User:Miriam

About

𝑀𝓎 𝓁𝒾𝒻𝑒'𝓈 𝒶 𝒿𝑜𝓀𝑒

I have a weird obsession with pop-culture and entertainment, advertising strategies, internet humour, reenactment, as well as infiltrating (hacking) systems.

Artistic statement

Miriam Schöb is an expert in humour.

Miriam Schöb is Miriam Schöb but Miriam Schöb is also an Alter Ego.

Miriam Schöb can be everything and everywhere.

Miriam Schöb thinks of public spaces as stages.

Miriam Schöb infiltrates already existing systems, spaces, concepts, supermarkets, federal offices and objects.

Action, baby.

Miriam Schöb doesn‘t separate the object from the subject anymore but she separates her trash.

Miriam Schöb is the judge when action and reaction collide.

Miriam Schöb imperceptibly invades the social daily life.

Brain vandalism.

Miriam Schöb is the interface between art, cabaret, media, children falling over on streets and timetable changes of public transport.

Miriam Schöb is social policy.

Miriam Schöb loses control.

Miriam Schöb stages, produces and manages.

Miriam Schöb is a machine.

Second year

GRS

Graduate Seminar 2022-2023

First session

https://pad.xpub.nl/p/groupdiscussion

Second session

Working on the proposal draft. Feedback from group discussion:

• Mention comedy background, xpubmemes and art interventions
• Is it a graduation project or sth before graduation?
• The idea is there but it's missing the why
• What is it about memes that speak to me?
• There must be sth interesting in the context change (taking sth out of a context, change it, place it back), elaborate.
• Elaborate on collective humour
• Relation to a larger context: This can also be works that inspire me
• References: Small descriptions of references and how they are related to your practice
• If you don't know how to answer a question, write down what steps you will take to reach knowing.
• Upload draft proposal here: https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/Graduate_Seminar_2022-2023

Third session

Miri's XPUB2 proposal draft

Project proposal feedback from Steve and Marloes:

"Good points: The proposal is strong on previous practice and also strong on relation to a larger context and your bibliography makes a good start.

Room for improvement: Start with some jokes; you need to make your practice apparent in the proposal from the start by showing some (humorous) experiments which demonstrate the methods you will adopt for your final project. One concrete example of translating mimetic behaviour into public space would be useful. Then the assessors have a good idea of what you want to do.

Your last paragraph: how memes can help political participation, is very strong. This needs to be brought to the front of the text (and unpacked some more) because this seems like a strong motivation that you can build on..

Planning needs to be more specific: think about what steps that need to taken and then place those steps in order.

Who can help we suggest: Benjamin Gaulon: worked with tactical media and drop lifting projects."

Fourth session

Miri's XPUB2 thesis outline

Feedback/input Lidia:

Thesis outline:

missing references, which theories, give some context already always reference directly

formulate some research questions and connect them until i find one also can make secondary questions

format needs to be visible in the outline

read about situationist internationalists psychogeography (concept of the situationists)

introduction, what are you gonna say conclusion, what you just said (maybe still open questions that you still have at the end)

may sound a bit made up --> take it out own experiences of the topic, make it immediately clear, when you use it, put my own voice into it

add that it's a platform to reflect on my experiments add that it's for researching for my project, so that it all makes sense, possible answers, because i might don't find answers

imaginary manifesto of what the possibilities could be

add: what is the goal of each section (chapter) what am i tryna say

is the research question the same in the proposal and the outline? add that thesis will help me finding out, how it contributes to the project research

Project proposal:

timetable: i say work on thesis but what do i mean with it what do i want in January, first draft, which part of the thesis? maybe testing out different types of interventions? idea of what the final format will be? more specific

books: sometime just read intro and conclusion

how do you plan to make it: make it more specific

breaking big tasks into smaller tasks

copy pasting from proposal to thesis outline is allowed

how: add how does project and thesis relate?

avoid words like "i like" - what do you find interesting about it? why do you like it? helps you reasoning everything

visually making a mind map with all research questions

florian cramer can help me, he works here at wdka video talk yt: meme wars, internet and the alt right

SI14: situationists

folk heroes, ned & eliza ludd (luddites), not against technology, but against automatisation maybe create my own "platform" i luther blissett (prankster)

dada fluxus technical media

geert lovink (head of institute for network culture)

public sphere vs public space public sphere: jürgen habermas

universal language: the starting of the emoji, who are we excluding, what is are notion of the universal does really everyone have access to memes? is it really universal? who claims the universality don't go deep into it but mention it

lurk could be a good platform for xpub memes

Memes for project proposal

Hackpacts

Chocomel sticker

A hackpact I did during the GRS for this project is a replication of a chocomel sticker:

Because the janitors of WDKA really dislike it when we drink beers in the studio in the evening, I quickly found a smart solution for it. I mimicked and enlarged the design of the chocomel can and made a sticker out of it so it fits on a beer can. In relation to my master project/thesis: Because of the mimicking and the possibility of putting or using it in public space, in a way, this is already a similar process as the one that memes go through, nevertheless, the part of the collective replicating is missing. I want to explore how it could be possible that other people actually take part in a non-digital meme, just how they do it on the internet.

Prototyping

M&M session

14.11.2022

Pad for my M&M session: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/mmmiri

Master project

Research on Swiss leftist meme makers

First year

XPUB memes

XPUB meme page: https://www.instagram.com/xpubmemes/

HOW COOL IS INTERNET HUMOUR? I just think it's extremely fascinating how people with different cultural, ethnical, religious, economical, etc. backgrounds from all over the world build this collective humour through looking at/responding to images, gifs, videos and text and how we learn to READ these images through repetition in a different way.

I am obsessed with memes. Sometimes I even think in memes. I want to give birth to memes. Kiss them. Hold them tight. Is this text gonna become a meme? You never know. Everything is a potential meme if you think about it.

So I started an XPUB instagram meme account.

Check out @xpubmemes on instagram for more memes! Like! Follow! Slide in my dm's! Laugh your ass off! Print out the memes! Hang them over your bed! Tell me how funny I am!

Prototyping notes

! echo hello | figlet

    _          _ _       
   | |__   ___| | | ___  
   | '_ \ / _ \ | |/ _ \ 
   | | | |  __/ | | (_) |
   |_| |_|\___|_|_|\___/ 
                     

! echo hello | toilet --metal

#             ""#    ""#          
# mm    mmm     #      #     mmm  
#"  #  #"  #    #      #    #" "# 
#   #  #""""    #      #    #   # 
#   #  "#mm"    "mm    "mm  "#m#" 

Workshop with Nor

Special Issue 16

Research phase

Methods

https://pad.xpub.nl/p/o2jT2mUjNgH0Vk1uPZLR

https://pad.xpub.nl/p/SP16_2809

https://pad.xpub.nl/p/SP16_0510_texts

https://pad.xpub.nl/p/SP16_0510

https://pad.xpub.nl/p/SP_16_0610

https://pad.xpub.nl/p/SP16_1210

https://pad.xpub.nl/p/GroupMeeting_18102021

Experiments

Here some experiments I did during the SI16 research phase...

Very important rules

Good news only

SI16 proposal: Creating a news website that gathers news from real news websites (with rss feeds) but modifies them so there are only good news. Highly cynical and satirical. Self care!

Experimenting with rss feeds

   import feedparser
   feed = feedparser.parse("http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/health/rss.xml")
   for post in feed.entries:
       print (post['title'])

BBC headlines:

   Covid-19: Uncertain winter ahead as flu circulates at same time, says Harries
   Covid-19: Two million booster jabs given in England
   I had no cancer symptoms but a smear saved my life
   Muckamore Abbey Hospital: Inquiry into alleged patient abuse begins
   'Work has been therapy for my mental health'
   Novavax volunteers offered two approved travel jabs
   Flu jab vital this winter along with Covid vaccine
   Periods and low confidence put some girls off sport
   Doctors alerted to dangerous dry scooping workout trend
   Malaria vaccine: When will it be available?
   Malaria vaccine 'will change African lives forever'
   How healthy are vegan ready meals?
   What it's like to be a nine-year-old in a vaccine clinical trial
   What is fat freezing and what are the risks?
   Covid-19: Life expectancy is down but what does this mean?
   Turkmenistan: Getting Covid in a land where no cases officially exist
   Ros Atkins on... why people are using a horse drug
   Covid: Which countries are vaccinating children and why?
   Covid-19: How a Norwich care home is preparing for autumn and winter
   What difference will jabbing young teens make?
   Covid: People are vaccinated - so why are there so many cases?
   Why bonding over the Euros appeared to increase Covid cases in men
   Covid: Which children are being vaccinated and why?
   Why you shouldn't get a second Covid jab too early
   Beta coronavirus variant: What is the risk?
   Covid rules: How can the clinically vulnerable stay safe?
   What are the rules and guidance for face masks and coverings?
   How many cases in your area?
   Covid: What do under-30s need to know about the vaccine?
   What are the Delta, Gamma, Beta and Alpha Covid variants?
   Covid: What's the 'Winter Plan' and what are the rules across the UK?
   How do we know Covid vaccines are safe?
   Coronavirus: What it does to the body
   Support bubbles: How do they work and who is in yours?
   How to get a Covid test
   All you need to know on the coronavirus
   Coronavirus: Intensive care and other key terms explained
   Coronavirus: What is the risk to men over 50?
   Coronavirus: Do face masks actually work?
   Pregnant women urged to get Covid vaccine by NHS England
   Secondary breast cancer: 'I was 32 with a 10-month-old’
   WHO recommends use of first proven malaria vaccine
   'Running could cause sudden death for people like me'
   Coronavirus: Will we go back to seeing our GPs face-to-face?

Scraping images

Scraping images from the website of Albert Heijn:

Scraping images from the subreddit r/catsareassholes:

   from urllib.request import urlopen
   import html5lib
   from IPython.display import Image, display
   from xml.etree import ElementTree as ET
   url = "website link"
   html = urlopen(url).read()
   document = html5lib.parse(html, namespaceHTMLElements=False)
   for img in document.findall(".//img"):
       print (ET.tostring(img).decode())
       alt = img.attrib.get("alt")
       src = img.attrib.get("src")
       print (alt, src)
   for img in document.findall(".//img"):
       # print (ET.tostring(img).decode())
       src = img.attrib.get("src")
       srcset = img.attrib.get("srcset")
       alt = img.attrib.get("alt")
       if alt and not src.startswith("data:"):
           if srcset:
               bigsrc = srcset.split()[-2]
               print ("HAVE BIGSRC!")
               print (alt)
               display(Image(url=bigsrc))
               print ()
           else:
               print ("NO BIGSRC")
               print (alt)
               display(Image(url=src))
               print()

Scraping images from the piet zwart website:

Rejection

During the first special issue, a lot of people (including me) didn't have a long-term apartment to live in, yet. While talking about vernacular language, I constantly had to think of the language that was used in the rejection messages that I got daily stating that I didn't get the room/apartment that I was hoping to get. Since we were all experiencing the same thing, I thought that we maybe could work with the topic of rejection. One idea I had was to play around with these texts, make postcards out of it and send them to Mark Rutte (since he's (among other people) responsible for the housing crisis).

Video subtitles

While experimenting with rss feeds and scraping images, I got the idea of extracting auto-generated subtitles from Youtube. In Switzerland, the biggest political party is the SVP (Schweizerische Volkspartei) which is extremely right-wing and racist. The founder of this party is a billionaire, so they have the financial means to produce a lot of fascist propaganda. From time to time, they publish extremely cringy but high-quality videos with paid actors to address their political topics (E.g.: How Swiss families become poor because refugees take all our money *ugh*). Since there is no grammar for Swiss German, the auto-generated subtitles for these youtube videos are very random but still, they make more sense than what the people in these videos actually say. So when they will drop their next horrible video, I am gonna make a zine with the auto-generated subtitles. WORK IN PROGRESS

Final subgroup project

...and I wish that your question has been answered. https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/si16/projects/and-i-wish-that-your-question-has-been-answered/

This project is an act of persistent resistance. We created a few functions to facilitate an iterative process of refusal towards PM Kryakos Mitsotakis and PM Mark Rutte's answers during a Press Conference and any of their possible versions. We invite you to play as much as you want with these functions and create your own answers as counter-reaction to Mark Rutte's final sentence: "So this is my answer and I wish that your question has been answered". Every new answer, every new iteration, can be submitted to our Archive of Repetitive Answers. Although they will never be good enough, nor shall they be accepted as exhaustive, we consider the modified answers as a trigger for a never-ending dialogue.

Our tool is a filter to process and alter texts. By targeting specific words and replacing them, either for another word, for specific characters or for blank spaces, the reader or user of the tool can change the text in many ways. The tool includes three functions The function “respell” receives as input a text (string type) and substitute all the occurrences of a target word with a replacement chosen by the user. The function “stitch” is very similar to the previous one but replaces all the occurrences of a target word with a single character (it can also be a blank space) that is repeated as many times as the length of the target. The third function “reveal” also works very similar but deletes all input text except the target word(s) and replaces the deleted text with blank spaces.

Final project

Learning How To Walk While Catwalking

https://issue.xpub.nl/16/index.html

My role

• Worked with my subgroup on the code for the language filter of "...and I wish that your question has been answered."
• Creating altered versions of our origin text
• Printing and binding of the "...and I wish that your question has been answered." zines
• Organisation and set up of the launch with the launch event team
• Proof-reading publication texts

What I want to continue with

• Scraping and RSS feeds
• Vernacular language (see project idea video subtitles)

Special Issue 17

Research phase

Experiments

Here some experiments I did during the SI17 research phase...

Fan Fiction Exercise

Game: https://www.silvergames.com/de/love-me

I always played this online game as a kid. It's called "Flirting on School" and you have to make guys fall in love with you with your laser eyes and competing against other girls. Patriarchy and Heteronormativity at its best.

So Alex, Jian and I modified the game description. Now the game is about consent and friendship.

https://pad.xpub.nl/p/fanfiction_jian_al_miri

Direct comparison of old and new rules:

☁ old: Flirt with boys, outwit rival girls, avoid mean teachers and collect hearts in this fun Flirting on School game!

☀ new: The more we depict consent, the more normal it becomes. The more we practice consent, the less awkward it feels. Practice consent in this fun Enjoy the School game! Approach your crush(es), talk to your friends, debate with humans, say hi to your teachers and make friends in this fun game!

☁ old: Unfortunately, your time is limited, so you should hurry, because the more guys fall in love with you, the more points you get.

☀ new: Fortunately, you have all the time, so you shouldn´t hurry, because the more respectful you behave around your classmates, the more points you get.

☁ old: Click on the guys who cross your path to make them join the long line of your suitors.

☀ new: Wave at the people who cross your path to invite them to join your conversation.

☁ old: Go up and down the stairs and find every single boy in your school.

☀ new: Go up and down the stairs to look for more students in your school.

☁ old: Sometimes you have to try a little harder and click on them as fast as you can to make them fall in love with you.

☀ new: Sometimes people aren't interested in talking to you. You shouldn't try harder and click on them as fast as you can because they will feel uncomfortable or even harassed.

☁ old: Just ignore the other girls and collect the guys like diamonds so that in the end they accompany you to the altar.

☀ new: There's no point in seeing the other students as rivals, you don't need to collect people like diamonds because your ultimate goal is not the altar. Instead you should try to build meaningful relationships and a community where everyone feels safe.

☁ old: Can you find all the boys in your school and make them only have eyes for you?

☀ new: No pressure! Walk around and meet new people because everyone knows: A stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet! But remember: connect only with the ones who are interested in the conversation.

☁ old: Find out and have fun with Flirting on School, a free online game on Silvergames.com! Control: mouse

☀ new: Find out and have fun with Enjoy the School, a free online game on consciousgames.com! Control: heart and mind

Card game "Miri the Leader"

"Miri the Leader" is a quartets card game that I created as an experiment.

I got the title of "Miri the Leader" by saying in an online meeting that before starting XPUB, I always thought that I am kind of a leader type of person in groups. After having started this master course, I noticed that I was not. Nevertheless, it became a running gag and I noticed that I actually enjoy it more to be a satirical leader instead of a real one. So I created this card game as a joke. It includes motivational and inspiring (and very questionable) leader quotes. The quotes have four card values: Motivation, empathy, vision and positivity.

Rules: Quartets is a card game with the object to collect 4 cards in a series. Each pack originally contained 32 cards, divided into 8 groups of 4 cards, unlike a normal 52 pack of playing cards, but the number of groups changed from company to company. It is played with three or more players, with the aim to win all the quartets (sets of four). Each card usually has a number and letter (1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 2A, 2B etc. ) in the top right or left corner of the card.

The cards are shuffled and dealt evenly between all the players and the cards get held face up in a player's hand. The player to the dealer's left starts by asking another player if they had a certain card (example, card 4C) which would help the player create a quartet. If the player does have the card, then they hand it over. If the player doesn't, then it becomes her or his turn to ask. You can also play it with categories. Then you pick a category on your first card and ask the other player the value of their card in this specific category. The player with the highest category value gets the card of the other player that they competed against. When a quartet is created, or a complete quartet was dealt, then the cards creating the quartet are placed in front of the player. If someone loses all his cards in the game, that player loses.

The game ends when all the quartets have been created. The winner is the person with the most quartets.

An altered version of this game (named "The Leader") was part of the content of the SI17 loot box.

Life hacks

One text that really got stuck in my mind is "Well played" by Vicky Osterweil. She describes how video games are nothing but a mirror of our capitalist and neoliberal society. Video games are highly competitive, repetitive, they're about order and control and about getting better and achieving more skills.

"Video games, then, are the (highly profitable) media of consolation specific to neoliberalism. They reinforce a vision of a world entirely grounded in competition, and they provide the gratification of experiencing that framework as satisfying, just — we get to win with it, we get to escape through it, we get to experience a sense of mastery even as our lives are even more shaped by larger and larger forces and increasingly unfathomable networks." (Vicky Osterweil)

While brainstorming about our loot box content, I had to think of life hacks. Life hacks to me are also just a product of capitalism and neoliberalism. Like: It's your responsibility to keep up with our fast society so here are some life hacks to make your life easier and more efficient! Also the gamification factor of life hacks is high. Life hacks claim to achieve better things in a playful and practical manner. Mostly, they are useless though (just like the content of loot boxes!). Because of all these parallels, this is why I proposed to make this special issue about life hacks. We did find another solution for our loot box content in the end but you can still find my life hacks in the post-its.

Loot box prototype:

Final project

This box found your for a reason

https://issue.xpub.nl/17/index.html

Fage Not Pound

Fage Not Pound is a timezone Kimberley, Emma, Chae and me created for the launch event of SI17.

see Fage Not Pound

Loot Box Reveal

I made an audio track for the loot box reveal:

File:Loot Box Reveal (online-audio-converter.com).mp3

My role

• Taking care of the SI17 finances
• Creating a card game as well as a collection of life hacks for the loot box content
• Creating the loot box reveal audio track
• Making a game music playlist for the launch
• Organisation and set up of the launch

What I want to continue with

• Modding

I was really inspired when we talked about video game modding because I am interested in infiltrating already existing systems.

Special Issue 18

Methods

Notation experiment

https://pad.xpub.nl/p/notation_experiment_0420

...Emma and my ideas

1. Start a rap battle and take turns. You're only allowed to say types of food/drinks you were not allowed to consume as a kid. Example: "Red Bull" - "Oreo cookies" - "Nutella" (recorded):https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/notations/MIRIEM/ME_01.mp3

2. Chose a partner and an object. The item needs to be squeezed with the left hand of person 1 and the right hand of person 2. (recorded)https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/notations/MIRIEM/ME_02.mp3

3. Take an existing song lyric and write it down. Try syncing the rhythm of writing with the rhythm of the song without listening to the actual song. (recorded)https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/notations/MIRIEM/ME_03.mp3

4. Imagine you're a soccer coach and you need to scream over the field to give your team advice but you're not allowed to use language.

5. Imitate the sound of your evening routine by scratching sounds on a table.(recorded)https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/notations/MIRIEM/ME_05.mp3

6. Imagine you are Jeff Bezos. Start playing.

7. Imagine you are Nelson Mandela. Start playing.

8. Imagine you are Angela Merkel. Start playing.

9. Imagine you're the owner of a café and your coffee machine just broke down. You try imitating the sounds of a coffee machine so the customers won't notice that the coffee machine broke. (recorded)https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/notations/MIRIEM/ME_09.mp3 Covered by Blind Smashed Orchestra: https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/notations/MIRIEM/ME_09_COVER-by-Blind-Smashed-Orchestra.MOV covered

10. Think of an embarrassing thing that happened to you. Think about where exactly you feel that feeling of embarrassment in your body. Make sounds with these body parts only.

11. One goes underneath a table and put their face on the surface. One goes on the top of a table. Both whisper to each other with the face on the surface. (recorded)https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/notations/MIRIEM/ME_11.mp3

12. Look at a scar you have. Try playing an instrument with that scar only.

13. Imagine you are the sun. Start playing. (covered) https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/notations/MIRIEM/ME_13_cover-by-chamo.mp3

14. Imagine the sounds you make while sleeping. Play them.

15. Try to play an instrument the way a giraffe would do it.

16. Scream "Fuck!" after every note you play.

17. Hum the sound of a commercial jingle you know but with your mouth open. (recorded) https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/notations/MIRIEM/ME_17.mp3 Covered by Blind Smashed Orchestra; "Purlan" commercial Alex remembers since she was very young :-https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/notations/MIRIEM/ME_17_COVER-by-Blind-Smashed-Orchestra.m4a covered

18. Calculate how many days it takes to your birthday. Take the nearest book you find, open page number [days until birthday] and the first noun you read will be your next instrument.

19. Eat a meal in the sun. (recorded)https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/notations/MIRIEM/ME_19.mp3

20. Think of a question. Look for the answer on wiki how. Follow the instructions. Only read words that starts with the first letter of your mother's name. (recorded)covered https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/notations/MIRIEM/ME_20.mp3

21. Think of a rhythm. Don't play it. Neither move. (recorded)

22. Stare at the sun without sunglasses. Describe the feeling in a calm and juicy way. Covered by Blind Smashed Orchestra: https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/notations/MIRIEM/ME_22_COVER-by-Blind-Smashed-Orchestra.m4a

23. Imagine you are your alarm clock. Sing "We will rock you".

24. Take your shoe off and hold the opening of the shoe over your mouth. Start singing.

25. Go to a coffee machine. Order 2 coffees. Drink them in the sun. (recorded)https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/notations/MIRIEM/ME_25.mp3

26. Go into a big room. Make a sound. Go into a smaller room. Make a sound. Go into a smaller room. Make a sound. Go into a smaller room. Make a sound. Go into a smaller room. Make a sound.

27. Think of a melody. Ask to someone on the left to think of a melody. Start singing the melodies simoultaneously.

28. Say out loud something you would whisper. Whisper something you would say out loud. (recorded)https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/notations/MIRIEM/ME_28.mp3 covered

29. Sit somewhere. Shuffle a deck of imaginary cards. Distribute them on the table and read the future.

30. Pick a song you like but it's not well known. Make another person listen to it. Make the other person sing the song without listening to the song again.

31. Sit on a chair. Fold your body and put your head upside down, in the middle of your knees. Try to look backwards (with your head towards the floor). Tell a story of your childhood.

32. Exchange your shoes with someone. Walk backwards.

Prototyping

VCV Rack 2 Free

Audio 8: Sends audio and CV to/from an audio device. Always needs to be there to make sound (+ vco).

VCO: Voltage-controlled oscillator.

VCA Mix: Mixes 4 signals with built-in VCAs. For mixing frequencies.

Scope: Inspect waveforms with an oscilloscope. Visualises the waveforms.

LFO: Basic LFO with different shapes.

Midi + CV: MIDI to CV Module with vMIDI Support. You can choose keyboard input to make sounds with your keyboard. Or input core MIDI + keypad to play on the electric piano.

VCA: Voltage-controlled amplifier.

ADSR: Generates an envelope with Attack/Decay/Sustain/Release.

'VCF: Voltage-controlled filter.

Seq3: 3-channel 8-step sequencer also with gate outputs

(Screenshots made during prototyping class)

Class with Femke

Trying to speak through relations and dependencies, instead of language of ownership and saying who you are and what you have.

My parents named me Miriam in 1998. They named me after the sister of Moses although they are not religious. When I was 16, a guy that gave a workshop at my high school, inspired me to read my texts on stage, which led me to doing poetry slam and comedy on the side and eventually even giving poetry slam workshops myself at schools. Later, I got educated by the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Lucerne (Switzerland) in the studies of Fine Arts and Art education. A Dutch person that I really like made me fall in love with the Netherlands so this is how I ended up studying Experimental Publishing at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam.

Tango Thérmique

This meme is inspired by Marie Bardet.

1st Publication: One

"Radio Miriam Schöb" by me

XPUB Publication: https://issue.xpub.nl/18/archive/01/

Since no constraints were given for the first publication, I thought: Why not reenact a radio show?

2nd Publication: Uneven Pattern

Pad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/SI18_TWO_uneven_patterns Personal pad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/SI18_TWO_uneven_patterns_ME

"Your Personal Guide to Making Sound" by Emma and me

XPUB Publication: https://issue.xpub.nl/18/archive/02/

Emma and me interpreted "Uneven Patterns" as a writing method and wrote a guide to making sound that doesn't really give any clear instructions on how to make sound.

Text: What you need before you start: - cables - wires - a friend - a DJ (this can be you) - lips for a soft kiss - objects - a gym - a third hand - a lot of time (but if you don't have a lot of time, you can also manage)

Take some wires in the length of the length the wire should have. If they don't have the right length, you need to cut them. It doesn't matter how much you take off, but the first layer is okay if you feel like it. Then, step 44, the wires need to be attached to the right spots. You can also do this with your finger nails, but make sure that the two parts don't touch each other. Make sure they are attached correctly. You will feel it when they are attached correctly. But if they are not attached correctly, step 834 it might also just work fine. Take some more wires from the spot where you got the other wires. Take a third hand and put the wires in the objects. In between, you can put the whole cable. You can use some force if it's needed. If you don't have any force, go to the gym. At step 2, make sure there are electromagnetic waves. The electromagnetic waves are very important for sound, if not even the most important thing. But they can also not be there. Also, you should know: The more bits, the “better” the quality. This the number one rule. But this is also relative. It's also matter of taste. Now, untangle all the cables in front of you. This might take time because there are a least 10 cables. Congratulations for concluding step -21. Put the cable of your choice in the device of your choice. Isolate the two parts. Cut one piece and put it aside. Place the main part into the third hand. If you cannot find the main part, put the less important part in the third hand mentioned at step -98. But remember that step. Then, heat one of the legs and add some material. It doesn't matter which part is connected to which. The cable is your friend. Let the cable do what the cable is meant to do. But don't put any pressure on the cable. The cable needs to consent to your action. Maybe you will hear a "beep"-sound. Step number 1'234'567: The sound will travel and you will notice: the higher the frequency, the higher the tone. And also, the drier the decency, the drier the stone. You need the ground to understand where the signal is. It's like hide and seek. To accomplish step 55 you must find the signal. But the signal will never find you. It's a one-sided relationship. After you have found the signal, you can continue. You can also stop, if you have an appointment with a friend. Or you can place it somewhere and then measure it with the right measurement unit. Write down the result so you can look at it later if you want to remember what you measured. But you can also not do that. For step number 64: Take the speaker that looks like a speaker and is actually also a speaker. You can open it. You can give it a soft kiss. It should pick up some electromagnetic waves. Knock it or place it on your neck to see if it moves. Concentrate. Go back to step number 23. Now you need to focus on the number zero. You will understand if you look at it. You should never go a lot above zero and you should never go a lot below zero. Check on your screen that you are following all rules. Attach some more cables to the holes. If the cables fall out, you must tape them on your computer. To tape it, you can use tape. If they don't fall out, you don't need tape but to go back to step 36. There is a red button you would like to press. You must avoid to press the red button at all costs. The red button stands for emergency. In case of a fire, call the firefighters. Now put everything into the mixer. You need to push some buttons. If you don't do this, it will work or not. You might feel like a DJ. Take that feeling and put it into your sound. Step number 82: Make sure the legs are well-connected. This is it. You made sound.

3rd Publication: Emergent Opera

Pad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/SI18_three

"Laughing Opera" by Carmen and me

Inspired by the song Slush, by Bonzo Dog Club, from their album Let’s Make Up and be Friendly, released in 1972 by EMI records Ltd, we decided to do a laughing opera piece. Playing with different sounds of laughter coming together; from Miri’s laughter sample to the ones added by Carmen, resulting in music.

Transcription of the piece:

Hmm.

Yeah.

Same. This isn’t funny. No of course not.

We used Audicity, Ableton, Descript, and ToneTransfer, Tone Transfer is an open source machine that transforms sounds into musical instruments. Descript was used for the text transcription of the piece. The laughing samples were downloaded from SampleSwap, FreeSound, Sample Focus and YouTube.

XPUB Publication: https://issue.xpub.nl/18/archive/03/

4th Publication: The Jingle Board Parliament

Pad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/SI18_four

Caretaker logpad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/SI18_four_logpad

Caretakers: Erica, Mitsa and me

Kamo and my recordings: https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/04/contributions/Kamiri/recorded%20reactions/

My collected internet snippets: https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/04/contributions/Kamiri/with%20less%20message/ https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/04/contributions/Kamiri/with%20message/

5th Publication: Nested narratives: what is left to discuss?

Our recording: https://hub.xpub.nl/soupboat/SI18/05/recordings/MiMi.mp3

Pad:https://pad.xpub.nl/p/SI18_five

Task: The release of this week will be an experiment with collaborative writing for the radio: you will be writing a piece of text that will then be recorded and edited by you. The structure is built up on a refrain that will produce different scenarios and visions with the same beginning or end. We chose a method that is inter-dependent, inter-connected and collaborative, but at the same time allows everyone to work at their own pace and time.

We invite you to write down a text (that can be a collection of texts, an essay, a conversation, a script, a non-fiction... whatever you like) and to record it! The result will be a collectively written piece of short narratives with a refrain. Each narrative is written by one group/duo and it has to either start or end with the following phrase:

IF WE CENSOR ART WHAT IS LEFT TO DISCUSS

Mitsa's and my Publication: Mitsa and I worked independently from each other and both wrote a text based on the ideas we had when reading the sentence "If we censor art what is left to discuss". We then both recorded our text, edited our audios and merged them together. Because our texts turned out very differently, we had a look at songs that contain drastic changes within the same song such as:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwYX52BP2Sk&ab_channel=PinkFloydRemastedSongs
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ONRf7h3Mdk&ab_channel=TravisScottVEVO
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL-tvd8jeBc

...while listening to these songs, you almost get the feeling that you're listenig to two different songs.

To connect our two pieces, we used the same guitar recordings as a base melody and similar voice effects to alter our voices.

Mitsa's text:

And I guess I am not the most qualified to talk

and perhaps that is my undoing's core

I can think of big, scary events that make us gather in the streets

or in white naked squares helpless to the gaze

designed for great speeches markets and parades

for the troops, the students, the peaceful and the free

citizens that pace for individual growth and change

thorougly wash their hands and clean their face

and tho I liked your passion for our common democratic state

I can't but see the lines that orient and those that erase

what is censorship?

The state that in one evening shuts the public media station

that used to serve the unified nation while it shouldn't

that station that has been framing illegal the migration

and talks about terrorists and lazy and unskilled

the official fines for gay kisses on prime tv

the thankful tollerance as long as we're unseen

the murder of the sick body in the middle of the day

in the heart of the center by the presence of the crowd

by the aknowledged and the accepted and the normal

whose violence sets who is normal and abnormal

what is censorship?

The idea that I am someone else rather than me

_____________________________________________________________________________

Miri's text:

I have been doing this since years

And I find it interesting

That after a show

people come up to me and thank me

for making them laugh or for making them feel touched

just for making them feel something

and I asked myself if that is what we’re doing here

Artists make people feel something

like, if you wanna laugh, you go to a comedy night

and if you wanna feel sad, then you might watch this very sad movie

and poetry could make you feel nostalgic

and so on

and that just made me think, like,

art is like a shopping catalogue for feelings and you can buy whatever you want

You call us performers, I call us dealers

for emotions, you wanna see us

perform in motion like hyenas

We are here to fill arenas

Our stage is like a shopping catalog

Choose to buy what you were looking for

Everyone is coming by

Tell me your needs I'm gonna comply

Because I can do it all and you would be surprised

Because this mind is as deep as your self esteem

And that's also why they call me the machine

I can give you tears, I can give you rage

when I come on stage

Scene is set, you’re my marionettes

And the show begins

Pulling strings like a violin

My ego is a diamond ring

I’ll let you feel what you paid for

meet the machine you were waiting for

Culture saves us on a daily basis

I know enough faces that can make it

go to my homie, he knows how to phrase it

when you’re lonely, read his poetry

My friends are making art here, breaking hearts here

making music that is too sick

I know painters and entertainers

and creators and animators

Forget the haters of labor

that does the haters a favor

By giving them the feels everyday

We're just fulfilling needs here, being low paid

It’s always worth to spend some money

On the words leaving my mouth, honey

Standing ovation in a basement

big applause, no replacement

for the big names in the small spaces

and the small names are never displaced

People are hungry, they wanna see mommy

Mommy’s gotta feed them, like a Tsunami

Gobble the air coming outta my mouth

I model the sphere, I model the crowd

You wanna hear my wit and my thoughts

give me applause, I’m not gonna pause

Try to stop me, it’s your loss

But if we tryna censor art,

what is left to discuss

6th Publication: Diffractive cookbook

Pad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/SIX-diffractive-cookbook

Personal pad:https://pad.xpub.nl/p/SIX_Miriam

Assignment: Next week = reading week: Pick two resources from the Related Resources page, and read/watch/... them "diffractively" through one another (i.e let them interfere with each other). Prepare a way to share some resonance for the afternoon session on Tuesday 7 June; duration p/p for doing this is maximum 5 minutes: A sound, an image, a quote, a performative response, an object, (it does not have to be durational) ... If you want to, you can take one resource from elsewhere but include at least one from the page. You can also pick materials that we watched/looked at together already.

My chosen texts: "No Congo, No Technologies" by Oulimata Gueye (2019) https://medium.com/digital-earth/no-congo-no-technologies-163ea2caec0a

"The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto" by Martine Syms (2013) http://thirdrailquarterly.org/martine-syms-the-mundane-afrofuturist-manifesto/

Diffractive reading method:

• Pick two texts with similar topics
• Read and annotate both texts and write down or highlight all main statements
• Find similarities/differences/contrasts in main statements and pair them up (always one statement of on text paired with a statement from the other text)
• Place the main statements next to each other (can be done in InDesign, Photoshop, etc. or you can also just write them down)
• Read them in alternation

______________________________

7th Publication: [[Unfolding [] Implicancies]]

Pad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/SI18_seven

Caretaker editorial pad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/SI18_seven_editorial

Caretakers: Jian, Emma and me

[[ Unfolding [ ] implicancies ]] is an interface containing a collection of folders and various materials like images, field recordings, videos ect. born through the internal implicancies of the files themselves.

What do we mean by implicancies? In this case, implicancies are the connections that can be made when reacting to already existing content. By looking at the files proposed as the foundation of the entire structure, contributors are asked to interact with the content to produce a continous flow of creation. What someone feels while looking/reading/listening to one file will provoke a different reaction, thought or interest, in every contributor: the branches that can be formed through this process are endless. This method can be seen as a visual and auditive way of relational/diffractive reading, annotating and creating. Inside this system, when is the moment to create a new folder or simply upload a file inside an already existing one? If the contributor feels like they have content that is inspired by the material in a folder but it adds a new aspects or goes in a slightly different direction than the above-mentioned files, then it's the moment to create a new folder as a starting point for a new branch to be born.

How to interact with the content? The materials are displayed inside an interface that allows the user to freely browse through the folders and interact with the files inside them all simoultanously, as a package containing all the implicancies. When reading a text inside a specific folder, listen to the audio file and look at an image. All of the files are there because they have a subjective connection to another file.

Feedback:

Release set up:

8th Publication

PAAAAARIS

Soupboat experiments

Trying out some very basic stuff with python, html and css...

CSS

body { font-family: "Lucida Console", "Courier New", monospace; font-size: 33px;

   color: yellow;
   background-image: url("");
   background-attachment: fixed;
   background-position: center;

}

h1 { text-align: center;

   padding: 10px;
   text-shadow: 2px 2px black;
   background-color: lightblue

}

h2 {

   text-align: center;
   font-size: 25px;
   color: lightblue;
   text-shadow: 2px 2px black;
   padding: 10px;
   background-color: pink

}

h3 { text-align: left;

   font-size: 20px;
   padding: 10px;
   background-color: pink;
   text-shadow: 2px 2px black;

}

img {

   position: centre;
   display: block;
   margin-left: auto;
   margin-right: auto;
   width: 50%;

}

img:hover {

 /* Start the shake animation and make the animation last for 0.5 seconds */
 animation: shake 0.5s;

 /* When the animation is finished, start again */
 animation-iteration-count: infinite;

}

@keyframes shake {

 0% { transform: translate(1px, 1px) rotate(0deg); }
 10% { transform: translate(-1px, -2px) rotate(-1deg); }
 20% { transform: translate(-3px, 0px) rotate(1deg); }
 30% { transform: translate(3px, 2px) rotate(0deg); }
 40% { transform: translate(1px, -1px) rotate(1deg); }
 50% { transform: translate(-1px, 2px) rotate(-1deg); }
 60% { transform: translate(-3px, 1px) rotate(0deg); }
 70% { transform: translate(3px, 1px) rotate(-1deg); }
 80% { transform: translate(-1px, -1px) rotate(1deg); }
 90% { transform: translate(1px, 2px) rotate(0deg); }
 100% { transform: translate(1px, -2px) rotate(-1deg); }

}

HTML

🅷🅴🆁🅴'🆂 🆃🅷🅴 🅷🆃🅼🅻 ----------------------------------->

...

Other projects

Schild mit Lohn

https://www.instagram.com/schildmitlohn/

If you have read until here...

• I once accidentally burnt my tongue from drinking hot soup, then wanted to cool it by licking the inside of a freezer, then my tongue got stuck on the frozen surface and I had to rip it off
• Tried to improvise at a spoken word performance and ended up trying to imitate cheese that fell on the floor and it was the most unfunny thing ever
• I once ate instant noodles for three days straight and got constipated afterwards
• I met a person that kinda looked familiar and I asked her if she's the cousin of my father (that I never met in real life) and she said yes because she thought I was joking and I didn't get the joke and addressed her as a "family member" for the rest of the evening and she didn't correct me because she thought I'm being ironic, so I ended up thinking that a complete stranger is related to me
• Went to the school psychologist because I thought "Hey, it's for free, maybe I'll find out something funny about myself" and ended up being transferred to a neurologist for an ADHD diagnosis
• I had an appendicitis when I was 7 years old and when I had to go to the hospital, I brought an empty jar with me and I asked the doctors whether they could put my appendix in the empty jar so I could have a look at it after the operation
• Worked as a student at a restaurant next to a store that sells massage chairs and I'd regularly go in and tell them that I have chronic back pain and rich parents that are considering buying me a massage chair because I thought they would not let me try the massage chairs if I didn't make up that story and I am a 100% sure they knew I lied
• As a kid I thought that Anne Hathaway in Princess Diaries had the most beautiful smile ever so I tried to smile like her all the time and now my smile looks super stiff and creepy on all the pictures taken during my childhood
• I love going to the dentist, the warm light almost always makes me super sleepy and relaxed