chapter

introduction

Introduction

In this thesis I will explore how self-organized cultural initiatives find ways of maintaining themselves, while at the same time trying to sustain some form of collective care. In particular, I will dedicate special attention to those groups whose artistic, cultural and activist practice heavily relies on FLOSS (Free Libre Open Source) software and self-hosted (community) infrastructure, for a series of reasons. Firstly their technological choices and their ways of organizing are often formalized into collective guidelines (e.g. Codes of conduct but not only) which avowedly critique capitalist modes of cultural production, and its consequent commodification (Wark, 2019).

Secondly, I think they might provide realistic examples of alternatives to proprietary software, hierarchical and exploitative organizational models, and poor or alienating working conditions in the arts and cultures. And thirdly, through my studies and personal experience I got close to these kind of practices myself, and I sadly started to observe the many difficulties and burnouts that these groups are facing due to the pressures coming from the drastic rise of the costs of life.

A condition of generalized precarity seems to be depleting all sort of resources necessary to keep running projects of these kinds, which often count on a good amount of generosity of their internal community for an extra, vital, spin. In this context of permanent crisis the issue of maintenance becomes a really delicate one, especially for forms of organization whose autonomy and freedom is gradually threatened by tighter relations of dependency with capitalism through its socio-technical infrastructure. These groups might inadvertently replicate toxic dynamics and poor working conditions, whenever their same socio-technical infrastructure turns out to be highly demanding, and even unsustainable, in terms of energy costs, voluntary and affective labour, and spare time consumption.

Through the thesis I will therefore try to address and unpack the following dilemma: How to practice maintenance while trying to include practices of collective care, in self-organized cultural initiatives that work in solidarity with free software and self-hosted technology? Through field research, the exercise of maintenance is inquired as a situated and collective form of knowledge that on one hand pragmatically points towards the how-to’s of collaborative survival, and on the other hand it addresses the status quo as the whole of the systemic relations of dependency.

The research is conducted through a series of conversations, interviews and collective evaluations that I will metaphorically frame as “Boiler inspection”. The thesis is the result of a process of journaling along with the inspections, collecting some anecdotes and reflections on ways of maintaining.

After a necessary contextualization of the research, maintenance is explored as a conflicting practice through which principles and strategies of radical administration are tried and tested out, in the attempt of conciliating the need for a gentler survival and the urgency of a more unapologetic exercise of care. I will then refer to maintenance as caring labour, that often remains invisible within the community/organization itself.

Lastly, maintenance is discussed as an issue of autonomy and cooperation in relation to hacking practices.