# **Digital culture buddy group 2 (TYO2)**

<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/PXj1J0eMONGOA" width="480" height="336" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/drive-8-bit-PXj1J0eMONGOA"></a></p>

###### This is our theme song - please enjoy it.
<div><iframe width="300" height="60" src="https://vocaroo.com/embed/1kTnYDfls7bf" frameborder="0"></iframe><br><a href="https://voca.ro/1kTnYDfls7bf" title="Vocaroo Voice Recorder" target="_blank"></a></div>

## Personal sites:
[Mathias site](https://hackmd.io/OKoYt-MwTqaTu00RN0EjqQ)
[Johannes site](https://hackmd.io/O0GCE4LVQ1mtHG-nW0e4lg)
[Mikael site](https://hackmd.io/9Y36x3DdT1axaQTb4-bWfQ)
[Ester site](https://hackmd.io/ekiHoIYURxu6L1MxPPe27Q)

## Block Assignments:
[Block 1](https://hackmd.io/m5Pa7-ItTWSTAwr1bAo2xg)

[Block 2](https://hackmd.io/prv-FQ01Qzq2Bx8s_jumRg)

[Block 3](https://hackmd.io/h_G7ROR5Ts-R0jEFWDW57w)

[Block 4](https://hackmd.io/RhGqgttBQWKI_MurAEjQBg)

## MX assignments:

### MX002

_________________
#### Ester

#### Reflections

- **What interests you?**

In relation to data what interest me the most is power structures. Data or data samples always inherent some kind of power structure, which sometimes are more expressive than others. These power structures are rarely visible which i think makes thiskind of power a really interesting object of analysis.

When these power structures become really relevant is in the work with big data, where the amount of data makes it possible for a developer/programmer etc to create algortihms that can tell us something from the data that we ourselves couldnt see at first. Such as personalising algortihms used for both advertisement, banking etc. In this case machine learning is used to process the data, which brings even more questions about power into focus. What does the role of the programmer/developer become when they themselves are not able to do the same calculations as the machine elarning algorithms does, but they still rely on the results of the algorithms in their decision making process.

- Why do we need to conceptualise and understand data?

I think we need to conceptualise and understand data in new ways, because the data that already exist, and the ways in which this data is utilised, is already black boxed. It is difficult to analyse and interpret the big amount of data that is generated, and it is therefore difficult to interpret whether the facts the data represents can be trusted. We cant take the data at face value anymore, since the pre and post data sampling there lies a lot of decisions that are not visible to us. For me it is a question of either stading still accepting the power structures which are emerging throught the increasing use of data, or instead trying to understand these structures so we can engage in constetation against it.

#### Taxonomy/map of data

_________________
#### Johannes

#### What interests you?
These texts underline the importance of understanding how data and artefacts is made. Nothing Is objective or neutral. Be it data or artefacts. They are created by some underlying structures. It makes me think about how larger companies who extract enormous amount of data, tries to organize and simplify data by grouping it together. This is a way of simplifying humans and their behavior. This is in a critical perspective a way of dehumanizing people and categorize them as simple binary data. Looking outside data, Harraways text also made me think about how every design have been designed for a reason. People in teams who represent companies are creating our everyday products. The underlying structures are hidden behind the product. As when we design as student we have to understand where we ourself come from, and how difficult it is to make an objective design.

#### Why we need to conceptualize and understand data?
Data in today’s form has become way to untransparent. It is almost impossible to get a close understanding of the data created. How it is obtained, how it is sorted and how it is applied. By trying to investigate the data we can get a better insight into the structures which as formed it.

#### Data map:
In my map i tried to make a simple visualitation of how data is created and proccesed. The way i have done it, is to show the issues of translating data. How it is always created and altered to fit into an end understanding of a group. This is done to create an reflection on the different actors and their possible influence in the process.


_________________
#### Mikael

1. What interests you:

When reading this weeks texts at first it became apparent to me how broad of a topic data is and how challenging it is to explore it in any kind of extensive way. The academic field that tries to do so is obviously also very young, so it should not be surprising that fields attempt to describe the structures surrounding data is very complex or in some ways messy. I find the distinction between "cooked" and "uncooked" data very interesting because this notion of exploring biases in datasets is something I have spent quite a bit of time doing in a more commercial setting. In that setting the aim of this practice is to discover biases or inaccuracies in datasets that might make them dangerous in an economic sense to navigate after. Here we for example explore who has registered the data and how their practices affects the dataset. I find it very interesting that the field "Critical Data Studies" does something methodically very similar but with a non-commercial goal. Maybe the two approaches could learn from eachother.

2. Make a taxonomy/map of ‘data’, or the concept of data (on paper or other software then post as an image?)

The messy nature of data is also why I in my "map" of data tried to keep it very simple and only really visualize some of the "looping effect" described by Kitchin. It simply highlights how input is exposed to a lot of different structures that might bias or corrupt the data in the black-boxed process of data creation.


3. Why we need to conceptualize and understand data?

I think an obvious argument here is that data is becoming an increasingly integrated element in our everyday lives and in an increasingly hidden way. This highlights why it is important to understand data, but not really why we should approach it through conceptualization. An argument on that point might be that the actual nature or structure of data is such a complex size, that we need to conceptualize it, so that a broader section of the population can relate to it. This of course sets very high standards for this conceptualization, since it, in the same way as data, is very susceptible to becoming biased, political or simply imprecise.

_________________
#### Mathias

#### What am I interested in?
Currently, in terms of data, I am really intrigued with data visualization. The high volume and velocity of big data makes me wonder how we could ever visualize the data we produce and use in a more effective way than numbers, charts and graphs. Data is governing many things in our lives at the moment, but despite this it is very difficult to understand what data is, and how it works. I personally think one way to help our understanding is to provide better visualizations, that perhaps is not as sterile and static as numbers.

#### Making a map
Reading the paper by Kitchin and Lauriault, I found the Looping Effect by Hacking interesting, because it in some ways did not align with my own understanding of how data works. The looping process was to my eyes too linear in the sense that one point lead to the next consistently in a loop. In my mind, the process of data seemed a lot more messy and complex. Therefore, for the map exercise, I will attempt to produce a process of data through some steps that I think data goes through. From these steps, I shall imagine how data would travel between them. I will draw arrows between steps, one at a time, and eventually, I will have a "map" of how data is constructed/how data works and a reflection of what data looks like to me. Here are the steps or points I've identified:
##### 1. Generation
At this step, data is produced in one way or another. It could be a person using the internet, or it could be at data sub-set that is generated from a larger data-set. I consider this category broad, because I think this is the key to understanding the nature of how data mutates and constitutes itself.
##### 2. Collection
In terms of the engines of discoverability, I would consider this step to house the counting engine. Data that has been generated is "collected", that is, counted and made measurable.
##### 3. Classification
Borrowed from the looping effect. The collected data is being classified and sorted. This is the point where I think the point about going against data minimizing is relevant - this point suggests that the data has been collected before it was classified, meaning that the use of the data was not necessary known at the collection stage.
##### 4. Creating insights
Data is used to create insights - could be in business or in governing. Could be consumer behaviour or predictive policing. This is similar to the knowledge point in the looping effect.
##### 5. Employment
Data is employed to do a job which has consequences in the real world. This is reminiscent of the "institutions" point in the looping effect, however here I consider the actual work more that those who put the data to work.
##### 6. Product
The impact on the real world that the work of the data has in the end. This can be broad. It can be an autonomous car crashing, a change in perception of an object (objects of focus in the looping effect), behavioural patterns and so on. I consider this the materiality of data.


Here is a series of images of how the map developed, and eventually looked. As you can see, the map got increasingly more messy. To my own surprise, it was quite straight forward the first time around. The complexity grew into it as soon as all points had at least one arrow connected to it. Once a full circle had been completed, I started imagining how each point could branch out. The collecting step becomes a product in its own right in practices such as self-tracking, just as the classification step can become a product in the sense that classification of human beings can have a very real effect in the world.

#### Why is it important?
I think it is important to understand data because it is becoming increasingly imbedded in our society in almost every way imaginable. Thus, in order to understand its ramifications, we have to understand the fabric of data, if you will. Naturally, an improved understanding of data would likely help un-blackbox a lot of topics and make it easier to make our own decisions on what data we produce and share, and whom to share it with.

________________

### MX003


In The workshop about Feminist data visualisation, we worked with the concept of "The God Trick". In groups we discussed how to work "against" the god trick, or how one could create a visualisation which would not be seen as the God trick.

Taking our stance in Covid-19 data, we created a visualisation which showed the data in a way that both draws on the competitive charts of corona cases between countries, but also tries to challenge this view by incorporating the connections between countries, and how different countries might have been at fault for affecting other countries, or bringing the virus to different parts of the world.

_________________

### MX004

#### [Slide Presentation](https://hackmd.io/@TYO2/SJfo2GC4D#/)

---

### MX005

When working with the cookie-script, we quickly had an idea of what we wanted to do. Online advertisers such as YouTube value visitors from economically strong countries higher than visitors from countries with lower economic power.

So we simply wanted the cookie to save from which continent you are visiting and then assign a value accordingly.

Adding a continent input was not an issue, but having the cookie assign a value according to the continent was to challenging for us and the time available. Below you can find our script and try it out for yourself even though it does not have the desired feature.

<code>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<!--
//ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ttpghXjG0g
example of cookie: _user=siusoon;expires=Thu, 10 Sep 2020 09:01:51 GMT;
-->
<html>
<head>
<script>
let myCookies = {};

function saveCookies()
{
    //retrieve data from the form elements

    myCookies["_user"] = document.getElementById("user").value;
    myCookies["_uage"] = document.getElementById("age").value;
    myCookies["_ucon"] = document.getElementById("continent").value;
  /*  if("_ucon" = "Afrika"){

    myCookies["_uval"] = document.getElementById("continent").value;
  }*/

    //get rid of existing cookie
    document.cookie = "";
    //set expiry time, that is 30 seconds of now
    let date = new Date();
    date.setTime(date.getTime() + ((30) * 1000));
    let expiry = "expires=" + date.toUTCString();

    //store each cookie
    let cookieString = "";
    //loop via each myCookies (e.g user and age....)
    //join by ';'
    for (let key in myCookies)
    {
      cookieString = key+"="+myCookies[key]+";" + expiry +";";
      document.cookie = cookieString;  //save each cookie
      console.log(cookieString);
    }
    document.getElementById("out").innerHTML = document.cookie; //load in the output with the latest array first
}

function loadCookies()
{
  console.log(document.cookie);
  myCookies = {};
  let kv = document.cookie.split(";");  //different key
  for (let id in kv)
  {
    let cookie = kv[id].split("=");  //actual value
    myCookies[cookie[0].trim()] = cookie[1];  //trim white space and assign to the second half i.e value
  }

  document.getElementById("user").value = myCookies["_user"];
  document.getElementById("age").value = myCookies["_uage"];
}

</script>
</head>
<body>

User: <input type="text" id = "user"> <p>
Age: <input type="text" id = "age">
Continent: <input type="text" id = "continent">
<p>
<button onclick="saveCookies()">Save to Cookies</button>
<button onclick="loadCookies()">Load From Cookies</button>
<p id="out"></p>

</body>

</html>

</code>

### MX006

_________________
#### Ester

#### Analysis of "The web stalker"

[THE WEB STALKER](https://anthology.rhizome.org/the-web-stalker)(by; MATTHEW FULLER, COLIN GREEN, SIMON POPE)

(Picture 1)

##### Presentation of artwork

The web stalker, was an artist made browser, developed by Fuller, Green and Pope. This browser challenged the concentions of the already existing browsers; netscape navigator and Microsoft Internet explore. The two browsers we already in competition with each other for becoming the dominating browser.

The webstalker, reimagine webbrowsing, by adding another layer to the interface. INstead of just interacting with ones own computer, with the idea of the computer doing all the work. The three artist chose to show the network behind the html sites the user would interact with. To show the structure of the new, and its spatiality.

(Picture 2)

The web stalker worked by opening another browser window for the user, where the user could draw rectangles and give them functions as shown in picture 2. When they then began to brows the internet, clicking on links and moving around on the net, the browser would show connections between online texts and links, as shown in picture 1.

##### Tactical qualities of The web stalker

In protocol tactical media is defined as such;

*"These tactical effects are allegorical indices that point out the flaws in protocological and proprietary command and control. The goal is not to de- stroy technology in some neo-Luddite delusion, but to push it into a state of hypertrophy, further than it is meant to go. Then, in its injured, sore, and unguarded condition, technology may be sculpted anew into something bet- ter, something in closer agreement with the real wants and desires of its users. This is the goal of tactical media"*

When interpreting the Web stalker, it does not as a work in itself interfere with the already existing of for instance the browser internet explorer. It therefore doesnt put the already existing browser into an injured state that can evolve into something better. Though it does something similar, by working as an extension. Instead of fideling with the protocol of the software of a browser, it instead interacts with the understanding of the user, showing the user the networked culture of the internet, and hereby changing the users experience of the internet into something better or closer to the real. Tactical media are phenomena which are able to explore or exploit flaws in protocological command and control, not to destroy techonology but to sculp protocol into something that better suits peoples desires. The web stalker does this be challenging the protocol of the browser, by creating a new browser that shows another layer of the networked culture enlightening the user, and maybe hereby sculpt a new better understanding of the other browsers in users futures interaction with those.
_______________________

#### Questions

- To what extent the artist is using the approach of critical making?

Critical making can shortly be descirbed as; the hands-on productive activities that link digital technologies to society/conceptual work/theories. In itself the web stalker might be seen mostly as an idependent artwork. But if you put it in the context of the development of the concept of tactical media, the discussion and changing of the understanding of net art, it could be seen as critical making. Fuller et. al set out to provocate already existing artist working with the net, by suggesting to fight the emerging monoculture, by looking beyond just HTML and consider other aspects of the nets infrastructure ([REF](https://anthology.rhizome.org/the-web-stalker)). The hands on approach of making an artwork to explore and exploit the tactical effects of already existing browsers/internet culture, stands in close realtion the the process of critical making in my opinion.

- What’s the link between critical making and tactical media?

I would argue that tactical media is a field within the field of critical making. Tactical media instead as a specific part of society, namely internet culture which is the object of focus. Whereas critical making can be understood very broadly, and be aplied in many situations, tactical media refers mainly to protocol. The approch to tactical media presented in "Protocol - Net art" and "Behind the blip", both emphasize the importance of engaging with the material, in this case the protocol or the code, and focus on its particularity. In the same way critical making demands a hand on approach, not neccesarily a focus on programming or software, but a specific material.

- Initiate 1-2 questions for further discussion in the class.

1) Could everyone engange in the making of tactical media? Fullers text "behind the blip" encourage the social software movement to include people with lesser programming experience or knowledge into the creation of software, but in the same way is this knowledge needed to make tactical media, to interfere with already existing network culture?
2) How can this diagram be understood? What is the relation between the computer, the tool, the network and the art in itself?

#### Johannes

The art piece of Jeff Gates is for me one of the most interesting art pieces as it clearly predicts one of the most publicly discussed issues of the modern-day internet. He did it 20 years earlier! This is clearly a great example for net art, as by using eBay’s auction platform, almost simulates todays commerce with data. Selling to the highest bidder. The tactical aspect of the can be seen through Jeff Gates trying to predict a future with data as currency. He is clearly trying to expose his dystopia of the future. By doing this he is critical of the system and the way it was evolving. This can be understood as ‘’the bottom-up struggle of the networks against the power centers.’’ (Galloway 2004, p. 175)

In terms of critical making, the process of creating the piece would have contributed with reflection of the subject and object. In the text, there is no further explanation of his initial process. But the process of creating might have made him more aware of the system which he has worked within.

From my perspective the link between critical making and tactical media, is the exploration of the object. In this case it is eBay and data. The critical making is focusing on the whole process, which possibly have gained a lot of knowledge and reflection on the objects, while tactical media highlights the issues and seeks reflection from creator and the ‘audience’. But both have the common goal of creating a meaningful reflection upon the object.

Q: Does Net.art have any advantages over other mediums in being tactical?

----

### MX007 - GROUP

_________________

#### Expanding Fullers text on how he describes internet art as "not just art":

Can also be a functioning tool to do a task. In the case of the demetricator, it is an actual add on with an actual effect on the user interface.

Web art is not-just-art in Fullers understanding, it can only come into occurence by being not just it-self, and has to be used. Net art is not something static, but something that evolves through for instances the users interaction with it.

#### What is the relationship between art and culture?

As you can see on the drawing, we interpret the relationship between art and culture, as a movement from having one understanding, and then encountering art, which can create a movement which gives us the oppurtunity to reflect upon culture in a new way.

first you see the circle that is flat, art is not added. Whe dont go in other directions in relation to our reflections upon life, society and culture.

When adding art we create a reflection, that makes another movement, which then makes us reflect upon culture in a new way.



#### How can art enable us to see things, escpecially technological objects in the context of digital culture, differently?

- AS described earlier, it forces us to relfect upon culture in another way. When we encounter art, whether we understand or not, we have to reflect and question what we already know. TEchnological objects are accesible to more people and in the setting of the digital it enables us to reflect upon digital culture.

#### Can you give an artwork example to illustrate that?

https://kunsten.nu/journal/dagens-netkunstner-ben-grosser/

The demitricator is an example of an artwork that changes the digital culture that we are already familiar with. By changing the layout of the known, it makes us reflect upon what we already know, and whether there are more layers to the understanding we have of the culture we already exist in.

Demitricator is an artwork in the sense Fuller represents beacuse it is something that can be used, and somthing that is a tool. If no one interacts with it, you might say that it doesnt have any existing, but when people use it, it can make us reflect, this relation and reflection is the artwork.

### MX008
_________________

#### Ester

Taking inspiration in the table from "*What is web 2.0 - Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software*" shown in the picture below, I've reflected upon which patterns has changed from a users (me) perspective.


I instead have made my own divisions, respectively:


How the web is now, from how it has been earlier present a lot of changes, both in regard to coorporative use of the internet and personal use of the internet. What I find most interesting is how it seems, that the power of the web has moved from being the users playingground to a coorporative playingground for users, controlled by the "owners of the web". The three divisions I made, is three that i find interesting, but three which are also interconnected. When the web was used by beginners, the approach was more explorative in uncovering unknown material/areas/capabilities of the web, where the web now instead is mostly run by "experts", who have taken control of almost all aspects of the web and hereby the web has become commercialised often following very specific design patterns. In this way the users role has change, and a new power relations arise in the use of the web. Before the user was in control, and could almost only engage with the things they were familiar with or understood, now instead most of the functionality of the web is hidden to make it undestandable approachable to more people, and a power relation emerge between the user and the developers of the web. But when this is said, we could ask the question: "is it all bad?". I would argue that there are defintely many problematic aspects in regard to the shift in power relations, but this swift in power is something we see in many other aspects of our culture and history. For instance, language also created a shift in power relations, when philosophers began to deifne how language should be used, or how we could mean something by the language we used. Going from a society were we all communicated with our body language where all could be included, to a society where we have to learn a complex language with gramitcal rules begins to divide people into the groups of people who do not master language, and people who do (who have the possibilities of learning for instance more languages, giving them more power through the possibility of communicating with a wider group). The same shift might be seen in introducing a specific valuta which is controlled by a government, instead of lettting citisens trade goods by defining themselve what it is worth and for what they will exchange their things for. Power relations in this sense are problematic, but they do not only govern the web as it is now, they also govern so many other aspects of othe cultural pratices.

#### Johannes
What interests and sparks reflection for me in these texts is really how sometimes they try to predict the future of the internet in the transition from web 1.0 to 2.0. In What is web 2.0? O’Reilly
writes: ‘’The world of Web 2.0 is also the world of what Dan Gillmor calls "we, the media," a world in which "the former audience", not a few people in a back room, decides what's important.’’ This is trying to show that there might be a transition with more democratic principles occurring. But this is an I issue, I have thought alot about a lot lately. As most people know, influencers have become a huge part of most people lives. These people have lately had bad connotations. Influencing young people, I negative ways. Leading to body dysmorphia and even making some subscribe to conspiracy theories. In this regard, the ‘democratization’ have had a negative impact on certain groups and, funny enough, democracy itself. But on the other hand, we saw what the internet and free people can do to create awareness of issues. This have become known lately through the free journalists in China, illegally reporting on the Corona Virus situation in Wuhan. This possibility has been enabled by the internet. Therefore some aspects of the prediction of the future internet have been true, but at the same time there is some really bad aspects which has developed out of this.

### MX009
_________________

How the website looked:


Our changes:


We have chosen to change the rhetoric of the danish asylum application site. We have changed the text from the alreday existing site, into a more critical perspective on what will happen when you apply, with inspiration from danish asylum cases.

Futhermore we have changed the layout, by changing the background picture into a picture of the reality some refugees come from.

We havent changed the colours of the layout, since we wanted it to look official, to put into focus the content on the page, such as; text and images.

We chose this site, because we believe that it gives false hopes about what will happen when you apply for asylum, in this way we create awareness about an already existing problem.

### Is this a form of critical making?

WE learn something about the material while we are working, in this way we begin to refelct upon the funtionality of the different elements, and how they can easily be changed. Therefore the choices of the developers becomes very clear.

### Is this Internet art?

If we had done it differently, and instead of changing the conten, changes the layout into for instance something less understandable, it might have been a form of internet art in the way that it explores or works critically with the material of the internet.

Our approach instead takes a critical stand toward politics. Therefore the content is more critical, therfore not neccesarily internet art.

### what might be the current web?

### MX010
_________________

#### Ester

I have chosen to focus on a few particular problem statements to frame my reflections, respectively;

From: **ARTBASE ARCHIVE: CONTEXT & HISTORY**

1. Preservation
- Emulation
- Reinterpretation

**Emulation:**

Emulation is a method which the ARTBASE archive/Rhizome has used to preserve artworks. The problem with preserving internet art consist in the changes that browsers and networks go through since the creation of the atwork. By using emulation as a method one can create/emulate the enviroment that it was created in as described below:

"*The efficiency of this system lies in the fact that the bottom layer
– hardware infrastructure – and the mid layer – the operating system – within
a computing environment stack are abstracted from the top layer – the digital artefact.*" (page 57)

In this way one can open or observe an artwork in the browser one uses, though the artwork is opened in the emulated browser. The problem rises when the artwork builds upon networked connections wince one cannot emulate the whole internet.

This makes me ask the question that is also presented in the article: *“What would it mean to have two copies in two places?” (ibid)*.(page 11) Is the artwork actually the same, when it is emulated? This solves the problem of short term preservation versus longterm preservation, although one can wonder about how the material of the artwork then is presented. Is it true to the original artwork? And how important is the material, the hardware, software, browser for the way in which the artwork functions, and can we understand the artwork if we are not presented with it in its original setting.

Futhermore it brings the question of bibliographic pratices. In the essay: "*Bibliography and the sociology of texts*",(1999) D.F. Mckenzie argues that when doing bibliography one will always be confronted with the fact that through representation of a work, one do changes to its originality. On the other side Mc.kenzie argues that the understanding of a text, here meaning a book artwork a piece of code ect. is determined by the sociology of the text, the situation in which the text is presented. Therefore we can never have an artwork for instance that can stand alone, it will always be affected by the social situation in which it is situated. Therefore, when preserving artworks we will always have to bring in our own situatedness. We can therefore never, no matter how we preserve an artwork, preserve it as it was originally created.

**Reinterpretation:**

Another way of preserving an artwork is reinterpretation, which is where one fixes or changes the source of the artwork so it will function in for instance the current browser we use, as explained below:

"*Reinterpretation calls for delving into the uncompiled source
of the software, and repairing whatever is the root cause of its obsolescence. In some cases this may be as simple as altering the format of the compiled software, while in others it may call for a fundamental re-write of the software’s source code.” (Fino-Radin, 2011)*." (page 59)

As a method of software preservation, reinterpretation presents the most radical move away from the original work - But again I wonder; is presevartion not already a way of reinterpreting the artwork?

As argued earlier, if we follow D.F. Mckenzies theory of the sociology of the text, any method of preservation will be a reinterpretation of a work. And instead I would ask the question is there even a original work? I wont answer this question because I think it doesnt have one response, it is up for discussion.

.

From: **Database Fever and the Archival Web**

1. Archive versus database with a search field

*"For the archive, this shift means that there is a permanent emphasis on transfer, rather than storage (Ernst 2013, 202), in which memory is ‘collectively (re)constructed (and recon- textualized) in the present rather than collected and pre- served from the past’ (Hogan, 2015, 10)."* (Page 35)

"*The reliance on algorithms to process images and retrieve texts also presents a shift in focus from storage to retrieval in mnemonic labour.* "(Page 38)

This text present another perspective on archivel pratices, instead of researching preservation, the problem consist in the amount of data we store and how we memorise and retrieve this data.

This is interesting from a user perspective, how do we understand the data we create? There has for instance been a change in how we take pictures, and how we "store" memories. From the analog camera, where the memories were printed and in some cases archived in physical albums, to digital pictures, where we have so much storage space that we dont have to consider how the picture is taken, or of what, we can take as amny pictures as we like, and they are all stored in our phones or computers or in the cloud. But the amount of data makes us blind to what we actually created or stored, because we rarely delete the pictures that were not good, and chose the one picture that captured the moment best, as we would have done with the analog camera. When we then want to find something specific, we search for it, because we are not able to overlook the massive amount of pictures in aour digital albums.

**Futher reflections:**

*Beyond internet art, what other forms of archives are challenging but interesting to you? *

As mentioned before I find our practice of storing and taking pictures very interesting. Futhermore the massive data created by our actions online is very interesting but even more massive, that it makes it even more difficult to comprehend.

*Why do we need archives in digital culture, and what’s the role of archival practice in wider digital cuture?*

I am not sure we need these archives in the way we use them today. As the text: ""I am not sure we need these archives in the way we use them today. As the text: "" argues, the database and storing of information has become increasingly commercialised. And i dont think this is a good solution, it prompts us to by more, show more, do more, in a culture were we are already working more than we maybe should healthwise. How to change this pratice im not sure, but as the example I introduced earlier, a move towards using analog cameras have emerge, which is maybe an example of how to try to change this practice. Moving from the digital archive to the smaller analog/physical archives.

_________________

#### Johannes

Can you locate the articles’ problem statements?

In the texts they try to explore the importance and effects of archives. In Accumulate , Arhchive, Destroy, How archives are being centralized and controlled is being explored. Everything we do online is run through these. These archives consist of data being transferred and moved through different databases, exchanged for money and business improvement. In Artbase History they talk about archives as an issue of preservation.

How do the authors contextualize the issues?

Through examples as the ftp server. We used to upload every single thing to our own archives on a webpage. Being able to control and see every single created file and code. Today most of the internet is run through giant server farms. Artbase History use the example of trying to preserve net.art, trying to sort, create meta-data and keep the originality of the artworks.

Beyond internet art, what other forms of archives are challenging but interesting to you? Why do we need archives in culture, and what’s the role of archival practice in wider culture?

Well archives in the classic instance, before the internet, has been used to get insights to the old ways of doing stuff. This can be seen as every major city have a physical archive where we can access old pictures and building plans for houses and buildings throughout the city. This gives an insight into how the city have developed and what have been in focus at that time. In the same way the internet archives can do the same. Today archives are being used as in the instance in artbase history as way to understand how the internet used to be, while saving all the important stuff from the internet. In the same way archives can be used to understand our development and usage of the internet and what the future might hold. In both negative and positive regards, when AI’s and people try to enhance aspects of the internet for the users.

>Mikael's MX010

Both of the texts have a strong focus on meta-data and the how these affect the accessibility of whatever they refer to or describe. In the text "Accumulate, Aggregate, Destroy" the importance of meta-data is described as a result of the challenges of machine vision and algorithmic analysis. While meta-data in the case of ArtBase is more an issue of how they can make a database that is both compatible with other databases, and at the same time has the flexible that the content of the archive requires.

I find the discrepancy between the common phrase "nothing disappears on the internet" and the need for a digital archive interesting. It seems like when we don't want something to survive on the web, it thrives, and when we want something to survive, suddenly the links to it are dead, and updated browsers make it inaccessible. This also points to why we need a digital archives. Traditionally archives enable us to explore cultures and history, and with the speed with which digital culture develops archiving becomes very important if we want to be able to explore or explain the early days of the internet, which some might argue we are still in.

### MX011
_________________

Together as a group, what are the issues and cultural phenomenon that the archival techniques are addressing? What is an archive? What are they archiving? What are the potential and limitation of these techniques? How do these techniques allow you to think about internet culture differently?

In the case of the Webrecorder we found it interesting that it highlights how important interaction is on the internet. Just archiving a static image of a page would not be representative of the experience of visiting the page. The WayBack machine also keeps some of the interactivity, but lacks the ability to navigate the page through links, while a screenshot completely removes all interactivity.

This lack of interactivity is really a symptom of the fact, that most of the underlying code is not being saved. This made us think of how complex it would be to both try to keep all interactivity and therefore saving alot of data, and at the same point minimizing the weight of the data.

### MX012
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### Ester

1. what is/are commons? are you familiar with this concept/practice? have you come across it before this session? if so in what circumstances?

I was not familiar with the concept of commons before. Although reading about commons I have known about their existences through another discourse. For instance shared ressources, such as what the forrest was earlier, before it was owned by particular people. The discourse of commons that we ahve read about now, presents me with reflections towards their different occurences, namely; Commons as a resource (objects), commoning as a practice (creating or making commons), and lastly communities where commoners share or work with the commons that exist in this community.

Loose reflections:

When talking about these shared things, in the discourse of commonings, it becomes a bit difficult for me to grasp what exactly commons are, and what they are not. What are the boundaries of commons. Can all do the act of commoning and who defines the community around commons? If commons are created for instance in the negative space as in the exmaple with Gridr, as explained by Tyzlik-carver: "*this question inquires about compositional elements of the image more broadly, which always includes positive and negative spaces, where the first refers to the subject of the image and the latter defines the space surrounding it; relation between the two influences aesthetic potential of the image. In case of GRIDr, negative space is framed as a grid and while exposing gaps it activates another level images are coded into autonomous collections outside of their original context*."(13), negative spaces are often the things we do not recognise as for instance being a part of an artwork, the space in between the youtube videos will not at first be seen as an important part of the exhibition. so how do we begin to see in another way if we are to recognise the commons in the negative spaces we are presented with?

3. find an image that best visualises how you understand or imagine commons. Save that image in your computer and bring it to the session.


Risskov wood, which is once a year filled with the plant wild garlic, which people who visits the woods can collect and bring home to cook. It is a shared resource, which is placed in a state/community owned woods, but the plant in it self is no ones in particular.

5. think of 3 - 5 words (nouns, verbs, adjectives), which in some way describe the values you associate with commons.

Practice
shared
opinionated
boundaryless/enclosed
Performance

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### MX013 - GROUP

**What kind of free and open source software that you like? Why?**

We discussed the different kinds of Open source software that we use.

For instance:

- Wordpress
- Processing
- Modelling for instance, for 3d printing

Processing, because it is an open platform, that works towards programming literacy. Depending on level of programming experience you can either contribute to the "core" of the programing enviroment, fix bugs, use the libraries for own projects, or share your "beginner" code. It becomes kind of a common, with a community.

**If you have to choose to discuss one aspects of FLOSS, how would you approach this?**

We find the commercial aspect of FLOSS, both interesting and confusing.

It is mentioned by Mansoux that FLOSS is made in a capitalist society, and that it therefore is not incompatible with such a society. However, this is a little confusing to us, since a core value of FLOSS is the freedom to edit and distribute software freely - so how does this play into capitalist thinking?

If we were to investigate this aspect of FLOSS, we would make a comparative analysis of different software belonging to FLOSS. How these differentiate in the ways software is copied, altered and reshared, and which commercial pratices these softwares implement.

### Brain dumping

#### Ester

I think what I will take from this block is the concept of commons and all the things related to that. It seems to me to be a good group of words, Commons as resources, community and practice to discuss different topics. So this I will certainly have in mind for the coming synopsis. I also think the different difficulties and power relations that can emerge in a commoning practice is interesting, how communities can agree on how to understand specific commons, how do they work as resources, what are the rules in the commoning practice and who is in charge.

Futhermore I found the workshop with aymeric interesting. And difficult. Working with your own server was a computational area that I didnt have any experience with, and it was therefore interesting to open that door. But at the same time difficult to understand what exactly we were doing. It was blackboxed in the sense, that learning specific commands in command line was helpful, but how does these commands refer to hardware software level when you write them. Also, one thing that we didnt touch upon thouroughly was the concept of security when working with a database. Which I found both important and interesting. When you dont have any knowledge in the area how do you then begin to work with servers without making your own "trap to fall into". Ezpecially regarding the last part that everyone didnt participate in, but where we installed git on the server, and how, if we didnt close it for new users, it would most likely be infiltrated by spam and users that we dont know. This would most likely have happened if we didnt have someone experienced as aymeric to guide us. So what are the things you have to be aware of,,,'

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### MX015 - GROUP

Since we have some former experience with Machine Learning we found it interesting how this simplified version presented the concept. The image datasets have no metadata except for what color the image should be categorized as.

When we gave the learner the "training data", we experienced that our different categories had more overlap than we had thought. This illustrated the difference in how we see images and how machine vision processes an image.

Goggles teachable machine doesnt necesarily have the same many layers as more advanced machine learning algorithms. Therefore training this machine might not present the same boundaries or biases as more extensive algortihms. On the other hand we still see bias or boundaries in this simple model. Because it for example cant recognise different skintones (by experiementing with lighting). Having a simple algortihm like this we can better uncover the biases, instead of an algortihm building upon tonsæ of data.

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### MX018 -

**Feedback for group 4**

We do understand why you compare commons and opensource software. Though we believe that your assignment would benefit from a clear distinction between the two. The two concepts flow into eachother as one unit in the way you use it, both in the podcast and in the written part of your assignment.

Overall it would have been nice that you define the terms you use, both the important theoretical ones, but also concept such as ownership, because in this context ownership can mean quite different things.

You seem to have a nice research question;

"*It is then not only relevant to look at defining whether or not Wikipedia can be viewed as a commons, but also what ethical questions can be raised in relation to how the commons is operating.*"

But it seems that you dont really follow up on it as much as we as listeners or readers would like.

In the podcast most parts seems mostly explanatory/analytic. It could have been nice if you had included reflections on a higher taxonomic level or followed up on the research questions. Such as how the users decide how and with what to contirbute with, and how this might interfere or adhere with what the foundation of wikipedia wants.