User:FLEM/Graduationprojectproposaldraft

1 What do you want to make? (120w)

I want to organise a series of Collaborative Explorative Sessions [CES] (meetings, workshops, experiments, study cases, conversations, surveys) on the topic of notebooks, with the purpose of analysing the use of notebooks in contemporary society as well as trying to increase the awareness and consideration that people have of notebooks as tools, to discover how they are made, how they can be personalised and created by the users themselves.

For the project to continue after the end of the series of explorative sessions, I plan to create an instructional publication that users will use to go through the analysis of self and the creation of their own tools, in this case notebooks but hopefully the text could be applied also in other contexts.

2 How do you plan to make it? (300w)

(A) Create a temporal community for temporal archives (notebooks): a space to collectively discuss and analyse notebooks to gather information, underline and go beyond the limits of notebooks. To do this, I will organise Collective Explorative Sessions [CES] where participants could e.g.: 1. discuss & analyse their own notebooks & find solutions collectively 2. create together new physical prototypes. These sessions will try to unify thinking and making, as learning through making is the best way to understand and discover about our self and our needs.

To achieve this, I have to plan the dates and study the subject matters of the workshops, reading about history and uses of note taking surfaces, find and contact the locations, start advertising and invite people to join.

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  first explorative session with xpub2 students on 26.09.22

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  questions I gave the participants to choose from before starting the session

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  the plan of the session 01

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  the plan of the session 02

(B) Create a collection of sample notebook prototypes: together with the participants ideas and prototypes will emerge and their discoveries will become part of my research. I already discussed these topics with my classmates and they are already reacting with their own prototypes. I asked them to write about their process of research. I will also do this work on myself, trying out different notebooks and exploring and writing about the process of discovery I am going through. The prototypes will include simple and accessible add-ons that users can try out to implement their already-existing notebooks (like pockets, foldings, additional papers..)

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  a multicolumned notebook: could we fold it more?

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  first notebook kit: An adjustable and editable notebook with included tape and papers for continuation

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  sketches for new prototypes

(C) An instructional publication that will be the result of the CES, my theoretical research and my and my case studies process to get to different notebooks solution prototypes.

3 What is your timetable? (130w)

SETT/OTT. Research, reading & notebooks prototypes.

NOV/JAN. Work on CES structure, research, reading & notebooks prototypes.

Write a text for: analysis of past 2 sessions (M&Ms & Leeszaal); my personal notebook research process.

Organise a collective session (22 Nov // + 28 Nov?) as well as individual ones (3 people).

JAN-FEB. Research, reading & notebooks prototypes.

Organise a collective session as well as individual ones.

Write about past sessions & notebooks research process.

MAR-APR. Notebooks prototypes.

Organise a collective session as well as individual ones.

Start writing the instructional piece.

Write about past sessions & notebooks research process.

APR-JUN. Organise a collective session as well as individual ones.

Finish writing the instructional piece and work on a modular notebook that contains all the information to be used in all directions, connected by the user

4 Why do you want to make it? (500w)

I am interested in the act of annotating as a mean of creativity, a space for thinking and reasoning, a personal world inside this messy world we live in. I like the idea of getting lost in our own space, how writing and doodling and drawing can become part of our living. And this personal world cannot be the same for everyone, cannot be standardised. My idea is that everyone has different needs while using a notebook and that the efficiency (in the sense of: how much we use it, how useful it becomes for us, how we feel free and comfortable with it) can change using a different interface.

Lori Emerson in the book Reading Writing Interfaces describes how in recent years design is getting every day more invisible and users are becoming less and less aware of the processes underneath the devices they use: in the same way as with digital interfaces, humans think less and less about what they use or what they do or why or how. In addition, I think that they are also slowly losing their connection with nature and materiality, and I am wondering if it wouldn't help to reconnect to craftsmanship through the creation of notebooks, the touch of paper and the lines of a pen on the surface, to recreate a little space for ourselves in this fast and angry world. I would like the meetings to be collective experiences of discovery, moments where to play with this object, all together, and explore all the possibilities this interface can offer.

In addition, I have heard some stories about notebooks and I am sure there are a lot more to discover; some of them underlines how easy it is to buy new notebooks but how hard it is to start or finish them: I believe this is connected to consumerism habits. We live in an era where we can decide to continuously fulfill our desires, without even understanding or asking ourselves what we really need or want. I assume that many people buy notebooks because they are attracted by the idea around the object, but then they never start or finish them because, still my assumptions, they do not really know what is their need of having such an object. I would like to create a space where people can explore, experiment and discover the possibilities of notebooks, also as part of a research about themselves and their participation in the world. I would like participants to explore their inner self and discover what they need from a notebook, and then, if they are up for it, to discover how they are made and how accessible it can be for everyone to create/edit their own, based on what they're actually looking for. Like Notebooks Therapy.

In addition, consumerism and capitalism are only contributing to the destruction of the world as we know it and the desire of people towards creation and expression of self is emerging again (see social media DIY or etsy.com). I feel that using an object that, in a way, is the emblem of productivity and trying to transform it into a self-thought and subversive one is the right direction I want to give to my project.

5 Who can help you and how? (60w)

Anyone interested in the use of notebooks, anyone that thought at least once about something related to their use of note taking methods and structures; contributors and participants to my workshops; anyone who knows people that would be interested in participate to my sessions as well as who knows locations or organisations that would like to collaborate.

6 Relation to previous practice (400w)

In the past year as an xpub student I have enjoyed working with language and text. I tried to analyse patterns and on the other side, to disrupt common structures to create new pieces of text, to create “vernacular translations”. Here, I created a prototype of linguistic patterns (as rejection letters) and the impossible project website, a tool for translations. Plus, I used the annotation system created for Special Issue 16 to gather translations from users.

I always tried to involve a public, to explain more than what seems like needed, had in mind the idea that our public should understand and it has been underlined my intent of translating one form of research into an activity/event. One of the results of this has been the crosswords game, both for the launch day and for the publication. I like the idea that an audience can interact with what is shown to them: everyone has different learning methodologies, and it’s our job to put everyone in a situation where they can get the best out of the experience.

In the last trimester, we worked with notation systems, annotation methods and distributive practices, that grasped my interest quite a lot. Miriam and I, for the week02 release, produced an instructional piece on “how to make sound” that I extremely enjoyed making. The proposals I have been part of are also significant: week5 release was about collective writing and the idea of distributive practice. While talking about instruments and tools, I worked on the Draggable , another online tool to mess up with texts (and audios in this case).

At a certain point during the last trimester, I started to shape my focus a bit better seeing a particular interest that I developed since the first day but never kept into account: my notebook. I started making notebooks a few years ago, during my bachelor, and has always found the process of creation really interesting. Last year, I have been taking notes on different notebooks throughout the year, made by myself. At some point, I started to question myself and the notebooks I was using. I wanted to have more, to be able to play with my notebook, to know it better. I started to reason on how, as we’ve been creating our personal digital tools, we could also create our personal paper tools. Notebooks are individual and personal objects, but they’re treated like everyone has the same need from a piece of paper.

7 Relation to a larger context

https://thecommonplacebookproject.com/

the book of notebooks dan perjovschi

https://www.notebookstories.com/ - blog on notebooks

https://www.mixiwnotebooks.com/

https://www.modubooq.com/custom-notebook/

https://perfect-notebook.com/

http://ratfactor.com/about

https://tumblr.austinkleon.com/tagged/notebooks

https://www.43folders.com/2004/09/03/introducing-the-hipster-pda

8 References/bibliography

Blair, A.M. (n.d.). Note Taking as an Art of Transmission.

Gibson, M. (2019). Crafting communities of practice: the relationship between making and learning. Int J Technol Des Educ 29, 25–35

Hamzah, F., Sharifudin, S., Kamarudin, A. and Azlan, M. (2016). The use of personalized notebook among first semester students of UiTM. National Conference of Research on Language Education 2016.

‌Kealy-Morris, E. (2015). The bookbinding workshop: Making as collaborative pedagogic practice. Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, [online] 14(2), p.119.

Korn, P. (2015). Why We Make Things and Why It Matters. David R. Godine Publisher.

Sanders E. B.-N. and Stappers P. J. (2014). Convivial design toolbox: generative research for the front end of design. Amsterdam: Bis.

Sennett, R. (2009). The Craftsman. Penguin UK.

‌Wenger-Trayner, E. and Wenger-Trayner, B. (2015) An introduction to communities of practice: a brief overview of the concept and its uses. [online] Available at: https://www.wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/.

Yuill, S. (2008). All Problems of Notation Will Be Solved By the Masses. [online] Mute. Available at: https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/all-problems-notation-will-be-solved-masses.