This is the repository for the online module Bots as Digital Infrapuncture, commissioned by the Utrecht University
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Title: Introduction - Digital Infrapuncture
Slug: 01-s1-introduction-digital-infrapuncture
Date: 2020-11-01 12:00
Summary: *Digital infrapuncture* is a speculative term that can help reframe the perception of the stress points that an infrastructure could have.
*Digital infrapuncture* is a speculative term that can help reframe the perception of the stress points that an infrastructure could have. In a talk she presented in 2016 called *Identifying the point of it all: Towards a Model of "Digital Infrapuncture"*[^DigitalInfrapuncture], Verhoeven develops this concept in relation to the field of digital humanities.
Informed by the work of scholar Nowviskie (Nowviskie 2015)[^Nowviskie], Verhoeven asks for a rethinking of digital infrastructures in terms of capacity and care, by *"developing an appreciation for where it hurts, where the sense of pain is in the worlds that we inhabit and study"* and creating small scale interventions which can enkindle transformation on a larger scale.
In her presentation, she describes digital infrastructures according to their:
* capacity to create the **conditions of possibility for connection**
* their capacity for **repair** (Jackson, 2014)[^Jackson]
* and their capacity to **bring things (back) together**
![A screenshot of the last slide from Verhoeven's presentation.](/images/slide.png)
If we understand an infrastructure as a relational device - or in other words - as a technology that brings things (back) together, we can start to critically enquire where infrastructures fail to do so.
What are examples of infrastructures that do *not* bring things together anymore?
How does an infrastructure connect? And how are these connections constructed and formatted?
Who is an infrastructure bringing together? And who *not*? What are the conditions and possibilities for connection they provide? Where do they *not* connect and concequently exclude people?
And, most importantly, *who* can actually intervene in the design of infrastructures? And *how*?
We invited Deb Verhoeven to respond to the following questions:
* What are digital infrapunctures?
* How do we identify stress points in digital infrastructures?
* Who can create infrapunctures?
* Could you expand on the analogy of acupuncture in relation to infrastructures?
* Could you give some examples of infrapunctural interventions?
<br>
# Footnotes & Further readings
[^DigitalInfrapuncture]: Verhoeven, Deb. "Opening Keynote: Identifying the point of it all: Towards a Model of 'Digital Infrapuncture'" *Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School* (2016) [https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/opening-keynote-identifying-point-it-all-towards-model-digital-infrapuncture](https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/opening-keynote-identifying-point-it-all-towards-model-digital-infrapuncture)
[^Nowviskie]: Nowviskie, Bethany. "On Capacity and Care" *Bethany Nowviskie* (2015) Accessed 18 September, 2020. [http://nowviskie.org/2015/on-capacity-and-care/](http://nowviskie.org/2015/on-capacity-and-care/)
4 years ago
[^Jackson]: Jackson, Steven J. "Rethinking Repair" *Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society* (2014): 221-239. [https://sjackson.infosci.cornell.edu/Jackson_RethinkingRepair(MITPress2014).pdf](https://sjackson.infosci.cornell.edu/Jackson_RethinkingRepair(MITPress2014).pdf)