Tenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

This paper discusses the network of the British Waterways as a digital social commons, through the researcher’s journey on the narrow boat ‘Quintessence,’ and the development of the ‘boattr’ prototype in collaboration with MAZI, a Horizon2020 research project. For three years, the researcher joined the community of bargees, travellers, who use the canals to live on them, with a temporary permit to stay for two weeks in one place. The paper offers a critical view on the housing situation in the UK and EU in general. The paper also looks into capabilities offered by Do-It-Yourself (DIY) networking infrastructures – low-cost off-the-shelf hardware and wireless technologies – and how small communities or individuals can deploy local communication networks that are fully owned by local actors, including all generated data. These DIY networks could cover from a small square (e.g., using a Raspberry Pi) to a city neighborhood (e.g., RedHook initiative) or even a whole city (e.g., guifi.net), and in the case of boattr, the towpath of the canal network. This paper is being proposed in combination with an installation of a running boattr prototype, micro-computer book. This boattr installation lets the conference visitor experience the ‘boattr’ project through accessing the boattr micro-computer book over any WiFi enabled device. The installation encompasses a photographic triptych showcasing canal life, and a micro-computer through which the viewer can be immersed into a journey on the canals.