Jul 2023-TT Reading Diary

READING DIARY: JULY 2023-  TT SESSION 28: SUMMER LJMU  WORKSHOP: ON WORK WITH ALESSANDRA CIANETTI                                                                                                                                                                                

READING 1: "Co-creating with People, usually non-artists" by Hwa Young Jung is a concisely written, illustrated account of five projects, which are in Jung's words, as much "Confessions of a socially engaged artist working with people," as it is a guide. The five main principles outlined in it are:                                                                                                                                                             

1. make with, not for: which was conceived as "an invitation to get beyond the usual power relationships established in criminal justice, and think through differently how we want to treat members of society who don’t confirm to rules."

2. be care-ful: the principle embodied by, "Know you’re human, with complex needs, and be kind to yourself, if only to be a better human to others."                                                                                                                                                                                   

3. you can only create safer spaces: a principle that is underscored by the notion that the "most important aspect to do is be open and transparent about why & what you’re doing, LISTEN to people, take it in and be prepared to shift course."                                                                                                                                                              

4. have an exit strategy: principle includes, "Letting go of a project, and allowing it to develop into something different led by someone else can also be difficult, so I try not to be precious about ideas... (noting that) Projects don’t have to have a shelf life, but the time you spend on it do."                                                                                                                                                                              

5.  play the long game: "it starts - little conversation seeds that might land and sprout.                      

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READING 2: "How do we increase access and inclusion while powering down civilization?" by Vijay Mathew, which he subtitled, "A digital and ethical strategy for transitioning out of ecocide."                                                                                                                                                                    "This text is the result of a conversation that was had between performingborders, Untethered Magic, and Vijay in February 2023 during a residency with Untethered Magic in Rongai (Kenya)."                                                                                                              

"Climate science demands that we turn off all carbon emissions today, especially for us in historically high-emitting nations like those in Europe, or risk catastrophic consequences for all.                Air travel is by far the most carbon-emitting practice that our field engages in and that we have immediate control over in terms of abandoning it as a tool for how we design and operate our programming. (For organizations that have buildings, the next highest carbon-emitting activities are electricity usage for heating, cooling, and lighting.) Unlike land-based travel like trains, buses, and cars, there will not be low-carbon emission alternatives for air travel." So begins V. Mathew's post.                                                                                                                                                                 

He continues to discuss, "video conferencing and live video streaming in a resilient adaptation of programming during the COVID-19 lockdown, many positive equity-based outcomes emerged that we need to recognize and prioritize as we reopen in-person in the months to come." and the facts that, 1. "A number of people who did not have access to performance and conversations for a variety of economic and social reasons suddenly had increased opportunity." 2. that "Many of the oppressive power dynamics of elite, exclusive in-person gatherings took on more democratic characteristics." and 3. "Many more exchanges and conversations between artists in the Global North and the Global South were able to occur as the immediacy of the medium collapsed geographic borders." Noting that there are also "a deceptively significant environmental costs to production and consumption of internet media. The energy and physical materials usage of the information technology industry belongs to the extractive and ecocidal economic paradigm that we need to transition out of very quickly too. Just like the airline industry, the internet as we currently know it—always on and always growing—has an unrealistic future."                                                                                                                                                         

Matthew reveals his motivation for the writing, "As an international performing arts community we are in great need to continue to learn and think about our next steps for an equity-informed low-energy future. As a temporary strategy, using digital tools in a frugal manner and in a way that embodies and prioritizes inclusion, accessibility and independence from consumerism may help to give ourselves this much needed space to re-envision our purpose and meaning to society."  And that he "... recently developed a free and open-source carbon emissions calculator for streaming media at ArtsCarbon.com in collaboration with Axess Lab in Sweden for two purposes: 1) to provide a simple tool for cultural managers to budget their program’s internet carbon emissions, and 2) to provide a proof-of-concept design strategy that embodies justice-based values while simultaneously being highly performant."                                                                

Finally, Mathew encourages, "This proof-of-concept demonstrates that we, together as an arts field, can succeed at choosing to create online media that is: 1) low-energy, lightweight, low-carbon emitting, 2) accessible for people with disabilities, 3) inclusive and inexpensive for people with limited bandwidth or with expensive access to the internet relative to income, especially in the Global South, 4) open source and contributes to commons-based software and technology platforms instead of defaulting to problematic multinational products and services, 5) efficient and provides a highly performant user experience as measured by page speed." Concluding with, “Acting from a more holistic awareness about what the hidden costs of our artistic activity are and choosing to include rather than exclude is going to be the essential ethical skill as we re-emerge. ☼”

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READING 3, “Applying Disability Justice, Climate Justice, and Solidarity Economics to your Digital Practice," is a practical guide by Vijay Mathew, who writes about it this way:
"...This text is the result of a conversation that was had between performingborders, Untethered Magic, and Vijay in February 2023 during a residency with Untethered Magic in Rongai (Kenya)." It "...is a short list of organizations, tools, and design approaches for arts and culture workers who are interested in developing new practices for their digital activity and programming. By default, the information and communications technology sector that exercises enormous influence on our culture is inherently extractive, unsustainable, exclusionary, and oppressive – in short: ecocidal. "

Organizations creating sovereign, commons-based digital infrastructures

·       Framasoft

A non-profit association founded in 2004 in France. They host free and open access online services, develop software, educate the public about surveillance capitalism and Big Tech, and promote commons alternatives. The Chatons is a network/federation of like-minded organizations, companies, collectives with similar values that host commons-based software.

Commons-based or open source video/audio software alternatives for artists/culture workers

·       PeerTube

Video hosting and a video livestreaming destination. Anyone can join an existing instance (server), or host their own with their own administrative rules. All instances can federate and share video catalogues if desired. A true commons-based open source software project with development stewarded by Framasoft.

·       Jitsi Meet

Video conferencing with breakout rooms and livestreaming. Can be self-hosted on one’s own server. The link above is to the instance hosted/managed by the company that is behind the open-source project.

·       OBS Studio

Video livestream producing and recording software.

Digital Accessibility Specialists

·       Axess Lab

Small company based in Sweden, the services they provide are accessibility audits of websites, and user testing of websites with people with disabilities. They are best engaged in the planning phase of website creation and work in collaboration with web developers.

·       Accredited International Sign Interpreters

Deaf artists seeking equitable access, and human rights to access what happens on the web.

Website Developers who are Energy and Destruction Aware

·       La coopérative des Internets

Small worker-owned cooperative based in Lyon, France. Can make a light website.

·       Whole Grain Digital

Creators of WebSiteCarbon. A small B Corp based in London, UK.

Website Hosting Services

·       Green Web Hosting Directory

“Green” doesn’t preclude extraction, oppression, ecocide. We need to grapple with the fact that the ICT sector and the internet is absolutely not sustainable. Most green hosts are purchasing Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) and does not necessarily mean that the electricity generation powering the datacentres are emitting no carbon emissions, and that the datacentre can be connected to a power grid that is a mix of all kinds of energy. (Therefore, RECs could be considered a type of problematic Offset, as carbon emissions are still happening somewhere.). One host 1984.is  in Iceland has a zero-carbon emissions datacentre. (But this is just in terms of the electricity used to operate it and it doesn’t account for building of the datacentre, the manufacture of the equipment that has been flown and shipped around the world, and the eventual e-waste it produces.)

Carbon Emissions Calculators

·       WebSiteCarbon

            Measure the carbon emissions of your website.

·       ArtsCarbon

            Measure the carbon emissions of your online media activity and productions: Video conferences, livestreams, podcasts. Based on the calculations in WebSiteCarbon.