Background

2017-2018

If we want to re-imagine our ways of being in and with the world, could we then start to describe it differently?

Words for the Future is a multi-voiced series of ten words that point to possible imaginations of various futures. Ten people from different parts of the world and from different fields of knowledge were asked to propose a word for the future. Each of them wrote a text that unfolds the desired or foreseen way of thinking or doing, this word defines for them. At the same time, an artists, in whose work this particular words seems already latently present, is invited to respond to it. Bringing both the essay and the artistic responds together in one publication, each issue becomes a dialogue around one word.

Contributors: Rachel Armstrong, Andrea Bozic & Julia Wilms, Daniel L. Everett, Sarah Moeremans, Jalada | Moses Kilolo, The Future | Klara van Duijkeren & Vincent Schipper, Ashish Kothari, Rodrigo Sobarzo, Gurur Ertem, Ogutu Muraya, Silvia Bottiroli, Jozef Wouters, Simon(e) van Saarloos, Simone Truong & team, Isabelle Stengers, Ola Macijewksa, Nina Power, Michiel Vandervelde, Natalia Chaves Lopez, Hilda Moucharrafieh.

Words for the Future was initiated, curated and published by Nienke Scholts, self-published in co-production with Veem House for Performance, and designed and printed by Print The Future. Every issue is printed in a limted edition of 50 booklets. The issues where sold seperately and as full series at the Veem House bookstore, at Walter Koenig / Stedelijk Museum and with Books on the Move during European dance festivals and through their online catalogue. (There is still 9 full series and a different x amount of each seperate words in store.)

Project-website

The Re-Publishing Project | XPUB Rotterdam

2020

Words for the Future meets XPUB Rotterdam for a re-publishing project. The aim is to re-publish the Words for the Future series in collaboration with the first year XPUB MA students and mentoring team as the special issues project #13. Central to the project is the question:

What does it mean to re-publish? Words for the Future meets XPUB Rotterdam for a re-publishing project. The aim is to re-publish the Words for the Future series in collaboration with the first year XPUB MA students and mentoring team as the special issues project #13. Central to the project is the question:

What does it mean to re-publish?

Context

Map of relations, by Aymeric Mansoux

etymology PUBLISH: mid-14c., "make publicly known, reveal, divulge, announce;" alteration of publicen (early 14c.) by influence of banish, finish, etc.; from extended stem of Old French publier "make public, spread abroad, communicate," from Latin publicare "make public," from publicus "public" (see public). Meaning "issue (a book, etc.) to the public" is from late 14c., also "to disgrace, put to shame; denounce publicly."Related: Published; publishing. In Middle English the verb also meant "to people, populate; to multiply, breed" (late 14c.), for example ben published of "be descended from."

  prefix RE- : word-forming element meaning "back to the original place; again, anew, once more," also with a sense of "undoing," c. 1200, from Old French and directly from Latin re- "again, back, anew, against.. 

Parameters

Looking into the etymologies of ‘-re’ and of ‘publishing’ is only one possible starting point to inform us on the question ‘what does it mean to re-publish something?’. For example: to understand re-publishing as ‘going back to the original place’, as in looking again at the original departing point of Words for the Future, and to attend to the process of making the publications as well - f.e. the act of inviting someone into the dialogue. Or to explore how to somehow ‘undo’ the process of publishing by ‘doing it anew’. Furthermore, the translation from one technological context into another; from printed to digitial publication, but also from one particular audience to another, from copyright to open access …; is going to influence our possible approach(es) to re-publishing. Ofcourse, the original material and content of the series, the words, essays and images themselves, are important entry points towards the ways in which they can be re-published as well. What is for example a LIQUID way of making something public again?

How could the speculation on punctuationmarks by Michiel Vandevelde inspire our design or font choices? Following on these and other questions, within the ten weeks of the semester we are going to develop a small collaborative re-publishing practice.

Another parameter the process of re-publishing particularly allows is making visible the web of relations between the contributions: When the series was finished it became apparent that even though the visions on the future came from people from very different parts of the world; Dehli, Nairobi, Istanbul, Chili, Beirut, Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, the U.S.A, Colombia, Poland, etc., and from various fields of knowledge; politcal philosophy, literature, history, social science, curation, linguistics, experimental architecture, biodiversity activism, sociology, education and the arts - their ideas, worries and desires strongly resonate with each other. As if they are all, without knowing it, small wires connected as part of one larger brain

Material

Schedule

Week 1

Tuesday 22 September

IRL Kick-off meeting Nienke + Aymeric + Steve + Manetta (morning)

Morning: introduction to the project, going through the programme, how do we work

Afternoon: reading and annotation first text(s) Nienke + Steve

Week 2

Tuesday 29 sept

IRL Nienke + Steve

Day: reading and annotating Words for the Future texts in different groups

Week 3

Tuesday 6 October

IRL Nienke + Aymeric

Writing license open access half day workshop, half day writing

Week 4

Tuesday 13 oct

IRL Steve + Nienke

Morning: exchange texts / annotations Afternoon: mapping relations

Week 5

19-23 oct - autumn holiday