Welcome to the web feed of A Nourishing Network, a publishing experiment starting from the feed as a potentially multi-directional circulation device. Especially in this moment of reduced mobility and physical encounters, we are excited to launch this playful publishing experiment, which will circulate within a community that usually gathers in small-sized events and festivals.

A Nourishing Network is a continuation of Art Meets Radical Openness (AMRO) a bi-yearly festival organized by servus.at in Linz (https://radical-openness.org). The festival creates space for discussions around the current impact of internet technologies and platforms. It aims to imagine possible (real) sustainable models for computational infrastructures, as an alternative to the growing techno-solutionist trend.

This publishing feed is produced as a hybrid publishing process and is realised by Manetta Berends and Alice Strete from Varia (https://varia.zone), a collective-space in Rotterdam working with/through/on everyday technologies.

The feeds emerged in response to the following three departure points:

Another lost occasion for degrowth?

At the beginning many thought that the spring lockdowns of 2020 might have been a great opportunity to embrace less impactful lifestyles and production models. As soon as the measurements loosened up, the level of consumption rose to pre-lockdowns levels. Was the emerging environmental awareness overshadowed by a „sort of“ return to normality?

Re-centralization or blooming alternatives?

During the first wave of lockdown, data-avid proprietary services gained a more central role within online ecosystems and daily life. Faced with this new context, communities dealing with free and open source software continued to work on alternative platform models. What happened? And what could be further explored?

Artdiversity loss: is now Zoom the best art gallery 2020?

In 2020 many cultural initiatives were forced to shift towards online videocalls, where often the materiality of bodies and matter is deprioritised. As the spectrum of technical possibilities offered by (centralised) digital platforms currently shape and actively format the field of the arts, how can we make space to experiment with alternative formats?


The network will nourish her subscribers at irregular times.

Enjoy!