minor-digitalcrafts-theory

-what makes something universal language?
-what creates different connotations on objects/subjects?
-how strong must specific connotations be to be universal?
-how to make technology more accessible
-how dangerous is it, that we don't really understand the technology that drives us daily?
-how dangerous is it, that we don't really understand 'smart' technologies?
-in which ways did we lose control over the technologies we use daily?
-what caused this lesser understanding of technologies today?
-what is universal language?
-in what ways did the digitization influence universal language?
-how did big tech influence globalization?

goal:
to be able to create less result driven projects.

why:
as feedback sometimes popped up that my ability to create in a more open way. To be able to create ongoing research instead of a finished result. I think this could improve my work greatly and would create more interesting outcomes.

how:
I should weekly create something without expecting something. just make for the sake of making. (preferably related to electric devices)

by forcing myself to make instead of think what I could make, I force myself into not thinking to an end result.

goal:
to have a bigger source for inspiration

why:
by knowing what people already did, i believe i can better understand what i'd like to do and what the possibilities could be. it also helps by knowing what is done, i know what i shouldn't do.

how:
I could create a database of people/media that inspired me. this way i could always look through it for inspiration when it's lacking. I think forcing my self to weekly add 2+ sources to the database will make it easier to fill up.
through asking people and looking online I could fill it up. Create an event planner. Create an open database

goal:
to improve my ability of programming in java script/python/arduino

why:
sometime just knowing how to make it, or have the confidence to think you can make it helps greatly in creating. by being more comfortable in the digital languages i think the step towards creating things with them will become lower.

how:
by looking up workshops (provided for ex. by school). watching weekly online courses. visit the interaction station often.

notes in class | 22 sept

-we should focus on creating for the commons not for the markets.

-technology is ALWAYS biased.
-people that make the technologies are biased, (worldview etc)

-who owns the outcomes?
-who participate?
-think of the whole process, every step in designing.
-It seems like technology is linear and has one outcome, this comes from the biases that the people have.

home assignment:
-research in the the 'digitale stad'. (marlijn stikker, xs4all)

de digitale stad | 29 sept

The Digital City (De Digitale Stad, DDS) started on 15 January 1994 as a freenet initiative of cultural centre De Balie and Hack-Tic (what later became internet provider XS4ALL) in Amsterdam. For the first time, internet access was available for a large group of citizens in Amsterdam: 100.000 users were noted in the first half year alone! Modems were rapidly sold out in and around Amsterdam. It was the first online internet community to come to existence.

notes in class | 29 sept

- Understand by creating
- Getting to know the whole chain from start to end
- The ethics of privacy and open systems (tor, blockchain)
- How does ‘weapons of math destruction’ connect to my interests
- Homework: read book, reformulate research question
- What will be the craft in my research
- Try to connect interest/theoretical/practical workshops
-
- Autonomy lab (next week?)

brainstorming research questions

goals for coming period

rephrase the research question | 4 oct

the physicality of surveillance capitalsim

the internet, the tool that made surveillance capitalism seems so intangible. one of the key strengths of big tech is hiding itself. when I was reading 'spam of the earth: withdrawal from representation' (hito steyerl) an essay on visual misrepresentation. she argued how alien life would one day receive frequencies from our internet. and how weird they would think it is (all these spam messages).

this made me think, what are all these internet frequencies we beam. out of our phones, laptops, routers, IOI devices, 3g/4g/5g/ antennas.

Is there a way I can receive wireless frequencies? (measure it, transform it?, (re)interpretate)

what are these frequencies? How do they work?

What frequencies? which devices do you want to receive? what kind of data?
in which context? power related, who owns the data.

Police drones? who made them? do we understand them?

-bring examples, stories, devices, some hypothesis, sharpen,
-who to interview? how to document? which questions?

- bring examples, stories, devices, some hypothesis, sharpen,
- who to interview? how to document? which questions?
- listen to james bridle podcast 'new ways of seeing', look into the examples, research into it.
- 25 images related to topic, print them out

notes in class | 6 oct

subject to look into:
- non online advertisement IOT. (HEMA example)
- Government ICT

rephrase the research question | 4 oct

Big tech in government systems

- If government institutes uses big tech services, who is actually in control?
-

Government on data | 22 oct

Article tweakers.net

"De Jonge: gezondheidsdata worden niet met eind-tot-eindencryptie versleuteld"

"De Jonge zegt dat patiënten ook geen eigenaar worden van hun data"

"eigendomsrecht alleen kan rusten op voor menselijke beheersing vatbare stoffelijke objecten, en daar valt data niet onder"
-

Preparing interviews | 22 oct

interviews to investigate in how big tech influences autonomy of the Dutch government

I found the board that gives advice to the government on ICT projects. I'd like to interview someone that is in this board. Prof. dr. P. (Paul) Klint, he seems to be interested in property rights and open source technologies. So I think he would have a critical view towards Big Tech.

I also would like to find someone with a more positive view towards Big Tech and how it could improve government.

notes on 'Atlas of AI' | 22 oct

A youtube video called "Kate Crawford on “Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence”"

* AI has interesting sometimes wrongly representations in society (Abstract things)
* AI is mostly used in policing/military use/ surveillance. Most of the time a power construct.
* AI’s goal: “to map the world”
* Silver peak - Clayton valley (near Silicon Valley) - Lithium “grey gold” - recyclable but hard, mostly wasteful
* A lot of companies can’t work without to lithium
* Abstraction and extraction with AI are interestingly connected (the extraction is abstracted away)
* The electricity usage of technologies and digital world is high. Very high.
* Trevor Paglen & Kate Crawford - training humans
* Following the chain of AI, how is it made, what resources does it use.
* Batteries, lithium is harvested, data centers are using way more than is being told now.
* E-waste is dumped in Thailand, Ghana etc.
* When we are done with the mines we move on to the next.

Sharpening the research question | 29 oct

I've been looking into the power dynamics between ISPs (internet service providers) and how even if we would work decentralized, not using centralized servers, with for example peer2peer hosting, or hosting my own server. but still this means if I want to connect to these technologies, I have to go passed my ISP (which at home is Tele2) Tele2 is a Tier2 provider, so I will also be directed passed a Tier1 provider. Here is the list:

These companies "own" in the most abstract way the internet. But why do they own it? I'd like to compare the internet as a road system. In the Netherlands the roads are managed by the government, specifically; "Rijkswaterstaat" runs the national highways and the provinces manages local roads.

Should governments manage our internet connection, just how they manage our roads. Saying that innovation would be holdback (the usual argument of not having governments managing things ex. NS, KPN, PostNL)) is not true I believe, because the Dutch roads are managed pretty well. and I believe a government could manage the internet pretty well as well.
But the internet is different in comparison to a road network in a lot of ways of course. And I think this has to do with the transparancy the internet can not offer opposed to road networks. we continuously drive over the road and can see others driving it as well. We can verify quite easily the quality of the roads. This is not possible over the internet. we can't see anything, because we do not travel the internet roads, our data does. This means verifying quality of the network is almost impossible.

Question is do we even need centralized roads? technologies offer multiple ways of imagining the internet. Not via cables controlled by anyone. But over the air?(1) a mesh network.

Typical abstract images of how our internet network looks;

But this image makes me feel like we are all connected to each other. This is not true. we are being connected to each other VIA ISPs.

I'd like to propose a different internet, which connects everyone via everyone. I remember someone ever said to me that the chance is quite highly that via one Facebook friend you could probably be connected to everyone in the world if you follow the friends lists. This is something that could maybe also happen physically.

Technological examples are;
- Apples' Airdrop (ever had these annoying people send pictures to you in public spaces?)
- Apple Airtag (uses the network of iPhones around it to specify its physical location.

this technology is called 'Wireless ad hoc network' it describes it selfs as; A wireless ad hoc network[1] (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers in wired networks or access points in wireless networks. Instead, each node participates in routing by forwarding data for other nodes, so the determination of which nodes forward data is made dynamically on the basis of network connectivity and the routing algorithm in use.[2] (source: wikipedia).

How could our way of browsing the internet work, through mesh networking?
Is it possible to create a mesh network database build with ESP NOW, which works with low cost microcrontrollers.

Ruha Benjamin: Race to the Future? Reimagining the Default Settings of Technology & Society | 22 nov

To justify social hierarchy they (people in power) look for characteristics in the human body from black and white people.
How this way of representation is still baked in society (unnoticed) in example vogue cover w/ le bron

“Technology is going to safe us; technology is the driver; what ideologies are put in this tech, what relationships are established, to rethink and to NOT think the technologies as inevitable, so we can question and demand better”

The new Jim code
Coded biases
"Innovation that enables social iniquity, by seeming neutral but being based
on social biases"

“White collar early warning system”
A algorithm that displays on a map where it predicts financial crimes
(usually committed by white people on eg. Wall street)
To reverse the harms technologies can do to white people instead
of black people

Class notes | 24 nov

In this class we've looked at our projects and how it is going. We also looked at the text/talk from Ruha Benjamin and how it relates to our projects

Creating the mesh network:
* The device that I am working on; should it amplify my voice, or facilitate other voices?
* What are the use cases? where would it be interesting to use
* Where do we see mesh networking in 'non-human' 'objects/creatures'?
* Map all the situations
* The project doesn't have to be a finished thing, but a proof of concept.
* Looking at Ruha Benjamins text/talk. how can I make sure my project is an equal practice.?
* Make a manifesto, what is valuable, what are my goals?