User:Alessia/special issue xxiii

b o o k, b o o k, b o o k, b o o k, booookokokokoo kokok kkokokkkkkkkkkkkkkkkooooo oooooooooo bo oo ooo k o bbb.

Fracture. Crack. is crack the right sound? C r aaaaa kkkkk . B o o o o o o h, boh, bok okkkk ok? guess not.

Leigh Star, obsession, ecology

To fully capture the work of Susan Leigh Star multitudes of dedicated wikis would been required, or in-depth theses (which clearly already exist, so I swear, to myself, I won't write a thesis, please).
I approached Leigh Star's work because I wanted at all costs to read “Boundary Objects and Beyond” in its entirety. Because I was frustrated by my inability to grasp the abstraction, nothing more than smoke appeared in my mind after the first read. Not to mention my obsessive search for what ecological means and why it should be applied to the field of sociology at all.
I still miss so many pieces of this puzzle, probably of other puzzles as well.
Obviously my good intentions did not work, I read just half of the book. Reading this book felt like trying to eat a sacher cake stuffed with butter loaves, in its entirety, in the shortest time possible, while running.

Star was influenced by grounded theory, pragmatism, and symbolic interactionist sociology.
Grounded theory is the opposite of traditional deductive research where hypotheses are the starting point that are then proved or disproved, while grounded theory gathers information, data, and then the theory is developed, an inductive approach. Recently, there's been a big concern in anthropology about ethnocentrism. Grounded theory could surely help in the process of analysing anthropology from a different standpoint. I would like to mention here just how easily the work of De Martino could be linked to grounded theory, and his approach to folklore.
Symbolic interactionism is a way to view theory that studies society based on the subjectivity of the individual and the processes of human interaction, verbal/non-verbal/symbolic. All extremely cool, all extremely complex.

Leigh Star is a demystifier of science and technology, she liked connecting dots, rejecting dualism, exploring information systems (studies of how people store data, information and then distribute it) and the wonders of this damn ecology of knowledge that got me obsessed.
What I get is the concept of ecological knowledge perspective, so a perspective where everything involved is used and is part of a bigger analysis, an ecological approach is the one that includes all elements of the ecosphere, human and nonhuman, in the same bubble. What I don't get is, because this feels like the right way to do this kind of social and scientific research, what are then the alternatives? I’ll resolve this mystery at some point.

Ecology of practice echoes within this book, as a concept it refers to an interconnected network of human social activities within specific contexts, essential to organising and sustaining practices. It makes sense(?)
Star was incredibly committed to social justice, infrastructure analysis. She was not against standards and protocols but still recognised them as tools that could perpetrate violence against those who deviate from them. She spoke of infrastructure as a thing of beauty. Beauty, I see that, spiritual beauty in the way she expresses herself over all that she loves to analyse, passion is what seeps through the layers of abstraction.
Delving deeply into infrastructures led Star to uncover overlooked and invisible aspects of society, including marginalised experiences. She saw these spaces as not only sites of pain and suffering but also of immense potential and possibility, where new identities could emerge.
Work, according to Star, serves as the link between the visible and the invisible. Invisibles are routinely created in the process of theory-building, as well as in the production of classifications, standards, and organising systems of various kinds.

The concept of community of practice is central to the book. Simply put, it refers to a group of people who share common resources, experiences, and tools. However, this concept cannot be fully understood without considering the concept of boundary object.
A boundary object is a bridge, a tool to support cross functional discussion and interactions, it's the product of communication between communities of practices. This particular kind of object goes through a typical naturalisation, that process of normalisation of its presence and function. A naturalised object has lost its aura of anthropological strangeness, members of a community have forgotten the local nature of the object.
When an object becomes naturalised in more than one community of practice, its naturalisation gains incredible power, to the extent that dissent is viewed as heresy. One example of it can be the exclusion of women from membership, seen as totally normal while the hegemony of patriarchy arose.

While each of us belongs to various communities, not all of us are part of different communities of practice. Another crucial idea is the emergence of "monsters," which happens when the legitimacy of multiplicity is denied. Similarly, "borderlands" appear when two communities of practice coexist within an individual, leading to a sense of being a troubled outsider who doesn't fit neatly into one category. In a culturally intertwined world, where people have diverse memberships, the fragmentation of identity is a common but often overlooked issue. This fragmentation leads to tensions experienced by individuals, which can be managed through psychological processes such as passing, splitting, fragmenting, or adopting a nomadic approach.
The decision of whether to assimilate, return, or transcend these tensions depends on individual circumstances. Each approach carries its own difficulties.

This reminded me of a conversation that I had with a friend of mine. He told me, "We don't get a feeling of home, for us home is not as comforting as for some people. We are searching for another home without ever finding it, that's why we search for details, and knowledge that others forget about, they can return back home, we won't". That was quite enlightening, as I found out we are indeed masters of escapism. My friend and I are trying to seek peace out of this type of fragmentation by using our own curiosity, that easily mixes with a sense of asphyxiation, to our advantage. It feels like something we should heal a bit about, but not now, not in a world where it's so easy to be anywhere and still nowhere. Never feeling like at home is an exhausting situation, a floating feeling of loneliness, but at least we can be chameleons, but, that’s still our own choice, to live a mental fragmentation in this way. Community fragmentation developed in a individual is something much more complex, and not a choice.

What brought my attention to Leigh Star was her interest to poetry as well. Poetics that for her is not only about the world and the metaphors shaping it, but about making worlds and connect metaphors and truth, something nothing else can do.

triadic theory of language

thanks to Leigh Star I got to discover Walker Percy's studies, most of all his Message in a Bottle and his philosophy of language.
Walker Percy was an American novelist soaked in European existentialism. He enjoyed talking about alienation, seeking of salvation embedded in the human mind and the relationships between science, art and philosophy. In his work "Message in the Bottle," Walker Percy describes language as a triadic event, comparing it to the challenge of trying to see a mirror while standing directly in front of it. He delves into the concept of symbolic language, which is intrinsic to our ability to comprehend the world as human beings.
While exploring language's relationship to human consciousness and comparing it to other activities, we find that people's ability to manipulate language is astonishing. While the universe and its myriad complexities can typically be described as dyadic, so in a cause-and-effect relationship (A -> B), symbolic language works differently.
To Percy symbolic language must be analysed through a triadic relationship. This three-part relationship is what he calls symbolization. Symbolic language stands out in a universe where most relationships are dyadic. It's what makes humans unique, shown by the vast number of languages spoken across the globe. Moreover, our grasp of dyadic relationships depends on our understanding of triadic symbolization. This ability, which Percy calls the delta factor, from the damn greek triangle, it highlights our connection with the cosmo.
like, when you just focus on a word and it simply melt on your tongue, the meaning gets blurred, there is no more intrinsic meaning nor value to that sound you play in your mind, book book booook bbbbbbbookkkk kkkk boook oo ooooo okboo. Isn't it funny, two o, a long o, oooooooooo , lot o o o oo o o o o. It's nothing, it gets ripped, fractured in little pieces, the word is not there anymore, the book tho is still there in front of your eyes, but that interconnection, the is, is melting, so, this is the reason: the triangle gets flat. b o o k, b o o k, b o o k, b o o k, a long line is the result, as long as you can see it, to the horizon.
Consciousness involves intentionality, especially with symbolic language. This ability allows us to create and manipulate symbol-meaning relationships across various forms of communication, such as song, poetry, and literature. Language plays a pervasive role in our lives, influencing our perception and understanding of the world.
Through language, humans can represent experiences using symbols, forming a symbolic world that is different from the environment. Unlike other organisms, humans inhabit both symbolic and biological worlds (not that we can actually get proof of that?).
Our ability to conceptualise through language leads to our beloved awareness, awareness of existence and mortality. Language also enables intersubjectivity, allowing shared understanding. Symbolisation involves a relationship between a speaker and a listener, reflecting the community driven aspect of knowledge. Language transcends communication, shapes our understanding of reality.

Wittgenstein private language?

considering the word "book.", when you see or hear this word, you automatically think of the physical object. We collectively know that the sign "book" symbolises the object it signifies, though this symbol-meaning relationship a triadic approach is working.
Then, the text within a book consists of chains of signs.. Human existence is filled with signs, as we constantly use language to interpret our surroundings in a symbolic way.
We can control the influx of signs and symbols by choosing when to engage with them, like with technology or media, but as our lives get more connected the vastness of the Internet bombards us with vast amounts of information, leading us to a brain-data oversaturation effect.

Humanisation of technology

Let’s try to make the inhuman more human
Humanisation within the context of technology is a really interesting concept tied to tech humanism, a philosophical and ethical approach to technology’s role into our human-centred society.
“Humanising" is a word that directly strikes that insecurity: the fear of losing our humanity in the face of rapid technological advancement. So we must do something, something extremely powerful to ensure that humanity will be saved, so the best thing is try to change our own perception on technology.
There's a desire to make technology more relatable and understandable, as if giving it a human touch would help us maintain control over it.

Women are objects
Do you want to argue it?
Why do most virtual assistants have female voices and names?

There's a biological aspect to it: humans seem to prefer the soothing and calming tones of female voices. We're familiar with them from the womb, with our mother's voice often being the first that we perceive, that’s the first human connection there.

Female voices are often considered easier to hear and distinguish due to their higher pitches. That’s a myth, a myth that still influences our perception on the matter.
Historically, female voices have been prevalent in technological applications. From Emma Nutt, the famous telephone operator whose voice became the standard in the late 1800s, to "Sexy Sally," a voice that was tape recorded by singer Joan Elms, used in aeroplane cockpits during World War II, which was believed to be more attention-grabbing to young men.
In the 1980s, Nissan introduced a voice warnings system for their cars. This system utilised a female voice to alert drivers about various issues such as lights being on or the left door being open. Nissan named this system the "Talking Lady."
Over time, text-to-speech systems have mainly been trained on female voices due to the availability of extensive data. Why even care about collecting male voices recordings if you have so many ready made female voice recordings? Siri, Alexa, Cortana, Sophia, I feel there might be gender bias in the house of virtual assistants.
Let’s take Alexa, the developers had to activate a “disengage mode” after the AI was constantly sexually harassed, and was responding to the offences in the flirtiest way ever. Movements had to burst asking to reprogram the assistants to let them push back sexual harassment. So now Alexa will not respond flirty after being insulted, she will just say “I don’t know how to answer that”. Surely my favourite one is Cortana, that after being sexually harassed will search for the “Pussy song” video directly.
This brings to the surface the problem with programmed passivity.

Measures of perceived humanness
Femininity is injected in our own perception of caring and hosting, on serving.
Femininity as warmth, as emotions, nice caresses, cute politeness, what a great benevolent sexism.
So women are considered more human than men.
That’s nothing new.

When feminine traits are used to make objects seem more human, then maybe we could ask ourselves if by portraying women as objects or tools designed solely for fulfilling others' needs in technology, we are reinforcing the harmful notion that women are mere objects rather than individuals with their own agency. This could contribute to further objectification and dehumanisation of women in real life. At the same time, making AI objects seem more human makes them more acceptable by the public.

Is chopchop a woman??
It was very interesting to talk all together about this cultural tendency to directly associate assistive technology with femininity. So if serving is a female characteristic, then I guess chopchop could be a female? If we are getting to the humanisation of chopchop then we MUST find a way to give it a gender, OR NOT? 
I guess not, and the discussion in class seemed to be focused on the idea that a server should be nonbinary. 

Mind you as long as it is a virtual assistant it can even work, but if it is a human being, a woman let’s say, you can expect experience, fastness, but not expertise, it will never be enough. And this remains so deeply embedded in our brain that it still complex to eradicate the germ of a toxic influence that unconsciously this concept still often permeates our lives.
This conversation raises several questions, including linguistic ones, that animate the fervent global discussion, as well as new forms of grammatical gender neutrality and other form of linguistic inclusive expressions.
In Italian, a server is considered male, the artificial assistant female, a rock male, the moon female, meme is quite problematic because I say it female and people bully me because it should be male, they say. This to ask, are these linguistic issues grounded in gender prejudices as well? How much should we dig deeply to get to the roots here? It feels like a long story, but it should bother anyone, even if English is the leading language at least here at this moment, but everyone in their own brain have probably different languages as the main ones, and it is interesting to know more about all the linguistic differences that we may encounter during the analysis of issues that may be rooted dramatically in cultural differences as well.

How to build an ethical AI that doesn’t reinforce stereotypes?
AI and voice assistants, like other technologies, are increasingly embedded in our daily lives. However, there are currently no existing guidelines focused on how to humanise AI the right way, despite its growing importance in shaping human everyday interactions with technology.
It’s not just about women, it’s about any community. Let’s take the Midjourney case, if you ask to generate a terrorist then it will create a middle eastern terrorist, who knows why. AIs are still taking gender and racial disparities to the extremes.
Exactly what is happening to most of the companies that have been developing voice assistants: they still rely on female voices and/or female names, which may re-enforce the general gender cliché that women are here to serve others. If a human can be biassed, an AI could even be worse.
There are some experiments going on, after some nice media pressure. Google tried the default gender voice to its Google Assistant, that had both male and female voices included. Female voices still performed better as the algorithm was better trained. Google decided to not really engage much in the creation of a male voice assistant, as it seemed much more difficult to gain data for it, and as users still prefer female one so much. During 2017 the damn tech giant worked on Wave Net, an algorithm that helped develop more natural female and male voices to add to their assistants. Let’s acknowledge at least that Google Assistant comes now programmed with 11 different voices, even with different accents, that surely will help to make the product as inclusive as possible and pave the way for the future of virtual, more inclusive, assistants.
Still I feel it’s not the product problem we are talking about now, it just has moved from being a human society issue much naturalised to becoming a new technology problem. A problem that feels ancient and new at the same time.
We shall talk more about how gender is portrayed throughout AI, creating new industry standards.
Some researches are already going on where the sound of "female," "male," "neutral," and "nonbinary" human voices are being analysed. A research that is not freed of new biases and prejudices.
It is crucial to examine who shapes the algorithms and guidance of artificial intelligence, as the technologies are often a product of the biases and opinions of their creators. It is important to address misrepresentation as well, as the field of artificial intelligence lacks diversity, especially in terms of involvement of different communities.
references
https://review42.com/resources/voice-search-stats/
https://time.com/4011936/emma-nutt/
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/sexy-sally-aircraft-voice-based-warning-systems-history.html
https://cloud.google.com/text-to-speech/docs/voice-types
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-generative-ai-bias/

Homo Ludens, rant about play

It is always interesting to observe how play is interpreted in humans in a practical sense while in animals as an instinctual response.

We can talk about the little miniature kitchens, baby dolls to take care of, coloured plastic carpenter sets, these toys reflect a child's exploration of their future roles within society, mimicking adult behaviours and social interactions. To train oneself to be the grown-ups, to behave like the grown-ups, it is normal for that to happen, to reject that and to try to distort the game itself as just manipulation goes to failing to analyse the very heart of what it actually means to play, to what might be its real utility, which always turns out to be only social. Play is always social, and when a person plays alone it always goes to recreate situations of artificial sociality. A child who plays with a doll imagine it as alive, a man who inserts a coin into the slot machine relishes the idea that by becoming rich he will inevitably improve his life, and except in rare cases it is always about improving one's life in the eyes of others and to improve one's relationship with others.
It all sounds trivial to say, in the end as social creatures we are inclined to be like that, loneliness leads the game to become a distraction overcoming that conception of didacticism. To waste time, not to think.

Reflecting on my own understanding of playing with dolls, at 23 years old, I don't think I will play with them anymore (that's right, I would never admit it anyway). My play is pastime, with friends, to exercise sociability to the point of colliding with unsociability, or waste of time, and there I try not to fall into the trap as it is definitely part of a system that constantly reminds you how time is of the essence, it's all about money, money is important, I don't need I guess to say more, we're all in the same stifling situation. Then you try to play and make the game useful, coscently, while at an early age you are not aware of how much your playing affects your personality. I want to improve my knowledge of Dutch, to become a better person, understand people better, I play duolingo. I want to learn programming, I play mime. I create games by myself to force myself to wash dishes, get up in the morning. To block intrusive thoughts I create a thousand different games.

It is good to see how creativity itself is a coping mechanism. Could it be? Creativity seems intrinsic, we simply cannot escape it. In a world brimming with stimuli and hyperconnectivity, the sense of overwhelm amplifies. There is no end to it, it is an abyss, loneliness expands in such a world, loneliness leads to confusion, boredom. Play is the most straightforward instinctual way to evade the awareness of that abyss.

I watched a classic MrBeast's video where he locked himself in a room for a week without any stimulation from the outside world and resolved, after losing track of time, to count the grains of rice on his plate, and then at some point he stopped. There is no more utility in the game the moment there is no more stimulation to deal with.
Right now I'm reading this book, I'm reading it because I like to read, I love to analyse things, talking about it with Thijs makes the game more interesting, I'm putting myself out there trying then to describe what I've figured out, asking for his opinion, meanwhile another layer of the game is added, we're creating this messaging platform with wiki pages, I'm reading to not think, to block out the realisation maybe that this doesn't make sense anyway, all the result of a combined obsession between my and Thijs's personality. Would I be reading this book without this game? No, I would be playing other games. You never play alone even when you claim to be.

Johan Huizinga on fire

/ table ┳━┳

keywords concepts for the /table group

Infrastructure -- the framework, the foundation of a physical or organisational structure, facility or system. A bubble of elements.

Ecology/ecological relationship -- art of meticulously studying the complex web of connections that binds all the pieces of a puzzle together. Imagine a forest, with all different animals, insects, fungi: they all rely on each other in some way, it's about how everything responds to changes and differences.

Ecology of knowledge -- a interconnected network of practices, norms, technologies and power dynamics that shape how communities engage between each other, it highlight complexities and interdependency between elements and individuals within a system.

Standardisation -- creation of standards and conventions that guide individual behaviours, shaping boundaries. It can both facilitate and constrain, as it can help the creation of a common framework for coordination among different communities but when too rigid and overly controlling it can supress diversity leading to exclusion and silencing.

Boundary object -- artifact, technology or even a concept characterised by ambiguity and multiplicity of meaning, allowing different groups to interpret and adapt it according to their own needs, as well as enabling communication and collaboration between communities.

Information system -- a structured arrangement of people, processes or techologies designed to share information withing a system. It can be a boundary object, as a common platform for individuals from different backgrounds to exchange information. Unfortunately decision making power is often in the hands of those detached from a information system's use, this leads to poorly designed spaces where voices are ignored and inequalities are reinforced.

Community of practice -- a group of people that share common interest and engage in ongoing interactions, collaboration and rituals. The members of this community collectively develop a shared knowledge and provide a social context to learn, innovate, negotiate standards. Hierarchy is not needed or wanted, nor a formal affiliation (that is not a community of practice, but a cult😬).

Naturalisation -- a process by which a certain practice becomes accepted as taken for granted within a society (you do expect to have always a great internet connection, anywhere). It occurs when social constructs are deeply embedded in cultural norms and they are not even questioned nor criticaly examined anymore.

Monster -- a site of tension, ambiguity, anomaly that challenges the established social order. A moster doesn't fit, emerges unexpectedly shedding light on toxic dynamics of power and on the invisible suffering of those who inhabits the border(land)s, the "other".

Borderland -- a space where categories and social groups overlap and intersect, it's a liminal space, a blurred line, where individuals and groups challenge conventions and create hybrid forms of identity, knowledge and practices.

Residual category -- a products of the biases inherent in any classification systems. A leftover space that pops up after more prominents categories have been established. Does it Sound sad? No! It's still a wonderful site of contestation and negotiation, a space that can be used by individuals and groups to reshape and accomodate diverse perspectives and experiences.

Collateral damage -- overlooked harm to certain groups withing a society caused as a result of standards, classification, policies, actions, that include marginalisation, exclusion, reinforcing of already existing inequalities.

Cyborg -- the boundaries between humans and machines get blurred, a metaphorical figure arises that dissolute the traditional roles of borders between techology, nature and culture. No more binary opposition, everything is interconnected, hybrid, ecological.

Marginality -- the status of living at the border of a dominant social, cultural or economical structure. It can manifests in limited access to resources and opportunities. It's the way in which certain groups' perspective is marginalised and dismissed from mainstream institution and narratives.

Feminist/ecological methodological approach? -- interdisciplinary approach, that involves a combination of research methods and analysis.

/ Loading: feminist server.../ documentation

A card-browser game!

Get a card, type the command in the browser. Receive an interpretation of its function, a connected feminist concept and instructions to execute. Serve and be served as you turn into a feminist server yourself by playing and interacting with the cards both online or one-on-one in the space.

Central to the project is the analogy between software and the material world. This allows for an exploration of the interaction between online and offline environments, and making conscious how this interaction shapes us.
The performative and educational elements are the means of this exploration, as the game invites actions in the physical space.

Through self-reflective and relational qualities, it calls upon the feminist method and literature. A reconsideration of words with a set meaning will occur while playing. The player(s) will get acquainted with important computational terms and commands, which enable associations extending beyond the terminal, into the social and eventually the personal spheres.

Interact with the browser part of the game:
Check: https://hub.xpub.nl/chopchop/si-23-website-table/

Our project

physical space:
Card decks
Thermal printer
Screen with browser game (+ mouse + keyboard)

technical space:
Browser game on chopchop (xpub1 server)
Chopchop connected to printer

content space:
Cards with command and description
Browser command line and players receiving commands
Text adding informational layer behind cards (in browser? printed?)
Instructions/documentation on how to play

Meeting - Feedback:
How much guidance do people need?
How long do they have to play/ make sure what the goal of the station is?
Where is the explaination/introduction to the station, how is it displayed?



Texts explored

Star, S.L. (1994) Misplaced Concretism and Concrete Situations: Feminism, Method, and Information Technology. In: Bowker, G. et al. (eds) Boundary objects and beyond: working with Leigh Star. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press (Infrastructures series)
Feminist Server Manifesto https://areyoubeingserved.constantvzw.org/Summit_afterlife.xhtml

[ k i l l ] ━━━━━━━━━━━ The necessity of the end

[ z o m b i e ] ━━━━━━━━ An empty, wandering hull

[ d e m o n ] ━━━━━━━━━━ Invisible and invincible

[ s e r v e r ] ━━━━━━━ A wish is no one's command

[ p a r e n t ] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Every creator

[ c l i e n t ] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Asking is an art

[ n i c e ] ━━━━━━━ Sometimes you just shouldn't be

[ g h o s t ] ━━━━━ In case the real thing goes missing

[ i n t e r r u p t ] ━ Sometimes you can't avoid being rude

[ e c h o ] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Just checking

[ a l i a s ] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Making it short

[ l e s s ] ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sometimes it's more

[ t a i l ] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The latest gossip

[ t o u c h ] ━━━━━ Changing time and making space

[ h i s t o r y ] ━━━━━━━━━━━ It is often repeated

[ u n a m e ] ━━━━━ Sometimes you just have to know

[ w h i c h ] ━━━ The right question leads to the right path

[ s h r e d ] ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Like it never existed

[ k i l l ] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Define a negative thought and ask it to stop

[ z o m b i e ] ━━━━━━━━ Think of a past event that still takes up space in your mind

[ d e m o n ] ━━━━━━━━━ Think of all the unconscious processes that run your body

[ s e r v e r ] ━━━━━━ Give what someone asks for only when they use the right words

[ g h o s t ] ━━━━━━ Give something that represents you to someone you care about

[ p a r e n t ] ━ Formulate an idea and let it spread. Congratulations, you are a parent now

[ i n t e r r u p t ] ━ Distract someone for a second and notice how this affects their actions

[ c l i e n t ] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Go to the kitchen and ask for food

[ n i c e ] ━━━━ When you're asked to do something, first do something more important

[ e c h o ] ━━━━━━━━━━━ Choose a sentence you hear in the room and repeat it

[ a l i a s ] ━━━━━━━ Choose one of your complex thoughts and give it a simple name

[ l e s s ] ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Take a snack, break it in smaller bites and eat it slowly

[ t a i l ] ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Ask a friend what they were doing just a moment ago

[ t o u c h ] ━━━━━━━━━ Go to the shelves. Don't touch anything but mark the time

[ h i s t o r y ] ━━ Go to the kitchen and make a (mental) list of the latest clients' requests

[ u n a m e ] ━━━━━━━━━━━ Ask someone to describe themselves in a few words

[ w h i ch ] ━━ Take a look at the info you received at the entrance and locate the shelves

[ s h r e d ] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Rip this paper until no one can read it

Loading: Feminist Server...
is part of Special Issue 23, an Xpub projects
for the academic year 2023/24.
Alessia, Anita, Bernadette and Maria
worked on this, yes! ৻( •̀ ᗜ •́ ৻)

For further details, please visit the course website https://xpub.nl/

Pen plotting

-etching through pen plotting
-p5js molds + mimaki printer + zinc over copper
-pen plotting as community building element
to try: mezzotint mimaki then pen plotter, acquating spray paint/acrylic, screen printing on plastic sheets, dry point/atoxic acquaforte

What even is a pen plotter???

by Alessia

Personal essay evolved after a sudden presentation about pen plotting to some unsuspecting friends (> their random comments here included), inspired by zulip messages and insomnia

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

What even is a pen plotter?

> Can I say that it sounds funny as a name? plotter
> Oh wait I saw them on tiktok there are plenty of videos of these m a c h i n e r i e s
> Yes, kinda trending

They are iconic devices, magical pioneers of digital graphic reproduction, machines that left an indelible mark in the history of visual art + computer graphics and in each of our hearts. Even if sadly pen plotters were replaced by large format inkjet printers, we are now experiencing a new renaissance for them, even outside the xpub bubble. With such nostalgic appeal they attract even more. Artists from all over the world acclaim them again as their new favourite tools, to be safeguarded, cherished, resurrected.

Modern digital plotters, which are still in use today, evolved from analog XY writer plotters that operated along two axes of motion. They were the most efficient way to draw vector graphics, rather than raster images, making them ideal for tasks like drafting blueprints, graphing data, and producing large-format maps.

> I don’t understand, weren't you doing things with the radio?
> pen plotters look even scarier than computers I swear

Now some historical facts! 🖼

One of the earliest plotters was Konrad Zuse's Graphomat Z64 in 1958, a punch card controlled plotter, driven by two gears. Frieder Nake, THE Algorist (along with Vera Molnar, Georg Nees, A. Michael Noll, and Manfred Mohr) used this machine, for which he developed a software for his experimentations. One of the first mechanical and commercial plotters was the CalComp 565, from 1966, a drum plotter that worked by placing the paper over a roller that moved the paper back and forth along the X axis and the pen moved back and forth along the Y axis.

> luckily you are showing images I wouldn’t understand a thing without them
> damn diabolic m a c h i n e r i e s

The progress of plotter technology was a key part for the development of CAD (Computer Aided-Design, software used by designers and engineers to create detailed digital drawings and models of objects or structures). The Computervision's Interact I plotter, was designed to be a combination of a digitiser and a plotter, serving as an interactive terminal. Users could copy a sketch, see it on a screen, edit it, and then print out the changes.
The great change for pen plotters arrived with the crafting of the flatbed plotter. As the name suggests, the surface to be drawn on was laid out flat, different from before, as paper was rolled up on a drum. HP was the big guy for commercial plotters. HP's first plotter was the 9125A flatbed plotter, introduced in 1968. Again HP, the HP 7470, born in the 80s, introduced the grit wheel mechanism: rollers pressing at opposite edges of the sheet to control movement. The pen is mounted on a carriage that moves back and forth in a line between the grit wheels. Plotters were also used in Create-A-Card kiosks, to make little postcards, that were available for a while in supermarkets. They used the HP 7475A six-pen plotter.

The most used modern pen plotters at the moment are the one from AXidraw by Evil Mad Scientist Labs, their firmware is open source: https://github.com/evil-mad/axidraw.

> I’ll still use my hp printer
> I don’t understand how this is connected to the radio

I am done, done, let's speak about art c’mooonn.
Firstly, pen plotter art: is it really art?
There isn’t much about plotter art in general, in books or on the internet. Grouping people together is always a way to ghettoise them, what does it even mean to be a pen plotter artist? Is there any kind of typical philosophy that is embedded to practising art through this kind of machine in particular? Each artist brings their unique perspective and creative approach to the intersection of art and technology. Art romantically is creativity, but in the real world art is money. We saw this in the fascinating rise of NTF that stained pen plotter art as well :)  

> NFTs are still a thing?

I got to discover (from an Interview with Frieder Nake by ‍Mark Amerika) that THE algorists, even if they were programmers, still had people writing codes for them. This made me smile, remembering all those great personalities, those artists whose names are printed into history books, whose real artistic production is reduced to the bone, maybe even less. Who knows how many works of art have been created with the creator, to whom these works are attributed, moving their brilliant hand just to sign them, while studio cadets sweated over fresh canvases? Or in this case: over keyboards.

> uuh we are getting into the social critique part now. spicy.
> like my internship you mean. I feel this.
> Idk, maybe they were paid this time, not enslaved like renaissance boys

I had prepared a very long list of names, all contemporary artists, as I wanted to find mainly artists that are still involved in the art scene, who have jumped from the bank of computer science to the bank of visual art, falling into exhibitions, museums, glossy newspapers superficial interviews. I don’t really want to show it anymore (hahaha no it's here actually list pen plotter artists ). It is a very different world from our studio and perhaps from those who see pen plotters in a more sincere, curious, way of rediscovering forgotten tools. I also wonder how much my own gaze is directed at the art industry more than at the creative act itself, there would be too much to say. I will not tell you about this whole list, just some hints.

> but can the plotter do other stuff other than plotting?
> maybe make food? Sing a song?
> what’s the point of making something do what it is expected to do?

Generative art! Talking about pen plotter art without mentioning computer and generative art is impossible. Pen plotters undeniably played an important role in the evolution of both of these art movements, as they were among the earliest digital tools available to mathematicians, scientists, and programmers to push that immaterial boundary between art and science.

Mafred Mohr, Vera Molnar Frieder Nake, George Ness, Herbert W. Franke, are all great science-computer-artists that experimented with generative art and visualised their ideas through pen plotting. It’s interesting to see how pen plotting built a bridge between new digital computer technologies and traditional printmaking techniques. I am speaking about dirty hands, acids, and staining inks that were at some point being linked to the cold grey plastic reality of computer hardwares. A whole new world.

Pen plotters, as computers, weren’t really naturalised, common to have around, Mohr had to use the ones from the Paris Institut Météorologique. I imagine what the guys there would have thought about this person using their machinery, for art??? Other remarkable pioneers of pen plotter art still included under the generative art umbrella are: Harold Cohen, Mark Wilson, Peter Beyls, Roman Verostko, Jean-Pierre Hébert, Casey Reas.

A lot of exhibitions, a lot of thirst for recognition. I get the feeling that all these artists have only attempted to create randomness and chaos, without actually creating it. Some sort of extreme quest of control over that human desire for chaotic disorder. Randomness by computer is still perceived as the total antithesis of randomness by humans, but is this really so? it's not that we really know where randomness originates and develops in the human mind, it might be more logical than we think.

> that’s too philosophical, show us some weird things

Artists that use pen plotters as mediums, that are mainly involved in the generative art movement, explore human-machine interactions (Sougwen Chun), even seeing them even as conversational (LIA), focusing on dynamic-fluid-esoteric forms and structures to get over the feeling of rigidity and inflexibility of the pen plotter involvement (Alida Sun). They let plotters be performative devices and storyteller, creating spaces that aim to even just enhance human interactions (Jürg Lehni-Jessica In), creating illusory fake organic structures, playing between harmony and chaos (Tyler Hobbs - Zancan), self-building frankenstein punk machines with paintball guns (Antigoon), working on data visualisation and sound design (Peco). There are so many artists out there that are involved in the pen plotter art, but, if I may, in a quite superficial way. The machine is the machine and it will draw the generated artwork. But isn’t there something more?

It’s somehow sad that plotters have been regarded merely as tools, peripheral tools. Yet, how wonderful the moment when a symbiotic relationship is built between the materials involved and the human action of letting the machine be a companion more than a device. Boundaries blur, and the machine assumes a quasi-autonomous presence in the artistic process. A dynamic of interplay, welcoming complexities and material vulnerabilities that working with this kind of machines introduces. Maybe even embracing the unexpected as a sort of performative act. Could this be seen as fetishization? Probably.

Anyway, it was Nake who was one of the first to sign his works with NAKE/ER56/Z64, acknowledging the computer system and plotter as integral collaborators in his artworks. The discussion about the legitimacy of recognizing hardware/software as authors, giving them a characteristic of humanity, is still very much open, now even more so than before. If it is the machine that produces the artwork, does that make it the only legitimate author?
It seems that James Pyle, from CalComp, thought so, when he held an international art competition in which plotters had to be the main tools used. Most of the art pieces didn’t have any attribution to the human artist involved in the creation of the pieces, just to CalComp :)




There is something mystical, enigmatic, about how pen plotting challenges what is the conventional notion of what drawing as an act is.
Drawing is viewed as an inherently human process, we are quite proud of it. Art history is based on that epic moment when some person decided to draw scenes of hunting and drugged shaman dances inside caves. We glorify the act of visual creation. The endlessly repeating of that act by the plotter alters that sense of sacredness that arises from the artist's personal touch, it makes some existential insecurities emerge.
Let’s embrace this! Let’s embrace a vision of the plotter as a machine that disrupts, add that transgressive element into the artistic process that is so much needed.

Is it still ok to go on? Usually, it is the end part, in a presentation of this type, that tries to be all nice and pompous and glossy. It is the grand finale, so get to the end.
After having conversations about pen plotting with both Thijs and Manetta, who I thank deeply, I would say that I may have gotten a little bit entangled in my typical flat bullet point fine art analysis, like I would speak about established art movements (even if art is not established at all, movements don’t even exist in the real sense of things). I would say xpub experimentations got over my head while I was exploring all those polished generative art online exhibitions. I should speak more about what pen plotting is for us as a community of students, and what might be. Indeed, pen plotting has been a great community tool shaping for us. It became the glue that let us stick together more in the studio and let us know more about each other, how cheesy!
As we are all from different backgrounds, we let machines be our companions in what is our own personal digging into experimental publishing, media archeology, skill building, tool making, performing acts, all done collectively. A plotter culture is emerging, it surely is.
For so long, I tried to destroy the wall between me and pen plotting as a technical tool, and only thanks to the skills and energy of my classmates did I succeed partially. Perhaps my role is to silently rant, more or less, about the techno-philosophical-exciting aspects of (lovely) metal boxes.

As I believe our xpub bubble is a bubble but still influenced by the outside world, I am looking forward to connecting with other bubbles, conquering the world together or something. There must be life out there!



(*ˊᗜˋ*)/ Thanks to:
Stefano, Edoardo, Thijs, Manetta

Reference Links:
https://www.hpmuseum.net/exhibit.php?class=4&cat=24
https://www.rightclicksave.com/article/an-interview-with-frieder-nake
https://computerhistory.org/
https://monoskop.org/images/7/7b/Noll_A_Michael_1967_The_digital_computer_as_a_creative_medium.pdf
https://ethw.org/First-Hand:Howard_Wise_Gallery_Show_of_Digital_Art_and_Patterns_(1965):_A_50th_Anniversary_Memoir (Computer Program for Artists: ART 1 Katherine Nash, Richard H. Williams)

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1572264
https://www.shapr3d.com/history-of-cad/computervision
https://medium.com/nightingale/pen-plotters-are-the-perfect-tool-for-data-storytelling-b05c71ceadd5
https://www.generativehut.com/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16495236

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