Inspired by the potential of *digital infrapuncture*, a term coined by researcher Deb Verhoeven, this module brings bots and infrastructure together as *infrapunctures*. *Infrapuncture* is a portmanteau word which conflates *infrastructure* and *acupuncture*, referring to small-scale interventions that have a catalytic effect on the whole. The term emerges from the need to reconsider our digital infrastructures, study their underlying systems of inequality and exploitation, and acknowledge their limits in terms of capacity and care. This module explores what role bots can have as infrastructural stress relievers, by actively engaging with the norms and values inscribed into computational tools and infrastructures.
This module combines theoretical and practical work—bringing the fields of digital humanities, design and media art together—and proposes to use the format of the *prototype* (and the activity of *prototyping*) as performative theoretical tool that feeds different practices into each other. We understand the prototype both as a research methodology (to critically engage with digital infrastructures in a hands-on way) and as a prefigurative practice (to imagine possible transformations and interventions, bridging between past, present and future), following Alan Galey's and Stan Ruecker's work on framing how prototypes could argue as arguments. In their work *How Prototypes Argue*[^prototype] Galey and Ruecker formulate how "digital artifacts have meaning, not just utility, and may constitute original contributions to knowledge in their own right" (3).
<!-- > We suggest that prototyping as a critical process demands that we move beyond the binary in which written project reports become stand-ins for digital objects themselves, in all their complexity and media-specificity. This perspective requires us to learn to read digital objects critically, respecting their intellectual potential in the same way that a peer-reviewer recognizes the potential of an article, book, or grant application—keeping in mind that recognition and approval are not the same thing. -->
<!-- > One theory is not necessarily as good as the next, but the digital humanities will surely benefit from recognizing the diversity of forms which theories and critical arguments may take. -->
<!-- > "As a way of thinking, design positions us in a potent space between the past and the future. Failing to recognize design as a hermeneutic process means failing to understand how our inherited cultural record actually works." -->
<!-- "how the process of designing may be used simultaneously for creating an artifact and as a process of critical interpretation, and whether new forms of digital objects, such as interface components and visualization tools, contain arguments that advance knowledge about the world". -->
The goal of this online module is to foster what Karin van Es terms *tool criticism thinking* (e.g. the skills and practices for critically engaging with the norms and values of our computational tools and infrastructures). The module consists of readings, videos and exercises that help you analyze and reflect on how infrastructural agency, impact or power is shaped, structured and performed.
You can go through this module at your own speed. No subscription is required, you can simply start by clicking on the *start* button in each section and follow the instructions.
