ON LOITERING and other forms of in-situ computation
loiter (v.)
early 15c., "idle one's time, dawdle over work;" perhaps from or akin to Middle Dutch loteren "be loose or erratic, shake, totter" like a loose tooth or a sail in a storm; in modern Dutch, leuteren "to delay, linger, loiter over one's work".
A proposal to observe and engage with the city in its shifting technological and social contexts, by spending time in public and semi-private spaces, finding ways to execute digital and performative scripts, encountering inhabitants and other forms of life, interacting with ubiquitous computing in the wild.
Context
The right to what city?
It is around us and under our foots, plenty of networks are growing and changing at the street level, from critical state run infrastructures, to lightweight parasitical on-demand networks such as electric scooters. In the contemporary city, spectacular investment-driven discourses like the one of smart city encounter the long-term material economy of housing corporations and real-estate interests. All of these issues seem to depend on out-of-scale powers that determine the shape of neighbourhoods and cause some of their inhabitants to be displaced towards the outskirts, making the city a place that is affordable to live in for less and less people. At the micro level, though, things are still possible, housing struggles are still fought and sometimes won, networks and power dynamics can be engaged with and subverted, and, most importantly, the current lively and livable aspect of cities can be enjoyed by many different people and communities.
Loitering?
To approach all of the above, loitering comes in as a mode of being in a place that allows a position from which you can both relate to the city at its micro scale as well as try to understand its macro scale. It is also for this reason that the practice of idling in public spaces has been appreciated and romanticized for at least two centuries through different practices such as the flânerie or the dérive. Loitering inhabits the complexity of the shifting equilibrium of how public space is lived and managed. Literally, it describes just hanging out without a purpose, but under a negative light, signaling that it is not a neutral practice, but a strangely conflictual one. By definition, there is nothing wrong with loitering in itself (apart from a general sense of inefficiency) but it is often described as a prelude to unwanted behaviors: vandalism, noise, drug use, small crime, etc. Those fears combine well with the fact that from the point of view of real-estate developers this practice is not listed in the limited range of behaviours that squares and street corners should be dedicated to: shopping, consuming, playing with children, sightseeing or other tourist activites, walking dogs. There is no category that is allowed to idle without a purpose, except maybe the one of retired and older people, but only as long as they do not also sleep in the streets.
In practice?
The plan for this trimester is to find appropriate spots to loiter in and around Rotterdam, spend some time in company of its networks and its inhabitants, and find suitable ways to develop, execute and alter scripts for the public space. Many of us today have computers in our pockets most of the time, and the public space is full with different networks and other forms of computation, too. This coming three months will be dedicated to explore together the possibilities to compute and publish while being outdoors.
People
This Issue is guest edited by Martino Morandi with contributions by Alex Zakkas, Aggeliki Diakrousi, maxigas, Louisa Teichmann, Davide Tidoni, Imane B. K.
Schedule
Week 1
Monday April 8th
- 11:00 - 16:00: KICK-OFF SI-24, meeting in the large WH4.316??
Tuesday 9. April 2024 - Prototyping - 10:00 - 17:00
- Prototyping with Joseph and Louisa
- Microcontroller 101 - session 1
Wednesday 10. April 2024 - Methods - 11:00 - 17:00
- Kick-off: Methods class with Steve, Lídia and Marloes
- Project that May or May not be Made (PMoMM) - https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/RapidPrototypeandProject_that_May
- Personal Reader
- Rapid Prototypes
Week 2
Monday April 15th
Alex Zakkas is joining us.
Tuesday 16. April 2024 - Prototyping - 10:00 - 17:00
- Prototyping with Joseph and Louisa
- Microcontroller 101 - session 2
Wednesday 17. April 2024 - Methods - 11:00 - 17:00
- Methods class with Steve
Week 3
Monday April 22th
Louisa is joining!
Tuesday 23. April 2024 - Prototyping - 10:00 - 17:00
- Prototyping with Joseph and Louisa
- Microcontroller 101 - session 3
Wednesday 24. April 2024 - Methods - 11:00 - 17:00
- Methods class with Lídia
Week 4
☀️ May Holiday! ☀️
Week 5
Monday May 6th
Aggeliki Diakrousi is joining us.
Tuesday 7. May 2024 - Prototyping - 10:00 - 17:00
- Prototyping with Louisa
Wednesday 8 May 2024 - Methods - 11:00 - 17:00
- Methods class with Lídia
Week 6
Monday May 13th 17:00-23:00
Davide Tidoni is joining us.
Following up on our previous focus on sound, we turn for this session from the perspectives of passive listeners and listened subjects, to the ones of active makers of noises, and of attentive listeners of the sound-spaces that surround us. By carefully listening, we shift into a particular mode of openness to space, another way to relate to our surroundings. This session will take place later in the day, so to give us the chance to enjoy together the shift of places to the more quiet time of the day, and to pay attention to the different paradigms and regimes that switch on as the sky gets dark.
Tuesday 14. May 2024 - Prototyping - 10:00 - 17:00
- Prototyping with Joseph
Wednesday 15 May 2024 - Methods - 11:00 - 17:00
- Methods class with Steve
Week 7
Monday May 20th is Holiday
Tuesday 21. May 2024 - Prototyping - 10:00 - 17:00
- Prototyping with Louisa
Wednesday 22 May 2024 - Methods - 11:00 - 17:00
- Methods class with Lídia
Week 8
Monday May 27th
maxigas is joining us.
Tuesday 28. May 2024 - Prototyping - 10:00 - 17:00
- Prototyping with Joseph
Wednesday 29 May 2024 - Methods - 11:00 - 17:00
- Methods class with Steve
Week 9
Monday June 3th
Tuesday 4.June 2024 - Prototyping - 10:00 - 17:00
- Prototyping with Louisa
Wednesday 5 June 2024 - Methods - 11:00 - 17:00
- Methods class with Lídia
Week 10
Monday June 10th
Imane B. K. is joining us.
Tuesday 11. June 2024 - Prototyping - 10:00 - 17:00
- Prototyping with Joseph
Wednesday 12 June 2024 - Methods - 11:00 - 17:00
- Methods class with Steve
Week 11
Monday June 17th
Tuesday 18. June 2024 - Prototyping - 10:00 - 17:00
- Prototyping with Louisa
Wednesday 19 June 2024 - Methods - 11:00 - 17:00
- Methods class with Lídia
Week 12
Monday June 24th
Tuesday June 25th
- 10-11: 1 hour debrief (tbd)
- 11-17: Prototyping with Joseph & Louisa
Wednesday 26 June 2024 - Methods - 11:00 - 17:00
- Methods class with Steve and Lídia
Thursday June 27th
- Opening Grad Show @ Worm Slash Gallery, possibility for (small) presentation of project.