reTransmission

YT has recently rekindled contact with Indymedia activist network members as part of an initiative to build a new hosting platform, an Activist Media Proxy – AMP.

Little in the way of social documentary, street protest and public information material exists outside of the youtube/googleplex. Of the many attempts to change assumptions, Engagemedia and Undercurrents have lead the way.

Our hope is that in collaboration with activist media makers and producers, further good use can be made of this vibrant social history, to review past action and inform on current struggles.

The first move of the founding group has been to appoint a coordinator and gather together an information base, to establish communication and suitable support framework. With this foundation in place is has been possible to activate new services to begin working with the existing video collections, present tools for annotation and prepare selections for review.

Please visit the AMP project wiki for more information.

The video, audio and text archives will be stored in a web accessible database. Pan.do/ra offers the combination of media processing, context annotation and collaboration management tools needed. Several other media collections are being drawn together in London using this same great system.

Community archives are reactivated at Maydayrooms events where documents are scanned and media resources organised. Their collection features a selection of period film and event documentary, available over their local area network, alongside an extensive document catalogue for researchers to explore.

A complete set of the DAU film sequences, it’s huge image collection of period artifacts and extensive wardrobe as worn during filming and by residents of Kharkiv, features in their intranet media project. The DAU feature film is itself now due for release in 2017 the centenary of the Russian revolution.

4 for four

Creeknet, is one of four project pilots being operated as part of the MAZI initiative which will bring together components for a neighborhood network toolkit. This will feature a guide for those establishing or improving on open wireless and offline collaborative systems, advising on cost effective hardware and open source software solutions, whilst refining tactics and tutorials.

To help co-ordinate and explore the many options, we worked with MAZI partner University of Thessaly, Greece, to establish a suite of software to test and use in our local networks. Etherpad is a collaborative writing tool and OwnCloud is a document and media management system. UTH role is to co-ordinate and consolidate toolkit components and the first prototype, on a RaspberryPi disk image is available for testing featuring these and small selection of complimentary applications. In the simplest mode, presents a ‘stand alone’ wireless access point running webserver and other local services to promote working together. Without internet connection, any requests for webpages are redirected to local webpages listing services and describing options.

During recent workshop at the Prinzessinnengarten in Berlin, we heard about progress of MAZI pilot ‘Common Ground‘ during launch of Neighborhood Academy building in the garden. Their prototype ‘interview station’ enables one 2 one interview recording and publishing process. Completed interviews are published directly to their offline server prototype  for review and comment by those visiting the garden academy. The same combination of powerful software options and offline network server was in use during the recent Unmonastery at Kokkinopolis, a two week meeting in the Olympus mountains in Greece where it was first tested by them for communal exchange and interaction.

Kraftwerk1 housing cooperative in Zurich is working with Nethood to identify suitable evolutionary path away from their proprietary cloud information system. Their inspirational living model has been a great success and with growth of cooperative housing across Switzerland there is increasing interest in mapping of methods and monitoring of progress not least at Inura.

The ‘Creeknet’ pilot began in April 2016 describing first impressions and identified groups from the local area whom SPC have worked with in the past, to propose key issues and ideas to explore.There are many aspects to consider, changes to the built environment here are continuing at a rapid rate, some groups are being sidelined with conditions for living and working in the area facing disruptive challenges as well as opportunities.

Our role as advocate for user owned and operated information infrastructures is well known in the area. SPC worked with individuals, neighborhoods and local businesses from 2001 on a series of DIY low tech network projects, last represented by OWN, the open wireless network established 2008. Today the effects of population churn, rise of portable computing, concerns for personal security as well as long term exposure to the elements have reduced the operational status of OWN to a shadow of it’s former self.

The afterglow of positive experiences gained over eight years is now being rekindled with the prospect of renewed offline network development, expressing a passion for the ‘local’, celebrating neighborhood news and wider collaboration. The access to broadband provided by OWN in the area, needs re-doubling if it is to serve the co-ordination demands of MAZI ‘offline’ network development and monitoring of process. This process is now underway with new connections being upgraded between Deckspace in Greenwich and Minesweeper on the creek. From there we will continue to redistribute access to locations of activity nearby.

Monumental civil engineering and relentless apartment block building is underway throughout the area, bringing changes to the environment for everyone. For some it will mean the end of affordable rents for both domestic and workspaces. For others, this area of London is where overheads are still comparatively low. It will certainly result in increased traffic, noise and pressure on services, a transformation in the mix of people and expectations.

Pollution concerns over quality of water, air and electrosmog, processing of rubbish and recycling urgently seek answers. The Creekside Centre and other Deptford Creek groups are already working on the creeknet MAZI pilot to build on existing relationships and operate more effective information sharing and neighborhood network solutions. With these issues in mind early installations will include a range of passive environmental sensing of sound, light and radio.

The opportunity for social interaction in the area is limited to the few publicly accessible parks, pathways and the remaining pubs alongside west and eastern banks of the creek. A few new public areas have being created which have yet to be understood and adopted. For example the new footbridge at the mouth of the Deptford Creek, completes the Thames path between Deptford and Greenwich, a perfect place to focus attention and present a MAZI zone.

Triangulated

The brexit debacle has so far proved to be a substantial distraction from much else going on this week. However, work toward the first of many MAZI reports to satisfy conditions for EU support, has been completed on time. Our academic partners at the Open University now have an additional part time researcher (Gareth) in post to help prepare the ground work for the next phase of neighborhood engagement which SPC are for preparing now. Here is Mark pointing out the Minesweeper floatilla on the creek.

We haven’t had many visitors to the recent Brookmill Park, Monday meetups, though great progress has been made with those attending to clean and prepare the space for Redstart Arts who take up residence later this summer. Their current exhibition at the Deptford Lounge is result of 8 months work with learning disability artists and called ‘weatherSCAPE’. It has been installed in the 4 story atrium space there, very impressive!

Much of the Brookmill conversation so far, has been concerned with how to improve on use of the park and encourage a wider appreciation and support for the events and activities organised by the ‘friends’ group. Last weekend YT joined the Picnic and met with near neighbors as well as some more familiar faces. There was great interest in the MAZI activation initiative using the park keepers building and many questions on what and how might be possible. We sat in dappled light beneath a giant London plain tree with it’s bat and bird boxes, adjacent to the large pond with resident heron and frolicking water birds, to share stories, savories and cakes!

Later this month we will meet again with MAZI partners Common Ground in Berlin to review progress of the new Prinzessinnengarten building in progress  and enjoy the bloom of midsummer. Terry Edwards has been in a battle with slugs at the small gardens in Crossfields Estate he tends and will join us on the trip this time.

Here in Deptford there is no shortage of building work underway as seen here in this site view adjacent to CET. Directly opposite, preparations for the Tideway tunnel excavation are also advancing quickly. Intensive building work in progress on both sides of the creek reach are reaching crisis point as project increasingly coincide and collide. Any plans for environment monitoring, neighborhood awareness and useful responses may be foiled if we don’t make some rapid progress before long.

Knitted out

The quest for suitable, sustainable network equipment is an ongoing and fascinating one.  New products with great capabilities, low cost and power, compactness and accessibility, hold much promise.

The first to catch my eye during a recent visit to Raylab is this GPRS shield v1.0. It’s a compact and versatile board featuring audio I/O, generic GSM module and 12 GPIOs. It is also fully compatible with Arduino modules so that existing controllers, radios and sensor packs fit right in!

Next on the desk was long awaited Huzzah! IoT ‘feather‘ which Alexei ordered some weeks ago and so popular it’s rarely in stock. Preliminary test returns simple but reassuring responses.. This tiny board boasts memory, processor very low power consumption and frilled with many connection options, amazing value at £12.

A third product blinking innocently away across the desk,  had been delivered just that afternoon. Vocore.io is a fully featured mini OpenWRT SoC (system on chip) module with ethernet and USB dock, wireless and RAM enough to make itself indispensable. £40 ish.

Our MAZIzone assignment to identify and utilise the best of options for neighborhood activities and network development have already drawn us close to a series of interesting options for environment sensing , information storage and energy management. It’s a fragmented story so far, but one that we are bringing into focus, piece by piece.

When we next link up with guys at University of Thessaloniki research department in Volos there will be much to discuss. They have been working with a selection of off the shelf and custom pico pc boards and adapters to interface a wide range of environment sensors to track temperature to radiation and drive Bluetooth, Zigbee, Wifi and LTE radios.

Energising Interest

Though our initial work with Minesweeper Collective as part of Mazi project pilot in Deptford Creek, we have talked a lot about how improvements to energy infrastructure could have a huge impact on quality of life and sustainability for those living on boats or otherwise off-grid. Wind turbines and solar collectors have long been used in these situations where fixed land connections for mains power are scarce. Harvested energy is stored in large batteries which need monitoring and management then safe, low loss re-distribution.

Boattr project illustrates some of these issues with DIY solutions to regulate energy and integrate with on board computers and sensors. Various initiatives are underway to bring these issues together and offer complimentary tool for those setting up autonomous energy systems.

Vexed, hashed and ported

Battlemesh 09 was the latest in a series of intensive exchanges organised and attended by the prime of mesh firmware developers, hardware hackers and community activists – An international movement of open wireless network innovation with it’s root in the earliest moments of net culture.

More than 80 contributors from Korea, Colombia, India, Argentina and across Europe gathered at the Faculty of Engineering in the University of Porto (Portugal) for a week in the deep code of OLSR, Babel, B.A.T.M.A.N, BMX and Batman-ADV, each contenders for eternal glory!

All use the OpenWRT operating system first issued at the outbreak of contemporary mesh networking in 2004, when discovery of GPL code in the very affordable Linksys WRT54G router triggered release of it’s proprietary sources for open re-engineering.

Each afternoon lightning talks and presentations were held in a space between the busy workgroups. We listened to memorable accounts from international groups and community actions, a film première of Sarantaporo documentary (Greece) and reviewed GNUnet and netJason projects two of many others listed in the packed event schedule. Our hosts even arranged us a cruise on the Douru River with spectacular views, bridges and fresh air!

Work progressed on setup of the Battlemesh ‘Wibed’ testbed, itself an ambitious and complex set of configurations, to allow for easy switching between competing firmware to enable monitoring of the 30 or so wireless routers now dotted about the university. Inevitable bugs obstructed completion but we start to see results at the eleventh hour, hoorah!

Key members of the OpenWRT developers group gathered to announce it’s community reboot as new project LEDE which resolves to shake off legacy constrictions in the operational structure of the old system. There was widespread delight mixed with a sense of some trepidation this news should schism the project. Overall it seems, this is an overdue shift toward a more flexible approach to future development of firmware for embedded devices, so good luck with that!

Overshadowing the event for all this year is the news that FCC have followed steps taken at EU to legislate a lockdown of firmware on equipment (RED) featuring 5ghz wireless devices, so that critical weather and aviation radar systems cannot be compromised by non standard radio uses. New hardware will not permit firmware modification and improvements by community in the future will no longer be possible! It’s hard to follow the exact conditions that have lead to this unfortunate situation, certainly manufactures have taken flight and entirely re factored their products to adhere to the rules as they understand them, in fear of heavy fines should they fail.

Suspicions were voiced, that telecom interests have influenced authorities to revise controls allowing them capture pubic access spectrum for more exclusive commercial uses. Here is the joint statement from the wireless network community, more needs to be done to highlight the situation.

Mudlarking On

Before heading off to this years Battlemesh in Porto, Portugal, YT got together with 20 Deptford locals, Inurian activists and Mazi partners for a low tide walk on Deptford Creek. Our guide for the walk was botanist Nick Bertrand of the Creekside Education Trust, leading river ecology and environmental experts.

We had a splendid experience of the creek and learned a lot about how our impact on the environment, even one already so compromised and contaminated by waste and decades of abuse can have unexpected outcomes on ecology of plants and animals. When 400 shopping trolleys were removed in 1990’s it caused a collapse of fish populations! So now things a mostly left as they are.

Hundreds of school and public groups a year visit the creek and gain a unique experience and insight into the workings of Thames tributaries and an understanding of this most urban of British coastline, it’s place in history and current state of play.

Fresh water from the River Ravensbourne washes into Deptford Creek having soaked up Spring Brook, Pool and Quaggy rivers on its wander from Bromley. Daily tides swell the Thames 7 or 8 meters, yet the creek remains mostly fresh water with very little saline effect to deter plant and animal propagation. The sea wall containment of all these rivers has restricted the opportunities for nature to gain a firm footing, yet many wild flowers and water creatures thrive in the stew of manufactured and organic rubbish the river drags along. We saw leaches, shrimp and crabs and should expect flounder and eels in abundance later in the season. Decaying timber ‘bumpers’ along the length of the creek serve alongside purpose built terraces as home to small fish and plant life, nurturing success of species variety.

Many human lives also rely on the ebb and flow of the river not least the boating community here, many of which we continue to talk to and engage with, as our MAZI pilot develops. Minesweeper Collective operate an art lab aboard the wooden triple hull 2nd world war minesweeper in the creek. A screen printing workshop and image creation lab occupy the below deck areas whilst on deck the space suits symposium and performance both of which are well used by local and visiting artists. The collective seeks energy autonomy and uses 12v throughout, currently relying on large batteries, charged by diesel generator but intent on harvesting solar and wind before long. Slow repairs to the boat following a fire in 2008 are in progress but a crowd funding campaign and or public funding is needed to complete the majors works still required.

Yesterday, Greenwich Maritime Museum hosted a public consultation for those interested in artist and community collaboration projects seeking funding. The presentations from GAVS, ACE and Royal Borough of Greenwich, each explained how funding and support was available to nurture project development of public arts. Greenwich operate a Community Arts Fund which would particularly suit existing minesweeper project work and may offer a pathway to greater development funding in the future. In particular with a view to participating at the tall ships event in 2017 where a season of community arts and creative interaction events a planned to celebrate the return of the Tall Ships regatta to Greenwich . The theme for this year’ is ‘Voyaging, Discovery and Adventure’ perfect.

Meanwhile zone

We have begun hosting Mazi Mondays meet-ups aboard the WWII Minesweeper boat on Deptford Creek where local people can come along to meet with members of the Minesweeper Collective as they collect ideas and prepare resources to extend the Mazi Zone into their space. Join us there from 1-5pm each week – entrance on Norman Road..

Boats now clustered at this mooring point already share energy and information resources but seek to extend their range with a set of low powered sensors to collect and publish environmental data, sound recordings and a visual record of their day to day existence in and about Deptford Creek. [images]

The Minesweeper Collective lead on refurbishment of the boat and operate the creative program on the boat with regular screen printing workshops as well as monthly Undercurrents exhibition in the nearby Birdsnest public house. This month they present ‘a doll a day’ collection of tattooed and undressed fabric doll sculptures.

Don’t miss images by Artist and musician Karen Barnes, seen here with legs out of her portable pinhole camera, preparing to capture Saturday drinkers gathered outside on Deptford Church Street. Something like this! (will swap out once we have a copy)

Refurbishment of OWN infrastructure continues with update of the antenna installation at APT on Creekside, linking back to Minesweeper and within easy range of Birdsnest.

This view from APT roof of this spring 2016 shows the remnants of Faircharm Estate, all part of the rapid changes sweeping Deptford and so much of South East London

Swept overboard

Yesterday a few of us from the Wireless Wednesday workshop visited the Minesweeper on Deptford Creek to meet with collective members and take a few photographs in advance of their fundraiser this weekend and Mazi workshops on the boat in Spring. T his coincided with a visit from three representatives of Thames Tideway to meet up with concerned residents of boats moored in the area, all seeking more information. There was a tentative yet friendly exchange and a good deal of information about the timetable and nature of work surfaced as a result.

Thames Tideway is a private company working with Thames Water to build the London super sewer network. Tideway is owned by a consortium of investors that comprises Allianz, Amber Infrastructure, Dalmore Capital and DIF. The construction site in the east end will be delivered by a joint venture of Costain Ltd., Vinci Construction Grands Projets and Bachy Soletanche. This contract is known as Tideway East, with work taking place from Bermondsey to Stratford. Here is a short film showing each of the construction sites

Groundwork for the main shaft at Greenwich Pumping station opposite Creekside Education Centre has already begun. The plan is to dig an 18m diameter shaft down to a depth of 65m for the tunnel. The ha’penny hatch pathway on the Greenwich side to Norman Road will be rerouted and then possibly closed during the work, despite appearances at the moment. Mined materials will be pumped across or under the existing pathway and railway line, into the Jewsons site for processing.

Material from related shafts and tunneling construction between here and Chambers Wharf, will also be extracted here to be loaded onto 100 trucks a day or more likely, river barges for removal. By August 2016, the sea wall at Jewsons requires reinforcement to enable installation of a mooring cradle, to support the 500 GT barges, leaving little space for existing moorings!

Sometime before early 2017 a channel 0.5m (from lowest riverbed level) and 8m wide will be dredged at low tide to enable large barges access at high tide. Such huge earthworks could well destabilise the riverbed for any boats normally in contact with it most of the time. Once the dredged channel is ready, the ‘cradle’ is in place and processing plant for the mined materials is operational, then there will be at least two barges per day for further five years!

So, “are you all ready?”

A ‘Greenwich Pumping Station Community Liaison Working Group’ meeting was held in September 2015 at Creekside Education Trust but unfortunately no public were invited nor attended due to communication error! Further meetings are being planned so all are advised to attend and find out more about the scale and duration of the plans already underway. In the meantime neighborhood bloggers are busy tracking the situation, improving awareness of the complexity and compromise at the scale of such intensive civil engineering. Perhaps this is a good moment to invoke DNA the recently acknowledged Deptford Neighborhood Action group!

Olympia aspirated

YT just returned from a round trip around Greece for MAZI-kickoff meetings. Starting out in Thessaloníki for a couple of days to acclimatise and explore the city on foot, caught the bus with Mark Gaved (Open University) south to Volos.

On the eve of the sessions we joined the other consortium partners for first of many lovely feasts in the re-animated service quarter adjacent the port and marina, where we all enjoyed first principals of Volos catering; drink tsipouro and eventually great food arrives at the table, keep drinking and the selection and frequency increases! Great social exchange and a wealth of information and insight on these new relationships was gathered and a sense of fun and inquisitiveness established.

Our meetings at University of Thessaloníki set out to unpack the many layered project package of the successful bid to EU. Ahead are three years research, application and monitoring of MAZI toolkit development, which begin in earnest now. Their Nitos lab offers a grand facility for prototyping and testing a wide range of sensor components, wireless options and engineering of suitable interfaces we will need for the successful establishment of the MAZI toolkit at the pilot sites in Berlin, Deptford, Zurich and in the wild from Athens to Edinburgh.

Partners introduced their respective organisations, listened to each others proposals and considered the scope of collaboration together. We examined how to begin the processes of examination and annotation to best serve the needs of wider public communication and consultation with one another throughout the project. This intensive and somewhat testing experience, articulated some gaps in our assumptions and reinforced the sense of confidence and enthusiasm in one another for the tasks set.

Those left standing continued on to a trip up the Olympian mountains in central Greece, a unique opportunity to visit community wireless project Sarantaporo.gr. We met it’s key protagonists and heard first hand, from locals about their hopes and fears for the future. Improvements in the interlinking of settlements has already animated relations and revealed more ancient rivalries of village life. The children and more specifically grandchildren of longest lived residents are the most enthusiastic adopters of the new services in place, now much more willing to visit from nearby towns and cities than ever. Further promotion of mountain existence and wider expansion of the impressively well distributed quality broadband is underway. . Quality broadband access has been granted by regional university in Larissa and the project has already delivered to eleven of the many dislocated villages. Population depletion of recent decades now shows strong signs of reversal as a consequence of economic turmoil and these homegrown successes. The sense of goodwill and courage demonstrated was an inspiration and energis for the MAZI we now embark on together.