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Now, Think Of A Question That Is At Stake For You

# olimex as an oracle

To log into olimex
    What is ssh
  > 
    SSH is a command that gives you access to another computer from the terminal.

Open your terminal and run: 
    $ssh olimex@disobedient
    or go to https://circulations.constantvzw.org/2023/disobedient2/__lab__/lab
Ask the key holders at the table for the password.

For this section, we take inspiration from Alexis Pauline Gumbs, who says:

• • Alexis Pauline Gumbs introduces her book, Dub: Finding Ceremony, as an Oracle
  • [in a lecture called Future of Praxis _ Meridians - feminism, race, transnationalism, found on youtube]
  • "Sylvia Wynter says what we need is a socio-poetics, poetics for the society, we need poetics of a possible relation. The situation we have, she explains, is one of separation. The dominant story and the languages in which we reproduce it say that we are not related. Our relationships with people and environment are mediated by capital and violence. Sylvia Wynter says we need a poetic practice that finds a way to center our relationships, to displace the unnatural violence that the whole definition of what it is to be human and racist, hetero, patriarchal, colonial, capitalist, and says this is the only way; to be dominated or dominant with resources or without hope. 
  • She says, Can we describe it?
  • That attempt should be our work, the point of all our art, the great creative act.
  • There has not been a day since where I have not mentioned Sylvia Wynter, and now I have this book  where on every page, I cite a moment of Sylvia Wynter making a version of this argument in different contexts and in different ways. She is still making that argument right now, insisting that in this moment, when we can actually communicate as a species, all of us in real time, we are better poised than ever, to reject the false universalism that was used to justify colonialism and slavery. That continues to destroy our life chances on this planet.
  • This for me is also the question of meridians connecting points through lines, boundaries, transnationalism, feminism, race. The work of finding and redefining our relation across all of this, the nuanced poetic activity of reclaiming relation as praxis. 
  • Sylvia Wynter says the ceremony must be found to create what she calls a we that needs no other. And so I'm offering an Oracle.
  • It requires our relationship and your participation."
  • Oracle Score
  • [these actions are borrowed from a lecture by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, they are edited from a transcript]
  • "This Oracle requires your relation.
  • Think of, and activate, a resonant relationship in your own life, maybe part of the reason that you're here, but not a person who's actually here in the room, because that's what's poetic about it. The borders of this university, the limits of capitalist access, even the boundary between life and death cannot eradicate your relations. So we're going to dedicate this space to and for and with our relations. 
  • Did you find them? Okay. 
  • Write down the name and a little bit about why and who you dedicated to.
  • Take about four minutes to do that right now. 
  • Now, think of a question that is at stake for you. In this time in your life. 
  • It may have to do with why you prioritise being at this school. It may be related to the person that you dedicated to, or something else that is urgently on your heart.
  • Push away the fear of asking questions we don't already know the answer to. This is not that not to say that that doesn't do anything, just this is not that.
  • Draw on your relation for the power to be poetic in this moment.
  • When you have your question, think of a number between 1 and 49.
  • It could be just the number that comes to you. It could be a number related to your question.
  • Find your number in the book.
  • Photograph the words.
  • Write a reflection on how this relates to your person, your question, and how you can engage with writing.
  • The way this socio-poetic Oracle works is that there are 49 different passages in Dub, that specifically refer to moments of emphasis in Sylvia Wynter's essays, they are ethno or socio-poetics that I referred to, and those are the 49."

When logging in, you will see a randomly selected Message Of The Day (MOTD). At the moment, these are excerpts from the quotes of the Constant Splint Game.
We invite you to look in the physical space of esc, the book shop, or your own references to add to the oracle.

Add your own texts
To add more texts to this add text files in /home/oracle:
    Copy paste within a terminal is CTRL+SHIFT+C & CTRL+SHIFT+V
    $ nano  /home/olimex/oracle/text-name.txt
    To save the file:
        CTRL/COMMAND+X, press Y, press Enter


Formulate questions to ask the oracle
in groups of 2. In turn, log out of the server (CTRL +D) and repeat the steps above to log back in, while you ask your questions to the oracle. The oracle wil answer back.
Read the questions and answers out loud.







other workshop:
# From guest to host
Hosting is, among other things, a practice of creating conditions for collectivity. The shell of rosa is a space of encountering each other for example through wall messages, mails, seeing each other's files, traces left in the gestures of naming processes. In the Trans*Feminist Server Wishlist[^tfs], a trans★feminist server "radically question[s] the conditions for serving and service" and "experiment[s] with changing client-server, user-device and guest-host-ghost relations where they can." Starting from the space that is created around and through rosa, what kind of message could be shared with someone logging in for the first time?

[^tfs]: https://etherpad.mur.at/p/tfs

Take some time to write this message.
Write it as a mail to the people who will join rosa in the future.

• $ mail -t
• fotd
• (ctrl-d on an empty line to finish the email)

++Oracle++

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