Short abstract:

In-grid, a trans* feminist artist/educator collective, will discuss our collaborative working practices and protocols. We will talk about our formation and share some recent projects including Servpub, Real Bodies and Chain. These examples illustrate how our collective protocols come into practice.

Long abstract:

This panel contribution is concerned with the work of In-grid, a trans* feminist artist/educator collective working through digital infrastructures. We practice infrastructuring through a method of re-figuring; learning, forming and enabling. Via this collective practice, we create new forms and imaginaries of technical skill-sharing, co-creation and documentation. During these processes, critical, political and affective positionalities are entangled with the materials with which we are engaging, carefully avoiding conflating the nuances of our individual desires and the needs of all those taking part. These methods are normally invalidated through the hegemonic terms of cloud computing and commercial technological development. To do this otherwise (Pritchard, 2018) we embrace queer, crip and feminist methods, bringing in different temporalities, rhythms, dynamics and dialogues that transform infrastructuring practices through mutual care and collective affinity (Kafer, 2013).

We will share reflections on a series of case studies describing how we have been practising collective working otherwise, so that others can build from our successes, failures and frictions (Davis, Angela Y., et al. 2022). We will focus on projects including our night club event series In-grid.RealBodies, interactive and performative installation Chain, and Servpub (servpub.net + wiki4print.servpub.net) a collaboration and co-creation of an open publishing infrastructure with other feminist collectives. Through reflecting on these collaborative projects we aim share methods, stories and emotions.

Short abstract:

Now The Cloud regime seems intractable, it is time to make space for different infrastructures in support of collective life with and without computation.

Long abstract:

The Cloud has become the dominant model for delivering compute across a continuously growing number of industries, from financial markets and health institutions to game industries, mining, governments, agriculture and logistics. As a regime rather than just an infrastructure, it propagates expansionist, extractivist and financialised modes which deeply affect our aesthetics, how we organise, relate and care for resources. It turns all lively and creative processes into profit, including ways to resist.

Now our dependency on The Cloud regime seems intractable, and it is difficult if not impossible to imagine life without it, it is time to make space for different infrastructures in support of collective life with and without computation. Counter Cloud Imaginaries include collaborative file hosting, low-energy graphics, queer circuits and slow sustainable tech-maintenance.

This contribution comes out of the work of The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest (TITiPI) and builds on a collectively edited FAQ that was published in the context of the International Trans★feminist Digital Depletion Strike that takes place on March 8. It mixes articulations of what's up with the Cloud, with modest proposals from artists, activists and designers for infrastructuring otherwise. Their tentative, sometimes contradictory techno-practices radically emphasise vernacular, situated, specific technodiversity and work simultaneously at different scales against infrastructural violence. They center trans★feminist and anti-colonial server practices and organise collectively towards systemic techno-political change.

Short abstract:

By slowing down and claiming time for collective action informed by trans*feminist theory, NEoN Digital Arts is exploring alternatives to neoliberal models that are fast-paced and metric-oriented, aiming to implement new strategies that emphasise collaborative, collective, and communal approaches.

Long abstract:

NEoN believes the arts can be a powerful platform for social change, and strives to include a multitude of voices and perspectives in its programming and operations. Bringing together like-minded emerging artists and well-established artists, we aim to influence and reshape the genre with an organisation founded on trans*feminist values.

In 2022, NEoN hosted a gathering aimed to address the desire among participants to reduce reliance on commercial cloud services. Participants included cultural actors from NEoN, Varia from Rotterdam, In-grid from London, and the Transnational Institute for Technology in the Public Interest (TITiPI). Together, they explored the evolution of NEoN from a festival-based organisation to one capable of addressing ongoing demands in the realms of technology, environment, economics, and social dynamics.

The aim is for NEoN to collectively define our position on digital infrastructure for ourselves and others, to become a reference for other grassroots organisations, and to initiate conversations with other arts organisations and community groups on forming the choices they make in relation to tactical digital ethics.

As NEoN transitions towards becoming an organisation focused on research and encounter, with a specific emphasis on trans*feminist exploration of digital technology, the gathering aimed to foster dialogue and collaboration. The goal is to reimagine NEoN's computational infrastructure to better support programming and prioritise care in digital interactions. This involves learning from slow feminist and queer server practices, encompassing areas such as storage, videoconferencing, collaborative tools, low-power graphics, and other relevant practices within the digital arts and community organising spheres.

Short abstract:

Exploring platform labor under algorithmic governance, my research looks at how computationally managed workers resist exploitative conditions. It develops the concept of a "data commons" aimed to support collective action and strategies against exploitation.

Long abstract:

My research focuses on platform-based labour to understand how work, knowledge, and cooperation have been transformed by algorithmic governance. As a large and diffuse network of logistical workers is increasingly managed computationally—relentlessly matching supply with demand—spaces of contestation to the labour conditions shaped by platform companies are emerging. These experiences can be both archived and supported by the development of a “data commons”. As digital labour scholar Tiziana Terranova explains, while exploitation at factories was characterised by the wage-profit, corporations expropriate the commons and transform it into property as a way to generate value. My research explores an alternative commons of workers data together with delivery workers in the UK and International Workers of Great Britain union. A "data commons" brings together unionised and non-unionised workers, trying to experiment with the boundaries of organisational structures. For example, to determine in which restaurants it is better to take strike action, or to coordinate the disconnection from a particular platform to strike, or to assemble evidence for strategic litigation. Drawing from Italian Autonomia’s insights, where the production of knowledge is understood as the production of struggle, the concept of “data commons” seeks to reconstruct the conditions that make possible antagonism ‘within and against’ capital. It aims to counter capital’s capture of space and time, and the extractivist dynamics of platforms towards workers.

Short abstract:

We explore autonomous collective infrastructure in universities, by reflecting on challenges of negotiating autonomy with large organizations favoring corporate solutions, and larger collaborative networks. Inspired by the “undercommons”, we distinguish critical thinking from critical performing.

Long abstract:

Our proposal reflects on the possibilities and challenges for autonomous collective infrastructure within the University. Following examples of feminist servers created by collectives such as systerserver, in-grid, and varia (https://systerserver.net/ATNOFS/), we maintain a server within Aarhus University. As with other collectives, the creation and maintenance of this server aims to both offer alternative services for collaboration (e.g. open software libraries or annotation services), while functioning as a learning space for collective practice and care.

The autonomy of this collaboration platform is, however, negotiated with a relatively large organisation. Many universities lean towards corporate solutions for digital services offered to students and academics, whether due to security, compatibility, or standardization reasons. We observe a need for alternative, open source, and collaborative platforms that foster experimental research, and provide opportunities beyond the ones offered by big tech players. As such, the ideation and development of our server relies on external collaborations with autonomous collectives, both for technical development and critical dialogues.

We delve into the challenges brought by the “hybridity” of our collective infrastructure, simultaneously institutional and related to extended autonomous networks, and showcase how we have navigated these issues. Following the “undercommons”, we reflect on our positionality, place, and responsibility, as critical academics, refusing to be for or against the university (Harney and Moten 2013), and distinguish between the canonical work of critical thinking and observation within the university, and the action of performing criticality that these technical systems and external collaborations allow.