There is a rich diversity of terms, concepts and practices in existence, related to lowering the environmental impact of network infrastructure. In this worksession we’ll work on a mapping of these terms, through the construction of an ‘executable glossary’: a glossary in which each entry describes a term but also includes steps towards implementation. We’ll start with a brief overview of some key concepts and practices, to give an idea of the diverse thinking informing the infrastructures that are being developed, maintained and repaired. Together, we’ll add, modify, visualize and (re)structure. Instead of static definitions, we’ll try to show changes in use throughout time, what words ‘do’, including contradictions and contested meanings.
During the session we’ll stick to low-tech ways of working, using network and computing only when needed. To think through the idea of making the entries executable, we’ll look into pattern languages, through an introduction of the work of Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein (1977), and the influence their work has had on computing (the wiki for example) as well as urban planning and more. As a contrast, we’ll briefly discuss the approach to the power of language in ‘Keywords for Radicals’ by Fritsch, O’connor and Thompson (2016) which in turn builds on Raymond Williams’ ‘Keywords’ from 1976.
The outcome of the session is the start of an executable glossary in which each entry strenghens the others, together forming a strong counternarrative: alternatives are possible and already exist.
The executable glossary in the making, Counter-Narratives, May 2022.
Tangible Cloud Oracle
The Tangible Cloud Oracle is a modified publication of the famous Smith-Waite Tarot cards, designed by Pamela ’Pixie’ Colman Smith (1871–1951). The cards are based on designs and ideas from the 2022 Tangible Cloud and Art Meets Radical Openness workshops in which participants created a set of cards with executable words that can help think through more sustainable artistic practices making use of tech; from hardware to software, from websites to types of services that can be run on a server. The deck brings together counter-narratives about technology in solidarity with human and non-human others.
The cards are inspired by pattern languages in the way these can form hypertexts, a network of linked ideas and practices that can inform and orient action. The oracle is a type of pattern language in a highly compressed form: a set of executable words that express practices challenging the tech industry’s master narrative of progress and innovation which results in extraction, pollution and depletion. It is a materialist approach to divination, not abstracted from, but entirely embedded in material environments and ecologies; rather than trying to capture the future through quantification and abstraction of repeating patterns, performing a repetition of the present; it attempts to actively and collectively make space for reflection on the present in order to open paths to possible futures.
Card design and text by Marloes de Valk. Coloring, design of the manual and production by Alex Leray. Box design by Muriel Gerhart. Riso Printing by Ronan Deriez. Typeface: Basteleur by Keussel Studio (SIL Open Font License).
Copyleft (CC4r) Brussels, March 2023. The sources can be found here.
Tangible Cloud Oracle, Tangible Cloud at KBK, March 2023.
Tangible Cloud Oracle, Tangible Cloud at KBK, March 2023.
Tangible Cloud Oracle, full set of cards.
About
Marloes de Valk is a software artist and writer in the post-despair stage of coping with the threat of global warming and being spied on by the devices surrounding her. Surprised by the obsessive dedication with which we, even post-Snowden, share intimate details about ourselves to an often not too clearly defined group of others, astounded by the deafening noise we generate while socializing with the technology around us, she is looking to better understand why.
She has a strong interest in Free/Libre/Open Source Software, free culture, art and technology. She is a thesis supervisor at the master Experimental Publishing at Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam and a PhD researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University, in collaboration with The Photographer’s Gallery, looking into the material impact of the networked image on the climate crisis.