuusil7d [accessed February 25, 2018]; E. Morozov, “The Geopolitics Of Artificial Intelligence”, FutureFest, London, 2018. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g0hx9LPBq8 [accessed October 25, 2019].
[^2]: Cp. M. Busby, “Use of ‘Killer Robots’ in Wars Would Breach Law, Say Campaigners”, The Guardian, August 21, 2018. Available at : https://web.archive.org/web/20181203074423/https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/aug/21/use-of-killer-robots-in-wars-would-breach-law-say-campaigners [accessed October 25, 2019].
@ -292,103 +243,38 @@ restoring justice, for social justice. </p>
[^22]: Cp. D. Crevier, AI: The Tumultuous History of the Search for Artificial Intelligence, New York, Basic Books, 1993; H.P. Newquist, The Brain Makers, Indianapolis, Ind: Sams., 1994.
[^23]: Cp. R. Brooks, “A Robust Layered Control System for a Mobile Robot”, IEEE Journal on Robotics and Automation, 2 (1), 1986, pp. 14–23. Available at: https://doi.org/510.1109/JRA.1986.1087032 [accessed October 25, 2019].
[^24]: Cp. Brooks, Cambrian Intelligence.
[^25]:Cp. R. Pfeifer, “Embodied Artificial Intelligence”, presented at the
International Interdisciplinary Seminar on New Robotics, Evolution and Embodied Cognition,
Lisbon, November, 2002. Available at: https://www.informatics.indiana.edu/rocha/
publications/embrob/pfeifer.html [accessed October 25, 2019].
[^26]: Cp. T. Renzenbrink, “Embodiment of Artificial Intelligence Improves Cognition”, Elektormagazine, February 9, 2012. Available at: https://www.elektormagazine.com/articles/embodiment-of-artificial-intelligence-improves-cognition
[accessed January 10, 2019]; G. Zarkadakis, “Artificial Intelligence & Embodiment:
Does Alexa Have a Body?”, Medium, May 6, 2018. Available at:
https://medium.com/@georgezarkadakis
/artificial-intelligence-embodiment-does-alexa-have-a-body-d5b97521a201
[accessed January 10, 2019].
[^27]: Cp. L. Steels and R. Brooks, The Artificial Life Route to Artificial
Intelligence: Building Embodied, Situated Agents, London/New York, Taylor
& Francis, 1995.
[^28]: M. Foucault, “Disciplinary Power and Subjection”, in S. Lukes (ed.),
Power, New York, NYU Press, 1986, pp. 229–242, here: p. 230.
[^29]: M. Foucault, Power, edited by C. Gordon, London, Penguin, 1980,
p. 34.6
[^30]: A.R. Galloway, Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization,
Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2004, p. 81.
[^31]: Cp. M. Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the
Collège de France, 1978–1979, London, Pan Macmillan, 2008.
[^25]:Cp. R. Pfeifer, “Embodied Artificial Intelligence”, presented at the International Interdisciplinary Seminar on New Robotics, Evolution and Embodied Cognition, Lisbon, November, 2002. Available at: https://www.informatics.indiana.edu/rocha/ publications/embrob/pfeifer.html [accessed October 25, 2019].
[^26]: Cp. T. Renzenbrink, “Embodiment of Artificial Intelligence Improves Cognition”, Elektormagazine, February 9, 2012. Available at: https://www.elektormagazine.com/articles/embodiment-of-artificial-intelligence-improves-cognition [accessed January 10, 2019]; G. Zarkadakis, “Artificial Intelligence & Embodiment: Does Alexa Have a Body?”, Medium, May 6, 2018. Available at: https://medium.com/@georgezarkadakis /artificial-intelligence-embodiment-does-alexa-have-a-body-d5b97521a201 [accessed January 10, 2019].
[^27]: Cp. L. Steels and R. Brooks, The Artificial Life Route to Artificial Intelligence: Building Embodied, Situated Agents, London/New York, Taylor & Francis, 1995.
[^28]: M. Foucault, “Disciplinary Power and Subjection”, in S. Lukes (ed.), Power, New York, NYU Press, 1986, pp. 229–242, here: p. 230.
[^29]: M. Foucault, Power, edited by C. Gordon, London, Penguin, 1980, p. 34.6
[^30]: A.R. Galloway, Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2004, p. 81.
[^31]: Cp. M. Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979, London, Pan Macmillan, 2008.
[^32]: Galloway, Protocol, p. 81.
[^33]: Cp. Galloway, Protocol, p. 147.
[^34]: Galloway, Protocol, p. 146.
[^35]: Galloway, Protocol, p. 157.
[^36]: Crook, Comparative Media Law and Ethics, p. 310.7
[^37]: Cp. R. Courtland, “Bias Detectives: The Researchers Striving to
Make Algorithms Fair”, Nature, 558, 2018, pp. 357–360. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05469-3 [accessed October 25, 2019].
[^38]: Cp. H. Fry, “We Hold People With Power to Account. Why Not
Algorithms?” The Guardian, September 17, 2018. Available at:
https://web.archive.org/web/201901021
94739/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/17/power-
algorithms-technology-regulate [accessed October 25, 2019].
[^39]: Cp. O. Etzioni, “How to Regulate Artificial Intelligence”, The New
York
Times,
January
20,
2018.
Available
at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/opinion/artificial-intelligence-
regulations-rules.html [accessed October 25, 2019]; A. Goel, “Ethics and
Artificial Intelligence”, The New York Times, December 22, 2017. Available
at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/14/opinion/artificial-intelligence.html
[accessed October 25, 2019].
[^40]: Cp. N. Vidmar and D.T. Miller, “Socialpsychological Processes
Underlying Attitudes Toward Legal Punishment”, Law and Society Review,
1980, pp. 565–602.
[^41]: Cp. M. Wenzel and T.G. Okimoto, “How Acts of Forgiveness Restore
a Sense of Justice: Addressing Status/Power and Value Concerns Raised by
Transgressions”, European Journal of Social Psychology, 40 (3), 2010, pp.
401–417.
[^42]: Cp. N. Bostrom and E. Yudkowsky, “The Ethics of Artificial
Intelligence”, in K. Frankish and W.M. Ramsey (ed.), The Cambridge
Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
2014, pp. 316–334; Frankish and Ramsey, The Cambridge Handbook of
Artificial Intelligence.
[^43]: Cp. J. Fionda, Devils and Angels: Youth Policy and Crime, London,
Hart, 2005.8
[^37]: Cp. R. Courtland, “Bias Detectives: The Researchers Striving to Make Algorithms Fair”, Nature, 558, 2018, pp. 357–360. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05469-3 [accessed October 25, 2019].
[^38]: Cp. H. Fry, “We Hold People With Power to Account. Why Not Algorithms?” The Guardian, September 17, 2018. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/201901021 94739/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/17/power- algorithms-technology-regulate [accessed October 25, 2019].
[^39]: Cp. O. Etzioni, “How to Regulate Artificial Intelligence”, The New York Times, January 20, 2018. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/opinion/artificial-intelligence- regulations-rules.html [accessed October 25, 2019]; A. Goel, “Ethics and Artificial Intelligence”, The New York Times, December 22, 2017. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/14/opinion/artificial-intelligence.html [accessed October 25, 2019].
[^40]: Cp. N. Vidmar and D.T. Miller, “Socialpsychological Processes Underlying Attitudes Toward Legal Punishment”, Law and Society Review, 1980, pp. 565–602.
[^41]: Cp. M. Wenzel and T.G. Okimoto, “How Acts of Forgiveness Restore a Sense of Justice: Addressing Status/Power and Value Concerns Raised by Transgressions”, European Journal of Social Psychology, 40 (3), 2010, pp. 401–417.
[^42]: Cp. N. Bostrom and E. Yudkowsky, “The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence”, in K. Frankish and W.M. Ramsey (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 316–334; Frankish and Ramsey, The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence.
[^43]: Cp. J. Fionda, Devils and Angels: Youth Policy and Crime, London, Hart, 2005.8
[^44]: Cp. Nils Christie, “Conflicts as Property”, The British Journal of Criminology, 17 (1), 1977, pp. 1–15.
[^45]: Cp. J. Braithwaite, “Restorative Justice and a Better Future”, in E. McLaughlin and G. Hughes (eds.), Restorative Justice: Critical Issues, London, SAGE, 2003, pp. 54–67.
[^46]: Cp. J. Braithwaite, Crime, Shame and Reintegration, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989.
[^47]: Cp. A. Conn, “Podcast: Law and Ethics of Artificial Intelligence”, Future of Life, March 31, 2017. Available at: https://futureoflife.org/2017/03/31/podcast-law-ethics-artificial-intelligence/ [accessed September, 22 2018].
[^48]: Cp. A. Rawnsley, “Madeleine Albright: ‘The Things that are Happening are Genuinely, Seriously Bad’”, The Guardian, July 8, 2018. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20190106193657/https://www.theguardian.com9/books/2018/jul/08/madeleine-albright-fascism-is-not-an-ideology-its-a-method-interview-fascism-a-warning [accessed October 25, 2019].
[^49]: Cp. D. Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto”, Socialist Review, 15 (2), 1985. Available at: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html [accessed October 25, 2019]; C. Thompson, “The Cyborg Advantage”, Wired, March 22, 2010. Available at: https://www.wired.com/2010/03/st-thompson- cyborgs/ [accessed October 25, 2019].
[^50]: Cp. J. Hipp et al., “Computer Aided Diagnostic Tools Aim to Empower Rather than Replace Pathologists: Lessons Learned from Computational Chess”, Journal of Pathology Informatics, 2, 2011. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4103/2153-3539.82050 [accessed October 25, 2019].
[^51]: Cp. J. Baggini, “Memo to Those Seeking to Live for Ever: Eternal Life Would be Deathly Dull”, The Guardian, July 8, 2018. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20181225111455/https://www.theguardian.com /commentisfree/2018/jul/08/live-for-ever-eternal-life-deathly-dull-immortality [accessed October 25, 2019].
[^44]: Cp. Nils Christie, “Conflicts as Property”, The British Journal of
Criminology, 17 (1), 1977, pp. 1–15.
[^45]: Cp. J. Braithwaite, “Restorative Justice and a Better Future”, in E.
McLaughlin and G. Hughes (eds.), Restorative Justice: Critical Issues,
London, SAGE, 2003, pp. 54–67.
[^46]: Cp. J. Braithwaite, Crime, Shame and Reintegration, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 1989.
[^47]: Cp. A. Conn, “Podcast: Law and Ethics of Artificial Intelligence”,
Future
of
Life,
March
31,
2017.
Available
at:
https://futureoflife.org/2017/03/31/podcast-law-ethics-artificial-intelligence/
[accessed September, 22 2018].
[^48]: Cp. A. Rawnsley, “Madeleine Albright: ‘The Things that are
Happening are Genuinely, Seriously Bad’”, The Guardian, July 8, 2018.
Available
at:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190106193657/https://www.theguardian.com9/books/2018/jul/08/madeleine-albright-fascism-is-not-an-ideology-its-a-method-interview-fascism-a-warning [accessed October 25, 2019].
[^49]: Cp. D. Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto”, Socialist Review, 15 (2), 1985.
Available at:
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html
[accessed October 25, 2019]; C. Thompson, “The Cyborg Advantage”, Wired,
March 22, 2010. Available at: https://www.wired.com/2010/03/st-thompson-
cyborgs/ [accessed October 25, 2019].
[^50]: Cp. J. Hipp et al., “Computer Aided Diagnostic Tools Aim to
Empower Rather than Replace Pathologists: Lessons Learned from
Computational Chess”, Journal of Pathology Informatics, 2, 2011. Available
at: https://doi.org/10.4103/2153-3539.82050 [accessed October 25, 2019].
[^51]: Cp. J. Baggini, “Memo to Those Seeking to Live for Ever: Eternal
Life Would be Deathly Dull”, The Guardian, July 8, 2018. Available at:
https://web.archive.org/web/20181225111455/https://www.theguardian.com
/commentisfree/2018/jul/08/live-for-ever-eternal-life-deathly-dull-immortality
[accessed October 25, 2019].
-----------------------
**Adnan Hadzi** is currently working as resident researcher at the University of Malta. Adnan has been a regular at Deckspace Media Lab, for the last decade, a period over which he has developed his research at Goldsmiths, University of London, based on his work with Deptford. TV/Deckspace.TV. It is through Free and Open Source Software and technologies this research has a social impact. Currently Adnan is a participant researcher in the MAZI/CreekNet research collaboration with the boattr project.
Adnan is co-editing and producing the after.video video book, exploring video as theory, reflecting upon networked video, as it profoundly re-shapes medial patterns (Youtube, citizen journalism, video surveillance etc.). Adnan’s documentary film work tracks artist pranksters The Yes Men and net provocatours Bitnik Collective. Bitnik’s practice expands from the digital to affect physical spaces, often intentionally applying loss of control to challenge established structures and mechanisms, formulating fundamental questions concerning contemporary issues. <http://dek.spc.org>, <http://bitnik.org>, <http://deptford.tv>
**Denis Roio**, better known by the hacker name Jaromil, is CTO and co~founder of the Dyne.org software house and think&do tank based in Amsterdam, developers of free and open source software with a strong focus on peer to peer networks, social values, cryptography, disintermediation and sustainability. Jaromil holds a Ph.D on “Algorithmic Sovereignty” and received the Vilém Flusser Award at transmediale (Berlin, 2009) while leading for 6 years the R&D department of the Netherlands Media art Institute (Montevideo/TBA). He is the leading technical architect of DECODE, an EU funded project on blockchain technologies and data ownership, involving pilots in cooperation with the municipalities of Barcelona and Amsterdam.

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Title: Infrastructure mega corridors: a way out (or in) to the crisis?
Author: Recommon.org
Date: 12 February 2021
*"Infrastructure mega corridors: a way out (or in) to the crisis?"*
<p id="colophon_title">Colophon</p>
<div class="colophon">
<p>A Nourishing Network is a peer-to-peer publishing experiment starting from the feed as a potentially multi-directional circulation device.</p>
<p>A Nourishing Network is initiated by servus.at (Davide Bevilacqua) in collaboration with varia.zone (Alice Strete & Manetta Berends) and is published in the context of AMRO 2020 (Arts Meets Radical Openness). </p>
<p> Editing: Davide Bevilacqua <br> Design and development: Manetta Berends, Alice Strete <br> Paper: xxxx <br> Typeface: Gnu Unifont, White Rabbit, Ansi Shadow <br> Print and production: Varia <br> This project is produced with Free Software tools. The feeds are made with Pelican & Weasyprint.
</p>
<p> Davide is an artist and curator working is the blurry area between media and contemporary art. </p><p> Manetta Berends is a designer working with forms of networked publishing, situated software and collective infrastructures. </p> <p>Alice Strete is an artist and researcher interested in the intricate relationship between humans and the technologies they surround themselves with. </p> <p>Many thanks to our partners, collaborators, authors and the AMRO community. </p>
<p> Published under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.</p>
</p></div>
<div class="first-page">
<div id="title_edition"> A Nourishing Network - December 2020</div>
<div id="title">Infrastructure mega corridors: <br>a way out (or in) to the crisis?</div>
<div id="author"> by Recommon.org</div>
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</div>
<header id="pageheader-issue">A Nourishing Network</header>
<header id="pageheader-theme">Infrastructure mega corridors</header>
<div class="essay_content">
<p><pre id="first_letter">
<pre id="first_letter">
██╗
██║
██║
@ -58,8 +13,8 @@ In the last few months our lives have changed dramatically. Many of us
lost their jobs while many others continued working under extreme
conditions. Inequality and social injustices have become increasingly
visible features of the economic system and the society in which we
live. </p>
<p>
live.
The pandemic might have impacted everyone's life, but it has not
affected everyone in the same way. Among the sectors that did not
suffer, but rather benefited from the crisis, are online platforms such
@ -74,8 +29,8 @@ not contingent to the health crisis, but are instead key factors in the
reorganization of "the extractivist society". A society that enables a
few elites to extract more and more material and financial wealth from
the territories and local communities that inhabit them, effectively
expropriating them from the power to decide upon their own lives. </p>
<p>
expropriating them from the power to decide upon their own lives. 
While most ongoing conversations center around the health crisis and the
resulting recession, we want to bring attention to the systemic
reorganization that is taking place as we speak. We are talking about a
@ -90,8 +45,8 @@ terminals, data centres and power stations, as well as new logistics
centres covering hundreds of hectares. All this implies a radical and
irreversible transformation of territories for the benefit of large
private capital, where ports and production areas identified as "free
trade", or "Special Economic Zones" (SEZs), all become interconnected. </p>
<p>
trade", or "Special Economic Zones" (SEZs), all become interconnected. 
What are the manifestations in Italy and Europe of this global capital
agenda? How will it change the social, economic and productive structure
of our country and the continent? What impact will it have on the
@ -101,16 +56,16 @@ rhetorical: it is difficult to imagine a "globalization 2.0" which will
accelerate production, transport and consumption of goods at an
unprecedented speed while at the same time profoundly reduce the
systemic impact on the environment and climate, an impact that goes far
beyond proposed calculations of direct and indirect emissions generated.</p>
<p>
beyond proposed calculations of direct and indirect emissions generated.
Will the major infrastructure mega-corridors plan be challenged in the
post-pandemic economic crisis or will the current crisis be an excuse to
accelerate it? Will its overall impact be properly assessed? This
remains doubtful since harmful impacts of the global infrastructure
agenda are so far considered as the least of their problems by investors
and policy makers dazzled by forecasts and data about the production,
logistics and global trade that is starting again. </p>
<p>
logistics and global trade that is starting again. 
How does this infrastructure masterplan meet the needs of the millions
of people who are already paying the highest costs of a profit-driven
model at all costs? How does it meet the needs of communities that will
@ -118,17 +73,12 @@ be removed from their lands to make way for new mega infrastructure? How
will it make our societies more resilient to the great droughts,
typhoons, and increasingly heavy rains? How will it counteract the
increasing cementing of the most densely populated areas and how will it
enable everyone to have a roof over their heads?</p>
<p>
enable everyone to have a roof over their heads?
We believe that it is high time to open up to such far-reaching
questions.</p>
</div>
<div id="summary">
*Translated from an original blogpost in Italian by Elena Gerebizza and
Filippo Taglieri from Re:Common introducing their new report: [["The
great illusion. Special economic zones and infrastructure
mega-corridors, the way to
go?"]{.underline}(https://web.archive.org/web/20200814132820/https://www.recommon.org/la-grande-illusione/)*
The original article and link to the report can be found
[[here]{.underline}](https://web.archive.org/web/20200814132820/https://www.recommon.org/la-grande-illusione/).
</div>
questions.
-----------------------
*Translated from an original blogpost in Italian by Elena Gerebizza and Filippo Taglieri from Re:Common introducing their new report: ["The great illusion. Special economic zones and infrastructure mega-corridors, the way to go?"](https://web.archive.org/web/20200814132820/https://www.recommon.org/la-grande-illusione/)* The original article and link to the report can be found [here](https://web.archive.org/web/20200814132820/https://www.recommon.org/la-grande-illusione/).

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Title: The Philosophy of Warnings
Author: Santiago Zabala
Date: 29 January 2021
<p id="colophon_title">Colophon</p>
<div class="colophon">
<p>A Nourishing Network is a peer-to-peer publishing experiment starting from the feed as a potentially multi-directional circulation device.</p>
<p>A Nourishing Network is initiated by servus.at (Davide Bevilacqua) in collaboration with varia.zone (Alice Strete & Manetta Berends) and is published in the context of AMRO 2020 (Arts Meets Radical Openness). </p>
<p> Editing: Davide Bevilacqua <br> Design and development: Manetta Berends, Alice Strete <br> Paper: xxxx <br> Typeface: Gnu Unifont, White Rabbit, Ansi Shadow <br> Print and production: Varia <br> This project is produced with Free Software tools. The feeds are made with Pelican & Weasyprint.
</p>
<p> Davide is an artist and curator working is the blurry area between media and contemporary art. </p><p> Manetta Berends is a designer working with forms of networked publishing, situated software and collective infrastructures. </p> <p>Alice Strete is an artist and researcher interested in the intricate relationship between humans and the technologies they surround themselves with. </p> <p>Many thanks to our partners, collaborators, authors and the AMRO community. </p>
<p> Published under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.</p>
</p></div>
<div class="first-page">
<div id="title_edition"> A Nourishing Network - December 2020</div>
<div id="title">The Philosophy of Warnings</div>
<div id="author"> by Santiago Zabala</div>
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</div>
<header id="pageheader-issue">A Nourishing Network</header>
<header id="pageheader-theme">The Philosophy of Warnings</header>
<div class="essay_content">
<p><pre id="first_letter">
<pre id="first_letter">
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╚══██╔══╝
██║
@ -63,15 +17,15 @@ century has prevented us from addressing problems from a global
perspective, which has always been the distinctive approach of
philosophy. This is evident in the little consideration we give to
warnings. Too often these are discarded as useless or
insignificant---much like philosophy---when in fact they are vital.
Though philosophers can't solve an ongoing emergency---philosophy was
never meant to solve anything---we can interpret their signs through a
"philosophy of warnings." Although this philosophy probably won't change
insignificant -- much like philosophy -- when in fact they are vital.
Though philosophers can't solve an ongoing emergency -- philosophy was
never meant to solve anything -- we can interpret their signs through a
"philosophy of warnings". Although this philosophy probably won't change
the views of my student's parents, it might help us to reevaluate our
political, environmental, and technological priorities for the future.</p>
political, environmental, and technological priorities for the future.
<p>Like recent philosophies of plants or
[[insects]{.underline}](http://cup.columbia.edu/book/a-philosophy-of-the-insect/9780231175791),
Like recent philosophies of plants or
[insects](http://cup.columbia.edu/book/a-philosophy-of-the-insect/9780231175791),
which emerged as a response to a global environmental crisis, a
"philosophy of warnings" is also a reaction to a global emergency that
requires philosophical elucidation. Although the ongoing pandemic has
@ -84,16 +38,16 @@ into that of the philosopher, who, as one among equals, advised to heed
the signs; to use our imagination, because that is all we got. The
current pandemic has shown how little prepared we were for a global
emergency, even one whose coming has been
[[announced]{.underline}](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/04/experts-warned-pandemic-decades-ago-why-not-ready-for-coronavirus/)
[announced](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/04/experts-warned-pandemic-decades-ago-why-not-ready-for-coronavirus/)
for decades. But why haven't we been able to take these warnings
seriously? Before tackling this question, let's recall how warnings have
been addressed philosophically.</p>
been addressed philosophically.
<p>Examples of warning philosophy can be traced back to Greek mythology and
Plato\'s *Apology*. Apollo provided Cassandra with the gift of prophecy
Examples of warning philosophy can be traced back to Greek mythology and
Plato's *Apology*. Apollo provided Cassandra with the gift of prophecy
even though she could not convince others of the validity of her
predictions, and Socrates warned the Athenians---after he was sentenced
to death---that their inequity and mendacity undermined the democracy
predictions, and Socrates warned the Athenians -- after he was sentenced
to death -- that their inequity and mendacity undermined the democracy
they claimed to honor. Against Gaston Bachelard, who coined the term
"Cassandra complex" to refer to the idea that events could be known in
advance, Theodore Adorno warned that any claim to know the future should
@ -103,9 +57,9 @@ disaster upon disaster. In line with Hannah Arendt's warnings of the
reemergence of totalitarianism after the Second World War, Giorgio
Agamben began his book on the current pandemic with "A Warning":
biosecurity will now serve governments to rule through a new form of
tyranny called "technological-sanitary" despotism.</p>
tyranny called "technological-sanitary" despotism.
<p>These examples illustrate the difference between warnings and
These examples illustrate the difference between warnings and
predictions. Warnings are sustained by signs in the present that request
our involvement, as Benjamin suggests. Predictions call out what will
take place regardless of our actions, a future as the only continuation
@ -114,34 +68,33 @@ are meant involve us in a radical break, a discontinuity with the
present signaled by alarming signs that we are asked to confront. The
problem is not the involvement warnings request from us but rather
whether we are willing to confront them at all. The volume of vital
warnings that we ignore---climate change, social inequality, refugee
crises---is alarming; it has become our greatest emergency.</p>
warnings that we ignore -- climate change, social inequality, refugee
crises -- is alarming; it has become our greatest emergency.
<p>Indifference towards warnings is rooted in the ongoing global return to
Indifference towards warnings is rooted in the ongoing global return to
order and realism in the twenty-first century. This return is not only
political, as demonstrated by the various right-wing populist forces
that have taken office around the world, but also cultural as the return
of some contemporary
[[intellectuals]{.underline}](https://arcade.stanford.edu/blogs/returning-order-through-realism)
[intellectuals](https://arcade.stanford.edu/blogs/returning-order-through-realism)
to Eurocentric Cartesian realism demonstrates. The idea that we can
still claim access to truth without being dependent upon interpretation
presupposes that knowledge of objective facts is enough to guide our
lives. Within this theoretical framework warnings are cast off as
unfounded, contingent, and subjective, even though philosophers of
science such as Bruno Latour continue to
[[remind]{.underline}](https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Down+to+Earth%3A+Politics+in+the+New+Climatic+Regime-p-9781509530564)
us that no "attested knowledge can stand on its own." The internet and,
[remind](https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Down+to+Earth%3A+Politics+in+the+New+Climatic+Regime-p-9781509530564)
us that no "attested knowledge can stand on its own". The internet and,
in particular, social media have intensified this realist view, further
discrediting traditional vectors of legitimation (international
agencies, major newspapers, or credentialed academics) and rendering any
tweet by an anonymous blogger credible because it presents itself as
transparent, direct, and genuine. "The quickness of social media, as
Judith Butler [[pointed
out]{.underline}](https://www.newstatesman.com/international/2020/09/judith-butler-culture-wars-jk-rowling-and-living-anti-intellectual-times),
Judith Butler pointed [out](https://www.newstatesman.com/international/2020/09/judith-butler-culture-wars-jk-rowling-and-living-anti-intellectual-times),
allows for forms of vitriol that do not exactly support thoughtful
debate."</p>
debate".
<p>Our inability to take warnings seriously has devastating consequences,
Our inability to take warnings seriously has devastating consequences,
as recent months make clear. The central argument in favor of a
philosophy of warnings is not whether what it warns of comes to pass but
rather the pressure it exercises against those emergencies hidden and
@ -150,21 +103,17 @@ political, environmental, and technological priorities be reconsidered,
revealing the alarming signs of democratic backsliding, biodiversity
loss, and commodification of our lives by surveillance capitalism. These
warnings are also why we should oppose any demand to "return to
normality," which signals primarily a desire to ignore what caused this
normality", which signals primarily a desire to ignore what caused this
pandemic in the first place. A philosophy of warnings seeks to alter and
interrupt the reality we've become accustomed to.</p>
interrupt the reality we've become accustomed to.
<p>Although a philosophy of warnings will not prevent future emergencies,
Although a philosophy of warnings will not prevent future emergencies,
it will resist the ongoing silencing of emergencies under the guise of
realism by challenging our framed global order and its realist
advocates. This philosophy is not meant to rescue us *from* emergencies
but rather rescue us *into* emergencies that we are trained to ignore.</p>
</div>
but rather rescue us *into* emergencies that we are trained to ignore.
<div class="bio">
[[Santiago Zabala]{.underline}](http://www.santiagozabala.com/) is ICREA
Research Professor of Philosophy at the Pompeu Fabra University in
Barcelona. His most recent book is *Being at Large: Freedom in the Age
of Alternative Facts* (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2020).</div>
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
**Santiago Zabala** is ICREA Research Professor of Philosophy at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. His most recent book is *Being at Large: Freedom in the Age of Alternative Facts* (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2020). <http://www.santiagozabala.com/>
<div></div>

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Title: Zugzwang* or the Compulsion to Find a Common Baseline in Sound
Author: Christina Gruber, Natalia Domínguez Rangel, Samuel Hertz, Emil Flatø
Date: 5 February 2021
*German for "compulsion to move", is a situation found in chess and other turn-based games wherein one player is put at a disadvantage because they must make a move when they would prefer to pass and not move (Oxford Dictionary)*
<br>
<pre id="first_letter">
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███████╗
╚══════╝</pre>
ugzwang explores how a more-than-human approach towards the use of technology can help us to tune in with our companion species and environments, understanding them as assemblages - open-ended gatherings of living and non-living ways of beings.[^1] We aim at observing the role of sound as a critical player in re-connecting with our environments and to engage in relations of care on both ends to help us navigate on earth’s surface. Key themes came up in online discussions our multidisciplinary group had during the first lockdowns due to the outbreak of COVID-19, in preparation of a joint panel for the festival Art Meets Radical Openness in May 2020.
## What could a common baseline sound like?
The attempt to tune-in with our environments opens possibilities to critically discuss questions of listening, talking, and connecting with all our companions, living and non-living. While the act of listening opens particular possibilities for care, it is not an inherently benign action: both nonhumans and humans (including the military[^2]) use their auditory capacities to eavesdrop on other species[^3]. Sound is omnipresent, but unfamiliar as a way for the world to present itself: We have problems understanding. Miscommunication and distortion happen constantly. Can listening become once again one of the main assets to learn about our environment? The access to vast archives of data allow the interpretation of planetary sounds using machine learning[^4]. But will this prevent further misunderstandings? How can humans actively teach these systems to avoid a too strong human-perspective and enable them to think as a connected network resonating on Earth? Zugzwang is local and global, and so are our five short explorations into forms of noticing, following the characteristics of sound, how they can be received, propagated, and perceived.
## The Fictions of Iconic Earth Images, and the Possibilities of Sound – Emil Flatø
Suddenly, silence. Silence in the microphones of acoustic ecologists. No bewildering noise from the whirl of the bottom trawler and its massive engine, no buzz of chainsaw along the rainforest’s perimeter[^5]. The ambient sounds of traffic reduced to a minimum. In March 2020, a nonhuman precision-weapon, the SARS-CoV-2 virus, had put a pause to human enterprises – and a muffle to its sounds.
Recordings of this sudden silence made a strange impression on many commentators. Paradoxically, it was as if the amplitude of human clamor became sonorous only when it could be played back as an absence. Why is it that our daily interruptions in ecological life hardly register – the confusion our chatter must introduce to the tapestry of bird calls that crisscross public places, the inescapability of boats in trading-route rivers – while sudden encounters with worlds without us fill us with awe?
Or perhaps more curiously than awe, these impressions of human impact through their absence have a history of instilling a sense of custodianship on the beholder[^6].
The emergence of environmental consciousness was far more conditioned by images than sounds. The undisputed icon of modern environmental awareness is a photographical genre that only became possible through the Cold War space race: Images of earth from space[^7]. The 1972 Blue Marble image, captured by one of the astronauts aboard Apollo 17, is one of the world’s most reproduced images. Its impact on culture is intimately tied to environmental consciousness: While the image only became possible as humans learned to leave the planet on which all of their history had played out, the intellectual revolution had to do with looking back to see the only planet we have. The moral implication was clear: Take good care of it[^8].
The fiction of human agency involved becomes clear if we take the visual trope that expresses this point seriously: The hand holding Earth in its hands. It is a surrealist image, in literal terms. It casts us all in the role as an individual giant, large enough to hold the world up like a precious basketball.
![Earth in our hands, Robin Thunholm]({static}/images/images_zugzwang/earth.jpg)
<small>Earth in our hands, Robin Thunholm</small>
Only despots believe in that fiction[^9].
![An image of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, King Salman of Saudi Arabia and former President of the United States Donald Trump should pop up on your inner eye.]({static}/images/images_zugzwang/despots.png)
<small>An image of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, King Salman of Saudi Arabia and former President of the United States Donald Trump should pop up on your inner eye.</small>
In reality, the Blue Marble, like the recordings of silent environments post Covid-19, depicted a world we inhabit, but where we do not figure; high-resolution satellite imagery is a newer development[^10].
But the specific way our cosmological and ethical imaginations are conditioned, matters. The propensities of sound are different from those of photography. Listening to our momentary lull, we should not merely ask about what we don’t hear – us – but what it means to hear environments, and how our consciousness of our surroundings may change if we consider the matter in auditory terms. Perhaps for no other reason than the primacy of visual thinking in environmental thought; that there is a relative paucity of iconic sounds, of chewed sonic metaphors, of heavily preconceived auditory templates, brought down upon us from Western traditions of science and representation, with which to think what is around us.
This time, perhaps we can hear ourselves for what we are, rather than seeing us for what we are not: Omnipotent, larger-than-Earth beings with the planet in our custody.
## Is there care on both ends? Re-establishing bonds with our companion species - Christina Gruber
As a freshwater ecologist and visual artist I work with fish on a daily basis. In the last few years, I have been focusing on one specific kind, the sturgeon. This living fossil has been on earth for over 200 million years, adapting to constant changes and overcoming crises. Throughout the last 150 years sturgeon populations decreased drastically due to human overexploitation. In the conservation project LIFE Sterlet[^11], we aim to strengthen the wild stock of sterlet, the smallest of the six Danube sturgeons, to establish healthy and self-sustaining populations in the Danube river. We are located on an artificial island built for flood protection for the city of Vienna, Austria.
![Sterlet, Christina Gruber]({static}/images/images_zugzwang/Sterlet.jpg)
<small>Sterlet, Christina Gruber</small>
Do we only listen to what we want to hear?
The loss of freshwater biodiversity happens most of the time unnoticed, in silence. However, the decline of freshwater species exceeds most other terrestrial ecosystems by a wide margin[^12]: Between 1970 and 2014, freshwater fish populations have declined by 83%.[^13] Sturgeons communicate on infrasound levels, inaudible to human ears. Stil, there are sources from indigenous communities, such as the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin, referring to the phenomenon of “sturgeon thunder”, drumming sounds produced during spawning season.[^14]
<audio controls>
<source src="{static}/audio/sturgeon-thunder-chrys-bocast.mp3" type="audio/mp4">
</audio>
My work routine adjusts to the life cycle of the sturgeons. After months of care in our hatchery, we release thousands of fish into the Danube. Observing their development from eggs, to larvae, to juveniles, does not only mean that we are providing care in a very basic sense of the term[^15]. It also requires serious attention, to treat them correctly, and to avoid damage or risk[^16].
Even though sturgeons have been around for millions of years, we know little about their habitats. This is why we monitor them along the river to point out recommendations for their protection. One of the most effective ways to follow a fish is sound, as the waves travel faster underwater. In Acoustic Telemetry, hydrophones are used to track the fish, but not to record their noises. All you actually hear is “beep”. But what if hydrophones allow us to enter into the muddy reflections of the past and this dinosaur’s life cycles, and even more so help us to reconnect to this hidden layer of our earth’s surface? Working closely with sturgeons made me wonder how they perceive sound, and what they sound like. Do they communicate to each other, are they gregarious or solitary? Can I hear them too? To hear like a fish, means to hear with the entire body, based on the main organ of orientation in fish, the lateral line. Attention to fish perceptions, then, may attune us to our own unexplored capacities for sensing the world, like the fascia, a thin casing of connective tissue that holds everything in place but also enables intensified sensing[^17]. In addition to our own sensory organs, technology can help us to detect sounds out of human hearing range, acting as a stepping stone to help us recalibrate with more-than-human entities.
Trying to hear my companion species made me realize how much I need the sturgeons and how much work they do for me. What if more people could hear these living dinosaurs? It could make us realize the close ties between sturgeons and healthy ecosystems, including humans, and that it is possible to tune in and give space to them. And we might start to understand that it is not we who are thinking, but rather the environment that is thinking through us, as David Abraham[^18] proposes.
## Connecting Acoustic Spaces - Natalia Domínguez Rangel
My work connects with architecture, acoustics, technology and nature. I am responsive to how sound affects and resonates with a body physiologically and psychologically, and how critical listening deepens, extends and sets connections to other acoustic ecologies not only to the anthrophony[^19].
During the first lockdown due to COVID-19, I invited people to send me audio recordings of their acoustic environments. The call is open till the end of the year due to the ongoing pandemic. “Connecting Acoustic Spaces” will be the resulting work becoming a sound sculpture in 2021.
I am involved in the way we are listening and interpreting our surroundings, especially in this time where we are experiencing a global pandemic, partial lockdowns in different time frames, intensities and outcomes.
Throughout the first lockdown, our urban acoustic environment changed radically. It has not only impacted our cities but also diverse scientific research. For instance, in seismology the drop of the human noise footprint was between 20% and 50% and that has helped to easily spot micro-earthquakes. This “silence wave” helped to record and archive tremor fingerprints that were not audible previously. I find it very relevant how, gradually, our noise footprint increases and how unaware we were (are?) of the huge impact it has.
This has brought me to reflect on: How do we imagine ourselves as listening objects, bodies? The need to understand our own acoustic agency and how it tunes in or makes sense with our and other sonic environments.
For which reason are we listening?
Deep listening does not outstand the ear alone, as Pauline Oliveros remarked in her work. For her, listening involved the whole body. “Sound has such a physical presence that it feels like it is coming at you through the pores of your skin; You listen through your lungs. You listen through your stomach. You listen through your heart.”[^20]] Then you come to understand that you also listen to your body. You are your own acoustic box.
And what about silence?
Are urban sound ecologies destroying silence as many Acoustic Ecologists claim? “Their ecological approach appears to treat silence as an endangered species; something that must be preserved by maintaining habitats for its incubation and growth”[^21]
Yet again, I do not think we can romanticize the idea of an aural utopia by misjudging the nature of city sounds. Technology is present and mediates the space. Therefore, how could we tune in again with different ecologies with the help of technology?
When we acknowledge the idea of “tuning in,” shall we imply the act of acoustic attenuation? Or to think about “silent commons”, as Ursula Franklin called them within the city[^22]. The impact of technology creates new opportunities and hazards in this topic. Thus, how could we keep advancing technologically without being a solo act?
With “Connecting Acoustic Spaces”, I am still in the process of listening. In the following link you can listen to what I recorded in my listening practices throughout the first lockdown in Vienna from the 15th March till the 10th May in the most frequented and touristic places.
<https://soundcloud.com/nataliad/viennese-acoustic-transition>
## Spotting the Runoff – Samuel Hertz
“We in the morning / catch, from the train, in the green garbage runoff, / sight of white herons and the cormorants. / When they’re here in the evening, we safely assume the world hasn’t gone anywhere.”[^23]
Even though the herons and cormorants remain in site, the world has gone somewhere, however imperceptibly. Ed Roberson’s “Eclogue” points to the gnomonic shadows highlighting empty space as a way of measuring time. Yet, the chronological safety implied by regular migration patterns belies the severity and scales of disappearance that happen just beyond view, out of sight and earshot. Attenuation to the patterning of bird migration, in this case, is just enough of a false positive to overlook the garbage runoff, or to believe anything can truly repeat. If patterned vision upholds this homeostatic narrative, perhaps sound can be understood as a method for delving into the infinitesimal — yet significant and cumulative — dimensions of change.
How then to make audible the sounds of disappearance? To hear absence? The analytic lens of machinic audio analysis is — in recent years — the most reliable format for reporting subtle shifts in acoustic environments caused by environmental stressors, due to the ability to capture large sonic datasets required for detailed comparisons. What these analytic frameworks lack, however, is the ability to encourage nuanced understandings of expansive temporal and spatial scales necessary for tackling the conceptual and practical problems of a changing climate. For, as Hawkins and Kanngieser eloquently state, “relative to human perceptive capacities, factors [of climate change] accumulate too slowly for the scales and capacities of a human-sensing body in the context of the human lifespan to fully comprehend”.[^24] Application of effective climate policy involves not only analytic/algorithmic frameworks, but attendant feelings of care and responsibility towards. To develop care for bundles of entangled dynamic flows that are innately asynchronous with the spatiotemporal scales of the lived-life of humans, new scalar sensitivities must coincide with any algorithmic approach.
Can sound-based performative methodologies encourage modalities of listening that allow for the hearing of shadows? To observe ever-more carefully, and importantly to address the creeping disappearance that lays contiguous to a human-world of ostensible homeostatic repetition? With two recent projects, Zugzwang with collaborator Christina Gruber (Ars Electronica Festival 2020), and DOOM with collaborator Layton Lachman (premiere, Sophiensæle 2021), I address dynamic interactions between sound, experiences of time, and the possibilities for analysis and practice to generate new scalar sensitivities.
Zugzwang (in this particular format) turns the process of environmental analysis inside-out, granting the human ear access to recordings normally reserved for machine processing. As the listener walks through the installation, field-recordings of soil sedimentation stream past, letting the listener organise themselves within an immersive experience of data becoming sensually available. In DOOM, an audience finds themselves in the middle of an eternal, slowly-evolving drone/doom-metal concert wherein various spatiotemporal scales become activated; four performers drift through the space, performing glacial guitar solos, quickly putting on their makeup, and singing to each other — actions which coalesce into many variable experiences of time through which one can feel the space, action, and attention slowly shift throughout the durational performance.
My hope is that performative experiences such as these can help encourage and nurture new relationships to the passing of time and experiences of data that will further aid in the understanding of — and responsibility for — the unique and intertwined scalar problems of climate.
## Being in Zugzwang
As humans increasingly move their environs, building capitalist ruins[^25], the compulsion to move in ways that are ethical, life-sustaining and even life-affirming for the more-than-human community becomes a moral imperative as much as a practical necessity. Our four explorations of how to tune in through auditory capacities – human, animal and technological – may work as a bit of a field guide, suggestions for how to orient ourselves better and more conscientiously. Soundscapes, even the silence under lockdown, turn out to be dense with life and meaning. Whether we hear them with our whole bodies, listen with deep attention or stretch beyond the scales and realities humans can perceive without technological aid, it seems there is a productive friction in sound, which positions us more firmly and compels to move in different ways than other media and forms of sensation.
It helps us reorient around an important meaning of environments: Our surroundings.
Sound conveys a world in Zugzwang.
[^1]: Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World. On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton University Press, 2015. p.23.
[^2]: The US and the UK jointly run a center dedicated to electronic eavesdropping in Menwith Hill, Yorkshire. Ryan Gallagher, "Inside Menwith Hill: The NSA's British Base at the Heart of U.S. Targeted Killing," The Intercept, September 6, 2016.<https://theintercept.com/2016/09/06/nsa-menwith-hill-targeted-killing-surveillance/>
[^3]: Intra- and interspecies eavesdropping is a well-established phenomenon in ecology. To cite just one study, it has been found that male humpback whales listen for the mating songs of competing mates to locate a female, reducing the singer’s chance of success, Rebecca A. Dunlop & Michael J. Noad, “The ‘risky’ business of singing: tactical use of song during joining by male humpback whales,” Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 70 (2016), 2149–2160.
[^4]: Brian Dunbar, “Spooky Space 'Sounds'”, NASA.gov, National Aeronatics and Space Administration, October 26, 2017 <https://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/features/halloween_sounds.html>.
[^5]: A curious facet of the lockdown as a media event, was the blossoming of writings about ways silence was being recorded and related to in cities and ecosystems. Jimmy Thomson, “‘An important time to listen’: ocean scientists race to hear the effects of coronavirus under water,” The Narwhal, April 19, 2020. <https://thenarwhal.ca/an-important-time-to-listen-ocean-scientists-race-to-hear-coronavirus-under-water/?fbclid=IwAR1g9p1JWSqniQKHeJ6PodtEOLkd1SpSc6hkbOFaGodmzU3Qromah_Nl5Nc>; Richard Labreuseur, “How COVID-19 shutdowns are allowing us to hear more of nature”, The Conversation, May 5th, 2020, <https://theconversation.com/how-covid-19-shutdowns-are-allowing-us-to-hear-more-of-nature-136139>; Quoctrong Bui and Emily Badger, “The Coronavirus Quieted City Noise. Listen to What’s Left,” The New York Times, May 22nd, 2020 <https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/22/upshot/coronavirus-quiet-city-noise.html>
[^6]: Benjamin Lazier, “Earthrise; or, The Globalization of the World Picture”, The American Historical Review 116, Issue 3 (2011): 602–630.
[^7]: Dennis Cosgrove, Apollo's Eye: a cartographic genealogy of the Earth in the Western Imagination (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).
[^8]: See the section on Hans Blumenberg’s reading of the image in Lazier, “Earthrise”, 619-626. This custodial reading is by no means the only interpretation that was made at the time – Martin Heidegger thought of the Blue Marble’s predecessor, a disorienting, black-and-white view of the earth from below, as the nightmarish realization of the conquest of the world as picture”, ibid., 609-614; Martin Heidegger, “The Age of World Picture,” in The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays (New York: Harper and Row, 1977) 115-54. However, through the 1970s environmental movement, Earth Systems Science and Global Environmental Governance, the custodial idea became more prevalent.
[^9]: In his fourth Gaia lecture on “The Anthropocene and the destruction of (the image of) the Globe”, Bruno Latour makes a strong case against thinking climates at the global scale, Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime (Cambridge (UK): Polity Press, 2017). I don’t endorse his particular argument, but it is worth reading.
[^10]: For a primer on different resolutions in contemporary satellite imagery, see National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS), “Can Satellites See You? Can You See a Satellite?”, NESDIS Newsblog, November 27, 2017, <https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/can-satellites-see-you-can-you-see-satellite>.
[^11]: http://life-sterlet.boku.ac.at/
[^12]: Sala, O.E. et al. (2000). Global biodiversity scenarios for the year 2100. Science 287, 1770–1774.
[^13]: www.livingplanetindex.org. 2019
[^14]: Bocast, C., Bruch R.M., Koenigs R.P., Sound production of spawning lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens Rafinesque, 1817) in the Lake Winnebago watershed, Wisconsin, USA. Applied Ichthyology 2014, 1-9. See also WLUK-TV FOX 11, “Sounds of the sturgeon”, YouTube. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEUuIL5Nmr8&ab_channel=WLUK-TVFOX11>.
[^15]: Definition of care: The provision of what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, and protection of someone or something (Oxford Dictionary).
[^16]: Second definition of care according to the Oxford Dictionary.
[^17]: Referring to the Case Study of Margarida Mendes “Environmental Sensing - Refractions of the Infrastructural Body, presented in October 2020 at the Shape of a Practice at HKW, Berlin.
[^18]: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. Pantheon Books, 1996.
[^19]: Anthropophony, consisting of the Greek prefix, anthropo, meaning human, and the suffix, phon, meaning sound is a neologism used to describe all sound produced by humans, whether coherent, such as music, theatre, and language, or incoherent and chaotic such as random signals generated primarily by electromechanical means. Bernie Krause "Voices of the Wild: Animal Songs, Human Din, and the Call to Save Natural Soundscapes" 2015, Yale University Press
[^20]: Mark Swed. "How gay feminist composer Pauline Oliveros taught us to hear with more than ears," Los Angeles Times, August 5th, 2020. <www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-08-05/how-to-listen-pauline-oliveros-deep-listening-composer>.
[^21]: Arkette Sophie, 2004, Sounds like City. In: Theory, Culture & Society 21, p.166
[^22]: Ursula Franklin. “Silence and the Notion of the Commons,” In The Broadview Anthology of Expository Prose, Laura Buzzard et al. (eds.) (Ontario: Broadview Press, 2016) : 439-444.
[^23]: Roberson, Ed. “Eclogue”. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/89465/eclogue-573e30b04c753
[^24]: Hawkins, Harriet and Anja Kanngieser. “Artful climate change communication: overcoming abstractions, insensibilities, and distances”. WIREs Climate Change. Vol. 8, September/October 2017. Wiley Periodicals.
[^25]: This corresponds roughly to the situation Anna Tsing refers to as “third nature”, The Mushroom at the End of the World, viii. See also Tsing et al. (eds.) Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017).
-----------------------
**Christina Gruber** is an artist and freshwater ecologist, who works at the intersection of art and science. In her work she deals with societal phenomena and their effects on the earth’s surface. Water is of special interest to her. Christina sees it as the element all things on earth have in common. It is the connector between stories of different places and layers, running through everything, from clouds to data centers.
She has recently exhibited at the KEX Vienna, Kunstforum Warsaw,  Kulturtankstelle Linz and the Chronus Art Center Shanghai. She has given lecture performances and talks at museums, festivals and conferences like CAC New Orleans, FHNW HGK Basel, STWST48x5, River Science Conference and AMRO festival.
Christina is a Scientific Researcher at the Institute of Hydrobiology at the BOKU Vienna. She works at the LIFE Sterlet project to repopulate sturgeon in the Danube. In 2019 she was part of the servus.at Research Lab together with Antonio Zingaro and Davide Bevilacqua. <http://christinagruber.net>
**Natalia Domínguez Rangel** (NL/CO) composer/sound artist living and working between Vienna and Amsterdam. Domínguez Rangel’s music and sound work offers a varied mix of contemporary classical composition alongside electronics, synthesis, field recordings, ambisonics, installations and performance. Her work has been connected with architecture, acoustic, technology and nature. She is interested how sound affects and resonates with a body physiologically and psychologically, and how critical listening deepens, extends and set connections to other acoustic ecologies not only to the anthrophony.
For her, sound can be a source of both pain and pleasure. <http://nataliadominguezrangel.com>
**Samuel Hertz** is a Berlin-based composer and researcher investigating connections between sound and climate, emphasising geologic, ecologic, and social listening practices at more-than-human scales. As the first winner of the DARE Prize for Radical Interdisciplinarity, he researched Infrasound alongside climate scientists, music psychologists, and paranormal investigators, with a premiere at Opera North (UK). Current work includes Librations (with Carmelo Pampillonio), utilising Earth-Moon-Earth 16-26m radio telescope relays to create Moonbounce recordings. Librations premiered at Fylkingen (SE) in 2020.
As a researcher, Hertz has been involved with HKW’s Anthropocene Curriculum since 2016 and is the author of six essays on sound and environment, including collaborations with Studio Tomás Saraceno, Sonic Field and Critical Path. Hertz has taught workshops on sound at Palais de Tokyo as well as at arts and academic institutions throughout Europe and the United States. Hertz has created live and immersive sound design for performance in such places as ImPulsTanz, Tanzplattform Deutschland, ICI/CCN, Charleroi Danses, and NEXT Festival. <http://samhertzsound.com>
**Emil Flatø** is a doctoral researcher working on the origins of scientific thinking about the future of climate change with human causes. This means reading a lot of faxes and machine-typed reports written by men with sideburns and thick glasses in the early 1970s: experts in “socio-technical engineering”, “system dynamics”, communications, planning and computer modeling. These men spoke with newfound confidence about the future of the Earth, the limits to growth, and the dangers of playing with the weather. They pioneered new alliances between military, government, industry and the academy. In sum, they did lasting work on our collective horizon of expectations about the environment. Previously, Flatø worked a staff writer and critic for the Norwegian weekly Morgenbladet.

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Title: Subscribe to the postal feed
Status: published
We invite you to subscribe to the postal feed of *A Nourishing Network*.
Subscribers to the postal feed will receive multiple rounds of packages, each containing two copies of an essay in order to extend the circulation network with one step – by sending it to someone who might appreciate it.
Send us your name and postal address and we will feed a stream of packages to you in the upcoming months!
@ -30,4 +28,4 @@ To unsubscribe from the feed, please send an email to [eco@servus.at](mailto:eco
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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# Organizers {#organizers}
![servus.at]({static}/images/logos/1_OrganizedBy/servus_logo.svg)
[![servus.at]({static}/images/logos/1_OrganizedBy/servus_logo.svg)](https://core.servus.at/)
![Timebased Media]({static}/images/logos/1_OrganizedBy/08_P_timbasedmedia_sw.svg)
[![Timebased Media]({static}/images/logos/1_OrganizedBy/08_P_timbasedmedia_sw.svg)](https://www.ufg.at/Time-based-Media.1473+M52087573ab0.0.html)
![Kunstuniversität Linz]({static}/images/logos/1_OrganizedBy/kunstuni.svg)
[![Kunstuniversität Linz]({static}/images/logos/1_OrganizedBy/kunstuni.svg)](https://www.ufg.at/)
------------------------
@ -19,35 +19,70 @@ The project was realized thanks to Art Meets Radical Openness 2020 co-organisers
**Funders**
![BMK]({static}/images/logos/2_Funders/1_BMKOES_Logo_srgb.svg)
[![BMK]({static}/images/logos/2_Funders/1_BMKOES_Logo_srgb.svg)](http://www.kunstkultur.bka.gv.at/site/8022/default.aspx)
![Linz Kultur]({static}/images/logos/2_Funders/02_Linz Kultur Logo NEU.JPG)
[![Linz Kultur]({static}/images/logos/2_Funders/02_Linz Kultur Logo NEU.JPG)](https://www.linz.at/kultur/)
![Kulturland]({static}/images/logos/2_Funders/3_OOEKU_130227_KulturlandOOE_Logo_RZ_rot.jpg)
[![Kulturland]({static}/images/logos/2_Funders/3_OOEKU_130227_KulturlandOOE_Logo_RZ_rot.jpg)](https://www.land-oberoesterreich.gv.at/kultur.htm)
![OEGPB]({static}/images/logos/2_Funders/logo_oegpb-c.svg)
[![OEGPB]({static}/images/logos/2_Funders/logo_oegpb-c.svg)](https://politischebildung.at/)
<br>
**Main Sponsors**
![Aconet]({static}/images/logos/3_Main_Sponsors/01_Logo_aconet_2020_1c.png)
[![Aconet]({static}/images/logos/3_Main_Sponsors/01_Logo_aconet_2020_1c.png)](https://www.aco.net/)
![IPP]({static}/images/logos/3_Main_Sponsors/02_IPP_arte_Linz_Logo_4C.png)
[![IPP]({static}/images/logos/3_Main_Sponsors/02_IPP_arte_Linz_Logo_4C.png)](https://www.arte-linz.at/)
![Kapper.net]({static}/images/logos/3_Main_Sponsors/03_kapper.net-Internet-aus-Österreich-260.jpg)
[![Kapper.net]({static}/images/logos/3_Main_Sponsors/03_kapper.net-Internet-aus-Österreich-260.jpg)](https://kapper.net/)
[![Linz AG Telekom]({static}/images/logos/3_Main_Sponsors/linz-ag-telekom.png)](https://www.linzag-telekom.at/)
<br>
**Co-sponsors**
LINZ AG Telekom
[Ottakringer Brauerei](https://www.ottakringerbrauerei.at/)
Ottakringer Brauerei
[Pedacola](https://pedacola.at/)
Pedacola, Buchbinderei Kölbl
[Buchbinderei Kölbl](http://www.buchbinderei-koelbl.at/)
Eindrucksvoll GmbH
[Eindrucksvoll GmbH](https://www.eindrucksvoll.at/)
<br>
**Partners**
We also would like to thank the precious contribution of the servus.at community and its partners: [afo – architekturforum oberösterreich](https://afo.at/) [dorfTV](https://dorftv.at/), [Radio Fro](https://www.fro.at/), [Willy*Fred](https://www.willy-fred.org/), [Stadtwerkstatt STWST](https://stwst.at/), [Piet Zwart Institute – Rotterdam](https://www.pzwart.nl/).
------------------------
# Authors {#authors}
Adnan Hadzi and Denis Roio
Santiago Zabala
Inari Wishiki (aka Yoshinari Nishiki)
Jamie Allen and Caroline Sinders
Kris De Decker
Marloes De Valk
Mél Hogan
Nishant Shah
Recommon.org: Filippo Taglieri and Elena Gerebizza
Stadtwerkstatt STWST: Tanja Brandmayr
Zugzwang: Christina Gruber, Emil Flatø, Natalia Domínguez Rangel, and Samuel Hertz
------------------------
@ -62,7 +97,7 @@ Eindrucksvoll GmbH
**Davide Bevilacqua** is media artist and curator interested in network infrastructures and technological activism, as well as in curatorial and artistic research about the framework conditions in which artistic practice is presented and transmitted to the audience. Current topics of research are the internet sustainability and environmental impact of technologies, digital greenwashing practices and platform capitalism. Since 2017 is part of the team of servus.at, where he organizes the community festival AMRO Art Meets Radical Openness <https://radical-openness.org>. Moreover, he is part of the linz-based artist collective qujOchÖ (qujochoe.org) and works as Assistant at the department of Interface Cultures of the Kunstuniversität Linz.
<www.davidebevilacqua.com>
<http://www.davidebevilacqua.com>
<br>
@ -70,14 +105,17 @@ Eindrucksvoll GmbH
<https://varia.zone>
<!-- ------------------------
<br>
# Authors {#authors}
(...) -->
**Manetta Berends** is a designer working with forms of networked publishing, situated software and collective infrastructures.
------------------------
<https://manettaberends.nl>
We also would like to thank the precious contribution of the servus.at community and its partners: afo – architekturforum oberösterreich, dorfTV, Radio Fro, Willy*Fred, Stadtwerkstatt STWST, Piet Zwart Institute – Rotterdam
<br>
------------------------
**Alice Strete** is an artist and researcher interested in the intricate relationship between humans and the technologies they surround themselves with.
<http://alicestrete.me/>
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AUTHOR = 'servus.at'
SITENAME = 'A Nourishing Network'
SITEURL = 'https://vvvvvvaria.org/amro'
SITEURL = 'https://a-nourishing-network.radical-openness.org'
TIMEZONE = 'Europe/Amsterdam'
DEFAULT_DATE = 'fs'
DEFAULT_LANG = 'en'
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THEME = 'themes/basic'
THEME_STATIC_DIR = 'theme'
DEFAULT_PAGINATION = 10
DEFAULT_PAGINATION = 50
DEFAULT_CATEGORY = ''
USE_FOLDER_AS_CATEGORY = True
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# Uncomment following line if you want document-relative URLs when developing
RELATIVE_URLS = True
# Publish by default as draft
DEFAULT_METADATA = {
'status': 'draft'
}
# Future dates get status "draft"
WITH_FUTURE_DATES = False

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echo
echo $pdf
pdfbook --papersize '{210mm,297mm}' --no-twoside $pdf -o booklets/$pdf
done

0
content/Essays/recommon-org-infrastructure-mega-corridors_print.md → print/recommon-org-infrastructure-mega-corridors.md
View File

0
content/Essays/zabala_warning_print.md → print/zabala_warning.md
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0
content/Essays/zugzwang_print.md → print/zugzwang.md
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151
rss-to-ap/rss-to-ap.py Normal file
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@ -0,0 +1,151 @@
import feedparser
import datetime
import pypandoc
from nltk import sent_tokenize
from mastodon import Mastodon
# https://feedparser.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
# -------------------------------------
# FEED DETAILS
feed = 'output/feeds/feed.rss'
d = feedparser.parse(feed)
feedtitle = d.feed.title
# -------------------------------------
# GREP LATEST RSS ENTRY
title = d.entries[0].title
author = d.entries[0].author
link = d.entries[0].link
year = "{:02d}".format(d.entries[0].published_parsed[0])
month = "{:02d}".format(d.entries[0].published_parsed[1])
day = "{:02d}".format(d.entries[0].published_parsed[2] + 1)
print('LATEST POST IN RSS:', year, month, day)
# -------------------------------------
# WHAT DATE IS IT TODAY?
today = str(datetime.date.today()).split('-')
today_year = "{:02d}".format(int(today[0]))
today_month = "{:02d}".format(int(today[1]))
today_day = "{:02d}".format(int(today[2]))
print('TODAY: ', today_year, today_month, today_day)
# -------------------------------------
# IF ENTRY IS PUBLISHED TODAY
PUBLISH = False
if year == today_year:
if month == today_month:
if day == today_day:
PUBLISH = True
# -------------------------------------
# MAKE THE TOOT !
toot = False
if PUBLISH == True:
post = d.entries[0].description
post = pypandoc.convert_text(post, 'plain', format='html')
post = post.split()
first_letter = '\n'.join(post[:5])
post = '\n'.join(post[5:len(post)])
post = post.replace('\n\n','$$$')
post = post.replace('\n',' ')
post = post.replace('$$$','\n\n')
footer = '''
) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) ))
( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( ((
{}
by {}
{}
#ann #feed #AMRO #servus'''.format(title, author, link)
maxlength = 500 # maximum length of a toot
maxlength = maxlength-(len(footer) + 10) # to create space for the footer
sentences = sent_tokenize(post)
# print(sentences)
toot = ''
count = 0
for s in sentences:
if count == 0:
toot += '“'
toot += first_letter
count += 1
if count > 0:
if (len(toot) + len(s)) < maxlength:
toot += ' ' + s
count += 1
toot += '”'
toot += footer
print(toot)
# -------------------------------------
# PUBLISH ON MASTODON !
if toot:
instance = 'https://social.servus.at/'
# The following two steps only needs to be done once!
# We already did it, so it is commented out now.
# --------------------
# [done] Register the bot as an application, save details as a (.secret) plain text file.
# --------------------
# Mastodon.create_app(
# feedtitle,
# api_base_url = instance,
# to_file = 'rss-to-ap/rss-to-ap.secret'
# )
# --------------------
# [done] Write your login details to a (.secret) plain text file.
# --------------------
# mastodon = Mastodon(
# client_id = 'rss-to-ap/rss-to-ap.secret',
# api_base_url = instance
# )
# username = 'nourishing-network@servus.at'
# password = 'PASSWORD'
# mastodon.log_in(
# username,
# password,
# to_file = 'rss-to-ap/rss-to-ap-usercred.secret'
# )
# --------------------
# Log in, using the .secret file.
# --------------------
mastodon = Mastodon(
access_token = 'rss-to-ap/rss-to-ap-usercred.secret',
api_base_url = instance
)
# mastodon.toot(toot)

45
themes/basic/static/css/main.css
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@ -63,15 +63,20 @@ h1 a,
h2 a,
h3 a{
font-family: "White Rabbit";
margin: 0 0 1.5em 0;
margin: 2em 0 1em 0;
padding: 0;
font-weight: normal;
line-height: 1.25;
clear: both;
}
h1#title{
width: 100%;
font-size: 150%;
text-align: center;
}
h2.post-title{
margin-top:0;
}
pre#backlink a{
text-decoration: none;
color: yellow !important;
@ -98,9 +103,25 @@ hr{
content:"...............................................................................................";
}
img{
article.post.page img{
max-width: 250px;
margin: 0 0.5em;
float: none;
}
article.post img{
display: block;
max-width: 500px;
margin: 2em auto 0em;
}
small{
display: block;
width: 500px;
margin: 0 auto 2em;
}
audio{
display: block;
margin: 2em auto;
}
/* ASCII */
@ -119,3 +140,23 @@ pre#title{
}
/* disable print elements */
#colophon_title,
.colophon,
.first-page,
#pageheader-issue,
#pageheader-theme{
display: none;
}
section#content pre#first_letter {
float:left;
margin-bottom: 20px;
margin-right: 10px;
}
section#content pre#first_letter_mel {
float:left;
margin-bottom: 10px;
margin-right: 30px;
}

5
themes/basic/templates/article.html
View File

@ -13,11 +13,6 @@
<div class="date">
{{ article.locale_date }}
</div>
{% if article.category %}
<div class="category">
<a href="{{ SITEURL }}/{{ article.category.url }}">{{ article.category }}</a>
</div>
{% endif %}
</div>
<div class="post-content">

20
themes/basic/templates/base.html
View File

@ -6,6 +6,8 @@
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<meta name="generator" content="Pelican" />
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" href="{{ SITEURL }}/{{ FEED_RSS }}">
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" href="{{ SITEURL }}/{{ FEED_ALL_ATOM }}">
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="{{ SITEURL }}/{{ THEME_STATIC_DIR }}/css/fonts.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="{{ SITEURL }}/{{ THEME_STATIC_DIR }}/css/{{ CSS_FILE }}" />
{% endblock head %}
@ -81,7 +83,7 @@ m...........
</section>
<footer>
<pre>
<pre id="backlink"><a href="{{ SITEURL }}/">
) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) )
( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( (
) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) )
@ -90,7 +92,7 @@ m...........
( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( (
) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) ) ) ) )) ) ) )
( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( ( ( ( (( ( ( (
</pre>
</a></pre>
<pre>
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
@ -98,15 +100,11 @@ o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
</pre>
<br>
<p id="colophon" style="text-align:center;">
<i>A Nourishing Network</i> is initiated by <a href="https://servus.at" target="blank">servus.at</a> (Davide Bevilacqua)
in collaboration with <a href="https://varia.zone" target="blank">varia.zone</a>
(Alice Strete & Manetta Berends) and is published in the context of
<a href="https://www.radical-openness.org/en" target="new">AMRO 2020</a> (Arts Meets Radical Openness).
Many thanks to our <a href="{{ SITEURL }}/pages/thanks.html#partners">partners</a>, <a href="{{ SITEURL }}/pages/thanks.html#collaborators">collaborators</a>, <a href="{{ SITEURL }}/pages/thanks.html#authors">authors</a> and the AMRO community.
<br>This project is produced
with Free Software tools. The feeds are made with <a href="https://blog.getpelican.com/" target="new">Pelican</a> & <a href="https://weasyprint.org/" target="new">Weasyprint</a>. Fonts: <a href="https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/white-rabbit" target="new">White Rabbit</a>, <a href="http://unifoundry.com/unifont/" target="new">Unifont</a>, monospace;
ASCII art made with <a href="https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/mb/ascii-art-but-with-unicode" target="blank">ascii-art-but-with-Unicode</a>;
<br>and just-in-case, this is the <a href="https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/mb/AMRO-2020-publication" target="new">Git repository</a> with source files of this project.
<i>A Nourishing Network</i> is initiated by <a href="https://servus.at" target="blank">servus.at</a> (Davide Bevilacqua) in collaboration with
<br><a href="https://varia.zone" target="blank">varia.zone</a> (Alice Strete & Manetta Berends) and is published in the context of <a href="https://www.radical-openness.org/en" target="new">AMRO 2020</a>
<br>(Arts Meets Radical Openness). Many thanks to our <a href="{{ SITEURL }}/pages/thanks.html#partners">partners</a>, <a href="{{ SITEURL }}/pages/thanks.html#authors">authors</a> and the AMRO community.
<br>This project is produced with Free Software tools: the feeds are made with <a href="https://blog.getpelican.com/" target="new">Pelican</a> & <a href="https://weasyprint.org/" target="new">Weasyprint</a>; typeset in <a href="https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/white-rabbit" target="new">White Rabbit</a>, <a href="http://unifoundry.com/unifont/" target="new">Unifont</a> and monospace; ASCII art made with <a href="https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/mb/ascii-art-but-with-unicode" target="blank">ascii-art-but-with-Unicode</a>;
<br>and just-in-case, this is the <a href="https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/mb/AMRO-2020-publication" target="new">Git repository</a> that holds the source files of this project.
<br>© servus.at and Authors 2020; Published under the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" target="new">CC-BY-SA 4.0</a> license.
</p>
</footer>

6
themes/basic/templates/index.html
View File

@ -32,7 +32,6 @@
Subscribe to the postal feed: <a href="{{ SITEURL }}/pages/subscribe-to-the-postal-feed.html">subscribe/unsubscribe</a></li>
</p>
<p>How to <a href="{{ SITEURL }}/pages/subscribe-to-the-web-feed.html">subscribe to the web feed</a>?</p>
<p>How to feed back? (soon)</p>
<br>
</div>
</section>
@ -61,11 +60,6 @@
<div class="date">
{{ article.locale_date }}
</div>
{% if article.category %}
<div class="category">
<a href="{{ SITEURL }}/{{ article.category.url }}">{{ article.category }}</a>
</div>
{% endif %}
<br>
<div><a href="{{ SITEURL }}/{{ article.url }}" title="Permalink to {{ article.title|striptags }}">Read this post</a></div>
</div>

2
themes/basic/templates/page.html
View File

@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
{% block title %}{{ SITENAME }} - {{ page.title|striptags }}{%endblock%}
{% block content %}
<article class="post">
<article class="post page">
<h1>{{ page.title }}</h1>
<div class="post-content">
{{ page.content }}

288
thesis.html
View File

@ -1,288 +0,0 @@
<h1>Wells of Knowledge: <p>Streams of poetry, music and resistance in Turkey</h1>
<h2>Merve Kılıçer</h2>
<p><i>“If history writing does not emancipate, it must be serving tyranny.”
Cemal Kafadar, ‘Kendine ait bir Roma’, pg.1</i><br></p>
In 2012, rumors started about a shopping mall to be built in the place of Gezi Park 1 near Taksim
Square in İstanbul. This park had not necessarily been in good shape for a while, but it offered a
shaded passage way for passersby, benches for the homeless, a playground for children and most
importantly, it was the last bit of green space in the concrete face of our cosmopolitan home. The
whole project was called ‘Taksim Yayalaştırma Projesi' (Project for The Pedestrianization of Tak-
sim) and the ruling government of AKP was insistent on realizing it despite the oppositions from
TMMOB (the chamber of architects) and solidarity organizations against gentrification like İstanb-
ul Kent Savunması (Istanbul City Defence) and Taksim Dayanışması (Taksim Solidarity). In fact,
many people had already been protesting and showing resistance against such projects that demol-
ished historic buildings of the area in the name of ‘urban transformation’. At first, protests evolving
around such projects were small scale and the police were aggressive enough to diffuse the crowd.
Things started to intensify when Emek Cinema, a historic cinema theatre, was demolished to be-
come a shopping mall in the spring of 2013. Following this event, more people started joining envi-
ronmentalist groups camping and organizing small concerts at Gezi park to raise awareness. On
29th of May, many people including myself were notified through friends and social media that the
trees of the park were being uprooted by the construction company and that police forces attacked
people who tried to resist them. When the police blocked all entrances to the Taksim Square and
the park, it marked the beginning of the biggest protest in the history of the Republic of Turkey.
Demonstrations started in Istanbul, around Taksim and spread across the country with the slogan
‘Her yer Taksim Her yer Direniş’, translating ‘Everywhere is Taksim, Resistance Everywhere’.
I was also with the protestors as I had spent most of my youth in Taksim and the Beyoğlu neigh-
borhood and I wasn't going to sit behind while they destroyed my home town. After two days of
protests and battle with the police, security forces finally stepped out of the square, hence starting
the 2 week long-occupation of Taksim Square. In the days of occupation, the park and square be-came fully pedestrianized because all the roads were blocked with barricades, and money exchange
was not necessary due to the donations the movement had received with emerging solidarity prac-
tices.
The occupation was a historic event for all of the country. It was like falling in love. It was terrify-
ing. It was traumatizing. It took lives. And it brought lives together. It was hopeful. And fearful. It
was a reverberation of the un/under/misrepresented multitude of Turkey. And we were clueless
about where to go from there. I remember an international journalist had asked me if it was a polit-
ical protest. I said, ‘No, there are no political parties behind this movement’ as my understanding
of what politics could be was limited. We were just an ‘apolitical generation’ who rebelled out of
nowhere, surprising the entire country.
After 7 years, I’m still trying to figure out how and why we managed to come together. Surely pro-
tecting a green area that belonged to our home, protecting friends and the increasing level of op-
pression were the instinctive push points but my real question is: how did the spirit of Gezi Park
come to life?
The park brought together people from different economic backgrounds, ethnicities and beliefs,
manifesting the idea that when we stand together we are heard. And our voice carried all the tunes,
rhythms and stories of Turkey. To analyze this historic moment, I’ve been listening closely to the
echoes of this voice through researching cultural and folkloric production in the history of this
land. I asked myself: Could the accumulation of these voices and words be the forming substances
of Gezi Spirit? What kind of knowledge do we inherit from the land we feel rooted in? Which are
the stories we were raised with and how did they shape our perception of the world and ‘other’
people we share it with?
Learning and unlearning the tenets of our upbringing is a process of growth. At the park, we wit-
nessed the clash of all the false and accurate knowledge we were introduced to throughout our
lives. This clash brought us a little closer to the understanding of what is political and how we can
have a voice in it while building an idea of a different future. Starting this research was not easybecause history is always somehow mystified and obscured. It feels like looking down into a well
with twinkling eyes and trying to see the bottom. Looking at myself on the fluctuating deep dark
surface, I started to ask simple questions about my own history. I looked at memories and mo-
ments of growth that could shed light on what direction I should take after the protests. I started
listening back to the songs of my childhood which I had memorized without questioning their
meaning or understanding when I heard people chanting them. I realized that most of them were
originally poems and that by following such cultural productions I had accessed an abundance of
alternative streams of knowledge that were previously hidden to me.
Poetry and music start their journey together and develop in parallel with each other, rooting into
the culture. The first Turkish poets were shamans, of the nomad Turkish communities, whom were
called Kam, Baksı, Ozan alongside many other names. These shamanic figures were often wander-
ers or minstrels who traveled with their instruments from land to land, chanting their own poems
and those of their predecessor. They were storytellers who narrated with poetry, music, dance and
plays. Such practices are common in many cultures around the world and although the societies
and beliefs went through significant changes over time, this method of carrying knowledge re-
mained part of everyday life.<p></p>
<p id="textdadaloglu">
Kalktı Göç Eyledi Avşar Elleri,<br>
Ağır Ağır Giden Eller Bizimdir.<br>
Arap Atlar Yakın Eder ırağı,<br>
Yüce Dağdan Aşan Yollar Bizimdir.<br>
/<br>
Rised and migrated the Avşar tribes,<br>
The folk slowly moving is ours.<br>
Arabic horses render the distances close,<br>
The paths overrunning the mighty mountains are ours.<br>
<i>Dadaloğlu’s (18th cc) epical folk poem was chanted by Ruhi Su in 1960’s</i></p>
<p>Islam started spreading through similar traditions of folkloric chanting and poetry migrating from
regions today known as Iran (Horasan) and Afghanistan. In time, many nomadic tribes of Central
Asia started abandoning their polytheistic beliefs, like the shamanic belief Tengrism 2 , and started
joining Islam. In this process Islam became greatly influenced by previous belief systems and
merged in their ritualistic way of relating with nature and the world beyond. The teachings of the
Sufi leaders, were being carried through dervish followers and minstrels called Ashik who usedsimilar instruments and poetic forms as old shamans. Through these figures who improvised and
chanted stories of the past and present, Islamic myths and epic stories started spreading in Anato-
lia. When Ottoman rule first started spreading through the region (13 th century), they joined forces
with other Turkic dominions and gradually became a powerful empire. The newly-built Sufi
schools and trained minstrels had a key role in educating people and spreading the school's specific
rhetoric. Some of the guiding figures and masters of this process were famous Islamic thinkers and
folk poets such as Yunus Emre, Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi and Hacı Bektaş-i Veli.
A similar version of this musical chanting practice along with poetry made its way into the Ot-
toman Palace and helped create the Ottoman classical music with the initiative of Sultans from dif-
ferent eras. In the palace, men were taught at the Enderun (Palace) School and women received
musical training at the Harem of Topkapı Palace. These two paths of music and literature, in folk-
lore production and in palace music, led my curiosity and this research through different parts of
history. While researching about the history of palace music, I learned about the involvement of
female musicians, poets and their increased presence in the public sphere with the arrival of mod-
ernism. For this essay, I follow the path of folkloric production which relates to the current political
issues and represents different ethnic communities of Anatolia. My family does not belong to a mi-
nority group of Turkey but growing up in a diverse and historic city like Istanbul, one becomes
aware of the misinformation we are taught within the education system. This type of history telling,
which glorifies nationalistic qualities, is common all around the world and eliminates stories of mi-
norities and critical thinking methods. To emancipate myself and my practice, it is meaningful to
investigate the past through folkloric production that has reached our present day. Following Ashik
traditions 3 and practices has been helping me to travel in time and listen to the stories of people
from different centuries. This tradition which has been taught and transferred through mentoring,
allows this volatile knowledge 4 to flow and continue reaching different audiences.</p>
Bize de Banaz'da Pir Sultan derler
Bizi de kem kişi bellemesinler
Paşa hademine tembih eylesin
Kolum çekip elim bağlamasınlar
Hüseyin Gazi Sultan binsin atına
Dayanılmaz çarh-ı felek zatına
Bizden selâm söylen ev külfetineÇıkıp ele karşı ağlamasınlar
/
They call me Pir Sultan in Banaz
Do not suppose I’m the sinister one
Pasha should advice his servants
Not to pull my arm and tie my hands
May Hüseyin Gazi Sultan* ride his horse
Irresistible to his çarh-ı felek** self
Send our salutes to the burdened household
They should not shed tears in presence of strangers
*An important Islamic war hero celebrated by the Bektaş-i Alevi community)
**The navy rifle that turns and sparks when lit
-Pir Sultan Abdal’s poem was chanted by Ashik Veysel in 1961
</p>
In Anatolian lands, when the majority of people converted to Islam, it influenced the language and
the way people related to their entourage. Gradually, the Islamic lodges became institutional enti-
ties with political power within the Ottoman Empire. Specially the lodge of Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli had
central importance for the Alevi 5 communities with the Ashik tradition playing a key role in com-
municating their beliefs and world views. For instance, Pir Sultan Abdal, a dervish and poet, fol-
lower of Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli, became a political figure and defended social equality with a critical
approach towards the Ottoman Empire. In fact, in Turkey, Alevi culture is often associated with
socialist ideologies due to the similarities in their approach to commonality and has been systemat-
ically silenced for expressing critical views or starting riots against authority. The oppressive atti-
tude of the ruling authorities towards Alevi communities has continued long since the collapse of
the Empire.
After this fall of the Ottoman Empire following the 1st World War, folk of Anatolia, with different
ethnicities and cultures, came together in order to save the land from western colonizers and fight
the War of Independence with the leadership of Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey.
The republic settled after negotiations with the invaders and reforms were made terminating reli-
gious tariqas 6 in order to start a new secular state. The intention of unifying people, led the new
state to evolve around nationalistic ideologies which gradually eliminated the diverse fabric of the
land. This orientation reflected on the themes of anthems and torch songs that narrated epics
about the independence war and glorified the ‘Turkic’ nation. These ideologies were propagated
faster around the country with the arrival of new sound recording technologies (gramophones,phonographs) and communication lines (telegraph, radio). However, despite the first radio broad-
casting starting in 1927, it was only after the 1950’s that radio and the nationalistic propaganda it
brought along was able to reach all regions of central Anatolia. The westernization in music had
already started in the last decades of Ottoman Empire with European notation techniques being
introduced to archive songs composed in the palace. During the first years of the new republic, ra-
dio broadcasts had an important role in spreading the reforms of westernization and educating the
rural (folk) population. Even though Turkey was a free republic, the geopolitical position of the
country alongside its urgent need to catch up with new technologies and the remaining debts of the
Ottoman rendered it vulnerable towards cultural colonization. With the aim of defining the identity
of ‘national music’, from 1926 till the end of the 1940’s trips were organized to archive (notate,
record on vinyl) the folkloric production in Anatolia. The archived content was used to teach west-
ern educated musicians to perform folkloric tunes on a few of the radio programs that transmitted
folk music. At times, these programs invited Ashik figures to play live. Ashik Veysel, one of the
most famous Ashik of the late Ottoman and early Republic times, was the only Ashik with Alevi
roots to be played on the radio. Even though in the 1930’s he was titled as the national poet of the
state, his Alevi roots, were still not recognized. In the 1940’s he was teaching to play cura at several
Village Institutes 7 (1942-1947) where he encountered Ruhi Su and many other musicians and intel-
lectuals from Istanbul.
<p id="textmuharrem">
The cultural production of those years can serve as a recording of the political climate around the
country. Starting from the 1950’s the western educated musicians, like Ruhi Su, Tülay German,
Sümeyra Çakır or Fikret Kızılok, in order to stay connected to their roots, started combining folk-
loric tunes and themes with popular western instruments and methods. While Tülay German
adopted folklore songs into jazz tunes and collaborated with Ashiks that migrated to the city, Fikret
Kızılok went to study with Ashik Veysel in Anatolia and made records with the songs of his mentor.</p>
This new approach was the result of the emigration of Anatolian folk (especially the minorities) to-
wards big cities to work in factories or study at the universities and technical schools. The universi-
ties became the meeting point for western educated city youth and the Anatolian youth who were
brought up with local traditions. This possibility of exchange created a synthesis of ideas, traditions
and culture which shaped the political solidarity groups. Influenced by neighboring Soviet Union,leftist movements sided with the Kurdish and Alevi people who already had a history of disobedi-
ence and used their traditional cultural production to propagate ideas of equality. These groups
were showing resistance to the economic sanctions of the U.S. who had been providing financial
support to Turkey and to do so, they were using the folkloric language which created a bridge be-
tween intellectuals, factory workers (in Turkey and in Europe) and farmers of the rural areas.
Şenlik dağıldı bir acı yel kaldı bahçede yalnız
O mahur beste çalar Müjgan’la ben ağlaşırız
Gitti dostlar şölen bitti ne eski heyecan ne hız
Yalnız kederli yalnızlığımızda sıralı sırasız
O mahur beste çalar Müjgan’la ben ağlaşırız
Bir yangın ormanından püskürmüş genç fidanlardı
Güneşten ışık yontarlardı sert adamlardı
Hoyrattı gülüşleri aydınlığı çalkalardı
Gittiler akşam olmadan ortalık karardı
Bitmez sazların özlemi daha sonra daha sonra
Sonranın bilinmezliği bir boyut katar ki onlara
Simsiyah bir teselli olur belki kalanlara
Geceler uzar hazırlık sonbahara
/
The carnival has dispersed only a bitter breeze remained in the garden
That Mahur tune plays Müjgan and I keep weeping
Friends are gone the feast has ended old thrills are no more nor is the haste
Solely mournful in our loneliness timely untimely
That Mahur tune plays Müjgan and I keep weeping
Young saplings they were erupted from a forest of fire
They would sculpt the light from the sun they were tough men
Their laughters were wild shaking the brightness of the day
As they left it all went dark before the evening came
The longing of the curas will not end then and then
The obscurity of the afterwards adds a dimension to them
And perhaps they become a pitch black solace for the ones left behind
Nights are getting longer preparation is for the fall
Atilla İlhan’s poem, Mahur 8 (1972) was composed by Ahmet Kaya in 1993
The resistance included many intellectuals and cultural workers who persistently retold the politi-
cal history of their land through poetry. Musicians who had adopted the folkloric traditions, used
the same method to pass on this knowledge and started to compose contemporary poetry into
songs. Poems of leftist intellectuals like Nazım Hikmet, Ahmed Arif, Atilla İlhan and many more
continued to be composed for decades by famous musicians in response to the local and global pol-itics. Still today young musicians, jazz soloists, rappers and pop singers voice the songs of famous
Ashik figures or folkloric ballads in various styles and spread the voice of the ‘other’ around the
world. These songs carry not only the tunes and world view of important intellectuals but also their
struggle and pain caused by political exiles, imprisonments, tortures and executions in different
stages in history. The poems telling folkloric stories continue living in songs, and reaching new
generations of youth that continue chanting them for future generations. I would like to think of it
as a cycle of growth that happens in our collective consciousness, that suddenly surfaces in mo-
ments like the Gezi Park Occupation. To contribute to this growth I share my research and through
my practice I bring forward poems, poets and composers that continue to teach me about this col-
lective past.
Gezi Park 1 : In 1806, where Gezi Park is located now, Ottoman Military Barracks were built. In 1939, after a process of
abandonment of the structure, it was demolished along with the Armenian grave yard that dated back to 1560. The aim of
this change was to plan a modern, ’healthy’ city with green areas, near the residential districts to be built.
Tengrism 2 : is a shamanistic religion practiced in Central Asia. It is characterized by shamanism, totemism, and ani-
mism. It is both monotheistic and polytheistic. Ancestor worship is also a big part of Tengriism. - https://www.discover-
mongolia.mn/blogs/the-ancient-religion-of-tengriism -
Ashik tradition 3 : Ashik are traveling bards with a string instrument. Their knowledge is passed on through mentoring.
Volatile Knowledge 4 : For further expansion on this term in relation to my practice see Kılıçer, M (2019) ‘Volitional
Volutions of the Volatile Waters’ on www.mervekilicer.com
Alevi 5: Alevism is a branch of Shi’a Islam that is practiced in Turkey and the Balkans among ethnic Turks and Kurds.
Alevis make up 20% of Turkish Muslims and comprise Turkey’s largest religious minority community. - https://rlp.hd-
s.harvard.edu/faq/alevism
Village Institute 6 a set of schools in the rural areas of Anatolia, gathered children from near by villages to teach both
western and eastern/local knowledge. They aimed to develop a basic level of education and raise teachers for the society
of the newly established republic. These institutes were terminated with the demand of U.S. because of their socialist
structures.
Tariqa(t) 7: T he Sufi doctrine or path of spiritual learning.
Mahur 8 One of the systems of melody types used in Arabic, Persian and Turkish classical music. - Wikipedia -Bibliography
Books
Kafadar, C., 2017, Kendine Ait Bir Roma - Diyar-ı Rum’da Kültürel Coğrafya ve Kimlik Üzerine. Istanbul: Metis Publish-
ing
Ortaylı, İ., 2008, Tarihimiz ve Biz, 15nd ed., 2018, Istanbul: Timaş Publishing
Sayın, Z., 2016, Kötülük Cemaatleri. Istanbul: Tekhne Publishing
Articles, catalogues and compilations
-Alpyıldız, E., 2012, Yerelden ulusala taşınan müzik belleği ve yurttan sesler. Milli Folklor, year 24, issue 96
-Ayas, O. G., 2014, Kemalist Oryantalizm ve Osmanlı-Türk Müziği. Muhafazakar Düşünce, pg. 189-212
-Azar,B., 2007, Sözlü kültür geleceği açışından türk saz şiiri. Fırat University Journal of Social Science, Volume: 17, Nr: 2,
pg: 119-133. Elazığ
-Bars, Mehmet Emin, 2018, Şamanizmden Tasavvufa. Türkbilig, Nr. 36, pg: 167-186.
-Başer, F.A., 2006, Türk halk ve klasik müziklerinin oluşum ve ilişkilerine tarihten bakmak-1. Uluslararası insan bilimleri
dergisi, ISSN: 1303-5134
-Erensü, S. and Karaman, O. (2017). The Work of a Few Trees: Gezi, Politics and Space. International Journal of Urban
and Regional Research, 41(1), pp.19-36.
-DEPO (Catalogue of exhibition and lecture series), 2012, Kind of Electricity Appeared in Outer Space: Musical Turkey in
the 1960’s. Istanbul: Anadolu Kültür/Depo
N., 2016,Pir Sultan Abdal’ın bir mecmuada yer alan şiirleri I, (Pir Sultan Abdal’s poem in a journal I).
-Kaya, H , Çeti n,
HUMANITAS - Uluslararası Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi , 4 (8) , 131-156 . DOI: 10.20304/humanitas.277542
-Koç, N., 2012, Cumhuriyet’in ilk yıllarında radyo. Cumhuriyet Tarihi Araştırmaları Dergisi, Year:8, Issue: 15.
ISSN: 1305-1458 E-ISSN: 2147-1592
-Kuloğlu, Ü., 2009, Müzik: Türklerin anadolu öncesi müzik gelenekleri ve islamiyet etkisi. T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakan-
lığı Türkiye Kültür Portalı Projesi, Ankara
-Özdamar, F., 2014, Dede Korkut Kitabı’nın çağdaş müzik sanatçıları üzerindeki tesiri. Mili Folklor, Year 26, Nr: 101.
ISSN 2146-8087
-Sarı, Ç.G., 2013, Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e kadın müzisyenler: Taş plak geleceğinde Lale ve Nerkis Hanımlar CD’si.
Toplumsal Cinsiyet, Nr:6
-Tarih Magazine, #1, 2014. Stüdyo Yapım-Proje - Gezi 1 year anniversary print
-Türk Folkloru Araştırmaları Yıllığı, 1975, Ankara University Publishing House, Ankara
-Uluskan, Seda Bayındır, 2010, Atatürk’ün sosyal ve kültürel politikaları. Ankara: AKDTYK Atatürk Araştırma Merkezi
Links
-https://vimeo.com/bibak
-http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/
-http://gezimusic.tumblr.com/
-https://blog.iae.org.tr/sergiler/taksim-gezi-parkinin-tarihcesi-http://www.rusen.org/konargocer-turkler-kim/
-https://www.alevibektasi.eu/
-http://www.musikidergisi.net/
-http://teis.yesevi.edu.tr/madde-detay/asik-veysel-satiroglu

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