OurNetworks Planning 2020-08-16

--- tags: meeting notes --- # OurNetworks Planning 2020-08-16 4-7pm EST via Zoom JOIN CALL: https://nyu.zoom.us/j/96488511351?pwd=Y2hzVElQQW5WSGhYelVNcW03OWJkUT09 **Attending**: Casey, Emma, Katie **Facilitator**: Emma **Notetakers**: Emma, Casey ## Agenda - Remote Conf. and Presentation Best Practices - Dan Taeyoung - Opportunity to be interactive - Google Slides, editable by everyone - Shape in the corner that people can copy-paste to add feedback - Quick introductions in chat - Shared annotation with Zoom whiteboards - Blank slide with text - Map of where you're from - Zoom vs Google - both can be anonymous - zoom is more ephemeral - Dot voting format - Screenshare with phone or iPad - Slack, Arena, Jamboard, Screen.so, Miro, Conceptboard, Overhead camera, Prezi - Collab notes on Google Docs or Piratepad - Time check - Individual thinking/working time then coming back - Ending at 7 - Review [OurNetworks Workshop Planning](/CggdgrujSriY06lB_t2tGQ) [10m] - Casey thoughts - pull from eyebeam video but go much further - slides should be really visual, pull from the archive - site search (site:disorientations.org networks) for anything about technology, networks, campaign building - some way of visualizing TOC cross-connections... -- even if we don't have the interface or language/taxonomy yet can we gesture towards this? - UNC mapping - ""thesis statement"": we need other kinds of networks, they already exist in other forms -- "these publications and the act of making them are a form of decentralized organizing" -- so what kind of networks/technologies would look/work like this? (feminist server --> diso server) good to literally engage people on (whiteboard question) - what are our questions? reframing it all through questions - "generate metaphorical ways of thinking about networks thru lens of activist publishing" - "thinking about diso in own system, and contexts" - """disorientation vs. disruption""" - "thinking about making networks and tech accessible" to student activists - aggregating tools - movement technology -- mayfirst - "campaign memory" - julian oliver - dan phiffer - occupy.here https://radicalnetworks.org/archives/2016/participants/dan-phiffer/ - julia weist nestor sirie - el paquete seminal - zine librarianship - mutual aid tech - HOTOSM - docnow - project stand - technology is not the answer, paper works lol -- cardboard computer - resource list - can be a placeholder for now but casey can also pull together into better shape today and should get emma and katie's thoughts on how to structure it and where explanation is needed - invitation to collaborate with us or without us - Emma thoughts - "new/alternative networks" <-> "new/alternative worlds (ways of relating, ways of sharing information)" ... here is one such example of an alternative network and here are some of its qualities... - "refracts back" - what can student publicated disos teach us about networks - some participant takeaways ([copy and pasted](https://jamboard.google.com/d/1wlPscwSuErztrkzVvyUqq6Z4BSZzNsFJ_GDrqBGyidA/edit)) - "Generative metaphorical ways of thinking about networks through the lens of activist publishing" - "relate disorientations to personal relationships to institutions -- how do you disorient anything and everything" / "thinking about "disorientation" in their own systems" - "thinking about making networks and technologies accessible as tools for collaboration" - "Open opportunity to help imagine/build something, to anybody with time/energy to collaborate" - questions participants could walk away with - how do we get to those questions? - if i were a participant signing up for this workshop (?) - both slides and resource list should be editable? - Katie - how do we incorporate takeaways into different segments - meeting cool ppl = making sure we have a discussion point where we're asking for generative info - becoming more proficient by teaching = info dump on what are disos and archiving - asking ppl to consider own relationships -- big question(s) -emphasized notes: - "Open opportunity to help imagine/build something, to anybody with time/energy to collaborate" => - "become more proficient with tools by teaching them" => create resource list and informational intro to disos/diso archive - "meet cool people" => use question/discussion time to share ideas - relate disorientations to personal relationships to institutions -- how do you disorient anything and everything // thinking about "disorientation" in their own systems => use question/discussion to invite people to consider these relationships/institutions - thinking about making networks and technologies accessible as tools for collaboration // talking about/aggregating other tools besides issuu and how to connect with student groups => - Generative metaphorical ways of thinking about networks through the lens of activist publishing => - Goal today: [Work on slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1hkHo7UnfgR8BtjdYD7q-a_ehkyAf99f_yX5eJwR45oY/edit?usp=sharing) - open to funky formatting - fun powerpoint animations????/can also be very simple - intros - what we know - what we're doing - where we see it going - open discussion/guiding questions -- questions you want to leave with - [5 min break] - Logistics? How long the workshop is + formats - intro question - pre-introduction - in order to give an intro have to say what this is and will come back to it in a sec... - what is a disorientation zine? - dot vote: has anyone read or made one? - origin story of this project - impetus: get activist materials off a shitty ad-supported platform onto something better - where it is now: basic archive - show a bunch of zines here - where it's going... - we'll come back to it, but what kinds of archival p2p whatever technologies come to mind -- something we want to discuss right after the presentation - - introduction info dump (visuals) - (take turns / alternating even slide-by-slide) - **what's a disorientation, what is the idea of disorientation -- this is where we can go in on the metaphor itself** - what is disorientation the concept? - whiteboard words - what does it mean to be oriented or disoriented and what are the circumstances that create that? - fun house, vortex, compass - disorientation as a concept is passive - what is disorientation like to activists? - for activists disorientation is a tool -- it's a verb, "i am going to disorient you" - personal practice to say i want to exist in a state of disorientation, to remain unmoored from easy narratives - comes from new student orientation at university - rewriting status quo - paradigms - (dis)sent - disorientation as in getting lost but also directly in opposition to one of the immediate ways an institution attempts to define clear norms - inoculation in medical terms is a vaccine, in activist terms you think of what your opponent is going to say and you come up with a response so that you're not surprised when they do say it. a linguistic thing - metaphors we live by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphors_We_Live_By - **how does this relate to "networks"** - doesn't have to do with a computer, happens in a local space, specific time, specific group of people -- what's the network here? - what the archive project is showing, across time and space, without super centralized coordination, there appears to be a recurring need to feel some other kind of way/say some other kind of thing. (the archive reveals the network) - emergent/protocol? throw one thing at me and i'll throw something else back - intentional vs. unintentional networks - stigmergy/ant thing: how ants coordinate in space, not networked like a computer/in electricity where there's a grid; here there's no grid, only the nodes, but you can imagine the lines, of the mind - an imagined collaboration, untimely collaboration, you look at different people (not necessarily) working together but they are collaborating on some sense on broader social movements happening. without being in touch you can be part of the same conversation. - networks and networked communication is thought of as real time; zines are messages that might not reach each other but are part of the same conversation - most salient: archive is a tool to connect the dots and make the network visible. relates back to campaign memory, activism as intergenerational, operating in a sea of other things -- time and space dimensions - discussion points - what does this look like? - very familiar to us -- with good table setting someone can properly situate you, you don't need to be an expert - small breakouts? pairs? - tell your partner about a time where you were oriented/disoriented - everybody has individual experiences - zoom whiteboard shareout / google slides - mostly considering thing people are being oriented/disoriented to as an institution, but could think of it as part of different networks, different parts of or ways of using networks -- human network, norms/ideas/values network -- relevant metaphor there? - disorientations are instruction manual, here's a university, here's instructions on how to use it incorrectly -- hacking, intentionally incorrect. - phone phreaking - hypothetical discussion: what kinds of networks, ants/stigmergy, whales, plants - networks = communication - smoking a beehive - technologies have politics - institutions, technologies, plants and animals - norms in general - table setting for disorientation and orientation; you're not literally pointed in a direction but you're subtly being conditioned or guided down a certain path - **we can ask people more broadly: this is a conference about technology but feel free to think about a plant, animal, or institution or a social norm, and think about what's something in your life...how are artifacts, traditions orienting you?** - two cheers for anarchism: you should practice breaking rules every day in tiny ways (eg: jaywalking), innocuous/everyday acts of transgression from the banal to the systemic, global historical - **what technologies does this remind you of/does this look like? do people wanna share examples of technologies** - networks can be status quo/violent, universities are connected with capital, etc. - activists are also complicit, university is connected to the prison, etc. even the concept of networks aren't fundamentally good or bad or liberatory, they just symbolic of the imbrication with everything else - facebook, twitter, etc. that are guiding ppl in certain directions and enforcing ways people relate - in the context of student activism, disorientation is a zine, but in the context of technology its an instruction, a virus, browser extension. different interventions within technology. disorientations are persuasive, information about a different paradigm. - facebook suicide bomb manifesto -- everyone using the internet has a shadow facebook account, that becomes associated with your profile if you sign up, don't delete your data, have the ghost of you. if you want to mess with facebook, you have to like every single post and post a ton of random crap that doesn't make sense. inserting garbage into the system...if value is being generated by the algorithim you devalue it/disorient it. technology poses new threads, how to oppose algorithims is new/uncharted - questions - keep it very simple - drawing networks out - drawing a floor plan is actually kind of hard, what's a good way to visualize networks? slide with examples? - beta test with ourselves - something about the form of disorientations that the presentation itself can be backwards or upside down? - 2 hours but we don't have to use up all of it ## Decisions - Next OurNEtworks meeting 8/30/2020 4-7PM EST - Postpone Laurel 19 or 20 (Casey out of town) -- 23rd? - ## Next Steps - copypaste into presenter notes - finding visuals - resource guide - revisit citations and make sure they are adequate - link images - emma mini proposal to add to our workshop: draft a disorientation of any scale (disorient your school! disorient your social media! disorient your commute! idk) as a closing activity. (see casey's "two cheers for anarchism") - put "disorientation for activists" -- that verb into mini practice - change the theme so that it's not high contrast (better color scheme for interactive/non interactive slides) - does our networks have captioning/interpretation accommodations?