Designing protocols, Instituting a New Internet. A Workshop

Designing protocols, Instituting a New Internet. A Workshop (conducted in English with Polish translation).

within the “Diversity and Power in XXI century” conference

Kuba Kulesza, Agnieszka Zgud (Working Group Foundation)

Please sign up for free, through the application form: LINK

Description:

The term “protocol” can be defined as a set of rules or procedures governing ways of how specific tasks or operations should be handled. In the Internet context, protocols establish rules for data exchange between devices, ensuring interoperability and proper transmission. The protocol outlines how individuals interact with data, spaces and each other, such interaction designed as a “role in a box” with predefined levels of access, permits and incentives enhancing the organisation.

The primary role of any protocol is to establish the structure and dynamics of a system. It determines whether we interact through a hierarchical “tree” structure or decentralised “rhizome” data flow, rely on branches or assemblages; and whether power shifts within the system are hierarchical or vertical. That said, there are more options. Protocols can be dynamic, with the capacity to define new patterns of system behaviour.

If examined closely, protocols are at their core designed with external entities in mind – integrated actors from outside the system.

In the course of our workshop session, we will design new protocols interacting with each other, establishing a new communication network. We will use gamified mechanisms to foster engagement, co-creation, and co-operation in a speculative setup. As a result, we are planning to design something akin to a meta-protocol meeting all security, transmission and efficiency requirements – becoming a novel Interspecies Internet.

Participants:

Age: 16+

number: minimum: 6, maximum: 18

Duration: 1,5 h

In order to be included in the list of participants, a return e-mail from the Arsenal Gallery confirming that the application has been accepted is required. Due to the limited number of places, the order of application is decisive.
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Working Group is an interdisciplinary team of experts. Assuming that the future will be technical, it provides consulting and research services in the broadly understood area of design and new technologies.

Agnieszka Zgud – designer, currently working on AI-based language processing interfaces. Co-founder of the Working Group Foundation. Explores sustainable technology development, with a particular focus on ethic and social AI-related challenges. Lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice. Co-author of the children’s book Co można a nawet trzeba wiedzieć o komputerach (What One Should, or even Has to Know about Computers).

Kuba Kulesza – designer and producer of digital solutions. Co-founder of and creative technologist at the Working Group research and project collective. Manager of the “Agro-Cybernetics” project. Co-author of the “Social Design” curriculum at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice. Teaches Psychology for Designers at the UX & Product Design post-graduate studies at the Humanities Faculty of the AGH University of Science and Technology in Cracow. Expert designer of the product strategy and definition stage at the User Experience Design/Product Design post-graduate curriculum of the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Katowice. Board member and boxer at the Institute for Sports Development in Cracow.