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<p>... and "playthrough infrastructure"<br>
<br>
</p>
<p>Wow Federico, thank you for this amazing proposal!<br>
<br>
I did not - in all honesty - understand all the technicalities,
but I am enthusiastic about this project and would very much like
to "get my hands dirty" with some hardware-building and playful
learning about infrastructure.<br>
<br>
I will think about what you ask us to propose, and I think we
could dedicate a time for this discussion in the next meeting,
also in view of the upcoming launch at the kick-off event. </p>
<p>What you mentioned brings immediately to mind <i>awareness cues</i>,
those affordances and interface choices that reveal (or conceal)
what people are doing, where they are, how they move, etc. Cues
that give us <i>mediated </i>social awareness, the knowledge that
distant others are online, that they read our message, that they
arrived at destination.<br>
<br>
What could the box do? How does the box create the lab? Maybe the
box can show when someone is working on a file/the archive (<i>active
member?</i>), or when everyone is within a certain physical
range (<i>open lab?</i>- blue light), or when two people are in
proximity (another color), etc. Many possibilities. We could
start, as you also suggest, from what could be useful - but also
poetic :)<br>
<br>
Other questions come to mid: what does the lab do? Maybe a
data-based visualization, that becomes a performance building up
over time. How does the lab interact with the space around it?
With the people, the beings, and the objects in the space? Can the
lab - with its craftiness, with awareness cues - be "the bridge
between the material and the digital"? In other words, what kind
of interface is the box and what does it allow us to do? <br>
<br>
I also wonder if rather than "the box", we could find it a more
characterizing name. Maybe we don't yet know how we want to
characterize this box, but I think it deserves being a specific
box :) <br>
<br>
Hope you don't mind my Saturday rambling, looking forward to talk
more about this. <br>
Best, <br>
Giulia<br>
<br>
<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 17/1/26 10:55, Federico Bonelli via
Core wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:e586ec5f-86c4-4a3d-9195-7fb6eed769fa@trasformatorio.net">###
Introducing “The Box”: An "Infrastructure-Through-Play"
<br>
<br>
open proposal for the datagovlab artistic side
<br>
<br>
>"The first task of the lab is to set up the lab."
<br>
Albumahin the Elder, the seven unspeakable laws of wisdom p.999
<br>
<br>
I see what i call "the box" as an object with a function; to "take
out the box" is "to set-up lab".
<br>
<br>
Since the beginning of our work some months ago we wished for an
open source, privacy aware, knowledge sharing service. A system to
build our own labs activities upon.
<br>
To have buld our own lab's infrastructure is a key passage. It
should be "a playground in a box" and such "to play the box" the
first games I propose we play together.
<br>
<br>
Embodied experiences are far more than technical procedures used
to defining the playing field. We want only draw the lines, tell
the rules but played the game.
<br>
<br>
I thought about the simplest, most atomic, instance of (own)DATA
and (SELF)Governance i could propose as the initial form. The Box
contains files and files are being organised. Is as well a complex
technological object we should be able to understand, at least in
principle, maintain and operate. During a long project tools the
organisation evolves. Interpersonal knowledge is forming and has
to be shared with newcomers. A Box is a container to transport
precious things. The more precious the box the more interesting
the story that carries the notions you want to share.
<br>
<br>
As in knowledge its "oneness" is totally fictional. So you see one
box but there are multiple boxes. 8 to be precise, the standing
symbol.
<br>
<br>
<br>
They represent "the VAULT"; they contain the files but as well are
the vault, because when is there a file has 8 copies in all others
vault, not only a back up but a signal to all the cluster of
boxes, because communication makes a message bigger than its
words. Each box is 8 boxes.
<br>
<br>
Then, each box cannot survive without its keeper, as for any
structure it sign a meaning at the same time that its custodian
keep the necessary knowledge to access it. The custodian knows how
to build it, operate and maintain it, and knows why. They are the
link to the story that justify the meaning, without them the piece
of metal and circuit is a worthless fossile.
<br>
For this reason to build the lab's walls each one of us has to
build their box. This is how you earn your box.
<br>
<br>
The 8 cluster form a unity in the net, through a private
encrypted network. As such they are used by us, the labbers, as
gateway to our own lab infrastructure. Opening (or switching on)
the box is creating the "situation" lab. As such has to refract on
the other boxes far away. The box is a feeling entity, so has to
be linked to feeling the lab as a unity.
<br>
<br>
To show ourselves this sensibility layer of connection that i
call awareness layer we need to give other functions to the boxes.
The hardware allows many. I chose for now the simplest most atomic
i could think of, a RGB led. Color, light, behaviour should map
properties of the cluster: activity, relations, distance of
elements. We have to find which ones will be relevant to us and
implement them. The system allows to do a lot, from playing music
to giant installations piloted by our knowledge base dynamic, yet
we want to be able to perfect autonomy in constructing these
effects and as such interpret them. They should speek to us.
Technology for communication should have at least an attempt to be
poetical. We shall find our own way to signal this.
<br>
All these machines, these data producing and interpreting units
that we already have in the pockets and on the desks. What other
means of communication allow? How many of those are hybrid (in the
sense of having a reality that is neither only material neither
merely technical? And how they should behave in the environment to
appear polite and proper? Is it only vanity and dopamine addiction
to drive design? What is to be the education of machines? And what
all this screaming of data does to human and more than human
existence?
<br>
<br>
SO what in god's name shall this tiny light do? Become pulsing
white when we are in the same room? Blink orange when someone
edits a file in the vault? Glowing warm purple if someone writes a
new page? And is that peasant or annoying?
<br>
I believe in fostering awareness, in liminal perception systems
and enjoy the feedback it gives me, calms me to ear the noise of
the steps of a loved one on the staircase, the sounding buzz of
the fridge at night, the glow of a candle, the perception the work
is done by the order on the desk... but you? What is necessary
and what is superfluous, what is annoying and what is practical?
We can investigate and find this together.
<br>
<br>
In short: "how can we be a lab without having a lab space?".
<br>
<br>
My answer is we are the lab and we play the lab game in the lab.
We set shop anywhere and we make this evident by connecting to our
boxes: they react with light and color to our activities, and give
us a hook to show who we are and tell some story of our work if we
feel like. And we learn by playing the lab together.
<br>
<br>
I hope that this will be enough (if you read till here) to engage
you all in this because wishes to be a playful proposal, meant to
blend making, thinking, and experimenting together "the lab". I
propose it and start playing it, you are not obliged to play with
me. To play takes to set aside some time they say. Yet life is not
time, is presence and felt duration, I think that fulfilment is a
better measure than time, an activity should last till its fun
factor fulfils us.
<br>
Let's not fear time. The feeling time is short. We should always
allow us all the time to feel. Is such a big part of taking care
of what/who we love.
<br>
<br>
<br>
TECH APPENDIX
<br>
<br>
Let’s describe what should be inside the eight boxes. Consider
for now I have build two that are functional as a proof of concept
and I can demonstrate to guide you to make one if you like. We
shall order asap the parts.
<br>
<br>
- A small single-board computer running Linux, with the following
functions:
<br>
- Connect to a private network (VPN), with the box acting as a
node.
<br>
- A complete, auto-updating and self synchronising copy of all
texts written by the entire group and based on obsidian (VAULT).
This is allowing each member to browse read and add their own
notes as well as those taken by others propagating a 8 folded back
up. As many other potential functionalities. Texts will be in
markdown and as a writing and ordering system I propose to use the
open source multi platform and extensible software obsidian.
<br>
- A perceptive system, letting us *intuitively sense* the
activity of the whole group through the behaviour of the box. This
is done by signals carried by two different protocols (OSC and
MQTT)
<br>
<br>
To build the box, we will need to:
<br>
- Explore basic electronics and system design.
<br>
- Learn elements of networking and routing.
<br>
- Understand principles of operation and maintenance.
<br>
<br>
TIME
<br>
It took me about 8 hrs work in tree days to figure out how to
patch the first 3 boxes together. We can revise this architecture
in a couple sessions
<br>
<br>
COST
<br>
the cost of the elements to build the 8 boxes should in total
about 500 euros, +- 80 euros per box. Unless you want to house it
in a Fabergé Egg the actual container should be a fun side project
to make.
<br>
<br>
You will be able to get into the VPN with all your local devices;
access the files shared with all the group locally as they synch
in the background. It will work in any place, can be powered by
battery and with solar. Can function without connection to
internet. Allows to "exit" to the internet in any of the location
of the connected boxes. The hardware that has space for mounting
other drives, connecting sensors and interface with many kinds of
actuators to express a wide range of activities both digital or in
the space we are.
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
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