°.*.°.*.°Special Issue 23°.*.°.*.°
Special Issue 23 [or Quilting Infrastructures] is the second SI we will be working on. Up until now, we have been working with quilting and servers, but I am writing this in the third week [or week 5 according to the SI page]. During this special issue I want to try being better with documenting, as in the last one I often forgot to keep record of what I worked on [maybe because we were taking about archiving so much i forgot to do it?].
‧₊˚⊹ ˖Week 1˖ ⊹˚₊‧
Kicking off with a quilted lunch + getting to know better what we will work on this special issue. Logging into chop chop after a while. I brought bread with oil and tomatoes to the lunch, they can be quilted together nicely, matching at the seams.
Creating the Webquilt on chopchop, working on our userpages with HTML and CSS. I tried experimenting with CSS animations and I managed to make chipchip [the bird] bounce around my chopchop user page.
Getting assigned into our ‧₊˚⊹ ˖ editorial teams˖ ⊹˚₊‧ during methods. For now, we are team 3. Reading about [space] in Keywords for radicals, annotating and discussing the text collectively.
In the weekend I worked more on my userpage, trying to use a bit of javascript to make more animations.
‧₊˚⊹ ˖Week 2˖ ⊹˚₊‧
Talks about the Cloud, data centers and the energetic and environmental impact of computers/machines. Setting up servers with Joseph during prototyping, we used some computers from school and learned how to do this for ourselves at home. We installed etherpad successfully.
Install debian [linux based server] on a usb [that should be empty] by:
$sudo add if=debian-12.40-amd64-netinst.i50 $of=/dev/sdc bs=10MB
Plug the usb into the computer and turn it on while holding the option key --> boot menu will come up [follow those instructions]
In the weekend I tried to repeat this at home on an old computer but I failed for now :( I will try again next weekend cause I really want to set this up for myself.
Reading more on the cloud during methods, we chose a name for our editorial team [QUILT INC] and kept quilting the wordquilt.
‧₊˚⊹ ˖Week 3˖ ⊹˚₊‧
Talking about feminist servers, reading and discussing feminist server manifesto and Trans*feminist server wishlist. Learning more about their origin and feminist server summit. Looking into Syster Server with a smaller group. Playing a introduction to the terminal game and then creating ‧₊˚⊹ ˖aliases˖ ⊹˚₊‧ for terminal commands.
I suggested:
alias doeidoei= 'exit'
to be kinder to our servers and say a nice goodbye when leaving. Maybe not super useful, but I like it. I had a lot of fun doing this exercise. At the checkout, I look forward to talk about games next week.
Playing with ImageMagick following a notebook on Jupyter. In the weekend I want to experiment more with it, so I downloaded it in my computer as well to be able to work locally with it. Specifically I want to implement more of the tile command in my userpage.
Discussing 'Torn at the seams: vernacular approaches to teaching with computational tools', processing and ImageMagick. In the evening the first of ˖ ⊹˚₊‧ ݁JavaScript Club˖ ⊹˚₊‧ in the studio. We looked at examples and resources.
Choosing keywords from 'Misplaced Concretism and Concrete Situations'. Working on marginality and naturalization of objects.
‧₊˚⊹ ˖Week 4˖ ⊹˚₊‧
Talks about serving as a cultural practice, what makes a good host? In my culture, you are expected to take care of the people you host, put in a lot of time and effort to become a good host. I found it quite inspiring to start thinking about this, it allowed me to place myself closer to the idea of hosting, serving etc by comparing it to something i am used to doing (and like doing) since i was a kid We made a (murder)game on chopchop, where a loose killer tries to plant files in the beloved server in the afternoon.
Making paint on browser!! Coding in Javascript, making a web canvas, brushes and colour changing pens.
Discussing codes of conduct and starting to create our own for QUILT Inc. What should be included in a CoC? We talk about possible protocols for reading and analyzing texts. I would really prefer to be able to read them beforehand at home as if takes me a while to understand them.
‧₊˚⊹ ˖Week 5˖ ⊹˚₊‧
We started by playing each others games from last week (the murdergame). Using the Coc to make some decisions about activities during the SI classes on Monday (by show of hands). In the afternoon, we quilted using fabrics while discussing what we would like to explore further for the SI. I really enjoyed doing something manual while talking, as I felt it took some pressure off, and allowed me to explore my thoughts better somehow? We decide to talk about it more on Wednesday.
Intro to python and making text adventure games. First playing, then making in smaller groups. Working with Riviera and Mania on this ‧₊˚⊹ ˖Pad˖ ⊹˚₊‧. First, we tried to sketch out on paper how our game was going to work, as we wanted to create a non-linear game, and then moving on to the code. You can play the game on chopchop if you want! Find it at
$ python3 <(curl -s https://pad.xpub.nl/p/si23-prototyping-wifi/export/txt)
Very productive discussions about what we each would like to work on for the SI. First, we individually wrote in this ‧₊˚⊹ ˖Pad˖ ⊹˚₊‧, read everything over, and tried to identify some common threads.