Infrastructure Manifest (v. 1.0)—Lucie Kolb—Chapter 15—“Making Infrastructure Writable”
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

Land infrastructure

For example, properties ceded, unceded, public, private, etc.

Include only principal land infrastructures.

  • Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW, land owned by the Canton of Basel City
    • Used: 8
    • Reliable: 8
    • Satisfaction: 7
  • Private home in Basel-Gundeldingen
    • Used: 4
    • Reliable: 7
    • Satisfaction: 7
  • Studio in self-governed studio-house ADW11
    • Used: 1
    • Reliable: 7
    • Satisfaction: 7
  • University property: Owner and regulator Canton of Basel City
  • Private home rented from home owner who lives in the same building
  • Studio rented from ADW11 association which rents the building from private owner, part of the board of ADW11 association
Yes Yes 4 7 7 The university campus is shared with different protagonists, question of jurisdiction is unclear, e.g. for police deployment on site.

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.

  • Laptop
    • Used: 10
    • Reliable: 9
    • Satisfaction: 8
  • iPhone
    • Used: 4
    • Reliable: 9
    • Satisfaction: 5
  • University Cloud
    • Used: 9
    • Reliable: 7
    • Satisfaction: 6
  • Laptop and university cloud owned by university
  • iPhone private ownership
Not Applicable Yes 9 9 6

Energy infrastructure

For example, principal energy sources and infrastructure used in research, production, and communication

  • Public Transport (train, tram, bus) for getting to university and studio and for research at sites such as Sitterwerk St. Gallen
    • Used: 4
    • Reliable: 6
    • Satisfaction: 6
  • Watching video interviews and writing chapter on laptop
    • Used: 8
    • Reliable: 9
    • Satisfaction: 8
  • Public transport owned by BVB or SBB
  • Digital infrastructure owned and regulated by university
Yes Yes 6 8 7

Transportation infrastructure

For example, private or public transportation needed for daily or research trips

  • Walking to university or studio with my dog
    • Used: 9
    • Reliable: 10
    • Satisfaction: 9
  • Occasionally taking the bus to university and studio

    Various train rides for research trips

    • Used: 1
    • Reliable: 7
    • Satisfaction: 6
Yes Not Applicable 5 8 8

Architectural infrastructure

For example, buildings, labs, rooms

Critical Media Lab and IXDM Research office at the Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW University, heads of IXDM Research and Critical Media Lab. Yes Not Applicable 7 7 7

Civic, community, national, or regional infrastructure

For example, provided by cities, communities, governments, etc.

  • Internet
    • Used: 10
    • Reliable: 8
    • Satisfaction: 7
  • Phone networks
    • Used: 8
    • Reliable: 8
    • Satisfaction: 6
  • Boardwalk
    • Used: 8
    • Reliable: 7
    • Satisfaction: 8
Yes Yes 8 8 7

Institutional infrastructure

For example, equipment, services, and “overhead” or “indirect cost recovery” items for grants to universities

  • Laptop
  • Table
  • Light
  • Screen
  • Keyboard
  • Mouse
  • Chair
  • Shared office space
  • Place to put my dog
  • Shelve space
  • Elevator access
  • Legal and other support infrastructure
  • IT support
Yes Not Applicable

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

  • Labor of the collaborative project “Teaching the Radical Catalog” organized together with Eva Weinmayr providing the material I’m discussing.
  • Labor of the initiatives/case studies to develop their projects
  • Research time for author
  • Labor of team members editing my text
Not Applicable Yes Ethical concerns regarding research on community and collective work.

Research-content infrastructure

For example, physical libraries and archives, online research materials, shadow libraries, etc.

  • “Teaching the Radical Catalog” resources, project websites and other online resources
  • Google search engine
  • online research material
Not Applicable Yes

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)

  • Paper and pen
  • Institutional laptop
  • Operating System Sonoma 14.3
  • Apple Notes tool
  • Zotero
  • Word
  • Outlook
  • Apple Mail
Not Applicable Yes

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)

Cryptpad, Microsoft OneDrive, and Teams provided by university. Not Applicable Yes

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.

None Not Applicable Not Applicable
Other infrastructure Not Applicable Not Applicable

This infrastructure manifest was completed by Lucie Kolb and reports on Chapter 15, “Making Infrastructure Writable.”