Meeting minutes
Lauren: I'm here on behalf of the p5.js foundation, happy to featuring a few sessions for this unconference, trying to see where the Web needs to evolve
… excited to start with this panel
… it's time to think where we are with Internet, where we wants it to go
… have a more ethical, equitable, inclusive internet
… the panelists here are writers, developers, designers, artists
… the goal is to push the boundaries of what we're imagining for these technologies we're building
… we have Mindy Seu, Amelia Winger-Bearskin, Shawné Holloway, Alcina Wong
… Mindy is a designer, researcher, fellow at harvard law school
Mindy: cyberfeminismindex.com launched last week
… cyber- comes from cybernetics in the '40s, and used for cyberspace in neuromancer
… this was a term very much dominated by the male gaze
… cyberfenimism is a provocation to rethink the notion of cyberspace
… the index touches on intersectionalism to see what cyberfeminism might include
… globally - in South America, Asia, North America
… the index is open source, open access
… [reviews elements of the index]
… coming out between the early 90's and now
… the Web site is inspired by the old boys network in the late 90's
… an all-static web site based on HTML & CSS, not embedding lots of technologies and thus durable
… the interaction with the Web makes it unusual
… the Web site is meant to react to the user behavior
… as you reveal new elements in the index, it builds a trail on the right hand side which allows a download
… it also incorporate cross-references to allow to move around between different entries that gives a critique or a support of the current item
… I relate this to "gathering"
… once you click the download button, you get a PDF
… all of these things are in CC - no need to ask for permission as long as there is recognition
… the PDF view is trying to encourage re-using the content for your own needs
… download is a way to own the content
… the content is built with accessibility in mind, with clear alt text, and gives verbal and textual guidance to traverse the content
Lauren: [introducing Ashley Lewis, designer]
Ashley: I'm really excited to be here, I'm a speculative designer, a new media artist
… afro-futurism
… thinking a lot about social justice, ethics of tech and intersections with my practice
… I most identify as a community organizer
… I'll share a few related examples of my practice
… this is a piece "heirloom spaceship" which metaphorically mimics the perserverance of a black woman navigating through the world
… based on a series of a 32 interviews with black women, revealing the additional emotion labors they're exposed in the virtual and real world
… Culturehub
… I've done a lot of work around the Sci-Fi genre - 79% is directly inspired by Sci-Fi
… which worries me given most of it is written by white males - who is writing the future?
… the project tries to insert BIPOC future speculations into writing the future
… The global crisis generated by the pandemic was an opportunity to ask what role to play
… this reminded me of this card game toward designing a better future
… this came up in the context of the the "defund the police" movement, with the idea of helping define the future where police gets defunded, what would it look like
… we ran a session with more 250+ applicants from all over the world
… this led to the creation of 58 worlds to tangibly describe what the future could look like
… I also spend a lot of time thinking about an equitable internet society based on organisms
… e.g. like this growing mold that branches as it grows
… exploring how we might consider new conversation about digital immigration, how we identify like slime mold with 100s of sexuality, non-hierarchical, ...
… I've run a few iterations of a project that crowd-sources community data of black people that have died at the hands of police brutality
… as a community organizer, I spend a lot of time thinking about CoC, how we create communities
… I've been working for the last few years on a project called ml5, a sister project to p5, to enable ML opportunities for artists and new learners
… We had to articulate our responsibilities as technologies to real-world impact
… incl a BLM statement
… We have a very robust CoC for ML5, re-used in ITP at NYU
… this project has inspired 5 other technology tools to adopt their first CoC
… my art practice has been so meaningful in articulating my technology practice to articule new futures
… a mixture of art and technology
… it takes a lot of imagination to think how technology could work differently
… imagining outlandish, very different futures
… [showing picture of Ashley in front of a pile of found objects, designed to look like a spaceship, much a child would build one; with a projector, sensors]
Lauren: Introducing Amelia Winger-Bearskin
Amelia: [showing video discussing the impact of machine learning on the world]
… don't colonize our future - don't get stuck in a colonial mindset
… decentralization has been used in Iroquois cultures for centuries
… could be used e.g. to rethink blockchains
Lauren: introducing Shawné Holloway, new media artist and poet
Shawné: I teach a lot, I'm always thinking a lot that it doesn't have to be like this - none of it
… it was decided, but not all of us had a say
… where do all the internet angsty artists go?
… [read from a text submitted to a workshop on the role of the web for free speech]
… it's hard to imagine a world where we would replace the Web with an entirely new system that would fix all of its failings
… but it would be useful to find a way to refactor it (as in "go in and rearrange code" to make it easier to read of fix it)
… to make it more suitable to a malleable future
… but it needs a collective decision on what it should and should not be used for
… artists play a role in exploring the space around freedoms enabled by the platform (freedom of speech, freedom of choice, ...)
… we should recognize what characteritics of the Web aren't a good look for the internet, or for us moving forward
… it doesn't have to be this way - it can be any way we decide it to be
Lauren: P5.js is an open source library for making creative work on the Web
… these values of inclusion, diversity, access are central to the project
… these are the grounding principles upon which we build, make mistakes, learn and improve over time
Discussions
Lauren: a lot of you discussed building tools or communities around a new set of values
… what are the strategies for refactoring in a very practical sense?
Ashley: I get push back every time I try to interface with building infrastructure for ethics
… one feature that has been helpful has been to have allies with different level of power and support
… Dan Schiffman has been a huge ally in the space of creating more ethical infrastructure
… but still get a lot of pushback
… have to go through the emotion labour of convincing people this is important
… one of the silverlining of the pandemics is the visual demonstration of why this is important
… As a technologist, there has been a pretty significant bubble that has been burst, with less pushback
… very meaningful to leverage the power and privilges I have to connect BLM with tech
<tantek> Q to panelists: what do you think of the existing TAG Ethical Web Principles https://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/ethical-web-principles/ and how can we improve and evolve them to look forward with the values expressed by the presentations?
Mindy: during Ashley's presnetations, she talked about the CoC
… the important of value alignment means that pushback is good - friction generates important discussion
… the first of the index says that the index will always be complete - we're not trying to fortify a canon
… being open to change, welcoming the pushback can be beneficial tool
Amelia: for my project, I'm creating a system to create ethical dependencies for software project
… the only ethical question at the moment is about the license - wouldn't it be great to document more ethical values?
… this immediately led to pushback about enforcement - which I didn't think was the important perspective
… allowing to articulate values is important in making these values visible and explicit
Lauren: several people mentioned the Ethical Web document on which feedback is sought
… another question is how to make the Web inclusive when not everyone can get on the Web
… Which leads to the dicsussion around access, including disability, but also the current situation with parenting
<tzviya> https://github.com/w3c/idcg really wants your input!
Shawné: this is a question that I investigated - what's the widest spread technology right? e.g. AR/VR are still of limited spread
… my definition of new media is what technology is most accessible to everybody, easiest to use, and that we all have the language for
Mindy: to comment on mentorship - it implies a life-long relationship, this idea that they're inviting you to their life, with teaching going both way
… very contrasted with the action-hero culture of come-fix-and-go
… before fixing the digital divide, we need understand what for and if that's what the communities want
… It's not enough to say you're open for anyone to apply to be actually inclusive
… it needs to be welcoming over time, not just from a one-time basis
Amelia: re access, a lot of us are trying to build our own ISP in our reservations
… having to trade outside of the reservations break our sovereignty
Ashley: Amelia mentioned "building your own world" - one of thing that comes complicated when trying to fix the borken thing we're all used
… getting the affected communities to join to fix it is putting the labor on them - finding the right balance is very delicate
… something very important we need to learn how to communicate on
Lauren: we have to close unfortunately - thank you to all the panelists, thank you to W3C for hosting this
… we have two more p5 sessions - WebXR Through Art, and Consentful communication
<outofambit> this was so great! thank you everyone!
<rhiaro> thanks for scribing dom, what an amazing session