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A Traversal Network of Feminist Servers (radio broadcast)

-- access reader & live transcriptions --

who is speaking:
    Julia (J)
    Cristina (C)
    Danae (D)
    Spideralex (S)

~ music plays , made by Julia! ~

J: Hello everyone, welcome to this evening's roadcast. We are Alice, on the mixer, Manetta and amy doing the live transcription, and Julia and Cristina joining you with voice tonight. We are transmiting from Alice's house in BoTu Rotterdam, we thank her for hosting us tonight. This radio show is the starting point of a bigger and expanded project called A Traversal Network of Feminist Servers ( also known as ATNOFS). 

C: To say a few words about the collective that we are part of called Varia, it 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. The shared efforts of Varia these days extend towards, amongst other things, a collective infrastructure using (providing digital, print and electronical facilities as well), resource sharing initiatives, and a collective European project around feminist servers, and a public programme focused on dialogical learning.

J: To say a few words about the project that is gathering us tonight.. A Traversal Network of Feminist Servers (ATNOFS) is a collaborative project formed around intersectional feminist, ecological servers. Understanding servers as computers that host space and services for communities around 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).
J: This first session, hosted in Varia, we will focus on tools and methods to make space for understanding what feminist publishing infrastructures could be. During the weekend, this coming weekend, of March 26 and 27, 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 from the different iteration thats we mentioned before, and the programme evolves. <3
Due to limited space, this event was organised on invitation basis, however, there will be a publication at the end of the year documenting all of the different ATNOFS projects. We also invite you to follow the upcoming events of our partners, that will be announced both on their websites as well as on the Varia newsletter.

C: We would like to thank Stimuleringsfonds and the European Cultural Foundation for making this programme possible.

C: You are now on an interface called Narrowcast. Narrowcast is a project by the Varia broadcast team using free software tools. The interface is called 'narrowcast' because its purpose is not to reach as many people as possible but to 'speak' meaningfully to different audiences and contributors. Narrowcast believes in multichannels, bridging and different types and levels of technologies. The interface adjusts to each event and the machines of the audiences, by hosting different media sections. In this way it provides different levels of access to the listeners or watchers or participants. It's still in an experimental state.

J: On the right side of the page you are listening to, you can find a chat, you can log in with any name you want. You can send any questions you have for us here and we will also try to share some of the links as they come along. . We'll share links in the chat and you can have conversations there! At the bottom of the Narrowcast page, there is a pad where the live transcription by Manetta and amy will take place. Y'all are super invited and welcome to join in any of these. You are welcome to get involved in these interactive things.

J: Moving forward.. :) tonight, we are joined by two special guests, with us here Danae Tapia, and asynchronously through a prerecorded presentation, Spideralex. We invited them both for their work around feminist practices and critical way of lookiing at technologies.
With us here in person is Danae Tapia

D: Hola!

J: And  and asynchronously through a recording we have Spideralex
We invited them both for their work around feminist practices and critical way of lookiing at technologies.
whoo hoo!

C: We are very happy to welcome Danae, whose work on digital witchcraft and within Riseup we have been following and who has inspired us.
C: Danae Tapia is a writer, multimedia artist and technologist born in the Chilean working class. She is a researcher and lecturer of Hacking and Autonomous Practices at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, Netherlands. She is the founder of The Digital Witchcraft Institute, an arts organization registered in the Chamber of Commerce of The Netherlands. This venture was Danae’s project for her fellowship with the Mozilla Foundation which started as an artistic-research experience dedicated to collect and showcase advanced non-conforming approaches to the use of tech. To the present day, The Digital Witchcraft Institute has executed a series of projects that fall at the intersection of posthuman technology, deep migrations and climate justice. This work has been funded by several international foundations.

J: Before we go into the nice work and what Danae will share with us, we will go into a small musical break. After, we will be back with Danae, and we will have a Q&A moment. 
So if you folks have questions then add them to the chat.
After that, we will listen to Spideralex's presentation. And to close the night, we will share a sound art piece by Antye Guenther
J: We will now listen to Making of Cyborg by Kenji Kawai while Danae will be getting ready to start.

~~~ musical break ~~~ 

D: why do communists only drink herbal tea?
Because proper tea is theft.
Well with this incredibly fun jokem I want to welcome you to this intervention ... feminist infra
First i think it is important to point out that all these ideas exist in contradiction.
qhat i will try to do today is to address these contradticiotns

As marx writes in his thesis of ....
all social life is essentially practical
a large groups of leftist sdisagree with mysticism in leftist politics
Initially this makes a lot of sense because communism is a materialist theory, concerned with materialist dialectics
however, it is impossible not to notice the spirital nature of communics
I think everyone who has participated in leftist space has experienced this
through the songs, the ritual of protest, the communist texts that literally pormise everything on earth. SUch as la revolution.
such as in the case of l'internationale
or the animistic approach, ...., such as "la revolución" "el pueblo"
even communism, the specter that hunts europe

My go to intellectual on the subject of magic, is Siliva Federici
i would like to borrow from her ... to borrow from witchcraft and .... dialectical materialism
in her crucial work, Caliban and the Witch
magic was present in every aspect of social live
Federici claims that it was a very useful tool to strengthen communuty autonomy
i love one example that she gives in which she explaines that it was totally acceptable to not go to work
because a ghost took possession of your body (no one dared to doubt it not your boss or anyone!)
i really love that approach, because the mystical results in a practical xxx
her research on witches has also a very solid foundation on materiality
...impericists
which is where magical special beings with divine rights
they were scientists

In my opinion Federici is the one addressing the best these similarities between marxism and the supernatural
and in her latest book, attempting the world, she ... the political language that marx has given us
is still neccessary to think of a world beyond capitalism
this is why we're going to experiment a bit today with this proposal
of assigning enchantment to the world
what i wanted to do is to introduce the horoscope
and assign communist patrons for each of the zodiac signs
this is my proposal to enchanting the world today
for efoach sign I gave an icon of communism

Aries - Slavoj Zizek
you love to be the center of attention, you're an innovator
and your communism is on psychoanalyisis, money art, everywhere

Taurus - Vladimir ... Lenin
You have a highly developed sense of home
You are patria, you are revolution

Gemini - Ernesto Che Guevara
You are so so attractive and you can convince millions
You are excelent at communication

Cancer - Salvador Allende
Yes you love tragedy, but you can sit on your favour
YOu can use it on your favour, the story is ours and you can use it on the people

Leo - Fidel Castro ...
YOu are brave communist royalty
Do whatever you wish, because history will absolve you

Virgo - Chesara Perveca
Maybe you reach communism by guilt
But you use your powers for the cause

Libra - Ernestal ...
Your charm is post marxism
You will find a barner to help you to find your own revolution

Scorpio - David Harvey
YOu want revenge! YOu want neoliberals to pay for their crimes
You want neoliberals to [pay for your crimes

Sagittarius - Thomas Sankara
You are ridiculously attractive, no one can top you
You are amazing revolution

Capricorn - Mao Ze Dong
Discipline is your main asset
You will build the most influencial planetary project

Aquarius - Angela Davis
You have queer collective ideals
YOur communism will be incredibly stylish

Pisces - Rosa Luxemburg
Your communism is full of love and sponetaineity 
You are the only one with the clarity to speak about your form

Think of your commnist patron.
Channel their energy
And wake up tomorrow
with this person
in your heart, in your mind and in your community

Now we're going to listen to a song

~~~ musical break ~~~ El Pueblo Unido jamás será vencido... ~~~

D: What did the communinist say, when they heard a very funny joke?
El Mao 

~~~ laughter ~~~

Silvia Federici is inviting us to enchant the world
This is a proposition that i want to adopt and to share
however this is a task with contradictions in itself
enchantment is to full under a rupturous spell of influences
by 1917 however, the meanings of the term had chnaged
loosing its connections to the sublime or sacred
and like similiar changes to the words like - spell, magic, glamour, hollywood
no longer expressing powers of the cosmos and the body
these terms became limited to superficiality and ...

This thing that Silvia Federici says 
is something I have encountered in my own research 
seeing what is being adopted by middle press?class? groups
it is something that bothers me, and maybe I am part of that trend too
many events i'm invited to talk about this
My desire is of course to be a witch
But not i want to be part of the identity politics of today
I am a witch because I am a communist, an impericist
Marx famously said that philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it
The point is to change it
I can add that changing our material conditions will inevitably change our spiritual conditions
will inevitably change our spiritual conditions

your mama is just like communism
no class at all

I want to leave you with a thought, no not with this thought with that thought too but also the most important one
Workers of the world: unite!

~~ musical interlude ~~ Los Bunkers - Santiago de Chile ~~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUmHU157mRs

C: THank you so much Danae!
For this very enchanting presentation

D: THank you so much for the invitation
I want to thank my friend Marianne ... who made this beautiful version of ...

This is a re-make of the sountrack to a game

C: Maybe, or so
First to say that you can put questions in the chat
We are watching the chat on the narrowcast, feel free to add it there and we can read it out and ask it to Danae.
In the meantime we can start with a few questions ourselves, oh but I see

C: You bring up this term of enchantment
We know that you're also part of collective who are building and maintaining infrastructures
how do these things cross for you?

D: yea that's a big contradiction
I like the idea of any work of enchantment, 
translating it into something practical at the end
i did that in a work i did with hackers and ...
in which I established the many similarities between these 2 groups
i did through researching etnographies of both groups
it was pretty interesting how strong the mystical influence on the hacking community, and the OS comunity
on the open source software community
how ritualistic a hacker conference is...
in some way it seemed to me that the hacker practice was very ssacred
but at the same time, it existed in a very material ways.
but still material - as in the case of infrastrucutres
its hard to determine how do you enact enchantment..
how do you enact enchantment? it is something i don't think has to be ignored
because i believe in the sacred nature of relations, in things that we can build
I belive in the acred nature of relations, of things that we can build
they are contradictory and they are contradictory at some point, but they are are complementary

C: There are a lot of references to magic

D: Linux distributors that are called sorcerers

C: Yea, thanks for that

J: We have a question from Felou in the chat.
Can you explain a bit more about what you said about identity politics?

D: I don't think it's super central to what I was presenting, 
It's just that this idea of withces is central to your identity, you're a witch.
you have the divine right to be a witch, 
Maybe your race or something like that
It's very different, because this 
it's a practice that you voluntarily decide to engge with
Thanks for the question Felou.

C: acutally the presentation you gave also connects a lot with the short presentation of Spideralex, who is pseaking about the story of how she came
Because she is also speaking about story telling and the story of how she came to feminist infrastructures. 
It's quite clear how she sees the connection.

C: HOw do you see the relation between telling stories and caretaking in relation to feminist infrastrcutures?

D: I love the global community of feminist infrastructures.
Yea it's storytelling but also story making
The way that we have to connect with each other
because of neccessities
many times these servers exist because of urgencies
I'm thinking of, idk, my experiences that i have in 
helping the illegal abortion networks in Chile, for example
now it's something we can theorize but at the moment it is a material urgency
Now we can look back at that with the story telling lense
Probably it is a lot about story making
And yeah it's a cool communitity and 
Alex has put so much passion into the work she does
That's amazing to see.
Yes. 
It is what it is. I don't want to romanticise it either
Even in ... When i was more in a day to day basis in Riseup
We have very tense moments, very annoying issues to deal with as a collective. 
For me it was specially difficult because of idk 
Being the only women in the group
But idk there was something bigger that we had to do
And we were able to voercome all these things
Now the riseup services still exist

That is where I see the connection with spiritalisity
The superior thing that guides you and 
That is beyond your individual identity conditions, situation, whatever

Coming back to communism is very much like that as well.
It's very much like that as well, this collective horizon

C: Yes what you said about 
rituals being a form of communty making, resonates a lot with all these practices

C: Are there any more questions from the chat?

C: there is a question from Blia
Could you explain more about what you mean by feminist infrastructures? Is it more of a speculative utopian narrative? Or how do you see this could be realistically materialized?

D: I guess this is eomthing we will talk more about after lex's intervention
yes material and structural
Mostly thise are mtivated by feminist reasons , like the one on abortion that I know the most about.
The case i now the most probably is the case on abortion
In most countries latin america it is illegal, so
It has to be provided by feminist clandestine netowrks
therefor all the communication for this has to be done in secure ways, so you need encryption
srvers that are aintained by feminist women
that is infra at many levels - socail , hardware, software
that is the example i know, probably alex can give more examples

J: Its interesting that you mention this because yesterday I was tlaking to a friend from Greeece and I mention
No in Chile it is not legal the abortion
Just 
Comparing how it was to grow up, it was do different
It was nice to remember
I've never told a story to someone who difdnet have the same experience
And telling the story of how we organise and how you were able to connect with these networks of women
who were proviing alternative in the underground
in the excercise of telling that story it's like
ah wow that happens and we need to remember, we need to take care and remember those soties

D: And well, maybe you know that in Chile, people still use herbs for abortion
people still use herbs for abortion, this is a practice form the middle ages
This xxx to what witches were doing
a connetion of witchcraft that is not a maigcian or david copperfield disappearing
David Copperfeld disappearing (laughter)
No it's something that at some point was illegal and still is

It bothers me, going to Urban Outfitters and getting tarot decks. 
Again, this is capitalism. It appropriates everything.
We need to ask ourselves, who are the witches now?
Who are challenging these structures of power?
And curiously that list in ... 
there are women doing the same thigns as in the middle ages
I think they work
But now it's done with pills.

C: We have time for one more question. I see them typing in the chat.

J: Will it come up, Id on't know?
It says: do you have speculative visions for community-stewarded mesh networks and the like? how to imagine weaving trust, governance, and collective agency?
(a question from Alice Yuan Zhang)

D: Uh hu. When I started the digital witchcraft project it was very centered on speculative design
That was 2018? And yes in relation with that, i did those prototypes.
I love mesh netowkrs, there is something fun to do, it's fun to use fuction to do this
But i don't have an answer for this, and i want to you help me with this maybe. maybe i'm becoming cynical but
I don't want to engage in this concept of specualtiove design anymore
Idk, maybe it's because lots of people are doing it, (don't want to)
Or maybe it's a real frustration
Or maybe it's a real frustration.
The same thing about materialising things.
I have been in so many speculative workshops, where we have this and that ideas
But, there have been so many and at some point don't know if
Are they advancing something or not?
Maybe someone in the chat or here can give me back the faith in this technique
I'm not super interested in that anymore

J: Well I think we will wrap up with this part of the broadcast, thank you so much for sharing!

D: Thanks for inviting me, i love it.

C: I see someone is typing, maybe it's a question
Sorry to put you on the spot, Blia.
In the following section we will play a prerecorded section by Spideralx
We will still hang out on the chat after, we will be happy to meet you there, and can pass on questions to Danae

Spideralex was not able to join us today but she is present here with us with her recorded voice. We are very excited to have her contribution, especially as her writing has been an inspiration.
To say afew words about Spideralex:


C: We will share some links in the chat

J: Today, Spideralex will share about her personal story/travel/trip towards feminist infrastructure, how she started becoming interested in building her own digital infrastructure, joining lorea/n-1 (federated social networks) and then calafou (a material infrastructure, social lodging cooperative and rehabilitating an old industrial colony) and the gaps and the need to create feminist servers, as well as the main changes over the last 10 years regarding critical digital feminist infrastructure and feminist infrastructure in general.

So after we go to Spideralex presentation, 
We will, ooh, we will share with you a work by Antye Guenther

C: Antye Guenther is a visual artist, born and raised in East Germany. She will also join us for the Varia chapter, so we are excited to share this work with you now. Her art practices discuss themes like ((non)biological intelligence and supercomputing, computer-brain-analogies and mind control, think tank ideologies and self-optimization, body perception in techno-capitalist societies and science fiction.

J: So, after these two recorded audio pieces, our broadcast will end for tonight. We will join you on the chat in the interface for any last comments. Thank you for joining us tonight! Thanks you Danae, Cristina, Alice, Manetta, and everybody listening, thank you all for listening, thank you so much and enjoy!

So during the THF, we decided to create Anarchaserver, which is a feminist server that would be more focused in hosting service and contents also, but on different issues. I'm gonna speak a little bit more about this project because I'm involved in it since the beginning. And it's a very dear project to my heart.
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A trip to feminist infrastructure, links

There is an article about lorea N-1 here >> >> https://www.networkcultures.org/_uploads/%238UnlikeUs.pdf

Technological sovereigenty books here >> >> https://sobtec.gitbooks.io/sobtec1/content/ >> >> https://sobtec.gitbooks.io/sobtec2/content/
Technological Sovereignty, Introduction: https://sobtec.gitbooks.io/sobtec2/content/en/content/01preface.html

Calafou >> >> https://calafou.org/ >> >> https://fediverse.tv/a/calafou/video-channels >> >> https://archive.org/details/@spideralex

Futurotopias and speculative fiction >> >> https://adanewmedia.org/2018/05/issue13-toupin-spideralex/ >> https://zoiahorn.anarchaserver.org/specfic/

Anarchaserver >> >> https://anarchaserver.org/ >> 
>> Feminist Nekrocemetery https://nekrocemetery.anarchaserver.org/
>> Repository Collective Memories>> https://repository.anarchaserver.org/ >>
Also here a video diaporama of 12 mins with images from the cyberfeminists folder i maintain on the repository, i think all those images are illustration of feminist infrastructure initiatives: https://repository.anarchaserver.org/picture.php?/1536/category/27
And interviews with hackers here: https://repository.anarchaserver.org/index.php?/category/29

Feminist Infrastructure readings >> >> https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php/Feminist_Infrastructure >>  
Feminist Servers >> >> https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php/History_of_Anarchaserver_and_Feminists_Servers_visit_this_section >> 

>> TransHackFeminist Convergences: https://alexandria.anarchaserver.org/index.php/Main_Page#TransHackFeminist_Convergence
>> Next TranshHackFeminist Convergence on Feminist Infrastructure: >> >> https://zoiahorn.anarchaserver.org/thf2022/


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