# Esters site


## 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 and other reflections

### MX001
_______________
Reading the introduction of Digital Keywords by Benjamin Peters, made me think about language in general. The theme of this book is of course Digital keywords, which the book organises in 4 different categories, subjects, objects, things and relational enviroments. Although as Benjamin also mentions, it is not possible to separate what we might call the digital language, from the natural language. Metaphors drawing on our experience of the natural world constitute our understanding of a digital keyword, whether it be clouds or algorithms. Originally these metaphors were created or chosen in order to convince or explain an audience about a specific argument, function or perspective. Leading me to the use of natural language in a rhetoric situation. The Rhetoric Bitzer constitutes the rhetoric situation as consisting of exigence, audience and constraints. But what was exigence, audience and constraints when “cloud” moved from our natural language as a natural/physical phenomenon into our digital language as a keyword for a storage unite, that many might still believe is something floating around above us somewhere. Maybe the people choosing or initiating the understanding of storage space as the cloud, didn’t think about the rhetoric power such a word can incur. Are these words chosen more at random, or what has the incitement been in the process of chosing a digital keyword such as cloud. How does language constitute the meaning of the cloud? Or is it instead our knowledge of the digital cloud that constitutes a new understanding of language? Furthermore, how can we express ourselves and talk about these digital keywords if were don’t have the same united/social understanding of the keywords.
Language constitutes meaning and meaning likewise constitutes language. Similar to how Kathrine Hayles reflects upon the posthuman and argues that we should not leave out the embodiment of the posthuman. Referring back to rhetoric, hereby meaning the act of constituting meaning in a audience, we cannot leave out the environment in which this happens in. Depending on when and where and to whom we present our metaphors of language, the situation has great impact on the result or the conclusion of meaning. If we look at digital literature, for example a chronic published online on a newspaper website, we might not have the physical happening of the author presented her arguments to the audience, but we relate and search for our understanding in the real world, in the physical environment to understand why the author present her arguments in the way she does. Who is she? In which situation did she write this article? Which real life events prompted her to write the article? Which other actors was she influenced by? And how will this digital article create new movements or discussions of meaning in new environments? Just as Hayles talks about how we earlier understood the world as a clockwork from Einstein’s theories, we now understand humans and the world more and more as computation. Therefore, the things we interact with, the governing understandings of our time will influence how we understand both ourselves and the environments we are a part of. Therefore, as technology changes and develops our understanding of ourself, the posthuman, the world simultaneously changes and develops.

### MX002
_______________

#### 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

### MX003 GROUP
_______________


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 GROUP
_______________

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

### MX005 GROUP
_______________

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
_______________

#### 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?

### 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
_______________

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.

### MX009 GROUP
_______________

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
_______________

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.

### MX011 GROUP
_______________

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
_______________

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

Qoutes:

*The hypothesis of the research project is that art and commons can offer new theoretical and aesthetic models that point beyond the commercialization of culture and the project showcases how artists are involved in practices of making commons. (3)*

*intermedia” Intermedia refers to the location
“between media,” which is where, according to Higgins, most of the best work was being produced (5)*

*“so much of what is routine, reasonable, intuitive, and codified reproduces unjust social arrangements, without ever burning a cross to shine light on the problem.”34 oppresion technologies (7)*

*Commoning as a practice of commons is not a means to an end, but rather it focuses
on the practice and means of living where subsistence is the source of and for the community. (7)*

*Becoming part of commons, is a struggle for self-representation and the projects in the exhibition address it as an intervention into a form.(11)*

*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 (Negation)

Crafting commons /commoning

Performing commons?

Commons

### Notes for magdas lecture:

What is your undersanding of posthumanism, umbrealla or posthumanism?

I think, therefore I am

commons and posthumanism -> consider the materiality of the body

Commons is often about access, but often it IS own by someone

THe commons always assume a plural subject, a

### 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.

### MX014 GROUP
_______________

Glossary: https://hackmd.io/Upka9dCsRRGOD40u6HMGfA?both
______________
#### Introduction to data + An introduction to image datasets: (INDIVIDUAL REFLECTIONS)

**“data”;**

A defined entity that can consist of for instance a single number, but a data point can also consist of for instance an image in which more information is stored in a binary form. Data can therefore take many forms.

**“machine learning”;**

Definition: A computer program is said to learn from experience E with respect to some class of tasks T and performance measure P, if its performance at tasks in T, improves with experience E (Mitchell 1997, 2).

Sometimes machine learning devices are understood as scientific models, and some­ times they are understood as operational algorithms.

(Mackenzie 1)

**“datasets”;**

A dataset in computer vision is a curated set of digital photographs that developers use to test, train and evaluate the performance of their algorithms. (Malevé, 1)

Denpending on the reason of creating the dataset, it can consist of different entities, such as numbers, text, etc. And are similarly used to test, train and evaluate algortihms.

Gathering a dataset is a curating practice either setting the entry rules for what can be included, or manually curating which data to include. Malevé argues that "With more data come more variations", taken into account that the data is chosen in accordance with specific "rules", I would like to raise the question of what this variation represents?
__________________

### 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

### MX015 GROUP
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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 tonse of data.

### MX016
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Taking "Against personalisation of the self", as the frame of reflection, different concepts/problems/questions come to mind.

One thing I find interesting is how google uses the IP adress of the computer which performs queeries, to deliver answers to these queeries. This is also one of the main points of Rigdways discussion of anonymity when using search engines. It seems that originally the purpose of search engines was to make information acceseble. This is still what for instance google search does, but at the same time it restricts the searches by altering or controlling which information is delivered. From googles point of view it makes sense to incorporate the ip adress into the analysis of the user, and which results the user "wants", in regard to language, country etc. the information the user is presented with might be more understandable and therefore accesible, but the problem becomes the fact that we are governed by what google deems relevant, from putting us into groups or collevtives of personalisation. So we are not even presented with what WE individually want, but what a group of other people like us want. How can we ever make individual searches if we are governed by the group we "belong to". In the same way, when Rigdway uses Tor and the tor search engine, she is placed in a collective of people. Tor compares these to collectives, the personalisation collevtives of google, and the anonymous collective of Tor. She argues that even though tor is also a collective, it is more free, and more open than the google collevtive. Which I would defintely agree to. On the other hand, I could imagine that the Tor collective presents another grouping of people, that is still relevant to take into consideration. Due to the fact that Tor and the P2P network is lesser known, more technical and often requires a bigger knowledge of its functionality before people choose to use it, this i Imagine will present a group which in itself has very specific interest, which therefore begin to govern the interest of the collective. To which extend I am not sure, because the users of the tor network is anonymous, but it seems that a user of tor needs to have knowledge of particular kind to engange in a practice where the user can stay anonymous. This group does most likely not represent the everyday user of google, facebook etc.

Questions for reflection:

- How does putting people into groups, based on similar insterest, affect the way in which the group can develop their interest? Does this practice not just create a redudant feedback loop?
- How is the collective of Google different from the collective of the P2P network and Tor?

- What is the difference between controlling bias before and after implementation of software (for instance in the case of google search, computer vision, etc.)
_________

https://excavating.ai

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### MX017 GROUP

**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.

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### MX018 SYNOPSIS DRAFT

### Subjectification through biased object mediation

**Introduction:**

In recent studies of digital culture or through internet art we are continuously confronted with the learned or innate bias of software, protocols, automated and predictive technologies. For instance, how facial recognition algorithms have not learned to detect faces with different skin tones, and therefore can’t recognize people with dark skin color, or how men and women are displayed differently in an image search on google where doctors are men, and nurses are women, or how gender identities are only understood in a binary form, either man or woman, and if people identify otherwise is categorized as abnormal. Although these examples are very important in regard to how we, through digital culture, understand ourselves as individuals, we’ve centralized the human and lost sight of the things surrounding it. Similar to the way in which bias influence the way humans are depicted, bias occur when objects; whether it be nature, food or artefacts are depicted in digital culture, particularly the way in which objects are depicted and categorized in image datasets. Therefore, this project puts the objects in focus, to explore the ways in which objects are mediated in image datasets, and how this mediation raises similar concerns in relation to bias, and how these biases may influence the way in which people understand themselves in relation to objects, and the objects that surround them.

**Problem statement:**

This project will aim to study how Image datasets can be understood as discourses, and how these discourses may mediate objects in a specific way. In particular this project will through a feminist approach to critical making investigate whether bias in the mediation of objects contribute to cultural constitution of subjects and if so, how individuals/subjects can engage in contestation against the discourses and power-relations that the datasets and inherent biases represent. Finally, to discuss the consequences of not engaging in contestation, and which implications this will have on our cultural understanding of objects and ourselves.

**Description of topic:**

Mark Poster argues in “Databases as Discourse, or Electronic Interpellations”, that computerized data bases function as discourses in Foucault’s sense of the term, namely the way in which they constitute subjects through language (1995, 78). Poster argue that describing databases as discourses is a relevant tool in analysing the relation of databases to the cultural issue of the constitution of the subject (Ibid., 79). Discourses are configured as a form of power, where power is understood as operating in part through language. The databases that Mark Poster refer to, are mainly databases that contain personal identifiable information, whereas the object of analysis of this paper are Image datasets in general. Foucault argues that discourses have several forms, one of which being an ordered practice which takes account of a certain number of statements (Ibid., 82). Therefore, I argue that one can still describe the current forms of databases as discourses, where an image dataset can be seen as a practice of ordering images in relation to categories, and therefore takes account of a number of statements. An example of this is the ImageNet dataset. This dataset consists of about ten million images, which are manually annotated, sorted and organised according to a taxonomy (Malevé 2019). (Here short analysis of ImageNet as discourse). Furthermore, I argue that the way in which we understand the objects around us, simultaneously contributes to the constitution of subjects, and the way in which we understand ourselves, due to human-thing dependencies. Archaeologist Ian Hodder argues that humans through history have focused on our agency upon objects, and therefore not acknowledged the way in which humans are also dependent on objects, both in relation to personality and objects as tools (Hodder 2011). Similar to the way in which Poster argues that subjects are not fixed entities, Hodder argues that objects and our understanding of them changes through time, and with this follows the understanding of ourselves. I therefore argue that the way in which subjects are confronted with a specific mediation of an object in an imageNet database also contributes to the practice of subjectification. The way in which objects are presented through the discourse of ImageNet therefore feeds into our cultural understanding of ourselves and the objects with which we interact.

**Method:**

The way in which this project will approach critical making, is by employing a feminist perspective drawing upon Donna Harroway’s theory of Situated knowledges (1988). In particular this project will draw on the critical making approach adversarial design, to design a product that does the work of agonism. Doing the work of agonism refers to works that express or enable a particular political perspective and allows the observer/user to engage in contestation (Di salvo 2012, 2-4). Furthermore, a method in adversarial design is computational information design, which aim is to reveal hegemony: “Revealing hegemony is a tactic of exposing and documenting the forces of influence in society and the means by which social manipulation occurs. “ (Ibid., 35). By employing the medium of computational information design, questions regarding manipulation of data in relation to data visualization occurs. Therefore, this project will draw on the method of visceralization presented by Klein and D’Ignazio in the book “Data Feminism” (2020), where editorial choices, disclosure of subject position and the use of emotion in data visualization are put into focus.


In order to work through this approach, this project will first collect data from people in the form of a controlled experiment, where people are asked either to name 5 everyday objects, to take picture of 5 everyday objects, or to name objects in pictures from other participants, or lastly to take pictures of objects from other participants list of objects. The purpose of the experiment is to begin to reflect upon how people categorise objects in images, and how people would display specific categories through images. Subsequently the process of creating an adversarial design will follow. The aim of the design is to visualise the hegemony and discourse Image datasets represents, and to let the user engage in contestation either through reflection or by contributing to the final design themselves. The final product most likely will be created by programming a data visualisation or a platform for contributing to a database as a communing practice.

**Discussion points:**

- Can a more inclusive practice of gathering data create another form of power-relation in the dataset discourse?
1) Commons and commoning practice as a solution?
2) Discourse Mark Poster; would it not just create another discourse that mediates objects, still in at specific way?

- Can we work with partiality as opposed to universality, as proposed by Donna Harroway, when working with datasets?
1) How can we join individual practices of gathering data into a joined dataset that meets the requirements for use as training data for computer vision, without losing the partiality and in this way falling into the already existing “universal” practice which is influenced by bias?

- What does all of this say about digital culture, beside cultural constitution of subjects?
1) Maybe incorporate circuit of culture.

- Difference between using Amazon mechanical turk for annotations, versus commoning practice

**Bibliography:**

* De Angelis, Massimo, and Stavros Stavrides. “On the Commons: A Public Interview with Massimo De Angelis and Stavros Stavrides.” e-flux 17 (2010).
* D'Ignazio, Catherine, and Lauren F. Klein. Data Feminism. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2020.
* DiSalvo, Carl. Adversarial Design. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2015.
* Harroway, Donna. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies 4, no. 3 (1988): 575–99.
* Hodder, Ian. “Human-Thing Entanglement: towards an Integrated Archaeological Perspective.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 7, no. 1 (2011): 154–77.
* Poster, Mark. “Databases as Discourses, or Electronic Interpellations.” Essay. In The Second Media Age, 78–94. Polity Press, 1995.

https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/9553/7721


## Nptes for nynnes presentation

* Databases as discourses (mark poster)

* categories versus user defined inputs --> how does this apply to image datasets?

* From analysis to outcome --> categorisation (This can be followed up on in the discussion)

* intention versus "untention"

why you chose the objects of analysis (Do you know why it is relevant before you make the analysis?)

* Zine (fanzine + magazine)

* how does your cirtical making inform your subject or critical matter

* limitations and oppoutunities, which belong to specific cultures and stories --> what is the standpoint of your critical making

* Catherine D'Ignazio & Laura Klein's data feminism (2020)

* intersectional feminist approach
* Citational politics

Do we need an object analysis?

When does the object need to be done?

what is the limitation of critical making?