So-and-sovereignty diagrams
(With Martino Morandi, a proposition by REC)
As part of Energy Giveaway at the Humuspunk Library, AIA, Zurich June 9 until September 24, 2023
Thinking with nematodes and teletypes, with imbricated servers and institutional burrows, this shape-shifting diagram both traces and re-plots an ongoing conversation about modes of interdependence under the regime of The Cloud. Computational Infrastructures have extended into many aspects of life, only to rent them back to us as a service. Operating at all scales, from self-observation of biological cycles to planetary carbon removal schemes, this pervasive form of dispossession eludes familiar concepts and modes of action. Geometries and vocabularies that once seemed useful for limiting damage, creating solidarity and re-organizing collective resources have been turned inside-out and are in need of a collective re-articulation of forms of togetherness.
We draw the so-and sovereignty diagram with Graphviz, an Open Source software tool which the American telecommunication company AT&T developed in the late eighties to visualize complex configurations of servers, routers and networks. The diagram passes through different collective spaces such as REC, Constant (technodisobedience studysession), XPUB and others and will continue to shape-shift as a result.
You can find the current iteration of the diagram here: https://titipi.org/diag/so-and-sovereignty.pdf