in-grid

Practising Protocols Workshop

Intro

These protocols were c0-created at the workshop at 4S*EASST 2024 as part of the Collective Infrastructures panel. In the workshop, we brought the conceptual elements of the panel into practice and created these situated collaborative protocols with participants whilst performing some basic server maintenance. The outcomes are on this blog as well as on the original HTML file we edited.

Collaborative Protocols

  1. Using terminal

Varying levels of familiarity with working in Terminal. How do we feel being that space? – like a hacker – It's a common feeling to have to take care. Precaution with inputting any commands. – sometimes ignorance is protective – careful attention to advice from technical documentation etc. – it feels like controlling my brain from the back end

Does it feel risky?

Link to download git for windows https://git-scm.com/download/win

  1. SSH
  • authenticity of host can't be established. – trust issue
  • hospitality; being a respectful guest & welcoming host (simultaneously)
  • server playing hard to get but finally got a seat at the table
  • the terminal visually looks the same whether its your local machine terminal or a different shared machine, so it feels like the same. Because you are bringing somewhere else to you instead of you going.
  • there is an obscurity to the virtual
  • How could an SSH feel more material, closer
  • Anonymity
  • temperature feels very material – what else could be included i.e. location to the server
  • physically caring for it's wellbeing (plugged in)
  • is the handshake appropriate? i.e. banking, trumpy handshakes, getting pulled in by the hand, whats the origin of the expression?
  • is it about a manifestation of trust – and so what else could signify this
  • server hugs

Pi IP: 192.168.8.120

Eduroam is causing havoc!

  1. Sudo and tmux

being inside of each others systems. trust and intimacies loosing control The feeling of discomfort comes from the idea of a laptop as a private (intimate) space?

collaborative protocols:

collaboration as knowledge sharing, roles as an exchange sharing histories and movements layering of bodies and positions

  1. Exiting safely – exiting nicely

Slow unwrapping rather than smashing with hammer Clearing up after yourself (in the kitchen)

Never exiting? Leaving it in a state of use

@in-grid@ci.servpub.net

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

We're excited to share reflections on a case study of how we have been practising infrastructuring otherwise, so that others can build from our successes, failures and frictions (Davis, Angela Y., et al. 2022). To illustrate this we will focus on Servpub (servpub.net + wiki4print.servpub.net) a collaboration and co-creation of an open publishing infrastructure with other feminist servers, collectives and educational/research institutions, like Varia, Systerserver, Creative Crowds, CCI, CSNI and Shape. In the creation of this community centred autonomous server we shared skills, stories and emotions, transforming these often violent infrastructure into an affective infrastructure. We will also touch on our histories as In-grid, and speculate on how we might build on our collective archival, writing and infrastructuring practices.