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The mess we’re in has accentuated two recurring concerns, perhaps with newer nuances: (1) the importance of tinkering and opening up care infrastructures and equipment; (2) the relevance of experimenting with their documentation (precisely in the distance of a remote confinement)
(1) Here we are again in an austerity crisis, again care as the main mode of response, and yet again in need of proprietary equipment, closed down by patents and strict rules of circulation (where the health expertocracy & free market meet). But there are also mismatches...
The previous crisis made emerge all kind of inventive initiatives around tinkering, DIY hacks and 3D printed contraptions. That crisis deeply impacted architecture and design, but health systems protected themselves from what was thought to be 'a dangerous experiment'...
Then, health struggles revolved around the support of public health infrastructures, but beyond a discussion around generic drugs, the ‘question concerning technology’ didn't seem to pop up, in spite of its importance (e.g. open prosthesis and technical aids)
The urban experimentation around DIY and handmade urbanism or collective architecture made emerge cities of open infrastructures, sadly crumbling ever since: too much personal – and too little institutional – an effort
A new techno-political field seems to emerge from this one: Will this situation of health infrastructural collapse allow for an experimentation with seizing the means of care, opening up an inquiry on how this might be supported by public infrastructures? Only time will tell
(2) Now, as it happened years ago, the emergent findings and practical solutions need to be traded and circulated, knowledge of an expert and experiential kind sprouts, then turned into forceful ideas that come and go. We document to share, but also not to forget…
And, again, a great variety of digital platforms spring, centralising and archiving these experiences, tagging and categorising them: websites, telegram channels, but also twitter as an archive of a tinkering society in need of auto-inscribing to endure, when not just to exist...
With a big difference: ten years ago, online presence was treated as a mere support, an aid in practices main-staging embodied togetherness. However, in the distance of a remote confinement digital documentation takes on a different – and greater – life and, perhaps, relevance?
Many of the insurgent files documenting previous critical experiences have now disappeared: we didn’t have the time, the will, the conditions to maintain and care for all of them - some have survived, many thanks to the use of commercial platforms whose servers are still intact
Will we again forget and obliterate what we learn, the emergent traces of the new, the timeless solutions, the dramas of the here and now? Sure, we need to forget in order to go on, but digital records are deeply fragile. Will we let the same thing happen to us again? What to do?
P.S. This thread is a testimony of many conversations in the last years w/ @entornoalasilla @adolfoestalella @acorsin @cboserman @jararocha @blancallen @birrabel @dlopezgom @CareNet_IN3 @zuloark @Makeatuvida @Alephvoid @autofabricantes @alafuente @janinakehr @SaraLF @crinamoreno
P.S.2. But also a spirited reflection after witnessing what @frenalacurva @ItaliaCovid19 @CovidAidUK @nwspk, together with the great number of health practitioners and makers documenting their inventiveness – here on Twitter, for instance – around the globe are making emerge
Originally published in Spanish: https://twitter.com/tscriado/status/1245612850787151872
