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Title: How to Build a Low-tech Internet |
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Author: Kris de Decker |
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<!-- Status: published --> |
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<p id="colophon_title">Colophon</p> |
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<div class="colophon"> |
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<p>A Nourishing Network is a peer-to-peer publishing experiment starting from the feed as a potentially multi-directional circulation device.</p> |
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<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> |
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<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. |
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</p> |
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<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> |
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<p> Published under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.</p> |
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</p></div> |
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<div class="first-page"> |
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<div id="title_edition"> A Nourishing Network - December 2020</div> |
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<div id="title">The Philosophy of Warnings</div> |
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<div id="author"> by Santiago Zabala</div> |
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<pre id="ascii_blob"> |
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----------i-------i-------i-------i-------i-------i-------i----------- |
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-------s--------s--------s--------s--------s--------s--------s-------- |
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----- --------- -------- --------- --------- -------- --------- ------ |
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--------------------o----o---o----o----o---o----o--------------------- |
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-------------------------r--r--r--r--r--r--r-------------------------- |
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---------------------------- k-kk-k-kk-k ----------------------------- |
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</pre> |
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</div> |
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<header id="pageheader-issue">A Nourishing Network</header> |
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<header id="pageheader-theme">The Philosophy of Warnings</header> |
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|
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<div class="essay_content"> |
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<p> |
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Wireless internet access is on the rise in both modern consumer |
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societies and in the developing world.</p> |
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|
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In rich countries, however, the focus is on always-on connectivity and |
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ever higher access speeds. In poor countries, on the other hand, |
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connectivity is achieved through much more low-tech, often asynchronous |
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networks. |
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|
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While the high-tech approach pushes the costs and energy use of the |
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internet [higher and higher](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/can-the-internet-run-on-renewable-energy.html), |
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the low-tech alternatives result in much cheaper and very energy |
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efficient networks that combine well with renewable power production and |
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are resistant to disruptions. |
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|
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If we want the internet to keep working in circumstances where access to |
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energy is more limited, we can learn important lessons from alternative |
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network technologies. Best of all, there\'s no need to wait for |
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governments or companies to facilitate: we can build our own resilient |
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communication infrastructure if we cooperate with one another. This is |
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demonstrated by several community networks in Europe, of which the |
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largest has more than 35,000 users already. |
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|
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[]{#anchor}Picture: A node in the [Scottish Tegola |
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Network](http://www.tegola.org.uk/hebnet/). |
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|
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More than half of the global population does not have access to the |
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\"worldwide\" web. Up to now, the internet is mainly an urban |
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phenomenon, especially in \"developing\" countries. Telecommunication |
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companies are usually reluctant to extend their network outside cities |
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due to a combination of high infrastructure costs, low population |
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density, limited ability to pay for services, and an unreliable or |
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non-existent electricity infrastructure. Even in remote regions of |
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\"developed\" countries, internet connectivity isn\'t always available. |
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|
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Internet companies such as Facebook and Google regularly make headlines |
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with plans for connecting these remote regions to the internet. Facebook |
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tries to achieve this with drones, while Google counts on high-altitude |
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balloons. There are major technological challenges, but the main |
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objection to these plans is their commercial character. Obviously, |
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Google and Facebook want to connect more people to the internet because |
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that would increase their revenues. Facebook especially receives lots of |
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criticism because their network promotes their own site in particular, |
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and blocks most other internet applications. \[1\] |
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|
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Meanwhile, several research groups and network enthusiasts have |
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developed and implemented much cheaper alternative network technologies |
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to solve these issues. Although these low-tech networks have proven |
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their worth, they have received much less attention. Contrary to the |
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projects of internet companies, they are set up by small organisations |
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or by the users themselves. This guarantees an open network that |
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benefits the users instead of a handful of corporations. At the same |
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time, these low-tech networks are very energy efficient. |
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|
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****WiFi-based Long Distance Networks**** |
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|
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Most low-tech networks are based on WiFi, the same technology that |
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allows mobile access to the internet in most western households. As we |
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have seen in the previous article, [sharing these devices could provide |
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free mobile access across densely populated |
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cities](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/the-4g-network-thats-already-there.html). |
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But the technology can be equally useful in sparsely populated areas. |
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Although the WiFi-standard was developed for short-distance data |
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communication (with a typical range of about 30 metres), its reach can |
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be extended through modifications of the Media Access Control (MAC) |
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layer in the networking protocol, and through the use of range extender |
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amplifiers and directional antennas. \[2\] |
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|
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Although the WiFi-standard was developed for short-distance data |
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communication, its reach can be extended to cover distances of more than |
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100 kilometres. |
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|
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The longest unamplified WiFi link is a 384 km wireless point-to-point |
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connection between Pico El Águila and Platillón in Venezuela, |
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established a few years ago. \[3,4\] However, WiFi-based long distance |
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networks usually consist of a combination of shorter point-to-point |
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links, each between a few kilometres and one hundred kilometers long at |
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most. These are combined to create larger, multihop networks. |
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Point-to-points links, which form the backbone of a long range WiFi |
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network, are combined with omnidirectional antennas that distribute the |
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signal to individual households (or public institutions) of a community. |
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|
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Picture: A relay with three point-to-point links and three sectoral |
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antennae. |
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[Tegola](http://www.tegola.org.uk/howto/network-planning.html). |
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|
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Long-distance WiFi links require line of sight to make a connection \-- |
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in this sense, the technology resembles the [18th century optical |
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telegraph](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2007/12/email-in-the-18.html). |
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\[5\] If there\'s no line of sight between two points, a third relay is |
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required that can see both points, and the signal is sent to the |
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intermediate relay first. Depending on the terrain and particular |
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obstacles, more hubs may be necessary. \[6\] |
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|
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Point-to-point links typically consist of two directional antennas, one |
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focused on the next node and the other on the previous node in the |
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network. Nodes can have multiple antennas with one antenna per fixed |
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point-to-point link to each neighbour. \[7\] This allows mesh routing |
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protocols that can dynamically select which links to choose for routing |
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among the available ones. \[8\] |
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|
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Long-distance WiFi links require line of sight to make a connection \-- |
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in this sense, the technology resembles the 18th century optical |
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telegraph. |
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|
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Distribution nodes usually consist of a sectoral antenna (a small |
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version of the things you see on mobile phone masts) or a conventional |
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WiFi-router, together with a number of receivers in the community. \[6\] |
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For short distance WiFi-communication, there is no requirement for line |
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of sight between the transmitter and the receiver. \[9\] |
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|
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To provide users with access to the worldwide internet, a long range |
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WiFi network should be connected to the main backbone of the internet |
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using at least one \"backhaul\" or \"gateway node\". This can be a |
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dial-up or broadband connection (DSL, fibre or satellite). If such a |
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link is not established, users would still be able to communicate with |
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each other and view websites set up on local servers, but they would not |
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be able to access the internet. \[10\] |
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|
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****Advantages of Long Range WiFi**** |
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|
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Long range WiFi offers high bandwidth (up to 54 Mbps) combined with very |
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low capital costs. Because the WiFi standard enjoys widespread |
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acceptance and has huge production volumes, off-the-shelf antennas and |
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wireless cards can be bought for very little money. \[11\] |
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Alternatively, components can be put together [from discarded |
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materials](http://roelof.info/projects/%282014%29Pretty_Fly_For_A_Wifi/) |
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such as old routers, satellite dish antennas and laptops. Protocols like |
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WiLDNet run on a 266 Mhz processor with only 128 MB memory, so an old |
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computer will do the trick. \[7\] |
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|
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The WiFi-nodes are lightweight and don\'t need expensive towers \-- |
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further decreasing capital costs, and minimizing the impact of the |
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structures to be built. \[7\] More recently, single units that combine |
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antenna, wireless card and processor have become available. These are |
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very convenient for installation. To build a relay, one simply connects |
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such units together with ethernet cables that carry both signal and |
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power. \[6\] The units can be mounted in towers or slim masts, given |
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that they offer little windload. \[3\] Examples of suppliers of long |
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range WiFi components are [Ubiquity](https://www.ubnt.com/), |
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[Alvarion](http://www.alvarion.com/) and |
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[MikroTik](http://www.mikrotik.com/), and |
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[simpleWiFi](https://www.simplewifi.com/). |
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|
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Long Range WiFi makes use of unlicensed spectrum and offers high |
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bandwidth, low capital costs, easy installation, and low power |
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requirements. |
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|
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Long range WiFi also has low operational costs due to low power |
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requirements. A typical mast installation consisting of two long |
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distance links and one or two wireless cards for local distribution |
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consumes around 30 watts. \[6,12\] In several low-tech networks, nodes |
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are entirely powered by solar panels and batteries. Another important |
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advantage of long range WiFi is that it makes use of unlicensed spectrum |
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(2.4 and 5 GHz), and thus avoids negotiations with telecom operators and |
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government. This adds to the cost advantage and allows basically anyone |
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to start a WiFi-based long distance network. \[9\] |
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|
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****Long Range WiFi Networks in Poor Countries**** |
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|
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The first long range WiFi networks were set up ten to fifteen years ago. |
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In poor countries, two main types have been built. The first is aimed at |
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providing internet access to people in remote villages. An example is |
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the Akshaya network in India, which covers the entire Kerala State and |
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is one of the largest wireless networks in the world. The infrastructure |
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is built around approximately 2,500 \"computer access centers\", which |
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are open to the local population \-- direct ownership of computers is |
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minimal in the region. \[13\] |
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|
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Another example, also in India, are the AirJaldi networks which provide |
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internet access to approximately 20,000 users in six states, all in |
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remote regions and on difficult terrain. Most nodes in this network are |
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solar-powered and the distance between them can range up to 50 km or |
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more. \[14\] In some African countries, local WiFi-networks distribute |
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internet access from a satellite gateway. \[15,16\] |
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|
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A node in the AirJaldi network. Picture: AirJaldi. |
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|
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A second type of long distance WiFi network in poor countries is aimed |
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at providing telemedicine to remote communities. In remote regions, |
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health care is often provided through health posts scarcely equipped and |
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attended by health technicians who are barely trained. \[17\] Long-range |
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WiFi networks can connect urban hospitals with these outlying health |
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posts, allowing doctors to remotely support health technicians using |
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high-resolution file transfers and real-time communication tools based |
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on voice and video. |
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|
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An example is the link between Cabo Pantoja and Iquitos in the Loreto |
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province in Peru, which was established in 2007. The 450 km network |
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consists of 17 towers which are 16 to 50 km apart. The line connects 15 |
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medical outposts in remote villages with the main hospital in Iquitos |
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and is aimed at remote diagnosis of patients. \[17,18\] All equipment is |
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powered by solar panels. \[18,19\] Other succesful examples of long |
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range WiFi telemedicine networks have been built in India, Malawi and |
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Ghana. \[20,21\] |
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|
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****WiFi-Based Community Networks in Europe**** |
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|
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The low-tech networks in poor countries are set up by NGO\'s, |
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governments, universities or businesses. In contrast, most of the |
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WiFi-based long distance networks in remote regions of rich countries |
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are so-called \"community networks\": the users themselves build, own, |
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power and maintain the infrastructure. Similar to the shared wireless |
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approach in cities, reciprocal resource sharing forms the basis of these |
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networks: participants can set up their own node and connect to the |
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network (for free), as long as their node also allows traffic of other |
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members. Each node acts as a WiFi routing device that provides IP |
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forwarding services and a data link to all users and nodes connected to |
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it. \[8,22\] |
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|
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In a community network, the users themselves build, own, power and |
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maintain the infrastructure. |
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|
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Consequently, with each new user, the network becomes larger. There is |
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no a-priori overall planning. A community network grows bottom-up, |
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driven by the needs of its users, as nodes and links are added or |
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upgraded following demand patterns. The only consideration is to connect |
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a node from a new participant to an existing one. As a node is powered |
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on, it discovers it neighbours, attributes itself a unique IP adress, |
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and then establishes the most appropriate routes to the rest of the |
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network, taking into account the quality of the links. Community |
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networks are open to participation to everyone, sometimes according to |
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an open peering agreement. \[8,9,19,22\] |
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|
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Wireless links in the Spanish Guifi network. |
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[Credit](https://iuliinet.github.io/presentazione_ottobre_2014/img/barcellona.jpg). |
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|
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Despite the lack of reliable statistics, community networks seem to be |
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rather succesful, and there are several large ones in Europe, such as |
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[Guifi.net](https://guifi.net/) (Spain), [Athens Wireless Metropolitan |
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Network](http://www.awmn.gr/content.php?s=ce506a41ab245641d6934638c6f6f107) |
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(Greece), [FunkFeuer](http://www.funkfeuer.at/) (Austria), and |
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[Freifunk](https://freifunk.net/en/) (Germany). \[8,22,23,24\] The |
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Spanish network is the largest WiFi-based long distance network in the |
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world with more than 50,000 kilometres of links, although a small part |
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is based on optic fibre links. Most of it is located in the Catalan |
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Pyrenees, one of the least populated areas in Spain. The network was |
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initiated in 2004 and now has close to 30,000 nodes, up from 17,000 in |
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2012. \[8,22\] |
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|
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Guifi.net provides internet access to individuals, companies, |
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administrations and universities. In principle, the network is |
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installed, powered and maintained by its users, although volunteer teams |
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and even commercial installers are present to help. Some nodes and |
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backbone upgrades have been succesfully crowdfunded by indirect |
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beneficiaries of the network. \[8,22\] |
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|
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****Performance of Low-tech Networks**** |
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|
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So how about the performance of low-tech networks? What can you do with |
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them? The available bandwidth per user can vary enormously, depending on |
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the bandwidth of the gateway node(s) and the number of users, among |
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other factors. The long-distance WiFi networks aimed at telemedicine in |
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poor countries have few users and a good backhaul, resulting in high |
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bandwidth (+ 40 Mbps). This gives them a similar performance to fibre |
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connections in the developed world. A study of (a small part of) the |
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Guifi.net community network, which has dozens of gateway nodes and |
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thousands of users, showed an average throughput of 2 Mbps, which is |
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comparable to a relatively slow DSL connection. Actual throughput per |
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user varies from 700 kbps to 8 Mbps. \[25\] |
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|
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The available bandwidth per user can vary enormously, depending on the |
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bandwidth of the gateway node(s) and the number of users, among other |
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factors |
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|
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However, the low-tech networks that distribute internet access to a |
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large user base in developing countries can have much more limited |
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bandwidth per user. For example, a university campus in Kerala (India) |
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uses a 750 kbps internet connection that is shared across 3,000 faculty |
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members and students operating from 400 machines, where during peak |
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hours nearly every machine is being used. |
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|
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Therefore, the worst-case average bandwidth available per machine is |
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approximately 1.9 kbps, which is slow even in comparison to a dial-up |
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connection (56 kbps). And this can be considered a really good |
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connectivity compared to typical rural settings in poor countries. |
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\[26\] To make matters worse, such networks often have to deal with an |
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intermittent power supply. |
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|
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Under these circumstances, even the most common internet applications |
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have poor performance, or don\'t work at all. The communication model of |
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the internet is based on a set of network assumptions, called the TCP/IP |
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protocol suite. These include the existence of a bi-directional |
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end-to-end path between the source (for example a website\'s server) and |
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the destination (the user\'s computer), short round-trip delays, and low |
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error rates. |
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|
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Many low-tech networks in poor countries do not comform to these |
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assumptions. They are characterized by intermittent connectivity or |
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\"network partitioning\" \-- the absence of an end-to-end path between |
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source and destination \-- long and variable delays, and high error |
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rates. \[21,27,28\] |
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|
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****Delay-Tolerant Networks**** |
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|
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Nevertheless, even in such conditions, the internet could work perfectly |
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fine. The technical issues can be solved by moving away from the |
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always-on model of traditional networks, and instead design networks |
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based upon asynchronous communication and intermittent connectivity. |
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These so-called \"delay-tolerant networks\" (DTNs) have their own |
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specialized protocols overlayed on top of the lower protocols and do not |
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utilize TCP. They overcome the problems of intermittent connectivity and |
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long delays by using store-and-forward message switching. |
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|
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Information is forwarded from a storage place on one node to a storage |
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place on another node, along a path that *eventually* reaches its |
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destination. In contrast to traditional internet routers, which only |
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store incoming packets for a few milliseconds on memory chips, the nodes |
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of a delay-tolerant network have persistent storage (such as hard disks) |
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that can hold information indefinitely. \[27,28\] |
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|
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Delay-tolerant networks combine well with renewable energy: solar panels |
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or wind turbines could power network nodes only when the sun shines or |
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the wind blows, eliminating the need for energy storage. |
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|
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Delay-tolerant networks don\'t require an end-to-end path between source |
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and destination. Data is simply transferred from node to node. If the |
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next node is unavailable because of long delays or a power outage, the |
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data is stored on the hard disk until the node becomes available again. |
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While it might take a long time for data to travel from source to |
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destination, a delay-tolerant network ensures that it will eventually |
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arrive. |
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|
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Delay-tolerant networks further decrease capital costs and energy use, |
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leading to the most efficient use of scarce resources. They keep working |
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with an intermittent energy supply and they combine well with renewable |
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energy sources: solar panels or wind turbines could power network nodes |
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only when the sun shines or the wind blows, eliminating the need for |
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energy storage. |
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|
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****Data Mules**** |
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|
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Delay-tolerant networking can take surprising forms, especially when |
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they take advantage of some non-traditional means of communication, such |
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as \"data mules\". \[11,29\] In such networks, conventional |
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transportation technologies \-- buses, cars, motorcycles, trains, boats, |
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airplanes \-- are used to ferry messages from one location to another in |
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a store-and-forward manner. |
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|
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Examples are DakNet and KioskNet, which use buses as data mules. |
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\[30-34\] In many developing regions, rural bus routes regularly visit |
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villages and towns that have no network connectivity. By equipping each |
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vehicle with a computer, a storage device and a mobile WiFi-node on the |
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one hand, and by installing a stationary WiFi-node in each village on |
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the other hand, the local transport infrastructure can substitute for a |
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wireless internet link. \[11\] |
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|
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Picture: AirJaldi. |
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|
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Outgoing data (such as sent emails or requests for webpages) is stored |
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on local computers in the village until the bus comes withing range. At |
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this point, the fixed WiFi-node of the local computer automatically |
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transmits the data to the mobile WiFi-node of the bus. Later, when the |
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bus arrives at a hub that is connected to the internet, the outgoing |
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data is transmitted from the mobile WiFi-node to the gateway node, and |
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then to the internet. Data sent to the village takes the opposite route. |
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The bus \-- or data \-- driver doesn\'t require any special skills and |
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is completely oblivious to the data transfers taking place. He or she |
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does not need to do anything other than come in range of the nodes. |
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\[30,31\] |
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|
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In a data mules network, the local transport infrastructure substitutes |
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for a wireless internet link. |
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|
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The use of data mules offers some extra advantages over more |
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\"sophisticated\" delay-tolerant networks. A \"drive-by\" WiFi network |
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allows for small, low-cost and low-power radio devices to be used, which |
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don\'t require line of sight and consequently no towers \-- further |
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lowering capital costs and energy use compared to other low-tech |
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networks. \[30,31,32\] |
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|
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The use of short-distance WiFi-links also results in a higher bandwidth |
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compared to long-distance WiFi-links, which makes data mules better |
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suited to transfer larger files. On average, 20 MB of data can be moved |
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in each direction when a bus passes a fixed WiFi-node. \[30,32\] On the |
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other hand, latency (the time interval between sending and receiving |
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data) is usually higher than on long-range WiFi-links. A single bus |
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passing by a village once a day gives a latency of 24 hours. |
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|
|||
****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) |
|||
@ -1,131 +1,85 @@ |
|||
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> |
|||
|
|||
<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> |
|||
<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> |
|||
|
|||
|
|||
</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"> |
|||
Date: 7 January 2021 |
|||
|
|||
<pre id="first_letter_mel"> |
|||
█████╗ |
|||
██╔══██╗ |
|||
███████║ |
|||
██╔══██║ |
|||
╚═╝ ╚═╝ |
|||
</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. |
|||
|
|||
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. |
|||
|
|||
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? |
|||
|
|||
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> |
|||
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> |
|||
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. |
|||
|
|||
</div> |
|||
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] |
|||
|
|||
<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) |
|||
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. |
|||
|
|||
[^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/) |
|||
[^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) |
|||
|
|||
[^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) |
|||
[^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/) |
|||
|
|||
[^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/) |
|||
[^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) |
|||
|
|||
[^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) |
|||
[^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/) |
|||
|
|||
[^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) |
|||
[^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) |
|||
|
|||
[^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) |
|||
[^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) |
|||
|
|||
[^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) |
|||
[^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/](https://theshiftproject.org/en/article/unsustainable-use-online-video/) |
|||
|
|||
[^9]: [[*https://theshiftproject.org/en/article/unsustainable-use-online-video/*]{.underline}](https://theshiftproject.org/en/article/unsustainable-use-online-video/) |
|||
[^10]: [https://www.ecosia.org/](https://www.ecosia.org/) |
|||
|
|||
[^10]: [[*https://www.ecosia.org/*]{.underline}](https://www.ecosia.org/) |
|||
[^11]: [https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/carbonalyser/](https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/carbonalyser/) |
|||
|
|||
[^11]: [[*https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/carbonalyser/*]{.underline}](https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/carbonalyser/) |
|||
[^12]: [http://www.green-algorithms.org/](http://www.green-algorithms.org/) |
|||
|
|||
[^12]: [[*http://www.green-algorithms.org/*]{.underline}](http://www.green-algorithms.org/) |
|||
[^13]: [https://landback.org/manifesto/](https://landback.org/manifesto/) |
|||
|
|||
[^13]: [[*https://landback.org/manifesto/*]{.underline}](https://landback.org/manifesto/) |
|||
[^14]: [https://www.thebalancesmb.com/e-waste-recycling-facts-and-figures-2878189](https://www.thebalancesmb.com/e-waste-recycling-facts-and-figures-2878189) |
|||
|
|||
[^14]: [[*https://www.thebalancesmb.com/e-waste-recycling-facts-and-figures-2878189*]{.underline}](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](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*]{.underline}](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](https://munkschool.exposure.co/a-qa-with-ron-deibert) |
|||
|
|||
[^16]: [[*https://munkschool.exposure.co/a-qa-with-ron-deibert*]{.underline}](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! |
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|
|||
<div class="bio-mel"> |
|||
-------------------------------- |
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|
|||
*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. |
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|
|||
@mel_hogan, melhogan.com, mhogan@ucalgary.ca |
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|
|||
@ -0,0 +1,160 @@ |
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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 |
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Date: 24 January 2021 |
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|
|||
*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)* |
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|
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<br> |
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|
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<pre id="first_letter"> |
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███████╗ |
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╚══███╔╝ |
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███╔╝ |
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███████╗ |
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╚══════╝</pre> |
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|
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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. |
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|
|||
## What could a common baseline sound like? |
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|
|||
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 |
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|
|||
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? |
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|
|||
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]. |
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|
|||
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. |
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|
|||
 |
|||
|
|||
<small>Earth in our hands, Robin Thunholm</small> |
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|
|||
Only despots believe in that fiction[^9]. |
|||
|
|||
 |
|||
|
|||
<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 |
|||
|
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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. |
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 |
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<small>Sterlet, Christina Gruber</small> |
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Do we only listen to what we want to hear? |
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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] |
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<audio controls> |
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<source src="{static}/audio/sturgeon-thunder-chrys-bocast.mp3" type="audio/mp4"> |
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</audio> |
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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]. |
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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. |
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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. |
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|
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## Connecting Acoustic Spaces - Natalia Domínguez Rangel |
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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]. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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For which reason are we listening? |
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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. |
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And what about silence? |
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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] |
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|||
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? |
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|
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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? |
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|||
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. |
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|||
<https://soundcloud.com/nataliad/viennese-acoustic-transition> |
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|
|||
## Spotting the Runoff – Samuel Hertz |
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|
|||
“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] |
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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. |
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|
|||
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. |
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|
|||
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. |
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|
|||
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. |
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|
|||
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. |
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|
|||
## Being in Zugzwang |
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|
|||
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. |
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|
|||
It helps us reorient around an important meaning of environments: Our surroundings. |
|||
|
|||
Sound conveys a world in Zugzwang. |
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|
|||
[^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. |
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[^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>. |
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[^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> |
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[^6]: Benjamin Lazier, “Earthrise; or, The Globalization of the World Picture”, The American Historical Review 116, Issue 3 (2011): 602–630. |
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[^7]: Dennis Cosgrove, Apollo's Eye: a cartographic genealogy of the Earth in the Western Imagination (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). |
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[^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. |
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[^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. |
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[^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>. |
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[^11]: http://life-sterlet.boku.ac.at/ |
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[^12]: Sala, O.E. et al. (2000). Global biodiversity scenarios for the year 2100. Science 287, 1770–1774. |
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[^13]: www.livingplanetindex.org. 2019 |
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[^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>. |
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[^15]: Definition of care: The provision of what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, and protection of someone or something (Oxford Dictionary). |
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[^16]: Second definition of care according to the Oxford Dictionary. |
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[^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. |
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[^18]: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. Pantheon Books, 1996. |
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[^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 |
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[^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>. |
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[^21]: Arkette Sophie, 2004, Sounds like City. In: Theory, Culture & Society 21, p.166 |
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[^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. |
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[^23]: Roberson, Ed. “Eclogue”. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/89465/eclogue-573e30b04c753 |
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[^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. |
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[^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). |
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|
|||
----------------------- |
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|
|||
**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. |
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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. |
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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> |
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|
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**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. |
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For her, sound can be a source of both pain and pleasure. <http://nataliadominguezrangel.com> |
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|
|||
**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. |
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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> |
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|
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**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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Binary file not shown.
@ -0,0 +1,151 @@ |
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import feedparser |
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import datetime |
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import pypandoc |
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from nltk import sent_tokenize |
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from mastodon import Mastodon |
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|
|||
# https://feedparser.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ |
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|
|||
# ------------------------------------- |
|||
# FEED DETAILS |
|||
|
|||
feed = 'output/feeds/feed.rss' |
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d = feedparser.parse(feed) |
|||
|
|||
feedtitle = d.feed.title |
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|
|||
# ------------------------------------- |
|||
# GREP LATEST RSS ENTRY |
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|
|||
title = d.entries[0].title |
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author = d.entries[0].author |
|||
link = d.entries[0].link |
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|
|||
year = "{:02d}".format(d.entries[0].published_parsed[0]) |
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month = "{:02d}".format(d.entries[0].published_parsed[1]) |
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day = "{:02d}".format(d.entries[0].published_parsed[2] + 1) |
|||
|
|||
print(year, month, day) |
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|
|||
# ------------------------------------- |
|||
# WHAT DATE IS IT TODAY? |
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|
|||
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_year, today_month, today_day) |
|||
|
|||
# ------------------------------------- |
|||
# IF ENTRY IS PUBLISHED TODAY |
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|
|||
PUBLISH = False |
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|
|||
if year == today_year: |
|||
if month == today_month: |
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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) |
|||
@ -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- |
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ul Kent Savunması (Istanbul City Defence) and Taksim Dayanışması (Taksim Solidarity). In fact, |
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many people had already been protesting and showing resistance against such projects that demol- |
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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. |
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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- |
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ronmentalist groups camping and organizing small concerts at Gezi park to raise awareness. On |
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29th of May, many people including myself were notified through friends and social media that the |
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trees of the park were being uprooted by the construction company and that police forces attacked |
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people who tried to resist them. When the police blocked all entrances to the Taksim Square and |
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the park, it marked the beginning of the biggest protest in the history of the Republic of Turkey. |
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Demonstrations started in Istanbul, around Taksim and spread across the country with the slogan |
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‘Her yer Taksim Her yer Direniş’, translating ‘Everywhere is Taksim, Resistance Everywhere’. |
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I was also with the protestors as I had spent most of my youth in Taksim and the Beyoğlu neigh- |
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borhood and I wasn't going to sit behind while they destroyed my home town. After two days of |
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protests and battle with the police, security forces finally stepped out of the square, hence starting |
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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 |
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was not necessary due to the donations the movement had received with emerging solidarity prac- |
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tices. |
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The occupation was a historic event for all of the country. It was like falling in love. It was terrify- |
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ing. It was traumatizing. It took lives. And it brought lives together. It was hopeful. And fearful. It |
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was a reverberation of the un/under/misrepresented multitude of Turkey. And we were clueless |
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about where to go from there. I remember an international journalist had asked me if it was a polit- |
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ical protest. I said, ‘No, there are no political parties behind this movement’ as my understanding |
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of what politics could be was limited. We were just an ‘apolitical generation’ who rebelled out of |
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nowhere, surprising the entire country. |
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After 7 years, I’m still trying to figure out how and why we managed to come together. Surely pro- |
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tecting a green area that belonged to our home, protecting friends and the increasing level of op- |
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pression were the instinctive push points but my real question is: how did the spirit of Gezi Park |
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come to life? |
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|
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The park brought together people from different economic backgrounds, ethnicities and beliefs, |
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manifesting the idea that when we stand together we are heard. And our voice carried all the tunes, |
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rhythms and stories of Turkey. To analyze this historic moment, I’ve been listening closely to the |
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echoes of this voice through researching cultural and folkloric production in the history of this |
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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? |
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|
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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> |
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|
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<p id="textdadaloglu"> |
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Kalktı Göç Eyledi Avşar Elleri,<br> |
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Ağır Ağır Giden Eller Bizimdir.<br> |
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Arap Atlar Yakın Eder ırağı,<br> |
|||
Yüce Dağdan Aşan Yollar Bizimdir.<br> |
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/<br> |
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Rised and migrated the Avşar tribes,<br> |
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The folk slowly moving is ours.<br> |
|||
Arabic horses render the distances close,<br> |
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The paths overrunning the mighty mountains are ours.<br> |
|||
|
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<i>Dadaloğlu’s (18th cc) epical folk poem was chanted by Ruhi Su in 1960’s</i></p> |
|||
|
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<p>Islam started spreading through similar traditions of folkloric chanting and poetry migrating from |
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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> |
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Bize de Banaz'da Pir Sultan derler |
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Bizi de kem kişi bellemesinler |
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Paşa hademine tembih eylesin |
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Kolum çekip elim bağlamasınlar |
|||
Hüseyin Gazi Sultan binsin atına |
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Dayanılmaz çarh-ı felek zatına |
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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, |
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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 |
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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/ |
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-http://teis.yesevi.edu.tr/madde-detay/asik-veysel-satiroglu |
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@ -1,3 +1,3 @@ |
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#scp -r output/* varia:/var/www/amro-2020-publication |
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# scp -r output/* varia:/var/www/amro-2020-publication |
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scp -r output/* ann:/var/www/a-nourishing-network.radical-openness.org |
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