Platform infrastructure
Coordinator: In-grid (Katie)
Contributors: Winnie, Becky, Batool, Katie
Wiki4print, the raspberry pi which hosts https://wiki4print.servpub.net/ travels with us. We have constructed our network of servers in such a way that we can keep it's hardware by our side as we use it, teach with it and share it with others. This chapter will consider the materiality of our particular network of nodes, our reasoning for arranging our infrastructure in this way and what it means to move through the world with these objects. By considering our movement from one place to another we can begin to understand how an ambulent server allows us to locate the boundaries of the software processes, the idiosyncrachies of hardware and estates issues, and how we fit into larger networked infrastructures. How we manage departures, arrivals, and points of transcience, reveals boundaries of access, permission, visibility, precarity and luck.
In this chapter we will explain our decision to arrange our physical infrastructure in this way; mobile and in view. To do this we will map our collective experiences in a series of types of space. These spaces are reflective of our relative positions as artist*technologist*activist*academic (delete as appropriate):
* EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
* DOMESTIC SPACES
* CULTURAL SPACES
* INBETWEENS: BORDERS/TRAVEL
More complete sections of this section will be shared on this page, but you can watch us draft sections of this chapter here: https://pad.riseup.net/p/PlatformInfrastructure-keep
SECTION DRAFTING [WHY PI?]
- By bringing the pi in person to teaching moments, it allowed us to discuss ideas around the physicality of and physical caring for a server. There is trust and intimacy in proximity.
- Legible at borders - recognisable by border patrol officers
- Why the pi and not another single board computer
- Why pre owned/borrowed hardware
SECTION DRAFTING [Cultural spaces]
During it's existence in it's current state, Wiki4Print has been a physical presence at several public workshops and interventions. Although in many (if not all) cases, it would be more practical to leave the hardware at home, we opt to bring it with us. By dint of our artist*sysadmin*academic situations, this has included what we are calling cultural spaces. We are using this to describe spaces which primarily support or present the work of creative practicioners and their work: museums, galleries, artist studios, libraries.
As with our entrances and exits from institutional spaces (universities), domestic locations and moments traveling we need to spend some time feeling out the local situation, and the idiosyncracies of space. Not all two cultural spaces are built the same
We'll tell you about two spaces to explain what we mean.
1. An Artist run space, studio, meanwhile use, precarious
2. Public institution, museum, gallery
* Estates issues: ethernet ports, working plugs, access to extensions, locked doors, opening hours, previous bookings, cleaning regimens, central heating (or lack there of), security (theft), furniture.
* Shitty wifi, privacy