Presentation | Art Meets Radical Openness 2018
Festival dedicated to Art, Hacktivism & Open Culture.
This presentation puts forward the concept of "bot logic" as a response to what the researcher Deb Verhoeven calls "infrapuncture". "Infrapuncture" is a portmanteau word which conflates "infrastructure" and "acupuncture", referring to small-scale interventions that have a catalytic effect on the whole. Currently there is a growing interest in activist communities in bots as a tool to amplify voices. Simultaneously, the Oxford Internet Institute has initiated a years-long research phase into the political role of bots, focusing specifically on propaganda networks. Independent researchers are similarly participating in investigations regarding the spread of false information.
Across this landscape, a 'bot logic' is emerging, which refers to the situational effect of bots upon a socio-technical ecology and their potential to infiltrate and co-exist with server-side conditions. How can a parasitic logic be developed that both deflates the hegemonic infrastructure and inflates alternative structural interventions?"
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Cristina Cochior (RO/NL) is a researcher and designer working in the Netherlands. With an interest in automation practices, disruption of the interface and peer to machine knowledge production, her practice consists of research investigations into technical and bureaucratic knowledge sharing systems.
