| Infrastructure Type | Descriptiona |
Control point for access to or useb For example, identify the owner, regulator, manager, etc. as appropriate |
Open Source, Open Access, or Public Resource/Utilityc | Proprietaryc | How heavily used?d | Reliabilityd | Satisfaction for Userd | Ethical concerns (known or possible) | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Land infrastructure For example, properties ceded, unceded, public, private, etc. Include only principal land infrastructures. |
Tiohtià:ke/Montréal is located on unceded Indigenous lands. | The Kanien’kehá:ka Nation is recognized as the custodians of Tiohtià:ke/Montréal’s lands and waters. | Not Applicable | Not Applicable | 10 | The need to develop a long-term plan to meaningfully represent Indigenous presence on campus and in its programming beyond an initial acknowledgement. | In September 2023, Concordia launched a five-year plan to indigenize and decolonize its pedagogy. | ||
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Materials infrastructure For example, notable common or rare extracted or other materials used in research, production, and communication. Break down by notable materials used in devices or tools if appropriate. |
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Not Applicable | Yes | 10 | 7 | 10 | Prolonged exposure to solder rosin can cause eye, throat and lung irritation, nosebleeds, headaches, respiratory and skin sensitization, and possibly asthma. Lead solder can produce hazardous dust and fumes, additionally leading to lead poisoning, kidney disease, hypertension, and weight loss, among other conditions. | |
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Energy infrastructure For example, principal energy sources and infrastructure used in research, production, and communication |
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Yes | Not Applicable | 10 | 9 | 8 | Working with old electronics can lead to dangerous electric shocks without proper precautions. Disposable batteries are a significant source of e-waste. | Much of Montreal’s distribution network operates at a lower voltage (12,000v) than other parts of Quebec (25,000v), and yet it is the most heavily used. 2023 saw increasing power outages in the city, and the government is lagging behind on repair. |
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Transportation infrastructure For example, private or public transportation needed for daily or research trips |
Montreal public transit system (subways, buses, LRTs, bicycles) | Société de transport de Montréal (government of greater Montreal) | Yes | Not Applicable | 10 | 7 | 8 |
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Architectural infrastructure For example, buildings, labs, rooms |
Milieux Institute (Concordia University), especially the following rooms:
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Concordia University Office of Research/VP Research | Yes | Not Applicable | 10 | 9 | 10 | The Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology is a research unit working at the intersection of design, art, culture and technology. It is a platform for progressive imagining, critical studies, creative experimenting and interdisciplinary training where thinking and making come together to transform our encounter with technology. Without Milieux’s physical resources (especially space, but also some funding), our research activities would not be possible. | |
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Civic, community, national, or regional infrastructure For example, provided by cities, communities, governments, etc. |
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms section 23 concerns education, stating that Canadian citizens have the right to be educated in either English or French. However, in June 2022, The government of Quebec (the Coalition Avenir Québec) passed Bill 96, stating that “the only official language of Québec is French.” Bill 96 also states that French is the common language of the Québec nation. Many lawyers and scholars have argued that Bill 96 is unconstitutional; nevertheless, the current Quebec government is busily trying to impair education institutions in English from operating successfully by attempting to abolish English school boards, freezing enrolment on CEGEPs and drastically raising tuition for out-of-province students who wish to attend English-language universities. | The government of Quebec (the Coalition Avenir Québec) | Yes | Not Applicable | 9 | 3 | 3 |
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While these changes are recent, they are unlikely to be reversed any time soon, and may become worse, as the only party polling near or above the CAQ is the separatist Parti Québécois. |
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Institutional infrastructure For example, equipment, services, and “overhead” or “indirect cost recovery” items for grants to universities |
The Concordia University Research Chairs program (CURC) provided funding for all Depot expenditures from 2015–2019. A separate envelope of money from the Dean of Arts & Sciences (2015) provided funds for all internal furnishings. | Concordia Office of Research/VP Research; Dean of Arts & Sciences | Yes | Not Applicable | 10 | 10 | 10 | Due to budget cuts following the CAQ government’s attack on the English-language universities in Quebec (see above), the CURC program has been suspended for the foreseeable future. Without such programs, there is little money available to directly fund innovative research that falls outside of conventional approaches. | |
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Labor infrastructure For example, type and amount of labor from collaborators, staff, research assistants; include any attributes that seem important, such as unrecognized, unpaid, low-paid, outsourced, or other attributes of labor |
Undergraduate and graduate research assistants are paid at or above union rates for all labour in the Depot. There are typically two PhD-level graduate research assistants and one undergraduate research assistant. Contracts are managed by the Head of Operations and Coordination for the Milieux Institute and the Residual Media Depot Director. Milieux head of technical Support and Infrastructure provides invaluable additional technical expertise, advice, and materials sourcing. | Milieux Institute, Concordia | Yes | Not Applicable | 10 | 10 | 10 | Even in Canada, funding programs like the Concordia University research Chairs program are rare. My Chair ended in 2019, and it has become increasingly difficult to find the kind of funding necessary to keep something as odd as the Residual Media Depot running. It would be nearly impossible to launch such an initiative today, without something like a major donation from an alumni targeted specifically at such an initiative. | |
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Research-content infrastructure For example, physical libraries and archives, online research materials, shadow libraries, etc. |
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Not Applicable | Yes | 7 | 6 | 7 | Too many members of the modding and retrogaming communities rely on inaccurate folklore concerning their intellectual property rights with respect to copyright, fair use, fair dealing, technical protection measures, and the public domain. When interviewing members of these communities it is vital to obtain ethics clearance before citing anything that they say, and to follow all research protocols to avoid placing research subjects in any form of jeopardy. | Much of our research-content infrastructure is buried deep in hard-to-search community forums. Further, important resources can be buried deep and disappear from the web at an alarming rate. It is not wise to rely on the Internet Archive to save everything. Though community members have digitized many manuals, ads, trade managzines and other printed documentation, much of it remains undigitized. One pressing question for us is, how much of our own material should be digitized, and where will the funds come from to make that happen? | |
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Tools infrastructure For example, principal analog tools and digital tools, scripts, or protocols used for research, writing, communication, production (excluding high-performance computing, for which see below) |
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Yes | Yes | 10 | 8 | 9 | Working with tools in this capacity creates something like a “repair sensibility” that is highly transferable to entirely other fields of endeavour. It is deeply satisfying. | |
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Networked Platforms infrastructure For example, major networked or cloud platforms used for research, storage, analysis, sharing, communication, publication—Google Drive, Dropbox, AWS, etc. (excluding high-performance computing, for which see below) |
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Various evil billionaires | Not Applicable | Yes | 7 | 7 | 6 | I want less and less to do with social media. | |
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High-performance computing infrastructure Here defined expansively to include the use not just of supercomputers and computer clusters or grids but any high-performance computing infrastructure or special GPU and other processors exceeding the capabilities of an individual workstation, laptop, or server. |
Not Applicable | Not Applicable | Not Applicable | ||||||
| Other infrastructure | Not Applicable | Not Applicable |
This infrastructure manifest was completed by Darren Wershler and reports on Chapter 13, “Scrounging.”