publication

---
title: VARIA
language: en
---



::: {.toc}

* [Introduction](#intro)
* [Gathering traversally](#gathering-traversally-atnofs-varia-chapter)

* Program
* Facilitation methods
- * Hosting
- * Buddy system
- * Consenting to photography
- * Pace
* Scripts
- * languages within languages*
  - * Script
  - * languageswithoutwalls
  - * Reflections
- * *consent concerns*
  - * Script
  - * Consenting with Rosa
  - * Reflections
- * resonant publishing
  - * Script
  - * Conversation
  - * Reflections
- * Guest contribution: Varia score for Tina Campt with voices and objects* by Gabi Dao

* Continuing traversally
* [Sparkles and packages](#sparkles-and-packages)
* [Bios](#bios)
* [Colophon](#colophon)
:::

::: {.intro}

# Introduction
`[How to Read]`

`One person reads a word/sentence/paragraph/none`

`When you are ready please pass this script onto the person next to you`

`They can continue reading from where you paused.`

**Collective Script to begin ATNOFS**

Hello everyone, welcome to this weekend. We are here, all together finally at Varia.
We are very happy to have you present in this space.

This weekend, together with the radio broadcast on Wednesday, is the starting point of a bigger and expanded project called "A Traversal Network of Feminist Servers."

Or ATNOFS in short.

To say a few words about the space hosting us today, Varia is a member-based cultural organisation in Rotterdam, which brings a group of 20 people together who work as artists, designers, programmers, writers and educators.

`[BREATH]`

Varia is a collective-space in Rotterdam focused on everyday technologies. We believe technology shouldn't be the exclusive domain of specialists. It affects everyone and should enable, rather than preclude, diverse ways of living.

Focusing on everyday technology means questioning the hierarchies in place within technical objects and therefore the valorisation of skills needed to design or use these objects. This means reconsidering the hegemony of high tech: cheap, artisanal solutions are our method of choice.

Everyday technology means that a sewing machine is no less important than a laptop, that a tailor's work is by no means less meaningful than that of a computer scientist.

Everyday technology means keeping in mind multiple and entangled perspectives, needs, and aspirations when it comes to the understanding and framing of a technical object.

The shared efforts of Varia these days extend towards, amongst other things, a collective infrastructure using and providing digital, print and electronic facilities, resource sharing initiatives, this collective project around feminist servers, and a public programme focused on dialogical learning.

`[BREATH]`

We are gathering around A Traversal Network of Feminist Servers (ATNOFS), a collaborative pan-European project learning about intersectional feminist, ecological servers. Understanding servers as computers that host space and services for communities around and with them, this project exists inside, and in between, roaming servers and different networks.

Our decentralized programme will occur in 5 locations (The Netherlands, Belgium, Romania, Greece, Austria) with the collaboration of 6 partners (Varia, LURK, Constant, HYPHA, Feminist Hack Meetings, and ESC).

Today there are people from each of these partners present, as well as other people who we have invited to learn, experiment and converse together.

`[BREATH]`

This is the first session of ATNOFS. We will focus on tools and methods to make space for understanding what feminist publishing infrastructures could be. During the weekend we will be experimenting with publishing infrastructures. The tools and methods that will emerge can later be used for further knowledge sharing as the project moves location and the programme evolves.

There will be a publication at the end of the year, documenting all of the different ATNOFS projects.

During this weekend we propose to make a collective chapter of this publication, and gather, record or generate materials for it.

During these two days we all will be documenting, writing, collecting traces, editing our work together into something legible - or not - into a form that can be published eventually at the end of the year.

`[BREATH]`

We have been preparing for this weekend in the last months. A big part of that has been setting up a server called Rosa.

We hope y'all enjoy your time. amy, Alice, Cristina, Julia and Manetta will be around as facilitators.

`[BREATH]`

`[The end, thank you for reading with us]`

*The script above was read out at the beginning of a 2 day programme that happened on 26 and 27 March 2022 in Varia. These two short days, together with a radio show a few days before became the kick-off to A Traversal Network of Feminist Servers, a series of moments meant to build a network around several feminist servers and/or practices.*

:::

::: {.cols-2}

:::::::::::::::: {.continuations .meta}

**Continuations** Within Varia, the desire to articulate feminist practices of care within modes of organisation that are social, political and technological, already manifested in the Feminist Hack Meetings, the Digital Solidarity Networks etherpad listing and events, the Minimal Viable Computing research thread, the Homebrew Server Club self-organised meetings, or the self-organised summer school Relearn. Conversations around setting up a feminist server first as a pedagogical tool to learn together with people from local initiatives in Rotterdam, and then possibly as service that can be shared with other political and cultural initiatives, had floated around since March 2020, when we received a financial donation from Alina Lupu and her collaborators. ATNOFS provided another spark for this work to happen with other collectives from different localities.

::::::::::::::::

# Gathering traversally

::: {.timetable}
### Program

| | Saturday 26. March |
|:--|:--|
| 9:30 | Breakfast |
| 10:00 | Introduction *- General Intro to Varia and chapter - Infrastructure / Rosa - Round of introductions - Activities for the day - Starting with buddy time* |
| 11:30 | Buddy time *pair with your buddy to say hi, read CoC and check in* |
| 12:00 | Activities *languages within languages (in Varia), resonant publishing (in Varia), consent concerns (in RIB!)* |
|13:00 | **LUNCH** |
| 14:00 | Freeflow *- activity time: circulate to another activity to see what is it about, if you like! Or continue on the activity you began, shift it, change it - editorial tasks: structures, introduction writing, colophon editing, translations, lay out tweaking, ... - gathering materials: record a conversation, a story, collect traces, annotate transcription of the radio broadcast, ...* |
| 16:30 | Buddy time *check in with your buddy* |
| 17:00 | Sharing moment *- 3 min: 1 to 1 - 5 min: 4 people - 10 min: 8 people - 20 min: all together - total: 38 min + 10 mins explanation and moving around + 10 mins closing* |
| 18:00 | Drinks & conversation |

| | Sunday 27. March |
|:--|:--|
| 10:30 | Breakfast w/ buddy (and others) |
| 11:00 | Listening workshop w/ Gabi Dao |
| 12:30 | Short intro for the day *- schedule for Sunday - space for proposals / if we have an activity to propose, sharing what people will be working on |
|13:00 | **LUNCH** |
| 14:00 | Activities continue in freeflow, w/coffee *- and / or people continue with what they already started - and / or gather materials for documentation, how can your work be shared? - and / or make a soft case for Rosa - and / or looking at the soft structure of the publication* |
| 17:00 | Buddy time |
| 17:15 | Walk around and șezătoare *(inspired by traditional Romanian evening gatherings in which people chat, tell stories, work on small tasks while being together; literal translation: "sit-downer")* |
| 18:00 | Miss you already! *Time for drinks if you like* |

:::

### Facilitation methods

#### Hosting

At the beginning of the chapter we shared breakfast, coffee, tea, cigarettes, sunshine (for which we were very grateful for). Once we were all present in the space we began with sharing information with participants - our schedule for the day, what and when to eat and drink, where is the toilet, access considerations, our other host venue RIB - then shared details of the project through a scripted introduction that we passed around the room. We asked everyone to read one line before passing it onto the person next to them. Instead of personal introductions in the whole group, we asked people to introduce themselves in pairs or trios. The task was to find out the name, pronouns, and something to introduce your partner to the rest of the group. In the end the final part didn't happen as people enjoyed their small conversations much more than we anticipated. People appreciated the lack of formality and we did too, but it did mean that some people in the space did not know anything about some or most of the other participants. This balance between formal and informal is something we'd like to think more about.

Another aspect of facilitation to develop is the quantity of information we wanted to impart. There was too so much to share and we struggled to cut down the information. We wanted to share the Code of Conduct for Varia's physical and online spaces, and settled on asking people to read this in partners. The pairing of partners was made through the Buddy System.

#### Buddy System

The buddy system was shared with us by the artist, designer and activist Chloë Janssens, who knows it from the website Training For Change and the author George Lakey. At the beginning of the first session we paired all participants with a buddy. Our buddies were there to listen to us at the start and end of the day as an intimate check-in moment and a way to get to know one person better.

More information about why and how to use the Buddy System is on the Training for Change website: https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/buddy-system/



#### Consenting to photography

We wanted to introduce a more granular system through which people could express particular wishes of how they would like to be photographed, if at all. For this, we made a Photography Wishes paper, an open-ended, informal-yet-formalized system, that used stickers to make one's own legend. Participants started to make their own sticker patterns, and stuck them on their clothing and on the Photography Wishes paper with a short description of their preferences. Slowly more and more sticker patterns emerged throughout the event. Participants could add their own patterns, or follow the preferences of someone else. However, the more complex and multiplied the patterns became, the more difficult it was to keep track of them, and taking photographs became quite a complex matter.

![Photography Wishes paper, with sticker patterns and written preferences, including: "no solo please, ok with group photo", "NO PHOTO (PARANOID TYPE)", "NO FACIAL: 'FRONTEND [False]' 'BACKEND [True]'"](https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/chapters/varia/26-and-27-March-at-Varia/atnofs_varia2.jpg)

![Photography Wishes paper, zoomed in on "NO FACIAL: 'FRONTEND [False]' 'BACKEND [True]'"](https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/chapters/varia/26-and-27-March-at-Varia/sm-P1100258.JPG)

#### Pace

We shared breakfast and lunch as a collective every day, and there was beer, wine, juice, or other drinks, available at the end of the day. We intended facilitate a conversation at the end of each day to share individual reflections on what had happenned, questions and proposal for further activity. As our tiredness increased and time decreased this moment became more loose.

![Sudden appearance of dinner, bought at the Chinese restaurant around the corner at the Boergoensevliet.](https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/chapters/varia/26-and-27-March-at-Varia/atnofs_varia4.jpg)

Overall, the structure of our chapter was very tight. While the intention was to help newcomers ease into a possibly new context, it left some desiring for more unplanned moments of togetherness.

### Scripts

For our chapter we prepared three different scripts as a way to share proposals for organised group activities. We focused our attention on questions we had ourselves when working on Rosa, around interaction and interpersonal relations in the server space, and pedagogical exercises to introduce the tools we wanted to use and share.

![Picture of the oracle welcome message appearing when you `ssh` into rosa, added by a participant during the Languages within languages session.](https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/chapters/varia/26-and-27-March-at-Varia/sm-P1100278.JPG)

:::

::: {.scripts}
## Languages within languages

### Script

> "What meaning meant was meaningless. There were so many languages inside each language, such different meanings for each word, that the dialogical break was inevitable." (Alexis Pauline Gumbs, M Archive - shared with Varia by Jara Rocha)

> "Don't get hung up about names." (Linus Torvalds in a very passive-aggressive email exchange https://yarchive.net/comp/linux/everything_is_file.html)

Through this script, we invite you to take a few moments to alter the language used within programming environments and to situate it within the present group. We will be customising system messages, renaming commands, and changing files.

A possible rhythm to follow:

**15 min - Potential alternative route**\
If you have never used a terminal before, we recommend spending some time to get more comfortable with it. The Map Is The Territory game, developed by Solarpunk.cool is a short introduction to the commands you will need: <https://solarpunk.cool/zines/map-is-the-territory/>

For a quick cheatsheet, see <https://linuxconfig.org/linux-commands-cheat-sheet >\
Another game to try out, helping learning commands, see <https://overthewire.org/wargames/bandit/bandit0.html>

**25 min - The login oracle (a score within a script)**\
To log into Rosa, there are two ways, a simple one and a more complex one. The simple one gives you access to the Rosa server while you are on the same network (so only when you are in Varia or in the next physical location of Rosa), and the more complex one gives you access on any network you find yourself on.

The simple version:\
What is ssh\
![Logo of the Experimental Publishing Master 2020 graduation show](https://project.xpub.nl/img/xpub_logo_2020.svg)
SSH is a command that gives you access to another computer from the terminal.

Open your terminal and run:\
`$ ssh friend@192.168.1.71` [n.b. '$' is placed in front of a command that can be run on the terminal, and is not part of the actual command, copy & paste only what comes after]\
Ask the key holders at the table for the password.

The more complex version:\
You will first need to generate an rsa key.\
An RSA is a public key cryptography system used to secure data transmitted over the internet.
To do this, run:

```
$ ssh-keygen (only if you don't hava an rsa key already, or if you want to make a new rsa key)
$ cd ~/.ssh/
$ cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
```

Copy what you see on the screen and ask one of the key holders at the table to add your public rsa key to the Varia server.

Edit the following file ~/.ssh/config to include:
```
host varia_hub

Hostname vvvvvvaria.org
User jump
Port 12345
ForwardAgent yes
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

host rosa

Hostname 10.5.1.2
User friend
Port 22
ForwardAgent yes
ProxyJump varia_hub

```
N.B. that the key path/name should be made specific to your own situation

With the above config you can now run the following command:\
`$ ssh rosa`

For this section, we take inspiration from Alexis Pauline Gumbs, who in a lecture called 'Future of Praxis _ Meridians - feminism, race, transnationalism', says:

> "Sylvia Wynter says what we need is a socio-poetics, poetics for the society, we need poetics of a possible relation. The situation we have, she explains, is one of separation. The dominant story and the languages in which we reproduce it say that we are not related. Our relationships with people and environment are mediated by capital and violence. Sylvia Wynter says we need a poetic practice that finds a way to center our relationships, to displace the unnatural violence that the whole definition of what it is to be human and racist, hetero, patriarchal, colonial, capitalist, and says this is the only way; to be dominated or dominant with resources or without hope.\
She says, Can we describe it?\
That attempt should be our work, the point of all our art, the great creative act.

> There has not been a day since where I have not mentioned Sylvia Wynter, and now I have this book where on every page, I cite a moment of Sylvia Wynter making a version of this argument in different contexts and in different ways. She is still making that argument right now, insisting that in this moment, when we can actually communicate as a species, all of us in real time, we are better poised than ever, to reject the false universalism that was used to justify colonialism and slavery.That continues to destroy our life chances on this planet.\
This for me is also the question of meridians connecting points through lines, boundaries, transnationalism, feminism, race.The work of finding and redefining our relation across all of this, the nuanced poetic activity of reclaiming relation as praxis.\
Sylvia Wynter says the ceremony must be found to create what she calls a we that needs no other. And so I'm offering an Oracle.\
It requires our relationship and your participation."

The following actions are borrowed from a lecture by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, they are edited from a transcript.

> This Oracle requires your relation.\
Think of, and activate, a resonant relationship in your own life, maybe part of the reason that you're here, but not a person who's actually here in the room, because that's what's poetic about it. The borders of this university, the limits of capitalist access, even the boundary between life and death cannot eradicate your relations. So we're going to dedicate this space to and for and with our relations. \
Did you find them? Okay. \
Write down the name and a little bit about why and who you dedicated to.\
Take about four minutes to do that right now.

> Now, think of a question that is at stake for you. In this time in your life. \
It may have to do with why you prioritise being at this school. It may be related to the person that you dedicated to, or something else that is urgently on your heart.

> Push away the fear of asking questions we don't already know the answer to. This is not that not to say that that doesn't do anything, just this is not that.\
Draw on your relation for the power to be poetic in this moment.

> When you have your question, think of a number between 1 and 49\
It could be just the number that comes to you. It could be a number related to your question.\
Find your number in the book\
Photograph the words\
Write a reflection on how this relates to your person, your question, and how you can engage with writing

> The way this socio-poetic Oracle works is that there are 49 different passages in Dub, that specifically refer to moments of emphasis in Sylvia Wynter's essays, they are ethno or socio-poetics that I referred to, and those are the 49.

We will adapt the score of Alexis Pauline Gumbs for accessing the Rosa server. When logging in with a monitor connected to Rosa, you will see a message prompt. You can change this by editing the file /etc/issue using nano, a text editor. You will need to use sudo for this. Sudo enables users to run programs with the security privileges of another user, by default the superuser.\
`$ sudo nano /etc/issue`\

Right now, the text you see before logging in is:

> "Now, think of a question that is at stake for you. In this time in your life. It may be related to the person that you dedicated to, or something else that is urgently on your heart."

We invite you to follow this prompt before logging into ssh. You don't need to say the question to anyone, or write it down anywhere, it's only for yourself.

When logging in, you will see a randomly selected Message Of The Day (MOTD). At the moment, these are excerpts from the book by Gumbs.\
We invite you to look in the physical space of Varia, the library, the reference book area, the zines, or your own references to add to the oracle.\

To add more texts to this add text files in /home/friend/oracle:

```
$ sudo touch /home/friend/oracle/text-name.txt
$ sudo nano /home/friend/oracle/text-name.txt
```

**25 min - Liaising through aliases**\

Definition of 'alias' from Merriam-Webster:\

(Entry 1 of 2)\
: otherwise called : otherwise known as\
—used to indicate an additional name that a person (such as an artist ~~criminal~~) sometimes uses\
(Entry 2 of 2)\
: an assumed or additional name that a person (such as a buddy ~~criminal~~) sometimes uses

In computing, an alias is a command which allows you to replace the words that activate commands with other words. It is mainly used for abbreviating a system command, or for adding default arguments to a regularly used command. They are are only visible for one user, which is why for this part of the script, we will all log in as the user friend. Aliases can be found on Rosa in the .bash_aliases file of the friend user. Making aliases can be a way to change the vocabulary of the server, to adapt it to local vernaculars, and to embed other kinds of metaphors in the meaning making process.\

To create an alias, add it to the file ~/.bash_aliases while being logged in as friend.

To start a tmux session to collaboratively write in a terminal, the line below was added to ~/.bash_aliases:\
alias together='tmux new -s'

Now one can run:\
`$ together name_of_session`\
to start a new tmux session.

To join an existing tmux session, the line below was added to ~/.bash_aliases:\
alias join='tmux attach -t'\

Now one can run:\
`$ join name_of_session`\
to join the tmux session opened by someone else.

Another example of an alias added to ~/.bash_aliases:\
alias sound="pavucontrol"

To make the latest aliases available to be used (run after every change in the .bash_aliases file):\
alias begin='source ~/.bash_aliases'\

Then run in the terminal:\
`$ begin`

Multiple aliases can exist for the same command.\
What happens when you give an alias that exist for another command?

**Other possible steps**\
Apart from aliases, there are other things we can change:

- the lecture file, which contains the message displayed whenever someone uses sudo. To change this run:\
`$ sudo nano /etc/sudoers.unite`
- cron job that send a message after a certain time. To try this, you could for example print a message to everyone's screens every hour. For this you would first write your message, for example see file /home/friend/broadcast.txt and edit it as you see fit. To make it run, we've added this line to the crontab `0 * * * * cat /home/friend/broadcast.txt | wall` using this command:\
`$ crontab -e`\
The command being run every hour is called "wall". You can use this command to send a message to everyone logged into the terminal:\
`$ wall "hello atnofs"`

::: {.references}
**References**
Networking zine by Julia Evans <https://jvns.ca/networking-zine-coloured.pdf>\
A server is hard to define <https://jvns.ca/blog/2019/12/26/whats-a-server/>
:::

:::

::: {.cols-2}
### languageswithoutwalls

During the languages within languages session, a new pad https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/pad/p/languageswithoutwalls emerged where people started experimenting with different aliases, questioning the default bash commands and other language conventions that are commonly used within computers and servers.

The material below is composed of different fragments from this pad.

::::::::::::::::::::: {.notes .pads}

An attempt to write up what would be different ways to talk to type with or against bash / terminal commands

Some commands have violent connotations (kill, bash)\
some commands propose hierarchies are they necessary? (sudo ....)

windows chooses to make their own island and not be interoperable with unix commands, is there an inclusion problem?

here's a list with bash commands: https://ss64.com/bash/\
why is a cheatsheet called a cheatsheet?

Bash as a term is not very social

different methods to expending the narrative: \
* we could think of 'nar' pages next to manual: narrative pages in which the narration around a command is spelled on.\
Or a 'gen' page: geneology of naming? where the word comes from \
different meanings of the word

typing 'man' gives:\

What manual page do you want?\

Eliza psychtherapist version: \

Are you sure you want a manual page ?\

man man :\

are there more questions embedded in a manual page ? we can add to that / change it

suggestive layer, not changing implying that we know better, but rather giving more context\
'touch': \
 "did you ask consent before touching?"

* color as a sign that a command is an alias or an original command to avoid too much confusion

bash\
---\
Thompson shell\
bourne shell\
bourne again shell\
why shell?

cat\
---\
'cat' in some distros is called 'dog'\
cat comes from catenation, chaining to come together\
if dog is now a verb, dogination

sudo\
---\
sudo 'root'\
'superuser' regular user versus superpowers\
the process to access this superpowers includes receiving the 'lecture' (great powers great responsibilities, etc)

rm: remove .. where to ? (different than "delete")\
---\
information stays written on the disk, but nothing in the system knows anymore that there was a file: you erase the map but the house is still there\
remove visibility / from the map

mv: move and rename a file in one go\
---\
unlike in the gui, moving and renaming are the same thing, which re-organizes the understanding of what is a 'path'..\

man: help manual\
---\
too many layers: the immediate masculinize meaning of man, the mansplaining tone which these manuals too often have

true: do nothing, successfully\
---\
the production of truth is not nothing, but rather quite active ;)

touch:\
---\
evidence, when did you touch this last time\
touch time\
used to see if you have access to a file, permission boundaries, asking \
already crossing a boundary touch first, consent later?\

for example:\
alias touch="echo 'would be nice to ask before touch'; touch"

proposed terms to replace with aliases\
starting from a list of existing bash commands, such as here: https://ss64.com/bash/

Kill - a process by specifying its PID \
possible alias: end

History: Command History\
possible alias: herstory / theystory / *story\
killall - Kill processes by name\
possible alias: endall

Man: Help manual\
possible alias: human / mean

.bash_aliases documentation\
New commands:\
YES = echo NO\
leavehome = cd\
showme = ls -lha\
together = tmux new -s\
begin = source ~/.bash_aliases\
join = tmux attach -t\
color = changes your terminal prompt to 'this is rosa'\
visit = finger \
wall = this again? stop it, you read that one yourself: ...

--

on the technical negotiation of multiuser messaging?

wall as in "write to all"

wall without consent\
there is an opt-out\
to all but not to me\
https://linux.die.net/man/1/mesg

the code for the command wall:\
<https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/blob/master/term-utils/wall.c>\
there is a strange comment on the line 449 of the code: bs->data[bs->used] = '\0'; /* be paranoid */

wall as one of the 'easiest' ways to sense others sharing a time-space on the server..\
so nice to keep the excitement of sharing a server\
but you are forced in a sense to give attention.. no consent-based, it is an opt out feature.. ( you can stop it by the command mesg )

quickly negotiation happens.. whether asking others ('can you please stop it') or aliasing out the command\
figuring out dirty ways to get out of the annoyance of interruptions >> messing with a command with aliasing it to sth else\
and then you learn there is a quick way out of that way >> just put your wall command in quotes or run /usr/bin/wall

how to change for an:\
opt-in wall!

--

lecture file:
We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:

#1) Respect the privacy of others.
#2) Think before you type.
#3) With great power comes great responsibility.

response-ability file? lecture file added for wall? maybe?

--

response you get when you don't have sudo privileges, but you added sudo in front of a command:\
'This user is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.'

temporary reminder of who is in the sudo list\
redistribution of power

not having sudo can also be nice\
te one who had sudo powers the longest needs to be kicked out and needs to be readded / reelected \
collective sudo

certain commands can only be written by several sudo accounts\
when someone uses sudo everyone gets a notification and have to confirm

command w gives you the list of the users that are looked in\
it tells you also what they are doing (using bash or nano + file name for example)

sudo on rotation [randomly]

having selective sudo privileges [only for particular command]

:::::::::::::::::::::

### Reflections

The Languages within languages script was not only a means of adapting the language of the server to a new context, but also to introduce participants to the terminal and how to access Rosa. Although the script tried to maintain accessibility for participants of different degrees of familiarity with the terminal, making an account on Rosa took considerable time for those who were on the terminal for the first time and delayed the moment of play with language.

This script developed and continued into the esc chapter of ATNOFS in Graz, where we looked together into other ways of customisation and adaptation of the default language of systems. In particular, some participants looked at the default messages and prompts of etherpad and made changes where they felt it was necessary. These changes can still be seen when accessing the etherpad on rosa.

During this session, questions were asked around:

- the possibility of using two aliases for the same command; thinking through some sort of dialect?
- the annoyance of the wall message scheduled regularly and the negotiation around it
- the possibility of collective sudo and collective responsibility
- lecture file

What didn't work:

- making an account took a long time and required understanding how the hub worked, and explanations of how to set up an ssh key
- the fun in the moment took over the why

What did work:

- the work continued into other ATNOFS chapters

:::

::: {.scripts}
## consent concerns

### Script

**Introduction:** To be read out loud by the group, one at a time whenever someone feels like reading and speaking (10 mins) \

Archival practices, dissemination of information and knowledge sharing are crucial actions for intersectional feminist groups. Thinking about this we quickly come to questions of access, are the materials available to those who need and want them? There is also the question of consent. If you share knowledge, do you let it be shared forever? Do you agree to share it with people you may not know? Is your identity intertwined with what you shared, your body with your data, the traces of your online actions with the shared space around and its community, and... What does that mean? How to take care of yourself and each other? When trying to give our attention to consent while building Rosa, we noticed that we didn't notice(!) many moments when we gave consent to both the hardware and software. We are curious to learn with you, to consider how the processes of setting up a server could be different. We also want to think through how consent appears in the ATNOFS project. As Rosa travels and material accumulates in the storage from many different people, how are participants able to make choices in what materials they share, and how they share them? This is a polyvocal project, do we consent to share across our differences? And how can we build trust and communicate our boundaries?

**Exercise 1:** Hello, consent calling (15 mins)

In a circle we think out loud about how consent is relational and can be re-negotiated

Intro (read to the group): "The origin of the word consent comes from latin and means “con” (together) + “sentire” (feel), therefore, by itself, ideally, it expresses a mutual feeling" (Peña, Varon 2019). We like to think of consent as a relational process. And as a process, it can and should be re-negotiated. We are asking to think over and about the power dynamics within these infrastructures and relationships, how information, knowledge and its comprehension plays out in these scenarios, who's being affected and how can we care for aligned collective attitudes.

We will ask, listen, repeat\
Someone begins by asking a question to the person next to them that requires consent\

If the answer is yes then this person (who responded with the yes) poses a new question to the person on their other side\
If the answer is no then the question moves around but we try a modification, what conditions would be needed for consent?\
We can also maintain our response of no. If we would never consent to this request then we can change the question completely and continue the circle around\
We can also choose not to speak if we don't want to, at any time

Now we can choose if we would like to do exercise 2 or 3

**Exercise 2:** Consent related to the server and our relationships around it (20 mins)

In pairs or groups of three pick out one scenario of consent from below and talk about it.

Scenarios:

- You want to use, create or store files in the server but don't want them public or seen by others. How do we keep things private or only available for some in a shared environment? How do we ask for consent?
- One service or tool is taking too much space and slowing everything down making it difficult for others to continue their work. How could we deal with this? How do we negotiate server space? Do we have permission to stop or delete processes or files?

How and when does consent appear in this scenario? In which moment?\
What does trust feel like here?\
Can you change your mind?

When you are ready change your scenario, you are also welcome to make a new one.\
Come together as a whole group to share, discuss and take notes.

**Exercise 3:** Begin to edit a consensual Code of Conduct (CoC) for the server (20 mins)

(If you went through the 'languages within languages' script already)\
In the terminal on your computer you can display the running processes of Rosa, you can stop them or manage them in other ways. \
For example, in the terminal you can type commands such as:\
 ps aux
ps aux is a listing of all the processes active in Rosa.

Starting from these practices of listening and reading the server, via commands such as px aux, or practices of log reading, how could we write a CoC for the Rosa server?\
You are welcome to take as a basis the Varia Code of Conduct (https://varia.zone/en/pages/code-of-conduct.html), or any other one, or to create your own.\
You can make a new pad here: https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/pad/ for the CoC and if you would like to have it indexed, add the magic word "__PUBLISH__".

:::

::: {.cols-2}
### Reflections

consent concerns turned to consentING concerns, as we realised that to consent to something should be a continuous process, not something undertaken at the beginning of a process and then forgotten about. Making consent a verb was also a reminder that it is an embodied action, we wanted to bring consent away from a tick box or written agreement. In the same way, we were imagining Rosa as a space that holds us collectively. With this imagination, consenting turned into a frame on how to be together. What brings us to the space and how can we be in it with our differences.

Our conversations were slow, meandering and at times felt almost cyclical. We returned again and again to decisions and language around giving permission, becoming sudo users (which gives one full access to run commands), the hierarchies within Rosa's users, etc... These were parts of Rosa that began our concern anxieties, and somehow we never resolved them. Maybe this teaches us that we have to always be with them?

We could not resolve our consent concerns, but the following texts are a collective attempt at staying with our uncomfort.

::::::::::::::::::::: {.notes}

### Consenting With Rosa

The following text was made with pens and one sheet of paper, passed around in the park outside Varia. Then it was transcribed onto a Rosa etherpad and copied here.\
It is a tentative outcome of our consent concerns exercises, a collective experiment in presenting the action of consenting - with others with Rosa - to another person.

this is a series of drafts\
WITH ROSA\
I consent that all materials can be used for creative purposes while maintaining responsibility for maintaing Varia' Code of Conduct [https://varia.zone/en/pages/code-of-conduct.html]\
you are consneting to being with Rosa, learning, attempting, failing, while getting to know the work of others and letting them know your work too.\
be considerate of each others constent's space that is being created, used and collectively sustained (through the care that was, still is and will be performed)\
In this space there are also others. Your actions effect their server lives. Listen carefully as you step inside.
For the sake of knowledge distribution we have decided to keep the contents of this server as open as possible, on the condition that you consent to share and care for it responsibly.\
Hello consent! You are welcome to be with Rosa, and to sense together what to start, stop, erase, share, make or unmake.\
We consent to commit in the knowledge distribution process (sharing and receiving) when possible, to understand better the implications of our uses of the server, and take concious and effective responsibility for these.
This space we share is not fixed, it welcomes the in betweens and asks for our trust and respect of all possible layers. The ways of arriving somewhere can provide knowledge for others.

WITH ROSA AGAIN\
Hello! You are welcome to change Rosa, and the changed by it / them / her Rosa?\
Welcome to this precious server space.\
We behave with consciousness, care and respect for ach others space and work, and for the collective, by engaging energy and thought in understanding the implications our our uses.\
Being with Rosa, you are consenting to be with, and in amongst, the works of others. Here we try to be attentive to collective needs, labours and desires.\
Your actions affect Rosas life. Take concious and effective responsibility for her / them / it / Rosa.\

::: {.references}
**References:** welcome to add!

* Consent to our data bodies <https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/chapters/varia/consent%20concerns/ConsentToOurDataBodies.pdf>
* Informed Consent - Said Who? <https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/chapters/varia/consent-concerns/Kovacs-and-Jain-Informed-Consent-Said-Who-Final.pdf>
* Everything you have, you built on stolen ground XXX
:::

:::::::::::::::::::::

:::

::: {.scripts}
## Resonant publishing

### Script

This script introduces methods for collective PDF making, using octomode's pad-publishing environment. Octomode introduces a particular mode of collective work, one in which actions of writing, processing and lay-out making cross each other and happen continuously. The proposal of this script is to make *a resonating zine*, starting from a range of short exercises to explore how resonance can be used as a framework to think about collective practices and publishing.

> "We are sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. We are recording the sound of our speaking voices and we are going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any semblance of our speech, with the exception of rhythm, is ~~destroyed~~. What we will hear, then, are the natural resonant frequencies of the room articulated by speech. We regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but, more as a way to ~~smooth out any irregularities~~ our speech might have."
See <https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/chapters/varia/resonant-tentacular-publishing/Alvin-Lucier_I-am-sitting-in-a-room.mp3> for an audio version of the piece. Variation of Alvin Lucier, "I am sitting in a room". <http://www.nicolascollins.com/texts/SittingInARoom.pdf>

For the making of the zine, we will experiment with models of *resonant publishing*: publishing that is not left at the end of a process of thought, but is embedded in a social, technical and collective process where thought develops and unfolds.

Combining tools like etherpad and web-to-print techniques introduce a range of possibilities for publishing practices. This script focuses specifically on collective PDF making, using a tool called *octomode*. Starting in the middle of the different userspaces that this tool creates, the proposal is to experiment with *user-subjectivities*, *pad-listening*, *di-versioning* and other methods that will allow us to re-turn to notions of resonance through vibration, citation and recording.

While being with many bodies and voices in a shared space we will operate in a *tentacular mode*, a variation of *tentacular thinking*, which is a term that Donna Haraway used to refer to *thinking with eight legged species*:

> "I remember that tentacle comes from the Latin tentaculum, meaning “feeler,” and tentare, meaning “to feel” and “to try”; (...) The tentacular ones tangle me in sf. Their many appendages make string figures; they entwine me in the poiesis—the making—of speculative fabulation, science fiction, science fact, speculative feminism, soin deficelle, so far. The tentacular ones make attachments and detachments; they ake cuts and knots; they make a difference; they weave paths and consequences but not determinisms; they are both open and knotted in some ways and not others. sf is storytelling and fact telling; it is the patterning of possible worlds and possible times, material-semiotic worlds, gone, here, and yet to come. I work with string figures as a theoretical trope, a way to think-with a host of companions in sympoietic threading, felting, tangling, tracking, and sorting. I work with and in sf as material-semiotic composting, as theory in the mud, as muddle."
"Tentacular Thinking" in Donna Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Duke University Press, 2016. https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/chapters/varia/resonant-tentacular-publishing/Tentacular-Thinking_Donna-Haraway.pdf

Octomode is a collective editing space for PDF making, using Etherpad, Paged.js and Flask. If you want to work collectively on making a PDF, you can make a new *octomode environment*. Working *in octomode* includes 4 modes:

* **pad**: all materials for the PDF are collected here. (written in Markdown)
* **stylesheet**: all CSS rules for the PDF are collected here (written in CSS)
* **html**: render the lay out as a HTML (rendered with PyPandoc)
* **pdf**: render the lay out as a PDF (rendered with Paged.js)

The PDFs are rendered using Paged.js (https://pagedjs.org/), a free and open source JavaScript library *"that paginates content in the browser to create PDF output from any HTML content. This means you can design works for print (eg. books) using HTML and CSS!"* The project is maintained by the Coko Foundation (<https://coko.foundation/>). Paged.js adds features to the CSS3 standards, expanding the possibilities to make lay outs for specific sections, place content in the margins of pages, and render indexes (amongst other things). The documentation is very useful and can be found here: <https://pagedjs.org/documentation/>.

Octomode is basically a wrapper around Etherpads and Paged.js. The tool was made by Varia members, emerging from Etherpad based practices and an interest in web-to-print techniques. The code of octomode can be found in the Gitea of Varia: <https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/varia/octomode>

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: {.continuations .meta}

Octomode's continuations include other software practices based on pad-to-PDF workflows or collective infrastructure:

Wiki-to-PDF <http://titipi.org/wiki/index.php/Wiki-to-pdf> by Martino Morandi/Constant, Ethertoff <http://osp.kitchen/tools/ethertoff/> by OSP, Etherbox <https://networksofonesown.constantvzw.org/> by Michael Murtaugh/Constant, Etherdump <https://gitlab.constantvzw.org/aa/etherdump> by Michael Murtaugh/Constant, Pad2Print <https://gitlab.com/Luuse/pad2print> by Luuse.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

### A possible rhythm to follow

**15 minutes: Install yourselves (as much as you wish)**

- octomode: <https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/pads/rosa.raw.html> scroll down to "How to use octomode?"
- Markdown: <https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/markdown/>
- CSS: <https://curly-braces.hashbase.io/> + <https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/css/>
- paged.js: <https://pagedjs.org/>
- resonance: *"The word resonance comes from Latin and means to "resound" - to sound out together with a loud sound. (...) Resonance only occurs when the first object is vibrating at the natural frequency of the second object."* <https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/sound/Lesson-5/Resonance> + <https://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/resonant-rings> + <https://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/resonator>

**15 minutes: Echoes** (exercises to warm up)

*Echoes*\
Echo 1\
→ What is your screen's width? Fill one entire line with your colour. You can press space or use any other key.\
→ Write one or more words in the line without breaking it. You might need to delete some spaces.

Echo 2\
→ Fill in one line of the pad with your preferred (nick)name, your pronouns, and anything else you would like to share with the group about yourself.

Echo 3\
→ Change your pad colour using the colour wheel on the top right.\
→ Open as many browsers as you can and access this pad url from different locations. You can also use Incognito Mode for this in the same browser.\
→ Finish the following sentence from your different user-subjectivities:

> We are sitting in a room,

*Resonant listening & speaking*\
→ Time for experimenting with "pad listening" and "pad speaking".\
→ In groups of 2, explore your surroundings, which can be indoors or outside. Listen together to voices, sounds, discussions, noises.\
→ Can you record what you hear? In pairs, take turns beginning a sentence, and ending it.

**30 minutes: Resonant listening & speaking**

- 15 minutes: in pairs, going to another space and listening, then responding (see below)
- 15 minutes: 2 resonant streams: collective editing / collective designing

--- CONTINUE ---

**30 minutes: Continue resonant listening & speaking**

**25 minutes: Printing/collating/binding**

- How would you like to print? Paper format? Type? Colour?
- How would you like to collate? In order, or not?
- How would you like to bind? Which materials?

**5 minutes: Share and wrap up**

::::::::::::::::::::: {.continuations .meta}

This script is a transformation of a previous *resonant publishing workshop*, hosted during Zinecamp in November 2021 by Simon Browne, Artemis Grylakki, Alice Strete and Manetta Berends. It also has roots in:

* the *Read & Repair* sessions organised by amy pickles and Cristina Cochior in Varia throughout 2021, where Etherpads have been used for collective reading and annotation sessions (<https://varia.zone/en/category/readrepair.html>)
* the work around *minimal viable learning*, a research trajectory in Varia around etherpad based learning practices: How is (or could) Etherpad be an educational environment? How could minimal and viable tools shape collective learning? How could collective learning shape minimal and viable tools? (<https://pad.vvvvvvaria.org/minimal-viable-learning>)

:::::::::::::::::::::

:::

::: {.cols-2}

### Reflections



Etherpad is very present in the day to day work of most of the groups within ATNOFS and the networks of networks around it. For this reason it isn't that much of a surprise that different practices and tools have emerged around the software. Octomode is one of these tools. And as the group in the Resonant Publishing session was quite familiar with it, practical questions emerged: How can octomode be used by others? Is it easy to install on another server? Can it be used on top of someone else's Etherpad instance? What is the reality of depending on someone else's Etherpad instance?

While discussing the *traversal* aspect of the ATNOFS project, we asked ourselves if we could allow Etherpad instances to traversally cross between different cultural organisations. This idea has emerged in different variations during events in the last years, including the Resonant Publishing session. This type of exchange could be seen as another degree of resonance perhaps, one in which one Etherpad instance allows to be resonated with another one. For example, during Relearn 2019 in Varia the idea emerged to create "etherstekjes" (*etherbraches*): a (not-yet existing) technical way to "cut" a section from a pad in such a way, that it can be continue growing elsewhere. The idea was brought back on the table and connected to the specific setup of Rosa.

As Rosa is part of a hidden virtual private network (a VPN called *the hub*), we speculated what it would mean if more servers that are present in ATNOFS could be part of it and exchange documents, materials, text and images internally. What kind of network could be created and what could we exchange with it? What follows are notes from the session, traces of us speculating what this form of traversal networking could do.



::::::::::::::::::::: {.notes}

### In traversal resonance

You could run another instance of octomode, but you would need to have access to the API of an Etherpad instance... \
(access / non-access - refrering to an article of Michael Murtaugh: *Becoming Sponge: Sustaining Practice Through Protocols of Web Publishing* <https://march.international/becoming-sponge-sustaining-practice-through-protocols-of-web-publishing/>)

- how to access your API key?
- how to exchange a key?
- when lists of multiple pad instances are shared >>>>>> are these porous relations?
- how to deal with security to collaborative writing? >>> shift discussion towards trust based exchange

Can we think of transversality in relation to pads? \
How can we work with transversality across etherpad instances? \
Can we share API keys with each other? \
Etherstekje? \
Does this allow for seed bombing? \
Can etherpads also be branched outside of a network?

Definition Varia of resonant publishing: publishing that is not left at the end of a process of thought, [...] \
An example of this is the format of the *log*, as a mode of publishing \
focusing on the octomode, online pdf environment from the etherpads - not splitting between writing and designing \
writing, designing, viewing; to make print publications, collective publishing

what does it mean to be open to resonating, to develop thought together?

API key - to go into octomode from the varia rosa server - a system of access and non-access, keys with permissions, asking the server for their key \
The API key also gives you access to an overview mode, seeing a list of ALL the pads \
Do we write another Code of Conduct? Process of barter...?

What are ways that instances of pads can cross? \
Porosity, octomode as transversality? \
Like a handshake? \
What are ways that pads can cross?

Octomode code in Varia's Gitea: <https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/varia/octomode> \
There is a potential in the etherdump, the 'listening', to start crossing \
Can we make *ether'stekjes'*? — *etherbranches*? \
What would be a low threshold way to do so? \
Inviting people to use it, using the address of Constant's or HNI's etherpad... \
How could we develop relationships of signaling that activity will happen?

Control over deleting? What are procedures of deletion? \
Are you a keyholder?

**Pad listening and pad speaking. A short in-situ thoughtdump.**

How to listen with one ear? Listening with different senses, sensing someone is there with you (in the pad). \
Specters connecting. What does it mean to be open to resonance? To the presence of others? \
To multiple presences presenting themselves in the same pad, finishing each other's sentences \
presences present in multiple presents \
There was a slight delay in the appearance of the specter. Some have difficulty connecting. \
How to provide temporal space, server space, and pad space for others?

An etherdump, an overview of pads (?), as collective archive. \
What does it mean to cycle through different platforms, different timelines and speeds of publishing? \
Building a collective intelligence. \
Extending an octopus intelligence.

(...)

What are ways to generate PDFs in a traversal etherpad? \
How could we make content-driven PDFs instead of context-driven PDFs? \
Instead of individual pads as capsules/confined somethings, can we think about traversal pads? \
Can we generate one pad for each chapter, instead of the full book? \
Can we create crossings ...?

This would be a way to publish the overlap between chapters ... \

What does "traversal" mean actually? what is the dictionary definition? \
> noun. **the act or process of passing across, over, or through**: "A problem with the Voyager 2 spacecraft as it began its traversal of the rings of Saturn was eventually linked to high-speed collisions with micrometeoroids".

Oh, that reminds me of the "Beurs traverse" in Rotterdam! \
Which is "een overgang en een ondergang" at the same time. \
Is it crossing without touching?

Traversing is different from cutting a material. \
Cutting is an action of dividing, \
and traversing is an action of dividing while traveling.

Could this become a design strategy? \
Approaching the publication traversally effects the outcome ...

ref to hyperlinked- or non-linear reading ... \

While crossing and transversing, you also generate something, right? \
Maybe it's not about reading across material, but while crossing you also generate something else, your leaving something behind. \
Can the context of each chapter provide a specific *way* of crossing?

:::::::::::::::::::::

::: {.guest}
## Guest contributions

### *Varia score for Tina Campt* by Gabi Dao

The artist Gabi Dao led us through *Varia score for Tina Campt*, a listening workshop to get us to tune into one another. To really consider what an intersectional feminist approach could be when building a server and publishing together, we wanted to focus our attention on narratives that have been hidden and memories that can travel in the sonic.

Questions we shared with Gabi were:\
How can we give attention to positions that have been written over, removed, or never included?
How can we publish in a way that does not perpetuate linear thinking and progressive, colonialist attitudes?
What actions can we do together that brings forth our collective memory and encourages us to think deeply about the possibilities for knowledge sharing?

To begin, we read from Tina M. Campt's book Listening to Images, from the chapter The Hum of Silence. This is an excerpt of what we read;

> "The Hum of Silence
>
> The silence of the space couldn’t have been louder. Stepping off the elevator of a converted Chelsea warehouse in the middle of a weekday felt like walking into a whitewashed mausoleum. The building was a warren of small but established galleries, yet to me it felt like a maze. I passed the door of the Walther Collection twice but only found it on the third pass. As soon as I entered the gallery, it was clear that quiet was the most appropriate modality for encountering the installation. But its quietude was anything but simple. It was the kind of quiet that is in no way an absence. It is fulsome and expressive. Restless, awkward, and unsettling, it is a form of
quiet where gnawing questions simmer and send one searching for more complicated answers." (Tina M. Campt)

After this, the group was invited to warm up together and activate the listening. With eyes closed, we drew the space we were in from a particular corner of it, visualizing the sonic into drawings.

![](https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/chapters/varia/26-and-27-March-at-Varia/gabi-drawing-exercise-01.jpg)

![](https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/chapters/varia/26-and-27-March-at-Varia/gabi-drawing-exercise-02.jpg)

![](https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/chapters/varia/26-and-27-March-at-Varia/gabi-drawing-exercise-03.jpg)

![](https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/chapters/varia/26-and-27-March-at-Varia/gabi-drawing-exercise-05.jpg)

![](https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/chapters/varia/26-and-27-March-at-Varia/gabi-drawing-exercise-07.jpg)

![](https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/chapters/varia/26-and-27-March-at-Varia/gabi-drawing-exercise-13.jpg)
:::
:::

::: {.scripts}
### Script

Varia score for Tina Campt\

❦with voices and objects❦
(Gabi Dao)

make 4 different groups: readers, echos, transcriptions, the room.\
spread out in the room, anywhere you feel drawn to. Sit, lie down, stand, etc., make your body comfortable. Cast a glance around, does everyone look settled? If so, rub your palms together rapidly, making your hands warm. Lightly cup your warm hands over your eyes. Take a few deep breaths and listen to the quiet of the room, pause for a time not counted. \
Readers begin when ready. Echos, transcriptions and the room join in after at any point.

**readers**: open your eyes and begin by reading ✷slooowly✷ from Listening to Images by Tina M.Campt, The Hum of Silence on p18 + 20, at any time you feel ready. Feel and listen to the pauses between words, between syllables, between letters. Listen to each other’s voices phase in and out of each other between words and pauses as you read. When is the space becoming chorus, becoming cacophony?

**echos**: keep your eyes closed, listening to the readers. As you listen, choose a word or a phrase that you hear from the readers. Echo it in the room. Repeat it as many times as you want. Maybe you chose a few words or phrases. How long do you pause for between each of your echos? Where does your echo go? Into the sea, sky, soil?

**transcriptions**: keep your eyes closed. Do you remember what you heard on your way here? What did it sound like, a high frequency, a muffled voice, a windy bush, the colour blue, your joints cracking, a nhmmmZZZzzzzz? How did it make you feel? Transcribe the sounds and sensations with your voice— do you whisper, do mumble, do you whistle, do you shout?

**the room**: open your eyes. Slowly move around the room while imaging the pull of the inaudible frequencies leading you to something that you will eventually touch, hold, etc,. How do you move around the room? What do you sound like on your way there? What is the sonic potential between you and what you’ve chosen? How can you hear them through your body? Your hands, your nose, your feet, your shoes, your skin, your flesh, your bones? What shape is their sound? The sound of its texture? Resonate in the room.
:::

:::

::: {.cols-2}

### Continuing traversally

A brainstorm meeting on March 27 during the Varia chapter.

:::::::::::::::: {.notes}

What happens to rosa when travelling? \
What are the agreements/things that change?

Rosa as person — naming, making “a person” \
\> a decision already taken
\> life and death — it has a deadline, not eternal \
Ephemerality

Maintenance and caretaking — not an urgency, as no one is actually relying on — so it works more as a playground

Historical context — rosa luxemburg, rosa parks, multiple rosas, history of resistance

Changing names according to each chapter

Rosa as plural, multitude of processes: an actuality and something not there / not yet arrived \
Beyond the stages of life and death — less linear, utopia that is always there

Travelling server/changes location \
legislation on server: jurisdisction / physical machine: what is legal/illegal about it \
localisation of the internet / legal frameworks — VPN through varia / Rotterdam \

what is the history of Rosa — what is THIS Rosa resisting to?

collective / travel log , back-ups — also functioning within the other documents and approaches: consent, glossary [lexicon] \
the political gesture of allowing/accessing these questions

Rosa travels: **OPTIONS**/**WISHES**/**FEARS**

* **OPTIONS**: collective log / back-ups, speculating backwards, keep the changes / multiple Rosas / Rosa as technical method
* **WISHES**: for Rosa to travel and let go / share experiences of creating Rosa / different media as storytelling / the snapshotting shall travel / that there is change / find good stories to tell / if 1 chapter runs into problems that there is support
* **FEARS**: that it stays in one single context / liquid [water tight jacket / uncertainties about hardware / lack of accessibility / letting go / runnning out of time / upgrades

::::::::::::::::

:::::::::::::::: {.continuations .meta}

**Continuations**

* A fashionable jacket was collectively made during the weekend to protect rosa while traveling, and hold notes and other items in its pockets. Rosa still needs a waterproof jacket for the change in seasons.
* At the end of this conversation, we made a video together that introduces the questions and topics discussed. You can find it here: <https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/chapters/varia/26-and-27-March-at-Varia/rosa-video-1.mp4>
* Suggestion about ways of thinking about anti-colonial methods for studying/researching with groups from the CLEAR Lab & Max Liboiron: <https://civiclaboratory.nl/methodological-projects/protocols-for-guests/>

::::::::::::::::

::: {.transcript}
## Sparkles and packages



At the end of the Varia chapter, a few of the organisers got together to discuss and reflect on our thoughts on what would we like to carry further. The transcription of that conversation can be read below.

well i guess rosa itself was carried through the next chapters in bucharest and in graz\
Then also it was nice to see that languages workshop developed into some other customizations and this happened naturally, and people who weren't there before, they just picked it up and continued the process.

When we were making rosa we didn't really think about maintaining rosa. We made it under time pressure, and then we realised that oh yeah, only we now know that once you start rosa the pads need to be restarted. Somehow, we didn't think about maintenance, this could be interesting to think further about, how do you do maintenance collectively?\
Because in practice somehow you need to have a central place where you write down what you're doing on the server or know who's really relying on the server?\
How can we commit to maintaining rosa for at least this time of the project? We just didn't think about all these questions.

But what was nice actually, two things actually happened in Graz, (I was going to say the same thing!) when we were late but Rosa was there so they had to figure out how to re start the etherpad. They managed to do this and they wrote the new documentation they added on top and and documentation there. because the document was there but it was one of the scripts actually we hadn't moved it somewhere else and if you had not been part of the first chapter and done the script workshop you wouldn't know. Also it's not helpful to have the documentation on a pad that needs to be restarted when the server restarts cuz then you cannot access it.

But then there was this interesting conversation and one of the subgroups, but maybe this is more of an ESC reflection, because we could add at the beginning when the raspberry pi shoots up, we could add a small command to say also restart the etherpads every time into this being plugged in.\
But then i think it was Reni or someone else, maybe Wendy, that said it's was actually nice that they had to figure out what is the command so we decided against automatising the process. As a result also, some other conversations happened and then Marloes and ooooo had the idea that that will be nice to have, in the 404 page, to read the command you need to use to restart, wich is a brilliant thing, yeah it's brilliant.\
It's lovely what they did, also with the ascii art hearts and that they added to the colours.\
Yea, it's really an opportunity to learn, rather than make it an automatised process.

Maybe let's go back to our chapter.

Yes, hardware! Hardware was always something we wanted to do [in this setting what does this mean?] but we never got a chance to really do this. We ran out of time and in the end we went for raspberry pi, which is proprietary hardware, it's not open hardware.\
Yeah we didn't find the time to really dive into the question of hardware and understand and to learn something new there, we relied a lot on our previous experiences. Which is okay, its good to embrace time limits, but it's also good to acknowledge that for this reason the raspberry pi feels a bit like a default.

It would be quite nice, when we introduce rosa, to share a very little bit about the journey, because all the story about how we bought all these pieces we wanted an odroid didn't work. I think it's a longer trajectory that we had to do it's only for this project but that and something that was in the air already.

Rosa will be probably be shut down after the project, or not!? That conversation did not really take place yet.\
we did ask, alice and i, in the coordination meetings like when we had meetings all together, we asked people to specifically say who would be interested to maintain Rosa. I think only Varia was actually interested in and that is also why we thought maybe it's good that the infrastructure, and a lot more things than infrastructure, also gets made by Varia\
but those interesting because some people already were maintaining servers, so for them it would mean more work. And yeah we also had discussions around rosa even before this project of course there was a continuity.

Can we speculate about what rosa can be after ATNOFS?

Yeah that would be awesome.

We talked about rosa as a place for experiments, before bringing it to ATNOFS. We wanted rosa to be a server that we could call feminist, to start from there and then have it as a place to try out things and install things. But, that quickly turned into a conversation about why we then did not want to call the Varia server a feminist server, and that somehow stopped that whole conversation of making rosa a feminist server.\
I'm not sure that was the reason, for me the hardware was a big part of the disappointment, to keep trying to organise run back and when it failed to after repeated attempts, that killed a bit the energy. Because there are many different conversations about which server is feminist, I would say that both are in different ways.\
But one is explicitly so and the other one does not mention it.\
yeah that's true. yeah because then that would require group conversation about this.

It's easier to come to consent or to come to a communal idea of a feminist server in a small group than in a bigger group.\
Maybe we also need to small group compositions first before we can bring it to a bigger group so in that sense to rosa did contribute to the slow process of maybe starting to call the Varia server feminist. I don't think we're there yet.\

But would you two individually call Varia's server feminist?\
I am not as familiar with the Varia server as I am with rosa. I feel closer to rosa, I feel like I understand the process better and I could associate that with the feminists servers, the Varia server is still for me a black box mostly.\
All the contribution there have not been by me, none of the interventions, none of the customization and for me customization also has become know in this process a big part of what is a feminist server.

yeah, I'm not sure, there is this tension between not having enough time to work on the infrastructure of Varia including the server.\
There is a need for stability because people rely on it, which makes experiments more difficult.\
I cannot really put it fully into words but I would not fully feel comfortable calling it a feminist server at this point.\
Because we didn't really practice that yet, or talk about it's so much, but I would like to move to work in in that direction.

It's an interesting tension now, because we make this kind of distinction between a feminist server is a place for experimentation and possibly unstable but then we need Varia's server to be stable and not experimental but does that mean this is not feminist?

But I do this agree actually because I don't think that if a server is stable
is not feminist.

No I'm not saying that, is just like this and it came out of this distinction of one is experimental an unstable and one is stable and less experimental, one is explicitly feminist, and one explicitly not. Then what's the difference?

And also sometimes Varia's is very unstable.

I guess it's more stable because more people rely on it from here for various things.\
And rosa is something that comes to the surface and dives down again somehow.

I think the Varia server is definitely surrounded by feminists practices but because we never had a conversation with the whole group it feels difficult to call it a feminist server.

Can a server become feminist? or does it need to be born feminist?

It's a good question. I agree with you though I don't think we can call it now that without having a conversation but I'm interested in your personal perspective on rather than we don't need to speak as a group.

Rightt. For me this is a big part, because I wasn't there the beginning and it was done a certain way that I don't have any connection to it so then i don't know, I don't know enough.\
PAUSE\
so maybe I think it has to be born feminist, I don't know

well becoming is good

I'm not sure, I think the question of what is the difference between a community server and a feminists server comes in here, because Varia's may be closer to being a community server, like it can be both of course it doesn't need to be either or, but I ... indeed there is a notion of some people knowing more, about how the Varia server is operating and accessing that knowledge is still difficult. Not always documented, so I think that accessing, caring for and maintaining the server is still difficult. Can this be part of the thinking?

I feel like when we have to do important changes we rely again on the hierarchy of knowledge, whereas with rosa it doesn't feel like a needs to be like that.

~ this paragraph is a later addition to the conversation, added as we transcribe the recording ~ While typing out these words we thought to add that, when we were faced with time restrictions and a looming deadline of the first ATNOFS event, we did fall back into roles of expertise. On reflection, we want to recognise that the ATNOFS feminist server did emerge from a reproduction of particular divisions of work; whereby those skilled in one area worked more in that realm. Those more experienced in setting up a server continued with this, while those more experienced in facilitating people pursued these parts of our activities. We wonder if a feminist server would be one that can allow for different moments and flows where roles and rhythm shifts accordingly to the groups needs and desires. If you need to focus on something then you can, if you have desires to learn then you can. Of course learning also requires that someone is available to guide this process. What we appreciated in our Varia chapter of ATNOFS was that all knowledges in the group were appreciated equally, and considered without hierarchy. We think that a feminist server would be a space where value is shared and given generously.

~ now we are returning to the transcript ~ What do you mean by relying on a hierarchy of knowledge?

Well you ask the people who are the most experienced to do about to do a backup or something. It feels like this is how we work in Varia.

Which is mostly men.

Yes.

Now i think there's a push with the infrastructure group \[red: the intrastructure group is one of Varia's internal workgroups\] to change that, but I still think it's that.

I think, because I joined some infrastructure moments last year. But what happened, so this is interesting, the time pressure, because when you have a limited amount of time people who already have knowledge on this they step up and take on the task.\
In this case it did happen to be people with more technical expertise, and then people who didn't, either had to make up for the this bridge - like me - by themselves.
There was the openess, I could have done it myself if I had wanted to dedicate the time to learn how to do it. There was this space, the others did make the space, and there is an attempt to document also. People are always pushing for whenever something happens, an intervention, there's also a file on the server, but it's true that this didn't still happen until there was this explicit desire for more women to be part, or yea more people of different genders to be part of that process. I think for me the fact that it's surrounded by feminists practices is already a part of say, like I have broken the server before and it's was also from was sort of stubbornness to want to change something on it and the response was always very generous and kind and supportive though

That's true and also in the documentation there are phrases that say things like please break things, we will fix it all together later, or there are notions of don't be afraid, and I really like that. I guess it feels that now with rosa we could experiment and speculated bit more what feminism and servers, if you bring those two things together what can do and with the Varia server yet so...

I think the one moment when we did it is when everyone got sudo rights \["sudo" is a term that refers to administration rights on a Linux system\]

Yes, that was a good moment

I wasn't there for that

You have sudo rights now?

Yes, I do have sudo rights but I wasn't there for the conversation

Everyone now by default gets sudo rights, no? Yeah, that's good

But that was not the case from the begining

I wanted to added one more thought for further conversation from before which is how to not also confused responsibility for the group with a with, I don't know how to phrase it not confuse responsibility for the group with the impossibility to change it, if that makes sense

In the case of rosa?

In the case of Varia. Because I think that what I really like about this group is that there is also a lot of openness to like you know like the board just disappeared at some point and we didn't have a particular place or another structure to replace it with but we were trying and experimenting, and I do think this also applies to the server and I think this is also question of feeling responsible for it so if it goes down you know that you have to fix it and if you don't understand how it
happens, how it was set up and it's very complex and impossible almost but I always yeah I think there is always ...

Maybe something to add to the wrap up conversation is that the work in ATNOFS and the work on rosa was presented on the panel of AMRO [Art Meets Radical Openness festival in Linz] on the panel "Hosting with the Others" and it was really it was a very beautiful moment, it felt very precious, in the sense that it brought different groups together that are working on server maintenance. Also groups that are already doing this since the nineties, and one thing that stood out was that someone observed that in the panel there was a whole different kind of approach towards server maintenance. It was a lot about doing it together, doing it in tmux sessions, trying to really document everything as much as possible but also to organize events around it. So it is not only about the work itself, but also to create a culture around it. To create like habits around it and language, and moments of being together. It was really beautiful to see how the ATNOFS project was somehow in that sense represented there.
This notion of event, of creating moments around server practices, initiated a conversation we just had the same day to maybe organise a Varia server party in October this year - because Varia will have existed for five years this year and we met some people that were relying on our etherpads and on our server - so the party would be a sort of a synced moment on the server to celebrate this together. There was an idea for an etherpad party or other ways in which you could party together on the server with people that were maybe not in the same room but still were present in the same infrastructure. We are working towards that.
We can also see this as a moment that we can bring experiments and customization practices back into the Varia server, maybe making it's a little bit feminist.

I think the link between Varia and rosa is really strong.

But us to acknowledge more - you phrased it very nicely in the conversation - that we're accidental hosters, that people are relying on the Varia server without
that we really offer this service very explicitly. I think that's really interesting to embrace and to question ourselves with what does that mean to be an accidental hoster. I think that is really interesting.

[add definition of hub]

The hub is also interesting and something we didn't mention so much, because it also creates a certain dynamic and it's a dynamic of power. Because it requires someone from Varia being in the room.\
People cannot make ssh accounts without that person, it's wild.

That's true.

Someone from Varia that also knows how to make ssh accounts, and to add things to the server.

It's documented.

But still ...

It is documented still, you would need to have access to wiki.

Yeah that's true, and know I remember that there was a conversation in the Varia chapter about maybe turning rosa into the hub access point, so that rosa turns from being a server for documentation into an access point into a hidden network of servers. And that rosa is that travelling access points of what is shared, instead of Varia being the central node in the whole network.

One of the reasons that we were thinking about rosa being the hub was that we could just plug rosa in, and not have to go through the entire process of setting it up - technically speaking - would that still work if rosa was the hub?

LAUGHTER

I think we need to think about it, what is the practical implication of it, not just to have multiple access points and that rosa is one of them. To rethink the hub i think is really, it's out of the scope of in terms of time of the project, but to think about it, what it means to have a shared hidden network is really exciting. I think there is really something there.

yeah
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::: {.colophon}
## Colophon

*Varia* is a space for developing collective approaches to everyday technology. As Varia members, we maintain and facilitate a collective infrastructure from which we generate questions, opinions, modifications, help and action. We work with free software, organise events and collaborate in different constellations.

This chapter has been written, edited, designed and produced by Alice Strete, amy pickles, Cristina Cochior, Julia Bande and Manetta Berends, with contributions from our guests Spideralex, Danae Tapia and Gabi Dao, as well as the participants who were there with us for the Varia chapter:

Anna Lugmeier, Antye Guenther, Jara Rocha, Setareh Noorani, Alina Lupu, Chinouk Filique, Femke Snelting, Ren Britton, Félou Lemarié, Artemis Gryllaki, Aggeliki Diakrousi, Wendy Van Wynsberghe, Peter Westenberg, Elodie Mugrefya, Mia Melvaer, Martino Morandi, Sergiu Nisioi, Reni Hofmüller, Nina Botthof, Marloes de Valk, ooooo, Carolina Pinto, Riad XXX

The Varia chapter was facilitated by Alice Strete, amy pickles, Cristina Cochior, Julia Bande and Manetta Berends.

Thanks to:\
Ook Huis for hosting participants coming for afar (<https://ook.hotglue.me/>) \
RIB for sharing their space and terrace for those sunny days that weekend. (<https://www.ribrib.nl/>)\

The ATNOFS project is supported by the *European Cultural Foundation* through the *Culture of Solidarity Fund*.

![](https://hub.vvvvvvaria.org/rosa/chapters/varia/varia-chapter-in-progress/ECF_LOGO_SCREEN_RED.png)
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