↺. Project Proposal

what do I want to make?

↺ publication ↺ glossary ↺ system ↺ experiment ↺ manifesto ↺

A publication that is a glossary, a system, an experiment, and a manifesto.

It is a publication that uses the idea of a glossary as its own core. It is a glossary that is conceived as a system of interconnected words. It is a system that suggests reflections and draws paths by experimenting. It is an experiment that points out possible futures for small publishing practices on arts.

The plan is to use the structure of a glossary to cross-references between words. These words are gonna be selected from the already existing publishing vocabulary but also from other vocabularies inside other realms of knowledge such as anthropology, science, cybernetics, and philosophy. This aims to highlight problematics and bring up questions, experiments, and examples over methods, processes, and infrastructure.

Both vocabularies come from books I have been reading, projects I'm interested in, and also personal experiences working individually and collaboratively inside the field of art publishing.

How do I plan to make it?

Challenging the glossary structure

To challenge the idea of the glossary itself, I plan to unpack its structure and recognize which aspects of it are useful and which ones would be interesting to experiment with. It is interesting to me to explore what is beyond the definition of a word regarding the ontological possibilities.

Some of the questions I'm planning to reflect on in this stage of the process are:

↺ What does it mean conceptually to write down a list of terms, words, and explanations?

↺ How a vertical and closed structure of terminology can be conceived as a horizontal and open one?

↺ What is the voice of these annotations on the words, who is speaking?

↺ When constructing knowledge, how to not prioritize written language?

Glossary of Glossaries

As a HackPack that explored the glossary structure I proposed a collective workshop of making a 'glossary of glossaries' by collecting, reflecting, writing and annotating on glossaries.

{diagram} {photos}

Out-puts to have in mind:

↺. The alphabetical hierarchy

↺. Explanation beyond written Language

↺. The location of it inside a publication

↺. The power of collective & multiple interpretations

Gathering Nodes

The words of the glossary are gonna be gathered by reading, writing, surfing, drawing, conversing, and reflecting on my own practice as an artist and publisher, but also in close collaboration with my publishing partner, Maria Paris.

So far, I have the glossary just as a list of words, and some of them have already an annotation. The idea is to start annotating on them and then do an exercise of filtering. I still don't know how many are they going to be and how it's going to be the style of its annotations. I'm working on it.

{show the markdown}

For the technical side, the workflow for gathering the material is using markdown, etherpad, pandoc, html and css. Concretely, I'm writing down all the words on a etherpad using markdown language and converting them into html using a python script that calls the markdown file via API and process is it with the library pandoc. This creates a website that is styled using css.

One of the intentions of the project is to start creating the glossary in a way that lets me manipulate and transform easily into different materials and mediums. That is why I'm using the web-to-print flow to be able to experiment with the words in a hybrid way.

{show the website}

Weaving threads

As an exercise of making this project a tool for creation. I'm planning to 'thread'(make connections) some nodes of the system to suggest routes over it. That would give me the opportunity to experiment and give concrete outcomes out of it. Not to prove a sort of modularity, but to entangle the multiplicity of it, being able to ground it down by giving reasons, materials, and ideas for the actual publishing practice.

These threads are attempts to activate the glossary as a manifesto.

↺. How to not make this project a 'ready to use' modular structure?

Translating

Lately, I've been thinking about the possibilities to construct this glossary in different languages, more concretely English and Spanish. But, due to the limitation of time, maybe this can be something to solve at the end of the process if it's possible.

Why am I doing this?

I'm currently starting a publishing project with Maria called attempt, and we would like to state ourselves paths and resources to focus on. This project would be the continuity of an ongoing practice that I've been developing as an artist and publisher, but most of all would be the way to digest, ruminate and **circulate** the experiences, tools, and projects I was part of the last year of the course.

Therefore, this project is an attempt to state a path inside my own publishing practice, because I believe it is necessary to state our mission as contemporary actors inside the publishing realm. Although this path may be one and multiples at the same time, those have to come with the strong idea of "creating with" in a collective interconnected world.

TIME TABLE

October:

:: gathering words with its "annotation" :: 11 Oct: Aquarium 1.0: A small ecosystem of living thoughts. Workshop "Glossary of glossaries"

November:

:: ---> 29 Nov: Aquarium 2.0: A small ecosystem of living thoughts. :: ---> gathering words with its "annotation" :: ---> Prototyping / playing with them :: ---> creating the infrastructure to self-host it (temporary garden)

December:

:: ---> gathering words with its "annotation" :: ---> Prototyping / playing with them

January:

:: ---> sorting them out with a system (symbols, visuals, cross-references) :: ---> gathering words with its "annotation" :: ---> Prototyping / playing with them

February:

:: ---> gathering words with its "annotation" :: ---> filter the ones are gonna be part by showing and conversing with others :: ---> Prototyping

March:

:: ---> figure out ways to make it public making explicit the glossary itself. How to circulate it? :: ---> Try to print the project, or think about its physicality :: ---> Prototyping

April:

:: ---> Prototyping

May:

:: ---> Prototyping

June:

:: ---> 24th: Graduation Show

Who can help me and how?

Manetta and Michael can help me with the project on the technical side, but also be able to connect conceptually those technical decisions. Maria Paris, my publishing partner, is gonna be part of the process, but most of all with conceptual and editorial design. Also, I would like to talk with Florian Cramer, Pia Pol, Miriam Rasch, Paul Solellis, Silvio Larusso and Aymeric which I think can give me feedback during the process, because all of them have been part of the critical thought regarding publishing practices.

What is the Relation with my previous practice?

Since the beginning of my career, I have been involved with printed matter by being part of different scenarios of publishing such as workshops, courses, art-book fairs, fanzine festivals, and exhibitions. I have had the possibility to exhibit, co-produce and collaborate with different agents into the realm by making and exploring the possibilities of publishing on arts.

My time coursing experimental publishing has brought me new tools and ideas that expand the publishing realm and its possibilities. Based on the very basic mean of publishing, I would like to share and circulate them using this project. Rather than come up with new and unique ideas, I would like to relate my previous practice by connecting past questions with present and future ones.

What is the Relation to a larger context?

Inside the publishing practices, it is common to state your mission or intention using the form of a manifesto. The book Publishing manifestos, edited in 2018 by Miss Read in Berlin, is an example of it. I believe those are not sterile documents. I think those, by reflecting on the practice and doubting about its own existence, have the power to imagine the impact of art publishing over the world.

To have the possibility to reflect, experiment, and share possible paths of the practice, it is for me an opportunity to contribute in large to the thought around it. Maybe not with the intention of giving solutions, but by speculating on possible ways to re-imagine it.

References and Bibliography

References:

Publishing Manifestos - Miss read Berlin 2018

Glossary of Undisciplinated Design - Spector Books

Glossary of cognitive activism (for a not distant future) - Warren Neidich

27.manifestos.ds -

�Book to the future: a manifesto for book liberation

Bibliography:

here and now? Explorations in urgent publishing - Insitute of Network Cultures

Soap - Fabio Morais

Post-Digitalprint - Alessandro Ludovico

Publicación Independiente como plataforma de Urgencia - Tijuana y par(en)tesis

Diffracting Diffraction: Cutting Together-Apart - Karen Barad

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