User:FLEM/Preparation thoughts..

Preparation for graduate meeting…

What have you been making?

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, disrupt common structures to create new pieces of text. I created a prototype of linguistic patterns (as rejection letters) and the impossible project website, a tool for “vernacular” translations. Another interesting input was the waving exercise: the idea of texts as generators. Plus, used the annotation system (the Annotation Compass) to gather translations (keep in mind —> prototype for annotation methods).

I also started to think about archiving methodologies and how to use archives in a more accessible way (see de appel artist work in amst) and the use of public libraries, so how people interact with books, how to connect people and books. Underlined example of translating one form of research into an activity/event.

I always tried to involve the public, to explain more than what seems like needed, and had in mind the idea that our public should understand. 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 understand.

I also like the idea of geocaching books from the bookcrossing.com idea: books that can be shared, that can move, that are not left on a shelf. This will be considered also in the development of the thesis idea. [Nomadic publication: moving from one media to the other, using different objects the publication can move through]. Never-developed interest in web-to-print tools, that could be part of the upcoming research. Interest in material objects.

In the last trimester, we worked with notation systems, annotation methods and distributive practices, which grasped my interest quite a lot. Miriam and I, for the week02release, produced an instructional piece on “how to make sound”. The editorial proposals I have been part of are also significant: week5release was about collective writing, a practice that I find deeply interesting, and I was also interested in the idea of distributive practice (produce—>share—>exchange—>perform—>edit—>produce—>share—>..go on). As well as transcription methods that feed the need of experimenting with text (see Libretto of week3). While talking about instruments and tools, I worked on the Draggable, another online tool to mess up with texts (and audio in this case). The other editorial proposal was about folder and content nesting: the activation by users is essential for the functionality of the tool we curated for this release. The result was a collective process: the result will be obtained only if others will actively participate.

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 have been taking notes throughout the year in different notebooks, made by myself. At some point, before making the one for the last trimester, 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, to make it mine. I started to reason on how, as we’ve been creating our personal tools online, we could also create our personal analogue tools. Notebooks are individual and personal objects, but they’re treated like everyone has the same need from a piece of paper. see User:FLEM/Notebook

KEYWORDS: text, translation, playfulness, the sociality of text, books, libraries, distributive practice, collectivity, text, share, tools, annotation methods, modularity, anti-standardisation, reading, writing.

What do you want to do next?

I want to start organising workshops to have a better overview of other people's needs, as well as going on with the creation of notebooks propotypes and digital prototypes. At the same time, I want to go on researching to find answers to all my questions.

What possibilities are open to you? (It is understood that making a final project is a process and things will change as you work on it).

Think concretely about what you want to make this year, how you are going to make it and why you are going to make it.

(A) Create a temporal community for temporal archives for temporal notes // Workshops (1.discuss & analyse & find solutions 2. Create together - see workshop proposal)

(B) Collection of sample notebook prototypes

(C) Hybrid/digital prototypes: online tools to create layouts, print instructions,

(D) Final exhibition of the results + final workshop

(E) The archive dilemma: what happens to notebooks when they’re full? [see diaries idea]

(F) History and development of notetaking & note-making

(G) Notetaking, learning and memory: how is this connected?

I want to work on this as I started to reason on how, as we’ve been creating our personal digital tools, we could also create our personal analogue tools. Notebooks are individual and personal objects, but they’re treated like everyone has the same need from a piece of paper. At the same time, I started to think about what happens to all the annotations that are taken through study years, how annotations are temporal memories for learning, how they are important but forgotten after use.

What material have you written (for previous presentations, descriptions of work , assignments for last year's classes, the methods of annotation you developed &c) which you can use?

I have my notebooks and my wiki where everything is written. IDK

List of questions I have:

How do you take notes?

What are the different methods?

What is kept/lost in the process of annotation (same question about translation)? Followed conversation with supi about “if I get rid of some of these pages of the notebook, how do I choose?” What is to be kept and what is to be left out? In some way, as in translation you pick one word or another because you want to give that or this meaning, also with notebooks could be the same:

How will the notebook appear after the translation?

Do you use lines or plain paper?

Do you have different notebooks for different purposes?

What to do when a notebook is finished?

Do they still have something to say? to yell out loud?

How much taking notes is involved in the process of learning?

How forms of annotation changed when passing over from the notebook to the wiki?

How to modify texts? using the object (carrier) as a movable expanding object

What is my role? I guess the mediator

When does a notebook become an interface?

List of ideas I have:

Take your notebook for a while (analysis of result of the summer - notebooks to go on with the flow, pages are constrictive, right pen/tool for the right paper, )

When do translation and publishing meet? transmission from one media to the other digital>paper>digital>paper (example of lageneral audio streamed through different media and distorted while passing through them)

Connection between writing, learning and memory

Study social and cultural influences through notetaking

Write instructions to annotate / to create notebooks (make a notebook where…etc)

Make rules to follow

Make a library of old notebooks and see what ppl can do (methods come from investigation translated to a human body)

Someone said (Brendan Howell): our collective work is having new ideas to find better alternatives to the mainstream ways that shut down every imagination chance, they offer the “best” way. Do it in a different way. ( see also reading writing interfaces by lori emerson)

For digital tool: the user could print out a basic layout of a notebook where instructions are written on so that they can orientate themselves, maybe by using different places, situations, actions that they would not normally use to access and write a notebook

Digital text visualisation methods VS notemaking

Ever-changing notebook: would solve problems of “I cannot start a new one” “what if I need old things?”

Instructional piece about making books: structures that enable other works to be produced within them, to stimulate creativity within a space

“Thus, throughout, I demonstrate how a certain thread of experimental poetry has always been engaged with questioning the media by which it is made and through which it is consumed” [Lori emerson - interfaces] —> the medium is the message (mcluhan)