Title: Question 1: What are digital infrapunctures?
Slug: 02-s1-question-1
Title: Introduction: Deb Verhoeven
Slug: 02-s1-introduction-deb-verhoeven
Date: 2020-11-01 12:01
Summary: A video contribution by Deb Verhoeven.
Summary:
Deb Verhoeven first introduced the term *infrapuncture* in 2016 at a Digital Humanities conference in Oxford. In her talk she gives the example of the Greek and Italian cinemas that appeared in Melbourne before the invention of the video tape and the influence they have had over the influx and organisation of the Italian and Greek immigrants living in Australia at the time. Her research concluded that these small cinemas that only screened subtitled Italian and Greek movies led to an increase in migrant population from those areas. Similarly, the shutting down of a cinema coincided with the dispersion of the immigrant community in the neighbourhood.
In the following video contributions, Deb Verhoeven will unpack the term *infrapunctures*. She will explore how it is a useful departure point for infrastructural change that is benificial for the communities who uses them.
In the following video contributions, Deb Verhoeven will unpack the term *infrapunctures*. She will explore how it is a useful departure point for infrastructural change that is benificial for the communities who uses them. We invited Deb Verhoeven to respond to the following questions:
Summary: Seda Gürses, computational infrastructures & *POTs (Protective Optimization Technologies)*
Summary: *Computational infrastructures* and *POTs (Protective Optimization Technologies)*
Seda Gürses is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Multi-Actor Systems at TU Delft at the Faculty of Technology Policy and Management, and an affiliate at the COSIC Group at the Department of Electrical Engineering (ESAT), KU Leuven. Beyond her academic work, she also collaborated with artistic initiatives including Constant vzw, Bootlab, De-center, ESC in Brussels, Graz and Berlin.
Summary: *Communicative bots*, *communicative embodiment* and *infrastructural embodiment*.
Andreas Hepp is Professor for Media and Communications at the ZeMKI (Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research), University of Bremen, Germany. In the paper[^paper] we mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, he distinguishes three kinds of communicative bots: artificial companions, social bots and work bots. For Hepp, communicative bots are characterised through a double embodiment: a communicative embodiment, referring to the bots' human-like representation, and an infrastructural embodiment, referring to the bots being embedded in the materiality of the infrastructure on which they are active. Thinking about the bots in terms of embodiment helps situate them in relation to digital communication infrastructures and their user base.
Andreas Hepp is Professor for Media and Communications at the ZeMKI (Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research), University of Bremen, Germany. In the paper[^paper] we mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, he distinguishes three kinds of *communicative bots*: artificial companions, social bots and work bots. For Hepp, communicative bots are characterised through a double embodiment: a *communicative embodiment*, referring to the bots' human-like representation, and an *infrastructural embodiment*, referring to the bots being embedded in the materiality of the infrastructure on which they are active.
Thinking about the bots in terms of embodiment helps to situate them in relation to digital communication infrastructures and their user base.
We will introduce the work of Andreas Hepp through the following questions:
@ -12,6 +15,9 @@ We will introduce the work of Andreas Hepp through the following questions:
* How does communication change in the presence of bots?
* What role do they play in the construction of the social world and what does this say about their relation to power relations in society?
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# Footnotes
[^paper]: Hepp, Andreas. "Artificial companions, social bots and work bots: communicative robots as research objects of media and communication studies"
Title: Question 3: How significant are communicative robots for the communicative construction of the social world and how does this relate to power relations in society?
Title: Question 3: How do bots relate to material infrastructures like platforms?
Title: Question 5: What role do they play in the construction of the social world and what does this say about their relation to power relations in society?
Summary: How do bots relate to digital infrastructures?
Darius Kazemi is a computer programmer and artist, whose work engages with bot making and self-hosting social networks. He organised the Bot Summit[^summit] in 2013, 2014 and 2016.
@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ The term API is an acronym for Application Programming Interface. It is an code-
Taina Bucher[^bucher] defines an API as an infrastructural device that is shaped (and shaping) many different things:
> “Among other things, web APIs encompass: a physicality in terms of the corporeal landscape of infrastructure and technology, through to the economic logics at work (i.e. business models, ownership, licencing of the APIs), functions and services (i.e. access to data), practices of users (i.e. forms of labor, play and collaboration), discursive formations (i.e. statements, knowledge, ideas), rules and norms (i.e. design principles, terms of service, technical standards), as well as social imaginaries and desires.”
> Among other things, web APIs encompass: a physicality in terms of the corporeal landscape of infrastructure and technology, through to the economic logics at work (i.e. business models, ownership, licencing of the APIs), functions and services (i.e. access to data), practices of users (i.e. forms of labor, play and collaboration), discursive formations (i.e. statements, knowledge, ideas), rules and norms (i.e. design principles, terms of service, technical standards), as well as social imaginaries and desires.
When looking at API's from a technical perspective, we see a set of rules that applications use to communicate with each other. This (apparently) neutral conception is in reality a very complex conglomerate of imaginaries, whether technological, economical or societal.
