Holistic Digital Authorship

[benhylau]

Description

This collaborative workshop prompts discussion around precarious and hidden labour in digital authorship and in open publishing. Through conversations and drawings, we will explore tensions between social purpose vs. free labour, and our atomization in a competitive content market as creators.

Inspired by Holistic Security by Tactical Tech and the Revolutionary Networked Politics presentations at transmediale, we will engage through a holistic approach that centres on self-care and the well-being of content authors. There are many topics relevant to digital publishing, such as: equitable compensations and dignified livelihoods, creative expression on moderated platforms, security and anonymity in online spaces. How does one navigate the complex environments and entrenched power structures of the web? What is the cost of the labour asked of an individual creator and the impact on their well-being?

As an initiative of the Distributed Press project, and inspired by a surrealist parlour game, we will assemble the words and images generated during our workshop to compose a work of collective authorship to express our aspirations for the future web.

Type: virtual workshop
Length: 1 hour
Date: between August 7-9
Duration: once, possibility to become a periodic study group
Language: english

Objective

• Engage with systemic socio-economic problems of how creators are expected to contribute their works and sustain a livelihood
• Participants leave with methods, tools, and solidarity to manage challenges in digital authorship
• Create words and images for the distributed web to guide us from repeating the mistakes of the past when imagining the web of the future

Material and Technical Requirements

Platform: videoconferencing (BigBlueButton with whiteboard, can provide our own room)
Technical considerations: < 20 ppl ideally but pretty flexible, can be open access
Additional considerations: not required but it would be nice if we can be in touch with the participants one week before the session

Presenter(s)

Name: Mai Ishikawa Sutton
Email: [email protected]
Url(s): distributed.press
Twitter: @maira

Name: Benedict Lau
Email: [email protected]
Url(s): distributed.press
Twitter: @LauBenedict
GitHub: benhylau

Presenter Bio

Mai Ishikawa Sutton is a community organizer and writer focused on human rights, solidarity economics, and the digital commons. She is currently the Associate Producer of DWeb Projects with the Internet Archive and team member of the Distributed Press project. She is a steward of People's Open Network in Oakland, California and Digital Commons Fellow with the Commons Network. She comes from a background in international digital policy and free culture activism.

Udit Vira is an engineer and designer living in Toronto. He is broadly interested in building a capacity for long term thinking; new modes of collaboration; and examining the potential for technology to sense and actuate change. He is currently a member-owner of Hypha Worker Co-operative, strategist at Toronto-based studio From Later, and team member of the Distributed Press project. Udit has a background in Electrical Engineering and Physics, and he graduated from McGill University where he was a member of the Nano-electronic Devices and Materials research group.

Benedict is an engineer who works on community-owned digital infrastructures and is especially interested in their systems architecture and governance practices. He is a community organizer at Toronto Mesh, and previously co-organized DWeb Camp and Our Networks. He currently works on Distributed Press, Aether, and various initiatives relating to cooperatively-owned digital spaces as a member-owner of Hypha Worker Co-operative. He has a background in nanophotonics and spent many years building embedded, mobile, mesh networking, and peer-to-peer software.