Photo: Ernst van Deursen

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?

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’. This could be for example understood as; looking again at the original departing point of Words for the Future, and to attend to the process of making the publications. 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, and back, but also from one particular audience to another, and 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. 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 typographic choices? Following on these and other questions, within the ten weeks of the semester we are going to explore and develop a collaborative re-publishing practice.

Issue 13

Map of relations, by Aymeric Mansoux

For the Words for the Future re-publishing project we'll work on:

1. Re-publishing the original material online.

Making it available to a wide range of audiences, sharable, downloadable, usable. How to translate from print to digital? From one technological space to another?

1b. Writing an open access license

Words for the Future is automatically copyrighted even though / because it was not consciously given copy right or another license. In order to give it an easy accessible afterlife after its exclusive limited editions on print, we are making the content open access. In order to do so we are going to write a license that describes how the material can be re-used, treated and re-published by other readers/writers. The material of Words for the Future - i.e. the ten words / visions for the future - can guide us in the possible ethics, values, attitudes we'd want to include in the license.

Workshop on open source licenses by Aymeric.

2. re-publishing words for the future as map of relations - or ‘interstitial dramaturgy’

Making visible the web of resonance of visions / thoughts / worries / desires in between the different contributions and issues; the interstitial dramaturgy so to say. To map out this web of words for the future not as seperate thoughts but as a vocabulary / language of collective thinking and action.

MAPPING through:

> annotating, glossaries, map of annotations, making A0

> copying, making posters, guerilla postering in r'dam

> speaking, activating words in daily live, speech acts, activating/expanding dialogues, making sound fragments

> remediation, structures of text, organising materials

> creating audiences and readers

Materials

The materials are uploaded to a repository in the XPUB git.

They can be cloned, downloaded as zip-file or viewed in the Gitea interface as individual files.

• link to all the materials: https://git.xpub.nl/XPUB/S13-Words-for-the-Future-materials
• zip-file: https://git.xpub.nl/XPUB/S13-Words-for-the-Future-materials/archive/master.zip [zip: 255MB] [unzipped: 784MB]

Schedule

Week 1

Monday 21 September

ONLINE Prototyping with Michael (10:00 - 13:00)

Pad of the day: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/2020-09-21-prototyping

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

https://pad.xpub.nl/p/22-9-2020

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

Annotation Words for the Future – pads

Intro: Interstitial Spaces

How do you design caring for a word?

Making 3 groups: every group takes care of 3 to 4 words

- you are responsible for these words throughout the semester.

Week 2

Monday 28 Sept

ONLINE Prototyping with Manetta (10:00 - afternoon)

Pad of the day: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/prototyping_28-9-2020

Tuesday 29 Sept

IRL Nienke + Steve

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

https://pad.xpub.nl/p/29-9-2020

Here are the pads: Annotation Words for the Future – pads

How do you read?

What are your reading practices?

What could be different approaches?

References ways of reading

Link: File:Sedgwick paranoid reading plain.pdf

See also: Donna Harraway, Karen Barad, e.g.

How do we read, Katharine Hayles - https://www.ade.mla.org/content/download/7915/225678

References annotating:

http://www.ivanamuller.com/works/notes/

http://www.revolutionreader.com/

http://www.informationasmaterial.org/portfolio/reading-the-remove-of-literature/ https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/213496442.pdf

Wednesday 30 Sept

ONLINE Prototyping with Michael

etherpad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/2020-09-30-prototyping

Week 3

Monday 5 October

ONLINE Steve

13:00-17:00

Continuation annotations

Here are the pads: Annotation Words for the Future – pads

Continue with readings / Go futher with group methodology

Steve will be on Jitsy at

13:00 Brief intro session

Followed by annotation in groups (take breaks when needed)

16:30 recap and make a plan to finish the annotations:

what date?

What needs to be done?

Tuesday 6 October

IRL Nienke + Aymeric

Daypad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/06-10-2020

Day: Open Access License Writing

Read in advance:

some abstracts of Aymeric's PhD: https://www.bleu255.com/~aymeric/dump/aymeric_mansoux-sandbox_culture_phd_thesis-2017.pdf

About the link between free software (and open source) and its expansion into other forms of cultural production: pp. 76-91

About the problematics/limits of unrestricted sharing, remix, appropriation, etc: pp.285-297

Prep in advance for the word you are caring for:

What sort of licence(s)/usages do the words themselves propose?

Consider the open source usages the word you care for asks for.

You can also think in terms of the values they propose to prioritize.

F.e. we ask users not to only 'take' from the material but to also add to it. (taking into account reciprocity re; Atata)

Or: not to fixate the knowledge offered into defined containers or categories (liquid), but to remain undecidable: let a multiplicity of perspectives unfold (Silvia Bottoroli, and to see that a material is not in its final position, and never will be (Jozef Wouters). etc.

Words for the Future is automatically copyrighted even though / because it was not consciously given copy right or another license; there is also no contract about this with the printers or co-publishers. In order to give it an easy accessible afterlife after its exclusive limited editions on print, we are making the content open access - all authors agreed with this. In order to make it open access we need to write a license for words for the future series. Instead of f.e. using a creative commons license, we get a workshop from Aymeric who knows all about the history of license writing for open source software.

What are the ethics of republishing / and of re-using?

What are responsibilities of republishing? (What does the author ‘allow’ versus what does the material invite?)

What sort of licence(s) do the words themselves propose?

Wednesday 7 Oct

ONLINE Prototyping with Michael & Manetta

Pad of the day: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/XPUB1_ONLINE_07_10_2020

Week 4

Monday 12 Oct

ONLINE Prototyping with Manetta

• Pad of the day: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/XPUB1_ONLINE_12_10_2020
• QUILT/PATCH protocols: Quilting-with-Python
• We made the following quilt together: File:Quilt WFTF.pdf

Tuesday 13 Oct

https://pad.xpub.nl/p/XPUB113-9-20

IRL Steve (+ Nienke is sick and can't make it in today)

11:00 am start in large project space.

Link to annotations:

https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/Annotation_Words_for_the_Future_–_pads

Morning: exchange texts / annotations Afternoon: mapping relations

Communicate to your peers:

- What is 'LIQUID' (title issue) / what is the text?, what are the visions of the authors, how are these expressed? (its a dialogue) 

= convey to the other readers what the authors meant: ontological 

- What are your own thoughts about this? your interpretation? And how would you step into the dialogue, add to the dialogue? hermeneutical

- What meaningful relations can be made between the issues? (And what do we consider 'meaningful'?) interstitial

Assignment: publishing A0

make this discourse visible in the form of an A0 map.

A sketch for the day plan

• This session follows up on the annotations you have been making

• AM: Discuss outcome of Manetta's class. Through discussion, map the relations between the texts you have been reading - make sketches for AO poster(s)

• PM: continue to make sketches for an AO poster(s) and make a plan for its production; discuss options; make proposals &C.;

• allocate roles and tasks &c.

Wednesday 14 Oct

ONLINE Prototyping with Michael

PAD from today: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/prototyping141020

We started by looking at using a notebook to explore the Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) and specifically the "concordance" tool to isolate the context of particular words in the WftF texts. People worked on different patches following the patch protocol, and we ended with a new quilt script and (partial) result: File:Concordance quilt.pdf.

Week 5

19-23 oct - autumn holiday

Second part of the Special Issue: Words for the Future (formats & planning)

The format that we propose to work with is A0 posters that can be folded into one or several booklets/leaflets/maps. Each one of you is in charge of one poster, and the whole group needs to decide how to combine them and design one extra poster to provide context/colophon/etc about the Special Issue. The posters/publication will be sent to different organisations, collectives and cultural institutions to be placed in their windows and/or to showcase, browse, redistribute. The posters may also be put up by yourselves in Rotterdam. With this focus on distribution, the Special Issue will hook into an observation that was made at the beginning of this trimester: the texts of Words for the Future are highly relevant and speak to the interest of different cultural groups and organisations within the Netherlands. However, there is little or no contact between these different groups. The current health crisis has worsened the problem, putting many institutions into a state of hibernation. By focusing on distribution within this Special Issue, we will explore networked forms of (re)publishing to activate the connections between different cultural institutions.

The poster should (re)publish the original text in full and additionaly make use of the different materials and techniques developed including output generated by Python notebooks, derivatives, annotations, your own writing, drawings, generated visuals, maps, etc, and making use of mixed techniques. Finally the Special Issue will take two different forms: 11 x A0 posters, (10 + 1 for context/colophon/etc), and an online publication including the Notebooks, PDFs, and HTML pages. The latter (the online publication) is still up for discussion and will be subject of conversation in the coming weeks.

Production budget

€1000,- (can be extended if needed)

Caveat: you need to advance the expenses and get refunded (exception: if you work with a service provider that could invoice HR/WdKA directly, like a printer for instance).

Week 6

Monday 26 October

ONLINE Prototyping with Manetta (11:00 - 18:00)

Hotline: https://hotline.xpub.nl/prototyping

Pad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/Prototyping_26-10-2020 + https://pad.xpub.nl/p/Issue%2313.online.ideas

We discussed the Special Issue proposal together in the morning, and started to work with 3 NLTK notebooks (nltk-frequency-distribution, nltk-pos-tagger, nltk-similar-words), a JSON notebook (json-making-datasets) and a Weasyprint notebook (weasyprint) in the afternoon ... until the XPUB Notebook hub stopped working and we all struggled to install Jupyter on our computers (which we almost all managed to do in the end, pfiew!).

Tuesday 27 October

IRL Nienke 11:00-13:00

editorial guidance & feedback

PAD: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/XPUB127-10-20

Wednesday 28 October

ONLINE Prototyping with Michael

PAD: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/prototyping20201028

Reviewed/worked with the nltk-pos & the weasyprint notebooks.

Photo: Idea Whiteboard

Week 7

Monday 2 November

ONLINE Prototyping with Manetta (10:00 - 17:00)

Hotline: https://hotline.xpub.nl/prototyping

Pad of the day: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/Prototyping_02-11-2020

Today we started to work with our new Jupyter setup: Sandbot, the brandnew XPUB1 sandbox! It is set up by Michael last week, and currently hosted in Hacktiris, Brussels. Through the Jupyter interface, we started to use the command line, as it was time to start git pulling and pushing. We generated ssh-keys on the Sandbot, cloned the git over ssh, bumped into the limits of the firewall, wrote gnd a message, and were ready to continue after lunch. We looked into this (small) pdftk notebook, to do some PDF layering with PDFTK (see example here). Then we repeated some parts of the Weasyprint notebook, to end with a small Markdown-to-HTML-to-PDF notebook. It was a full day, which we ended with a final git push (which we will repeat again next week, to get more familiar with these new gestures).

Tuesday 3 November

Pad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/3-10-2020

Concept pad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/28_10_20_SPECIAL_ISSUE_13_IDEAS

IRL Special Issue with Nienke 11:00-13:00

We discuss your analogue printed out (may be on smaller formats that you tape together) presentation of a first draft of the A0 #11, which you worked on collaboratively last week in devided roles.

We use it as a starting point to think further the overall concept: relation(s) between analogue x digital publication, and the question of publishing; where, which audiences, organisations, platforms etc: 'distribution as contribution'.

If you have questions with regards to the talk w Ogutu we can discuss these too.

14.00 - ?. Continue w. Lídia

Wednesday 4 November

ONLINE Prototyping with Michael

Pad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/2020-11-04-prototyping

A day largely looking at and working with the commandline, we visited a The map is the territory a zine / command-line tutorial and explored the example of small tools working together with pandoc + weasyprint (using weasyprint this time via its commandline command rather than python). Finally, using some tools like psnup to make poster layouts, for instance some example outputs.

Thursday 5 November

ONLINE GUEST: OGUTU MURAYA

10:00 - 12:00h moderated by Martin + Jacobo

Hotline https://meet.jit.si/Ogutu_Muraya_XPUB_READING

Everyone reads/listens to the material + prepares some questions

https://pad.xpub.nl/p/Ogutu_Muraya_05.11.20

Week 8

Monday 9 November

ONLINE Prototyping (10:00 - 17:00)

Hotline: https://hotline.xpub.nl/prototyping

Pad of the day: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/Prototyping_09-11-2020

Today we worked on a prototype of a writing system, based on an observation^* and using a tool of choice^**. Outcomes are uploaded to the wiki, notebooks are added to the shared/shared-notebooks/ folder on sandbot.

* See observations we wrote on 'digital text': https://pad.xpub.nl/p/Prototyping_26-10-2020
** One of the tools we encountered during the prototyping sessions so far

Tuesday 10 November

IRL Special Issue with Nienke 11:00-13:00, Lidia 14:00 - ..

ASSIGNMENT from Nienke & Lidia

Tuesday you came to the idea of the publication as a tool to activate thinking about the future in different ways, to open up imagination and practical ways to act upon it. You want it to be accessible, readable and usable. Not limited to institutions, politicians, or too specific other target groups; where the material remains again in a too small bubble. The idea to open up the material to children and educators arose. We think this is an exciting idea because it is a clear and focused target group, and at the same time this is a group that is still broad in their way of thinking and acting. Able to open up the publication in several ways.

For next week think this further:

> for whom is it published: audience: children / teenagers (which age?) and their educators

> where is it published: places of education, the classroom, e.g.

> how is it published: is it published by hanging de the different maps on the windows of classrooms, and/or by several teachers discussing the future / words / imagination .. in class that day / different classes or schools contribute together to a map of the future ?... etc. The fact that schools remain open during this almost lockdown, makes it also strategically an interesting space for publishing. Kids come there every day, they have big windows, hallways, play grounds, etc....

-- what needs to be practically done for that? (we discuss this further in class too)

Within this idea of publishing for youth:

> Continue with your own A0, make the other side. Finish a first draft of your whole A0.

> Together create a first draft of A0 #11, that includes: a colophon, an open access license for the whole publication, a contextual piece of writing, (these don't have to be made yet but need to find a place in the A0) and an overview of the whole project and the meaningful connections between all A0's.

Wednesday 11 November

Send questions / drafts / ideas to Nienke for feedback.

ONLINE Prototyping with Michael

Week 9

Go into different roles (of design, editing, communication and production) - let's make sure every role is covered properly, and start working towards the final designs, texts, editing, organising distribution and launch, etc.

Monday 16 November

All: Send individual A0's latest versions to Nienke before Monday 10.30h for feedback on Tuesday one on one.

Tuesday 17 November

IRL Special Issue with Nienke & Lidia 14:00 - 16:00 (lidia perhaps longer)

Nienke: one one one's feedback on individual A0's

Lidia: tbc with rest of group

Wednesday 18 November

Send latest version of collective concept(s) A0 11 and collective mapping to Nienke for content editorial feedback.

ONLINE Prototyping with Manetta & Michael (10:00 - 18:00)

Week 10

Run print tests, finalize designs, texts, etc. Do the PR needed.

Monday 23 November

ONLINE Prototyping with Michael

Tuesday 24 November

IRL Special Issue with Nienke (11:00 - 13:00), Lidia (from 14:00), Manetta (from 11:00)

Discussing print tests + state of production launch / distribution with Nienke + Lidia.

Wednesday 25 November

Send questions / drafts / concepts / new versions / .. to Nienke for feedback and editorial guidance.

FINALIZE EVERYTHING

Week 11

PRODUCTION RUN

Tuesday 1 December

IRL Special Issue with Nienke (11:00 - 13:00), Lidia (14:00), Manetta (from 11:00)

We'll be there to guide/assist on whatever is needed that week. TBC

Wednesday 2 December

ONLINE Prototyping with Michael

Week 12

Tuesday 8 December

IRL Special Issue Launch / Wrap up (TBC) with Manetta, ...