Masters thesis

Resistive fragment assemblages: How do decentralised web technologies better enable collectivist para-archives?

Rowan Lucas Smith, Creative Computing Institute, University of the Arts London

Abstract

Section titled “Abstract”

Anti-capitalist work in liberating everyday information practise from the goals of monopolising tech companies is spread thin across various industry concerns and disciplinary hegemonies. By centering collectivist ideals I appeal to the digital commons and decentralised web to enable particular practises of hyperconnected personal curation that have potential for collectivist resistance. Through analysis of public assemblages of fragmented experience on existing web platforms (Pinterest and Are.na) I’ll discuss the benefits that decentralised models and the semantic web could have on extra-institutional knowledge-work. This thesis is also a meta-work of self-exemplification. As a living provotype, this thesis is presented as part of a personal website indexing cues to my own self-transcendence through collectivist pedagogy and experimental tech.

Acknowledgments

Section titled “Acknowledgments”
  • Thanks to my supervisor MJ Hunter Bruggemann.
  • Thanks to tutors Ceren Yuksel and Cindy Lin.
  • Thanks to Are.na users who allowed me to quote/embed their blocks.
  • Thanks to the wires and the wind.

Table of Contents

Section titled “Table of Contents”
  1. Introduction
    1. Abstract
    2. Important Definitions
    3. Structure
  2. Context
    1. Instrumental and affective fragments
    2. Resistive counterpublics online
    3. Curating for ourselves and others
    4. Intersubjectivity
    5. Decentralisation and Data Ownership as Resistance
  3. Methodology
    1. Framings
    2. Methods
    3. Justification of Format
      1. Emergent Everyday Practise
      2. Indexing Potential
  4. Practise
    1. Forms of Resistance
    2. Resistive Cultures
    3. (Hyper)active Exploratory Agency
    4. Reflexive Curation
    5. Everything Everywhere All At Once
    6. Porta(b)l(e) Memory
    7. Beyond Capitalist Realism
    8. Connectivity and Control through Solid
    9. Source Link Semantics
    10. Interfacing the public, private and personal
    11. Design for Assertion (min-maxxing metadata)
  5. Discussion
    1. Methods and Formats
    2. Platform Analyses
    3. Further Work
  6. Conclusion
  7. References
  8. Appendices