Graziano, Mars & Medak
Learning from #Syllabus
2019
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LEARNING FROM
#SYLLABUS
VALERIA GRAZIANO,
MARCELL MARS,
TOMISLAV MEDAK
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LEARNING FROM #SYLLABUS
VALERIA GRAZIANO, MARCELL MARS, TOMISLAV MEDAK
The syllabus is the manifesto of the 21st century.
—Sean Dockray and Benjamin Forster1
#Syllabus Struggles
In August 2014, Michael Brown, an 18-year-old boy living in Ferguson, Missouri,
was fatally shot by police officer Darren Wilson. Soon after, as the civil protests denouncing police brutality and institutional racism began to mount across the United
States, Dr. Marcia Chatelain, Associate Professor of History and African American
Studies at Georgetown University, launched an online call urging other academics
and teachers ‘to devote the first day of classes to a conversation about Ferguson’ and ‘to recommend texts, collaborate on conversation starters, and inspire
dialogue about some aspect of the Ferguson crisis.’2 Chatelain did so using the
hashtag #FergusonSyllabus.
Also in August 2014, using the hashtag #gamergate, groups of users on 4Chan,
8Chan, Twitter, and Reddit instigated a misogynistic harassment campaign against
game developers Zoë Quinn and Brianna Wu, media critic Anita Sarkeesian, as well as
a number of other female and feminist game producers, journalists, and critics. In the
following weeks, The New Inquiry editors and contributors compiled a reading list and
issued a call for suggestions for their ‘TNI Syllabus: Gaming and Feminism’.3
In June 2015, Donald Trump announced his candidacy for President of the United
States. In the weeks that followed, he became the presumptive Republican nominee,
and The Chronicle of Higher Education introduced the syllabus ‘Trump 101’.4 Historians N.D.B. Connolly and Keisha N. Blain found ‘Trump 101’ inadequate, ‘a mock college syllabus […] suffer[ing] from a number of egregious omissions and inaccuracies’,
failing to include ‘contributions of scholars of color and address the critical subjects
of Trump’s racism, sexism, and xenophobia’. They assembled ‘Trump Syllabus 2.0’.5
Soon after, in response to a video in which Trump engaged in ‘an extremely lewd
conversation about women’ with TV host Billy Bush, Laura Ciolkowski put together a
‘Rape Culture Syllabus’.6
1
2
3
4
5
6
Sean Dockray, Benjamin Forster, and Public Office, ‘README.md’, Hyperreadings, 15 February
2018, https://samiz-dat.github.io/hyperreadings/.
Marcia Chatelain, ‘Teaching the #FergusonSyllabus’, Dissent Magazine, 28 November 2014,
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/teaching-ferguson-syllabus/.
‘TNI Syllabus: Gaming and Feminism’, The New Inquiry, 2 September 2014, https://thenewinquiry.
com/tni-syllabus-gaming-and-feminism/.
‘Trump 101’, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 19 June 2016, https://www.chronicle.com/article/
Trump-Syllabus/236824/.
N.D.B. Connolly and Keisha N. Blain, ‘Trump Syllabus 2.0’, Public Books, 28 June 2016, https://
www.publicbooks.org/trump-syllabus-2-0/.
Laura Ciolkowski, ‘Rape Culture Syllabus’, Public Books, 15 October 2016, https://www.
publicbooks.org/rape-culture-syllabus/.
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In April 2016, members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe established the Sacred Stone
Camp and started the protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline, the construction of
which threatened the only water supply at the Standing Rock Reservation. The protest at the site of the pipeline became the largest gathering of native Americans in
the last 100 years and they earned significant international support for their ReZpect
Our Water campaign. As the struggle between protestors and the armed forces unfolded, a group of Indigenous scholars, activists, and supporters of the struggles of
First Nations people and persons of color, gathered under the name the NYC Stands
for Standing Rock Committee, put together #StandingRockSyllabus.7
The list of online syllabi created in response to political struggles has continued to
grow, and at present includes many more examples:
All Monuments Must Fall Syllabus
#Blkwomensyllabus
#BLMSyllabus
#BlackIslamSyllabus
#CharlestonSyllabus
#ColinKaepernickSyllabus
#ImmigrationSyllabus
Puerto Rico Syllabus (#PRSyllabus)
#SayHerNameSyllabus
Syllabus for White People to Educate Themselves
Syllabus: Women and Gender Non-Conforming People Writing about Tech
#WakandaSyllabus
What To Do Instead of Calling the Police: A Guide, A Syllabus, A Conversation, A
Process
#YourBaltimoreSyllabus
It would be hard to compile a comprehensive list of all the online syllabi that have
been created by social justice movements in the last five years, especially, but not
exclusively, those initiated in North America in the context of feminist and anti-racist
activism. In what is now a widely spread phenomenon, these political struggles use
social networks and resort to the hashtag template ‘#___Syllabus’ to issue calls for
the bottom-up aggregation of resources necessary for political analysis and pedagogy
centering on their concerns. For this reason, we’ll call this phenomenon ‘#Syllabus’.
During the same years that saw the spread of the #Syllabus phenomenon, university
course syllabi have also been transitioning online, often in a top-down process initiated
by academic institutions, which has seen the syllabus become a contested document
in the midst of increasing casualization of teaching labor, expansion of copyright protections, and technology-driven marketization of education.
In what follows, we retrace the development of the online syllabus in both of these
contexts, to investigate the politics enmeshed in this new media object. Our argument
7
‘#StandingRockSyllabus’, NYC Stands with Standing Rock, 11 October 2016, https://
nycstandswithstandingrock.wordpress.com/standingrocksyllabus/.
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is that, on the one hand, #Syllabus names the problem of contemporary political culture as pedagogical in nature, while, on the other hand, it also exposes academicized
critical pedagogy and intellectuality as insufficiently political in their relation to lived
social reality. Situating our own stakes as both activists and academics in the present
debate, we explore some ways in which the radical politics of #Syllabus could be supported to grow and develop as an articulation of solidarity between amateur librarians
and radical educators.
#Syllabus in Historical Context: Social Movements and Self-Education
When Professor Chatelain launched her call for #FergusonSyllabus, she was mainly
addressing a community of fellow educators:
I knew Ferguson would be a challenge for teachers: When schools opened across
the country, how were they going to talk about what happened? My idea was simple, but has resonated across the country: Reach out to the educators who use
Twitter. Ask them to commit to talking about Ferguson on the first day of classes.
Suggest a book, an article, a film, a song, a piece of artwork, or an assignment that
speaks to some aspect of Ferguson. Use the hashtag: #FergusonSyllabus.8
Her call had a much greater resonance than she had originally anticipated as it reached
beyond the limits of the academic community. #FergusonSyllabus had both a significant impact in shaping the analysis and the response to the shooting of Michael
Brown, and in inspiring the many other #Syllabus calls that soon followed.
The #Syllabus phenomenon comprises different approaches and modes of operating. In some cases, the material is clearly claimed as the creation of a single individual, as in the case of #BlackLivesMatterSyllabus, which is prefaced on the project’s
landing page by a warning to readers that ‘material compiled in this syllabus should
not be duplicated without proper citation and attribution.’9 A very different position on
intellectual property has been embraced by other #Syllabus interventions that have
chosen a more commoning stance. #StandingRockSyllabus, for instance, is introduced as a crowd-sourced process and as a useful ‘tool to access research usually
kept behind paywalls.’10
The different workflows, modes of engagements, and positioning in relation to
intellectual property make #Syllabus readable as symptomatic of the multiplicity
that composes social justice movements. There is something old school—quite
literally—about the idea of calling a list of online resources a ‘syllabus’; a certain
quaintness, evoking thoughts of teachers and homework. This is worthy of investigation especially if contrasted with the attention dedicated to other online cultural
phenomena such as memes or fake news. Could it be that the online syllabus offers
8
9
10
Marcia Chatelain, ‘How to Teach Kids About What’s Happening in Ferguson’, The Atlantic, 25
August 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/08/how-to-teach-kids-aboutwhats-happening-in-ferguson/379049/.
Frank Leon Roberts, ‘Black Lives Matter: Race, Resistance, and Populist Protest’, 2016, http://
www.blacklivesmattersyllabus.com/fall2016/.
‘#StandingRockSyllabus’, NYC Stands with Standing Rock, 11 October 2016, https://
nycstandswithstandingrock.wordpress.com/standingrocksyllabus/.
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a useful, fresh format precisely for the characteristics that foreground its connections to older pedagogical traditions and techniques, predating digital cultures?
#Syllabus can indeed be analyzed as falling within a long lineage of pedagogical tools
created by social movements to support processes of political subjectivation and the
building of collective consciousness. Activists and militant organizers have time and
again created and used various textual media objects—such as handouts, pamphlets,
cookbooks, readers, or manifestos—to facilitate a shared political analysis and foment
mass political mobilization.
In the context of the US, anti-racist movements have historically placed great emphasis on critical pedagogy and self-education. In 1964, the Council of Federated Organizations (an alliance of civil rights initiatives) and the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC), created a network of 41 temporary alternative
schools in Mississippi. Recently, the Freedom Library Project, a campaign born out
of #FergusonSyllabus to finance under-resourced pedagogical initiatives, openly
referenced this as a source of inspiration. The Freedom Summer Project of 1964
brought hundreds of activists, students, and scholars (many of whom were white)
from the north of the country to teach topics and issues that the discriminatory
state schools would not offer to black students. In the words of an SNCC report,
Freedom Schools were established following the belief that ‘education—facts to
use and freedom to use them—is the basis of democracy’,11 a conviction echoed
by the ethos of contemporary #Syllabus initiatives.
Bob Moses, a civil rights movement leader who was the head of the literary skills initiative in Mississippi, recalls the movement’s interest, at the time, in teaching methods
that used the very production of teaching materials as a pedagogical tool:
I had gotten hold of a text and was using it with some adults […] and noticed that
they couldn’t handle it because the pictures weren’t suited to what they knew […]
That got me into thinking about developing something closer to what people were
doing. What I was interested in was the idea of training SNCC workers to develop
material with the people we were working with.12
It is significant that for him the actual use of the materials the group created was much
less important than the process of producing the teaching materials together. This focus
on what could be named as a ‘pedagogy of teaching’, or perhaps more accurately ‘the
pedagogy of preparing teaching materials’, is also a relevant mechanism at play in the
current #Syllabus initiatives, as their crowdsourcing encourages different kinds of people
to contribute what they feel might be relevant resources for the broader movement.
Alongside the crucial import of radical black organizing, another relevant genealogy in
which to place #Syllabus would be the international feminist movement and, in particular, the strategies developed in the 70s campaign Wages for Housework, spearheaded
11
12
Daniel Perlstein, ‘Teaching Freedom: SNCC and the Creation of the Mississippi Freedom Schools’,
History of Education Quarterly 30.3 (Autumn 1990): 302.
Perlstein, ‘Teaching Freedom’: 306.
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by Selma James and Silvia Federici. The Wages for Housework campaign drove home
the point that unwaged reproductive labor provides a foundation for capitalist exploitation. They wanted to encourage women to denaturalize and question the accepted
division of labor into remunerated work outside the house and labor of love within
the confines of domesticity, discussing taboo topics such as ‘prostitution as socialized housework’ and ‘forced sterilization’ as issues impacting poor, often racialized,
women. The organizing efforts of Wages for Housework held political pedagogy at their
core. They understood that that pedagogy required:
having literature and other materials available to explain our goals, all written in a
language that women can understand. We also need different types of documents,
some more theoretical, others circulating information about struggles. It is important
that we have documents for women who have never had any political experience.
This is why our priority is to write a popular pamphlet that we can distribute massively and for free—because women have no money.13
The obstacles faced by the Wages for Housework campaign were many, beginning
with the issue of how to reach a dispersed constituency of isolated housewives
and how to keep the revolutionary message at the core of their claims accessible
to different groups. In order to tackle these challenges, the organizers developed
a number of innovative communication tactics and pedagogical tools, including
strategies to gain mainstream media coverage, pamphlets and leaflets translated
into different languages,14 a storefront shop in Brooklyn, and promotional tables at
local events.
Freedom Schools and the Wages for Housework campaign are only two amongst
the many examples of the critical pedagogies developed within social movements.
The #Syllabus phenomenon clearly stands in the lineage of this history, yet we should
also highlight its specificity in relation to the contemporary political context in which it
emerged. The #Syllabus acknowledges that since the 70s—and also due to students’
participation in protests and their display of solidarity with other political movements—
subjects such as Marxist critical theory, women studies, gender studies, and African
American studies, together with some of the principles first developed in critical pedagogy, have become integrated into the educational system. The fact that many initiators of #Syllabus initiatives are women and Black academics speaks to this historical
shift as an achievement of that period of struggles. However, the very necessity felt by
these educators to kick-start their #Syllabus campaigns outside the confines of academia simultaneously reveals the difficulties they encounter within the current privatized and exclusionary educational complex.
13
14
Silvia Federici and Arlen Austin (eds) The New York Wages for Housework Committee 1972-1977:
History, Theory and Documents. New York: Autonomedia, 2017: 37.
Some of the flyers and pamphlets were digitized by MayDay Rooms, ‘a safe haven for historical
material linked to social movements, experimental culture and the radical expression of
marginalised figures and groups’ in London, and can be found in their online archive: ‘Wages
for Housework: Pamphlets – Flyers – Photographs’, MayDay Rooms, http://maydayrooms.org/
archives/wages-for-housework/wfhw-pamphlets-flyers-photographs/.
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#Syllabus as a Media Object
Besides its contextualization within the historical legacy of previous grassroots mobilizations, it is also necessary to discuss #Syllabus as a new media object in its own
right, in order to fully grasp its relevance for the future politics of knowledge production and transmission.
If we were to describe this object, a #Syllabus would be an ordered list of links to
scholarly texts, news reports, and audiovisual media, mostly aggregated through a
participatory and iterative process, and created in response to political events indicative of larger conditions of structural oppression. Still, as we have seen, #Syllabus
as a media object doesn’t follow a strict format. It varies based on the initial vision
of their initiators, political causes, and social composition of the relevant struggle.
Nor does it follow the format of traditional academic syllabi. While a list of learning
resources is at the heart of any syllabus, a boilerplate university syllabus typically
also includes objectives, a timetable, attendance, coursework, examination, and an
outline of the grading system used for the given course. Relieved of these institutional
requirements, the #Syllabus typically includes only a reading list and a hashtag. The
reading list provides resources for understanding what is relevant to the here and
now, while the hashtag provides a way to disseminate across social networks the call
to both collectively edit and teach what is relevant to the here and now. Both the list
and the hashtag are specificities and formal features of the contemporary (internet)
culture and therefore merit further exploration in relation to the social dynamics at
play in #Syllabus initiatives.
The different phases of the internet’s development approached the problem of the
discoverability of relevant information in different ways. In the early days, the Gopher
protocol organized information into a hierarchical file tree. With the rise of World Wide
Web (WWW), Yahoo tried to employ experts to classify and catalog the internet into
a directory of links. That seemed to be a successful approach for a while, but then
Google (founded in 1998) came along and started to use a webgraph of links to rank
the importance of web pages relative to a given search query.
In 2005, Clay Shirky wrote the essay ‘Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links and
Tags’,15 developed from his earlier talk ‘Folksonomies and Tags: The Rise of User-Developed Classification’. Shirky used Yahoo’s attempt to categorize the WWW to argue
against any attempt to classify a vast heterogenous body of information into a single
hierarchical categorical system. In his words: ‘[Yahoo] missed [...] that, if you’ve got
enough links, you don’t need the hierarchy anymore. There is no shelf. There is no file
system. The links alone are enough.’ Those words resonated with many. By following
simple formatting rules, we, the internet users, whom Time magazine named Person of
the Year in 2006, proved that it is possible to collectively write the largest encyclopedia
ever. But, even beyond that, and as per Shirky’s argument, if enough of us organized
our own snippets of the vast body of the internet, we could replace old canons, hierarchies, and ontologies with folksonomies, social bookmarks, and (hash)tags.
15
Clay Shirky, ‘Ontology Is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags’, 2005, http://shirky.com/writings/
herecomeseverybody/ontology_overrated.html.
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Very few who lived through those times would have thought that only a few years later
most user-driven services would be acquired by a small number of successful companies and then be shut down. Or, that Google would decide not to include the biggest
hashtag-driven platform, Twitter, into its search index and that the search results on
its first page would only come from a handful of usual suspects: media conglomerates, Wikipedia, Facebook, LinkedIn, Amazon, Reddit, Quora. Or, that Twitter would
become the main channel for the racist, misogynist, fascist escapades of the President
of United States.
This internet folk naivety—stoked by an equally enthusiastic, venture-capital-backed
startup culture—was not just naivety. This was also a period of massive experimental
use of these emerging platforms. Therefore, this history would merit to be properly
revisited and researched. In this text, however, we can only hint to this history: to contextualize how the hashtag as a formalization initially emerged, and how with time the
user-driven web lost some of its potential. Nonetheless, hashtags today still succeed in
propagating political mobilizations in the network environment. Some will say that this
propagation is nothing but a reflection of the internet as a propaganda machine, and
there’s no denying that hashtags do serve a propaganda function. However, it equally
matters that hashtags retain the capacity to shape coordination and self-organization,
and they are therefore a reflection of the internet as an organization machine.
As mentioned, #Syllabus as a media object is an ordered list of links to resources.
In the long history of knowledge retrieval systems and attempts to help users find
relevant information from big archives, the list on the internet continues in the tradition of the index card catalog in libraries, of charts in the music industry, or mixtapes
and playlists in popular culture, helping people tell their stories of what is relevant and
what isn’t through an ordered sequence of items. The list (as a format) together with
the hashtag find themselves in the list (pun intended) of the most iconic media objects
of the internet. In the network media environment, being smart in creating new lists
became the way to displace old lists of relevance, the way to dismantle canons, the
way to unlearn. The way to become relevant.
The Academic Syllabus Migrates Online
#Syllabus interventions are a challenge issued by political struggles to educators as
they expose a fundamental contradiction in the operations of academia. While critical pedagogies of yesteryear’s social movements have become integrated into the
education system, the radical lessons that these pedagogies teach students don’t
easily reconcile with their experience: professional practice courses, the rethoric of
employability and compulsory internships, where what they learn is merely instrumental, leaves them wondering how on earth they are to apply their Marxism or feminism
to their everyday lives?
Cognitive dissonance is at the basis of degrees in the liberal arts. And to make things
worse, the marketization of higher education, the growing fees and the privatization
of research has placed universities in a position where they increasingly struggle to
provide institutional space for critical interventions in social reality. As universities become more dependent on the ‘customer satisfaction’ of their students for survival, they
steer away from heated political topics or from supporting faculty members who might
decide to engage with them. Borrowing the words of Stefano Harney and Fred Moten,
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‘policy posits curriculum against study’,16 creating the paradoxical situation wherein
today’s universities are places in which it is possible to do almost everything except
study. What Harney and Moten propose instead is the re-appropriation of the diffuse
capacity of knowledge generation that stems from the collective processes of selforganization and commoning. As Moten puts it: ‘When I think about the way we use the
term ‘study,’ I think we are committed to the idea that study is what you do with other
people.’17 And it is this practice of sharing a common repertoire—what Moten and
Harney call ‘rehearsal’18—that is crucially constitutive of a crowdsourced #Syllabus.
This contradiction and the tensions it brings to contemporary neoliberal academia can
be symptomatically observed in the recent evolution of the traditional academic syllabus. As a double consequence of (some) critical pedagogies becoming incorporated
into the teaching process and universities striving to reduce their liability risks, academic syllabi have become increasingly complex and extensive documents. They are
now understood as both a ‘social contract’ between the teachers and their students,
and ‘terms of service’19 between the institution providing educational services and the
students increasingly framed as sovereign consumers making choices in the market of
educational services. The growing official import of the syllabus has had the effect that
educators have started to reflect on how the syllabus translates the power dynamics
into their classroom. For instance, the critical pedagogue Adam Heidebrink-Bruno has
demanded that the syllabus be re-conceived as a manifesto20—a document making
these concerns explicit. And indeed, many academics have started to experiment with
the form and purpose of the syllabus, opening it up to a process of co-conceptualization with their students, or proposing ‘the other syllabus’21 to disrupt asymmetries.
At the same time, universities are unsurprisingly moving their syllabi online. A migration
that can be read as indicative of three larger structural shifts in academia.
First, the push to make syllabi available online, initiated in the US, reinforces the differential effects of reputation economy. It is the Ivy League universities and their professorial star system that can harness the syllabus to advertise the originality of their
scholarship, while the underfunded public universities and junior academics are burdened with teaching the required essentials. This practice is tied up with the replication
in academia of the different valorization between what is considered to be the labor of
production (research) and that of social reproduction (teaching). The low esteem (and
corresponding lower rewards and remuneration) for the kinds of intellectual labors that
can be considered labors of care—editing journals, reviewing papers or marking, for
instance—fits perfectly well with the gendered legacies of the academic institution.
Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study, New York:
Autonomedia, 2013, p. 81.
17 Harney and Moten, The Undercommons, p. 110.
18 Harney and Moten, The Undercommons, p. 110.
19 Angela Jenks, ‘It’s In The Syllabus’, Teaching Tools, Cultural Anthropology website, 30 June 2016,
https://culanth.org/fieldsights/910-it-s-in-the-syllabu/.
20 Adam Heidebrink-Bruno, ‘Syllabus as Manifesto: A Critical Approach to Classroom Culture’,
Hybrid Pedagogy, 28 August 2014, http://hybridpedagogy.org/syllabus-manifesto-criticalapproach-classroom-culture/.
21 Lucy E. Bailey, ‘The “Other” Syllabus: Rendering Teaching Politics Visible in the Graduate
Pedagogy Seminar’, Feminist Teacher 20.2 (2010): 139–56.
16
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Second, with the withdrawal of resources to pay precarious and casualized academics during their ‘prep’ time (that is, the time in which they can develop new
course material, including assembling new lists of references, updating their courses as well as the methodologies through which they might deliver these), syllabi
now assume an ambivalent role between the tendencies for collectivization and
individualization of insecurity. The reading lists contained in syllabi are not covered
by copyrights; they are like playlists or recipes, which historically had the effect of
encouraging educators to exchange lesson plans and make their course outlines
freely available as a valuable knowledge common. Yet, in the current climate where
universities compete against each other, the authorial function is being extended
to these materials too. Recently, US universities have been leading a trend towards
the interpretation of the syllabus as copyrightable material, an interpretation that
opened up, as would be expected, a number of debates over who is a syllabus’
rightful owner, whether the academics themselves or their employers. If the latter interpretation were to prevail, this would enable universities to easily replace
academics while retaining their contributions to the pedagogical offer. The fruits of
a teacher’s labor could thus be turned into instruments of their own deskilling and
casualization: why would universities pay someone to write a course when they can
recycle someone else’s syllabus and get a PhD student or a precarious post doc to
teach the same class at a fraction of the price?
This tendency to introduce a logic of property therefore spurs competitive individualism and erasure of contributions from others. Thus, crowdsourcing the syllabus
in the context of growing precarization of labor risks remaining a partial process,
as it might heighten the anxieties of those educators who do not enjoy the security
of a stable job and who are therefore the most susceptible to the false promises of
copyright enforcement and authorship understood as a competitive, small entrepreneurial activity. However, when inserted in the context of live, broader political
struggles, the opening up of the syllabus could and should be an encouragement
to go in the opposite direction, providing a ground to legitimize the collective nature
of the educational process and to make all academic resources available without
copyright restrictions, while devising ways to secure the proper attribution and the
just remuneration of everyone’s labor.
The introduction of the logic of property is hard to challenge as it is furthered by commercial academic publishers. Oligopolists, such as Elsevier, are not only notorious for
using copyright protections to extract usurious profits from the mostly free labor of
those who write, peer review, and edit academic journals,22 but they are now developing all sorts of metadata, metrics, and workflow systems that are increasingly becoming central for teaching and research. In addition to their publishing business, Elsevier
has expanded its ‘research intelligence’ offering, which now encompasses a whole
range of digital services, including the Scopus citation database; Mendeley reference
manager; the research performance analytics tools SciVal and Research Metrics; the
centralized research management system Pure; the institutional repository and pub-
22 Vincent Larivière, Stefanie Haustein, and Philippe Mongeon, ‘The Oligopoly of Academic
Publishers in the Digital Era’, PLoS ONE 10.6 (10 June 2015),https://journals.plos.org/plosone/
article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127502/.
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lishing platform Bepress; and, last but not least, grant discovery and funding flow tools
Funding Institutional and Elsevier Funding Solutions. Given how central digital services
are becoming in today’s universities, whoever owns these platforms is the university.
Third, the migration online of the academic syllabus falls into larger efforts by universities to ‘disrupt’ the educational system through digital technologies. The introduction
of virtual learning environments has led to lesson plans, slides, notes, and syllabi becoming items to be deposited with the institution. The doors of public higher education are being opened to commercial qualification providers by means of the rise in
metrics-based management, digital platforming of university services, and transformation of students into consumers empowered to make ‘real-time’ decisions on how to
spend their student debt.23 Such neoliberalization masquerading behind digitization
is nowhere more evident than in the hype that was generated around Massive Open
Online Courses (MOOCs), exactly at the height of the last economic crisis.
MOOCs developed gradually from the Massachusetts Institute of Techology’s (MIT) initial experiments with opening up its teaching materials to the public through the OpenCourseWare project in 2001. By 2011, MOOCs were saluted as a full-on democratization of access to ‘Ivy-League-caliber education [for] the world’s poor.’24 And yet, their
promise quickly deflated following extremely low completion rates (as low as 5%).25
Believing that in fifty years there will be no more than 10 institutions globally delivering
higher education,26 by the end of 2013 Sebastian Thrun (Google’s celebrated roboticist
who in 2012 founded the for-profit MOOC platform Udacity), had to admit that Udacity
offered a ‘lousy product’ that proved to be a total failure with ‘students from difficult
neighborhoods, without good access to computers, and with all kinds of challenges in
their lives.’27 Critic Aaron Bady has thus rightfully argued that:
[MOOCs] demonstrate what the technology is not good at: accreditation and mass
education. The MOOC rewards self-directed learners who have the resources and
privilege that allow them to pursue learning for its own sake [...] MOOCs are also a
really poor way to make educational resources available to underserved and underprivileged communities, which has been the historical mission of public education.28
Indeed, the ‘historical mission of public education’ was always and remains to this
day highly contested terrain—the very idea of a public good being under attack by
dominant managerial techniques that try to redefine it, driving what Randy Martin
23 Ben Williamson, ‘Number Crunching: Transforming Higher Education into “Performance Data”’,
Medium, 16 August 2018, https://medium.com/ussbriefs/number-crunching-transforming-highereducation-into-performance-data-9c23debc4cf7.
24 Max Chafkin, ‘Udacity’s Sebastian Thrun, Godfather Of Free Online Education, Changes Course’,
FastCompany, 14 November 2013, https://www.fastcompany.com/3021473/udacity-sebastianthrun-uphill-climb/.
25 ‘The Rise (and Fall?) Of the MOOC’, Oxbridge Essays, 14 November 2017, https://www.
oxbridgeessays.com/blog/rise-fall-mooc/.
26 Steven Leckart, ‘The Stanford Education Experiment Could Change Higher Learning Forever’,
Wired, 20 March 2012, https://www.wired.com/2012/03/ff_aiclass/.
27 Chafkin, ‘Udacity’s Sebastian Thrun’.
28 Aaron Bady, ‘The MOOC Moment and the End of Reform’, Liberal Education 99.4 (Fall 2013),
https://www.aacu.org/publications-research/periodicals/mooc-moment-and-end-reform.
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STATE MACHINES
aptly called the ‘financialization of daily life.’29 The failure of MOOCs finally points to a
broader question, also impacting the vicissitudes of #Syllabus: Where will actual study
practices find refuge in the social, once the social is made directly productive for capital at all times? Where will study actually ‘take place’, in the literal sense of the phrase,
claiming the resources that it needs for co-creation in terms of time, labor, and love?
Learning from #Syllabus
What have we learned from the #Syllabus phenomenon?
The syllabus is the manifesto of 21st century.
Political struggles against structural discrimination, oppression, and violence in the
present are continuing the legacy of critical pedagogies of earlier social movements
that coupled the process of political subjectivation with that of collective education.
By creating effective pedagogical tools, movements have brought educators and students into the fold of their struggles. In the context of our new network environment,
political struggles have produced a new media object: #Syllabus, a crowdsourced list
of resources—historic and present—relevant to a cause. By doing so, these struggles
adapt, resist, and live in and against the networks dominated by techno-capital, with
all of the difficulties and contradictions that entails.
What have we learned from the academic syllabus migrating online?
In the contemporary university, critical pedagogy is clashing head-on with the digitization of higher education. Education that should empower and research that should
emancipate are increasingly left out in the cold due to the data-driven marketization
of academia, short-cutting the goals of teaching and research to satisfy the fluctuating demands of labor market and financial speculation. Resistance against the capture of data, research workflows, and scholarship by means of digitization is a key
struggle for the future of mass intellectuality beyond exclusions of class, disability,
gender, and race.
What have we learned from #Syllabus as a media object?
As old formats transform into new media objects, the digital network environment defines the conditions in which these new media objects try to adjust, resist, and live. A
right intuition can intervene and change the landscape—not necessarily for the good,
particularly if the imperatives of capital accumulation and social control prevail. We
thus need to re-appropriate the process of production and distribution of #Syllabus
as a media object in its totality. We need to build tools to collectively control the workflows that are becoming the infrastructures on top of which we collaboratively produce
knowledge that is vital for us to adjust, resist, and live. In order to successfully intervene in the world, every aspect of production and distribution of these new media objects becomes relevant. Every single aspect counts. The order of items in a list counts.
The timestamp of every version of the list counts. The name of every contributor to
29 Randy Martin, Financialization Of Daily Life, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002.
ACTIONS
127
every version of the list counts. Furthermore, the workflow to keep track of all of these
aspects is another complex media object—a software tool of its own—with its own order and its own versions. It is a recursive process of creating an autonomous ecology.
#Syllabus can be conceived as a recursive process of versioning lists, pointing to textual, audiovisual, or other resources. With all of the linked resources publicly accessible to all; with all versions of the lists editable by all; with all of the edits attributable to
their contributors; with all versions, all linked resources, all attributions preservable by
all, just such an autonomous ecology can be made for #Syllabus. In fact, Sean Dockray, Benjamin Forster, and Public Office have already proposed such a methodology in
their Hyperreadings, a forkable readme.md plaintext document on GitHub. They write:
A text that by its nature points to other texts, the syllabus is already a relational
document acknowledging its own position within a living field of knowledge. It is
decidedly not self-contained, however it often circulates as if it were.
If a syllabus circulated as a HyperReadings document, then it could point directly to the texts and other media that it aggregates. But just as easily as it circulates, a HyperReadings syllabus could be forked into new versions: the syllabus
is changed because there is a new essay out, or because of a political disagreement, or because following the syllabus produced new suggestions. These forks
become a family tree where one can follow branches and trace epistemological
mutations.30
It is in line with this vision, which we share with the HyperReadings crew, and in line
with our analysis, that we, as amateur librarians, activists, and educators, make our
promise beyond the limits of this text.
The workflow that we are bootstrapping here will keep in mind every aspect of the media object syllabus (order, timestamp, contributor, version changes), allowing diversity
via forking and branching, and making sure that every reference listed in a syllabus
will find its reference in a catalog which will lead to the actual material, in digital form,
needed for the syllabus.
Against the enclosures of copyright, we will continue building shadow libraries and
archives of struggles, providing access to resources needed for the collective processes of education.
Against the corporate platforming of workflows and metadata, we will work with social
movements, political initiatives, educators, and researchers to aggregate, annotate,
version, and preserve lists of resources.
Against the extractivism of academia, we will take care of the material conditions that
are needed for such collective thinking to take place, both on- and offline.
30 Sean Dockray, Benjamin Forster, and Public Office, ‘README.md’, Hyperreadings, 15 February
2018, https://samiz-dat.github.io/hyperreadings/.
128
STATE MACHINES
Bibliography
Bady, Aaron. ‘The MOOC Moment and the End of Reform’, Liberal Education 99.4 (Fall 2013), https://
www.aacu.org/publications-research/periodicals/mooc-moment-and-end-reform/.
Bailey, Lucy E. ‘The “Other” Syllabus: Rendering Teaching Politics Visible in the Graduate Pedagogy
Seminar’, Feminist Teacher 20.2 (2010): 139–56.
Chafkin, Max. ‘Udacity’s Sebastian Thrun, Godfather Of Free Online Education, Changes Course’,
FastCompany, 14 November 2013, https://www.fastcompany.com/3021473/udacity-sebastianthrun-uphill-climb/.
Chatelain, Marcia. ‘How to Teach Kids About What’s Happening in Ferguson’, The Atlantic, 25 August
2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/08/how-to-teach-kids-about-whatshappening-in-ferguson/379049/.
_____. ‘Teaching the #FergusonSyllabus’, Dissent Magazine, 28 November 2014, https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/teaching-ferguson-syllabus/.
Ciolkowski, Laura. ‘Rape Culture Syllabus’, Public Books, 15 October 2016, https://www.publicbooks.
org/rape-culture-syllabus/.
Connolly, N.D.B. and Keisha N. Blain. ‘Trump Syllabus 2.0’, Public Books, 28 June 2016, https://www.
publicbooks.org/trump-syllabus-2-0/.
Dockray, Sean, Benjamin Forster, and Public Office. ‘README.md’, HyperReadings, 15 February 2018,
https://samiz-dat.github.io/hyperreadings/.
Federici, Silvia, and Arlen Austin (eds) The New York Wages for Housework Committee 1972-1977: History, Theory, Documents, New York: Autonomedia, 2017.
Harney, Stefano, and Fred Moten, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study, New York:
Autonomedia, 2013.
Heidebrink-Bruno, Adam. ‘Syllabus as Manifesto: A Critical Approach to Classroom Culture’, Hybrid
Pedagogy, 28 August 2014, http://hybridpedagogy.org/syllabus-manifesto-critical-approach-classroom-culture/.
Jenks, Angela. ‘It’s In The Syllabus’, Teaching Tools, Cultural Anthropology website, 30 June 2016,
https://culanth.org/fieldsights/910-it-s-in-the-syllabus/.
Larivière, Vincent, Stefanie Haustein, and Philippe Mongeon, ‘The Oligopoly of Academic Publishers in the Digital Era’, PLoS ONE 10.6 (10 June 2015), https://journals.plos.org/plosone/
article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127502/.
Leckart, Steven. ‘The Stanford Education Experiment Could Change Higher Learning Forever’, Wired,
20 March 2012, https://www.wired.com/2012/03/ff_aiclass/.
Martin, Randy. Financialization Of Daily Life, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002.
Perlstein, Daniel. ‘Teaching Freedom: SNCC and the Creation of the Mississippi Freedom Schools’,
History of Education Quarterly 30.3 (Autumn 1990).
Roberts, Frank Leon. ‘Black Lives Matter: Race, Resistance, and Populist Protest’, 2016, http://www.
blacklivesmattersyllabus.com/fall2016/.
‘#StandingRockSyllabus’, NYC Stands with Standing Rock, 11 October 2016, https://nycstandswithstandingrock.wordpress.com/standingrocksyllabus/.
Shirky, Clay. ‘Ontology Is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags’, 2005, http://shirky.com/writings/
herecomeseverybody/ontology_overrated.html.
‘The Rise (and Fall?) Of the MOOC’, Oxbridge Essays, 14 November 2017, https://www.oxbridgeessays.
com/blog/rise-fall-mooc/.
‘TNI Syllabus: Gaming and Feminism’, The New Inquiry, 2 September 2014, https://thenewinquiry.com/
tni-syllabus-gaming-and-feminism/.
‘Trump 101’, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 19 June 2016, https://www.chronicle.com/article/
Trump-Syllabus/236824/.
‘Wages for Housework: Pamphlets – Flyers – Photographs,’ MayDay Rooms, http://maydayrooms.org/
archives/wages-for-housework/wfhw-pamphlets-flyers-photographs/.
Williamson, Ben. ‘Number Crunching: Transforming Higher Education into “Performance Data”’,
Medium, 16 August 2018, https://medium.com/ussbriefs/number-crunching-transforming-highereducation-into-performance-data-9c23debc4cf7/.
WHW
There Is Something Political in the City Air
2016
What, How & for Whom / WHW
“There is something political in the city air”*
The curatorial collective What,
How & for Whom / WHW, based
in Zagreb and Berlin, examine
the interconnections between
contemporary art and political and
social strata, including the role of art
institutions in contemporary society.
In the present essay, their discussion
of recent projects they curated
highlights the struggle for access to
knowledge and the free distribution
of information, which in Croatia also
means confronting the pressures
of censorship and revisionism
in the writing of history and the
construction of the future.
Contemporary art’s attempts to come to terms with its evasions in delivering on the promise of its own intrinsic capacity to propose alternatives, and
to do better in the constant game of staying ahead of institutional closures
and marketization, are related to a broader malady in leftist politics. The
crisis of organizational models and modes of political action feels especially acute nowadays, after the latest waves of massive political mobilization
and upheaval embodied in such movements as the Arab Spring and Occupy and the widespread social protests in Southern Europe against austerity
measures – and the failure of these movements to bring about structural
changes. As we witnessed in the dramatic events that unfolded through the
spring and summer of 2015, even in Greece, where Syriza was brought to
power, the people’s will behind newly elected governments proved insufficient to change the course of austerity politics in Europe. Simultaneously,
a series of conditional gains and effective defeats gave rise to the alarming
ascent of radical right-wing populism, against which the left has failed to
provide any real vision or driving force.
Both the practice of political articulation and the political practices of
art have been affected by the hollowing and disabling of democracy related
to the ascendant hegemony of the neoliberal rationale that shapes every
domain of our lives in accordance with a specific image of economics,1
as well as the problematic “embrace of localism and autonomy by much
of the left as the pure strategy”2 and the left’s inability to destabilize the
dominant world-view and reclaim the future.3 Consequently, art practices
increasingly venture into novel modes of operation that seek to “expand
our collective imagination beyond what capitalism allows”.4 They not only
point to the problems but address them head on. By negotiating art’s autonomy and impact on the social, and by conceptualizing the whole edifice
of art as a social symptom, such practices attempt to do more than simply
squeeze novel ideas into exhausted artistic formats and endow them with
political content that produces “marks of distinction”,5 which capital then
exploits for the enhancement of its own reproduction.
The two projects visited in this text both work toward building truly
accessible public spaces. Public Library, launched by Marcell Mars and
Tomislav Medak in 2012, is an ongoing media and social project based on
ideas from the open-source software movement, while Autonomy Cube, by
artist Trevor Paglen and the hacker and computer security researcher Jacob Appelbaum, centres on anonymized internet usage in the post–Edward
*
1
2
3
4
5
David Harvey, Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution, Verso, London and New York, 2012, p. 117.
See Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution, Zone books,
New York, 2015.
Harvey, Rebel Cities, p. 83.
See Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams, Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World
Without Work, Verso, London and New York, 2015.
Ibid., p. 495.
See Harvey, Rebel Cities, especially pp. 103–109.
“There is something political in the city air”
289
Snowden world of unprecedented institutionalized surveillance. Both projects operate in tacit alliance with art institutions that more often than not
are suffering from a kind of “mission drift” under pressure to align their
practices and structures with the profit sector, a situation that in recent
decades has gradually become the new norm.6 By working within and with
art institutions, both Public Library and Autonomy Cube induce the institutions to return to their initial mission of creating new common spaces
of socialization and political action. The projects develop counter-publics
and work with infrastructures, in the sense proposed by Keller Easterling:
not just physical networks but shared standards and ideas that constitute
points of contact and access between people and thus rule, govern, and
control the spaces in which we live.7
By building a repository of digitized books, and enabling others to do this
as well, Public Library promotes the idea of the library as a truly public institution that offers universal access to knowledge, which “together with
free public education, a free public healthcare, the scientific method, the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Wikipedia, and free software,
among others – we, the people, are most proud of ”, as the authors of the
project have said.8 Public Library develops devices for the free sharing of
books, but it also functions as a platform for advocating social solidarity
in free access to knowledge. By ignoring and avoiding the restrictive legal
regime for intellectual property, which was brought about by decades of
neoliberalism, as well as the privatization or closure of public institutions,
spatial controls, policing, and surveillance – all of which disable or restrict
possibilities for building new social relations and a new commons – Public
Library can be seen as part of the broader movement to resist neoliberal
austerity politics and the commodification of knowledge and education
and to appropriate public spaces and public goods for common purposes.
While Public Library is fully engaged with the movement to oppose the
copyright regime – which developed as a kind of rent for expropriating the
commons and reintroducing an artificial scarcity of cognitive goods that
could be reproduced virtually for free – the project is not under the spell of
digital fetishism, which until fairly recently celebrated a new digital commons as a non-frictional space of smooth collaboration where a new political and economic autonomy would be forged that would spill over and
undermine the real economy and permeate all spheres of life.9 As Matteo
Pasquinelli argues in his critique of “digitalism” and its celebration of the
6
7
8
9
See Brown, Undoing the Demos.
Keller Easterling, Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space, Verso, London and
New York, 2014.
Marcell Mars, Manar Zarroug, and Tomislav Medak, “Public Library”, in Public Library,
ed. Marcell Mars, Tomislav Medak, and What, How & for Whom / WHW, exh. publication, What, How & for Whom / WHW and Multimedia Institute, Zagreb, 2015, p. 78.
See Matteo Pasquinelli, Animal Spirits: A Bestiary of the Commons, NAi Publishers, Rotterdam, and Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2008.
290
What, How & for Whom / WHW
virtues of the information economy with no concern about the material
basis of production, the information economy is a parasite on the material
economy and therefore “an accurate understanding of the common must
be always interlinked with the real physical forces producing it and the material economy surrounding it.”10
Public Library emancipates books from the restrictive copyright regime
and participates in the exchange of information enabled by digital technology, but it also acknowledges the labour and energy that make this possible. There is labour that goes into the cataloguing of the books, and labour
that goes into scanning them before they can be brought into the digital
realm of free reproduction, just as there are the ingenuity and labour of
the engineers who developed a special scanner that makes it easier to scan
books; also, the scanner needs to be installed, maintained, and fed books
over hours of work. This is where the institutional space of art comes in
handy by supporting the material production central to the Public Library
endeavour. But the scanner itself does not need to be visible. In 2014, at
the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, we curated the
exhibition Really Useful Knowledge, which dealt with conflicts triggered by
struggles over access to knowledge and the effects that knowledge, as the
basis of capital reproduction, has on the totality of workers’ lives. In the
exhibition, the production funds allocated to Public Library were used to
build the book scanner at Calafou, an anarchist cooperative outside Barcelona. The books chosen for scanning were relevant to the exhibition’s
themes – methods of reciprocal learning and teaching, forms of social and
political organization, the history of the Spanish Civil War, etc. – and after
being scanned, they were uploaded to the Public Library website. All that
was visible in the exhibition itself was a kind of index card or business card
with a URL link to the Public Library website and a short statement (fig. 1):
A public library is:
• free access to books for every member of society
• library catalog
• librarian
With books ready to be shared, meticulously cataloged, everyone is a
librarian. When everyone is librarian, the library is everywhere.11
Public Library’s alliance with art institutions serves to strengthen the
cultural capital both for the general demand to free books from copyright
restrictions on cultural goods and for the project itself – such cultural capital could be useful in a potential lawsuit. Simultaneously, the presence and
realization of the Public Library project within an exhibition enlists the host
institution as part of the movement and exerts influence on it by taking
the museum’s public mission seriously and extending it into a grey zone of
10
11
Ibid., p. 29.
Mars, Zarroug, and Medak, “Public Library”, p. 85.
“There is something political in the city air”
291
questionable legality. The defence of the project becomes possible by making the traditional claim of the “autonomy” of art, which is not supposed
to assert any power beyond the museum walls. By taking art’s autonomy
at its word, and by testing the truth of the liberal-democratic claim that
the field of art is a field of unlimited freedom, Public Library engages in a
kind of “overidentification” game, or what Keller Easterling, writing about
the expanded activist repertoire in infrastructure space, calls “exaggerated
compliance”.12 Should the need arise, as in the case of a potential lawsuit
against the project, claims of autonomy and artistic freedom create a protective shroud of untouchability. And in this game of liberating books from
the parochial capitalist imagination that restricts their free circulation, the
institution becomes a complicit partner. The long-acknowledged insight
that institutions embrace and co-opt critique is, in this particular case, a
win-win situation, as Public Library uses the public status of the museum
as a springboard to establish the basic message of free access and the free
circulation of books and knowledge as common sense, while the museum
performs its mission of bringing knowledge to the public and supporting
creativity, in this case the reworking, rebuilding and reuse of technology
for the common good. The fact that the institution is not naive but complicit produces a synergy that enhances potentialities for influencing and
permeating the public sphere. The gesture of not exhibiting the scanner in
the museum has, among other things, a practical purpose, as more books
would be scanned voluntarily by the members of the anarchist commune
in Calafou than would be by the overworked museum staff, and employing
somebody to do this during the exhibition would be too expensive (and the
mantra of cuts, cuts, cuts would render negotiation futile). If there is a flirtatious nod to the strategic game of not exposing too much, it is directed less
toward the watchful eyes of the copyright police than toward the exhibition
regime of contemporary art group shows in which works compete for attention, the biggest scarcity of all. Public Library flatly rejects identification
with the object “our beloved bookscanner” (as the scanner is described on
the project website13), although it is an attractive object that could easily
be featured as a sculpture within the exhibition. But its efficacy and use
come first, as is also true of the enigmatic business card–like leaflet, which
attracts people to visit the Public Library website and use books, not only to
read them but also to add books to the library: doing this in the privacy of
one’s home on one’s own computer is certainly more effective than doing
it on a computer provided and displayed in the exhibition among the other
art objects, films, installations, texts, shops, cafés, corridors, exhibition
halls, elevators, signs, and crowds in a museum like Reina Sofia.
For the exhibition to include a scanner that was unlikely to be used or
a computer monitor that showed the website from which books might be
12
13
Easterling, Extrastatecraft, p. 492.
See https://www.memoryoftheworld.org/blog/2012/10/28/our-belovedbookscanner-2/ (accessed July 4, 2016).
292
What, How & for Whom / WHW
downloaded, but probably not read, would be the embodiment of what
philosopher Robert Pfaller calls “interpassivity”, the appearance of activity or a stand-in for it that in fact replaces any genuine engagement.14 For
Pfaller, interpassivity designates a flight from engagement, a misplaced libidinal investment that under the mask of enjoyment hides aversion to an
activity that one is supposed to enjoy, or more precisely: “Interpassivity is
the creation of a compromise between cultural interests and latent cultural
aversion.”15 Pfaller’s examples of participation in an enjoyable process that
is actually loathed include book collecting and the frantic photocopying of
articles in libraries (his book was originally published in 2002, when photocopying had not yet been completely replaced by downloading, bookmarking, etc.).16 But he also discusses contemporary art exhibitions as sites of
interpassivity, with their overabundance of objects and time-based works
that require time that nobody has, and with the figure of the curator on
whom enjoyment is displaced – the latter, he says, is a good example of
“delegated enjoyment”. By not providing the exhibition with a computer
from which books can be downloaded, the project ensures that books are
seen as vehicles of knowledge acquired by reading and not as immaterial
capital to be frantically exchanged; the undeniable pleasure of downloading and hoarding books is, after all, just one step removed from the playground of interpassivity that the exhibition site (also) is.
But Public Library is hardly making a moralistic statement about the
virtues of reading, nor does it believe that ignorance (such as could be
overcome by reading the library’s books) is the only obstacle that stands
in the way of ultimate emancipation. Rather, the project engages with, and
contributes to, the social practice that David Harvey calls “commoning”:
“an unstable and malleable social relation between a particular self-defined social group and those aspects of its actually existing or yet-to-becreated social and/or physical environment deemed crucial to its life and
livelihood”.17 Public Library works on the basis of commoning and tries to
enlist others to join it, which adds a distinctly political dimension to the
sabotage of intellectual property revenues and capital accumulation.
The political dimension of Public Library and the effort to form and
publicize the movement were expressed more explicitly in the Public Li14
15
16
17
Robert Pfaller, On the Pleasure Principle in Culture: Illusions Without Owners, Verso, London and New York, 2014.
Ibid., p. 76.
Pfaller’s book, which first appeared in German, was published in English only in 2014.
His ideas have gained greater relevance over time, not only as the shortcomings of the
immensely popular social media activism became apparent – where, as many critics
have noted, participation in political organizing and the articulation of political tasks
and agendas are often replaced by a click on an icon – but also because of Pfaller’s
broader argument about the self-deception at play in interpassivity and its role in eliciting enjoyment from austerity measures and other calamities imposed on the welfare
state by the neoliberal regime, which since early 2000 has exceeded even the most sober (and pessimistic) expectations.
Ibid., p. 73.
“There is something political in the city air”
293
brary exhibition in 2015 at Gallery Nova in Zagreb, where we have been
directing the programme since 2003. If the Public Library project was not
such an eminently collective practice that pays no heed to the author function, the Gallery Nova show might be considered something like a solo exhibition. As it was realized, the project again used art as an infrastructure
and resource to promote the movement of freeing books from copyright
restrictions while collecting legitimization points from the art world as enhanced cultural capital that could serve as armour against future attacks
by the defenders of the holy scripture of copyright laws. But here the more
important tactic was to show the movement as an army of many and to
strengthen it through self-presentation. The exhibition presented Public
Library as a collection of collections, and the repertory form (used in archive science to describe a collection) was taken as the basic narrative procedure. It mobilized and activated several archives and open digital repositories, such as MayDay Rooms from London, The Ignorant Schoolmaster and
His Committees from Belgrade, Library Genesis and Aaaaaarg.org, Catalogue
of Free Books, (Digitized) Praxis, the digitized work of the Midnight Notes
Collective, and Textz.com, with special emphasis on activating the digital
repositories UbuWeb and Monoskop. Not only did the exhibition attempt to
enlist the gallery audience but, equally important, the project was testing
its own strength in building, articulating, announcing, and proposing, or
speculating on, a broader movement to oppose the copyright of cultural
goods within and adjacent to the art field.
Presenting such a movement in an art institution changes one of the
basic tenets of art, and for an art institution the project’s main allure probably lies in this kind of expansion of the art field. A shared politics is welcome, but nothing makes an art institution so happy as the sense of purpose that a project like Public Library can endow it with. (This, of course,
comes with its own irony, for while art institutions nowadays compete for
projects that show emphatically how obsolete the aesthetic regime of art is,
they continue to base their claims of social influence on knowledge gained
through some form of aesthetic appreciation, however they go about explaining and justifying it.) At the same time, Public Library’s nonchalance
about institutional maladies and anxieties provides a homeopathic medicine whose effect is sometimes so strong that discussion about placebos
becomes, at least temporarily, beside the point. One occasion when Public
Library’s roving of the political terrain became blatantly direct was the exhibition Written-off: On the Occasion of the 20th Anniversary of Operation
Storm, which we organized in the summer of 2015 at Gallery Nova (figs.
2–4).
The exhibition/action Written-off was based on data from Ante Lesaja’s
extensive research on “library purification”, which he published in his book
Knjigocid: Uništavanje knjige u Hrvatskoj 1990-ih (Libricide: The Destruction
of Books in Croatia in the 1990s).18 People were invited to bring in copies of
18
Ante Lesaja, Knjigocid: Uništavanje knjige u Hrvatskoj 1990-ih, Profil and Srbsko narodno
294
What, How & for Whom / WHW
books that had been removed from Croatian public libraries in the 1990s.
The books were scanned and deposited in a digital archive; they then became available on a website established especially for the project. In Croatia during the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of books were removed from
schools and factories, from public, specialized, and private libraries, from
former Yugoslav People’s Army centres, socio-political organizations, and
elsewhere because of their ideologically inappropriate content, the alphabet they used (Serbian Cyrillic), or the ethnic or political background of the
authors. The books were mostly thrown into rubbish bins, discarded on
the street, destroyed, or recycled. What Lesaja’s research clearly shows is
that the destruction of the books – as well as the destruction of monuments
to the People’s Liberation War (World War II) – was not the result of individuals running amok, as official accounts preach, but a deliberate and systematic action that symbolically summarizes the dominant politics of the
1990s, in which war, rampant nationalism, and phrases about democracy
and sovereignty were used as a rhetorical cloak to cover the nakedness of
the capitalist counter-revolution and criminal processes of dispossession.
Written-off: On the Occasion of the 20th Anniversary of Operation Storm
set up scanners in the gallery, initiated a call for collecting and scanning
books that had been expunged from public institutions in the 1990s, and
outlined the criteria for the collection, which corresponded to the basic
domains in which the destruction of the books, as a form of censorship,
was originally implemented: books written in the Cyrillic alphabet or in
Serbian regardless of the alphabet; books forming a corpus of knowledge
about communism, especially Yugoslav communism, Yugoslav socialism,
and the history of the workers’ struggle; and books presenting the anti-Fascist and revolutionary character of the People’s Liberation Struggle during
World War II.
The exhibition/action was called Written-off because the removal and
destruction of the books were often presented as a legitimate procedure
of library maintenance, thus masking the fact that these books were unwanted, ideologically unacceptable, dangerous, harmful, unnecessary, etc.
Written-off unequivocally placed “book destruction” in the social context
of the period, when the destruction of “unwanted” monuments and books
was happening alongside the destruction of homes and the killing of “unwanted” citizens, outside of and prior to war operations. For this reason,
the exhibition was dedicated to the twentieth anniversary of Operation
Storm, the final military/police operation in what is called, locally, the
Croatian Homeland War.19
The exhibition was intended as a concrete intervention against a political logic that resulted in mass exile and killing, the history of which is
glossed over and critical discussion silenced, and also against the official
19
vijeće, Zagreb, 2012.
Known internationally as the Croatian War of Independence, the war was fought between Croatian forces and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People’s Army from 1991 to
1995.
“There is something political in the city air”
295
celebrations of the anniversary, which glorified militarism and proclaimed
the ethical purity of the victory (resulting in the desired ethnic purity of the
nation).
As both symbolic intervention and real-life action, then, the exhibition
Written-off took place against a background of suppressed issues relating
to Operation Storm – ethno-nationalism as the flip side of neoliberalism,
justice and the present status of the victims and refugees, and the overall character of the war known officially as the Homeland War, in which
discussions about its prominent traits as a civil war are actively silenced
and increasingly prosecuted. In protest against the official celebrations
and military parades, the exhibition marked the anniversary of Operation
Storm with a collective action that evokes books as symbolic of a “knowledge society” in which knowledge becomes the location of conflictual engagement. It pointed toward the struggle over collective symbolic capital
and collective memory, in which culture as a form of the commons has a
direct bearing on the kind of place we live in. The Public Library project,
however, is engaged not so much with cultural memory and remembrance
as a form of recollection or testimony that might lend political legitimation
to artistic gestures; rather, it engages with history as a construction and
speculative proposition about the future, as Peter Osborne argues in his
polemical hypotheses on the notion of contemporary art that distinguishes
between “contemporary” and “present-day” art: “History is not just a relationship between the present and the past – it is equally about the future.
It is this speculative futural moment that definitively separates the concept
of history from memory.”20 For Public Library, the future that participates
in the construction of history does not yet exist, but it is defined as more
than just a project against the present as reflected in the exclusionary, parochially nationalistic, revisionist and increasingly fascist discursive practices of the Croatian political elites. Rather, the future comes into being as
an active and collective construction based on the emancipatory aspects of
historical experiences as future possibilities.
Although defined as an action, the project is not exultantly enthusiastic
about collectivity or the immediacy and affective affinities of its participants, but rather it transcends its local and transient character by taking
up the broader counter-hegemonic struggle for the mutual management
of joint resources. Its endeavour is not limited to the realm of the political
and ideological but is rooted in the repurposing of technological potentials
from the restrictive capitalist game and the reutilization of the existing infrastructure to build a qualitatively different one. While the culture industry adapts itself to the limited success of measures that are geared toward
preventing the free circulation of information by creating new strategies
for pushing information into a form of property and expropriating value
20
Peter Osborne, Anywhere or Not at All: Philosophy of Contemporary Art, Verso, London
and New York, 2013, p. 194.
296
What, How & for Whom / WHW
fig. 1
Marcell Mars, Art as Infrastructure: Public Library, installation
view, Really Useful Knowledge, curated by WHW, Museo
Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, 2014.
Photo by Joaquin Cortes and Roman Lores / MNCARS.
fig. 2
Public Library, exhibition view, Gallery Nova, Zagreb, 2015.
Photo by Ivan Kuharic.
fig. 3
Written-off: On the Occasion of the 20th Anniversary of Operation
Storm, exhibition detail, Gallery Nova, Zagreb, 2015.
Photo by Ivan Kuharic.
fig. 4
Written-off: On the Occasion of the 20th Anniversary of Operation
Storm, exhibition detail, Gallery Nova, Zagreb, 2015.
Photo by Ivan Kuharic.
fig. 5
Trevor Paglen and Jacob Appelbaum, Autonomy Cube,
installation view, Really Useful Knowledge, curated by WHW,
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, 2014.
Photo by Joaquín Cortés and Román Lores / MNCARS.
through the control of metadata (information about information),21 Public Library shifts the focus away from aesthetic intention – from unique,
closed, and discrete works – to a database of works and the metabolism
of the database. It creates values through indexing and connectivity, imagined communities and imaginative dialecticization. The web of interpenetration and determination activated by Public Library creates a pedagogical endeavour that also includes a propagandist thrust, if the notion of
propaganda can be recast in its original meaning as “things that must be
disseminated”.
A similar didactic impetus and constructivist praxis is present in the work
Autonomy Cube, which was developed through the combined expertise of
artist and geographer Trevor Paglen and internet security researcher, activist and hacker Jacob Appelbaum. This work, too, we presented in the
Reina Sofia exhibition Really Useful Knowledge, along with Public Library
and other projects that offered a range of strategies and methodologies
through which the artists attempted to think through the disjunction between concrete experience and the abstraction of capital, enlisting pedagogy as a crucial element in organized collective struggles. Autonomy Cube
offers a free, open-access, encrypted internet hotspot that routes internet
traffic over TOR, a volunteer-run global network of servers, relays, and services, which provides anonymous and unsurveilled communication. The
importance of the privacy of the anonymized information that Autonomy
Cube enables and protects is that it prevents so-called traffic analysis – the
tracking, analysis, and theft of metadata for the purpose of anticipating
people’s behaviour and relationships. In the hands of the surveillance
state this data becomes not only a means of steering our tastes, modes of
consumption, and behaviours for the sake of making profit but also, and
more crucially, an effective method and weapon of political control that
can affect political organizing in often still-unforeseeable ways that offer
few reasons for optimism. Visually, Autonomy Cube references minimalist
sculpture (fig. 5) (specifically, Hans Haacke’s seminal piece Condensation
Cube, 1963–1965), but its main creative drive lies in the affirmative salvaging of technologies, infrastructures, and networks that form both the leading organizing principle and the pervasive condition of complex societies,
with the aim of supporting the potentially liberated accumulation of collective knowledge and action. Aesthetic and art-historical references serve
as camouflage or tools for a strategic infiltration that enables expansion of
the movement’s field of influence and the projection of a different (contingent) future. Engagement with historical forms of challenging institutions
becomes the starting point of a poetic praxis that materializes the object of
its striving in the here and now.
Both Public Library and Autonomy Cube build their autonomy on the dedi21
McKenzie Wark, “Metadata Punk”, in Public Library, pp. 113–117 (see n. 9).
“There is something political in the city air”
305
cation and effort of the collective body, without which they would not
exist, rendering this interdependence not as some consensual idyll of cooperation but as conflicting fields that create further information and experiences. By doing so, they question the traditional edifice of art in a way
that supports Peter Osborne’s claim that art is defined not by its aesthetic
or medium-based status, but by its poetics: “Postconceptual art articulates a post-aesthetic poetics.”22 This means going beyond criticality and
bringing into the world something defined not by its opposition to the real,
but by its creation of the fiction of a shared present, which, for Osborne,
is what makes art truly contemporary. And if projects like these become a
kind of political trophy for art institutions, the side the institutions choose
nevertheless affects the common sense of our future.
I first spoke to the patient in the last week of that August. That evening the
sun was tender in drawing its shadows across the lines of his face. The eyes
gazed softly into a close middle distance, as if composing a line upon a
translucent page hung in the middle of the air, the hands tapping out a stanza
or two of music on legs covered by the brown folds of a towelling dressing
gown. He had the air of someone who had seen something of great amazement but
yet lacked the means to put it into language. As I got to know the patient
over the next few weeks I learned that this was not for the want of effort.
In his youth he had dabbled with the world-speak language Volapük, one
designed to do away with the incompatibility of tongues, to establish a
standard in which scientific intercourse might be conducted with maximum
efficiency and with minimal friction in movement between minds, laboratories
and publications. Latin biological names, the magnificent table of elements,
metric units of measurement, the nomenclature of celestial objects from clouds
to planets, anatomical parts and medical conditions all had their own systems
of naming beyond any specific tongue. This was an attempt to bring reason into
speech and record, but there were other means to do so when reality resisted
these early measures.
The dabbling, he reflected, had become a little more than that. He had
subscribed to journals in the language, he wrote letters to colleagues and
received them in return. A few words of world-speak remained readily on his
tongue, words that he spat out regularly into the yellow-wallpapered lounge of
the sanatorium with a disgust that was lugubriously palpable.
According to my records, and in piecing together the notes of previous
doctors, there was something else however, something more profound that the
language only hinted at. Just as the postal system did not require the
adoption of any language in particular but had its formats that integrated
them into addressee, address line, postal town and country, something that
organised the span of the earth, so there was a sense of the patient as having
sustained an encounter with a fundamental form of organisation that mapped out
his soul. More thrilling than the question of language indeed was that of the
system of organisation upon which linguistic symbols are inscribed. I present
for the reader’s contemplation some statements typical of those he seemed to
mull over.
“The index card system spoke to my soul. Suffice it to say that in its use I
enjoyed the highest form of spiritual pleasure, and organisational efficiency,
a profound flowering of intellect in which every thought moved between its
enunciation, evidence, reference and articulation in a mellifluous flow of
ideation and the gratification of curiosity.” This sense of the soul as a
roving enquiry moving across eras, across forms of knowledge and through the
serried landscapes of the vast planet and cosmos was returned to over and
over, a sense that an inexplicable force was within him yet always escaping
his touch.
“At every reference stood another reference, each more interesting than the
last. Each the apex of a pyramid of further reading, pregnant with the threat
of digression, each a thin high wire which, if not observed might lead the
author into the fall of error, a finding already found against and written
up.” He mentions too, a number of times, the way the furniture seemed to
assist his thoughts - the ease of reference implied by the way in which the
desk aligned with the text resting upon the pages of the off-print, journal,
newspaper, blueprint or book above which further drawers of cards stood ready
in their cabinet. All were integrated into the system. And yet, amidst these
frenetic recollections there was a note of mourning in his contemplative
moods, “The superposition of all planes of enquiry and of thought in one
system repels those for whom such harmonious speed is suspicious.” This
thought was delivered with a stare that was not exactly one of accusation, but
that lingered with the impression that there was a further statement to follow
it, and another, queued up ready to follow.
As I gained the trust of the patient, there was a sense in which he estimated
me as something of a junior collaborator, a clerk to his natural role as
manager. A lucky, if slightly doubtful, young man whom he might mentor into
efficiency and a state of full access to information. For his world, there was
not the corruption and tiredness of the old methods. Ideas moved faster in his
mind than they might now across the world. To possess a register of thoughts
covering a period of some years is to have an asset, the value of which is
almost incalculable. That it can answer any question respecting any thought
about which one has had an enquiry is but the smallest of its merits. More
important is the fact that it continually calls attention to matters requiring
such attention.
Much of his discourse was about the optimum means of arrangement of the
system, there was an art to laying out the cards. As the patient further
explained, to meet the objection that loose cards may easily be mislaid, cards
may be tabbed with numbers from one to ten. When arranged in the drawer, these
tabs proceed from left to right across the drawer and the absence of a single
card can thus easily be detected. The cards are further arranged between
coloured guide cards. As an alternative to tabbed cards, signal flags may be
used. Here, metal clips may be attached to the top end of the card and that
stand out like guides. For use of the system in relation to dates of the
month, the card is printed with the numbers 1 to 31 at the top. The metal clip
is placed as a signal to indicate the card is to receive attention on the
specified day. Within a large organisation a further card can be drawn up to
assign responsibility for processing that date’s cards. There were numerous
means of working the cards, special techniques for integrating them into any
type of research or organisation, means by which indexes operating on indexes
could open mines of information and expand the knowledge and capabilities of
mankind.
As he pressed me further, I began to experiment with such methods myself by
withdrawing data from the sanatorium’s records and transferring it to cards in
the night. The advantages of the system are overwhelming. Cards, cut to the
right mathematical degree of accuracy, arrayed readily in drawers, set in
cabinets of standard sizes that may be added to at ease, may be apportioned
out amongst any number of enquirers, all of whom may work on them
independently and simultaneously. The bound book, by contrast, may only be
used by one person at a time and that must stay upon a shelf itself referred
to by an index card system. I began to set up a structure of rows of mirrors
on chains and pulleys and a set of levered and hinged mechanical arms to allow
me to open the drawers and to privately consult my files from any location
within the sanatorium. The clarity of the image is however so far too much
effaced by the diffusion of light across the system.
It must further be borne in mind that a system thus capable of indefinite
expansion obviates the necessity for hampering a researcher with furniture or
appliances of a larger size than are immediately required. The continuous and
orderly sequence of the cards may be extended further into the domain of
furniture and to the conduct of business and daily life. Reasoning, reference
and the order of ideas emerging as they embrace and articulate a chaotic world
and then communicate amongst themselves turning the world in turn into
something resembling the process of thought in an endless process of
consulting, rephrasing, adding and sorting.
For the patient, ideas flowed like a force of life, oblivious to any unnatural
limitation. Thought became, with the proper use of the system, part of the
stream of life itself. Thought moved through the cards not simply at the
superficial level of the movement of fingers and the mechanical sliding and
bunching of cards, but at the most profound depths of the movement between
reality and our ideas of it. The organisational grace to be found in
arrangement, classification and indexing still stirred the remnants of his
nervous system until the last day.
_An unedited version of a talk given at the conference[Public
Library](http://www.wkv-stuttgart.de/en/program/2014/events/public-library/)
held at Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, 1 November 2014._
_Bracketed sequences are to be reformulated._
Poetics of Research
In this talk I'm going to attempt to identify [particular] cultural
algorithms, ie. processes in which cultural practises and software meet. With
them a sphere is implied in which algorithms gather to form bodies of
practices and in which cultures gather around algorithms. I'm going to
approach them through the perspective of my practice as a cultural worker,
editor and artist, considering practice in the same rank as theory and
poetics, and where theorization of practice can also lead to the
identification of poetical devices.
The primary motivation for this talk is an attempt to figure out where do we
stand as operators, users [and communities] gathering around infrastructures
containing a massive body of text (among other things) and what sort of things
might be considered to make a difference [or to keep making difference].
The talk mainly [considers] the role of text and the word in research, by way
of several figures.
A
A reference, list, scheme, table, index; those things that intervene in the
flow of narrative, illustrating the point, perhaps in a more economic way than
the linear text would do. Yet they don't function as pictures, they are
primarily texts, arranged in figures. Their forms have been
standardised[normalised] over centuries, withstood the transition to the
digital without any significant change, being completely intuitive to the
modern reader. Compared to the body of text they are secondary, run parallel
to it. Their function is however different to that of the punctuation. They
are there neither to shape the narrative nor to aid structuring the argument
into logical blocks. Nor is their function spatial, like in visual poems.
Their positions within a document are determined according to the sequential
order of the text, [standing as attachments] and are there to clarify the
nature of relations among elements of the subject-matter, or to establish
relations with other documents. The [premise] of my talk is that these
_textual figures_ also came to serve as the abstract[relational] models
determining possible relations among documents as such, and in consequence [to
structure conditions [of research]].
B
It can be said that research, as inquiry into a subject-matter, consists of
discrete queries. A query, such as a question about what something is, what
kinds, parts and properties does it have, and so on, can be consulted in
existing documents or generate new documents based on collection of data [in]
the field and through experiment, before proceeding to reasoning [arguments
and deductions]. Formulation of a query is determined by protocols providing
access to documents, which means that there is a difference between collecting
data outside the archive (the undocumented, ie. in the field and through
experiment), consulting with a person--an archivist (expert, librarian,
documentalist), and consulting with a database storing documents. The
phenomena such as [deepening] of specialization and throughout digitization
[have given] privilege to the database as [a|the] [fundamental] means for
research. Obviously, this is a very recent [phenomenon]. Queries were once
formulated in natural language; now, given the fact that databases are queried
[using] SQL language, their interfaces are mere extensions of it and
researchers pose their questions by manipulating dropdowns, checkboxes and
input boxes mashed together on a flat screen being ran by software that in
turn translates them into a long line of conditioned _SELECTs_ and _JOINs_
performed on tables of data.
Specialization, digitization and networking have changed the language of
questioning. Inquiry, once attached to the flesh and paper has been
[entrusted] to the digital and networked. Researchers are querying the black
box.
C
Searching in a collection of [amassed/assembled] [tangible] documents (ie.
bookshelf) is different from searching in a systematically structured
repository (library) and even more so from searching in a digital repository
(digital library). Not that they are mutually exclusive. One can devise
structures and algorithms to search through a printed text, or read books in a
library one by one. They are rather [models] [embodying] various [processes]
associated with the query. These properties of the query might be called [the
sequence], the structure and the index. If they are present in the ways of
querying documents, and we will return to this issue, are they persistent
within the inquiry as such? [wait]
D
This question itself is a rupture in the sequence. It makes a demand to depart
from one narrative [a continuous flow of words] to another, to figure out,
while remaining bound to it [it would be even more as a so-called rhetorical
question]. So there has been one sequence, or line, of the inquiry--about the
kinds of the query and its properties. That sequence itself is a digression,
from within the sequence about what is research and describing its parts
(queries). We are thus returning to it and continue with a question whether
the properties of the inquiry are the same as the properties of the query.
E
But isn't it true that every single utterance occurring in a sequence yields a
query as well? Let's consider the word _utterance_. [wait] It can produce a
number of associations, for example with how Foucault employs the notion of
_énoncé_ in his _Archaeology of Knowledge_ , giving hard time to his English
translators wondering whether _utterance_ or _statement_ is more appropriate,
or whether they are interchangeable, and what impact would each choice have on
his reception in the Anglophone world. Limiting ourselves to textual forms for
now (and not translating his work but pursing a different inquiry), let us say
the utterance is a word [or a phrase or an idiom] in a sequence such as a
sentence, a paragraph, or a document.
## (F) The
structure[[edit](/index.php?title=Talks/Poetics_of_Research&action=edit§ion=1
"Edit section: \(F\) The structure")]
This distinction is as old as recorded Western thought since both Plato and
Aristotle differentiate between a word on its own ("the said", a thing said)
and words in the company of other words. For example, Aristotle's _Categories_
[lay] on the [notion] of words on their own, and they are made the subject-
matter of that inquiry. [For him], the ambiguity of connotation words
[produce] lies in their synonymity, understood differently from the moderns--
not as more words denoting a similar thing but rather one word denoting
various things. Categories were outlined as a device to differentiate among
words according to kinds of these things. Every word as such belonged to not
less and not more than one of ten categories.
So it happens to the word _utterance_ , as to any other word uttered in a
sequence, that it poses a question, a query about what share of the spectrum
of possibly denoted things might yield as the most appropriate in a given
context. The more context the more precise share comes to the fore. When taken
out of the context ambiguity prevails as the spectrum unveils in its variety.
Thus single words [as any other utterances] are questions, queries,
themselves, and by occuring in statements, in context, their [means] are being
singled out.
This process is _conditioned_ by what has been formalized as the techniques of
_regulating_ definitions of words.
### (G) The structure: words as
words[[edit](/index.php?title=Talks/Poetics_of_Research&action=edit§ion=2
"Edit section: \(G\) The structure: words as words")]
P.Oxy.XX 2260 i: Oxyrhynchus papyrus XX, 2260, column i, with quotation from
Philitas, early 2nd c. CE. 1(http://163.1.169.40/cgi-
bin/library?e=q-000-00---0POxy--00-0-0--0prompt-10---4------0-1l--1-en-50---
20-about-2260--
00031-001-0-0utfZz-8-00&a=d&c=POxy&cl=search&d=HASH13af60895d5e9b50907367) 2(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:POxy.XX.2260.i-Philitas-
highlight.jpeg)
Ephraim Chambers, _Cyclopaedia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and
Sciences_ , 1728, p. 210. 3(http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-
bin/HistSciTech/HistSciTech-
idx?type=turn&entity=HistSciTech.Cyclopaedia01.p0576&id=HistSciTech.Cyclopaedia01&isize=L)
Detail from the Liddell-Scott Greek-English Lexicon, c1843.
Dictionaries have had a long life. The ancient Greek scholar and poet Philitas
of Cos living in the 4th c. BCE wrote a vocabulary explaining the meanings of
rare Homeric and other literary words, words from local dialects, and
technical terms. The vocabulary, called _Disorderly Words_ (Átaktoi glôssai),
has been lost, with a few fragments quoted by later authors. One example is
that the word πέλλα (pélla) meant "wine cup" in the ancient Greek region of
Boeotia; contrasted to the same word meaning "milk pail" in Homer's _Iliad_.
Not much has changed in the way how dictionaries constitute order. Selected
archives of statements are queried to yield occurrences of particular words,
various _criteria[indicators]_ are applied to filtering and sorting them and
in turn the spectrum of [denoted] things allocated in this way is structured
into groups and subgroups which are then given, according to other set of
rules, shorter or longer names. These constitute facets of [potential]
meanings of a word.
So there are at least _four_ sets of conditions [structuring] dictionaries.
One is required to delimit an archive[corpus of texts], one to select and give
preference[weights] to occurrences of a word, another to cluster them, and yet
another to abstract[generalize] the subject-matter of each of these clusters.
Needless to say, this is a craft of a few and these criteria are rarely being
disclosed, despite their impact on research, and more generally, their
influence as conditions for production[making] of a so called _common sense_.
It doesn't take that much to reimagine what a dictionary is and what it could
be, especially having large specialized corpora of texts at hand. These can
also serve as aids in production of new words and new meanings.
### (H) The structure: words as knowledge and the
world[[edit](/index.php?title=Talks/Poetics_of_Research&action=edit§ion=3
"Edit section: \(H\) The structure: words as knowledge and the world")]
Boethius's rendering of a classification tree described in Porphyry's Isagoge
(3th c.), [6th c.] 10th c. 4(http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/sbe/0315/53/medium)
Ephraim Chambers, _Cyclopaedia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and
Sciences_ , London, 1728, p. II. 5(http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-
bin/HistSciTech/HistSciTech-
idx?type=turn&entity=HistSciTech.Cyclopaedia01.p0015&id=HistSciTech.Cyclopaedia01&isize=L)
Système figuré des connaissances humaines, _Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire
raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers_ , 1751. 6(http://encyclopedie.uchicago.edu/content/syst%C3%A8me-figur%C3%A9-des-
connaissances-humaines)
Another _formalized_ and [internalized] process being at play when figuring
out a word is its [containment]. Word is not only structured by way of things
it potentially denotes but also by words it is potentially part of and those
it contains.
The fuzz around categorization of knowledge _and_ the world in the Western
thought can be traced back to Porphyry, if not further. In his introduction to
Aristotle's _Categories_ this 3rd century AD Neoplatonist began expanding the
notions of genus and species into their hypothetic consequences. Aristotle's
brief work outlines ten categories of 'things that are said' (legomena,
λεγόμενα), namely substance (or substantive, {not the same as matter!},
οὐσία), quantity (ποσόν), qualification (ποιόν), a relation (πρός), where
(ποῦ), when (πότε), being-in-a-position (κεῖσθαι), having (or state,
condition, ἔχειν), doing (ποιεῖν), and being-affected (πάσχειν). In his
different work, _Topics_ , Aristotle outlines four kinds of subjects/materials
indicated in propositions/problems from which arguments/deductions start.
These are a definition (όρος), a genus (γένος), a property (ἴδιος), and an
accident (συμβεβηϰόϛ). Porphyry does not explicitly refer _Topics_ , and says
he omits speaking "about genera and species, as to whether they subsist (in
the nature of things) or in mere conceptions only" 8(http://www.ccel.org/ccel/pearse/morefathers/files/porphyry_isagogue_02_translation.htm#C1),
which means he avoids explicating whether he talks about kinds of concepts or
kinds of things in the sensible world. However, the work sparked confusion, as
the following passage [suggests]:
> "[I]n each category there are certain things most generic, and again, others
most special, and between the most generic and the most special, others which
are alike called both genera and species, but the most generic is that above
which there cannot be another superior genus, and the most special that below
which there cannot be another inferior species. Between the most generic and
the most special, there are others which are alike both genera and species,
referred, nevertheless, to different things, but what is stated may become
clear in one category. Substance indeed, is itself genus, under this is body,
under body animated body, under which is animal, under animal rational animal,
under which is man, under man Socrates, Plato, and men particularly." (Owen
1853, 9(http://www.ccel.org/ccel/pearse/morefathers/files/porphyry_isagogue_02_translation.htm#C2))
Porphyry took one of Aristotle's ten categories of the word, substance, and
dissected it using one of his four rhetorical devices, genus. Employing
Aristotle's categories, genera and species as means for logical operations,
for dialectic, Porphyry's interpretation resulted in having more resemblance
to the perceived _structures_ of the world. So they began to bloom.
There were earlier examples, but Porphyry was the most influential in
injecting the _universalist_ version of classification [implying] the figure
of a tree into the [locus] of Aristotle's thought. Knowledge became
monotheistic.
Classification schemes [growing from one point] play a major role in
untangling the format of modern encyclopedia from that of the dictionary
governed by alphabet. Two of the most influential encyclopedias of the 18th
century are cases in the point. Although still keeping 'dictionary' in their
titles, they are conceived not to represent words but knowledge. The [upper-
most] genus of the body was set as the body of knowledge. The English
_Cyclopaedia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences_ (1728) splits
into two main branches: "natural and scientifical" and "artificial and
technical"; these further split down to 47 classes in total, each carrying a
structured list (on the following pages) of thematic articles, serving as
table of contents. The French _Encyclopedia: or a Systematic Dictionary of the
Sciences, Arts, and Crafts_ (1751) [unwinds] from judgement ( _entendement_ ),
branches into memory as history, reason as philosophy, and imagination as
poetry. The logic of containers was employed as an aid not only to deal with
the enormous task of naming and not omiting anything from what is known, but
also for the management of labour of hundreds of writers and researchers, to
create a mechanism for delegating work and the distribution of
responsibilities. Flesh was also more present, in the field research, with
researchers attending workshops and sites of everyday life to annotate it.
The world came forward to unshine the word in other schemes. Darwin's tree of
evolution and some of the modern document classification systems such as
Charles A. Cutter's _Expansive Classification_ (1882) set to classify the
world itself and set the field for what has came to be known as authority
lists structuring metadata in today's computing.
### The structure
(summary)[[edit](/index.php?title=Talks/Poetics_of_Research&action=edit§ion=4
"Edit section: The structure \(summary\)")]
Facetization of meaning and branching of knowledge are both the domain of the
unit of utterance.
While lexicographers[dictionarists] structure thought through multi-layered
processes of abstraction of the written record, knowledge growers dissect it
into hierarchies of [mutually] contained notions.
One seek to describe the word as a faceted list of small worlds, another to
describe the world as a structured lists of words. One play prime in the
domain of epistemology, in what is known, controlling the vocabulary, another
in the domain of ontology, in what is, controlling reality.
Every [word] has its given things, every thing has its place, closer or
further from a single word.
The schism between classifying words and classifying the world implies it is
not possible to construct a universal classification scheme[system]. On top of
that, any classification system of words is bound to a corpus of texts it is
operating upon and any classification system of the world again operates with
words which are bound to a vocabulary[lexicon] which is again bound to a
corpus [of texts]. It doesn't mean it would prevent people from trying.
Classifications function as descriptors of and 'inscriptors' upon the world,
imprinting their authority. They operate from [a locus of] their
corpus[context]-specificity. The larger the corpus, the more power it has on
shaping the world, as far as the word shapes it (yes, I do imply Google here,
for which it is a domain to be potentially exploited).
## (J) The
sequence[[edit](/index.php?title=Talks/Poetics_of_Research&action=edit§ion=5
"Edit section: \(J\) The sequence")]
The structure-yielding query [of] the single word [shrinks][zuzuje
sa,spresnuje] with preceding and following words. Inquiry proceeds in the flow
that establishes another kind[mode] of relationality, chaining words into the
sequence. While the structuring property of the query brings words apart from
each other, its sequential property establishes continuity and brings these
units into an ordered set.
This is what is responsible for attaching textual figures mentioned earlier
(lists, schemes, tables) to the body of the text. Associations can be also
stated explicitly, by indexing tables and then referring them from a
particular point in the text. The same goes for explicit associations made
between blocks of the text by means of indexed paragraphs, chapters or pages.
From this follows that all utterances point to the following utterance by the
nature of sequential order, and indexing provides means for pointing elsewhere
in the document as well.
A lot can be said about references to other texts. Here, to spare time, I
would refer you to a talk I gave a few months ago and which is online 10(http://monoskop.org/Talks/Communing_Texts).
This is still the realm of print. What happens with document when it is
digitized?
Digitization breaks a document into units of which each is assigned a numbered
position in the sequence of the document. From this perspective digitization
can be viewed as a total indexation of the document. It is converted into
units rendered for machine operations. This sequentiality is made explicit, by
means of an underlying index.
Sequences and chains are orders of one dimension. Their one-dimensional
ordering allows addressability of each element and [random] access. [Jumps]
between [random] addresses are still sequential, processing elements one at a
time.
## (K) The
index[[edit](/index.php?title=Talks/Poetics_of_Research&action=edit§ion=6
"Edit section: \(K\) The index")]
Summa confessorum [1297-98], 1310. 7(http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/illmanus/roymanucoll/j/011roy000008g11u00002000.html)
[The] sequencing not only weaves words into statements but activates other
temporalities, and _presents occurrences of words from past statements_. As
now when I am saying the word _utterance_ , each time there surface contexts
in which I have used it earlier.
A long quote from Frederick G. Kilgour, _The Evolution of the Book_ , 1998, pp
76-77:
> "A century of invention of various types of indexes and reference tools
preceded the advent of the first subject index to a specific book, which
occurred in the last years of the thirteenth century. The first subject
indexes were "distinctions," collections of "various figurative or symbolic
meanings of a noun found in the scriptures" that "are the earliest of all
alphabetical tools aside from dictionaries." (Richard and Mary Rouse supply an
example: "Horse = Preacher. Job 39: 'Hast thou given the horse strength, or
encircled his neck with whinning?')
>
> [Concordance] By the end of the third decade of the thirteenth century Hugh
de Saint-Cher had produced the first word concordance. It was a simple word
index of the Bible, with every location of each word listed by [its position
in the Bible specified by book, chapter, and letter indicating part of the
chapter]. Hugh organized several dozen men, assigning to each man an initial
letter to search; for example, the man assigned M was to go through the entire
Bible, list each word beginning with M and give its location. As it was soon
perceived that this original reference work would be even more useful if words
were cited in context, a second concordance was produced, with each word in
lengthy context, but it proved to be unwieldy. [Soon] a third version was
produced, with words in contexts of four to seven words, the model for
biblical concordances ever since.
>
> [Subject index] The subject index, also an innovation of the thirteenth
century, evolved over the same period as did the concordance. Most of the
early topical indexes were designed for writing sermons; some were organized,
while others were apparently sequential without any arrangement. By midcentury
the entries were in alphabetical order, except for a few in some classified
arrangement. Until the end of the century these alphabetical reference works
indexed a small group of books. Finally John of Freiburg added an alphabetical
subject index to his own book, _Summa Confessorum_ (1297—1298). As the Rouses
have put it, 'By the end of the [13]th century the practical utility of the
subject index is taken for granted by the literate West, no longer solely as
an aid for preachers, but also in the disciplines of theology, philosophy, and
both kinds of law.'"
In one sense neither subject-index nor concordane are indexes, they are words
or group of words selected according to given criteria from the body of the
text, each accompanied with a list of identifiers. These identifiers are
elements of an index, whether they represent a page, chapter, column, or other
[kind of] block of text. Every identifier is an unique _address_.
The index is thus an ordering of a sequence by means of associating its
elements with a set of symbols, when each element is given unique combination
of symbols. Different sizes of sets yield different number of variations.
Symbol sets such as an alphabet, arabic numerals, roman numerals, and binary
digits have different proportions between the length of a string of symbols
and the number of possible variations it can contain. Thus two symbols of
English alphabet can store 26^2 various values, of arabic numerals 10^2, of
roman numberals 8^2 and of binary digits 2^2.
Indexation is segmentation, a breaking into segments. From as early as the
13th century the index such as that of sections has served as enabler of
search. The more [detailed] indexation the more precise search results it
enables.
The subject-index and concordance are tables of search results. There is a
direct lineage from the 13th-century biblical concordances and the birth of
computational linguistic analysis, they were both initiated and realised by
priests.
During the World War II, Jesuit Father Roberto Busa began to look for machines
for the automation of the linguistic analysis of the 11 million-word Latin
corpus of Thomas Aquinas and related authors.
Working on his Ph.D. thesis on the concept of _praesens_ in Aquinas he
realised two things:
> "I realized first that a philological and lexicographical inquiry into the
verbal system of an author has t o precede and prepare for a doctrinal
interpretation of his works. Each writer expresses his conceptual system in
and through his verbal system, with the consequence that the reader who
masters this verbal system, using his own conceptual system, has to get an
insight into the writer's conceptual system. The reader should not simply
attach t o the words he reads the significance they have in his mind, but
should try t o find out what significance they had in the writer's mind.
Second, I realized that all functional or grammatical words (which in my mind
are not 'empty' at all but philosophically rich) manifest the deepest logic of
being which generates the basic structures of human discourse. It is .this
basic logic that allows the transfer from what the words mean today t o what
they meant to the writer.
>
> In the works of every philosopher there are two philosophies: the one which
he consciously intends to express and the one he actually uses to express it.
The structure of each sentence implies in itself some philosophical
assumptions and truths. In this light, one can legitimately criticize a
philosopher only when these two philosophies are in contradiction." 11(http://www.alice.id.tue.nl/references/busa-1980.pdf)
Collaborating with the IBM in New York from 1949, the work, a concordance of
all the words of Thomas Aquinas, was finally published in the 1970s in 56
printed volumes (a version is online since 2005 12(http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/it/index.age)). Besides that, an
electronic lexicon for automatic lemmatization of Latin words was created by a
team of ten priests in the scope of two years (in two phases: grouping all the
forms of an inflected word under their lemma, and coding the morphological
categories of each form and lemma), containing 150,000 forms 13(http://www.alice.id.tue.nl/references/busa-1980.pdf#page=4). Father
Busa has been dubbed the father of humanities computing and recently also of
digital humanities.
The subject-index has a crucial role in the printed book. It is the only means
for search the book offers. Subjects composing an index can be selected
according to a classification scheme (specific to a field of an inquiry), for
example as elements of a certain degree (with a given minimum number of
subclasses).
Its role seemingly vanishes in the digital text. But it can be easily
transformed. Besides serving as a table of pre-searched results the subject-
index also gives a distinct idea about content of the book. Two patterns give
us a clue: numbers of occurrences of selected words give subjects weights,
while words that seem specific to the book outweights other even if they don't
occur very often. A selection of these words then serves as a descriptor of
the whole text, and can be thought of as a specific kind of 'tags'.
This process was formalized in a mathematical function in the 1970s, thanks to
a formula by Karen Spärck Jones which she entitled 'inverse document
frequency' (IDF), or in other words, "term specificity". It is measured as a
proportion of texts in the corpus where the word appears at least once to the
total number of texts. When multiplied by the frequency of the word _in_ the
text (divided by the maximum frequency of any word in the text), we get _term
frequency-inverse document frequency_ (tf-idf). In this way we can get an
automated list of subjects which are particular in the text when compared to a
group of texts.
We came to learn it by practice of searching the web. It is a mechanism not
dissimilar to thought process involved in retrieving particular information
online. And search engines have it built in their indexing algorithms as well.
There is a paper proposing attaching words generated by tf-idf to the
hyperlinks when referring websites 14(http://bscit.berkeley.edu/cgi-
bin/pl_dochome?query_src=&format=html&collection=Wilensky_papers&id=3&show_doc=yes).
This would enable finding the referred content even after the link is dead.
Hyperlinks in references in the paper use this feature and it can be easily
tested: 15(http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~phelps/papers/dissertation-
abstract.html?lexical-
signature=notemarks+multivalent+semantically+franca+stylized).
There is another measure, cosine similarity, which takes tf-idf further and
can be applied for clustering texts according to similarities in their
specificity. This might be interesting as a feature for digital libraries, or
even a way of organising library bottom-up into novel categories, new
discourses could emerge. Or as an aid for researchers to sort through texts,
or even for editors as an aid in producing interesting anthologies.
## Final
remarks[[edit](/index.php?title=Talks/Poetics_of_Research&action=edit§ion=7
"Edit section: Final remarks")]
1
New disciplines emerge all the time - most recently, for example, cultural
techniques, software studies, or media archaeology. It takes years, even
decades, before they gain dedicated shelves in libraries or a category in
interlibrary digital repositories. Not that it matters that much. They are not
only sites of academic opportunities but, firstly, frameworks of new
perspectives of looking at the world, new domains of knowledge. From the
perspective of researcher the partaking in a discipline involves negotiating
its vocabulary, classifications, corpus, reference field, and specific
terms[subjects]. Creating new fields involves all that, and more. Even when
one goes against all disciplines.
2
Google can still surprise us.
3
Knowledge has been in the making for millenia. There have been (abstract)
mechanisms established that govern its conditions. We now possess specialized
corpora of texts which are interesting enough to serve as a ground to discuss
and experiment with dictionaries, classifications, indexes, and tools for
references retrieval. These all belong to the poetic devices of knowledge-
making.
4
Command-line example of tf-idf and concordance in 3 steps.
* 1\. Process the files text.1-5.txt and produce freq.1-5.txt with lists of (nonlemmatized) words (in respective texts), ordered by frequency:
> for i in {1..5}; do tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]' < text.$i.txt | tr -c '[a-z]'
'[\012*]' | tr -d '[:punct:]' | sort | uniq -c | sort -k 1nr | sed '1,1d' >
temp.txt; max=$(awk -vvar=1 -F" " 'NR
* 2\. Process the files freq.1-5.txt and produce tfidf.1-5.txt containing a list of words (out of 500 most frequent in respective lists), ordered by weight (specificity for each text):
> for j in {1..5}; do rm freq.$j.txt.temp; lines=$(wc -l freq.$j.txt) && for i
in {1..500}; do word=$(awk -vline="$i" -vfield=2 -F" " 'NR
line {print
$field}' freq.$j.txt); tf=$(awk -vline="$i" -vfield=1 -F" " 'NR
* 3\. Process the files tfidf.1-5.txt and their source text, text.txt, and produce occ.txt with concordance of top 3 words from each of them:
> rm occ.txt && for j in {1..5}; do echo "$j" >> occ.txt; ptx -f -w 150
text.txt.$j > occ.$j.txt; for i in {1..3}; do word=$(awk -vline="$i" -vfield=1
-F" " 'NR
line {print $field}' tfidf.$j.txt); egrep -i
"[alpha:](/index.php?title=Alpha:&action=edit&redlink=1 "Alpha: \(page does
not exist\)") $word" occ.$j.txt >> occ.txt; done; done
Dušan Barok
_Written 23 October - 1 November 2014 in Bratislava and Stuttgart._
The Guide to techno-galactic software observing was compiled by Carlin
Wing, Martino Morandi, Peggy Pierrot, Anita, Christoph Haag, Michael
Murtaugh, Femke Snelting
License: Free Art License
Support:
Sources:
Constant, February 2018
::: {.footnotes}
1. [[[Haraway]{.fname}, [Donna]{.gname}, [Galison]{.fname},
[Peter]{.gname} and [Stump]{.fname}, [David J]{.gname}: [Modest
Witness: Feminist Diffractions in Science Studies]{.title},
[Stanford University Press]{.publisher}, [1996]{.date}.
]{.collection} [-\>](#eeffecbe)]{#ebceffee}
2. [Worksessions are intensive transdisciplinary moments, organised
twice a year by Constant. They aim to provide conditions for
participants with different experiences and capabilities to
Constant
The Techno-Galactic Guide to Software Observation
2018
::: {.toc}
[Introduction](#mtljymuz) [Encounter several collections of historical
hardware back-to-back](#njm5zwm4) [Interview people about their
histories with software](#mguzmza4) [Ask several people from different
fields and age-groups the same question: \"***What is
software?***\"](#odfkotky) [FMEM and /DEV/MEM](#mzcxodix)
[Pan/Monopsychism](#m2mwogri) [Fountain refreshment](#ndawnmy5) [Create
\"nannyware\": Software that observes and addresses the user](#mtk5yjbl)
[Useless scroll against productivity](#yzuwmdq4) [Investigating how
humans and machines negotiate the experience of time](#m2vjndu3)
[Quine](#nmi5mgjm) [Glossaries as an exercise](#zwu0ogu0) [Adding
qualifiers](#mja0m2i5) [Searching \"software\" through
software](#mmmwmje2) [Persist in calling everyone a Software Curious
Person](#ndhkmwey) [Setup a Relational software observatory consultancy
(RSOC)](#mmu1mgy0) [Agile Sun Salutation](#mta1ntzm) [Hand
reading](#mdu0mmji) [Bug reporting for sharing observations](#yznjodq3)
[Interface Détournement](#ytu5y2qy) [Comportments of software
(softwear)](#y2q4zju5) [Continuous integration](#mwrhm2y4) [make make
do](#zdixmgrm) [Flowcharts (Flow of the chart -- chart of the flow on
demand!)](#zweymtni) [Something in the Middle Maybe (SitMM)](#ywfin2e4)
[What is it like to be AN ELEVATOR?](#ntlimgqy) [Side Channel
Analysis](#ndg2zte4) [Compiling a bestiary of software logos](#njmzmjm1)
[Encounter several collections of historical hardware
back-to-back](#njm5zwm4) [Testing the testbed: testing software with
observatory ambitions (SWOA)](#mmy2zgrl) [Prepare a reader to think
theory with software](#mmmzmmrh)
:::
[]{#mtljymuz .anchor}
A guide to techno-galactic software observation
> I am less interested in the critical practice of reflection, of
> showing once-again that the emperor has no clothes, than in finding a
> way to *diffract* critical inquiry in order to make difference
> patterns in a more worldly way.^[1](#ebceffee)^
The techno-galactic software survival guide that you are holding right
now was collectively produced as an outcome of the Techno-Galactic
Software Observatory. This guide proposes several ways to achieve
critical distance from the seemingly endless software systems that
surround us. It offers practical and fantastical tools for the tactical
(mis)use of software, empowering/enabling users to resist embedded
paradigms and assumptions. It is a collection of methods for approaching
software, experiencing its myths and realities, its risks and benefits.
With the rise of online services, the use of software has increasingly
been knitted into the production of software, even while the rhetoric,
rights, and procedures continue to suggest that use and production
constitute separate realms. This knitting together and its corresponding
disavowal have an effect on the way software is used and produced, and
radically alters its operative role in society. The shifts ripple across
galaxies, through social structures, working conditions and personal
relations, resulting in a profusion of apparatuses aspiring to be
seamless while optimizing and monetizing individual and collective flows
of information in line with the interests of a handful of actors. The
diffusion of software services affects the personal, in the form of
intensified identity shaping and self-management. It also affects the
public, as more and more libraries, universities and public
infrastructures as well as the management of public life rely on
\"solutions\" provided by private companies. Centralizing data flows in
the clouds, services blur the last traces of the thin line that
separates bio- from necro-politics.
Given how fast these changes resonate and reproduce, there is a growing
urgency to engage in a critique of software that goes beyond taking a
distance, and that deals with the fact that we are inevitably already
entangled. How can we interact, intervene, respond and think with
software? What approaches can allow us to recognize the agency of
different actors, their ways of functioning and their politics? What
methods of observation enable critical inquiry and affirmative discord?
What techniques can we apply to resurface software where it has melted
into the infrastructure and into the everyday? How can we remember that
software is always at work, especially where it is designed to disappear
into the background?
We adopted the term of observation for a number of reasons. We regard
observation as a way to approach software, as one way to organize
engagement with its implications. Observation, and the enabling of
observation through intensive data-centric feedback mechanisms, is part
of the cybernetic principles that underpin present day software
production. Our aim was to scrutinize this methodology in its many
manifestations, including in \"observatories\" \-- high cost
infrastructures \[testing infrastructures?CITECLOSE23310 of observation
troubled by colonial, imperial traditions and their problematic
divisions of nature and culture \-- with the hope of opening up
questions about who gets to observe software (and how) and who is being
observed by software (and with what impact)? It is a question of power,
one that we answer, at least in part, with critical play.
We adopted the term techno-galactic to match the advertised capability
of \"scaling up to the universe\" that comes in contemporary paradigms
of computation, and to address different scales of software communities
and related political economies that involve and require observation.
Drawing on theories of software and computation developed in academia
and elsewhere, we grounded our methods in hands-on exercises and
experiments that you now can try at home. This Guide to Techno-Galactic
Software Observation offers methods developed in and inspired by the
context of software production, hacker culture, software studies,
computer science research, Free Software communities, privacy activism,
and artistic practice. It invites you to experiment with ways to stay
with the trouble of software.
The Techno-Galactic Software Observatory
----------------------------------------
In the summer of 2017, around thirty people gathered in Brussels to
explore practices of proximate critique with and of software in the
context of a worksession entitled \"Techno-Galactic Software
Observatory\".^[2](#bcaacdcf)^ The worksession called for
software-curious people of all kinds to ask questions about software.
The intuition behind such a call was that different types of engagement
requires a heterogeneous group of participants with different levels of
expertise, skill and background. During three sessions of two days,
participants collectively inspected the space-time of computation and
probed the universe of hardware-software separations through excursions,
exercises and conversations. They tried out various perspectives and
methods to look at the larger picture of software as a concept, as a
practice, and as a set of techniques.
The first two days of The Techno-Galactic Software Observatory included
visits to the Musée de l\'Informatique Pionnière en
Belgique^[3](#aaceaeff)^ in Namur and the Computermuseum
KULeuven^[4](#afbebabd)^. In the surroundings of these collections of
historical 'numerical artefacts', we started viewing software in a
long-term context. It offered us the occasion to reflect on the
conditions of its appearance, and allowed us to take on current-day
questions from a genealogical perspective. What is software? How did it
appear as a concept, in what industrial and governmental circumstances?
What happens to the material conditions of its production (minerals,
factory labor, hardware) when it evaporates into a cloud?
The second two days we focused on the space-time dimension of IT
development. The way computer programs and operating systems are
manufactured changed tremendously through time, and so did its
production times and places. From military labs via the mega-corporation
cubicles to the open-space freelancer utopia, what ruptures and
continuities can be traced in the production, deployment, maintenance
and destruction of software? From time-sharing to user-space partitions
and containerization, what separations were and are at work? Where and
when is software made today?
The Walk-in Clinic
------------------
The last two days at the Techno-galactic software observatory were
dedicated to observation and its consequences. The development of
software encompasses a series of practices whose evocative names are
increasingly familiar: feedback, report, probe, audit, inspect, scan,
diagnose, explore, test \... What are the systems of knowledge and power
within which these activities take place, and what other types of
observation are possible? As a practical set for our investigations, we
set up a walk-in clinic on the 25th floor of the World Trade Center,
where users and developers could arrive with software-questions of all
kinds.
> Do you suffer from the disappearance of your software into the cloud,
> feel oppressed by unequal user privilege, or experience the torment of
> software-ransom of any sort? Bring your devices and interfaces to the
> World Trade Center! With the help of a clear and in-depth session, at
> the Techno-Galactic Walk-In Clinic we guarantee immediate results. The
> Walk-In Clinic provides free hands-on observations to software curious
> people of all kinds. A wide range of professional and amateur
> practitioners will provide you with
> Software-as-a-Critique-as-a-Service on the spot. Available services
> range from immediate interface critique, collaborative code
> inspection, data dowsing, various forms of network analyses,
> unusability testing, identification of unknown viruses, risk
> assessment, opening of black-boxes and more. Free software
> observations provided. Last intake at 16:45.\
> (invitation to the Walk-In Clinic, June 2017)
On the following pages: Software as a Critique as a Service (SaaCaaS)
Directory and intake forms for Software Curious People (SCP).
The survival techniques described in the following guide are to be used
at your own risk in case of emergency regarding software curiosity. The
publisher will not accept any responsability in case of damages caused
by misuse, misundestanding of instruction or lack of curiosity. By
trying the action exposed in the guide, you accept the responsability of
loosing data or altering hardware, including hard disks, usb key, cloud
storage, screens by throwing them on the floor, or even when falling on
the floor with your laptop by tangling your feet in an entanglement of
cables. No harm has been done to human, animal, computers or plants
while creating the guide. No firearms or any kind of weapon is needed in
order to survive software.\
Just a little bit of patience.
**Software observation survival stresses**
**Physical fitness plays a great part of software observation. Be fit or
CTRL-Quit.**
When trying to observe software you might experience stresses as such :
*Anxiety*Sleep deprivation *Forgetting about eating*Loss of time
tracking
**Can you cope with software ? You have to.**
> our methods for observation, like mapping, come with their luggage.
[Close encounters]{.grouping} []{#njm5zwm4 .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.visit)
Encounter several collections of historical hardware
back-to-back]{.method .descriptor} [How]{.how .empty .descriptor}
This can be done by identifying one or more computer museums and visit
them with little time in-between. Visiting a friend with a large
basement and lots of left-over computer equipment can help. Seeing and
possibly touching hardware from different contexts
(state-administration, business, research, \...), periods of time,
cultural contexts (California, Germany, French-speaking Belgium) and
price ranges allows you to sense the interactions between hardware and
software development.
[Note: It\'s a perfect way to hear people speak about the objects and
their contexts, how they worked or not and how objects are linked one
with another. It also shows the economic and cultural aspects of
softwares.]{.note .descriptor} [WARNING: **DO NOT FOLD, SPINDLE OR
MUTILATE**]{.warning .descriptor} [Example: Spaghetti Suitcase]{.example
.descriptor}
At one point during the demonstration of a Bull computer, the guide
revealed the system\'s \"software\" \-- a suitcase sized module with
dozens of patch cords. She made the comment that the term \"spaghetti
code\" (a derogatory expression about early code usign many \"GOTO\"
statments) had its origin in this physical arrangement of code as
patchings.
Preserving old hardware in order to observe physical manifestation of
software. See software here : we did experienced the incredible
possibility of actually touching software.
[SHOW IMAGE HERE:
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/images/wednesday/IMG\_20170607\_113634\_585.jpg]{.tmp}
[SHOW IMAGE HERE:
http://gallery.constantvzw.org/var/resizes/Techno-Galactic-Software-Observatory/IMG\_1163.JPG?m=1496916927]{.tmp}
[Example: Playing with the binary. Bull cards. Happy operator! Punch
card plays.]{.example .descriptor}
\"The highlight of the collection is to revive a real punch card
workshop of the 1960s.\"
[Example: Collection de la Maison des Écritures d\'Informatique & Bible,
Maredsous]{.example .descriptor}
The particularity of the collection lies in the fact that it\'s the
conservation of multiple stages of life of a software since its initial
computerization until today. The idea of introducing informatics into
the work of working with/on the Bible (versions in Hebrew, Greek, Latin,
and French) dates back to 1971, via punch card recordings and their
memorization on magnetic tape. Then came the step of analyzing texts
using computers.
[SHOW IMAGE HERE:
http://gallery.constantvzw.org/var/resizes/Preparing-the-Techno-galactic-Software-Observatory/DSC05019.JPG?m=1490635726]{.tmp}
[TODO: RELATES TO
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.jean.heuns]{.tmp}
[]{#mguzmza4 .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.jean.heuns)
Interview people about their histories with software]{.method
.descriptor} [What: Observe personnal narratives around software
history. Retrace the path of relation to software, how it changed during
the years and what are the human access memories that surrounds it. To
look at software through personal relations and emotions.]{.what
.descriptor} [How: Interviews are a good way to do it. Informal
conversations also.]{.how .descriptor}
Jean Heuns has been collecting servers, calculators, softwares, magnetic
tapes hard disks for xxx years. Found an agreement for them to be
displayed in the department hallways. Department of Computer sciences -
Kul Leuven.
[SHOW IMAGE HERE:
http://gallery.constantvzw.org/var/albums/Techno-Galactic-Software-Observatory/PWFU3350.JPG]{.tmp}
[SHOW IMAGE HERE:
http://gallery.constantvzw.org/var/albums/Techno-Galactic-Software-Observatory/PWFU3361.JPG]{.tmp}
[SHOW IMAGE HERE:
http://gallery.constantvzw.org/var/albums/Techno-Galactic-Software-Observatory/PWFU3356.JPG]{.tmp}
[SHOW IMAGE HERE:
http://gallery.constantvzw.org/var/albums/Techno-Galactic-Software-Observatory/PWFU3343.JPG]{.tmp}
[TODO: RELATES TO]{.tmp} []{#odfkotky .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.samequestion)
Ask several people from different fields and age-groups the same
question: \"***What is software?***\"]{.method .descriptor} [Remember:
The answers to this question will vary depending on who is asking it to
who.]{.remember .descriptor} [What: By paying close attention to the
answers, and possibly logging them, observations on the ambiguous place
and nature of software can be made.]{.what .descriptor}
[Example]{.example .empty .descriptor}
Jean Huens (system administrator at the department of Computer Science,
KULeuven): \"*It is difficult to answer the question \'what is
software\', but I know what is good software*\"
Thomas Cnudde (hardware designer at ESAT - COSIC, Computer Security and
Industrial Cryptography, KULeuven): \"*Software is a list of sequential
instructions! Hardware for me is made of silicon, software a sequence of
bits in a file. But naturally I am biased: I\'m a hardware designer so I
like to consider it as unique and special*\".
Amal Mahious (Director of NAM-IP, Namur): \"*This, you have to ask the
specialists.*\"
` {.verbatim}
*what is software?
--the unix filesystem says: it's a file----what is a file?
----in the filesystem, if you ask xxd:
------ it's a set of hexadecimal bytes
-------what is hexadecimal bytes?
------ -b it's a set of binary 01s
----if you ask objdump
-------it's a set of instructions
--side channel researching also says:
----it's a set of instructions
--the computer glossary says:
----it's a computer's programs, plus the procedure for their use http://etherbox.local/home/pi/video/A_Computer_Glossary.webm#t=02:26
------ a computer's programs is a set of instrutions for performing computer operations `
[Remember: To answer the question \"*what is software*\" depends on the
situation, goal, time, and other contextual influences.]{.remember
.descriptor} [TODO: RELATES TO
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.everyonescp]{.tmp}
[]{#mzcxodix .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.devmem) FMEM
and /DEV/MEM]{.method .descriptor} [What: Different ways of exploring
your memory (RAM). Because in unix everything is a file, you can access
your memory as if it were a file.]{.what .descriptor} [Urgency: To try
and observe the operational level of software, getting closer to the
workings, the instruction-being of an executable/executing file, the way
it is when it is loaded into memory rather than when it sits in the
harddisk]{.urgency .descriptor} [Remember: In Unix-like operating
systems, a device file or special file is an interface for a device
driver that appears in a file system as if it were an ordinary file. In
the early days you could fully access your memory via the memory device
(`/dev/mem`) but over time the access was more and more restricted in
order to avoid malicious processes to directly access the kernel memory.
The kernel option CONFIG\_STRICT\_DEVMEM was introduced in kernel
version 2.6 and upper (2.6.36--2.6.39, 3.0--3.8, 3.8+HEAD). So you\'ll
need to use the Linux kernel module fmem: this module creates
`/dev/fmem` device, that can be used for accessing physical memory
without the limits of /dev/mem (1MB/1GB, depending on
distribution).]{.remember .descriptor}
`/dev/mem` tools to explore processes stored in the memory
ps ax | grep process
cd /proc/numberoftheprocess
cat maps
\--\> check what it is using
The proc filesystem is a pseudo-filesystem which provides an interface
to kernel data structures. It is commonly mounted at `/proc`. Most of it
is read-only, but some files allow kernel variables to be changed.
dump to a file\--\>change something in the file\--\>dump new to a
file\--\>diff oldfile newfile
\"where am i?\"
to find read/write memory addresses of a certain process\
`awk -F "-| " '$3 ~ /rw/ { print $1 " " $2}' /proc/PID/maps`{.bash}
Besides opening the memory dump with an hex editor you can also try and
explore it with other tools or devices. You can open it as a raw image,
you can play it as a sound or perhaps send it directly to your
frame-buffer device (`/dev/fb0`).
[WARNING: Although your memory may look like/sound like/read like
gibberish, it may contain sensitive information about you and your
computer!]{.warning .descriptor} [Example]{.example .empty .descriptor}
[SHOW IMAGE HERE:
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/images/Screenshot\_from\_2017-06-07\_164407.png]{.tmp}
[TODO: BOX: Forensic and debuggung tools can be used to explore and
problematize the layers of abstraction of computing.]{.tmp} [TODO:
RELATES TO
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.monopsychism]{.tmp}
[]{#m2mwogri .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.monopsychism)
Pan/Monopsychism]{.method .descriptor} [What: Reading and writing
sectors of memory from/to different computers]{.what .descriptor} [How:
Shell commands and fmem kernel module]{.how .descriptor} [Urgency:
Memory, even when it is volatile, is a trace of the processes happening
in your computer in the form of saved information, and is therefore more
similar to a file than to a process. Challenging the file/process
divide, sharing memory with others will allow a more intimate relation
with your and other\'s computers.]{.urgency .descriptor} [About:
Monopsychism is the philosophical/theological doctrine according to
which there exists but one intellect/soul, shared by all beings.]{.about
.descriptor} [TODO: RELATES TO
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.devmem]{.tmp} [Note: The
parallel allocation and observation of the same memory sector in two
different computers is in a sense the opposite process of machine
virtualization, where the localization of multiple virtual machines in
one physical comptuers can only happen by rigidly separating the memory
sectors dedicated to the different virtual machines.]{.note .descriptor}
[WARNING: THIS METHOD HAS NOT BEEN TESTED, IT CAN PROBABLY DAMAGE YOUR
RAM MEMORY AND/OR COMPUTER]{.warning .descriptor}
First start the fmem kernel module in both computers:
`sudo sh fmem/run.sh`{.bash}
Then load part of your computer memory into the other computer via dd
and ssh:
or it could go through the memory of different computers one after the other and take and leave something there `
[Temporality]{.grouping} []{#ndawnmy5 .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.fountain)
Fountain refreshment]{.method .descriptor} [What: Augmenting a piece of
standardised office equipment designed to dispense water to perform a
decorative function.]{.what .descriptor} [How: Rearranging space as
conditioning observations (WTC vs. Museum vs. University vs. Startup
Office vs. Shifting Walls that became Water Fountains)]{.how
.descriptor} [Who: Gaining access to standardised water dispensing
equipment turned out to be more difficult than expected as such
equipment is typically licensed / rented rather than purchased outright.
Acquiring a unit that could be modified required access to secondary
markets of second hand office equiment in order to purchase a disused
model.]{.who .descriptor} [Urgency: EU-OSHA (European Agency for Safety
and Health at Work) Directive 2003/10/EC noise places describes the
minimum health and safety requirements regarding the exposure of workers
to the risks arising from physical agents (noise). However no current
European guidelines exist on the potential benefitial uses of tactially
designed additive noise systems.]{.urgency .descriptor}
The Techno-Galactic Software Observatory -- Comfortable silence, one way
mirrors
A drinking fountain and screens of one-way mirrors as part of the work
session \"*The Techno-Galactic Software Observatory*\" organised by
Constant.
For the past 100 years the western ideal of a corporate landscape has
been has been moving like a pendulum, oscillating between grids of
cubicles and organic, open landscapes, in a near to perfect 25-year
rhythm. These days the changes in office organisation is supplemented by
sound design, in corporate settings mostly to create comfortable
silence. Increase the sound and the space becomes more intimate, the
person on the table next to you can not immediately hear what you are
saying. It seems that actual silence in public and corporate spaces has
not been sought after since the start of the 20th century. Actual
silence is not at the moment considered comfortable. One of the visible
symptoms of our desire to take the edge off the silence is to be
observed through the appearance of fountains in public space. The
fountains purpose being to give off neutral sound, like white noise
without the negative connotations. However as a sound engineer\'s
definition of noise is unwanted sound that all depends on ones personal
relation to the sound of dripping water.
This means that there needs to be a consistent inoffensiveness to create
comfortable silence.
In corporate architecture the arrival of glass buildings were originally
seen as a symbol of transparency, especially loved by governmental
buildings. Yet the reflectiveness of this shiny surface once combined
with strong light -- known as the treason of the glass -- was only
completely embraced at the invention of one-way-mirror foil. And it was
the corporate business-world that would come to be known for their
reflective glass skyscrapers. As the foil reacts to light, it appears
transparent to someone standing in the dark, while leaving the side with
the most light with an opaque surface. Using this foil as room dividers
in a room with a changing light, what is hidden or visible will vary
throughout the day. So will the need for comfortable silence. Disclaimer
:\
Similar to the last 100 years of western office organisation,\
this fountain only has two modes:\
on or off
If it is on it also offers two options\
cold water and hot water
This fountain has been tampered with and has not in any way been
approved by a proffesional fountain cleaner. I do urge you to consider
this before you take the decision to drink from the fountain.
Should you chose to drink from the fountain, then I urge you to write
your name on your cup, in the designated area, for a customised
experience of my care for you.
Nannyware is software meant to protect users while limiting their space
of activity. It is software that passive-aggressively suggests or
enforces some kind of discipline. In other words, create a form of
parental control extended to adults by means of user experience / user
interfaces.
Nannyware is a form of Content-control software: software designed to
restrict or control the content a reader is authorised to access,
especially when utilised to restrict material delivered over the
Internet via the Web, e-mail, or other means. Content-control software
determines what content will be available or be blocked.
[How]{.how .empty .descriptor}
> \[\...RestrictionsCITECLOSE23310 can be applied at various levels: a
> government can attempt to apply them nationwide (see Internet
> censorship), or they can, for example, be applied by an ISP to its
> clients, by an employer to its personnel, by a school to its students,
> by a library to its visitors, by a parent to a child\'s computer, or
> by an individual user to his or her own computer.^[5](#fcefedaf)^
[Who]{.who .empty .descriptor}
> Unlike filtering, accountability software simply reports on Internet
> usage. No blocking occurs. In setting it up, you decide who will
> receive the detailed report of the computer's usage. Web sites that
> are deemed inappropriate, based on the options you've chosen, will be
> red-flagged. Because monitoring software is of value only "after the
> fact", we do not recommend this as a solution for families with
> children. However, it can be an effective aid in personal
> accountability for adults. There are several available products out
> there.^[6](#bffbbeaf)^
[Urgency]{.urgency .empty .descriptor}
> As with all new lifestyle technologies that come along, in the
> beginning there is also some chaos until their impact can be assessed
> and rules put in place to bring order and respect to their
> implementation and use in society. When the automobile first came into
> being there was much confusion regarding who had the right of way, the
> horse or the car. There were no paved roads, speed limits, stop signs,
> or any other traffic rules. Many lives were lost and much property was
> destroyed as a result. Over time, government and society developed
> written and unwritten rules as to the proper use of the
> car.^[7](#bbfcbcfa)^
[WARNING]{.warning .empty .descriptor}
> Disadvantages of explicit proxy deployment include a user\'s ability
> to alter an individual client configuration and bypass the proxy. To
> counter this, you can configure the firewall to allow client traffic
> to proceed only through the proxy. Note that this type of firewall
> blocking may result in some applications not working
> properly.^[8](#ededebde)^
[Example]{.example .empty .descriptor}
> The main problem here is that the settings that are required are
> different from person to person. For example, I use workrave with a 25
> second micropause every two and a half minute, and a 10 minute
> restbreak every 20 minutes. I need these frequent breaks, because I\'m
> recovering from RSI. And as I recover, I change the settings to fewer
> breaks. If you have never had any problem at all (using the computer,
> that is), then you may want much fewer breaks, say 10 seconds
> micropause every 10 minutes, and a 5 minute restbreak every hour. It
> is very hard to give proper guidelines here. My best advice is to play
> around and see what works for you. Which settings \"feel right\".
> Basically, that\'s how Workrave\'s defaults evolve.^[9](#cfbbbfdd)^
[SHOW IMAGE HERE: !\[Content-control software\](
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/05/03/nannyware.jpg )]{.tmp}
[SHOW IMAGE HERE: !\[A \"nudge\" from your music player
\](http://img.wonderhowto.com/img/10/25/63533437022064/0/disable-high-volume-warning-when-using-headphones-your-samsung-galaxy-s4.w654.jpg)]{.tmp}
[SHOW IMAGE HERE: !\[Emphasis on the body\]
(http://classicallytrained.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/take-a-break.jpg)]{.tmp}
[SHOW IMAGE HERE: !\[ \"Slack is trying to be my friend but it\'s more
like a slightly insensitive and slightly bossy acquaintance.\"
\@briecode \] (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CuZLgV4XgAAYexX.jpg)]{.tmp}
[SHOW IMAGE HERE: !\[Slack is trying to be my friend but it\'s more like
a slightly insensitive and slightly bossy acquaintance.\]
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CuZLgV4XgAAYexX.jpg)]{.tmp} [SHOW IMAGE
HERE:
!\[\](https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fi0.wp.com%2Fatherbeg.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F06%2FWorkrave-Restbreak-Shoulder.png&f=1)]{.tmp}
Facebook is working on an app to stop you from drunk-posting \"Yann
LeCun, who overseas the lab, told Wired magazine that the program would
be like someone asking you, \'Uh, this is being posted publicly. Are you
sure you want your boss and your mother to see this?\'\"
[SHOW IMAGE HERE: !\[This Terminal Dashboard Reminds You to Take a Break
When You\'re Lost Deep Inside the Command
Line\](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s\--\_of0PoM2\--/c\_fit,fl\_progressive,q\_80,w\_636/eegvqork0qizokwrlemz.png)]{.tmp}
[SHOW IMAGE HERE: !\[\](http://waterlog.gd/images/homescreen.png)]{.tmp}
[SHOW IMAGE HERE:
!\[\](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C6oKTduWcAEruIE.jpg:large)]{.tmp}
[TODO: RELATES TO]{.tmp} []{#yzuwmdq4 .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.scrollresistance)
Useless scroll against productivity]{.method .descriptor} []{#m2vjndu3
.anchor} [[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.time)
Investigating how humans and machines negotiate the experience of
time]{.method .descriptor} [What]{.what .empty .descriptor} [SHOW IMAGE
HERE:
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/images/Screenshot\_from\_2017-06-10\_172547.png]{.tmp}
[How: python script]{.how .descriptor} [Example]{.example .empty
.descriptor}
` {.verbatim}
# ends of time
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem
Exact moment of the epoch:
03:14:07 UTC on 19 January 2038
## commands
local UNIX time of this machine
%XBASHCODE: date +%s
UNIX time + 1
%BASHCODE: echo $((`date +%s` +1 ))
## goodbye unix time
while :
do
sleep 1
figlet $((2147483647 - `date +%s`))
done
# Sundial Time Protocol Group tweaks
printf 'Current Time in Millennium Unix Time: '
printf $((2147483647 - `date +%s`))
echo
sleep 2
echo $((`cat ends-of-times/idletime` + 2)) > ends-of-times/idletime
idletime=`cat ends-of-times/idletime`
echo
figlet "Thank you for having donated 2 seconds to our ${idletime} seconds of collective SSH pause "
echo
echo
[TODO: RELATES TO]{.tmp} [Languaging]{.grouping} []{#nmi5mgjm .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.quine)
Quine]{.method .descriptor} [What: A program whose function consists of
displaying its own code. Also known as \"self-replicating
program\"]{.what .descriptor} [Why: Quines show the tension between
\"software as language\" and \"software as operation\".]{.why
.descriptor} [How: By running a quine you will get your code back. You
may do a step forward and wonder about functionality and aesthetics,
uselessness and performativity, data and code.]{.how .descriptor}
[Example: A quine (Python). When executed it outputs the same text as
the source:]{.example .descriptor}
` {.sourceCode .python}
s = 's = %r\nprint(s%%s)'
print(s%s) `
[Example: A oneline unibash/etherpad quine, created during relearn
2017:]{.example .descriptor}
The encounter with quines may deeply affect you. You may want to write
one and get lost in trying to make an ever shorter and more elegant one.
You may also take quines as point of departure or limit-ideas for
exploring software dualisms.
\"A quine is without why. It prints because it prints. It pays no
attention to itself, nor does it asks whether anyone sees it.\" \"Aquine
is aquine is aquine. \" Aquine is not a quine This is not aquine
[Remember: Although seemingly absolutely useless, quines can be used as
exploits.]{.remember .descriptor}
Exploring boundaries/tensions
databases treat their content as data (database punctualization) some
exploits manage to include operations in a database
[TODO: RELATES TO
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.monopsychism]{.tmp}
[]{#zwu0ogu0 .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.glossary)
Glossaries as an exercise]{.method .descriptor} [What: Use the technique
of psychanalytic listening to compile (gather, collect, bring together)
a list of key words for understanding software.]{.what .descriptor}
[How: Create a shared document that participants can add words to as
their importance emerges.To do pyschoanalytic listening, let your
attention float freely, hovering evenly, over a conversation or a text
until something catches its ear. Write down what your ear/eye catches.
When working in a collective context invite others to participate in
this project and describe the practice to them. Each individual may move
in and out of this mode of listening according to their interest and
desire and may add as many words to the list as they want. Use this list
to create an index of software observation.]{.how .descriptor} [When:
This is best done in a bounded context. In the case of the
Techno-Galactic Observatory, our bounded contexts includes the six day
work session and the pages and process of this publication.]{.when
.descriptor} [Who: The so-inclined within the group]{.who .descriptor}
[Urgency: Creating and troubling categories]{.urgency .descriptor}
[Note: Do not remove someone else\'s word from the glossary during the
accumulation phase. If an editing and cutting phase is desired this
should be done after the collection through collective consensus.]{.note
.descriptor} [WARNING: This method is not exclusive to and was not
developed for software observation. It may lead to awareness of
unconscious processes and to shifts in structures of feeling and
relation.]{.warning .descriptor} [Example]{.example .empty .descriptor}
` {.verbatim}
Agile
Code
Colonial
Command Line
Communication
Connectivity
Emotional
Galaxies
Green
Guide
Kernel
Imperial
Issues
Machine
Mantra
Memory
Museum
Observation
ProductionPower
Programmers
Progress
Relational
Red
Scripting
Scrum
Software
Survival
Technology
Test
Warning
WhiteBoard
Yoga `
[TODO: RELATES TO]{.tmp} []{#mja0m2i5 .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.validation)
Adding qualifiers]{.method .descriptor} [Remember: \"\[V\]alues are
properties of things and states of affairs that we care about and strive
to attain\...vlaues expressed in technical systems are a function of
their uses as well as their features and designs.\" Values at Play in
Digital Games, Mary Flanagan and Helen Nissenbaum]{.remember
.descriptor} [What: Bringing a moral, ethical, or otherwise
evaluative/adjectival/validating lens.]{.what .descriptor} [How:
Adjectives create subcategories. They narrow the focus by naming more
specifically the imagined object at hand and by implicitly excluding all
objects that do not meet the criteria of the qualifier. The more
adjectives that are added, the easier it becomes to answer the question
what is software. Or so it seems. Consider what happens if you add the
words good, bad, bourgeois, queer, stable, or expensive to software. Now
make a list of adjectives and try it for yourself. Level two of this
exercise consists of observing a software application and deducing from
this the values of the individuals, companies, and societies that
produced it.]{.how .descriptor} [Note: A qualifier may narrow down
definitions to undesirable degrees.]{.note .descriptor} [WARNING: This
exercise may be more effective at identifying normative and ideological
assumptions at play in the making, distributing, using, and maintaining
of software than at producing a concise definition.]{.warning
.descriptor} [Example: \"This morning, Jan had difficulties to answer
the question \"what is software\", but he said that he could answer the
question \"what is good software\". What is good software?]{.example
.descriptor} [TODO: RELATES TO]{.tmp} []{#mmmwmje2 .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.softwarethrough)
Searching \"software\" through software]{.method .descriptor} [What: A
quick way to sense the ambiguity of the term \'software\', is to go
through the manual files on your hard drive and observe in which cases
is the term used.]{.what .descriptor} [How: command-line oneliner]{.how
.descriptor} [Why: Software is a polymorphic term that take different
meanings and comes with different assumptions for the different agents
involved in its production, usage and all other forms of encounter and
subjection. From the situated point of view of the software present on
your machine, when and why does software call itself as such?]{.why
.descriptor} [Example]{.example .empty .descriptor}
so software exists only outside your computer? only in general terms?
checking for the word software in all man pages:
grep -nr software /usr/local/man
!!!!
software appears only in terms of license:
This program is free software
This software is copyright (c)
we don\'t run software. we still run programs.\
nevertheless software is everywhere
[TODO: RELATES TO
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.samequestion]{.tmp}
[]{#ndhkmwey .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.everyonescp)
Persist in calling everyone a Software Curious Person]{.method
.descriptor} [What: Persistance in naming is a method for changing a
person\'s relationship to software by (sometimes forcibly) call everyone
a Software Curious Person.]{.what .descriptor} [How: Insisting on
curiosity as a relation, rather than for example \'fear\' or
\'admiration\' might help cut down the barriers between different types
of expertise and allows multiple stakeholders feel entitled to ask
questions, to engage, to investigate and to observe.]{.how .descriptor}
[Urgency: Software is too important to not be curious about.
Observations could benefit from recognising different forms of
knowledge. It seems important to engage with software through multiple
interests, not only by means of technical expertise.]{.urgency
.descriptor} [Example: This method was used to address each of the
visitors at the Techno-Galactic Walk-in Clinic.]{.example .descriptor}
[TODO: RELATES TO]{.tmp} [Healing]{.grouping} []{#mmu1mgy0 .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.relational)
Setup a Relational software observatory consultancy (RSOC)]{.method
.descriptor} [Remember]{.remember .empty .descriptor}
- Collectivise research around hacking to save time.
- Self-articulate software needs as your own Operating (system)
perspective.
- Change the lens by looking to software through a time perspective.
[What: By paying a visit to our ethnomethodology interview practice
you'll learn to observe software from different angles / perspectives.
Our practionners passion is to make the \"what is the relation to
software\" discussion into a service.]{.what .descriptor} [How: Reading
the signs. Considering the everchanging nature of software development
and use and its vast impact on globalized societies, it is necessary to
recognize some of the issues of how software is (often) either
passively-perceived or actively-observed, without an articulation of the
relations. We offer a method to read the signs of the relational aspect
of software observance. It\'s a crucial aspect of our guide. It will
give you another view on software that will shape your ability to
survive any kind of software disaster.]{.how .descriptor} [SHOW IMAGE
HERE: !\[Reading the signs. From: John \"Lofty\" Wiseman, SAS Survival
Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Anywhere\](
http://gallery.constantvzw.org/index.php/Techno-Galactic-Software-Observatory/IMAG1319
)]{.tmp} [WARNING]{.warning .empty .descriptor} [SHOW IMAGE HERE: have a
advertising blob for the RSOC with a smiling doctor welcoming
image]{.tmp} [Example]{.example .empty .descriptor}
What follows is an example of a possible diagnostic questionnaire.
Sample Questionnaire
--------------------
**What to expect** You will obtain a cartography of software users
profiles. It will help you to shape your own relation to software. You
will be able to construct your own taxonomy and classifcation of
software users that is needed in order to find a means of rescue in case
of a software catastrophy.
- SKILLS\
- What kind of user would you say that you are?
- What is your most frequently used type of software?
- How often do you install/experiment/learn new software?
- History
- What is your first recollection of software use?
- How often do / when did you last purchase software or pay for a
software service?
- Ethics
- What is the software feature you care about the most?
- Do you use any free software?
- if yes than
- do you remember your first attempt at using this software
service? Do you still use it? If not why?
- Do you pay for media distribution/streaming services?
- Do you remember your first attempt at using free software and how
did that make you feel?
- Have you used any of these software services : facebook, dating app
(grindr, tinder, etc.), twitter, instagram or equivalent.
- Can you talk about your favorite apps or webtools that you use
regularly?
- What is most popular software your friends use?
- SKILL
- Would you say that you are a specilised user?
- Have you ever used the command line?
- Do you know about scripting?
- Have you ever edited an HTML page? A CSS file? A PHP file? A
configuration file?
- Can you talk about your most technical encounter with your computer
/ telephone?
- ECONOMY\
- How do you pay for your software use?
- Please elaborate (for example, do you buy the software? /
contribute in kind / deliver services or support)
- What is the last software that you paid for using?
- What online services are you currently paying for?
- Is someone paying for your use of service?
- Personal
- What stories do you have concerning contracts and administration in
relation to your software, Internet or computer?
- How does software help you shape your relations with other people?
- From which countries does your softwares come from / reside? How do
you feel about that?
- Have you ever read a terms of software service, what about one that
is not targeting the American market?
Possible/anticipated user profiles
----------------------------------
### \...meAsHardwareOwnerSoftwareUSER:
\"I did not own a computer personally until very very late as I did not
enjoy gaming as a kid or had interest in spending much time behind PC
beyond work (and work computer). My first was hence I think in 2005 and
it was a SGI workstation that was the computer of the year 2000 (cost
10.000USD) and I got it for around 300USD. Proprietary drivers for
unified graphics+RAM were never released, so it remained a software
dead-end in gorgeous blue curved chassis
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/sgidepot/pics/vwdocs.jpg\"
### \...meAsSoftwareCONSUMER:
\"I payed/purchased software only twice in my life (totalling less then
25eur), as I could access most commercial software as widely pirated in
Balkans and later had more passion for FLOSS anyway, this made me relate
to software as material to exchange and work it, rather than commodity
goods I could or not afford.\"
### \...meAsSoftwareINVESTOR:
\"I did it as both of those apps were niche products in early beta (one
was Jeeper Elvis, real-time-non-linear-video-editor for BeOS) that
failed to reach market, but I think I would likely do it again and only
in that mode (supporting the bleeding edge and off-stream work), but
maybe with more than 25eur.\"
### \...meAsSoftwareUserOfOS:
\"I would spend most of 80s ignoring computers, 90ties figuring out
software from high-end to low-end, starting with OSF/DecAlpha and SunOS,
than IRIX and MacOS, finally Win 95/98 SE, that permanently pushed me
into niches (of montly LINUX distro install fests, or even QNX/Solaris
experiments and finally BeOS use).\"
### \...meAsSoftwareWEBSURFER:
\"I got used to websurfing in more than 15 windows on UNIX systems and
never got used to less than that ever since, furthermore with addition
of more browser options this number only multiplied (always wondered if
my first system was Windows 3.11 - would I be a more focused person and
how would that form my relations to browser windows\>tabs).\"
### \...meAsSoftwareUserOfPropertarySoftware:
\"I signed one NDA contract in person on the paper and with ink on a
rainy day while stopping of at trainstaion in north Germany for the
software that was later to be pulled out of market due to problematic
licencing agreement (intuitivly I knew it was wrong) - it had too much
unprofessional pixeleted edges in its graphics.
### \...meAsSoftwareUserOfDatingWebsites:
\"I got one feature request implemented by a prominent dating website
(to search profiles by language they speak), however I was never
publicly acknowledged (though I tried to make use of it few times), that
made our relations feel a bit exploitative and underappreciated. \"
### \...meAsSoftwareUserTryingToGoPRO:
\"my only two attempts to get into the software company failed as they
insisted on full time commitments. Later I found out ones were
intimidated in interview and other gave it to a person that negotiated
to work part time with friend! My relation to professionalism is likely
equally complex and pervert as one to the software.\"
Case study : W. W.
------------------
\...ww.AsExperiencedAdventerousUSER - experiments with software every
two days as she uses FLOSS and Gnu/Linux, cares the most for maliabity
of the software - as a result she has big expectations of flexibility
even in software category which is quite conventional and stability
focused like file-hosting.
\...ww.AsAnInevstorInSoftware - paid compiled version of FLOSS audio
software 5 years ago as she is supportive of economy and work around
production, maintainance and support, but she also used closed
hardware/software where she had to agree on licences she finds unfair,
but then she was hacking it in order to use it as an expert - when she
had time.
\...ww.AsCommunicationSoftwareUSER - she is not using commercial social
networks, so she is very concious of information transfers and time
relations, but has no strong media/format/design focus.
Q: What is your first recollection of software use?\
A: ms dos in 1990 at school \_ i was 15 or 16. oh no 12. Basic in 1986.
Q: What are the emotions related to this use?\
A: fun. i\'m good at this. empowering
Q: How often do / when did you last purchase software or pay for a
software service?\
A: I paid for ardour five years ago. I paid the developper directly. For
the compiled version. I paid for the service. I pay for my website and
email service at domaine public.
Q: What kind of user would you say you are?\
A: An experienced user drawing out the line. I don\'t behave.
Q: Is there a link between this and your issue?\
A: Even if it\'s been F/LOSS there is a lot of decision power in my
package.
Q: What is your most frequently used type of software?\
A: Web browser. email. firefox & thunderbird
Q: How often do you install/experiment/learn new software?\
A: Every two days. I reinstall all the time. my old lts system died.
stop being supported last april. It was linux mint something.
Q: Do you know about scripting?\
A: I do automating scripts for any operation i have to doi several times
like format conversion.
Q: Can you talk about your most technical encounter with your computer /
telephone?\
A: I\'ve tried to root it. but i didn\'t succeed.
Q: How much time do you wish to spend on such activities like hacking,
rooting your device?\
A: hours. you should take your time
Q: Did you ever sign licence agreement you were not agree with? How does
that affect you?\
A: This is the first thing your when you have a phone. it\'s obey or
die.
Q: What is the software feature you care for the most?\
A: malleability. different ways to approach a problem, a challenge, an
issue.
Q: Do you use any free software?\
A: yes. there maybe are some proprietary drivers.
Q: Do you remember your first attempt at using free software and how did
that make you feel?\
A: Yes i installed my dual boot in \... 10 years ago. scared and
powerful.
Q: Do you use one of this software service: facebook, dating app (grindr
of sort), twitter, instagram or equivalent?\
A: Google, gmail that\'s it
Q: Can you talk about your favorite apps or webtools that you use
regularly?\
A: Music player. vanilla music and f-droid. browser. I pay attention to
clearing my history, no cookies. I also have iceweasel. Https by
default. Even though i have nothing to hide.
Q: What stories around contracts and administration in relation to your
software internet or computer?\
A: Nothing comes to my mind. i\'m not allowed to do, to install on
phone. When it\'s an old phone, there is nothing left that is working
you have to do it.
Q: How does software help you shape your relations with other people?\
A: It\'s a hard question. if it\'s communication software of course
it\'s it\'s nature to be related to other people.there is an expectency
of immediate reply, of information transfer\...It\'s troubling your
relation with people in certain situations.
Q: From which countries does your softwares live / is coming from? How
do you feel about that?\
A: i think i chose the netherlands as a miror. you are hoping to reflect
well in this miror.
Q: Have you ever read a terms of software service; one that is not
targeting the American market?\
A: i have read them. no.
> Agile software development describes a set of values and principles
> for software development under which requirements and solutions evolve
> through the collaborative effort of self-organizing cross-functional
> teams. It advocates adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early
> delivery, and continuous improvement, and it encourages rapid and
> flexible response to change. These principles support the definition
> and continuing evolution of many software development
> methods.^[10](#dbabcece)^
[What: You will be observing yourself]{.what .descriptor} [How]{.how
.empty .descriptor}
> Scrum is a framework for managing software development. It is designed
> for teams of three to nine developers who break their work into
> actions that can be completed within fixed duration cycles (called
> \"sprints\"), track progress and re-plan in daily 15-minute stand-up
> meetings, and collaborate to deliver workable software every sprint.
> Approaches to coordinating the work of multiple scrum teams in larger
> organizations include Large-Scale Scrum, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
> and Scrum of Scrums, among others.^[11](#eefcbaac)^
[When: Anywhere where it\'s possible to lie on the floor]{.when
.descriptor} [Who]{.who .empty .descriptor}
> Self-organization and motivation are important, as are interactions
> like co-location and pair programming. It is better to have a good
> team of developers who communicate and collaborate well, rather than a
> team of experts each operating in isolation. Communication is a
> fundamental concept.^[12](#fbaeffab)^
[Urgency: Using Agile software development methods to develop a new path
into your professional and personal life towards creativity, focus and
health.]{.urgency .descriptor} [WARNING]{.warning .empty .descriptor}
> The agile movement is in some ways a bit like a teenager: very
> self-conscious, checking constantly its appearance in a mirror,
> accepting few criticisms, only interested in being with its peers,
> rejecting en bloc all wisdom from the past, just because it is from
> the past, adopting fads and new jargon, at times cocky and arrogant.
> But I have no doubts that it will mature further, become more open to
> the outside world, more reflective, and also therefore more
> effective.^[13](#edabeeaf)^
Hello and welcome to the presentation of the agile yoga methodology. I
am Allegra, and today I\'m going to be your personal guide to YOGA, an
acronym for why organize? Go agile! I\'ll be part of your team today and
we\'ll do a few exercises together as an introduction to a new path into
your professional and personal life towards creativity, focus and
health.
A few months ago, I was stressed, overwhelmed with my work, feeling
alone, inadequate, but since I started practicing agile yoga, I feel
more productive. I have many clients as an agile yoga coach, and I\'ve
seen new creative business opportunities coming to me as a software
developer.
For this first experience with the agile yoga method and before we do
physical exercises together, I would like to invite you to close your
eyes. Make yourself comfortable, lying on the floor, or sitting with
your back on the wall. Close your eyes, relax. Get comfortable. Feel the
weight of your body on the floor or on the wall. Relax.
Leave your troubles at the door. Right now, you are not procrastinating,
you are having a meeting at the \,
a professional building dedicated to business, you are meeting yourself,
you are your own business partner, you are one. You are building your
future.
You are in a room standing with your team, a group of lean programmers.
You are watching a white board together. You are starting your day, a
very productive day as you are preparing to run a sprint together. Now
you turn towards each other, making a scrum with your team, you breathe
together, slowly, inhaling and exhaling together, slowly, feeling the
air in and out of your body. Now you all turn towards the sun to prepare
to do your ASSanas, the agile Sun Salutations or ASS with the team
dedicated ASS Master. She\'s guiding you. You start with Namaskar, the
Salute. your palms joined together, in prayer pose. you all reflect on
the first principle of the agile manifesto. your highest priority is to
satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable
software.
Next pose, is Ardha Chandrasana or (Half Moon Pose). With a deep
inhalation, you raise both arms above your head and tilt slightly
backward arching your back. you welcome changing requirements, even late
in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer\'s
competitive advantage. then you all do Padangusthasana (Hand to Foot
Pose). With a deep exhalation, you bend forward and touch the mat, both
palms in line with your feet, forehead touching your knees. you deliver
working software frequently.
Surya Darshan (Sun Sight Pose). With a deep inhalation, you take your
right leg away from your body, in a big backward step. Both your hands
are firmly planted on your mat, your left foot between your hands. you
work daily throughout the project, business people and developers
together. now, you\'re flowing into Purvottanasana (Inclined Plane) with
a deep inhalation by taking your right leg away from your body, in a big
backward step. Both your hands are firmly planted on your mat, your left
foot between your hands. you build projects around motivated
individuals. you give them the environment and support they need, and
you trust them to get the job done.
You\'re in Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Facing Dog Pose). With a deep
exhalation, you shove your hips and butt up towards the ceiling, forming
an upward arch. Your arms are straight and aligned with your head. The
most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and
within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
Then, Sashtang Dandawat (Forehead, Chest, Knee to Floor Pose). With a
deep exhalation, you lower your body down till your forehead, chest,
knees, hands and feet are touching the mat, your butt tilted up. Working
software is the primary measure of progress.
Next is Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose). With a deep inhalation, you slowly
snake forward till your head is up, your back arched concave, as much as
possible. Agile processes promote sustainable development. You are all
maintaining a constant pace indefinitely, sponsors, developers, and
users together.
Now back into Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Facing Dog Pose).
Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances
agility.
And then again to Surya Darshan (Sun Sight Pose). Simplicity\--the art
of maximizing the amount of work not done\--is essential. Then to
Padangusthasana (Hand to Foot Pose). The best architectures,
requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
You all do again Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon Pose). At regular
intervals, you as the team reflect on how to become more effective, then
tune and adjust your behavior accordingly. you end our ASSanas session
with a salute to honor your agile yoga practices. you have just had a
productive scrum meeting. now i invite you to open your eyes, move your
body around a bit, from the feet up to the head and back again.
Stand up on your feet and let\'s do a scrum together if you\'re ok being
touched on the arms by someone else. if not, you can do it on your own.
so put your hands on the shoulder of the SCP around you. now we\'re
joined together, let\'s look at the screen together as we inhale and
exhale. syncing our body together to the rythms of our own internal
software, modulating our oxygen level intake requirements to the oxygen
availability of our service facilities.
Now, let\'s do together a couple of exercise to protect and strengthen
our wrists. as programmers, as internauts, as entrepreneurs, they are a
very crucial parts of the body to protect. in order to be able to type,
to swipe, to shake hands vigourously, we need them in good health. So
bring to hands towards each other in a prayer pose, around a book, a
brick. You can do it without but I\'m using my extreme programming book
- embrace change - for that. So press the palms together firmly, press
the pad of your fingers together. do that while breathing in and out
twice.
Now let\'s expand our arms towards us, in the air, face and fingers
facing down. like we\'re typing. make your shoulders round. let\'s
breath while visualizing in our heads the first agile mantra :
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
Now let\'s bring back the arms next to the body and raise them again.
And let\'s move our hands towards the ceiling this time. Strenghtening
our back. In our head, the second mantra. Working software over
comprehensive documentation. now let\'s bring back the hands in the
standing position. Then again the first movement while visualizing the
third mantra : Customer collaboration over contract negotiation and then
the second movement thinking about the fourth and last mantra :
Responding to change over following a plan and of course we continue
breathing. Now to finish this session, let\'s do a sprint together in
the corridor !
[SHOW IMAGE HERE: !\[\](
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/guide/agileyoga/8-Poses-Yoga-Your-Desk.contours.png
)]{.tmp} [SHOW IMAGE HERE: !\[\](
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/guide/agileyoga/gayolab-office-chair-for-yoga.contours.png
)]{.tmp} [TODO: RELATES TO]{.tmp} []{#mdu0mmji .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.blobservation)
Hand reading]{.method .descriptor} [How: Visit the Future Blobservation
Booth to have your fortunes read and derive life insight from the wisdom
of software.]{.how .descriptor} [What: Put your hand in the reading
booth and get your line read.]{.what .descriptor} [Why: The hand which
holds your mouse everyday hides many secrets.]{.why .descriptor}
[Example]{.example .empty .descriptor}
` {.verbatim .wrap}
* sample reading timeline:
* 15:00 a test user, all tests clear and systems are online a user who said goodbye to us another user a user who thought it'd be silly to say thank you to the machine but thank you very much another kind user who said thank you yet another kind user another user, no feeback a nice user who found the reading process relieving yet another kind user a scared user! took the hand out but ended up trusting the system. "so cool thanks guys" another user a young user! this is a funny computer
* 15:35 another nice user
* 15:40 another nice user
* 15:47 happy user (laughing)
* 15:51 user complaining about her fortune, saying it's not true. Found the reading process creepy but eased up quickly
* 15:59 another nice user: http://etherbox.local:9001/p/SCP.sedyst.md
* 16:06 a polite user
* 16:08 a friendly playful user (stephanie)
* 16:12 a very giggly user (wendy)
* 16:14 a playful user - found the reading process erotic - DEFRAGMENTING? NO! Thanks Blobservation http://etherbox.local:9001/p/SCP.loup.md
* 16:19 a curious user
* 16:27 a friendly user but oh no, we had a glitch and computer crashed. But we still delivered the fortune. We got a thank you anyway
* 16:40 a nice user, the printer jammed but it was sorted out quickly *16:42 another nice user
* 16:50 nice user (joak)
* 16:52 yet another nice user (jogi)
* 16:55 happy user! (peter w)
* 16:57 more happy user (pierre h)
* 16:58 another happy user
* 17:00 super happy user (peggy)
* 17:02 more happy user `
[Example]{.example .empty .descriptor}
> Software time is not the same as human time. Computers will run for AS
> LONG AS THEY WILL BE ABLE TO, provided sufficient power is available.
> You, as a human, don\'t have the luxury of being always connected to
> the power grid and this have to rely on your INTERNAL BATTERY. Be
> aware of your power cycles and set yourself to POWER-SAVING MODE
> whenever possible.
[SHOW IMAGE HERE:
http://gallery.constantvzw.org/var/resizes/Techno-Galactic-Software-Observatory/IMAG1407.jpg?m=1497344230]{.tmp}
[TODO: RELATES TO]{.tmp} []{#yznjodq3 .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.dirty) Bug
reporting for sharing observations]{.method .descriptor} [What: Etherpad
had stopped working but it was unclear why. Where does etherpad
\'live\'?]{.what .descriptor} [How: Started by looking around the pi\'s
filesystem by reading /var/log/syslog in /opt/etherpad and in a
subdirectory named var/ there was dirty.db, and dirty it was.]{.how
.descriptor} [When: Monday morning]{.when .descriptor} [Urgency:
Software (etherpad) not working and the Walk-in Clinic was about to
start.]{.urgency .descriptor} [Note:
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.inventory.jogi]{.note
.descriptor}
from jogi\@mur.at to \[Observatory\] When dirty.db get\'s dirty
Dear all,
as promised yesterday, here my little report regarding the broken
etherpad.
\ \#\#\# When dirty.db get\'s dirty
When I got to WTC on Monday morning the etherpad on etherbox.local was
disfunct. Later someone said that in fact etherpad had stopped working
the evening before, but it was unclear why. So I started looking around
the pi\'s filesystem to find out what was wrong. Took me a while to find
the relevant lines in /var/log/syslog but it became clear that there was
a problem with the database. Which database? Where does etherpad
\'live\'? I found it in /opt/etherpad and in a subdirectory named var/
there it was: dirty.db, and dirty it was.
A first look at the file revealed no apparent problem. The last lines
looked like this:
What I did not see at the time was that there were some (AFAIR something
around 150) binary zeroes at the end of the file. I used tail for the
first look and that tool silently ignored the zeroes at the end of the
file. It was Martino who suggested using different tools (xxd in that
case) and that showed the cause of the problem. The file looked
something like this:
which means: write the first 793080162 blocks of size 1 byte to a new
file. After half an hour or so I checked on the size of the new file and
saw that some 10% of the copying had been done. No way this would get
done in time for the walk-in-clinic. Back to the drawing board.
Using a text editor was no real option btw since even vim has a hard
time with binary zeroes and the file was really big. But there was
hexedit! Martino installed it and copied dirty.db onto his computer.
After some getting used to the various commands to navigate in hexedit
the unwanted zeroes were gone in an instant. The end of the file looked
like this now:
Martino asked about the trailing \'.\' character and I checked a
different copy of the file. No \'.\' there, so that had to go too. My
biggest mistake in a long time! The \'.\' we were seeing in Martino\'s
copy of the file was in fact a \'\' (0a)! We did not realize that,
copied the file back to etherbox.local and waited for etherpad to resume
it\'s work. But no luck there, for obvious reasons.
We ended up making backups of dirty.db in various stages of deformation
and Martino started a brandnew pad so we could use pads for the walk-
in-clinic. The processing tool chain has been disabled btw. We did not
want to mess up any of the already generated .pdf, .html and .md files.
We still don\'t know why exactly etherpad stopped working sometime
Sunday evening or how the zeroes got into the file dirty.db. Anita
thought that she caused the error when she adjusted time on
etherbox.local, but the logfile does not reflect that. The last clean
entry in /var/log/syslog regarding nodejs/etherpad is recorded with a
timestamp of something along the line of \'Jun 10 10:17\'. Some minutes
later, around \'Jun 10 10:27\' the first error appears. These timestamps
reflect the etherbox\'s understanding of time btw, not \'real time\'.
It might be that the file just got too big for etherpad to handle it.
The size of the repaired dirty.db file was already 757MB. That could btw
explain why etherpad was working somewhat slugishly after some days.
There is still a chance that the time adjustment had an unwanted side
effect, but so far there is no obvious reason for what had happened.
\ \-- J.Hofmüller
> The analysis of common sense, as opposed to the exercise of it, must
> then begin by redrawing this erased distinction between the mere
> matter-of-fact apprehension of reality\--or whatever it is you want to
> call what we apprehend merely and matter-of-factly\--and
> down-to-earth, colloquial wisdom, judgements, and assessments of it.
[What: Observe and catalog the common gestures, common comportments, and
common sense(s) surrounding software.]{.what .descriptor} [How: This can
be done through observation of yourself or others. Separate the
apprehended and matter of fact from the meanings, actions, reactions,
judgements, and assessments that the apprehension occasions. Step 1:
Begin by assembling a list of questions such as: When you see a software
application icon what are you most likely to do? When a software
application you are using presents you with a user agreement what are
you most likely to do? When a software applciation does something that
frustrates you what are you most likely to do? When a software
application you are using crashes what are you most likely to do? Step
2: Write down your responses and the responses of any subjects you are
observing. Step 3: For each question, think up three other possible
responses. Write these down. Step 4: (this step is only for the very
curious) Try the other possible responses out the next time you
encounter each of the given scenarios.]{.how .descriptor} [Note: The
common senses and comportments of software are of course informed and
conditioned by those of hardware and so perhaps this is more accurately
a method for articulating comportments of computing.]{.note .descriptor}
[WARNING: Software wears on both individual and collective bodies and
selves. Software may harm your physical and emotional health and that of
your society both by design and by accident.]{.warning .descriptor}
[TODO: RELATES TO Agile Sun Salutation, Natasha Schull\'s Addicted by
Design]{.tmp} [Flow-regulation, logistics, seamlessness]{.grouping}
[]{#mwrhm2y4 .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.continuousintegration)
Continuous integration]{.method .descriptor} [What: Continuous
integration is a sophisticated form of responsibility management: it is
the fascia of services. Continous integration picks up after all other
services and identifies what needs to happen so that they can work in
concert. Continuous integration is a way of observing the evolution of
(micro)services through cybernetic (micro)management.]{.what
.descriptor} [How: Continuous integration keeps track of changes to all
services and allows everyone to observe if they still can work together
after all the moving parts are fitted together.]{.how .descriptor}
[When: Continuous integration comes to prominence in a world of
distributed systems where there are many parts being organized
simultaneously. Continuous integration is a form of observation that
helps (micro)services maintain a false sense of independence and
decentralization while constantly subjecting them to centralized
feedback.]{.when .descriptor} [Who: Continuous integration assumes that
all services will submit themselves to the feedback loops of continuous
integration. This could be a democratic process or not.]{.who
.descriptor} [Urgency: Continuous integration reconfigures divisions of
labor in the shadows of automation. How can we surface and question its
doings and undoings?]{.urgency .descriptor} [WARNING: When each service
does one thing well, the service makers tend to assume everybody else is
doing the things they do not want to do.]{.warning .descriptor}
At TGSO continuous integration was introduced as a service that responds
to integration hell when putting together a number of TGSO services for
a walk-in software clinic. Due to demand, the continuous integration
service was extended to do \"service discovery\" and \"load balancing\"
once the walk-in clinic was in operation.
Continuous integration worked by visiting the different services of the
walk-in clinic to check for updates, test the functionality and think
through implications of integration with other services. If the pieces
didn\'t fit, continuous integration delivered error messages and
solution options.
When we noticed that software curious persons visiting the walk-in
clinic may have troubles finding the different services, and that some
services may be overloaded with software curious persons, continuous
integration was extended. We automated service registration using
colored tape and provided a lookup registry for software curious
persons.
Load balancing meant that software curious persons were forwarded to
services that had capacity. If all other services were full, the load
balancer defaulted to sending the software curious person to the [Agile
Sun
Salutation](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.agile.yoga)
service.
[WARNING: At TGSO the bundling of different functionalities into the
continuous integration service broke the \"do one thing well\"
principle, but saved the day (we register this as technical debt for the
next iteration of the walk-in clinic).]{.warning .descriptor} [Remember:
Continous integration may be the string that holds your current software
galaxy together.]{.remember .descriptor}
\"More technically, I am interested in how things bounce around in
computer systems. I am not sure if these two things are relted, but I
hope continuous integration will help me.\"
[]{#zdixmgrm .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.pipeline) make
make do]{.method .descriptor} [What: Makefile as a method for
quick/collective assemblages + observing amalgamates/pipelines]{.what
.descriptor} [Note: Note:
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/etherdump/makefile.raw.html]{.note
.descriptor}
etherpad-\>md-\>pdf-\>anything pipeline. makefile as a method for
quick/collective assemblages + observing amalgamates/pipelines CHRISTOPH
[]{#zweymtni .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.ssogy)
Flowcharts (Flow of the chart -- chart of the flow on demand!)]{.method
.descriptor} [Example]{.example .empty .descriptor} [SHOW IMAGE HERE:
!\[\]( http://observatory.constantvzw.org/images/symbols/ibm-ruler.jpg
)]{.tmp} [SHOW IMAGE HERE: !\[\](
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/images/symbols/burroughs-ruler.jpg
)]{.tmp} [SHOW IMAGE HERE: !\[\](
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/images/symbols/rectangle.png )]{.tmp}
[SHOW IMAGE HERE: !\[\](
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/images/symbols/curly\_rec.png
)]{.tmp} [SHOW IMAGE HERE: !\[\](
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/images/symbols/curly\_rec-2.png
)]{.tmp} [SHOW IMAGE HERE: !\[\](
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/images/symbols/flag.png )]{.tmp}
[SHOW IMAGE HERE: !\[\](
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/images/symbols/trapec.png )]{.tmp}
[SHOW IMAGE HERE: !\[Claude Shannon Information Diagram Blanked: Silvio
Lorusso\](
http://silviolorusso.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/shannon\_comm\_channel.gif
)]{.tmp} [TODO: RELATES TO]{.tmp}
[Beingontheside/inthemiddle/behind]{.grouping} []{#ywfin2e4 .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.somethinginthemiddlemaybe)
Something in the Middle Maybe (SitMM)]{.method .descriptor} [What: The
network traffic gets observed. There are different sniffing software out
there which differ in granularity and how far the user can taylor the
different functionality. SitMM builds on one of these tools called
[scapy](http://www.secdev.org/projects/scapy/).]{.what .descriptor}
[How: SitMM takes a closer look at the network traffic coming from/going
to a software curious person\'s device. The software curious person
using SitMM may ask to filter the traffic based on application or device
of interest.]{.how .descriptor} [Who]{.who .empty .descriptor}
The software curious person gets to observe their own traffic. Ideally,
observing ones own network traffic should be available to anyone, but
using such software can be deemed illegal under different jurisdictions.
For example, in the US wiretap law limit packet-sniffing to parties
owning the network that is being sniffed or the availability of consent
from one of the communicating parties. Section 18 U.S. Code § 2511 (2)
(a) (i) says:
> It shall not be unlawful \... to intercept \... while engaged in any
> activity which is a necessary incident to the rendition of his service
> or to the protection of the rights or property of the provider of that
> service
See here for a
[paper](http://spot.colorado.edu/%7Esicker/publications/issues.pdf) on
the topic. Google went on a big legal spree to defend their right to
capture unencrypted wireless traffic with google street view cars. The
courts were concerned about wiretapping and infringements on the privacy
of users, and not with the leveraging of private and public WiFi
infrastructure for the gain of a for profit company. The case raises
hard questions about the state, ownership claims and material reality of
WiFi signals. So, while WiFi sniffing is common and the tools like SitMM
are widely available, it is not always possible for software curious
persons to use them legally or to neatly filter out \"their traffic\"
from that of \"others\".
[When: SitMM can be used any time a software curious person feels the
weight of the (invisible) networks.]{.when .descriptor} [Why: SitMM is
intended to be a tool that gives artists, designers and educators an
easy to use custom WiFi router to work with networks and explore the
aspects of our daily communications that are exposed when we use WiFi.
The goal is to use the output to encourage open discussions about how we
use our devices online.]{.why .descriptor} [Example]{.example .empty
.descriptor}
Snippets of a Something In The Middle, Maybe - Report
[TODO: RELATES TO]{.tmp} []{#ntlimgqy .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.whatisitliketobeanelevator)
What is it like to be AN ELEVATOR?]{.method .descriptor} [What:
Understanding software systems by becoming them]{.what .descriptor}
[TODO: extend this text \.... how to observe software in the world
around you. How to observe an everyday software experience and translate
this into a flowchart )]{.tmp} [How: Creating a flowchart to incarnate a
software system you use everyday]{.how .descriptor} [WARNING: Uninformed
members of the public may panic when confronted with a software
performance in a closed space.]{.warning .descriptor} [Example: What is
it like to be an elevator?]{.example .descriptor}
` {.verbatim}
what
is
it
like
to be
an
elevator?
from 25th floor to 1st floor
light on button light of 25th floor
check current floor
if current floor is 25th floor
no
if current floor is ...
go one floor up
... smaller than 25th floor
go one floor down
... bigger than 25th floor
stop elevator
turn button light off of 25th floor
turn door light on
open door of elevator
play sound opening sequence
yes
start
user pressed button of 25th floor
close door of elevator
if door is closed
user pressed 1st floor button
start timer for door closing
if timer is running more than three seconds
yes
yes
light on button
go one floor down
no
if current floor is 1st floor
update floor indicator
check current floor
stop elevator
no
yes
light off button
turn door light on
open door of elevator
play sound opening sequence
end
update floor indicator `
[SHOW IMAGE HERE:
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/documents/joseph/flowchart.pdf]{.tmp}
[TODO: RELATES TO]{.tmp} []{#ndg2zte4 .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.sidechannel)
Side Channel Analysis]{.method .descriptor} [Urgency: Side Channel
attacks are possible by disregarding the abstraction of software into
pure logic: the physical effects of the running of the software become
backdoors to observe its functioning, both threatening the control of
processes and the re-affirming the materiality of software.]{.urgency
.descriptor} [WARNING: **engineers are good guys!**]{.warning
.descriptor} [Example]{.example .empty .descriptor} [SHOW IMAGE HERE:
https://www.tek.com/sites/default/files/media/image/119-4146-00%20Near%20Field%20Probe%20Set.png.jpg]{.tmp}
[SHOW IMAGE HERE:
http://gallery.constantvzw.org/index.php/Techno-Galactic-Software-Observatory/PWFU3377]{.tmp}
[TODO: RELATES TO]{.tmp} [Collections / collecting]{.grouping}
[]{#njmzmjm1 .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.bestiary)
Compiling a bestiary of software logos]{.method .descriptor} [What:
Since the early days of GNU-linux and cemented through the ubiquitous
O\'Reilly publications, the visual culture of software relies heavily on
animal representations. But what kinds of animals, and to what
effect?]{.what .descriptor} [How]{.how .empty .descriptor}
Compile a collection of logos and note the metaphors for observation: \*
stethoscope \* magnifying glass \* long neck (giraffe)
[Example]{.example .empty .descriptor}
` {.verbatim}
% http://animals.oreilly.com/browse/
% [check Testing the testbed pads for examples]
% [something on bestiaries] `
[TODO: RELATES TO]{.tmp} []{#njm5zwm4 .anchor} []{#mmy2zgrl .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.testingtestbed)
Testing the testbed: testing software with observatory ambitions
(SWOA)]{.method .descriptor} [WARNING: this method may make more sense
if you first take a look at the [Something in the Middle Maybe
(SitMM)](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.sitmm) which is
an instance of a SWOA]{.warning .descriptor} [How: The interwebs hosts
many projects that aim to produce software for observing software, (from
now on Software With Observatory Ambitions (SWOA)). A comparative
methodology can be produced by testing different SWOA to observe
software of interest. Example: use different sniffing software to
observe wireless networks, e.g., wireshark vs tcpdump vs SitMM.
Comparing SWOA reveals what is seen as worthy of observation (e.g., what
protocols, what space, which devices), the granularity of the
observation (e.g., how is the observation captured, in what detail), the
logo and conceptual framework of choice etc. This type of observation
may be turned into a service (See also: Something in the Middle Maybe
(SitMM)).]{.how .descriptor} [When: Ideally, SWOA can be used everywhere
and in every situation. In reality, institutions, laws and
administrators like to limit the use of SWOA on infrastructures to
people who are also administering these networks. Hence, we are
presented with the situation that the use of SWOA is condoned when it is
down by researchers and pen testers (e.g., they were hired) and shunned
when done by others (often subject to name calling as hackers or
attackers).]{.when .descriptor} [What: Deep philosophical moment: most
software has a recursive observatory ambition (it wants to be observed
in its execution, output etc.). Debuggers, logs, dashboards are all
instances of software with observatory ambitions and can not be
separated from software itself. Continuous integration is the act of
folding the whole software development process into one big feedback
loop. So, what separates SWOA from software itself? Is it the intention
of observing software with a critical, agonistic or adversarial
perspective vs one focused on productivity and efficiency that
distinguishes SWOA from software? What makes SWOA a critical practice
over other forms of sotware observation. If our methodology is testing
SWOA, then is it a meta critique of critique?]{.what .descriptor} [Who:
If you can run multiple SWOAs, you can do it. The question is: will
people like it if you turn your gaze on their SWOA based methods of
observation? Once again we find that observation can surface power
asymmetries and lead to defensiveness or desires to escape the
observation in the case of the observed, and a instinct to try to
conceal that observation is taking place.]{.who .descriptor} [Urgency:
If observation is a form of critical engagement in that it surfaces the
workings of software that are invisible to many, it follows that people
would develop software to observe (SWOAs). Testing SWOAs puts this form
of critical observation to test with the desire to understand how what
is made transparent through each SWOA also makes things invisible and
reconfigures power.]{.urgency .descriptor} [Note: Good SWOA software
usually uses an animal as a logo.:D]{.note .descriptor} [WARNING: Many
of the SWOA projects we looked at are promises more than running
software/available code. Much of it is likely to turn into obsolete
gradware, making testing difficult.]{.warning .descriptor} [TODO:
RELATES TO
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.bestiary]{.tmp} [TODO:
RELATES TO http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.sitmm]{.tmp}
[]{#mmmzmmrh .anchor}
[[Method:](http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.reader)
Prepare a reader to think theory with software]{.method .descriptor}
[What: Compile a collection of texts about software.]{.what .descriptor}
[How: Choose texts from different realms. Software observations are
mostly done in the realm of the technological and the pragmatic. Also
the ecology of texts around software includes first and foremost
manuals, technical documentation and academic papers by software
engineers and these all \'live\' in different realms. More recently, the
field of software studies opened up additional perspectives fuelled by
cultural studies and sometimes filosophy. By compiling a reader \...
ways of speaking/writing about. Proximity.]{.how .descriptor}
[Example]{.example .empty .descriptor}
` {.verbatim .wrap}
Pull some quotes from the reader, for example from the chapter: Observation and its consequences
Lilly Irani, Hackathons and the Making of Entrepreneurial Citizenship, 2015 http://sci-hub.bz/10.1177/0162243915578486
Kara Pernice (Nielsen Norman Group), Talking with Participants During a Usability Test, January 26, 2014, https://www.nngroup.com/articles/talking-to-users/
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, Extreme Inscription: Towards a Grammatology of the Hard Drive. 2004 http://texttechnology.mcmaster.ca/pdf/vol13_2_06.pdf
Alexander R. Galloway, The Poverty of Philosophy: Realism and Post-Fordism, Critical Inquiry. 2013, http://cultureandcommunication.org/galloway/pdf/Galloway,%20Poverty%20of%20Philosophy.pdf
Edward Alcosser, James P. Phillips, Allen M. Wolk, How to Build a Working Digital Computer. Hayden Book Company, 1968. https://archive.org/details/howtobuildaworkingdigitalcomputer_jun67
Matthew Fuller, "It looks like you're writing a letter: Microsoft Word", Nettime, 5 Sep 2000. https://library.memoryoftheworld.org/b/xpDrXE_VQeeuDDpc5RrywyTJwbzD8eatYGHKmyT2A_HnIHKb
Barbara P. Aichinger, DDR Memory Errors Caused by Row Hammer. 2015 www.memcon.com/pdfs/proceedings2015/SAT104_FuturePlus.pdf
Fangfei Liu, Yuval Yarom, Qian Ge, Gernot Heiser, Ruby B. Lee. Last-Level Cache Side-Channel Attacks are Practical. 2015 http://palms.ee.princeton.edu/system/files/SP_vfinal.pdf `
[TODO: RELATES TO
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.samequestion]{.tmp}
[]{#ytjmmmni .anchor}
Colophon
The Guide to techno-galactic software observing was compiled by Carlin
Wing, Martino Morandi, Peggy Pierrot, Anita, Christoph Haag, Michael
Murtaugh, Femke Snelting
License: Free Art License
Support:
Sources:
Constant, February 2018
::: {.footnotes}
1. [[[Haraway]{.fname}, [Donna]{.gname}, [Galison]{.fname},
[Peter]{.gname} and [Stump]{.fname}, [David J]{.gname}: [Modest
Witness: Feminist Diffractions in Science Studies]{.title},
[Stanford University Press]{.publisher}, [1996]{.date}.
]{.collection} [-\>](#eeffecbe)]{#ebceffee}
2. [Worksessions are intensive transdisciplinary moments, organised
twice a year by Constant. They aim to provide conditions for
participants with different experiences and capabilities to
temporarily link their practice and to develop ideas, prototypes and
research projects together. For the worksessions, primarily Free,
Libre and Open Source software is used and material that is
available under ??? [-\>](#fcdcaacb)]{#bcaacdcf}
3. [http://www.nam-ip.be [-\>](#ffeaecaa)]{#aaceaeff}
4. [http://www.etwie.be/database/actor/computermuseum-ku-leuven
[-\>](#dbabebfa)]{#afbebabd}
5. [[contributors]{.fname}, [Wikipedia]{.gname}: [Content-control
software --- Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia]{.title},
[2018]{.date}. [-\>](#fadefecf)]{#fcefedaf}
6. [[UrbanMinistry.org]{.fname}, [TechMission]{.gname}:
[SafeFamilies.org \| Accountability Software: Encyclopedia of Urban
Ministry]{.title}, [2018]{.date}. [-\>](#faebbffb)]{#bffbbeaf}
7. [[Content Watch Holdings]{.fname}, [Inc]{.gname}: [Protecting Your
Family]{.title}, [2018]{.date}. [-\>](#afcbcfbb)]{#bbfcbcfa}
8. [[websense.com]{.fname}, []{.gname}: [Explicit and transparent proxy
deployments]{.title}, [2012]{.date}. [-\>](#edbedede)]{#ededebde}
9. [[workrave.org]{.fname}, []{.gname}: [Frequently Asked
Questions]{.title}, [2018]{.date}. [-\>](#ddfbbbfc)]{#cfbbbfdd}
10. [[contributors]{.fname}, [Wikipedia]{.gname}: [Agile software
development --- Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia]{.title},
[2018]{.date}. [-\>](#ececbabd)]{#dbabcece}
11. [[contributors]{.fname}, [Wikipedia]{.gname}: [Scrum (software
development) --- Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia]{.title},
[2018]{.date}. [-\>](#caabcfee)]{#eefcbaac}
12. [[contributors]{.fname}, [Wikipedia]{.gname}: [The Manifesto for
Agile Software Development]{.title}, [2018]{.date}.
[-\>](#baffeabf)]{#fbaeffab}
13. [[Kruchten]{.fname}, [Philippe]{.gname}: [Agile's Teenage
Crisis?]{.title}, [2011]{.date}. [-\>](#faeebade)]{#edabeeaf}
:::