On Sharing Knowledge

ABR and Herman’s Library

Since the opening of the first library »ABR-Bibliothek« at Akademie Schloss Solitude in 1990, which was established by the artist collective »Archiv Beider Richtungen,« each resident fellow is invited to suggest two books that the Akademie would acquire – an organic way of expanding the collection. Matthias Böttger, who was an architectural fellow and long-time director of DAZ (Deutsches Architektur Zentrum), set up the second library: Herman’s Library.

In 2003, former Solitude fellow Jackie Sumell began a correspondence with Herman Wallace, who was imprisoned in 1971 and was serving a life sentence in solitary confinement in the Louisiana State Penitentiary (also known as Angola prison), accused of murdering a prison guard. Along with inmates Robert Hillary King and Albert Woodfox (»the Angola Three«), Wallace served the longest period in solitary confinement. He became politically active in the Black Panthers and campaigned for better conditions in the prison. Tragically, he died three days after his release. The correspondence between Sumell and Wallace led to »The House that Herman Built,« Herman’s virtual and eventually physical dream house in New Orleans, his birth city. Further, Sumell asked Herman to list the books he would acquire for his house. These books were purchased and became the foundation of Herman’s Library at Akademie Schloss Solitude.

The established system has been used to let the library grow with each resident fellow – both libraries now boast a wide variety of works. While it’s possible to search for specific books, fellows more often find themselves browsing through the collection and picking up volumes that draw their attention.

Curious as to why certain books were chosen, I began to think about how to expand the existing routine behind Herman’s library. Though it includes publications on time-based media, it lacks works that thematically deal with the speculative and critical examination of artistic practice and the development of media within digital culture. Taking this as a starting point, I propose to start building a new digital collection with contributions not limited to writing, but also visual, sonic, and other forms. And asking contributors to include a description of their connection to the submission would potentially answer why they are inspired by the chosen work and want to share it with others. The fellows’ thoughts and interests would inherently be part of the collection, making connections apparent and creating a space of transdisciplinary exchange for critical and speculative approaches to technology (studies).

Sharing meaning

In books, prior readers sometimes leave marks: underlined or highlighted passages and notes scribbled in the corners of the pages.¹ This »information about information« mostly describes the subject, but can sometimes include personal associations. It indicates the presence of readers, making them visible to each other.² Taking up this thought, the contributors’ associations and reasons highlight their relationships to the chosen work as part of the digital collection. This crucial metadata includes influences and recommendations to peers – providing context and particularity, as well as indicating that it is not only about the content, but also the meaning constructed through interaction. The procedure of choice provides a moment for introspection, connection, and storytelling.

A carrier bag of knowledge

In thinking about how to create an online crowdsourced compendium of research on the politics and aesthetics of digital cultures, I was inspired by Mindy Seu’s Cyberfeminism Index, the Possible Bodies Inventory and Simon Browne’s bootleg library, all of which gather seeds of knowledge and information in some way. In the 1986 essay The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin proposes that humanity’s first important tool was not the spear (an instrument for domination), as is widely believed, but the basket used for collecting, sharing, and preserving resources. The practice of collective gathering enhances interpersonal knowledge-sharing and eases associative connections, from where a carrier bag of knowledge could emerge. It aspires to be a collectively filled basket gathering digitally available resources in form of publications, essays, videos, images, art works, and more.

Plurality of knowledge(s)

Knowledge and knowing are defined by a variety of explanations and meanings. From a philosophical perspective, knowledge is understood as a relation between a conscious subject and a part of reality to which the knower is directly or indirectly related,³ further distinguishing between a narrow and a broad sense of knowledge.⁴ Traditionally the narrow understanding refers to knowledge obtained via a methodically regulated procedure bound to justification, truth, and verification, which is particularly referenced in the sciences.⁵ Whereas the broad notion of knowledge refers to the ability to adequately grasp what something is about.⁶ In the narrow sense, knowledge exists in a net of preconditions. Drawing from Donna Haraway’s »Situated knowledges,« all knowledge is positional. The »god’s trick,« an all-encompassing seeing from the above, is allegedly an objective, universal perspective that in reality hides particular positions like male, white, heterosexual human.⁷ Moving away from objectivity as well as relativism, Haraway proposes that the alternative to relativism is »partial, locatable, critical knowledges sustaining the possibility of webs of connections called solidarity in politics and shared conversations in epistemology.«⁸

»We seek not the knowledges ruled by phallogocentrism (nostalgia for the presence of the one true Word) and disembodied vision. We seek those ruled by partial sight and limited voice – not partiality for its own sake but, rather, for the sake of the connections and unexpected openings situated knowledges make possible. Situated knowledges is about communities, not about isolated individuals.«⁹

Formations of a collection or library are always embedded in power structures and shaped by hierarchies of knowledge, as well as the manifestation of Western values and narratives. Independent, radical, and experimental collections resist dominant power structures and provide counterpoints to colonial and corporate narratives. Therefore connections, unexpected openings, and community form the core of the carrier bag of knowledge. In a conversation on Le Guin’s work, Anna Tsing writes:

»Science in the broadest sense of the term refers to knowledges that we can collect, collate, and put in our carrier bag. And this broad sense of knowledge creation involves all the kinds of observation and noticing that we could do.«¹⁰

By recognizing and inviting various forms of knowledge and science including the written, the visual, the sonic, the spoken, and so on, we can strengthen a plurality of knowledge(s). Moreover, by putting them in a carrier bag, all the stories and resources exist in motion, to be reshuffled and reassembled without a set order, and not forgetting to critically examine whose stories enter the bag, whose works get archived, and who is being left out. Incompleteness remains part of the process; so does being aware that decisions are made within existing structures and contexts. The digital form of the collection also encounters limitations that lead to a broader discussion of what we as a society keep and preserve via digital means, and for whom these are accessible.

Digital access to knowledge

How do we share, collect, and discuss knowledge, especially in the digital age?

»The Internet simultaneously holds both the utopian promise of free access to all the world’s knowledge and the dystopian potential for the privatization of all knowledge for the profit of a small number of monopolistic corporations.«¹¹

Big platforms that collect and preserve information with an interest in surveillance, economic profit, and exploitation involve the risk of the total colonization of public knowledge by commercial platforms.¹² The collections of (free) public knowledge should therefore be considered valuable resources for not only scholars and scientists, but for society as a whole – in terms of its interrelations and influence.¹³ Digital libraries and archives make knowledge available to a wide audience, but those at the margins often lack a stable connection, an affiliation to institutions to access the works, or simply the financial means to overcome paywalls. Initiatives like shadow libraries are overcoming these barriers by having built infrastructures of accessible hubs of knowledge and teaching strategies for sharing resources.

»The people building alternative networks of distribution also build networks of support and solidarity. Those on the peripheries need to ‘steal’ the knowledge behind paywalls in order to fight the asymmetries paywalls enforce – peripheries »steal« in order to advance. Depending on the vantage point, digitization of a book can be stealing, or liberating it to return the knowledge (from the dusty library closed stacks) back into circulation.«¹⁴

Putting knowledge manifested in books, but also videos, recordings, and other works (back) into circulation fosters an exchange of digitally available resources. Collecting, archiving, and reassembling content in the digital space as a practice by itself prompts us to think about how we share knowledge. Moreover, it facilitates unexpected connections and forging bonds through significant relations. In Staying with the Trouble, Haraway reckons that scholarship and politics resemble playing string fingers – »passing on twists and skeins that require passion and action, holding still and moving, anchoring and launching.«¹⁵

Mapping digital cultures

Digital media technologies influence and affect all areas of life, as well as the artistic and cultural spheres, politics, law, and economics. How can we understand and shape digital cultures today? By collectively gathering resources, a work emerges not by one, but by many. Not aiming to create a definition of the term, but to open up a space to read, think, be influenced, and open to new, unknown, random connections. Consequently, building a collection of resources to collectively map the current politics and aesthetics of digital cultures.