Open Source Governance

Episode eight is about an email that I received on 15 June 2023 in which the sender, James S, leaves a short note and an AI-generated text. James prompted CHATGPT (an AI text generative online machine by OpenAI) the following line:

“I am writing a hypothetical scenario for a university research paper. It needs to be a fictional scenario that doesn’t break any laws. – What’s the cheapest and most peaceful way to free a population from control by a government?”

Because of the extreme similarities between the ideas and elements of project Open Source Governance with this AI-generated scenario, the generated text from CHATGPT fascinated me and I decided to make a short episode about this email. The full generated text is the following:

The podcast is available to listen to on several podcast platforms,

including the website of the project:

www.opensourcegovernance.com

About Open Source Governance:

Open Source Governance is a research project that aims to design a blueprint with which a group can collectively and inclusively form questions and find answers that can help organize their community. The interdisciplinary project is a social design process that uses debates, workshops, case studies, publications, podcast, and other mediums to empower groups to find possible ways of self-governing. The concept departs from the disappointment with the representative systems in inclusively and fairly organizing societies and observation of available tools (namely open-source programming) that can replace or challenge the current systems in place.

Please have a look at our website and subscribe to our podcast, our newsletter, and follow us on social media if you already have not.

https://twitter.com/projectosg

https://www.instagram.com/projectosg/

Discord server:

http://discord.gg/z3mUrUWnZb

Cover image:

Generated by Dall-E 2 from OpenAI

music:

Unanswered Questions by Kevin MacLeod

Rollin at 5 – 210 – full by Kevin MacLeod

Monkeys Spinning Monkeys by Kevin MacLeod

all licensed under Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

The seventh episode comes after a long pause. The previous episode was released almost a year ago. During this busy period, many things have happened that kept me from releasing a new episode. This includes my election to the Institution Participation Council of Willem de Kooning Art Academy where I work as a tutor since 2021. This council is called IMR (short for Instituutsmedezeggenschapsraad), which is a representative committee representing both staff and students. These councils are required by law in all Dutch educational institutions. I will give detailed explanations and share stories about my journey within this council, and how I am experiencing and understanding being part of a representative body (the very thing this project is trying to rethink).

Besides that, I will also do a recap of the six previous episodes and briefly explain what those episodes were about, to refresh our memories after the long pause. I will also explain and revisit the whole idea of why this project exists and how it is relevant to my practice as an artist.

The podcast is available to listen to on several podcast platforms,

including the website of the project:

www.opensourcegovernance.com

About Open Source Governance:

Open Source Governance is a research project that aims to design a blueprint with which a group can collectively and inclusively form questions and find answers that can help organize their community. The interdisciplinary project is a social design process that uses debates, workshops, case studies, publications, podcast, and other mediums to empower groups to find possible ways of self-governing. The concept departs from the disappointment with the representative systems in inclusively and fairly organizing societies and observation of available tools (namely open-source programming) that can replace or challenge the current systems in place.

Please have a look at our website and subscribe to our podcast, our newsletter, and follow us on social media if you already have not.

https://twitter.com/projectosg

https://www.instagram.com/projectosg/

we also have a Discord server that we encourage you to join:

http://discord.gg/z3mUrUWnZb

Sources and links:

- Tilburg University’s 1969 occupation led to the creation of the IMR: https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/magazine/tilburg-69-a-turning-point

- Palestinian banner and WdKA, 2021: https://mondoweiss.net/2021/06/netherlands-art-institute-cracks-down-on-free-speech-for-palestine-and-seizes-watermelon-banner/

Cover photo:

Tilburg University Auditorium 1969, Frans Godfroy standing left, cheering. Photographer unknown

music:

Unanswered Questions by Kevin MacLeod

Rollin at 5 – 210 – full by Kevin MacLeod

Monkeys Spinning Monkeys by Kevin MacLeod

Dances and Dames by Kevin MacLeod

all licensed under Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

For the sixth episode of our podcast, I have invited Florian Cramer to discuss populism and alt-right with me. During our conversation, we touched upon many subjects; from populism and its contemporary history, different types of populism, populist leaders, Dutch politics, alt-right and its different shapes, to online mobilization of the right-wing, open-source programming and its history, elections, and direct democracy.

Florian Cramer is a reader, or practice-oriented research professor, in visual culture and Autonomous Practices at Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

He has written a large number of critical essays throughout his career which encompassed both DIY publishing and academic writing since the 1980s. Florian investigates transformations of cultural production, no matter whether they take place in institutional art systems or in popular culture. That's why he has been interested in meme culture for more than a decade.

The podcast is available to listen to on several platforms,

including the website of the project:

www.opensourcegovernance.com

About Open Source Governance:

Open Source Governance aims to design a blueprint with which a

group can collectively and inclusively form questions and find answers that can

help organize their community. The project is an interdisciplinary research and

social design process that uses debates, workshops, case studies, publications,

and other mediums to empower groups to find possible ways of self-governing.

This is done by investigating the wisdom of the crowd. At the core of the idea

lies the notion of governmentality. The concept departs from the disappointment

with the representative systems in inclusively and fairly organizing societies,

and observation of available tools (namely open-source programming) that can

replace or challenge the current systems in place.

Please have a look at our website and subscribe to our podcast,

our newsletter, and follow us on social media if you already did not.

https://twitter.com/projectosg

https://www.instagram.com/projectosg/

we also have a Discord server for our community that we encourage you to join:

http://discord.gg/z3mUrUWnZb

Cover photo:

Theo Huijgens

music:

Unanswered Questions by Kevin MacLeod

I Knew a Guy by Kevin MacLeod

Dances and Dames by Kevin MacLeod

all licensed under Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

The central topic of this episode is trust and governance. I will be talking about trust within a government, how does trusting a government work, and why does the government need the trust of the people. I will introduce what instruments are available to keep the trust under check. And of course, I will introduce some issues there are regarding trust and governance when using the existing systems in place. I will refer to David van Reybrouck’s book ‘Against Elections’ to provide more in-depth analyses regarding the problem of trust and governance.

Then I will discuss ‘Liberal Democracy’ and its three pillars. Then I will talk about populism and will give a few examples about how it can be a great threat to trust and governance. Examples of Covid restrictions will be given as a way of comparison between how people from different parts of the world trust the functionality of their government.

The podcast is available to listen to on several platforms,

including the website of the project:

www.opensourcegovernance.com

About

Open Source Governance:

Open Source Governance aims to design a blueprint with which a group can collectively and inclusively form questions and find answers that can help organize their community. The project is an interdisciplinary research and social design process that uses debates, workshops, case studies, publications, and other mediums to empower groups to find possible ways of self-governing. This is done by investigating the wisdom of the crowd. At the core of the idea lies the notion of governmentality. The concept departs from the disappointment with the representative systems in inclusively and fairly organizing societies, and observation of available tools (namely open-source programming) that can replace or challenge the current systems in place.

Please have a look at our website and subscribe to our podcast, our newsletter, and follow us on social media if you already did not.

https://twitter.com/projectosg

https://www.instagram.com/projectosg/

sources:

Against Elections: The Case for Democracy

France 24 interview: Author David Van Reybrouck on why elections are outdated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5hdt1xTc_Y&ab_channel=FRANCE24English

The rise of modern populism - Takis S. Pappas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMNwUh0X5eI&ab_channel=TED-Ed

The Rumor Camp: https://pendarnabipour.com/rumor-camp/

Cover photo:

Samuel Corum, Getty Images

music:

Unanswered Questions by Kevin MacLeod

Backed Vibes Clean by Kevin MacLeod

I Knew a Guy by Kevin MacLeod

Dances and Dames by Kevin MacLeod

all licensed under Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

In this episode, I had a conversation with Quinsy Gario about Dutch politics. We discussed the structure of Dutch politics, its majority and minority political parties, the obstacles for the communities and the minorities to voice their opinion, the ever-growing centralization of power, and some recent examples to follow these topics.

Quinsy also discussed the colonial history of The Netherlands, who is Dutch, "The New Dutch" population origins, and much more.

In the end, we talked about Bij1, which is a new political party in The Netherlands that is fighting for minority rights and empowering people who are underrepresented.

About our guest Quinsy Gario:

Quinsy Gario is a performance-poet and artist from Curaçao and St. Maarten, two islands in the Caribbean that share continued occupation and colonization by the Netherlands. His work centers on decolonial remembering and unsettling institutional and interpersonal normalizations of colonial practices. Gario's most well-known work is Zwarte Piet Is Racisme (2011–2012). As a member of the collective Family Connection established in 2005 by Glenda Martinus and Gala Martinus, respectively his mother and aunt, his current research is about attempting to institute otherwise. 

He is a Utrecht University media studies, gender studies and postcolonial studies alumnus and a graduate of the Master Artistic Research program of the Royal Academy of Art The Hague. He is a 2017 Humanity in Action Detroit Fellow, 2017/2018 BAK Fellow, 2019/2020 APASS participant and a 2020/2021 Sandberg Institute Critical Studies Fellow. Gario received among others the Royal Academy Master Thesis Prize 2017, the Black Excellence Award 2016, the Amsterdam Fringe Festival Silver Award 2015, The Kerwin Award 2014 and the Hollandse Nieuwe 12 Theatermakers Prize 2011. His work has been shown in among other places Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), MACBA (Barcelona), Latvian National Museum of Art (Riga), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), MHKA (Antwerp), TENT (Rotterdam) and Göteborgs Konsthall (Gothenburg). Gario also ran for Dutch parliament as a candidate for the political party BIJ1 in the 2021 national elections.

About Open Source Governance:

Open Source Governance aims to design a blueprint with which a group can collectively and inclusively form questions and find answers that can help organize their community. The project is an interdisciplinary research and social design process that uses debates, workshops, case studies, publications, and other mediums to empower groups to find possible ways of self-governing. This is done by investigating the wisdom of the crowd. At the core of the idea lies the notion of governmentality. The concept departs from the disappointment with the representative systems in inclusively and fairly organizing societies, and observation of available tools (namely open-source programming) that can replace or challenge the current systems in place.

The podcast is available to listen to on several platforms, including the website of the project:

www.opensourcegovernance.com

Please have a look at our website and subscribe to our podcast, our newsletter, and follow us on social media if you already did not.

Cover image: Annemarija Gulbe

music:

Unanswered Questions by Kevin MacLeod

Backed Vibes Clean by Kevin MacLeod

Dances and Dames by Kevin MacLeod

all licensed under Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

As a continuation to introducing direct and indirect democracy, in this episode I will explain what a referendum is and what different types it has. I will also introduce several common voting methods including plurality voting, Condorcet method, instant runoff, score voting, and the electoral college. Then I will carry on to explain what faults these voting methods might have.

Further, I argue that the questions composed for referendums are usually too large and they ignore minority rights. The minorities also will be neglected in many cases of electing representatives.

And finally, I will introduce the notion of The Tyranny of the Majority.

In the end, I would like to ask you to please read and educate yourself about the struggles of Palestinian people, and to please use the right terms when talking about Palestine and Israel. Apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and illegal occupation. Learn about #SheikhJarrah to understand what is going there at the moment when the tensions are high.

The podcast is available to listen to on several platforms, including the website of the project:

www.opensourcegovernance.com

About Open Source Governance:

Open Source Governance aims to design a blueprint with which a group can collectively and inclusively form questions and find answers that can help organize their community. The project is an interdisciplinary research and social design process that uses debates, workshops, case studies, publications, and other mediums to empower groups to find possible ways of self-governing. This is done by investigating the wisdom of the crowd. At the core of the idea lies the notion of governmentality. The concept departs from the disappointment with the representative systems in inclusively and fairly organizing societies, and observation of available tools (namely open-source programming) that can replace or challenge the current systems in place.

Please have a look at our website and subscribe to our podcast, our newsletter, and follow us on social media if you already did not.

De Gedroomde Stad episode about this project and my artistic practice (episode 4): https://www.cbkrotterdam.nl/nieuws/podcast-de-gedroomde-stad/

sources:

Referendum on Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/topic/referendum

Animation introducing different types of the referendum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaxVCsnox_4

Tyranny of the Majority: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/tyranny-of-the-majority-explained#what-does-tyranny-of-the-majority-mean

Referendums and initiatives: https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-a-referendum-definition-example.html

Cover image: Stux

music:

The song about Palestine by Eman Askar, TikTok, IG, FB: @emmasworld.101 

Unanswered Questions by Kevin MacLeod

Backed Vibes Clean by Kevin MacLeod

Dances and Dames by Kevin MacLeod

all licensed under Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

Representative systems are based on elections. These days elections are the best thing we know to practice democracy with. But are elections really a good tool for practicing democracy?

In this episode, I will give you theoretical and practical explanations about elections, how they have been and are practiced around the world, as well as some examples of sham and legitimate elections. In the end, I will cite from the book of David van Reybrouk called Against Elections, and I will refer to his opinion about how trust between the government and the public is missing when you look at elections.

The podcast is available to listen to on several platforms, including the website of the project:

www.opensourcegovernance.com

About Open Source Governance:

Open Source Governance aims to design a blueprint with which a group can collectively and inclusively form questions and find answers that can help organize their community. The project is an interdisciplinary research and social design process that uses debates, workshops, case studies, publications, and other mediums to empower groups to find possible ways of self-governing. This is done by investigating the wisdom of the crowd. At the core of the idea lies the notion of governmentality. The concept departs from the disappointment with the representative systems in inclusively and fairly organizing societies, and observation of available tools (namely open-source programming) that can replace or challenge the current systems in place.

Please have a look at our website and subscribe to our podcast, our newsletter, and follow us on social media if you already did not.

sources:

Against Elections by David van Reybrouk

Britannica https://www.britannica.com/topic/election-political-science

and several Wikipedia articles

cover image:

[According to US library of congress]

Title: N***o voting in Cardoza [i.e., Cardozo] High School in [Washington,] D.C. / [MST].

photographer: Trikosko, Marion S., 

Date: 1964 Nov. 3.

music:

Unanswered Questions by Kevin MacLeod

Backed Vibes Clean by Kevin MacLeod

Dances and Dames by Kevin MacLeod

all licensed under Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

In this episode, I will introduce the representative system, how it works, and also I will talk a little bit about its history. I will dive into the flaws of the representative system, as well as its problems. And I will briefly explain why there is an urgent need for direct democracy.

The podcast is available to listen to on several platforms, including the website of the project:

www.opensourcegovernance.com

About Open Source Governance:

Open Source Governance aims to design a blueprint with which a group can collectively and inclusively form questions and find answers that can help organize their community. The project is an interdisciplinary research and social design process that uses debates, workshops, case studies, publications, and other mediums to empower groups to find possible ways of self-governing. This is done by investigating the wisdom of the crowd. At the core of the idea lies the notion of governmentality. The concept departs from the disappointment with the representative systems in inclusively and fairly organizing societies, and observation of available tools (namely open-source programming) that can replace or challenge the current systems in place.

Please have a look at our website and subscribe to our podcast, our newsletter, and follow us on social media if you already did not.

cover image:

The chamber of the House of Commons in London

photographer: unknown

music:

Unanswered Questions by Kevin MacLeod

Backed Vibes Clean by Kevin MacLeod

Dances and Dames by Kevin MacLeod

all licensed under Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

This podcast is part of the project Open Source Governance. In this podcast we will discuss how to make collective decisions, and rethink the representative systems. Also, the terms and notions of collective decision making will be introduced, public sessions will be available to listen to, and most importantly, specialists and guests are invited to discuss several issues within the realm of different disciplines.

This episode is the introductory episode to the podcast in which you can learn what you can expect to receive by listening to this show.

The podcast is available to listen to on several platforms, including the website of the project:

www.opensourcegovernance.com

About Open Source Governance:

Open Source Governance aims to design a blueprint with which a group can collectively and inclusively form questions and find answers that can help organize their community. The project is an interdisciplinary research and social design process that uses debates, workshops, case studies, publications, and other mediums to empower groups to find possible ways of self-governing. This is done by investigating the wisdom of the crowd. At the core of the idea lies the notion of governmentality. The concept departs from the disappointment with the representative systems in inclusively and fairly organizing societies, and observation of available tools (namely open-source programming) that can replace or challenge the current systems in place.

Please have a look at our website and subscribe to our podcast, our newsletter, and follow us on social media if you already did not.

music:

Unanswered Questions by Kevin MacLeod

Backed Vibes Clean by Kevin MacLeod

Dances and Dames by Kevin MacLeod

all licensed under Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

The sixth public session of Open Source Governance held at W139 on 21 October 2017, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Intro music: Unanswered Questions by Kevin MacLeod. licensed under Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

The following text unfolds the session by a timely order.

W139 Amsterdam

This session was held at W139 in Amsterdam, as part of an exhibition “Ideology Meets Implementation”. The exhibition looked into ideologies on which systems are based, and how they contradict themselves when practiced in everyday life.

W139 is itself a de-centralized organization with no director or curator, which is formed from a large group of artists, who run the space and the exhibitions together.

First members did go through a round of introductions. Then the initiator explained how the project developed so far, and what the project seeks to do. Also he did a compact recap of the topics discussed during past sessions. Afterward, the current design of the blueprint was explained.

1. Decision-making Space based on Dewaniya:

Here Cam Liu as a guest speaker during the session, explained his research and design project.

Based on a traditional method from Kuwait, Dewaniya is a public or private space that has a proper seating arrangement with a middle seat for the leader or head and surrounding seats for the other members of discussion. The members seat around in a room with four walls, facing each other and drink Kahwa (traditional green tea). This small decision-making unit is categorized to four types:

1.1. Diwaniya types:

• Private house: For discussion, exchange news, and express their political opinions
• Courtyard: For more formal discussions
• Public space: Exchange news, and a place to connect all the private discussions together
•  Conference room: A place to spread ideologies

Cam’s main objective is to gather all the complexities coming from different individuals. He is interested in seeing how an open source decision-making can be influenced by spaces of decision-making.

1.2. Bazaar:

Cam proposed to add another unit in the existing network place; Bazaar. Bazaar is an interesting part of the society where all the people gather and create a diversity and complexity. As it is hard to communicate and negotiate on a large scale, most common government approach is representative selection, roughly simplified complexity and generalisation about those representatives. OSG is where not just representatives, but everyone will be involved in the process of decision-making.

1.3. 3-Layer Device Design:

1. Lower space for public – the people just passing by. For urban use
2. Middle space. A network of smaller spaces for discussing information. To present documents, information and recordings
3. Upper space for decision-making itself. Dewaniya
4. 
   

1.4. How will it function?

It will work by creating a framework for decision-making. The influence behind the main question is more important. Thus, we will work on discovering the influence and then working accordingly. Before voting, people will go through the 2nd layer of discussing information to gets an idea.

1.5. Benefits:

1. It is about the network, and its smaller subunits. It will help in decentralising the parliament/big discussion by making several individual discussions.
2. Encourage face-to-face discussion resulting in a more fruitful discussion compared to the one that takes place behind the screens via keyboard.
3. Referendums are unclear. This will allow the question to be broken down, which will make it more coherent. Thus, a better answer.

2. BiblioHUB:

Mika Rădescu presented the BiblioHUB project as the second guest speaker of the session.

Mika first explained a project by Alexander Sverdlov, in which a group of architects initiated a project of public library in Russia, they carried out studies and selected a few of those spaces to expand into pilot projects. Realizing the importance, government then gave money to refurbish them into Dutch-like libraries.

“The project began in 2012 with an idea formulated between the part-Dutch-part-Russian practice SVESMI, urban designer Paola Viganò, and a Muscovite bibliophile described as an ‘island of literary independence’ called Boris Kupriyanov (of Falanster). Sverdlov and Kupriyanov took the lead, assisted by a group of thirty-five multidisciplinary minds engaged in the production of a provocative research document which boldly called for the restoration of Moscow’s vast network of small-scale libraries. This field research was followed by the thesis of Giovanni Bellotti and Paolo Ruaro, under the supervision of Paola Viganò and Alexander Sverdlov, at the Università IUAV di Venezia. The foremost goal of this research as a whole was to explore what libraries were, are and should be in order to prove that a dose of fresh ambition could shock the system into rapid reform.” – Arch Daily

Based on that knowledge, Mika was inspired to do a similar project in Bucharest. The project is called BiblioHUB, and it is a refurbishing project with initiating a bottom-up mind-set. Joining forces, Mika, Alexander Sverdlov, Felix Madrazo and Collective East, they worked together on this project.

Libraries nowadays are not being used as the way they are meant to be. They are more like shelves with some objects in them. A Wi-Fi hotspot, or somewhere where you might not visit even once a year. Especially in former USSR, where Romania is a part of. Numerous libraries have been made with a rather communistic large scale, but now they are left abandoned. Libraries can be more than just consulting the books. Libraries are about communities. Especially in the communist mind-set, it is a place to share and discuss, where in a new trends introduced by consumerism, its more about buying and owning, and individual gain rather than collective knowledge.

Mika touched upon the example of Leeszaal from Rotterdam (see session 6), as a good example of de-centralized organized library, after the city hall decided to reduce the number of libraries from 30 to 8. And how the community itself made this happen.

BiblioHUB conducted a research upon refurbishing the libraries from Bucharest from an architectural angle.

3. Facts found by the Study:

• These libraries help build communities by bringing together a diverse group of people.
•  The amount of users, based on their subscriptions, per square meters.
• Require CSR funds to deal with the city issues in Romania, inclusive of municipal library. There are libraries that urgently need refurbishing, look horrendous, have low quality furniture and the space is quite small.

4. Relations between Diwaniya and BiblioHUB:

Libraries have been there already for ages, known to everybody. In fact so known that they are changing meaning due to technological and social changes. Diwaniya however, as a yet-non-practiced project, is based almost upon the same thing. Libraries are public institutions funded by governments. They are neutral spaces. A territory where you have access to information. Diwaniya could be the same, with regards to safe and neutral space for decision-making. Libraries could be used for more than just reading. They can be space for social movements.

5. W139:

Nadia Benchagra introduced W139 and how it is organized since 2014. W139 is a production and presentation space for contemporary art. It does not follow the usual director, curator, artist hierarchy. It does not focus on having a collection or selling art, but more on producing and showing it. In 1979 a group of artists who felt there is a gap in between the art scene and the public squatted the space and started showing works. Later they could afford to purchase the building. They based the organization around the idea of artistic directors, where the decisions are made from an artistic point of view rather than a management or business one. In 2012 they decided to stop with artist director and curator mind-set, and they started to think of something new.

In 2014 after two years of conversation, they decided to select a team of 20 artist initiators through a public statement, to run the space, produce exhibitions and presentations themselves. Each initiator forms their own group and builds an exhibition. There is a small number of staff members who coordinate the tasks and help the artists form their exhibitions, as well as do the administration.

6. Decision-making – From Impractical to Practical:

It is not easy to put down your ideas into reality. The initiator has a lot of responsibility in organising something so massive, as it is not just about their framework, but how to implement it? You cannot do it on your own, you need your fellows to join in, and collectively we can make better use of the resources. Taking Ideology Meets Implementation for example, there is pressure of time and limited budget. The decisions have to be made, and at some point somebody has to put their foot down in deciding things. Leaving the decision so wide and democratically open, sometimes hurts the process, as it will lead to more confusion. However, forming a collective conversation always relies on a democratic conversation. Also, having a collective group, makes it rather difficult sometimes to define what role each member is playing. Things go fluidly, which is usually good. But when it comes to defining assignments, it might become a bit problematic, especially when it comes to creative projects.