GFSC's March Roundup

Wow, it's a month since we launched our new blog, gfsc.community. Into this space we have invited a varied cast of writers to discuss their work, collaborate and imagine radically anti-billionaire technologies.

We are still coagulating, and putting words to what this project is and what it stands for. So what is it that we're doing here?

Kim: For me the unsaid theme this month was about all social change coming through friendship, actually? I said this on a call earlier in the week with someone who agreed wholeheartedly, I think its kinda what we are doing here, prioritising getting to know each other and understand each other as people over you know, doing a startup or something?

Sean: I prefer to emphasise community over friendship. It's broader, and doesn't require so many social skills. When I say “community”, I mean it in the same way a community centre uses it. Or how a bunch of people on an old forum could describe themselves as a community. People who all know each other, interact, maybe they dont even have anything in common beyond a shared environment. Whatever the stuff is that naturally emerges out of third spaces. that kind of community. Is there a better word for it?

Kim: I got confused for like 3 years working on PlaceCal because “community” to most of the people we were working with meant “business community’ or “community of employees of the council” or something similar. I think its just an overly vague term. If anything id like to take it off its pedestal. The closest metaphor i can think of is people obsessing over what “art” really is or isn't, like who cares? You know whose great at community? Fascists and freemasons, like its not special on its own!

Olu: I think friendship is too strong for what you're getting at. I want to say comrades, or something?

Kim: Maybe this is why being a comrade with someone is so fraught, we need to have a functional work relationship AND friendship with people for that to happen really. Or at least... a relationship with more care for people than you would give to a colleague?

Olu: I've been thinking a lot about the different ways of being with people. Like I guess community is the super umbrella for all “I want this to be a positive addition in my life, ideally” relationships and friends and comrades and people you are in cahoots with, but also coworkers and neighbours and er... other incidentals i can't think of...

What concept do you use to guide yourself through the world? Do you act in service of friendship, community, ‘comradely-ness’, or something else?

Tell us in the comments, subscribe to the newsletter, and please do donate if you'd like to support our intrepid team.

March post recap

You can read the introductions from our team below:

• Petra is a video artist and train enthusiast. Learn about their work on borders and interfaces, zones of overlap and connection, languages, and large bodies of water.
• Sean is a comedian, livestreamer, citizen & friend. He writes about his weird career in the intersection between live arts, being silly and the creation of small communities.
• Emma is our fingers-in-pies resident record holder: teacher, designer, researcher and train-enthusiast. She writes about the liberatory potential of teaching.
• Kim is a founder of GFSC, working/living/surviving/thriving at the intersection of tech, research, community and activism.
• Micah is an artist, poet and coder who wanders among waking dreams of digital lifeworlds and the unevenness of the future.

We've got a couple more people to introduce you to in April as well.

What's next?

In April you'll hear more from our authors who are each going to tell you more on what they're all working on right now.

We're also going to try our first live stream, "You Are The Client: We Make The Stickers"! Thanks to the donors who opted for the "sticker" tier, our resident designer Emma will be creating stickers to your exacting specifications. As our beloved focus group of irritable clients, we will do our utmost to evaluate and include as many of your ideas as humanly possible. Each sticker an unsightly amalgam of several incompatible offhand suggestions. A beautiful catastrophe. Attend, suggest, and watch as you become responsible for our mistakes.

The stream will be hosted by Sean on the 16th April at 19:30 GMT on our freshly-made Twitch channel – please do give us a follow. We'll edit something for YouTube afterwards if you can't make it and will send out a newsletter nearer the time to remind you all.