Servpub as a project has brought together a constellation of collectives, researchers, activists, artists and other multihypenate practitioners. Servpub itself is a platform for research and practice around autonomous networks, affective infrastructures and experimental publishing through artistic and feminist methods. Servpub is a network of servers which uses a Virtual Private Network (VPN) with a reverse proxy that makes it accessible on the public internet. wiki4print is one server in this network, which hosts the wiki from which this publication was produced. It is available at wiki4print.servpub.net.
WHO
First and foremost this work was supported by Free Libre Open Source Softwares (FLOSS), walkthroughs and guides - most notably beta-testing the zine Making a private server amubulant by M. Karagianni & M. Murtaugh produced after the Traversal Network of Feminist Servers project which introduced Rosa, a collectively embodied server, which was co-produced by Varia, HYPHA, LURK, esc, Feminist Hack Meetings and Constant.
The Servpub project is the collective product of work from a variety of entities including In-grid, Systerserver, Varia, Creative Crowds (cc), Centre for the Study of the Networked Image (CSNI) at London South Bank University, Creative Computing Institute (CCI) at University of the Arts London, and SHAPE at Aarhus University. → See back cover for an infrastructure diagram.
WHAT
Servpub is:
- 2 x Raspberry pi 4b
- 1 x Active cooler
- Peripherals inc. 7" touch screen, keyboard, mouse, ethernet cables, 32G SD cards etc.
- Jean: a bare metal machine of Systerserver's, hosted in the data room of mur.at - Graz, Austria.
- Servpub.net: a domain name with the DNS provider tuxIC.nl in the Netherlands.
Softwares includes:
- Armbian - Linux Operating system
- NginX - Webservers
- Tinc - VPN
- For wiki4print: MediaWiki, HTML, CSS, Paged.js, Flask
For working, when necessary: openSSH, Tmux - Terminal multiplexer, VIM/Nano command line text editors, Git, Jitsi, Etherpad, Ubuntu virtual shell, pen and paper
WHEN
Inspired by the feminist server and other experimental publishing initiatives, the ServPub collaboration began to crystallize through the International Trans*Feminist Counter-Cloud Strike, and the perception that there was a lack of similar collectives/communities in London.
The setting up of Servpub began proper in May 2023. This included many meetings, co-working sessions and discussions. Here we have listed events which were open to a wider public.
TIMELINE
Public Workshop 1 (CCI - hybrid), 26 May 2023
Varia and Systerserver introduce techniques for establishing and administrating autonomous servers to In-grid.
Working Session 1 (online), 28th July 2023
Co-working on the Jean server began, getting SSH access and starting the process of using tinc, a VPN software.
Working Session 2 (CCI - hybrid), 4 August 2023
Finishing installing tinc, to create a VPN and configure NginX as a reverse proxy server to connect the first Raspberry Pi server (now available at servpub.net)
Public Workshop 2 (LSBU - hybrid), 24 Novemeber 2023
In-grid walked workshop participants through the infrastructure and set-up process, while adding the second Raspberry pi to the VPN network intended for hosting wiki-to-print.
Wiki-to-print install, 8 December 2023 & 17 January 2024
Work sessions with Creative Crowds to start the install process of wiki-to-print, which became wiki4print.
Content/Form, Transmediale Workshop, January 2024
Working in and around the continued setup and fixing of wiki4print on the server, thirty workshop participants and facilitators begin to submit and collectively edit text on the wiki.
HOW
Servpub is a project made by and for artists*activists*academics. It is a collective exchange of knowledge and methods to challenge hegemonic norms of digital infrastructures. It is a way to rethink, reimagine and redistribute technologies through feminist methods of accessibility, care and repair.
DOCS
One of the ways we have approached this work is with the intention that this will be an educational toolkit and replicable resource. We are developing documentation of our work - both in terms of technical work and the experiential qualities of the process - to allow others to take what they need and make something else. At the time of writing [31.01.24] the most up-to-date, yet-unfinished version of the documentation can be found at: https://git.systerserver.net/queer/networks
TO BE CONTINUED...