User:Thijshijsijsjss/Notes on SI23

<-- Previous trimester's notes

Remember Thijs: documenting as a function, not the end goal.

Next trimester's notes -->

Pre-SI

Before the launch of Special Issue 23 -- the wiki has been teasing me -- we have a Week of Workshops. I've heard the timing of these has been the point of much discussion over the years. Personally I appreciate them being scheduled after the December break. We've already worked together intensly. More importantly, we've not seen each other in a month. It's nice to start of with a personal touch before jumping into the SI.

Workshop: Creatives with Unseen Disabilities (CUD)

Karina Dukalska came in to give a workshop. I was pretty excited for this event, not only...

for its relevance within xpub,

the insights it might yield to better facilitate our group conversations (remember: emotional labour)

and its relation with the response some of us had after the SI22 release event at Worm,

but also

for its connections to GMT and interaction technology as a whole

(multimodal interaction, controller design, serious games, designing for disabilities)

and

because I must be confronted with an personal internal conflict I have not been acknowledging.

I am reminded that I once advised myself to always have a book of Elaine Aron on sensory processing sensitivity on my shelf. It is not there. Lately (lately) I have been dreading the unescapability of constant sensory overload more and more, not just mental, but physical, too, my eyes receive so much light, why won't my calves untense? At the start of the day, we were asked to express our needs at that moment in a subgroup. I was unable to. It's maybe my main takeaway of today:

Noticing a feeling, an obstacle or uncomfortableness is very different from noticing, formulating and voicing a need.

These seem to represent the bounds within which my whole spectrum of inexpertise is situated.

We were divided into subgroups once more, to discuss specific technologies and create the beginnings of templates to be used to facilitate certain needs when using these technologies. I had the pleasure of working with Chae! But there was so much to discuss.

100% accessibility does not exist.

After the workshop, I asked Karina about her feelings on AI. I've found myself to be hopeful once more. 100% accessibility does not exist... if there is a human design bottleneck. An AI powered service could tailor to an individual's needs with much more rigour, without it potentially being incompatible with another individual's needs.

Once again, I feel insecure about my wiki. What am I saying? Where's the poetry?

Workshop: Owning our Shit and Making it Together!

Figurative tension

A two day workshop by Nor. The first morning, we were invited to discuss one particular question in pairs: are you achieving professional success? Of all the questions to discuss -- and I did appreciate the moment for an intimate conversation greatly -- this was one I found myself surprisingly apathetic towards, maybe in contrast to previous years. I want to allow myself this apathy. But, with all the pathia I posses, let me examine why this is.

Professional success is an odd metric, for it is no metric at all. Tell me, o Muse, the math of many devices:
*d ( x , x ) = 0
*If  x ≠ y , then  d ( x , y ) > 0 (Positivity) 
*d ( x , y ) = d ( y , x ) (Symmetry)
*d ( x , z ) ≤ d ( x , y ) + d ( y , z ) (Triangle Inequality)
For any binary function d presenting the difference in professional success in instances x and y, one needs only inspect the property of symmetry to find that it is no metric. It is the individuality of instances x and y, their temporality, that prevents comparability. Hence, it is a function of both time and person, how to assess success.

All my previous so-called metrics have been turned into swines. 
I must now ignore temporality once more.
And I'm doing lots of stuff. New stuff.
In that sense, yes, I am achieving definition. Blow me away, Aeolus.

Finally, I may listen.

I did feel powerful Friday when walking back to Rotterdam Central Station. Maria, you might wonder, I called by mother that evening.

Week 3

SI23 Kickoff

A week that...
    has a very appealing off button
    does not know when to be silent
    might be convincing to bread hungry seagulls feasting on your evenings
    is looking for a room

This trimester we will follow a structure that is more customary for the Special Issues: Monday => SI with guest editors Cristina and Alice, Tuesday => Prototyping with Manetta and Joseph, Wednesday => Methods with Lídia and or Steve and or Marloes. I've noticed the nervosity I observed last week has persisted -- it must be my general state of mind these days -- and there was no Aglaia this time to introduce me.

That said, I also feel excitement for the new project. The self-contained, intimate sociality of the web quilt speaks to me (amidst the evergrowing confining openness of modern day digital culture). On a meta level, I have a feeling it will nicely continue the ongoing examination of collaborative versus distributive. I expect the readings and non-technical conversations surrounding this topic to be wholly new to me though. I must remind myself that there is no expectation to talk.

Chopchop's reign / the domain it must serve

Git commit -m "Feed me paper"

Prototyping mini session and regularly sized session

But for now, we started with yes-technical conversation in a prototyping mini session.

cd ~/.ssh/
ssh-keygen -t ed25519
ssh-copy-id thijsoid@145.24.139.16

+--[ED25519 256]--+    proxy jumping --->    ost xvm_jump
|       =++o++    |                          User jump
|      @++ B=..   |                          Hostname 194.61.65.6
|     Xo= * o=.   |                          Port 2501
|    o =o= ...+   |                          Identityfile ~/.ssh/jump
|     .o=S+ . .E  | <--- My ssh keychain            
|     .  = B .    |                          Host chopchop
|         B o     |                          Hostname 10.0.0.16
|        . +      |                          User USERNAME
|         .       |                          ProxyJump xvm_jump
+----[SHA256]-----+                          Identityfile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

https://git.xpub.nl/XPUB/SI23
├── README.md                  
├── .gitignore                 
└── web                        
    ├── index.html             
    └── quilt                  
        ├── quilt.css          
        ├── quilt.html         
        └── quilt.js           

Immediately we started with populating the webquilt. See here:

• The webquilt
• The table
• My userpage

I then had to disappear for a while (which upon reflection really helped my energy levels for the day). I returned to a state of commotion. In response to the famous Hungarian folk dance quicksort video, we were doing a human computing exercise, in which a pair played the role of a Git repo, and the others could pull and push. It was amazing. For all the times I've had the pleasure to be introduced to Git, this one had the liveliness all the others lacked. Polite pulling was a practise I hope we do not carry over to digital Git. (photo gallery of this exercise)

---

yay Lídia and Steve are back and hi Marloes has joined us

Editorial team 2, space, flooded, caretaker, did not do a good job

is chopchop a space or a place?

---

misc: left laptop, good result (walking) no wiki edits outside of school hours on school days Message to Manetta

Methods

Wednesday, we got an introduction to Wordquilt and were divided into three editorial groups. We chose the keyword 'space' to discuss today.

I did not pull my weight during this class. Not only was I unable to contribute meaningful connections to the conversation, I also feel like I failed my voluntarily self-appointed role of caretaker. I felt uncomfortable and have been embarrassed all weekend. Was my head flooded at the time, and was faalangst kicking in with this 'new group'? Sure, but that's no excuse. Even though there's emotional labour to do in a group, there's also similar labour to be done by yourself beforehand, so that you're able to dedicate yourself to the groupwork. I have been failing these preparatory steps.

Throughout the weekend I've wondered: should I discuss this with my editorial group, or not? Is it my professional responsibility to do so, or is it my professional responsibility to deal with this outside of class?

Groeiende niet helder omlijnde onzekerheid

Hoewel ik in dit wikidagboek open en eerlijk poog te zijn, behoud ik normaliter een afstand (noem het een poging tot professionaliteit) tussen daadwerkelijke gedachten en gevoelens ontstaan rondom xpub, en de alomvattende cycli die je hoofd zo kunnen consumeren, maar een oorsprong hebben in een fundamenteler stukje mentale gezondheid. Ik merk dat dit steeds moeilijker wordt. Wederom voel ik een tweestrijd: ben ik 'verantwoordelijk' dit voor mezelf te laten, of juist om het hier toe te voegen (waarbij de verantwoordelijkheid vooral tegenover mijzelf is). Alles voelt als falen en het enige dat ik wil is vervagen. Ik weet dat dit voorkomt uit gewik en geweeg met mijn mentale gezondheid op een ander, meer uitgestrekt vlak. Maar het onderscheid maken wordt steeds moeilijker.

Week 4

Monday

A loaded day. Reading Cloud Cosmogram with Editorial group. A talk by Marloes.

Go Away Green, Bye Bye Blue (wiki), Dim Dim Thijs. I really, really can't do this.

Tuesday -- E-reader hacking; no appetite for destruction; appretite for plotting

Butter setup. Etherpads. Hosting my own wiki?? After class I talked to Joseph about the broken E-reader (Kobo Glo HD) I brought to the studio. I seems to be possible to put a Linux distro on it. The screen is borken, but we want to connect it to the digital price tags. Joseph shared these links:

• Inkbox standard and rooted kernel.
• Inkbox boot flags
• Inkbox installation instructions

Continuing our fantasies of striking against the cloud, we are tasked this week with adding a website to the quilt that should aim to use many resources, and should ideally break the internet. I have talked alot (with other classmates, with Michael, within internal monologue) about the wonderful similarities in character in our group. However, this appetite for destruction, I don't seem to possess.

The quilt is exciting to me as a playground for microprojects. I should. I'm so clouded. Maybe birthday countdown site.

Pen Plotter Party Prep Party

Victor, Joseph and Manetta and I got together to discuss a dedicated pen plotter party (plotter-party pad). This will be held Febuary 12th! Todos:

• Design, plot and distribute flyers
• Update Plotter main wiki page: explicit links (for printed zine), more projects and imagery.
• Finish Plothatching workflow page: add steps for crosshatching, inkscape and ideally Victor's HPGL export and Chiplotle workflow.
• Consider making another zine: maybe the plothatching workflow (requires explicit links), maybe with showcase of penplots, maybe something else
• 3d print some more alignment tools and custom pen holders.
• Order and solder some more connectors.
• Finish the plotter station: create the lower shelf, setup a computer (butter?, running Inkscape and Chiplotle) connected to a plotter.

In the following days I was approached by Anita and Chae to help out. Nice! We'll need to do some thinking about the activities also. What has been mentioned so far:

• Twitch plays Plotter
• Worksheet (aking to the mazes)
• Plotter workshop (bring your own images)

Seamfulness

I am a big enthusiast of seamful living -- the explicit show of attention, the intimacy of transparancy. [TODO photo of pants patches] How does it relate to self-documentation? And to self-actualisation? In that regard, I am inspired by DIY extremists like Van Neistat (e.g. todo lists and tiny shelves. This flavor of awareness is important to me. This weekend, I was talking to my mother and reflected on a period ~1,5 years ago in which I was trying out a particular medication. In retrospect, it seems I was able to do things in this period that I would otherwise struggle with to an extreme extent. There was a 'smoothness' to this period, allowed by a 'smoothness' in my brain as a result of this medication. Yet, I remember feeling frustrated in this period, and feeling lost and full of questions about identity and meaning. This smoothness prevented me from accessing the regular lanes of thinking I would normally cruise to process decisions and experiences. This inhibition, the removal of this processing step, made things seamless on the surface, sure. But it appears that in those seams is where I find meaning (or a chuck of it). The struggle of these imperfections is exactly the challenging joy of being.

I feel the need to exercise the muscles used in detecting seams, and impose a challenge on myself to find some in my life this weekend. Some immediate questions while writing this: seamfulness in my wiki entries? The dread of maybe moving -- why is the seamfulness the most exciting part?

These thoughts were sparked, indirectly, by the methods classes this Wednesday and last week. Also:

• Molleindustria (I still need to contact Lídia to chat about games some time)
• I was reminded of the Facebook Labor Union, a project by WdKA alumnus Jeroen Icks, who I met the day I got introduced to xpub.

Week 5

Every Monday I feel like I'm failing.

In the checkin today I was asked 'have you found any seams yet?' and I wasn't able / didn't dare to answer. Failing.

Three accounts of fiction:

• Documenting through Dialogue [I have scoured the pad but cannot find the pdf with the evil librarian and the user! Investigation continues...] Update: Christina helped me find it: https://www.metamute.org/sites/www.metamute.org/files/pml/irational-orgs-traum.pdf/
• Map is the territory, a digital zine intended as an introduction to the command line in wizardly fashion.
• The chopchop oracle: presenting a welcome message randomly selected from a pool of diverse samples.

I feel very much inspired by these ways of bringing concepts that are typically thought of as formal and archaic to live. It might seem natural or maybe even trivial to some, but this is so far removed from the way information has been presented to me in previous academic endeavours.

Tuesday

Michael thaught prototyping today to introduce us to Jupyter Notebooks (my Python contains multitudes, it is a mess), invite us to play with ImageMagick (), and discuss an an essay by him. This latter part in particular was great -- it might have been the most suggestive / provocative class yet. I will maybe add a reflection on the text here.

BREAKING NEWS It is offical: I am moving to Rotterdam. Op dit moment zie ik alleen angst en zorgen en vind ik het helemaal niet leuk. Het maakt me verdrietig. Maar mensen, waaronder een eerdere ik, hebben me verteld dat dit een goede keuze is.

Wednesday

A difficult day.

How can we help each other reading through these texts? When does editing (accidentally) become formative? Brush stroke editing, structural edting, line editing.

Week 6

A check-in with check-ins

Within our editorial team (Alessia, Michel, Senka and myself), a lot of our conversations quickly turn in on themselves, and serve not only as a moment to exchange ideas related to the Special Issue, but also on how we can make this exchange pleasant and fruitful for us all. This week, when invited to write a Code of Conduct for our editorial team, we discussed check-ins, among other things.

It turns out: we feel some anxiety surrounding these moments. Let me elaborate a bit:

+ First off, we do appreciate the invitation of the check-in, the moment it creates to share;

+ We see the value of this moment allowing us to update each other and the tutors with out work, signaling what would be useful for us to get out of this class, and what (individual) wants and needs there might be;

+ Besides, it allows for a moment to have opened your mouth. The first time in a day is often the hardest.

- But then, even when the intentions are right, these check-ins are a moment to perform. A performance that is anxiety inducing. For some, this might stem from a language barrier. For some, this might introduce difficult pressures in not having been able to do as much for the SI over the weekend as they had wanted to or feel like was expected of them. For some, it might be something else;

- The 'moment to open your mouth' goes both ways: this moment can set a tone. If a pressure has been introduced, this might linger for the rest of the day.

~ Aside from practical updates, it can be useful to have a moment to give a personal update, as a way of getting that out of your system to allow for a better focus on the SI after by entering it fresh. Such a moment serves to express, not necessarily to be heard. In particular, to be heard by a large group of people.

It is unfortunate that this check-in, valuable and appreciate as it can be, can also become an obstacle. We discussed some alternatives, e.g. one-on-one check-ins, but no alternative yet has managed to tick all the boxes. In class, I gave an overview of the conversation we had. Lídia, who had tasked us with writing a CoC, was, always thoughtful and attentive, understanding yet also sceptical. Ironically, presenting this overview was a similar moment of performance as the check-ins I was berating. I do think it was important to express this, especially in the light of a whole year's worth of collaboration. And, honestly, I also think it is currently problematic due to unfortunate circumstances. I know there are non-xpub matters in my life that cause the check-ins to be 'triggering', and I know I'm not alone. I'll let you in on a secret: the full entry as written here is not written in week 6 (back then I wrote a brief draft), but rather in week 10. This future me can say: the weather will get better. The moods will get hopeful. The check-ins will breath more.

Brief Diary entries

Monday

We started (after the check-in -- I mentioned the postcard project) with a discussion on the word 'host': a radio host, the host of a parasite, the host of a dinner party, but what does it mean to be a guest? (We read an excerpt of a text by Derrida, who was uncannily namedropped in the book I was reading this weekend -- the quilt of my life is showing its seams) In the concept of Bleja I have found a deep resonance. How often do I wish for a human relationship like the one I have with my cat?

The afternoon was spend with playing this terminal game: https://github.com/veltman/clmystery. This was a surprising direction for me, but a welcome one. As stated, the different forms of 'fictionalization' have been very inspiring to me. Games are a powerful way to introduce playfulness. To me, it is also a way of seamfulness, in the sense that the experience is given to a player, and only through their personal experience seams will emerge.

Electrifying

This partuclar game was nice, though mechanically not super inspiring. Senka and I worked on our own terminal game. I was keen to (1) explore how to achieve a (minimal) sense of immersion through a terminal interface, (2) make it simple, i.e. a limited set of actions, (3) make it polished, or the 1-hour equivalent of that (yes, I felt a pressure because I have voiced that this is both an interest of mine as well as a practice I've had previous experience in, but also I was decently confident in the feasibility of this. This was a rare moment of confidence in the SI, and I'm happy to have noticed it).

• I felt inspired by https://huienlin.itch.io/fruit-am-i
• Currently the game can be found on chopchop in home/senak/electrifying. Run cat README.md
• A git repo containing all game files can be found here
• A dedicated project page can be found here

Screenshot from Electrifying gameplay

Another screenshot

Another one

Twitchplaysplotter

The Tuesday prototyping class was a step-by-step Javascript guide. Rosa and I separated from the group to start working on a node / javascript application to manipulate a pen plotter through twitch. I am barely familiar with node.js, so it was great to have Rosa work her quick magic. We worked in this pad. I was amazed at what we were able to do in just 2-3 hours. I am coming back to this section a few weeks later, and have since come to the realization that I can create these moments of rapid creation for myself, if I want to. For example, challenge myself with one prototype every week. Or one bite sized project. I want to get out of my head. Or rather, I want to practise with using my head in an applied sense. Ultimately, we hope to deploy this project during the upcoming Pen Plotting Party!

A dedicated project page can be found here.

Wednesday: CoC

Week 7

Monday: playing games, checkins, reading beautiful seams text, discussing consent in (re)desinging chopchop, physical quilting, talking about the upcoming publication.

Tuesday: I had not been feeling well the past few days, and the pen plotting party was the final nail in the coffin. I successfully skipped class. I have tried this once before, but did not succeed that time and went to school anyway around 12:00. I am divided into three parts: 1 good on me for claiming agency over my self care needs, 2 but this class sounded so interesting (text adventures with Manetta), 3 but I have been informed that the actual activities were intro level Python, which I am not sad to have missed.

Wednesday: not very CoC action with editorial group. Mid trimester group convo (online). Games games games.

Misc: I feel like this page is not getting the love and attention it deserves. I don't think this is because I have successfully found a cure for obsessive documentation -- in fact this week I have been feeling fondly about documenting as an artistic practice -- but rather that the feelings of failing are seeping into this space too.

Pen Plotting Party

Febuary 12th, the day was finally there: the long awaited dedicated Pen Plotting Party! In many ways, it feels like the presence of pen plotters in my life has been somewhat 'random'. Although I have been enjoying our experiments greatly, there is a question of pen plotting because of fascination for the machine, fascination for the practise, fascination for the results or fascination for the people. This night proved to be a good combination of all three, but mainly solidified the community aspect for me.

More photo's can be found at here -->

Being in the organisation of this party felt really good. Before starting XPUB, I've had few experiences like this, and I'm hoping to become more comfortable and confident with initiating and facilitating events like this. Already there's talk about another party, so perhaps a new opportunity to practise hands on is around the corner!

Week 8: BREAK

everybody's moving
everybody's moving
everybody's moving
please don't leave me to remain
in the waiting room

Week 9

Monday

Confident? Communication group QnA with Mica

Tuesday

Saying no to wanting for the sake of wanting

Python 'rant' Gamestorming Presentations

Wednesday: self hosted session

Marloes is sick, xpub1 self hosts Discuss games from yesterday (I was under the impression that these were generating sessions, but for some these seem to be more final) Frustration about not making decisions In editorial team: Marloes's exercise

(still so much moving adrenaline / fatigue / unbalance throwing of my homeostatis)

Week 10

Retrospective addition: for future reference, this is the week where 'our' Special Issue started, where we the basis that would become the launch event was solidified.

Of we course all weeks prior led up to the launch event as well, and especially the gamemaking and XPUB1 hosted methods session from week 9 served as a foundation for the solidification we would be doing this week. But Before this Monday, I did not know where we would be going, and after, I did. I think this is largely in part due to us shifting gears to a more top-down approach. This might suit me better.

/Varia

The Varia meeting

Monday at Varia Great weather, great change of location, great energy, also in me? Riviera mentioned file system framework during the SI launch, which I found myself latching on to. Great way of working top-down, which was something I was lacking immensly. (why? because I intermediate validation? because it's what I'm used to? Did(n't) I want to challenge myself with a bottom-up approach? How did that go? Proved hard to find horizon broadening challenge beyond the challenge of this approach itself. How does it feel to have encouraged this other approach? In retrospect: good, I feel like it helped the SI came together much more tightly)

I had to fetch my charger in the break. No problem! I happen to be living 5 minutes away now. Great opportunity to explore while the weather is so nice. Send a postcard to my mother. Lovely lunch break :)

Afternoon walk and talk with Rosa on log files. It's always great talking with Rosa. I feel like our approaches, visions, tastes and ways of expressing both overlap nicely and conflict completely in equal parts. That's an amazing blend for fruitful conversing.

OSP Pen Plotting collab

In a recent Zulip message, Manetta announced an upcoming call with OSP (Open Source Publishing) regarding potential pen plotting collaborations. Alessia, Victor and I joined together in Varia. We discussed our excitements surrounding pen plotters, an upcoming pen plotting workshop OSP will have, different experiments we have done, and the potential for a new pen plotting party.

I am excited for this (frankly unexpected) invitation into the organization of another community event.

Tuesday

The morning session was spend [about licenses and listening to talks by Aymeric Mansoux and Ada Ehmke].

In the afternoon session, Rosa and I proposed the idea(s) we formed yesterday about our logging project. Manetta and Joseph seemed to be rather sceptical and Rosa felt the need to brainstorm more. I left school with feelings of discouragement and directionless.

(From now on, most updated regarding this project will be documented on the dedicated project page)

Wednesday / developing idea

The weather was lovely, so we were able to spend some time outside talking in our editorial groups. The morning session had good energy. Comment about notetaking, (comment about the neutrality of data), rooftop terrace, Rosa and Zuzu, demo as flyer, another editorial that was quite fierce, evening a lot of editorial team breakthroughs.

Continuing the work of this week, I met with Senka on Friday to update them with the conversations and decisions this week.

Innflytnigsfest

It is currently 2:57am. It is either wikiing, or reading Infinite Jest. Now that I live in Rotterdam, I'm able to attend events I would otherwise have to say no to. This particular evening, Victor and Alessia hosted an innflyttingsfest. I talked to Rosa -- I talked to many people, including Rosa -- about the wiki -- about many things, including the wiki --, after talking about an interactive webcomic she's working on (that I got to know of through her userpage. She told me she read through my 'diary pages'. This feedback raised some very interesting thoughts.

• Rosa expressed a surprise with how intimate I would get, and that she experienced a certain hesitance when reading these personal thouhgts. 'Should I be reading this?' This question is tense, with the knowledge that this is only made public by a decision by the author (me (what does 'author' imply?)). I'm happy to hear this. (1) what an honor it is for these pages to be read. In many ways, they are self-serving and don't need a reader to have their existance justified, or to exist at all. But part of their nature is their access, the invitation for conversation, the awkward tension of confession. The act of wikiing is a tool of self-reflection for me. The result of wikiing might be a tool of Thijs-reflection for others. (2) Every edit is a decision. In real life, I generally strive to have a minimal boundary between the outside world and my inner world. One of the captivating aspects of the wiki, has been exploring this boundary. A conversation is more temporal and fluid, whereas a wiki page is more curated and possibly styled with a diversity my human expression cannot express. In the past 6 months, I've started to see documentation not just as an anxiety-driven obsession that I compulsively fall victim too, but also as an art. Showing this vulnerability (what am I? A feminist server?) and opening up this conversation through exploring this tension. I'm glad Rosa perceived it this way. Glad, not to have my 'pursuits' validated. But glad, that this exploration can indeed be a communicative channel that lies between our other varied ways of conversing.
• Rosa asked me about this, too: is this a way of communicating? Do I maybe attempt to tell my classmates something I'm not able to otherwise? Yes and no, I think. Yes, in the sense that, as stated, it is a method of communication, and its different characteristics ultimately result in a unique expressive power. But more importantly: no. This 'no' has to do with 'attempt to tell'. At their core, these diary pages find their creation through being explicit invitations for me to self-reflect. There is no responsibility for classmates to read this. If there is something that needs telling, I am responsible to tell.
• One thing Rosa picked up from these pages, but not through my real life expression in class, is a harshness, a 'punishing attitude' towards myself. I can see what causes her to say this ('every Monday feels like failure' comes to mind). Even though I want to be explicit and honest and exhaustive, there are obviously many missing links to complete the image of my true self next to my presence in class and my wiki pages. And that's ok. In the 'failure' case, there's a missing link relating to my overall mental health. That does not need to be elaborated on right now. But this missing link does situate this mention of 'failure' in an abruptness. But I certainly hope it's not all negative. Lately I haven't been able to be as active on these pages as I was before. Rosa's comment has made me think about the outlook I might let seep through from life to wiki from time to time. She mentioned a pattern of 'I wanted to...'. Since speaking to Rosa on Monday about wanting for the sake of wanting, and to Michael last Wednesday, I've been thinking about (a goal:) how to get a more active stance on what I want to do. Or how I can bring my own input and work to the table. These are things I struggle with a lot, and this pattern 'I wanted to...' seems indicative of... failure (I know how this sounds). Is it? I don't necessarily think so (e.g. because of Elaine Aron's writings on processing conversation that have resonated with me). But it is indicative of this goal.
• It is 03:52. In the meantime, I have looked at 5 pages of Infinite Jest. I did not ask Rosa for permission to publish this, even though this contains some level of intimacy for her as well. In my pursuits of invitingly direct intimacy, I should not forget the intimacy carried over by being a player in my story, and intimacy that's not solely mine to invite others into. It is 03:57 and I am contemplating to remove their name from this entry. It is 04:07 and I've convinced myself not to.
• Thank you, Rosa, for this conversation. We were cut off, but I wanted to say: I would not have guessed it, but when you said it I was not surprised to learn about your socks. While I think we're polar opposites in many regards, it's been magical to see these similarities both in our work and in our persons. I enjoy and value these moments greatly.

Week 11

Monday: OSP call

Tuesday: https://git.xpub.nl/vitrinekast/annotated-logs

Wednesday: work from home

Thursday meeting with Anita and Zuzu, Peripheral_Centers_and_Feminist_Servers/Communication, meeting again Saturday

Week 12

Monday: Updating group on comm progress, flyers, shelves installation options

Tuesday: ssh proxy (fail and success), web flyer, shelves ereader feasibility, finally getting P-Touch Editor to work

All around doing a lot of stuff, talking to a lot of people. Pitfall to think about this as a 'supporting role' (although support is good, it's also important for me to me assertive, let's say, to get out of this program what I want to get out of it, so it has a bit of a negative ring to it to me), insecurity is easily introduced when you can't claim 'your work'. It does feel like I'm not contributing enough. But I'm trying to convince myself this is actually a vital role that I like and am okay at. In Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, I like to be the bomb master communicating with everyone way more than being one of the players that actually solve the puzzles. It remains a challenge, though, to balance this with my own creative input: I should take this work upon me when my skillset can be useful and when the the task can bring me something, NOT when I'm too insecure about my input and instead resort to a role of consultancy. I am reminded of my father, his work and way of working. I have never felt a particular connection to his and my way of working, but this week I have suddenly come to see (and appreciate) this more.

Have I been wikiing as much this trimester? Aside from the weeks surrounding my move, I think it's about the same, but it's spread out more than previous trimester. In general, communication is spread thin. Editorial groups, content groups, production groups, Pen Plotting enthusiasts, WikiBabble ... Sometimes I feel restless about me being less frequent or verbose in my updates on this page. It is often a restlessness akin to the fear I have of forgetting myself, of my future self not being able to acknowldge my current self's activity. But I should remind myself that I have set a goals for myself: documentation follows activity, not vice versa. In that regard, I do feel okay about this change of pace. I feel like my documentational efforts are becoming a reliable skill and an artform in itself.

Week 13

At the /doors of Varia

Monday: Varia vibes, then to school for handouts

• handout assembly
• handout hole punching

Tuesday: super productive day.

• preface
• tldr wiki
• handout assembly
• exploring tldr docu quilt options, testing wiki to html
• handouts buying more paper
• handout assembly and holepunching continued
• handout eyelet installs
• improving landing page

Wednesday: another productive day

• shelves meeting
• annotation feedback
• implementation for random annotations
• tldr quilt patch
• tldr docu quilt patch
• communication docu quilt patch

Thursday: SI launch

I feel very positive about this week. On on individual level, I feel like I was able to 'turn on the engine and go', while switching between different tasks with minimal overhead, communicating with people efficiently and with room for adaptaions along the way. This, even though this wasn't a superb week for me outside of school matters. But maybe these go hand in hand, maybe I was happy to be able to fully distract myself by committing to these tasks.

On a group level, I feel like we've grown since last SI. We had our vision in check earlier (in my mind this is thanks to the top-down approach we decided on in week 10), we were able to cover more ground (with relatively clear content and communication groups), communicate smoothly between subgroups and generally trust each other more. All these abstract improvements came together concretely on the day of the launch. I headed to Varia at 12:00. We had a relaxed day of setting up (and had organized dunch). We atmosphere throughout the day was great, and during the event, too. I think people were engaged, and it was quite cozy.

Michael's media repo -->

Debrief

On 2024-04-08, after the SI24 kickoff, we had a short SI23 debrief session (see this pad). It was just an hour, so only the main points were discussed. I am under the impression that the feelings on these points were shared among the group.

Quilting

In this section, I will present an overview of some of the quilt pages I contributed to. To make a page part of the webquilt, first add these lines to the head of your page:

<head>
    <script src="https://issue.xpub.nl/23/quilt/quilt.js" data-cutfilename="false"></script>
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://issue.xpub.nl/23/quilt/quilt.css">
</head>

Next, add the public url to https://issue.xpub.nl/23/quilt/quilt.html. When this table is full and you want to create more space, be careful: apparantly it is crucial that there are an equal number of rows and columns.

User Page

I kept my user page pretty bare bones (I like the idea of a quilt with mini projects, but also I've had plenty of other patches to work on!). A visitor is presented with a loading bar and the text 'Move Me (WASD)'. They are able to 'play' as the loading bar and soar through the page, that provides them with a welcome message and some information about me.

Part of my user page on the SI23 webquilt

The loading bar is an ASCII animation made with pure Javascript.

// inspired by: https://codepen.io/alan8r/
function ASCIIAnimation(animArray, DOMtarget, speed, looping = true) {
  var currentFrame = 0;
	for(var i = 0; i < animArray.length; i++) {
   		animArray[i] = animArray[i].replace(/ /g,"&nbsp;");
   		animArray[i] = "<pre>" + animArray[i] + "</pre>";
   	}
   	DOMtarget.innerHTML = animArray[0];
   	currentFrame++;
   	this.animation = setInterval(function() {
   		DOMtarget.innerHTML = animArray[currentFrame];
   		currentFrame++;
   		if(currentFrame >= animArray.length && looping) currentFrame = 0;
        if (currentFrame >= animArray.length && !looping) currentFrame = animArray.length - 1;
   	}, speed);
   	this.getCurrentFrame = function() {
   		return currentFrame;
   	}
}

The movement, too, is a simple listener reacting to button presses and changing a div's transform property.

var cur_translation_x = 0;
var cur_translation_y = 0;
document.onkeydown = listen_key;
function listen_key(e) {    
    e = e || window.event;
    if (e.keyCode == '38') {
        console.log("up");
        cur_translation_y -= 15;
    }
    // analogous for other directions

     game_div.style.transform = `translate(${cur_translation_x}px, ${cur_translation_y}px)`;    
    }

Landing Page

• Find it on the quilt here
• Documentation of the code can be found in this dedicated project page

As part of the production team focussing on communication and promotional material, I helped design the Peripheral Centers and Feminist Servers flyer. In this design process, we used exquisite corpse prototyping, adding to each other prototypes in different rounds. In one of these rounds, I made a simple webpage with an animated SVG file. We decided to use this for our landing quilt's landing page.

Next to that, I added an overview of the filestructure of the launch event, re-using the ASCII animation code I used on my user page.

The quilt's landing page with an animated SVG flyer (left) and navigation through the filestructure (right)

Project Page tl;dr

• Find it on the quilt here
• Read more about the project on its dedicated wiki page
• Find the code in the project's git repo

tl;dr (the /shelves project) compiles logs and annotation to create EPUB files for an e-reader. Conveniently, these EPUBs are created through an intermedia step HTML. This HTML is used to create the quilt patch. Senka did most of the styling, I helped out with the final leg.

tl;dr project page on the SI23 webquilt

Documentation Page tl;dr

• Find it on the webquilt here
• Find the documentation page on the wiki on its dedicated project page
• Find the code in the project's git repo

We decided to include a documentation patch for the tl;dr project in the quilt, as we had this page made already. In an attempt to show the 'seam' of using the wiki, we used an iframe to show the wiki page directly on the quilt.

This page uses an extension of the CSS styling sheet of the tl;dr project page.

tl;dr documentation page on the SI23 webquilt

Documentation Page Communication

• Find it on the webquilt here
• Find the documentation page on the wiki on its dedicated project page
• Find the code in the quilt's git repo

Just like with the tl;dr project, we decided to include a documentation patch for the communication production team in the quilt, as we had this page made already. Again, we used an iframe to show the wiki page directly on the quilt in an attempt to show the 'seam' of using the wiki. The code and styling of the tl;dr documentation page was used.

Communication documentation page on the webquilt

Volume Plotting

A website with the volume to HPGL functionalities that I made during zinecamp.

• Find it on the quilt here
• Dedicated wiki page

Screenshot of volume plotting quilt patch

Velourian Library

^ click the header for a link to the velourian library

Project Pages

An index of selected project pages referenced on this page:

• Peripheral_Centers_and_Feminist_Servers
  • TL;DR
  • Communication
• Twitchplaysplotter
• Electrifying