User:Thijshijsijsjss/Notes on SI23
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...
but also
and
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!
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.
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:
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:
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. Runcat README.md - A git repo containing all game files can be found here
- A dedicated project page can be found here
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.
Pen Plotting Party. photo gallery
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.
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
Not 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
/Varia
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? validation? used to? did(n't) I want to challenge myself with a bottom-up approach? How did that go? How does it feel to have encouraged this other approach?) I had to fetch my charger in the break. No problem! I live 5 minutes away. 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.
OSP Pen Plotting collab
Tuesday
Licenses, talks, talking with Rosa and Manetta and Joseph
Wednesday / developing idea
Outside. Morning session 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 breakthroughs.
Friday meeting Senka.
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 mine to invite others into. It is 03:57 and I have convinced myself to remove their name from this entry. It is 04:07 and I've convinced myself otherwise.
- 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.
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 innter 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
Volume Plotting
A website with the volume to HPGL functionalities that I made during zinecamp.
Random Page
Birthday Countdown
Velourian Library
^ click the header for a link to the velourian library
Project Pages
An index of selected project pages referenced on this page: