Cloud servers, corporate tracking, text written for search engines — to apply a concept from anthropologist Marc Augé, the infrastructures and interfaces of our daily web form non-places: generic, apersonal spaces devoid of relation or responsibility. [1] In response to this default mode of engagement, Miethaie? Nein, Danke! (English: Rental Sharks? No, Thanks!) is an exploration of the power, duty, and potential of a situated server practice.
Inspired by the Feminist Server Manifesto’s call to “[treat] network technology as a part of social reality” [2] and community-embedded infrastructure projects like Freifunk [3], Miethaie? Nein, Danke! offers one possibility of how a server may engage with its context. Run on a Raspberry Pi in a Berlin apartment, the server hosts a website that details steps involved in suing for lower rent in Berlin, along with supporting infrastructure that allows for community contributions.
The website takes the role of helpful neighbor while embracing its affordances toward anonymity and reach. The language, under no pressure to perform for search engines or as marketing content, is simple, concise, and friendly. The visual design matches this tone. The frontend build is lightweight — eschewing superfluous libraries and embracing semantic HTML and system defaults — to support accessibility and resilience in future maintenance.
As a part of embracing its context, the server invites other components of the community network — that is, people and existing infrastructures — to do the same. Community members are able to contribute to the webpage, either via the open-source GitHub repository or an anonymous Etherpad hosted on the server. Printable PDFs and sticker designs are also accessible via the website, facilitating information exchange across the infrastructures of mailboxes and public space. By opening these metaphorical ports to other components of the network, the server moves beyond its own materiality to become a prompt for community engagement.
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[1] Marc Augé, Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, trans. John Howe (London: Verso, 1995), 78.
[2] “A FEMINIST SERVER MANIFESTO 0.01,” Are You Being Served?, August 10, 2014, https://areyoubeingserved.constantvzw.org/Summit_afterlife.xhtml.
[3] Freifunk, https://freifunk.net/.