================ Beyond The Essay ================ The texts used for these exercises: - https://www.archined.nl/2018/06/the-lessons-of-the-crisis-the-designer-as-anti-cyclic-thinker/ - https://research-centre.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en/researchers/andrea-prins (more an interview than an essay) - Andrea’s draft of an English article on Korean Housing for Asian Studies at the University of Leiden - https://www.archined.nl/2019/11/in-defense-of-diversity/ (Ania also has a longer version of this text around 2000-2500 words originally written for nomad magazine) - https://www.pakt.nu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Ania-Molenda.pdf (also available in Dutch and it’s a response to an exhibition - could be interesting to use the photos) - Building Prosperity through Repair article I wrote with Inte Gloerich for the Baltan and AIT residency Liminal Space (still unpublished, see attached), but might be interesting for the experiment as they also asked a pen pal to respond to our text and that is hand written. I could ask if we could use that too as an example of polyvocality. There are also the works of the artists who took part in the residency and their own texts on the process and results. Worksession 3, 20 April 2022 10:40 - 11:24 recapping worksession 2 11:24 - 12:00 reading method 3: word2complex - introduction to NLP, word2vec, Vernaculars come to matter - exercise of algorithmic reading - link to word2vec output: https://vvvvvvaria.org/~mb/beyond-the-essay/ - mapping the different algorithms that a text online encounters - brainstorming for possible automations 12:00 - 13:00 wrapping up: how do we wrap up this collaboration? RECAP could the exercises from last time connect to the publishers? as a form of public engagement with architecture critique? interesting to look at the text with new eyes, a form of filter to re-read and rethink it. possible moments to do such excercises in: after publishing a text, while a text is being written (how) could it be exercised in a solitary situation? for the publishers, the aspect of having a conversation on the basis of the text could be relevant; between author and readers, or author and publishers pre-publishing discussion? who do you allow to engage in a conversation with as a text that is not finished? there is a question of vulnerability it could be also a way of versioning; starting from someone else's ideas and then building up interesting from the perspective of the writer who writes alone; writing with others can be disturbing, because text moves as it is being written; particularly magic words joy of immediacy when taking notes during a conversation collectively not sure if this way of working makes things more difficult or easier, maybe it does both at the same time how does the etherpad as collaboration tool shape collaborations? for example: when getting stuck on a thought, it often happens that someone else jumps in experience less writer's block when working in collaboration; when it is a safe space, and you don't feel ashamed to leave unfinished sentences open; it can be liberating. It makes you focus less on making things perfect, it's an exercise to let go. if someone doesn't pick up a loose idea, maybe it is not interesting Magicwords could be used both during and after a text is written; where xdexing is maybe more about rethinking something that is finished. not focusing on one system of reading, but having several One of the question was "rethinking the format of the essay". make images from words, from text. the translation to another medium still relates to the material. it allows also people who don't write as a practice to engage with the material, to feel closer to the material by thinking through it. instead of writing an essay, this can be a minimal way to interact. It takes a little bit more effort to reply to an essay, instead of writing a (quick) comment online. It implies that you spend time with the material. This changes the relationship with the material. There was an interesting moment while working with the magicwords, to rethink making comments a bit, and add a label to a comment. It helps to understand the tone in which something was written. To not only add the it allows you to add a layer that describe the relation between the comments and the text. makes me think of semantic mediawiki property-value pairs. ways to add structure where you can link to a page. eg: maybe a text has more than 1000 words, this can become a property, for example hasMoreThan1000Words: yes a comment is not just a comment, but you can describe how it relates to the text death of the comment section these exercises are ways to shape a conversation, and also, to avoid trolling. Publishers might be interested to moderate a comment section to make sure that there is no trolling, so maybe this could be a way to relate to that issue. these exercises to the role of a moderator When controlling public comment sections (or not): when does it become sterile? and when does it become full of noise and trash? Maybe discuss this with dpr-barcelona? having a threshold allowing someone to relate to the publisher; not just to be someone who buys a book more than just generating material how can publishers be more in contact with the readers putting the threshold even higher, can help to increase commitment making a version of the feminist server manifesto a text that has become canonical, against its own wish awkwardness of making a first other version, but also feeling the need to do so What did mb and ccl learn from this? interesting to have multiple perspectives on the table (the reader, the publisher, the author) difficult to think how this could be turned into practical applications it makes it difficult to set priorities hard to allow yourself to dwell on the experimental self defining or negotiating the priorities (whose perspective?) could be for the next phase it's good to try it out very curious now to really try with the publisher the x-dex materials and put ourselves in the situation of pushing boundaries of authorship and what it means to publish if you really do it, what does it actually change? to be faced with it, you can push some habits in the field of publishing or understand why something cannot be pushed audience of the project: as accessible as possible; but can you do something experimental that is for a broad audience? could we still find a niche that we find interesting enough, but we do have to admit that it will be some sort of a niche a range of different commitments it would be a shame to lose the people who are invested if there is a platform eventually, what would be the relationship with the publishers? how to negotiate with the publishers? will there be a system that works with all the different backend systems example of the Publishing research (Making Public), where the idea was to make a recommendation system for the different publishers (called "platform to platform"), but where the development bumped into an issue with the incompatibility of the backends? And would the platform stand on itself? No it would be something that the publishers can use themselves, and would be published as open source software. Small adjustments, to be part of a larger whole, are maybe the most that can be asked from the publishers. Is it something that publishers apply? Or is it something that writers use? If the writers would be the ones using it, it would effect the publishers less. about the different backends: someone had wordpress, someone had something self built, etc to make the engine work we had to recognise different part of the text; difficult to merge this structure into one; we built a recommendation algorithm that is not a black box and that doesn't exclude the editor. the machine makes suggestions from the publishers. we wanted to expand our readership but also genuinely recommend good content to readers. nobody at the moment with the will and technical knowledge to pull the project. Amateur Cities, Open Set, Open! Online Would this be something that can be used for this project too? For example the idea to make something on top of the websites of the publishers. more inspiring from this project: Non-Linear Publishing with Miriam Rasch (experimenting with Twine). This project was also sitting next to the existing websites, but it was influencing the writing process itself. not clear where we wanted to engage. if we wanted to rethink that format is it realistic to ask the authors to write differently? Alternatively, you can stay with existing ways of writing, but change the way of reading. something interesting in bridging the experimental with another context maybe taking the idea of republishing the xdexing or magic words could be a way forward When we would work towards making something contrete, like a tool, then how does the process need to look like? How to maintain the research character? Maybe you know what your goals are, what you want to do, but you don't know what form it has. Example of the zoöp: being launched this Friday. took 4-5 years, developing an organisational method; there are different stages and each stage needs a different partner Maybe this project is similar in that way; we don't want to just make one tool and it's a lot of work in just keeping that conversation going between the publishers just coming up with one tool would be too simple we're touching upon questions that are much bigger than just the comment section from the other hand, without examples it is abstract and hard to explain what you are doing if you are able to make it tangible. 2 year project Making Public: first year was discussing needs. how to combine speed + quality + ...? second year was the prototype a long period of discussions was needed, before reaching a point of making a prototype; here it was needed to start with a small number of partners how big is a community? is it a group of 2/4/5 ? sometimes it's enough to have 3 publishers together How do you create something that can sustain itself? Is this in relation to the relationships within the project, the financial part, etc. sense of ownership, to care for it to survive and to use it Possible tools/thought exercise 3: "word2complex" http://titipi.org/wiki/index.php/Word2complex word embeddings is like throwing runes Step 1: Cutting embeddings of words Choose a body of texts that you would like to analyse. Count how many times words appear in this text. You can use a custom script or an on-line service. Pick one word that appears at least twice from the list. https://vvvvvvaria.org/~mb/beyond-the-essay/ source (5) solidarity (3) maintenance (7) spatial (5) play (7) Step 2: Embedding words Use CTRL+F to find your word in the text that you are analysing. For each moment in which the word is used: describe briefly the context in which the word is located. Examples Word: street (wordcount: 2) Embedding 1: street -> activism * "We've been talking to people more involved in both intellectual and academic work on, for example, like Nadia on solidarity and Islamophobia, on thinking about colonial structures in organizing and activism on the street." Embedding 2: street -> survival * "From Brussels, the food collection was allowed so I think in the streets you had long lines queueing up of people. They managed to do it in a way that was respectful of the social distancing measures basically." Word: companies (wordcount: 2) Embedding 1: companies -> crisis * "I think a magnitude level failure with our tax money, obviously, that went to their friends, but the collaboration around formulating and writing about extractivism, colonialism, settler colonialism, capitalism and how that manifests itself in moments of crisis like COVID, and the Shock Doctrine approach of companies and governments to implement things like track and trace and now probably also, what's it called certificate, of vaccine certificate." Embedding 2: companies -> refusal * "Then there was an ongoing boycott by left-wing people of the companies that closed their doors to protest this."Step 3: Identify/generate/complexify relations https://vvvvvvaria.org/~mb/beyond-the-essay/all-in-all.txt Word: solidarity (3) Embedding 1: solidarity -> commodification * "Individuals grouped according to their interest for the sake of sales eventually become social groups with an identity, which is not based on a common goal or a form of solidarity, but on the way they dress, the computer games they play or the TV series they watch." Embedding 2: solidarity -> publics * "The notion of the public is crucial not only because it provides a domain for contesting dominant norms, but also for defining forms of solidarity." Embedding 3: solidarity -> sharing * "By turning our imagination towards the recognition of shared values, we are more likely to define forms of solidarity while maintaining our differences." Word: maintenance (7) Maintenance art, as she calls it, puts a spotlight on those whose work is not aimed at so-called progress, but on catering to the basic needs of society and preserving the foundations on which we stand. maintenance -> art The fact that maintenance work is still feminized, undervalued, and invisiblized, shows that Ukeles' statement is still relevant today. maintenance -> marginalization The COVID-19 pandemic has become not only one of the morbid symptoms of the crisis as described by Zygmunt Bauman, but also one of the tipping points revealing the fact that the foundations on which we stand need not only maintenance, but urgent repair. maintenance -> lack The very same logic that promotes outsourcing maintenance to the less privileged, and replacement in favour of repair. maintenance -> capitalism A transition to new systems starts with repositioning maintenance, care, and repair. maintenance -> change We see them as somewhat new interpretations of the values we attach to the maintenance and the passing on of oral histories. maintenance -> valuation Maintenance, care and repair play an important role in the time of transition. maintenance -> guidelines spatial (5) spatial -> active However, in both social and spatial terms, we can either see it as an active process of negotiation or as a passive one based on tolerance, even ignorance, and avoidance of difference. spatial -> capitalistic But accepting the idea of negotiation in modern cities has been an ongoing struggle, where both social and spatial approaches towards coexistence have relied heavily on segregation and isolation that enable tolerance at a distance. spatial -> divers In order to understand the city, and spaces in it, as spaces of negotiation, not homogeneous spaces of exclusion, we need to let go of individual definitions and allow for more diversity, both spatially and conceptually. spatial -> valuable As market value takes over, other social and spatial values are deemed to be obsolete. spatial -> relational So, if social relations can help us rethink what’s valuable, could it also be true for spatial relations? Word: source (5) * Maaskantprijs voor Jonge Architecten gaat naar LOLA landscape architects – source Rotterdam Maaskant Foundation (15-4-13) * What committed architects hoped to change: overcrowded, cramped dwellings with no privacy. Source: Das Berliner Mietshaus, Volume 2, pp. 504-505. * What committed architects hoped to change: overcrowded, cramped dwellings with no privacy. Source: Das Berliner Mietshaus, Volume 2, pp. 504-505. * The drawing, based on interviews, shows how 4 or 5 people lived in a room or two plus a kitchen, which also served as a place to sleep. Many families had no private front door, but shared a corridor with several families. Source: Das Berliner Mietshaus, Band 2, p. 537. * The drawing, based on interviews, shows how 4 or 5 people lived in a room or two plus a kitchen, which also served as a place to sleep. Many families had no private front door, but shared a corridor with several families. Source: Das Berliner Mietshaus, Band 2, p. 537. Word: play (7) -- but found only 5? * Can disciplines such as art and architecture play a role in stirring the debate on the tension between use and exchange value of space? (play -> urban planning) * Following the overwhelming successful regeneration of the Cheonggyecheon River in downtown Seoul, each new housing development has a lively park area where people can stroll, play and exercise. (play -> living) * As Daphne Dragona describes in her text ‘Commoning the Commons: Revisiting the Role of Art in Times of Crisis’ artists can play an important role in establishing such new realities, for example by imagining and building commons as affective infrastructures, systems built to support emotional connections and community relations. (play -> imagining) * Maintenance, care and repair play an important role in the time of transition. Teresa and Seira recognize that in a way that is subtle yet provoking. (transitioning) * Individuals grouped according to their interest for the sake of sales eventually become social groups with an identity, which is not based on a common goal or a form of solidarity, but on the way they dress, the computer games they play or the TV series they watch. (leisure) Step 3: semantic mapping Pick two words that have been embedded (this can include words that someone else embedded). Expand the semantic map below and feel free to adjust the connectors (they are starting points, not prompts)! Example shitstorm -> war on terror - "In the meantime, I got sidetracked by the shitstorm that has been happening around us for the last 10 years." violence is to policies as shitstorm is to war on terror violence is to a fascist street as shitstorm is to war on terror shitstorm is to war on terror not as the state is to context play -> urban planning play -> living play -> imagining play -> transitioning play -> leisure king is to man as queen is to woman Semantic map ______ is to ______ as ______ is to ______ ______ is to ______ not as ______ is to ______ ______ is not to ______ as ______ is to ______ ______ is to ______ as ______ is not to ______ ______ ..... ______ ..... ______ ..... ______ play is to imagining as maintenance is to change play is to transitioning not as maintenance is to ______ is not to ______ as ______ is to ______ ______ is to ______ as ______ is not to ______ ______ ..... ______ ..... ______ ..... ______ maintenance -> art maintenance -> marginalization maintenance -> lack maintenance -> capitalism maintenance -> change maintenance -> valuation maintenance -> guidelines maintenance is to value as ___x___ is to capitalism ______ is to ______ not as ______ is to ______ ______ is not to ______ as ______ is to ______ ______ is to ______ as ______ is not to ______ ______ ..... ______ ..... ______ ..... ______ spatial -> active spatial -> capitalistic spatial -> divers spatial -> valuable spatial -> relational spatial is to valuable as solidarity is to publics spatial is to relational as solidarity is to sharing ______ is not to ______ as ______ is to ______ ______ is to ______ as ______ is not to ______ ______ ..... ______ ..... ______ ..... ______ solidarity -> commodification solidarity -> publics solidarity -> sharing solidarity is to commodification as neighbourhood is to gentrification ______ is to ______ not as ______ is to ______ ______ is not to ______ as ______ is to ______ ______ is to ______ as ______ is not to ______ ______ ..... ______ ..... ______ ..... ______ How to do distance calculations in a meaningful way? What does it mean to do equations with language? Do we need more words to work with, in order to do it properly? To think in distance and equations It could be interesting to get a suggestion from the algorithm, to see what word can be used for "x" in: maintenance is to value as ___x___ is to capitalism Another next step could be to play more with equations, like what does "solidarity - commodification" mean? Censorship: communicating in between the lines so that the censor would not identify it; What is the relationship between the text and the sensor? Wrapping up challenge to think how to define a task for Gerlinde; would imagine to use some of the exercises to see what kind of layer she could add to it perhaps it is not as straightforward as imagined in the beginning thinking in steps; what could be the next bigger step? do more dedicated experiments like this but perhaps include the publishers in them too; maybe there should be a group of publishers and a group of readers to experiment where are the priorities based on these texts think of some broader way of getting feedback in the form of for ex a survey; or to make a testing session with different groups how to make it more concrete, tangible time till mid-June to wrap up this research no promise to have a prototype until the end of this period see which criteria to work with; how to touch upon different criteria to the same time with different ways of reading initially, the expectation was to answer the question: what tools and methods to experiment with to make a platform what is the follow up project? now: to think about critical reflection more broadly; where are the possibilities to explore new dimensions for it? not clear if it is something for publishers/readers/writers? a new question opened up we started from tools, but that turned into focusing on support systems for thinking about critique how to relate to the texts that are being written? Open questions: For whom is this project? (publishers/readers/writers) Where to intervene in the process of publishing? (while writing/after publishing, but not in the distribution) What does it mean to critique? What is critique? How to shape collective engagement with text? (collective reading/collective writing/collective ...) How can that something help to understand the problem of what it is? If the reader/writer is a collective body, what does this activate? Framer Framed, catalog example Focus on the essay. Writing a blogpost for the Varia website, and Andrea and Ania will also write a blogpost. We can publish both blogpost together, and include both of ours. what would be a good outlet? Maybe INC? Where does this discourse take place? In the context of architecture? Or maybe actually not. We will think about possible places and share the lists with each other. Stimuleringsfonds deadline is 16th of June. Andrea and Ania will wrap up in the beginning of June. Worksession 2, 7 April 2022 Focus on critical engagement, a support system for Competition in the publishing world None of the publishers knows their readers so well, despite all the available digital tools to save information about them (leaving cookie politics aside) The methods as a way of producing text We start with magic words We are here: https://octomode.vvvvvvaria.org/essaymagicwords/pad/ Can the magic words be used in different stages of a publishing process? while writing? reversioning a published text? A possible way to test the magic words in a writing process, could be to use them while writing the report. Next experiment: x-dexing For this one, we use: https://xdex.vvvvvvaria.org/ Preparing worksession Wednesday 9 March Mode for this worksession: "the content is concrete, and the tool is a thought exercise". We prepared 3 excercises for this work session, that emerged from feminist reading/writing practices and have been part of previous projects we have been involved with. Possible tools/thought exercise 1: "move from traditional critique to stimulating critical reflection" We could do an x-dexing excercise to zoom into the question "what is critique?" and to speculate together if we can think of it as an act of "diffraction" (not reflection) of materials. It feels that it could fit well, as x-dexing suggests a specific form of close reading. While x-dexing, we read a collection (materials) from a particular perspective (handles) across forms (text, color, curves, absences). https://manettaberends.nl/x-dexing-v2-Nov-2020.pdf For the workshop we did with the CD students, i made a small upload tool that we can use to make a mini online x-dexing gallery together. That could be a nice outcome of this exercise. (These are the handles and forms we used for the Iterations book, but we can change them into things that fit the Essay research if that is helpful!) handles - Time: Which are the temporalities involved in your subject area? What time formations do you encounter, such as the durings, the afters, the befores, the alreadies? - We: How is a sense of “we” emerging, being delimited, problematized and/or reclaimed? What are the limits, the modes and the genealogies of those we’s? - How: What material and semiotic possibilities or methods do you encounter? How are they articulated, how do they function and which interdependencies are made evident? - Transitions: What happens in moments for/of transition, mutation, rearrangement, handing over or taking on? Finding the shifts and transformations within an essay. This can be changes of vocabulary, recalibrated theoretical figurations, mutating opinions, moments of (re)turning to/away from norms, common sense or public secrets. forms - text: Engaging with the essay textually through one of the following text-based formats: anecdotes, questions, tags or glossary entries. Text can be used to write under, aside or on top. It can also be rearranged differently, to combine textualities of different parts; or deepened in the form of questions, explanations, counterpoints etc. - curves: Tracing the curves that are significant for an essay. Curves can be visually present but can also appear in other forms, for example textual or temporal curves. From the curves of a typographic word to those that connect images or metaphors, there is a rich intertwining of curved lines in there. - absences: Checking what is missing, and noting or signaling it. Absences can also be reclaimed. - relations: Identifying connections, crossings, attachments within the essay that may be textual, image-based or imaginary. Relations can be marked with lines, color, loops, patterns, or in other ways. contributions/materials - a selection of architecture essays https://xdex.vvvvvvaria.org/ Possible tools/thought exercise 2: "ref to the 'event' quality as a way to set boundaries to an attention span" + "see books as spaces, they [bcr] want to have conversations with their readers. that conv can take place on many levels. seeing how people interacted with the content was a form of conv. facilitated by tech. a simple example but how they spoke about it, and feedback they gave them was actually really inspiring. sometimes it doesn't have to be overly complicated, but it matters how you frame things." We could do an annotation exercise here, and make a zine together using one text, octomode, and __MAGICWORDS__. Such activity could be organised as a booksprint/zinesprint or collective reading room: a two hour event in which a group comes together to read together. Through conversation and annotation the group makes a zine that can made public. - text: let's select one to work with together - octomode: https://octomode.vvvvvvaria.org/ --> https://octomode.vvvvvvaria.org/essaymagicwords/pad/ - __MAGICWORDS__: see below (we can use [__HELLO__]{.magic} to add classes) * . * . . * .. * . * . .. * * * . * * . * Magic Words * . . . * . . . . * . * * * . Magic Words were brought into the software ecology of Etherpad by Michael Murtaugh, a member of the Brussels-based arts organisation Constant. Magic Words are used by this collaborative text editor to enact certain commands; using __PUBLISH__ on this pad indexes it on this page: https://vvvvvvaria.org/etherpump/ They are little spells that can be used anywhere on the pad to indicate how we want to interact with the text. We would like to think together with you what kind of social incantations magic words can evoke. What kind of relations between text & reader, reader & reader, place & text, place & text & reader could the magic words provoke? If we see magic words like small instructions that can be activated during a collective reading experience, how would that affect our being together? We will be adding, using and reusing new magic words during the reading time that will follow. . - * Spellbook for Reading through Magic Words . - * .. Here are a few examples of what the magic words could look like. Think of them as launching a specific kind of interaction with the text fragment that it sits next to. This will be our collective spellbook that everyone can add, edit or use at will. __CANWEDISCUSS__ If a sentence or paragraph is raising questions or you would like to know what others think about it, we can use this incantation to take it with us into discussion. __ALOUD__ This magic word is used to encourage those encountering it to read aloud the text fragment that it sits next to. __REUSE__ This magic word invites the reuse of the text fragment that it sits next to in an unexpected context. __VANDALIZE__ This magic word invites the creative alteration and/or destruction of the text fragment it sits next to __...__ ... Take 5 minutes to think about other possible __MAGICWORDS__ you could add to the spellbook. You can continue doing this at any point of this session. While reading, you can use these magic words to insert into the texts that we will introoduce shortly. Feel free to use any of them. --- FOR NEXT WORK SESSION --- Possible tools/thought exercise 4: keyword derive Possible tools/thought exercise 5: semantic relations and ways to navigate Possible tools/thought exercise 6: maybe something in line with logbot & resonant publishing We can set up another https://chat.vvvvvvaria.org/ for this. Notes 10.02.2022 Ania and Andrea What is critical reflection? What is the role of critical reflection today? Why do we need it and what is missing? We looked at what we did and saw where there was the most potential. Starting from the left side of our map: production -> defined (light and replicable), distribution (working with publishers who have publishing infra in place, don't want to introduce new forms of distribution or question them) and engagement (what kind of engagement? how critical engagement and ? could be related). Came back to ideas of how publishing be a support system for critical reflection How can technology and tools/methods be a support system for the publishers to achieve that? Ways of achieving this from our discussion: mutability, versioning, making different readings and including different voices; as ways to make critique valuable and as something to explore further. How? What are different ways and methods that are out there? What kind of qualities are we looking for? What would this support system actually do? - support system? for who? Last time we spoke about books/essays as example. We want to focus on the essay as a format. Discussion Accessibility: how to bridge between specialised knowledge (critique) and non-specialised readers? (is this the scope of the project?) > part of the shift that Ania and Andrea would like to make in the project: from critique to critical reflection > the longread and the essay, there is a tension also with internet culture > part of the research project is to move from traditional critique to stimulating critical reflection > this shifts the attention to the reader or the audience (part of the answer to the research question) > how to make the criticism of the longform into something productive? we are stuck in this format and we cannot think about anything anymore Critique: Book by Kristof van .... called "Criticism", but critique a specific audience? or subject of critique? or otherwise, would you have some examples for us? > not sure if audience is much defined > stay close to the audiences of the publishers interviewed > the ambition is to perhaps broaden it even more? but not to us to decide > because we will make a tool that will be adapted to the different people who were interviewed it will help a lot to imagine a particular audience. who are they currently? > architects, landscape designers, urban designers > intellectual, scientific readers > people broadly interested in cultural themes, urban environment Archis: predominantly young intellectuals, predominantly architecture, going more into technology and architecture Valiz: art scene, experimental publishing world, critical reflection (publish a lot of essays but not academics. artistic researchers) Archined: traditional architecture, architecture students, architects, job listings which is why they check it (clearly said that they are not activist) Torque: academic, artistic, tech bpr Barcelona: internationally oriented, young architects questioning the boundaries of the discipline, going into more political dimension of urban space. but also boundaries of publishing, engaging with how new technologies can enable that Framer Framed: also within this group, politically oriented cultural critique, more strongly connected to arts and maybe even political activism What might be the motivation for critical engagement? what is the investment of the readers? > invested in the topic, but easily distracted, used to different ways of interacting; not just will but also physical ability > reading disabilites (convo with torque) > ccl: ref to the "event" quality as a way to set boundaries to an attention span Did any of the publishers experiment with forms of longer conversation based formats? > not sure if they experimented with this specifically And with events? > Bpr experimented with reactions in various forms (not only text, also other media) > they made a series of essay compilations, bundled themselves. there were specific batches. they could be explored loosely and thematically from each other. interested how people experimented with them, what they downloaded. metaphor: they see books as spaces, they want to have conversations with their readers. that conv can take place on many levels. seeing how people interacted with the content was a form of conv. facilitated by tech. a simple example but how the spoke about it, and feedback they gave them was actually really inspiring. sometimes it doesn't have to be overly complicated, but it matters how you frame things. > not exactly the attention span is the focus here, but this is another form of engaging with content attention span is not the only filter. shift here is that they are actively involved, they have the possibility to become co-creators, co-thinkers. audience feels like they are part of the conversation, that they can contribute also active listening is one role to take in > mb: ref to note taking as a role to contribute to the collective moment > ccl: wikipedia discussion pages have no hierarchy between the question + reply coming back to the research threads... Possible research threads: * hypertext and non-linear publishing - mediawiki - twine - xanadu - robert ochshorn - usenet - hypertext histories * discussion based publishing - forum discussion - chattypub/zulip - slack Half June: Stimu report promised to write an article about the research so many things came up in the research through the interview and the research. it would be a pity if it got lost. how to document this work for them + people who were part of the conversation. not co-create the documentation, but if it is open for us to contribute in case it is useful for us to share with varia. share the conversation with publishers. options on the table: choose a tool to make an experiment with and evaluate it think of a speculative tool, what could be useful? > use the different nice things that we find in different tools, and bring them together in a speculative tool > speculate on what's missing on a tool and see what happens staying in the role of a writer, what options are there? > practically, what do they feel like? Role playing publishing game: writer, publisher, active readers Andrea 1 or 2 parts of the day another day with workshops? and sometimes think along in meetings and possibly the documentation - pubpub: challenging singular authorship - wiki: inviting readers to be writers through red links - pad: we can do the multi-identities exercises, finishing each other sentences - HTML website: add notes/annotations in the source code (ref Mindy Sue) - chat-environment (logbot/zulip): resonant publishing, leaking from an internal space to a public space - ... (maybe something around different roles?) - ... (maybe something with rdf, linked data, relations) https://daap.network/casestudy Framer Framed: for exaple, invites someone to write a catalog, but it could also contain responses There can be different incentives to contribute. Also, different roles! the content is concrete, and the tool is a thought exercise last week: watched a presentation from the cyberfeminism catalog mindy's lecture through the inspector was super inspiring! hacking or rethinking existing technologies, engage with different kinds of use - a very accessible technology that are already there. this is the direction that we want to explore. example of daap https://daap.network/ + https://daap.network/casestudy example of Dictionary of the Revolution http://qamosalthawra.com/en Research notes mb on non-linear forms of writing - mediawiki: https://wikiwork.vvvvvvaria.org/ - THE XANADU® PARALLEL UNIVERSE: https://xanadu.com/xUniverse-D6 + http://www.thetednelson.com/literarymachines.php - an experimental tool for creating expanding texts: http://www.telescopictext.org/ - experimental non-linear personal web notebook: https://tiddlywiki.com/ Let me begin at the philosophy end. Let’s talk about intertwingularity. This book, like the conference, is called Intertwingled . It’s a word that expresses a philosophical position about cross-connection. I said in Computer Lib [ 2 , 6 ], “Everything is deeply intertwingled.” I meant that all subjects and issues are intertwined and intermingled. But intertwingled subjects are not what computers usually represent. From the beginning, people have set computers up to be hierarchical. Hierarchy is not in the nature of the computer. It is in the nature of the people who set computers up. (...) Hierarchy maps only some of the relationships in the world, and it badly maps the rest. You cannot represent history hierarchically, but as cross-connecting threads of narrative and relationship. (...) intertwingularity is a better form of representation—for everything—than hierarchy. For things that overlap, shade off, and entwine, hierarchy does not work. Hierarchy is less and less appropriate as we try to represent more and more of the world. Aristotle is often cited to support hierarchy. But intertwingularity has its philosopher too. His name was Heraclitus, and it was he who said you can never step in the same river twice, because of the constant flux of change and interconnection. https://monoskop.org/images/f/f4/Dechow_Struppa_eds_Intertwingled_The_Work_and_Influence_of_Ted_Nelson_2015.pdf#page=141 on critique as a (relational) practice - example of a forum discussion: https://wg.criticalcodestudies.com/ - "We are interested in patchwork as a feminist strategy for design: Ece Canlı, uses patchwork as a method when writing about design history from a queer-feminist perspective, as an interlinking of history, theory, practice and criticism in a distinctly messy and non-linear temporality. Sheila Levrant de Bretteville uses the example of women's patchwork as an asthetic practice for organiszing different, non-hierarchical visual entities around many centers and she takes up this method by creating structures of participation in design that encourage the piecing together of different personal experiences." Glossary of Undisciplined Design p.9 > mb: critique as breaking or critique as layering? Maybe we can break up the interests in smaller worksessions? - multi-vocality (what does it mean?, etherpad: finishing each others sentences, multiple identities, ) - non-linear/patchwork (wiki) - critique/diversioning (?) - distribution (zines, feeds https://soulellis.com/writing/nov2017/ breaking/layering, black panther newsletter, mini-biebs, ...) - resonant publishing (publishing on the go, turning a chat based environment into a publishing tool?) Research notes ccl - on nonlinearity - tools https://www.liquidtext.net/ https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview https://twitter.com/azlenelza/status/1272600877493137408 xanadu: zippered lists intercomparison: visual comparisons of different versions of the document Questions Is there an expected outcome? What kind of architecture critique do you have in mind? Do you have any examples? Who critiques who? And in which context? During an event? Do the authors know each other? quotes from the application "a critique of care, not of debunking, and one that offers the participants arenas in which to gather" "criticism as ‘a value judgement not on the work in abstracto, but on its relevance at a given moment in history.’" "critical writing can turn our focus away from the images and objects, show alternatives outside the common discourse and clarify the connections between architecture and power structures" "architectural criticism not as an isolated activity but as a part of a ‘general’ critical practice, allows critics connect to other fields, domains of knowledge and emancipatory movements" examples from the application Site-Writing initiated by Jane Rendell (2010) https://site-writing.co.uk/ Klaske Havik’s Writing Place(2016) Bombay Flying Club, Landrush(2011- ongoing) and White Gold(2007-2012) by Frauke Huber and Uwe Martin How to circulate writing/critique? How to form networks around the practice of critique? Proposal to understand the worksessions as moment of exploration and (un)learning. Who is the reader you have in mind? Accessibility: how to bridge between specialised knowledge (critique) and non-specialised readers? (is this the scope of the project?) Do you want us to submit something at the end of the research? Documentation for example? Would it be oke if we publish such material ourselves, in the name of Varia? We would like to publish such material under an open license. Timewise, how shall we proceed? Refs: Machine Research Mail art and the big monster https://artpool.hu/MailArt/chrono/1979/BigMonster.html 27.01.2022 for next time: research non-linear tools go back to ideas/writings of hypertextuality financial models distribution accessibility critique/diversioning production workflows (octomode, wiki-to-print) publishing/writing formats (non-linear, summaries, multi-vocality) Possible research threads: * hypertext and non-linear publishing - mediawiki - twine - xanadu - robert ochshorn - usenet - hypertext histories * discussion based publishing - forum discussion - chattypub/zulip - slack worksession 1 (20.01.2022 @ Varia) > still to interview DPR Barcelona and Framer Framed Torque, financial model is project based Gerlinde story telling; how to connect different content for a firm (?); base of her thoughts is the target group; "financial" starting point, as "target group" is a management term. Building a strategy for disseminating information, mostly in the online realm. buildin a wireframe that can be presented to the ux and ui designer. Follow the Money: investigative journalism; how to make it interesting to the readers to engage with the stories; paid subscription model. She also works for the new HNI website, which will be an online portal called "the other interface". Through the new website you can also search the collections. Publishers have financial restrictions themselves, and also need to think about their target groups. Therefore it is difficult for them to take risks. But different situations of course. practical dimension <== balance ==> experiments, expanding the understanding of online reading project ends officially in June January and February workshops, and then writing: report and follow up, presentation & collective discussion: invite a few voices to think along Gerlinde could look at the information structure aspect of the possible experiments Next step: have a meeting again to think about next steps keywords and key focus points: longreads & critique Preps for 1st worksession "stimulate discourse on the socio-cultural and political dimensions of spatial practices" (interview document) "How can we bring this collectivity back?" (notes Dec) "reading and engagement" (notes Dec, meeting INC) "opening the books and finding connections" (notes Dec, meeting with Valiz) "non-linear publishing, copy-editing is usually a nightmare" (notes Dec, meeting with Valiz) "notion of anonymity" (notes Dec, meeting with Archined) "shift from thinking about readers (how to read longer texts?) to writers (how can write such long texts)" (notes Dec, meeting with Archined) Interesting to see that torque has been involved with experimental reading practices ("Animated speed-reading software", "Code Karaoke", "super-slo-mo reading") but these works are not published and the PDF of the printed book is. Small experiments, what can we do? - octomode - document convertion (pandoc) - activitypub software? - logbot - example of Futuress Slack https://futuress-org.slack.com The possible directions for the experiments - publishing workflows, eg the copy editing - MediaWiki - Diversions (wiki, web-to-print) https://diversions.constantvzw.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page - Volumetric Regimes (mb can show this workflow) - TiTiPi, Infrastructural Interactions http://titipi.org/wiki-to-pdf/pagedjs/Infrastructural_Interactions --> https://wikiwork.vvvvvvaria.org/ - octomode (DSN, RDI, Post-Script, Stimu application) - collectivity - resonant publishing, publishing in the middle (publish on the go, publishing as a form of research) - logbot (async, collective, group dynamics, embedded in everday rhythms and tools) eg. relearn 2021 http://relearn.be/2021/ - zulip ChattyPub made by Hackers & Designers - versioning as a tool to support group work - git commits - wiki edit history - (etherpad timeline) - coordination of group work / forming group dynamics - git issue tracker - group chats - task board - nextcloud - (Zulip, example of XPUB; Slack, example of Futuress) - bridging, multi-formats, document conversion - pandoc - hybrid publishing toolkit - mutability, extendability, crossing artificial boundaries - free software, open licenses - self-hosting, making your own tools/infrastructures - free software ecologies, open licenses - example of etherpad, etherdump/etherpump, magic words, octomode, minimal viable learning, ... - example of nextcloud (pico CMS) - distribution models - activitypub, federated publishing protocols --> https://github.com/BasixKOR/awesome-activitypub - A Nourishing Network https://a-nourishing-network.radical-openness.org/pages/documentation.html - https://pad.vvvvvvaria.org/getting-it-out-there (common press/mail art, zine culture) - open licenses - forms of annotation - Eva Weinmayr's PhD thesis http://wiki.evaweinmayr.com/index.php/Main_Page - MAGIC WORDS - https://www.schoolofcommons.org/labs/minimum-viable-learning + https://pad.vvvvvvaria.org/rr-minimal-viable-learning - https://constantvzw.org/documents/RDI/Reclaiming%20Digital%20Infrastructures.pdf?page=27 + https://pad.vvvvvvaria.org/rdi-ft-minimal-viable-learning TO DO: - ccl brings the Hybrid Publishing Toolkit + Diversions v1 - mb installs a mediawiki, check some AP tools Meeting 9.12.2021 started in September, meeting with managers (Archis, Archinet, Valiz, INC, DPR Barcelona https://www.dpr-barcelona.com/) trying to make an appointment with Torque Editions https://torquetorque.net/ they got in touch with Framer Framed (looking at the role of cultural institutions, specially focusing on the form of the catalog, thinking through plurivocality and non-linear approach) want to invite Josien from Framer Framed (Framer Framed applied for the Inovatie Fonds) INC introduced early collectivity of the web (IRC, web-rings for example), how it disappeared and got hijacked by social media How can we bring this collectivity back? Different forms of reading and engagement touches upon this collectivity. Not only consumption but co-creation. [> resonant publishing?] Archis is changing their strategy, following Morozov's newsletter as an example, trying to steer more towards community making How to do that while staying financially sustainable. with Pia (Valiz ) we talked about the role of the publisher, why it is interesting for them to engage and experiment bigger mission to curate conversations book as a collection, not back to back, but opening the books and finding connections, not having to read books end to end role of the weekly magazine, to find out what's going on, mostly interested in the opinion pages. it disappeared, but peopleare still hungry for this kind of reflection (opinion pieces) with Pia we also talked about format, like as easy as a Word document, but struggled with working together how could you make from one documented form an output non-linear publishing, copy-editing is usually a nightmare how to work with polyvocality and non-linearity --and-- publishing workflows (the Hybrid Publishing Toolkit from INC is still very important) archined exist 25 years, reflecting on their publishing practices under the name "persistence of questioning" Usually they publish 1500 words essays, but for these bigger questions they switched to longforms. it was difficult to write so much for the writers. Yet, academics were managing ;). Interesting that this question shifted from thinking about readers (how to read longer texts?) to writers (how can write such long texts)? podcast and time/tension spans how do you make things readable on a mobile? difficult to read longer texts on a mobile. Framer Framed brought up the question of the Global south, where people are more mobile-oriented. notion of anonymity with Archined: it's important to give the authors a space of anonymity. they would publish by name but not post pictures. in case they write a controversial piece so they don't get recognised on the street. do people who work in a studio still write? who writes? people who are young, or those who have their own studio's. More research oriented studio's. writing for institutes which also imposes its own limitations the interviews are for research, not to be published What do readers want or like? Publishers have no idea. They just try to navigate based on what they think. Archined uses google analytics, but don't want to use cookies. How do you find out who reads you ethically and in a transparent way? ---------- the direction for the experiments - publishing workflow, eg the copy editing (volumetric regimes, VLTK, Eva Weinmayr's PhD thesis) - collaborative work, versioning, pad2pdf - bridging, multi-formats, document convertion - distribution models, protocols/activitypub, common press/mail art, zine culture - resonant publishing, publishing in the middle (publish on the go, publishing as a form of research), urgent/fast publishing, logbot, pad publishing (eg. relearn 2021 http://relearn.be/2021/) - open licenses - forms of annotation Geert gives example of COVID publishing: that pushed researchers to have to innovate Working with an information designer (Gerlinde Schuler, similar role as us) looking into forms of engagement (storylines for example) Maybe they choose test material content and then we work on the same things - to see what it does to the text What about licenses? Both open source and open content. What does it mean that content gets reused? Conversations about attributions. At the moment this is a small project, we should concentrate on a few things to shape the project, and then think later about other interesting things. Licenses is a big topic. But it is still there, in collaborative work. Difficult to publish critique if the content is not under an open license. Connects with the anonymity aspect: scared to criticise but also to be criticised. Also, polarisation is very present in architecture critique these days. You either love a project or hate it. Is there a connection to social media here? Next steps? - each of us prepares for a first session, in which we try a series of small publishing experiments, using different tools to explore the different areas/labels - what to bring? laptop + test content - Ania and Andrea send us the interviews notes - Manetta and Cristina prepare small experiments + send the pad Next meeting: January 20, 9:30-13:00