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The Bassetti Foundation on Spatial

Leave a reply Jonny Hankins
The Foundation’s Gallery on Spatial

Best wishes for the new year to all of our readers from all of us here at Technology Bloggers and the Bassetti Foundation.

2025 was a busy year for us all, and I thought I would highlight a development that might be of interest to our tech-thirsty readership.

Poiesis Intensive Innovation with the Metaverse

2025 saw the development of the Bassetti Foundation’s gallery on Spatial. The gallery hosts what we call our ‘Cover Story’, and we open the new year with a focus on poiesis intensive innovation, a form of innovation that does not come from scientific methodology or protocol, but from knowing how to do things. We could think about tinkering with machinery so that it can be adapted to perform new tasks, using materials in unusual ways, the human and non-technological side of innovation.

This is a field that I have been active in for many years, it was the focus for one of my (free to download) books, and the exhibition hosts several pieces of my work within a series of videos about projects we have been developing through the Foundation.

As the Cover Stories change, so does the gallery. You will find images that weave a common thread throughout the history of our activities, connecting STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) disciplines as well as the gender issues that permeate these fields, so crucial to the growth of our society. This provides an overview of the complexity of operating responsibly in research and innovation in a rapidly changing world like ours.

Come and check it out.

Researching power and contestation in global digital infrastructures

1 Reply Jonny Hankins

Changes to the globalising world are being written, not in the language of law and diplomacy, but rather in the language of infrastructure

– Keller Easterling

On 13-14 April I am going to Amsterdam for the Critical Infrastructure Lab Launch Event.

The lab aims to create space to co-develop alternative infrastructural futures that center people and planet over profit and capital, by establishing a community around three infrastructural subtopics (geopolitics, standards, environment), producing a sound body of research and developing actionable policy recommendations and strategic insights.

The question raised is how infrastructure can become a lens and approach to addressing some of the world’s wicked problems, we might think about anything from supply chain issues, to climate change, human rights to governance and ideas of social justice. This includes my own interest and a question that I have thinking about in my work at the Bassetti Foundation: can infrastructure support democratic ideals?

Addressing these questions requires a proactive rather than reactive approach to thinking about infrastructure. Futures have to be imagined, we need a better understanding of how infrastructure (digital in this case) shapes society and could maybe lean towards supporting certain values and away from others, all of which which might require policy development both in terms of governance and business planning.

We could start from the question of possible bias built into a system that is developed primarily by (young) men working for a select group of multinational companies. Which futures do they envisage? What does the development framework look like? Whose interests and positions are excluded?

A broad range of expertise and non expertise in social as well as technical matters is required if we want to address questions about infrastructure design with society in mind, and so the lab is hosting a launch event that offers discussion space for anyone.  The event offers workshops on infrastructural futures and maps and models, including feminist perspectives and collaborative and sustainable approaches to infrastructure design.

Why not Register for the critical infrastructure lab launch event and have a look at the schedule?

For more discussion and a bit of background on the current debate see my recent post comparing two books about digital infrastructure. It includes a comparison of the series of proposals made by the different authors. One book is about the influence of digital infrastructure during recent popular revolutions (think about the Arab Spring and the revolution in Ukraine) reviewed here and the other addresses problems of data as private property rather than a public resource.

The authors both propose ideas and thoughts about how infrastructure that effects every-day life in different contexts could be viewed and developed differently, with the proposals containing a lot of shared ideas and goals.

The Arduous Road to Revolution. Resisting Authoritarian Regimes in The Digital Communication Age

1 Reply Jonny Hankins

I have just read The Arduous Road to Revolution. Resisting Authoritarian Regimes in The Digital Communication Age, the latest book from Gabriele Giacomini. The book  offers an analysis of the influence of ICT use during revolutions (based on revolutions against regimes in Myanmar, Ukraine, Iran, Egypt, Hong Kong and Belarus), and goes on to raise a series of questions about which skills, rules and institutions might be useful to a population that finds its freedom under pressure, and to offer several suggestions.

In the early 21st century academic theorists  about internet development believed that it would bring improvement for democratic processes, offering benefits for bottom-up citizen participation in democratic processes and the resulting empowerment of the population. This view was constructed within a liberal democratic context and framework though, and overlooked questions of how internet and digital technology might become a player within an authoritarian context, which turns out to be quite different.

The author describes the history of the codification of human rights and the philosophy behind the idea that a population has a right to overthrow a government that doesn’t uphold them, before discussing some of the elements that have to be in place for anger to tip over into revolution.

He then goes on to describe the role of digital media in authoritarian restorations under the title The Decline of Revolutions, and offers descriptions of ICT use in the uprisings named above both by the population and the resisting government.

Each example has interesting specifics: the Ukraine experience led to authoritarian regimes realizing the importance of controlling digital media; the Iranian experience to the adoption of technological policies to counteract rebellion, a development also visible in Egypt and the revolutions that followed. Hong Kong and Belarus are viewed as advanced digital societies and the analysis brings in the technological development of exchanging messages while offline (via Bluetooth) and the doxing approach adopted (first) by protesters (described as forms of revolutionary innovation) and the respondent technology-enhanced government repression.

This type of conflict leads to a spiral of digital sophistication (my ICT use is more efficient and bigger and better than yours), and the author makes a case for regulatory prevention, the challenge being to identify the conditions to counter authoritarian drifts in digital societies: to identify control mechanisms, counterweights, and to allow citizens to act before the spiral (described above) starts.

The book comes to a climax with ideas of how to counter authoritarian drifts in digital societies. What is needed (according to Giacomini) is a political architecture that can foster the promotion of the emancipatory elements of digital media, requiring a modern up-to-date human rights system capable of protecting freedom in handling the cognitive elements conveyed by technologies: words, symbols, images, video, data and news.

A thorough description follows of what this might actually mean, rights to freedom, access, anonymity and to be forgotten just a few of those discussed both in terms of application and reinterpretation. The author also makes the point that being free from oppression is not the same as being free to monitor, criticize and denounce, debate and gather.

Should the international community intervene? Should there be regulation? How can we work towards the separation of digital power and strengthening of pluralism at national level. Digital literacy is also a tool for resistance, knowledge of anonymous browsing techniques, avoiding trojans, encryption and even password choice all playing a part in enabling the user to inhibit the influence of power.

This is an easy to read, thought provoking, well researched and informative book that weaves an argument within a grey area sitting between the virtual and physical world. It is not only about digital communication, but also about power and democracy, responsibility, innovation and politics.

The Arduous Road to Revolution. Resisting Authoritarian Regimes in the Digital Communication Age by Gabriele Giacomini is published by Mimesis International and costs €11.