Technological Democratisation

Universidade	Escola Massana
Tutors	Antonio Calleja and Pablo DeSoto
Course	Post-Inertia Summer School
When	June 29th to July 17th, 2020
Local	Online

We live in a complex and conflictive world, and the political, economic and technological systems that have brought us here seem insufficient, if not counterproductive, to guide our societies in desirable directions. Modern representative democracy entered a crisis decades ago. Informational capitalism and statalism (supported by platforms, data, surveillance…) concentrate information, capital and power in the hands of a few corporations and States, whose action is guided by the maximization of profit and power. Against this oligarchic becoming, projects such as Decidim (a public-common project for developing a digital platform for participatory democracy, which we’ve helped to conceive and develop) stress the need to undertake a technological democratization: democratizing technologies (giving people control over tech, data, AI, etc.) and democratizing society through such technologies.

Achieving this requires, among other things, designing spaces where the demos (the people) can meet, reconstruct itself, deliberate and decide on complex and conflicting issues. It implies to go beyond the ancient model of the agora (the assembly square), with its spatio-temporal limitations, and the modern electoral process, with its deliberative limitations and its episodic character. In the 20th century, from the US military to cybersin, a key space for strategic decision-making was the situation room, rooms connected to different information, analysis, and communication systems.

Can these spaces be redesigned for citizen decision making, a crossing between the agora and the situation room? Is it possible to build “augmented” deliberation rooms for a better and “augmented” democracy? Could they be useful for a civilizational turn? How may they enhance or limit collective experience, intelligence, will and action? What logics of social inclusion and exclusion do they mitigate, create or recreate? What are their elements and constitutive layers? How should they be designed and governed, and by whom? Could we include non-humans in these dynamics?

Students works:

From the Sputnik to the Stack

Universidade	UFPB PPGAU
Créditos/carga horária	1Cr/15h
Semestre	2018.2
Datas/Horario	19, 20, 21 y 22 de Novembro/8 a 12 h
Local	Sala Multimedia

EMENTA

O curso Do Sputnik ao Stack: Arquitetura na Época da Computação a Escala Planetaria propõe um estudo crítico das relações do humano com seu espaço analógico e digital, através da história da tecnologia da Guerra Fria até os dias atuais. O Sputnik sovietico, a rede ARPA e o Cybersyn de Stafford Beer e Salvador Allende são alguns dos pontos de passagem para uma conversa apoiada por um repertorio conceituail que inclui o manifesto ciborgue de Donna Haraway, o espaço de fluxos de Manuel Castells, o software livre de Richard Stallman e os ciborgues espaciais estendidos de William J. Mitchell. O ponto final é a proposta do Stack de Benjamin Bratton. Baseando-se em filosofia política, teoria da arquitetura e estudos de software, Bratton propõe que plataformas de nuvem, redes inteligentes, aplicativos móveis, cidades inteligentes, automação e a Internet das Coisas podem ser vistas como formando um todo coerente: uma megaestrutura acidental que é uma infra-estrutura computacional e uma nova arquitetura de governo.

PROGRAMA

Aula 1 – 19 de Agosto – Introdução ao curso. Do Sputnik ao Stack: Uma historia das tecnologías e infraestructuras de conectividade. Estudo de casos: de cybersyn e hackitectura a google urbanism.

Aula 2 – 20 de Agosto – Seminário a partir dos textos da bibliografia.

Aula 3, 4, 5 – 21 a 23 de Agosto – Atividades e Discussões. Trabalho em sala de aula..

Resultados destacados

A Cartografia de um Assassinato Físico e Digital, começada durante o curso, tem sido apresentada no VI Simpósio Internacional LAVITS (Rede Latino-Americana de Estudos sobre Vigilância, Tecnologia e Sociedade). UFBA Salvador, 27/04/2019, e no Espaço Google News no Festival 3i. Fundaçao Progreso, Rio de Janeiro, 20/10/2019.

BIBLIOGRAFIA

Bratton, Benjamin H. The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty. Software Studies. MIT Press, 2015.

Haraway, Donna. O Manifesto ciborgue – ciência, tecnologia e feminismo socialista no final do século XX. 1985.

Galloway, Alexander R. Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization. Leonardo. MIT Press, 2004.

Greenfield, Adam. Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life. London; New York: Verso, 2017.

Medina, Eden. Revolucionarios cibernéticos: Tecnología y política en el Chile de Salvador Allende. LOM Ediciones, 2013.

Mitchel, William J, and William J Mitchel. Me++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City. MIT Press, 2004.

Rheingold, Howard. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution : Transforming Cultures and Communities in the Age of Instant Access. Reading, MA: Basic Books, 2007.

Drone Hackademy

La primera puesta en acción de la #DroneHackademy tuvo lugar en Rio de Janeiro en junio de 2015 hospedada por el MediaLab de la Escuela de Comunicación de la Universidad Federal de Rio de Janeiro y contó con el apoyo de la Red Latino-americana de investigación en Vigilancia, Tecnología y Sociedad, ambas instituciones bajo la coordinación de la profesora Fernanda Bruno.

La propuesta tiene como antecedente directo un pequeño evento realizado en 2012 en el espacio cultural Casa Amarela situada en lo alto del Morro Providencia, la primera favela de Brasil, donde fue presentado el proyecto Guerrilla Drone. Equipado con un videoproyector láser para ampliar las posibilidades de acciones directas o actuaciones con apoyo audiovisual aéreo, Guerrilla Drone llevó a cabo una serie de proyecciones en las muros de las casas para denunciar las tentativas de desalojo de los vecinos por parte de la prefectura.

La metrópolis brasileña es un escenario urbano central y desafiante para pensar la visualidad hegemónica y la contravisualidad aérea contemporáneas. En el contexto de la realización de #DroneHackademy en Rio de Janeiro, la ciudad se encontraba atravesada por las controvertidas transformaciones urbanas vinculadas a los mega-eventos de la Copa del Mundo y los Juegos Olímpicos, que producían violencia inmobiliaria y tentativas de expulsiones de comunidades como las del área portuaria o las de la Vila Autódromo, o las protestas del movimiento #OcupaGolf por la construcción de un campo de golf en la reserva biológica de Marapendi en la Barra de Tijuca.

#DroneHackademy Rio de Janeiro contó con la participación de diez estudiantes, artivistas y representantes de colectivos e asociaciones de la región metropolitana de Rio de Janeiro y de otras ciudades de Brasil que fueron seleccionados mediante convocatoria pública.

Los participantes incluyeron a dos cineastas de las áreas periféricas metropolitanas (Pavuna y Duque de Caxias); un joven de 18 años del Grupo de Teatro del Oprimido de la favela de Maré, una de las más tensas de Rio de Janeiro; una joven investigadora de drones y arte de Cuiaba; al creador de la primera impresora 3D de Brasil -el proyecto meta máquina-; un fotógrafo del área portuaria que en pleno proceso de resistencia a la gentrificación; un experimentado piloto de DJI Phantom; un activista por el espectro libre, y una estudiante de arquitectura que es parte del laboratorio de fabricación digital de la Universidad Pública.

Durante una semana los participantes fueron introducidos a una genealogía del espacio aéreo radical y practicaron vuelo con simulador y vuelo real con multicópteros.

Fueron construidos desde cero dos Flones, uno de ellos con Arducopter, una plataforma para UAVs de código abierto creada por la comunidad de drones do it yourself basada en en la plataforma Arduino. Los pasos de su construcción fueron documentados en una plataforma wiki.

Como actividad práctica final propusimos situarnos en algún lugar de la ciudad para experimentar la potencia de los UAVs en producir contravisualidad aérea y objetividad feminista contra la mirada conquistadora desde ningún lugar.

Drone Hackademy last for a week combining theory and practical application. Participants learn both how to build unmanned aerial vehicles and how and why to protect themselves and their communities against them. The final activity consists in the realization of a operation where drones are employed in a socially beneficial function. The objective of Drone Hackademy is therefore to provide this technology to those places and situations where its use is ethically justified in order to counterpower social/spatial/environmental injustice. #Dronehackademy collaborates with these communities and territories contributing the capacity of action in the airspace. Two open source UAVS were built, a FLONE with cell phone control and a FLONE with arducopter control.

Go to site.

Situation Room

The term Situation Room is normally used to designate a secret place used in times of crisis to assess and monitor data for decision making purposes. Its origins can be traced back to World War II with the invention of computers, digitalization, and the collaboration of architects and the military. These rooms are equipped with monitors and data boards used to control everything from flows crossing the strait of Gibraltar to nuclear fission processes in Nuclear Power plants and the life support mechanisms on board the International Space Station.

Go to book: http://www.dpr-barcelona.com/index.php?/projects/situation-room/

The connected multitude

The Connected Multitude was a prototype for a networked public space, produced for a network of activists, artists and technicians. Using technologies such as a bi-directional satellite connection, wifi (in its infancy at the time) and streaming with free software, – with real time connections to México DF, Bogotá, Paris or El Viso del Alcor -, we created a space which was both local and global, digital and analog.