output – interview
From the online publication "Fellows Published 2022-2023"
Sandra Golubjevaite participated in the fellowship programme in the academic year 2022-2023 with the research project "self-hosting / coding / handcrafting / interfacing". The interview below is published in the online publication “Fellows Published” that was launched in December 2024. fellowspublished.rietveldacademie.nl
What was the starting point of your research project?
A couple of years back I discovered how relatively simple—from the technical side—it is to set up an independent server at home. I have also been interested a lot in the activities and protocols of feminist and queer hackerspaces. I identify with the commitment of these groups to educate themselves about technology on their own terms. They explore and build alternative infrastructures and tools that allow them to articulate their stories and serve their collective needs. During the fellowship I wanted to research further and bring the topic of self-hosting and feminist DIY/DIT toolboxes to the academy and to explore it collectively with the students.
What has been your approach for the fellowship research project and how does it relate to the role of research in your practice?
Throughout this fellowship one of my biggest goals was to encourage students to not be intimidated by code and to challenge their role as digital users—shifting it toward one of being active and curious contributors. I have therefore organized and led seven learning-together sessions with the students, during which I shared my self-taught skills and research on the topic. I set up a basic local server at the academy that was active and visible to the participants during these moments. We logged in and navigated this locally hosted digital space and tried to understand better what it is and what it means to run it semi-autonomously. Eventually I realized that my most essential research process and results happened precisely during these hands-on collective gatherings: it was during my contact with the participants and their questions, confusion, feedback, and excitement, etc. Out of this research process crystallized a personal hybrid installation work and a new format for the workshop.
Considering there has been a very clear choice to engage with website-projects programmed and designed 20 to 30 years ago, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on how something that may be considered an outdated aesthetics by some might get positioned within political dissent movements and feminist activism from a contemporary perspective?
I think working with digital technologies—in this case web-based—from a slow, ambient, minimalist, “handmade” position can, in fact, often be mistaken as outdated or nostalgic. Plain HTML, for example, as the foundation of a website architecture, without CSS (styling) or JavaScript (interaction) files applied, will most of the time have a certain early net appearance. At the same time, plain HTML websites are known to survive and archive best throughout the continuous rapid development of web-frameworks. To me it is more about the choice—or the freedom—to do, to learn, and to build my own at my own pace regardless of what’s considered “the latest.” It allows critical thinking and making outside the grid-based, centralized, and commodified state of the web. This approach already dominates our digital space without our—digital users’—consent. Therefore creating a nuanced space and embracing its materiality, the code, is more interesting and powerful to me.
A couple of years back I discovered how relatively simple—from the technical side—it is to set up an independent server at home. I have also been interested a lot in the activities and protocols of feminist and queer hackerspaces. I identify with the commitment of these groups to educate themselves about technology on their own terms. They explore and build alternative infrastructures and tools that allow them to articulate their stories and serve their collective needs. During the fellowship I wanted to research further and bring the topic of self-hosting and feminist DIY/DIT toolboxes to the academy and to explore it collectively with the students.
What has been your approach for the fellowship research project and how does it relate to the role of research in your practice?
Throughout this fellowship one of my biggest goals was to encourage students to not be intimidated by code and to challenge their role as digital users—shifting it toward one of being active and curious contributors. I have therefore organized and led seven learning-together sessions with the students, during which I shared my self-taught skills and research on the topic. I set up a basic local server at the academy that was active and visible to the participants during these moments. We logged in and navigated this locally hosted digital space and tried to understand better what it is and what it means to run it semi-autonomously. Eventually I realized that my most essential research process and results happened precisely during these hands-on collective gatherings: it was during my contact with the participants and their questions, confusion, feedback, and excitement, etc. Out of this research process crystallized a personal hybrid installation work and a new format for the workshop.
Considering there has been a very clear choice to engage with website-projects programmed and designed 20 to 30 years ago, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on how something that may be considered an outdated aesthetics by some might get positioned within political dissent movements and feminist activism from a contemporary perspective?
I think working with digital technologies—in this case web-based—from a slow, ambient, minimalist, “handmade” position can, in fact, often be mistaken as outdated or nostalgic. Plain HTML, for example, as the foundation of a website architecture, without CSS (styling) or JavaScript (interaction) files applied, will most of the time have a certain early net appearance. At the same time, plain HTML websites are known to survive and archive best throughout the continuous rapid development of web-frameworks. To me it is more about the choice—or the freedom—to do, to learn, and to build my own at my own pace regardless of what’s considered “the latest.” It allows critical thinking and making outside the grid-based, centralized, and commodified state of the web. This approach already dominates our digital space without our—digital users’—consent. Therefore creating a nuanced space and embracing its materiality, the code, is more interesting and powerful to me.
