Infrapunctural bots are not at all different from political bots or bots of conviction, but by introducing this term, I would like to highlight the sociality of the process. They may not solve any problems, but they can be ways to probe and understand where the …
Infrastructure is fundamentally a relational concept, it can be understood in the context of an organised practice. Susan Leigh Star gives the example of the water system, which for a person who washes dishes in a restaurant is essential infrastructure. However, for an plumber or a …
Another type of bots is discussed by Mark Sample, who enunciates bots of conviction. Inspired by Jurgen Habemas' “journalism of conviction”, which was polemical, political and constantly debating the needs of society and the role of the state, “bots of conviction” are topical, data-based, cumulative, oppositional, and …
If we think back to the urban farms in Taipei, what set them apart was the ad-hoc collective space making process. However, let's not forget what happened when the anarchist pocket functioning by its own rules was appropriated by the city council and marketed to a young, creative …
The Oxford Internet Institute has done extensive research on this subject, referring to these bots as another form of computational propaganda.
An ethnography of propaganda bots would yield the
There are multiple definitions of what bots are and do. In simple terms, they are automated algorithms that often operate as an interface between infrastructure and human users. There is a wide spectrum of types of bots: social bots, scraping bots, high-frequency trading bots, spam bots, managerial bots, chatbots and …
Infrapuncture is a word by University of Sydney lecturer Deb Verhoeven. As you might suspect, the term is fusing “infrastructure” and “acupuncture”, referring to small scale interventions in the infrastructure that can cause stress relief. I found this expression very appealing because it addresses the tension within infrastructures and I …
Urban acupuncture refers to small scale, low cost, bottom up design interventions which affect the cityscape in meaningful ways. One example are the community gardens in Taipei. These urban farms have sprung up on run down and abandoned sites, essentially anything that declares itself unproductive for the modernisation plan of …