Ubiquitous Commons

An article appeared today on Shareable: “Ubiquitous Commons Imagines a P2P Revolution in Italy“

The article describes what happened during and after the Iperconnessioni Rurali workshop held at RuralHub, together with Nefula.

The outcomes of the process are contained in this PDF:

iperconnessioni_rurali_1.0

From the document:

“The objective of this publication is to describe in synthesis a transition scenario in which appropriate technologies are used to enact commons-based, peerto-peer organisational and operational models which are usable at local and trans-local levels, to the mutual benefit of communities and of networks of human beings and organisations.”

Ubiquitous Commons: the results of IperConnessioni Rurali: the p2p revolution for rural areas

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Read more on Shareable: http://www.shareable.net/blog/ubiquitous-commons-imagines-a-p2p-revolution-in-rural-italy

Read about the Iperconnessioni Rurali workshop with RuralHub and Nefula, who created the Near Future Design scenarios.

Read the outcome report of IperConnessioni Rurali

Meet us at ICT2015 in Lisbon, where we’ll introduce many of these themes, and construct a community focused of using UC and similar techniques/technologies to perform disruptive innovation processes..

A few days ago Ubiquitous Commons was invited at the MAXXI Museum in Rome for the Independent Food exhibit, curated by Giulia Ferracci and showcasing some of the principal independent operators dealing with innovation, creativity and critical approaches on rurality and nutrition.

Among them, was the Pollinaria project, a long-term residency and the work that the Futurefarmers are doing in it, mapping, preserving, archiving and exchanging ancient seeds.

Ancient seeds are a very interesting topic. Seeds are, to all effect, are a media: information, under the form of material form of the genetic information contained in seeds, is exchanged just like mp3 files for music, creating relationships, economies, knowledge.

Currently, seeds are going through a peculiar process, with practices that have been going on for thousands of years becoming subject to demanding legal, administrative and bureaucratic which have enormous impacts on the possibility for developing small businesses, and on the preservation of biodiversities, with a few major industrial operators being able to steer entire sectors of economy and culture through policies on intellectual property, on seed registries and other administrative obligations.

Seeds become information, protected by patents, licenses, intellectual property and more.

It is an enormous issue, determining not only the direction of entire economies and social ritualities, but also the possibility for the diffused presence of biodiversity (if a seed is not registered, it can turn out to be illegal), empowering a few industrial operators and inhibiting diffused economies and practices.

Within this important discussion we were called by Radio Instabile / Radio Papesse for a radio panel together with Guido Smorto and Tiziano Bonini for a discussion on the ways in which Ubiquitous Commons could play an important role in smart rurality.

For this, we referred to the many explorations on the theme which are becoming an important part of the project, for example with RuralHub, starting with the IperConnessioni Rurali workshop.

Data in rural area is produced in massive quantities and qualities and, if it becomes the focus of a high quality relational environment among all of the stakeholders, its transformation into a commons may lay down the possibility for enormous opportunities: for the development of multiple types of shared, inclusive economies; for the growth and improvement of social and relational capital; for biodiversity and well-being; and from a variety of additional points of view.

You can listen to the podcast for the rado show (in Italian), here: http://radiopapesse.org/w2d3/v3/view/radiopapesse/notizie–341/pop_ascolta.html?id=341&titolo=RADIOINSTABILE_4-SEED_AS_SOCIAL_MEDIA-BONINI-SMORTO-IACONESI-PERSICO.mp3

and you can read additional information here: http://radiopapesse.org/w2d3/v3/view/radiopapesse/notizie–341/index.html?area=7

Ubiquitous Commons will be at ICT2015 in Lisbon, on 20-22 October 2015, for a Networking Session about the creation of a community for Disruptive Democratic Social Innovation.

• Read more about the Session HERE.
• Register for the Session HERE. (the session is free)
• Propose your idea HERE.

From the Session’s description:

“This session wants to establish a Community nurturing ideas, policies and solutions for ICT-based tools detecting, monitoring, supporting and governing a specific sector of the Social Innovation, characterised by the capability to modify the market (Disruptive) by enabling people to freely act, react and participate in the innovation (Democratic).

Democratic Innovation is a mandatory approach, taking into account the growing importance of citizens‘ role in decision making and policy shaping processes, and the need to provide more inclusive and cross-cultural modalities for innovation to take place. This theme will be addressed by envisioning and planning deployment of dedicated ICT solutions, and also by adoption and integration of techniques which are able to create effective cultural impacts, such as the arts and creativity, in syncretic collaboration with sciences and technologies. The result will be to extend opportunities for breakthrough innovation which are closer to people.

A first set of tools, collected through a public call for ideas and shared by the organisers, will create the ground for an open debate during the session, enabling the Community to kick-start the activities.”

The session is organised by Impact Hub, Art is Open Source, and NET-EUCEN.

You can:

• Read more about the Session HERE.
• Register for the Session HERE. (the session is free)
• Propose your idea HERE.

In particular, it is very important that you propose your idea (for example it could use Ubiquitous Commons in a specific way, or it could include other technologies and methods), as we will make every effort to engage a wide, targeted, focused community into discussing your proposal, combining it with others and to potentially start their development.

Ubiquitous Commons and Human Ecosystems will be at the “Hybrid City III: Data to the People” conference in Athens, on September 17-19, organised by the University Research Institute of Applied Communication (URIAC), in collaboration with New Technologies Laboratory, of the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, of the University of Athens.

The paper “Data and the City: moving from surveillance and control to the Ubiquitous Commons” will be presented there.

The paper will be available on the conference proceedings, and here on this website.

Here is the abstract:

Social networks and ubiquitous technologies have transformed the ways in which we communicate, learn, work, consume, express emotions, relate to each other, create and share information and knowledge.

Major operators create digitally mediated public and private spaces using hardware and software user interfaces, iconic and symbolic architectures, communication strategies and patterns.

This scenario creates private/public spheres in which users leave digital traces which are used to commoditise human behaviour and expression: for marketing, surveillance, social experiments and more, all without explicit participant consent: current modalities are not sufficient in enabling users to control the ways in which their data is used.

Algorithmic production of information is yet another space in which confusion and opacity are created in people’s perception of how their information will be used: they are not transparent and accountable, and laws, regulations and habits are not structurally able to confront with their continuous, fluid evolution.
This results in the systematic transgression of multiple human rights and expectations. This scenario describes a critical situation which must be confronted with.

In this article we propose a two-phase methodology whose objective is to find resolutive solutions for the presented context, starting from a focus on major social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram).

The first phase is exemplified through a city-based project called Human Ecosystems which, at the time of writing, has been started in multiple cities (Rome, Sao Paulo, Montreal, New Haven, among others).

The project has four steps: re-appropriation; sharing; education; performance.
In the re-appropriation step, public data generated by users on major social networks is harvested and processed, to understand the Relational Ecosystems of the city, and the topic/emotion networks which are expressed by city-dwellers, thus being able to describe information and knowledge flows across communities.

In the sharing stage, all of the harvested and processed information is made available under the form of a source of real-time open data, released under with a peer-production license.

In the education stage, widely accessible workshops are used to engage the population in the understanding of the implications generated by the availability of such data, and of how this data can be used for citizens’ self-organisation, civic action, to understand the cities’ cultures and communities, and for participatory decision-making processes.

In the performance stage, an inclusive laboratory is created in the city in which students, researchers, public administrators, designers, artists and organisations receive support in building these scenarios, understanding them and their critical implications.

In the second phase of the methodology is the Ubiquitous Commons are defined. They come under the form of legal and technological toolkits which describe a “protocol” used to declare the intended use of element of ubiquitous information generated by users. It is an evolution of the concept of the Creative Commons, in the era ubiquitous information and dealing with the qualitative, quantitative, technical, technological and legal implications of these new forms of data.

This year, Art is Open Source, Human Ecosystems and Ubiquitous Commons will be featured at Ars Electronica, as part of the Post City Kit exhibition, with the Myriads project (part of the wider Ubiquitous Infoscapes project).

Read more information HERE on Art is Open Source.

From Ars Electronica’s website:

Post City Kit is a toolkit of ideas, strategies, devices and prototypes for the city of the future. The city is – and will remain – a scene of a permanent human life and survival experiment. In condensed form here culture(s), social systems and economic and political policies of their time are coming to light. The Post City Kit Exhibition shows with numerous prototypes and project presentations possible development directions towards the urban habitats for the upcoming human generations.

For a series of reasons, we were not able to attend the Societing Summer School 2015 held at the RuralHub, in Calvanico. But we still wanted to contribute some thoughts about the important role that technologies such as the BlockChain, p2p infrastructures and, in the specifics of our initiative, the Ubiquitous Commons can play in the creation of innovative scenarios for the years to come.

Basically it comes down to this: in the double transition which we are living (from scarcity to abundance; from the physical, situated, relational environment to the ubiquitous one, enacted through data, information and knowledge exchange, among human beings and devices, services and other forms of non-human entities, such as organizations, companies, institutions, etc.) it is not sufficient anymore to create innovative services or platforms. What is necessary for all enhancements for human life is the creation of the possibility of high quality relational environments.

The commons approach is progressively becoming a recognized key to foster the opportunities for positive innovation in this age of transition and of transformation.

Ideally, the commons emerge in local communities, facilitated by a Common Pool Resources (CPR) whose boundaries are well defined, sustained by a relational environment (allowing to self-organize dynamically and emergently adaptive forms of governance, as well as cheap and easily accessible forms of conflict resolution), supported by the effective supervising possibilities of monitors who are part of (or accountable to) the commoners, and with minimal interference of the institutional actors.

If the traditional commons depict the strong relation between the material CPR and the High Quality Relational Environment (HQRE) which is needed for them to be fruitfully managed, to the benefit of the whole society, the UC highlight the strong relation between the immaterial CPR and the HQRE created by establishing a peer-to-peer network (P2P).

It is here, in the P2P network, that the purpose of social conscience, imagination and sense of responsibility – which are typical of the HQRE – are enacted, and here is the place where they form the feedback loop to P2P network itself, constituting a second-order cybernetic system.

It is here that the identities can be expressed, in multiple forms (anonymous, individual, collective, nomadic, temporary).

It is here that all of these identities can express their will and desires.

It is here that access and experience do start.

The actors can take the form of one of the possible UC types of identities:

anonymous: a participant to the P2P network whose identity may be undisclosed for particular reasons;

• individual: a participant whose identity is associated to the one of a certain, single, legal person (e.g.: John Smith, or ABC Ltd.);
• collective: a participant whose identity is associated to a concept describing a set of subjects (e.g.: farmers, citizens of town X, the people associated to the Y association) or a goal (e.g.: civic action, ethical scientific research, ancient seeds cultivation);
• nomadic: a participant whose identity is associated to a shifting set of legal persons, one at the time, for particular reasons (e.g.: first it is John Smith, then John Smith passes it on to Mark White, then Mark White passes it on to ABC ltd, etc.);
• temporary: a participant (of the anonymous, individual, collective, or nomadic types) whose identity is limited in time, for particular reasons (e.g.: for an event, for a project).

Each identity corresponds to a public/private crypto-key:

• the members of the identity have the private key (whether it is the single member of the individual identity, or the multiple members of a collective identity);
• it is up to the responsibility of the members of a collective identity to keep, share or manage their collective private key.

These subjects enter the P2P network through a trust mechanism creating that sense of responsibility that fuels the entire relational environment:

• the trust mechanism can be enacted in multiple ways, for example by direct inclusion, through reputation mechanisms, through “citizenship” mechanisms (e.g.: each new citizen receives the “private crypto-key to the city”, thus becoming effective part of the collective identity of the citizens), and more;
• these actors are related through a set of relationships that express, for the scope of the P2P network, one or more purposes or goals (e.g.: collaboration, research, business, consumption); goals can evolve and change over time;
• these actors generate or access a variety of types of immaterial products: data, information, knowledge, networks, processes, recipes, insights, wisdom;
  • these immaterial products can be produced/ expressed through a variety of means and media, including social networks, databases, transactions, sensors, IoT, network connected devices, smartphones, biometrics, and more;
• these types of immaterial products, when produced, are shared on UC together with one or more “relation”, which also indicates a scope and a purpose (for example, I could share my data of type X with individual identity Y, with the collective identity “citizens of my city” or “Innovative Farmers X”, with a temporary identity for a certain event, etc.);
  • using the UC mechanisms, the actors indicated would be the only ones to be able to access the information;
  • if any improper use was made, it would be up to the quality of the relational environment to handle the situation, and to solve the conflict;
  • this is one of the parts of the model where the HRQE becomes evident and needed, highlighting the dependence of any commons-based model on it;
• so, immaterial products are shared through the Block Chain and self-governed through the P2P network;
• immaterial products become accessible and usable, in this way, for several scopes and relations, and can be harvested (in realtime or offline, as needed) through the Human Ecosystems – HE (for example, the mayor of a city could use HE to fetch through UC “all of the civic relevant messages shared on social networks by the members of citizens of city X collective identity, shared for this purpose”, without having to pay social network providers and suffer their limitations, and reclaiming the data/information which was generated for public/civic purposes);
• all of these immaterial products therefore, can be used to create Apps, visualizations, maps, services, gadgets, artworks, designs, games, education processes, researches, public screens or anything respecting the expressed purpose;
  • on the Block Chain every transaction would be logged, so that it could become fairly easy to track down any improper use of it;
  • the transactions can also have validity as micro contracts, since they are certified and encrypted through strong crypto-keys;
  • since the transactions live on the Block Chain, which is also the P2P infrastructure meant to handle Bitcoin transactions and providing the possibility for paid transactions, the whole system would be fairly easy and direct (e.g.: “free for collective identity citizens of city X, paid 0.005 bitcoins for all the rest.”).

This model can be instanced in multiple ways. It can be specified and designed for:

• a series of types of actors/participants of the P2P network
• their relations and purposes
• the types of immaterial products they produce/experience, and where they are found (social networks, databases, IoT, Apps, devices, networks, processes..);
• the logics (relations + purposes + flows) according to which these immaterial products are shared in the commons;
• the description of the outputs of the process, and how they are used (an App? a service? a visualization? a process? an action? an event? …).

In the Ubiquitous Commons project, we are working on these issues, creating working prototypes which act on social networks, network-connected devices, smartphones, domotics, wearables and, in general, several cases of Internet of Things scenarios, going from smart kitchens, to IoT automobiles, medical devices and more.

Each of these represents a challenge which is not only technological, but also legal and, most important of all, anthropological.

In this sense, the collaboration with rural areas, for example with the RuralHub, are truly important. Rurality is far from the city, but not so far, as the scenario of rurality in the connected age is complex beyond imagination, with multiple types of permanent, but also temporary, migrations, even daily or hourly ones, at physical, communicational and mental levels, with people imagining their escape routes from “the city” (and all it represents) towards rural settings. And rurality is the place where the connectedness with the environment has been preserved and nourished, together with the recognition of its limitedness; the preciousness and volatility of knowledge (and the necessity to preserve it and promote it, see traditional knowledge); and the evidence of the possibility of truly different, relations-based options for brining up better societies.

In these times, rurality is finding its new ways. These ways include technologies and hyperconnectivity, and all the good and bad which comes with it. This reinvention is a blank slate – but one with a powerful background, history and knowledge – in which we can experiment, in multiple ways, getting the people involved, with their mindsets, cultures, opinions and desires and expectations.

UC – Ubiquitous Commons will contribute to the Common Camp experience with a plenary session dedicated to the introduction and discussion of the pamphlet “Iperconnessioni Rurali“.

What:
“Iperconnessioni Rurali” and the Ubiquitous Commons Project – Plenary Session

When:
6th July 2015

Discussant:
Adam Arvidsson, Alex Giordano, Salvatore Iaconesi, Oriana Persico

curated by:
Rural Hub and Art Is Open Source

Iperconnessioni Rurali workshop, held in April 2015 at Rural Hub, is the very first first attempt to apply the methodological and conceptual UC frame to rural contexts.

As a result of the workshop, together with the group of participants we edited the homonymous pamphlet “Iperconnessioni Rurali”, which will be presented and discussed for the first time during the plenary session of Common Camp, on July 6th 2015 in Calvanico (Salerno, Italy).

Designed by Nefula, the pamphlet will be soon released and available online.