As Donna Haraway advised in Staying with the Trouble, the solution may not be a solution in itself. Rather, we can use the problem as a compost (here I imagine technological „cagadas“ literally translated as „technological turds“ which means „technological screw-ups“) to plant new forms of affect. In this text I wrote about some non-utilitarian initiatives around the problem of „engineered oppression and imperialist logic embedded in mainstream software“ that you mention. Here is a list of them:
- From Artistic Practice: The Library of Missing Data
- From Activism and empathy: Domestic Data Streamers
- From the Poetics: Myriad (Tulips)
- From Speculation: Xenoimage Dataset
The conclusion of the texts goes in this direction: The justice in the content of a dataset has to do with politics. When we do politics, we try to convince someone that one solution is better than another. If what we do is to show imaginary scenarios, we don't need to convince anyone, but it can be used as a guide. We can ask open questions like: 'what would you, with your convictions, think in that scenario?' Not having enough imaginaries is what can lead to hegemonic and discriminatory thinking. Devising operational protocols that make it possible to hack the hegemonic visual imaginary through the refunctionalization of image databases can serve to activate the visual future in the field of the disruption of hierarchies, relying on AI as a new sensorial tool for visualization and starting from a xenofeminist perspective. Algorithmic reprogramming will be through hyperstitional operators: tools that serve to think other futures in which identity traits are not eradicated but deactivated as motors of oppression and inequality; speculative futures that resist and imagine beyond the consummation of the automatic organisation of life.
---
Thanks for this..i like the writing and the positioning to bring out non-west perspective and references, (also ways of doing). Just some minor comment -
1. perhaps the network protocols is also been as important part of computational system in addition to hardware and software
2. minor: decoupling it from big tech platformization and the commodity of the Cloud. -> decoupling it from big tech platformization and cloud commodification. -> but i also think the essence of the issue is also centralisation of power or oligopoly structure
3. though i am unsure if returning to retro computing frameworks is simplistic, as it is also a way to reflect technologies via histories and older technologies. Or you have any example in mind about what specific retro framework?
4. I am still intrigued by our earlier discussion on Operating system as an object of study to unfold some of the concern. Look forward to hearing your presentation.
Siusoon (talk) 11:20, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Thoughts from Pierre
Super interested in your last paragraph, with alternate practices that do not stem from the same social/cultural/economic environment as the dominant technologies you call out.
The part of technical proficiency is also an interesting one to investigate, I think: doesn't it act as a barrier to decentralize/produce alternate infrastructures? Do those decentralized infrastructures require everyone to "learn to code" (if only a little bit) in order to maintain and care for these infrastructures?
Interoperability is also an interesting question to me: I think that decentralization without interoperability sounds like a sort of silo-ing of communities and practices? Or is that just fine?
Thoughts from Anya
Love the direction of your article; the variety of technology uses and sense-making processes is a super sympathetic topic. And the title is just wow. I have a couple of questions/comments about parts that seemed not that clear to me.
--- You write, "Computers, with their complicated history, have long been entangled with harmful materiality, engineered biases, and discriminatory practices, particularly against multicultural perspectives and epistemes beyond the English-speaking West."
- My comment: It sounds like a big statement, and I had a feeling that without examples (maybe just references to examples?) it risks sounding either just too vague or superficial. Partly, because this sentence attributes a lot of agency to computers themselves, and it is unclear what forces (or actors?) are actually involved in the harm that is done. Who is acting against what/whom? In the sentence (I am oversimplifying) it is "computers + their history" VS "multucultural perspectives and epistemes". Those seem to be entities of different natures, can they be reformulated somehow?
--- You write, "However, it could also be argued that the populations of many global majority countries face material limitations and economic hardships that requires ingenious alternative solutions as a way to hack reality in everyday life, exemplified by Brazilian ‘gambiarras’ and Cuban ‘rikimbilis’, what researcher Ernesto Oroza names as ‘objects of necessity’ (Oroza 2006). Implementing such alternatives necessitates mundane yet crucial work that like refactoring, maintenance, care, and a calculated use of resources. (Raghavan and Hasan in de Valk, 2022)"
- My comment: This sounds like the main argument to me, the core of your narrative, and the answer to the problem your essay outlined. Maybe I misunderstood it? Somehow it reads now as a solution to all the hard issues your essay outlined above. But it is so short! Is there an educational agenda to make people search for those cases themselves? If not, maybe it can make sense to elaborate on this part and the alternatives that are being proposed. Also in relation to the climate crisis, right now the connection is quite cryptic, and the topic of Earth resources feels to be always in the background but is not that explicitly addressed.
- Additional general comment: I don't know if this can be helpful, but I am thinking here about how the history of computing is regionally specific and diverse (works of Madhavi Malapragada, Gabriele de Seta, Kevin Driskoll, Dmitry Muravjov, Polina Kolozaridi), also research on how technologies are used with much variety in their cultural contexts (Why We Post research project)