dorothea.space in FontanaIn Dark Times we Must Dream with Open Eyes
In Dark Times We Must Dream With Open Eyes
Nico Vascellari‘s flag In Dark Times We Must Dream With Open Eyes makes it all the way to Gozo as it flies outside Dorothea Space Gozo. Visit blitzvalletta.com to purchase your own flag for €40 and support @africanmediamalta @foodbanklifeline #bluedoorenglishmalta#maltamicrofinance. More flag locations around Valletta will be added soon. Join our initiative and fly the flag at your own location.
Adnan Hadzi presented ‘Immersive Laboratory University of Malta: Artistic Doctorate Visual Pedagogies’ at the Eleventh International Conference on the Image.
As communicative landscapes are increasingly driven by the visual, there is a demand to put ‘the image’ at the center of research practices and educational methodologies. In turn, there is a call for a focus on new approaches to making sense of location, use, and analysis of the image in pedagogical contexts. The 2020 special focus attempts to provoke thinking through the image by: encounters – the personal, social and inter-connectedness of experience to the viewer; place – the where and how of transmission, situatedness and reception; ecologies – appearing within the image, systems, cultures, and context; design – the nature of action in experience and interpretation, from the historical, contemporary, to imaging future worlds. What creative ecologies can be re-imagined in the shared practices of image makers and educators that leads to the development of critical thinking to transform visual experience?
Join dance artist Rochelle Gatt and musician Luc Houtkamp as they meet on a rooftop in Senglea in this challenge of artistic boundaries.
Credits:Video filmed and edited by Sam Chetcuti – Cyberspace AV Dancer and choreographer – Rochelle Gatt Live electronics, programming, composition – Luc Houtkamp Edwin Balzan – sound engineer Footage (Drone) – Ruben Zahra
Malta International Arts Festival 2020 – Online Edition other highlight: Aquasonic Aquasonic – an innovative and visually stunning underwater concert. Learn more about what inspired this spellbinding performance:Footage Credits: Roberto Sarcia
Adnan presented Algorithms, Ethics & Justice at the MAD conference. In order to lay the foundations for a discussion around the argument that the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies benefits the powerful few, focussing on their own existential concerns, the paper will narrow down the analysis of the argument to social justice and jurisprudence (i.e. the philosophy of law), considering also the historical context. The paper explores the notion of humanised artificial intelligence in order to discuss potential challenges society might face in the future. The paper does not discuss current forms and applications of artificial intelligence, as, so far, there is no AI technology, which is self-conscious and self-aware, being able to deal with emotional and social intelligence. It is a discussion around AI as a speculative hypothetical entity. One could the ask, if such a speculative self-conscious hardware/software system were created at what point could one talk of personhood? And what criteria could there be in order to say an AI system was capable of committing AI crimes?The paper will discuss the construction of the legal system through the lens of political involvement of what one may want to consider to be powerful elites. Before discussing these aspects the paper will clarify the notion of “powerful elites”. In doing so the paper will be demonstrating that it is difficult to prove that the adoption of AI technologies is undertaken in a way which mainly serves a powerful class in society. Nevertheless, analysing the culture around AI technologies with regard to the nature of law with a philosophical and sociological focus enables one to demonstrate a utilitarian and authoritarian trend in the adoption of AI technologiesThe paper will then look, in a more detailed manner, into theories analysing the historical and social systematisation, or one may say disposition, of laws, and the impingement of neo-liberal tendencies upon the adoption of AI technologies. The regulatory, self-governing potential of AI algorithms and the justification by authority of the current adoption of AI technologies within civil society will be analysed next. The paper will propose an alternative, some might say practically unattainable, approach to the current legal system by looking into restorative justice for AI crimes, and how the ethics of care, through social contracts, could be applied to AI technologies. In conclusion the paper will discuss affect and humanised artificial intelligence with regards to the emotion of shame, when dealing with AI crimes.
The way we collectively discuss about migration, in general, and forced displacement by sea, or “boat migration”, in particular, has an impact on our responses to address the phenomenon. Narratives on “boat migration”, be it in the media or in public discourse, affect political processes across Europe, influencing our perception of “boat migrants”, ultimately having an effect on the ways they are received in (or repelled from) our societies. The challenge is to unpack and explain the causes and consequences of such narratives, examining their construction and assessing their effects on prevailing attitudes.Sea Watch and Alarm Phone have already been working in a state of permanent crisis for 5 years now, fighting the EU’S policies of letting die at the deadliest European border, the Mediterranean. It is an avoidable and deadly crisis. Now the biggest difference is that our environment is also in one. Staying at home, in those Covid-19 times, is a privilege that the people we pull out of the water do not have. We must not and will not forget the people who are fighting for their survival on the doorstep of Fortress Europe. Flight is not a choice.
Critical thinkers, artists, researchers, activists, and geeks in search of other economies and financial discourses for a fair society.
All along, these have been dark times for the economy, as offshore finance wreaks havoc in the very fabric of cities and communities, and crypto-companies navigate the world in search of their own tax havens. Information leaks from financial paradises have made it clear that the wealthy, influential, and well-connected will still escape taxation. These are the same people turning places like Malta and the Bahamas into luxury apartment zones. At the same time, well-documented Dutch fiscal loopholes cost the world approximately 22 billion euros in lost taxes each year. Corporations like Shell tempt governments with scraps of their ill-gained revenues in exchange for legal residence in anonymous letterboxes. Global business and crypto-speculation have debased national regulations to the competitive logics of an international tax marketplace, and local economies and communities struggle to hold up against privatisation and the mass transformation of jobs to a precarious freelance existence in the gig economy.
Weeks into the corona crisis, it is too early to say which aspects of the global financial system have been thrown into the dustbin of history. Pivotal nation-states are now exploring digital currencies as one tool for post-pandemic stimulus (or austerity). How do the earlier proposals for Universal Basic Income relate to the sudden appearance of helicopter money in some countries? Are the Keynesian money proposals to prop up the Western economies an indication of the end of the neoliberal hegemony? Is the ban on cash during the corona crisis an indication of the arrival of the cashless society?
It is a grim scenario, but perhaps not all is lost. The economy is not – and never was – merely in the hands of faceless corporations and cryptocurrency speculators. MoneyLab explores the imaginaries of artists, researchers, activists, and geeks in search of other possible economies and urgently interrogates a different financial discourse. It has always asked: can we use technology critically to support alternative values of cooperation and “commoning” in a world that is dominated by individualism and competition?
MoneyLab #8, the first-ever in a post-socialist country and the first-ever virtual edition, features examples far from the mainstream media spotlight. It zooms in on the effects of offshore finance and explores counter-experiments in the realms of housing, care work, and blockchain technology. In the fringes, something interesting is happening: blockchain is no longer just another tool for capitalist growth obsessions, and people are realising radical visions for fairly-waged care work, redistributed wealth, equitable social relations, and strong grassroots communities. In our world of vanishing cash, corner-cutting multinationals, and weakened social support structures, can community currencies or self-organised care networks strengthen neighbourhoods? What would fair and social housing look like if it was turned into the cornerstone of the economy? Who is building local systems that can stand up against the financialisation of housing in the global platform economy?
MoneyLab #8 sheds light on radical and alternative strategies for self-organisation and pushes on towards new and collective futures situated in resilient local communities.
Zoomed In is a new virtual festival celebrating photography and architecture.
The festival will take part from 21st-24th April 2020, and is one of the official partners of the Dezeen Virtual Design Festival.
Zoomed In is organised by London-based architectural photographer Luke O’Donovan, kindly supported by an incredibly generous network of guest curators and event participants. Please direct any enquiries to Luke at contact@lukeodonovan.co.uk
For updates on the festival, please check our Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube. You can also subscribe to Luke’s email newsletter below for updates on Zoomed In and other architectural photography projects.
This boat book & blog documents our journey on our narrowboat ‘Quintessence’ and the development of the boattr prototype in collaboration with MAZI (for “together” in Greek), a Horizon 2020 research project. Boattr connects narrow boats to the ‘Internet-of-Things’ and allows for open wireless mesh-networking within the narrow boat community, by using affordable microcomputers. The main goal of this project is to provide technology and knowledge that aims to 1) empower those narrow boats who are in physical proximity, to shape their hybrid urban space, together, according to the specificities of the respective local environment, and 2) foster participation, conviviality, and location-based collective awareness of the canals.
This is an edited collection of assembled and annotated boat logs, photographs and video essays, manifested, in a scholarly gesture, as a ‘computer book’.
The boattr prototype was built on the MAZI toolkit and the capabilities offered by Do-It-Yourself networking infrastructures – low-cost off-the-shelf hardware and wireless technologies – that allow small communities or individuals to deploy local communication networks that are fully owned by local actors, including all generated data. These DIY networks could cover from a small square (e.g., using a Raspberry Pi) to a city neighbourhood (e.g., the Commotion Construction Kit used at the RedHook WiFi initiative) or even a whole city (e.g., guifi.net, awmn.net, freifunk.net), and in the case of boattr the UK canal network.
The boattr DIY infrastructures offer a unique rich set of special characteristics and affordances for offering local services to the narrow boat community, outside the public Internet: the ownership and control of the whole design process that promotes independence and grass-roots innovation rather than loss of control and fear of data shadows; the de facto physical proximity of those connected without the need for disclosing private location information, such as GPS coordinates, to third parties; the easy and inclusive access through the use of a local captive portal launched automatically when one joins the network; the option for anonymous interactions; and the materiality of the network itself. The prototype integrates existing FLOSS software, from very simple applications to sophisticated distributed solutions (like those under development by the P2Pvalue project, mobile sensing devices, and recent developments in open data and open hardware), allowing it to be appropriated by different non-expert users according to their respective context and use case.
Table of Contents
Research Journal
Adnan Hadzi
Boat Log
Adnan Hadzi & Natascha Sturny
Reflections
Natascha Sturny, Rob Canning & James Stevens
Videos
Adnan Hadzi
Images
Natascha Sturny
Resources
Franz Xaver & Anton Galanopoulos
Editor
Adnan Hadzi
Authors Collective
Adnan Hadzi
Natascha Sturny
Franz Xaver
Anton Galanopoulos
James Stevens
Rob Canning
Tech Team
Harris Niavis – MAZI Programmer
Giannis Mavridis – Micro-Computer Programmer
Producers
Adnan Hadzi – Format Development & Interface Design
Panayotis Antoniadis – MAZI Project Manager
Mark Gaved – Coordination Creeknet
Quintessence Logo: H1 Reber / Buro Destruct
Cover artwork and booklet design: OpenMute Press
Copyright: the authors
Licence: after.video is dual licensed under the terms of the MIT license and the GPL3
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html
Language: English
Assembly On-demand
OpenMute Press
Acknowledgements
Co-Initiated + Funded by
Horizon 2020 – The EU framework programme for research and innovation
The Mazi project (2016-2018) has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 ICT CAPS initiative under grant agreement no 687983.
Thanks to
Ushi Reiter – Art Meets Radical Openness, Servus.at, Linz
Vince Briffa – Department of Digital Arts, University of Malta
Clemens Apprich – Centre for Digital Cultures, Lüneburg
Rob Canning – School of Art and Design, Coventry University
Gary Hall – School of Art and Design, Coventry University
In November 2018, five months after Matteo Salvini was made Italy’s Interior Minister, and began to close the country’s ports to rescued migrants, a group of 93 migrants was forcefully returned to Libya after they were ‘rescued’ by the Nivin, a merchant ship flying the Panamanian flag, in violation of their rights, and in breach of international refugee law.
The migrants’ boat was first sighted in the Libyan Search and Rescue (SAR) Zone by a Spanish surveillance aircraft, part of Operation EUNAVFOR MED – Sophia, the EU’s anti-smuggling mission. The EUNAVFOR MED – Sophia Command passed information to the Italian and Libyan Coast Guards to facilitate the interception and ‘pull-back’ of the vessel to Libya. However, as the Libyan Coast Guard (LYCG) patrol vessels were unable to perform this task, the Italian Coast Guard (ICG) directly contacted the nearby Nivin ‘on behalf of the Libyan Coast Guard’, and tasked it with rescue.
LYCG later assumed coordination of the operation, communicating from an Italian Navy ship moored in Tripoli, and, after the Nivin performed the rescue, directed it towards Libya.
While the passengers were initially told they would be brought to Italy, when they realised they were being returned to Libya, they locked themselves in the hold of the ship.
A standoff ensured in the port of Misrata which lasted ten days, until the captured passengers were violently removed from the vessel by Libyan security forces, detained, and subjected to multiple forms of ill-treatment, including torture.
This case exemplifies a recurrent practice that we refer to as ‘privatised push-back’. This new strategy has been implemented by Italy, in collaboration with the LYCG, since mid-2018, as a new modality of delegated rescue, intended to enforce border control and contain the movement of migrants from the Global South seeking to reach Europe.
This report is an investigation into this case and new pattern of practice.
Using georeferencing and AIS tracking data, Forensic Oceanography reconstructed the trajectories of the migrants’ vessel and the Nivin.
Tracking data was cross-referenced with the testimonies of passengers, the reports by rescue NGO WatchTheMed‘s ‘Alarm Phone’, a civilian hotline for migrants in need of emergency rescue; a report by the owner of the Nivin, which he shared with a civilian rescue organisation, the testimonies of MSF-France staff in Libya, an interview with a high-ranking LYCG official, official responses, and leaked reports from EUNAVFOR MED.
Together, these pieces of evidence corroborate one other, and together form and clarify an overall picture: a system of strategic delegation of rescue, operated by a complex of European actors for the purpose of border enforcement.
When the first–and preferred–modality of this strategic delegation, which operates through LYCG interception and pull-back of the migrants, did not succeed, those actors, including the Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Rome, opted for a second modality: privatised push-back, implemented through the LYCG and the merchant ship.
Despite the impression of coordination between European actors and the LYCG, control and coordination of such operations remains constantly within the firm hands of European—and, in particular, Italian—actors.
In this case, as well as in others documented in this report, the outcome of the strategy was to deny migrants fleeing Libya the right to leave and request protection in Italy, returning them to a country in which they have faced grave violations. Through this action, Italy has breached its obligation of non-refoulement, one of the cornerstones of international refugee law.
