---
# System prepended metadata

title: 'Our Networks Call - 2022-06-11 [ARCHIVED]'

---

# Our Networks Call - 2022-06-11 [ARCHIVED]

_These notes have been filed!_

 Sat, June 11, 2022 @ 12:00-13:30 ET  
:raising_hand: **Participation:** [`/meet.jit.si/whataboutanournetworks2022`](https://meet.jit.si/whataboutanournetworks2022) and [calendar](https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=aers7atolh0uurlfmkoki9kikg%40group.c
:family: **Attendance:**  
- dc
- garry
- sarah


# Agenda

- check in on theme
- check in on proposal
- Plan/dates discussion

# Notes

- https://www.ctan.org/pkg/tex-gyre-pagella TeX Gyre Pagella >> Open Source Palantino implementation
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant "this is not a commemoration, no great deeds are mentioned here"
- curse saterizing


---

- next meeting: maybe july 2 or july 9 
- #todos
    - sarah: unfinished live production proposal
    - garry: website
    - dawn: iteration on theme
    - ??: ffdw award application
        - dawn emailed abt questions/eligibility

# Our Networks Call - 2022-05-28

:date: **Date:** Sat, May 28, 2022 @ 12:00-13:30 ET  
:raising_hand: **Participation:** [`/meet.jit.si/whataboutanournetworks2022`](https://meet.jit.si/whataboutanournetworks2022) and [calendar](https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=aers7atolh0uurlfmkoki9kikg%40group.c
:family: **Attendance:**  
- mauve
- garry
- sarah
- dc

# Agenda

- Funding
- Dates + Workback 
- CFP Doc Review

# Notes

## Funding 

- Unleashed Pitch
    - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YZjgC7UgE5cWbvC6zSFVoGlmpFTL_X7VrMmF9R6IMcY/edit?usp=drivesdk
    - #todo sarah: got email about pitches, no deadline on their end. Goal: June 11! Stretch June 4, 2022
- FFDW Awards: https://www.ffdweb.org/awards
    - "Public education — Introduce the public to the decentralized web. These programs should inform diverse global audiences about the values, benefits, and compelling use cases of decentralized technologies. (Up to $100,000 per year)" >> proposals@ffdweb.org.
        - RFP Answers Posted: May 6th, 2022
        - RFP Submissions Due and Review Begins: June 21st, 2022
        - RFP Applicants Notified: Week of July 18th, 2022
    - #todo dawn to send email

## Keynotes 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pJfGs_1kC1SdUL8JKrHvWpydGKCfcHWoIyuVScNB430/edit#heading=h.vbl6zv94i7x

---

# 2022-05-14 Our Networks Call 

:date: **Date:** Sat, May 14, 2022 @ 12:00-13:30 ET  
:raising_hand: **Participation:** [`/meet.jit.si/whataboutanournetworks2022`](https://meet.jit.si/whataboutanournetworks2022) and [calendar](https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=aers7atolh0uurlfmkoki9kikg%40group.c
:family: **Attendance:**  
- mauve
- garry
- sarah
- mauve

# Agenda 

- Where we are
- Plan + CFP Doc
- Funding + opps

# Notes

- Where we are: agree on direction, wanted some async brainstorming
- Reviewed and Discussed Plan + CFP Doc
    - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pJfGs_1kC1SdUL8JKrHvWpydGKCfcHWoIyuVScNB430/edit#heading=h.q30v9tlaacjx
#todo: each draft a keynote talk and backstory
- Funding + opps
    - funding artists and platforms for a dweb
    - 10-15k?
    - Start with unfinished
#todo: one-page mash up of sponsorship package and OAC application. Loose budget
    - sarah to draft
- Potentials:
    - Stipend for some people as writers who are wranglers


---

:date: **Date:** Sat, April 9, 2022 @ 12:00-13:30 ET  
:raising_hand: **Participation:** [`/meet.jit.si/whataboutanournetworks2022`](https://meet.jit.si/whataboutanournetworks2022) and [calendar](https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=aers7atolh0uurlfmkoki9kikg%40group.c
:family: **Attendance:**  


# Agenda

- Grants
- Pitches
- Pick ones + next steps

## Potential Grants + Money

TL;DR -- 

- not that many options
- doesn't seem that likely
- would be something for fall 
- work maybe not worth it
- cart before the horse, many of these have a very different funding profile

### Toronto Arts Council

Creative Communities Project Grants
Application Deadlines: February 1 and August 2, 2022
https://torontoartscouncil.org/grant-programs/tac-grants/creative-communities/project-grants

Visual and Media Arts Projects
Application deadlines: March 1 and August 2, 2022. 

### Ontario Arts Council

Media Artists Creation Projects
https://www.arts.on.ca/grants/media-artists-creation-projects
April 7 and October 18, 2022, 1 p.m. ET
Find out in 5 months

### FFDW
https://ffdweb.org/grants
deadlines for submissions are 11:59 PM Pacific Time on March 31, June 30, September 30, and December 31. Proposals should be submitted to proposals@FFDWeb.org as attachments to an email.

https://ffdweb.org/FFDW-proposal-narrative-template.zip


## Proposals -- Themes / Thoughts

- (Do) We Need To Talk About ~~Kevin~~ Web3
- What if we fail to come together collectively? or WNGMI (current doominspo: Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World + current IPCC report + https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/beautiful-losers)
- Networking Ruins (a la The Mushroom at the End of the World) <<- dc: I did an event like this in 2021 fwiw 
- More (solarpunk) hopeful?  


- Sarah: some sounds very similar. conf
- CCRU, hyperstitional, Mark Fisher, how to instantiate a mythology
- Garry: like a mailing piece 
- Dawn: defo the p2p / ssb overlay conf less possible? needs clarification and development 
- Garry into co-creation

## Proposals -- Quick Pitches

Some clusters:
- Mail art (JOMOurNets)
- Future Internet on Digital thing 

Regardless:
    - write a few pages of theme + provocations
    - speculative component?

Most excitement:
- JOMOurNets Mailer (a combo) sarah+1
- Mail Nets +1 dawn
    - questions for including people: consent, follow through --> game design problems
- Wiki sarah+1 garry+1
    - similar questions for participation
    - (moderation)
    - anticipate technical support
    - need for prompts? star
- Webring garry+1 dawn+1
    - how to structure?
    - "this section needs some help"
- LARP dawn+1


### Our Proposal:

- Core: Wiki for Our Networks 2047 
    - Plan for participation of a "pre-show" then a set period of writing the wiki as the "event"
    - Corner: LARP on the discussion page, resolving an edit conflict 
    - Building shit and sponsoring stuff in the future. -- citizen assemblies, coops, AIs
    - Server that hosts the wiki, but building of server is a ritual, resides in a place, effected by environment
    - way that artifact gets created is something about an incantation (shadowrun future) 
        - levels of the compute <-> software <-> manifesting into a mailer 
    - homebrew wiki? noooooooo nerd traps
    - maybe sending out a mailer post the even that is generated as some sort of incantation?

-- Quick Pitches

### JOMOurNets ("Joy of Missing Our Networks")

We create and prepare a mailer to send out to all "participants." The mailer is actually the event -- combining both a program for an event that didn't happen and opportunities for "post-event connection" between/amongst participants (e.g. -- invitations to share a conf report that we'll link to on the web site, ways to link convo on social media).

### Mail Nets

We create a conference network fully powered and executed by mail. To register attendees send us a set of envelopes and reasonable postage by a certain date. We re-distribute those along with some materials to other attendees and a set of instructions to participate.

[Chain letter vibes]

### Nomic-lite Our Nets LARP 

The event is online/offline. We start with a set of rules for full time in character LARPING Our Networks for two weeks. We provide a scenario and seed with starting rules. We host platforms (e.g., a mastadon instance, our own loomio, mailing list) that are relevant to the specific rule but encourage people to take the game to their other networks / online / in-person settings.

### FedWiki Futures Our Nets 

The event is fully online. We co-create a wiki from the future and ask participants to submit a future bio, a future talk, and a committment to annotate the wiki "during" the event. We narrate a future story of how we got there from here through wiki creation and editing.

### Networking Ruins Webring 

We curate a webring of web sites in a future we want / ruins of this networking presence. We provide some easily copiable templates for hosting web sites (on Gitlab, GitHub, Neocities) as well as maintain the webpresence landing page for the web site.

### p2p ??? overlay conf

We use a decentralized thing to interact over a conference period. We have flash "talks" and position statements. 

Potential venues: SSB, our mailing list, hypercore, something like hashbase or web3storage.

What if it is ~*p2p*~, local publish but then have a way to send messages to the internet too? Encourage micro-interactions as local / intranet level.

## Next Steps

- June to end of the year 
- when is this set:
    - 20 years?
- Our Network 2047

- garry: any possible futures? set a specific time?

---

:date: **Date:** Sun, Jan 23, 2022 @ 12:00-13:30 ET  
:raising_hand: **Participation:** [`/meet.jit.si/whataboutanournetworks2022`](https://meet.jit.si/whataboutanournetworks2022) and [calendar](https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=aers7atolh0uurlfmkoki9kikg%40group.c
:family: **Attendance:**  
- mauve
- garry
- sarah
- mauve

# Agenda

- Note: Michael not here but dawn will follow up

## How folks are feeling?  and energy levels?

- mauve: hypha work, phasing out of the one blockchain project. p2p web. grant on mobile browser, p2p tech in lower internet connectivity: South Africa, maybe Canada. Next 4 months intense, after that more ??
    - cole/makeworld doing some go stuff and a fork of kiwi, some chromium c++ stuff, mauve on android
- dawn: Almos done PHD, just need to do a conclusion/intro. Next half year will be done the PHD. In a reflective mode, looking at threads to keep going with, not planning on staying in Toronto, will likely move by end of the year. Lots of writing and being in one place. TAing a class (now online), working with arduinos, difficult for students, requirement of interest and engagement that the might not have been expecting to bring. Not doing hypha stuff right now, focusing on own thing Nice to be able to focus on the dissertation. Just don't want to stay in ontario, not sure where next. Haven't been applying for Academic stuff, would depend a lot on a position. Might camp and spend time not living in some place then plan where to be.
- garry: teaching again (in person Feb - April)... maybe last round for a bit. thinking about moving on. also a good time to do other work this year. unsure about what. maybe solo? figure out later? my brain an empty vessel. Some web stuff on the go for ocad / uoft. starting a piece of writing
    - ham course?
- sarah: 2021 a busy year. trying to leave software industry as a contractor. smaller freelance, don't want to be in position of authority. not involved in coop. writing a scifi novel. shadowrun group -- hacker, won't talk about why they left, alice (he/him). art gallery in minecraft, last event yesterday.


## Interests? What fits under our networks name? Previous Roads not Travelled and Brainstorming:

- mauve: busy, but historically, some planning / a meeting every now and then in next few months is doable. othewise summertime? late spring? 
- dawn: scoped, couple months in the summer off-computer, could say yes to the right thing! want one of those to be our networks
- sarah: Feb busy. just avail maybe spring / summer (no Aug and Sep), but realistically low/minimal for volunteer, unfunded, low-funding not sustainable
- garry: spring would be most avail (May), summer open with no formal committments. but generally: tightly scoped, specific frame we are working (e.g. 2 months start to end)
    - not in person would be a bummer
    - something sync online... could try some interesting occurances, way to animate the space

== 

- using a decentralized thing to interact
    - email is federated, what if it is ~*p2p*~, local publish but then have a way to send messages to the internet
    - arg? 
- sarah: ingrid burrington/tim maughn: story over email, dld beaker and access content on hypercore 

- could we reuse parts of old ournetworks?
    - what if the world literally changed from the work of the people, layer on some ARG
        - alternate networks... now we run them on mushrooms
    - 2020 
- sarah: isthisa.com/webring
    - participating thru websites is fun 
        - curatorial project: this was open, application for small barriier
    - use idea of group expo
    - wiki as fiction format
    - tell a story about the future of computing.
        - what if we riff on mauve. all former participants write their own articles:
            - what they did, all the things that happened in the next 40 years
- mauve: how do we publish collective works for posterity in the end?
    - one big file. archive it forever.
- sarah: planned end of life...?
    - what is the way it comes down
    - close to contributions
- final archive? a zip in internet archive?
- garry: online conference LARPing, makes me think about ... tell the story in realtime that a conf is happening, people are following along....
    - mailer is the event. a program that didn't happen
    - simulated event 
    - talk submission is like a trip report / summary of an event 
    - respondent responding to a fictional talk
- garry time travel?
    - we go back before first event
- archeology reverse chrono.. in our github repo
- github as fiction 
- #othernetworks archeology: https://twitter.com/loriemerson

Resources?
- lean:
    - not needing to create an event
    - not needing sponsers
- more resources:
    - e.g., doing a mailer
    - graphic design
- individual compensation for time

Does doing something in a 2 month period feel better?

Do we want to pursue an arts grant for this work?

- arts grant: longer cycle, chances lower
- ask FIL / FFDW? Protocol Labs?

Next steps:
1. Would we write a grant for this?
    - mauve, down for both lean / grant path. have time now
    - dawn, down for both. don't need resource
    - sarah, open to 2022. what that thing is, needs more scoping before committing. funding: willing to write a grant with FIL/FFDW, what about if grant isn't successful?
    - garry, take stock of grants we could approach. or orgs to partner with (as a fiscal sponsor), happy to support a direction. getting a better grasp on what we are doing. that helping drive decisions. +1 to using up funds

2. our nets future?
- spend the money
    - all of us seem good to spend the money
- future? (not involved this year)
    - sarah: okay if ournets might not continue -- thought it was already the situation
    - garry: okay if ournets didn't continue, a bummer but okay. okay for things to wind down and not have futures. to do in a way that is cool and interesting. and avenue to figure out togther 
    - mauve: excited to to another, if can't make it work won't lose sleep. fun + people in a braod community would enjoy it
    - dawn: 

=== 

Dawn's 2022 inspo:
- Slow pace, sprint on engaging projects with an approachable committment
- Fluxx/nomic vibes: we give starting conditions and play a game with others
- Decarbonized computing (Low Carbon Computing), amateur radio, offline-first networking
- Lean into infras and vibes that have worked for us before without an in-person gathering:
    - working open, collaborators joining the place we are
    - mailouts!
    - dawn still has access to fancy B+W photocopier
    - mailinglist?

Something like:
- Game / durational art piece over 1-3 months?
    - We take 2 weeks - 1 month to set up
    - We do 1 months of "play time"
    - We do 1 month of wrap up to create a poster and like a SD card with a local network that they could host on a pi (pocket network) that is mailed out to all who participated
- We seed whatever that is (a webring of sites in a future we want?) 
    - and/or provide a way for people to submit back to the "public web of today" from their versions
        - webring 
        - PRs 
        - physical dead drops / mail drops
- To "attend" is to subscribe to the mailinglist?
    - We basically moderate / change the settings over time so more can directly communicate? or mirror a subset of the list for those that opt in?
    - We have a way for proposals to be submitted to use the infrastructures of our network as part of participating
- How to play?
    - Make a website? 
    - Submit a story, interactive work etc?
    - a game mechanic? like a way we could have submissions and local clusters cross-pollinate?
    - we have phases where we release new details of a future world and peoples works are invited to respond/update
    - we have a way for proposals to be submitted to use the infrastructures of our network as part of participating (no PII stuff tho)
    - "check-ins" = most of the participation is async, but we have "transmissions" on a variety of mediums over the length of the game, those could be more or less visible.


2020 Notes: 
- https://github.com/ournetworks/2020/blob/master/notes/2020-01-25-check-in.md
- https://github.com/ournetworks/2020/blob/master/notes/2020-02-29-planning-meeting.md
- Post mortem: https://github.com/ournetworks/2020/blob/master/notes/2020-09-22-av-post-mortem-call.md


2020 Planning+Retro takeaways:
  - alternative formats
      - publishing something
      - actually finally making that epic poster
      - durational event in different cities
      - screening, zine library were cool to try, maybe able to iterate on
      - shortlist orgs/people to build programming together
      - more ARG content
      - LARPing mesh
      - Andreas' talk and that app as inspo!
      - diy-bio space 
  - things might be winding down 
 
## Next steps



## State of Our Network on pause -- what's left

- #todo: Garry approve 2 interacs--
- Finances: $1800 in bank ATM 
    - $1450 missing still from BPT 
    - $215 to Yurko (payment didn't go thru) resend
    - $206 to Dawn ($60ish web, 145ish mayfirst dues)
    - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XpFG4Kv88247cLhwTip9miWRFWdZGf6nCS14ir4k0fM/edit#gid=1593993950
    - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18T47kkKnaMtebWxOBYsJJXbnAHkHDoyENNombnnWY9M/edit#gid=184560466

- Leftover Swag:
    - totes 
    - shirts
    - some stickers
    - Distribution to existing crew?
- Better stasis mode if people are stepping off:
    - Garry and Dawn update signers (Ben + E.L)
    - Alterna account: Wind down? -> transition to Open Collective?
    - Minimize Costs





