[DATAGOV Core] infrastructure-through-play

[Giulia Campaioli]

... and "playthrough infrastructure"

Wow Federico, thank you for this amazing proposal!

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.

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.

What you mentioned brings immediately to mind /awareness cues/, those 
affordances and interface choices that reveal (or conceal) what people 
are doing, where they are, how they move, etc. Cues that give us 
/mediated /social awareness, the knowledge that distant others are 
online, that they read our message, that they arrived at destination.

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 (/active 
member?/), or when everyone is within a certain physical range (/open 
lab?/- 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 :)

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?

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 :)

Hope you don't mind my Saturday rambling, looking forward to talk more 
about this.
Best,
Giulia


On 17/1/26 10:55, Federico Bonelli via Core wrote:
> ### Introducing “The Box”: An "Infrastructure-Through-Play"
>
> open proposal for the datagovlab artistic side
>
> >"The first task of the lab is to set up the lab."
> Albumahin the Elder, the seven unspeakable laws of wisdom p.999
>
> I see what i call "the box" as an object with a function; to "take out 
> the box" is "to set-up lab".
>
> 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.
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
>  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.
>
> 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.
>
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
> 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?
>
> 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?
> 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.
>
> In short:  "how can we be a lab without having a lab space?".
>
> 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.
>
>  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.
>  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.
>
>
> TECH APPENDIX
>
>   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.
>
> - A small single-board computer running Linux, with the following 
> functions:
>   - Connect to a private network (VPN), with the box acting as a node.
>   - 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.
>   - 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)
>
> To build the box, we will need to:
>   - Explore basic electronics and system design.
>   - Learn elements of networking and routing.
>   - Understand principles of operation and maintenance.
>
> TIME
>   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
>
> COST
>  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.
>
> 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.
>
>
>
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