When I was younger and the Net was young as well and we used Telnet to open our mail and slow modems it was a war. An European war. Not a tribal war in far Africa or in the Middle East but it contained all same elements barbaric killings mass graves we are still opening (Tuzla, Srebrenica), insane hatred of your neighbours, etc. The only allowed to the besieged Sarajevo was UN trucks loaded with medicine and foods. A French group called itself “Modems sans Frontieres” (Modems without borders) and successful smuggled in the city several models and some old computers. The modems run trough a slow connection in Austria in Vienna since the Serbs had cut away all the cables and infrastructure in Bosnia. Through several days maybe one week or ten days everyone living in Sarajevo was able to post to their relatives and friends abroad it was a kind of bottles on the sea since nobody knew people email and at that time few ppl used email abs had personal addresses. Some of their messages was of this kind: “Dear Dejan grandmother died in the last shelling of our village. Pray for her she loves you so much” “Dear Ali we hope you managed to flee the killing in Srebrenica we hear horrible things” “Dear Zulma we hope you are coping well with things we live most on our cellar since the shellings are random and the snipers kill everyone daring to go openly to the town. We don’t have so much food. We hope see you soon when this is over”.
It was touching and warm hear/read all those disembodied voices. For me this list and all others I am on reminds me on those anonymous and collective agora where all voices are heard. Thinking about Bachtins superb analys about how our society denies the right to speak and try to kidnap the discourse making it hegemonic. We need go back to the polyphonic society Bachtin wrote about. Ana On Sat, 12 Jun 2021 at 13:31, nathaniel stern via NetBehaviour < netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote: > Happy Lurker agrees. > > nathaniel stern > http://nathanielstern.com > > On Jun 12, 2021, at 9:03 AM, Ruth Catlow via NetBehaviour < > netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote: > > Dear everyone, > > Thanks so much for helping me to work through some of my niggles with the > list. I now have a much better sense of what its value is to some of us at > the fireside and a few of the people from the woods. I've also been greatly > enjoying the recent exchanges! > > I also found Adam's email beautiful. Especially personally resonant > because I lived for a year in Penryn unaware of the history of the > Ordinalia there. I find the format of passion plays - "acts" of faith > "performed" by people in the places where they belong - enthralling.Thanks > for that Adam! > > Annie's response was also really helpful for me. The revolutionary impulse > of the early media art initiatives that interested me was tied up with > infrastructural critique and a desire to create a new art context together. > This revolved around efforts to create open access, and co-ownership of the > media and platforms we needed for collaboration. Bringing together FLOSS > and Art. There is still a lot of inspiring work in this area Constant > https://constantvzw.org/ for example. > > While I "get" the Occupy vibe here, it doesn't feel so useful as an > analogy for this list/community as it stands at the moment. Occupy's > central commitment was to participatory democracy. The location of > occupations were chosen for their symbolic significance to state-corporate > capitalism, right? I guess we could think of this list as a prefigurative > community resisting corporate platforms (I share everyone's love of this as > an advertising-free space). But I detect less interest among this group in > the question of how bottom-up decisions should be made to ensure fair > distribution of power, and how that might in turn lead to the overthrow of > capitalism. Occupy activists developed social technologies (some digital > platforms, some gestures and techniques for use in large groups of people > gathered physically) to make ALL the decisions together about all the > things - from collective vision to organising waste-disposal. It's more > emergent here. > > If we can agree that Commons are "shared cultural or material resources > managed by communities for individual and collective benefit" then maybe > this is what we have been working out here over the last couple of weeks > and Netbehaviour is a kind of commons. If we can agree that we (all > subscribers) collectively own this place, and are willing to reflect on > this occasionally - that's more than enough for me. We can stay with > furtherfield legacy infrastructure and near-zero moderation by Marc and me > for now (if that suits everyone). > > Finally, I would be curious to hear your feelings about this proposal for > list renewal. > ======================= > > Over a 1 month period starting xxx > We invite all subscribers to do one of 3 things > > 1. Make a post on any topic or responding to anyone else's post > 2. Send an email with "Happy Lurker" in the subject header > 3. Do nothing. > > At the end of this time, moderators could > 1. gather a list of everyone who posted > 2. unsubscribe everyone else. > > In this way we will know who we are, we will be able to see ourselves > collectively and know who is in the woods. > > This is something we can do intermittently. > ======================== > If you all love, hate or have alternative suggestions to this idea I'd > love to know. > > warmly > Ruth > > -- > Ruth Catlow > she/her > Co-founder & Artistic director of Furtherfield & DECAL Decentralised Arts > Lab > +44 (0) 77370 02879 > > *I will only agree to speak at events that are racially and gender > balanced. > > **sending thanks > <https://www.ovoenergy.com/ovo-newsroom/press-releases/2019/november/think-before-you-thank-if-every-brit-sent-one-less-thank-you-email-a-day-we-would-save-16433-tonnes-of-carbon-a-year-the-same-as-81152-flights-to-madrid.html> > in > advance > > *Furtherfield *disrupts and democratises art and technology through > exhibitions, > labs & debate, for deep exploration, open tools & free thinking. > furtherfield.org <http://www.furtherfield.org/> > > *DECAL* Decentralised Arts Lab is an arts, blockchain & web 3.0 > technologies research hub > for fairer, more dynamic & connected cultural ecologies & economies now. > decal.is <http://www.decal.is/> > > Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company Limited by Guarantee > Registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205. > Registered business address: Carbon Accountancy, 80-83 Long Lane, London, > EC1A 9ET > <https://www.google.com/maps/search/80-83+Long+Lane,+London,+EC1A+9ET?entry=gmail&source=g> > . > > > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org > https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > > > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org > https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > -- https://anavaldes.wordpress.com/ www.twitter.com/caravia158 http://www.scoop.it/t/art-and-activism/ http://www.scoop.it/t/food-history-and-trivia http://www.scoop.it/t/urbanism-3-0 <http://www.scoop.it/t/postcolonial-mind/> cell Sweden +4670-3213370 cell Uruguay +598-99470758 "When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always long to return. — Leonardo da Vinci
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