ON LOITERING and other forms of in-situ computation

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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-stock administration and real-estate interests. All of this, seem to depend on out-of-scale powers that determine the shape of neighbourhoods and cause some of their inhabitants to move out 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?

That's why loitering. This mode of being in a place allows a position from which you can both relate to the city at its micro scale and try to understand its macro scale, and for this reason has been for centuries appreciated and romanticized through different practices (flânerie, dérive, etc). Loitering inhabits the complexity of the shifting equilibriums of how public space is lived and managed. Literally, it describes hanging out in the public space, 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 there is a 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

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

Davide Tidoni is joining us.

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

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

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

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

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.