Feminist Hack Meetings #6 - How about access?

This FHM session is for us to recon­si­der the acces­si­bi­lity of online realms. We will learn about this in two parts, first through a guest talk called 'Shapes­hif­ting Dreams: Prac­ti­cing Towards Acces­si­ble Insti­tu­ti­ons’ from artist-design duo MELT, who will share their rese­arch and prac­tice around acces­si­bi­lity. After this presen­ta­tion, we will conti­nue with a hands-on works­hop to expe­ri­ment with tools and appro­a­ches that move us towards more inclu­sive ways of being toget­her in online and hybrid spaces.

Our guests will join online. As parti­ci­pants, you are very welcome to join in person – in Varia – or we can connect online too. The exer­ci­ses plan­ned for the works­hop are possi­ble to do inside Varia and/or through the screen.

More details on what we will do and learn below.

Shapes­hif­ting Dreams: Prac­ti­cing Towards Acces­si­ble Insti­tu­ti­ons

In their talk MELT will discuss their ongoing project Access Server reflec­ting on their recent enga­ge­ment with a fellows­hip at Het New Insti­tuut. Access Server is an email server that anony­mi­zes, collects and finan­ci­ally compen­sa­tes access requests that disa­bled people send towards insti­tu­ti­ons. They will discuss disa­bi­lity justice and other theo­re­ti­cal frame­works that Access Server works with and builds upon, the enga­ge­ment with the insti­tu­tion MELT was fellows with and the diffi­cul­ties and possi­bi­li­ties this unvei­led and their emer­ging prac­tice of drea­ming about acces­si­ble insti­tu­ti­ons. Struc­tu­ral ableism makes it diffi­cult to do so many things. Drea­ming up and plan­ning for acces­si­ble insti­tu­ti­ons is one way that we prac­tice towards an other­wise, where joyful and plea­su­ra­ble acces­si­bi­lity is cente­red.

Bio

MELT (Ren Loren Brit­ton & Isabel Paehr) study and expe­ri­ment with shape-shif­ting proces­ses as they meet tech­no­lo­gies, sensory media and peda­go­gies in a warming world. Melti­o­nary (deri­ved from «dicti­o­nary»), is a growing collec­tion of arts-design-rese­arch enga­ge­ments that cooks up ques­ti­ons around mate­rial trans­for­ma­ti­ons along­side impul­ses from trans* femi­nism and Disa­bi­lity Justice. Melting as a kalei­dos­cope like pheno­mena touches upon multi­ple topics at once: climate change, the poten­tial for poli­ti­cal refor­mu­la­ti­ons, change over time and mate­rial trans­for­ma­tion. MELT shares work in the forms of videos, insta­lla­ti­ons, websi­tes, lectu­res, works­hops and cour­ses.

For the second part of the session, we will work through exer­ci­ses from the project Alt Text as Poetry, https://alt-text-as-poetry.net/ by Shan­non and Bojana, that inclu­des editing images for diffe­rent ways of seeing, adding alt text to images (a text caption to describe the scene in an image), and making diffe­rent types of textual and audio recor­dings of pieces of text that can be used for screen readers or liste­ned to in diffe­rent contexts.

Parti­ci­pants are welcome to work with their own mate­ri­als – maybe from your own website or online presence – while we can also expe­ri­ment with the zine library inside Varia, that we can use as sour­ces whose access can be impro­ved. Expe­ri­men­ting with our DIY Varia sound booth, we will try out sound recor­dings to make sonic editi­ons of the femi­nist zines in the space, trans­late them into diffe­rent langua­ges, or work with other prin­ted mate­ri­als that you would like to speak out loud.

We hope that this works­hop can be for people working in the digi­tal realm, who want to learn more about how their working (and living) envi­ron­ment can be more acces­si­ble and inclu­sive. It is an FHM for lear­ning toget­her, and thin­king deeply on a topic that needs atten­tion.

Access

This meeting would be held in English.

First part: The online talk from MELT will be recor­ded so asyn­cro­nous enga­ge­ment will be possi­ble. The talk will include auto­ma­tic closed capti­ons.

Second part: The session will be hybrid, in Varia and online in a link that we will provide through email to the parti­ci­pants. It will not be recor­ded.

FHM will share text, image (with alt text) and audio docu­men­ta­tion for all parti­ci­pants after the works­hop.

For folks joining in Varia, there is a gender neutral toilet on the ground floor of the space and free tap water is avai­la­ble. The sound levels may be high at times as we are connec­ting with the online crowd and doing audio recor­dings. For more infor­ma­tion please check the acces­si­bi­lity descrip­tion of the space at https://varia.zone/en/pages/acces­si­bi­lity.html and feel free to contact fhmvaria [ punto ] zone (fhm[at]varia[dot]zone) for speci­fi­ca­ti­ons if you would like to know more.

To regis­ter, please send an email to fhmvaria [ punto ] zone (fhm[at]varia[dot]zone) menti­o­ning the name of the event in the subject line.

Date: Satur­day 4 June 2022

Time: 11:00 to 14:00 CEST

Loca­tion: Varia (Gouws­traat 3, Rotter­dam) & Online (link soon)

Note: This session will be held in English.

This event is made possi­ble with the kind support of the Crea­tive Indus­tries Fund NL.

varia (Gouws­traat 3, Rotter­dam) is a space for deve­lo­ping collec­tive appro­a­ches to every­day tech­no­logy. As varia members, we main­tain and faci­li­tate a collec­tive infras­truc­ture from which we gene­rate ques­ti­ons, opini­ons, modi­fi­ca­ti­ons, help and action. We work with free soft­ware, orga­nise events and colla­bo­rate in diffe­rent cons­te­lla­ti­ons. varia figu­res things out as they go, tries to keep notes, is multi­lin­gual, has open hours and can be contac­ted at infovaria [ punto ] zone (info[@]varia.zone).