diff --git a/ada/index.html b/ada/index.html index 643f149..c40e33a 100644 --- a/ada/index.html +++ b/ada/index.html @@ -5,33 +5,36 @@ +

Backplaces

adadesign.nl/backplaces
-Hi.
+

+

Hi.
I made this play for you. It is a question, for us to hold together.

Is all intimacy about bodies? What is it about our bodies that makes intimacy? What happens when our bodies distance intimacy from us? This @@ -51,8 +54,13 @@ sit in the audience, know I am with you, holding your hand through each scene. If the performance feels overwhelming at any point, you have my full permission to step out, take a break, or leave. This is not choreographed, and I care deeply for you.
+

+

+alt="This is the Index, the stage of my play. Each felted item is an act." /> + +

Solar Sibling is an online performance of shared loss about leaving and siblings. This project used comments people left on TikTok poetry. I extracted the emotions from these comments, mixed them with my own, and @@ -60,18 +68,33 @@ crafted them into poems. It is an ongoing performance, ending only when your feelings are secretly whispered to me. When you do, by typing into the comment box, your feelings are sent to me and the first act closes as the sun rises.
+

+

+alt="The initial comment shaped poems and their sun count." /> + +
+
+ + +

Hermit Fantasy is a short story about a bot who wants to be a hermit. Inspired by an email response from a survey I conducted about receiving emotional support on the Internet, this story explores the contradiction of being online while wanting to disconnect. As an act it’s a series of letters, click by click.

-

The first letter.

+
+The first letter. + +
+
+The second letter. + +

Cake Intimacies is a performance that took a year to bring together. It is a small selection of stories people told me and I held to memory and rewrote here. The stories come from two performances I hosted. @@ -85,10 +108,18 @@ return. Now the stories are here, each of them a cake with a filling that tells a story, merging the bodily with the digital and making a mess of it all.

-

+
+ + +
+
+ + +

The play ends as all plays do. The curtains close, the website stays but the stories will never sound the same. For the final act, I give you the stories. It’s one last game, one last joke to ask my question again. @@ -99,8 +130,13 @@ yourself and with me, by eating sweets together. Sweets about digital intimacies that never had a body. There is no moral, no bow to wrap the story in. A great big mess of transcendence into the digital, of intimacy and of bodies. The way it always is. Thankfully.
-

+

+
+ + +
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/ada/thesis.html b/ada/thesis.html index 4399afd..588f58c 100644 --- a/ada/thesis.html +++ b/ada/thesis.html @@ -5,27 +5,29 @@ + @@ -183,7 +185,7 @@ emphasizing their tangible bodily experiences. The community’s claim to authenticity thus had to lie in the physical experiences of its members— the visible bodies and hearable voices, the weddings, births, and funerals (1993).You’re dreaming again, -good. Would you feel closer to me if you could hear my voice?
Is my +good. Would you feel closer to me if you could hear my voice? Is my voice a sound? Could it be a feeling?

Even then, and even by people with no interest in undermining the value of the virtual, the distinction between physical and virtual was diff --git a/aglaia/index.html b/aglaia/index.html index 743b99f..04cca7e 100644 --- a/aglaia/index.html +++ b/aglaia/index.html @@ -5,27 +5,29 @@ +

diff --git a/aglaia/thesis.html b/aglaia/thesis.html index 9918de3..401402a 100644 --- a/aglaia/thesis.html +++ b/aglaia/thesis.html @@ -5,32 +5,35 @@ +

Performing the Bureaucratic Border(line)s

+

introduction

This thesis is an assemblageI live somewhere in the margins of scattered references, footnotes, citations, @@ -130,6 +133,7 @@ through performative readings. The intention is to underline how the vocalization of bureaucracies as a tool can potentially reveal their territorial exclusive function and provide space for the invisible vulnerability.

+

“on the other side is the river
and I cannot cross it
@@ -333,6 +337,7 @@ where everybody feels included. Democracy is a rule of law where everybody feels * We, undocumented people, we don’t feel a sense of belonging from the system.”

+

bureaucracy as immaterial border

Apart from the rigid visible borders, bureaucracy related to @@ -631,6 +636,7 @@ experiments - closely related to language as well as the performative “nature” of these texts themselves. I was intrigued by how transforming the material conditions of a piece of text could influence the potential understandings and perceptions of its meaning.

+

prototypes

1.

Title: “Quality Assurance Questionnaire @@ -638,25 +644,25 @@ Censoring”
When: October 2023
Where: XPUB studio wall
Who: myself

-

Description: Some months ago my classmates and I received an email -with a questionnaire aimed at preparing us for the upcoming quality -assurance meeting within the school. Ada and I had a meeting, in an -empty white room with closed doors, with an external collaborator of the -university. The main request was to rate and answer the pre-formulated -questions covering issues about performance, different and multiple -topics related to the course, the teaching staff, the facilities, the -tools provided. The micro linguistic experiment of highlighting, -censoring and annotating this document aimed for an understanding of -what a quality assurance meeting is within an educational -institution.

-

Reflections-Thoughts: This experiment was my first attempt to start -interrogating and observing the language and the structure of a -bureaucratic document. How these “desired” standards propagated through -text. What is the role of the student-client in these processes as an -esoteric gaze of control over the course and their teachers? My focus -was to locate and accumulate all the wording related to measurements, -rate, quantity, assessments, statistics. Highlighting the -disproportionate amount of metrics-related vocabulary was enough to +

Description: Some months ago my classmates and I +received an email with a questionnaire aimed at preparing us for the +upcoming quality assurance meeting within the school. Ada and I had a +meeting, in an empty white room with closed doors, with an external +collaborator of the university. The main request was to rate and answer +the pre-formulated questions covering issues about performance, +different and multiple topics related to the course, the teaching staff, +the facilities, the tools provided. The micro linguistic experiment of +highlighting, censoring and annotating this document aimed for an +understanding of what a quality assurance meeting is within an +educational institution.

+

Reflections-Thoughts: This experiment was my first +attempt to start interrogating and observing the language and the +structure of a bureaucratic document. How these “desired” standards +propagated through text. What is the role of the student-client in these +processes as an esoteric gaze of control over the course and their +teachers? My focus was to locate and accumulate all the wording related +to measurements, rate, quantity, assessments, statistics. Highlighting +the disproportionate amount of metrics-related vocabulary was enough to craft the narrative around this process.

These ‘rituals’ are components of a larger “culture of evidence”, serving as a tool that blurs the distinction between discourse and @@ -672,6 +678,7 @@ alt="The linguistic experiment of the Quality Assurance Questionnaire Document"

+

2.

Title: “Department of Bureaucracy and Administration Customs Enforcement”
@@ -679,38 +686,38 @@ Customs Enforcement”
Where: LeeszaalCommunity Library in Rotterdam West
Who: XPUB peers, tutors, friends, alumni

-

Description: During the first public moment at Leeszaal, I decided to -embody and enact the traditional role of a bureaucrat in a graphic and -possibly absurd way performing a small “theatrical play”. I prepared a -3-page and a 1-page document incorporating bureaucratic-form aesthetics -and requesting applicants’ fake data and their answers for questions -related to educational bureaucracy. People receiving an applicant number -at the entrance of Leeszaal, queuing to collect their documents from the -administration “office”, filling forms, waiting, receiving stamps, -giving fingerprints and signing, waiting again were the main components -of this act.

-

Reflections-Thoughts: Beyond the information gathered through my -bureaucratic-like questionnaires, the most crucial element of this -experiment was the understanding and highlighting of the hidden -performative elements that entrench these “rituals”. It was amazing -seeing the audience becoming instantly actors of the play enacting -willingly a administrative ritualistic scene. The provided context of -this “play” was a social library hosting a masters course public event -on graduation projects. I am wondering whether this asymphony between -the repetitive bureaucratic acts within the space of Leeszaal, where -such acts are not expected to be performed, evoked contradictory -feelings or thoughts. Over-identifying with a role was being -instrumentalized as an “interrogation” of one’s own involvement in the -reproduction of social discourses, power, authority, hegemony.

+

Description: During the first public moment at +Leeszaal, I decided to embody and enact the traditional role of a +bureaucrat in a graphic and possibly absurd way performing a small +“theatrical play”. I prepared a 3-page and a 1-page document +incorporating bureaucratic-form aesthetics and requesting applicants’ +fake data and their answers for questions related to educational +bureaucracy. People receiving an applicant number at the entrance of +Leeszaal, queuing to collect their documents from the administration +“office”, filling forms, waiting, receiving stamps, giving fingerprints +and signing, waiting again were the main components of this act.

+

Reflections-Thoughts: Beyond the information +gathered through my bureaucratic-like questionnaires, the most crucial +element of this experiment was the understanding and highlighting of the +hidden performative elements that entrench these “rituals”. It was +amazing seeing the audience becoming instantly actors of the play +enacting willingly a administrative ritualistic scene. The provided +context of this “play” was a social library hosting a masters course +public event on graduation projects. I am wondering whether this +asymphony between the repetitive bureaucratic acts within the space of +Leeszaal, where such acts are not expected to be performed, evoked +contradictory feelings or thoughts. Over-identifying with a role was +being instrumentalized as an “interrogation” of one’s own involvement in +the reproduction of social discourses, power, authority, hegemony.

+alt="Leeszaal West Rotterdam - November 2023 – People queuing to receive their documents and sign. I was thinking of queues as a spatial oppressive tool used often by (bureaucratic) authorities. The naturalized image of bodies-in-a-line waiting for “something” to happen at “some point” under the public gaze in an efficiently defined area." /> +People queuing to receive their documents and sign. I was thinking of +queues as a spatial oppressive tool used often by (bureaucratic) +authorities. The naturalized image of bodies-in-a-line waiting for +“something” to happen at “some point” under the public gaze in an +efficiently defined area.
One of the forms that the audience had to fill out during the Lesszaal even <figcaption aria-hidden=One of the forms that the audience had to fill out during the Lesszaal event
+

3.

Title: “Passport Reading Session”
When: January 2024
Where: XML – XPUB studio
Who: Ada, Aglaia, Stephen, Joseph

-

Description: This prototype is a collective passport reading session. -I asked my classmates to bring their passports or IDs and sitting in a -circular set up we attempted to “scan” our documents. Every contributor -took some time to browse, annotate verbally, interpret, understand, -analyze, vocalize their thoughts on these artifacts, approaching them -from various perspectives. The three passports and one ID card were all -coming from European countries.

-

Reflections-Thoughts: For the first time I observed this object so -closely. The documentation medium was a recording device, Ada’s mobile -phone. The recording was transcribed by voskDescription: This prototype is a collective passport +reading session. I asked my classmates to bring their passports or IDs +and sitting in a circular set up we attempted to “scan” our documents. +Every contributor took some time to browse, annotate verbally, +interpret, understand, analyze, vocalize their thoughts on these +artifacts, approaching them from various perspectives. The three +passports and one ID card were all coming from European countries.

+

Reflections-Thoughts: For the first time I observed +this object so closely. The documentation medium was a recording device, +Ada’s mobile phone. The recording was transcribed by voskVosk is an offline open-source speech recognition toolkit. and myself and a small booklet of our passport readings was created.

@@ -754,22 +762,27 @@ paths, how departure or arrival is smooth or cruel. Are there emotions along the way? For some people these are documents “that embody power — minimal or no waiting, peaceful departure, warm and confident arrival” (Khosravi, 2021).

-

Part of the A6 booklet of the -transcription of the passport readings session

-

+
+ + +
+

+

4.

Title: “Postal Address Application Scenario”
When: February 2024
Where: Room in Wijnhaven Building, 4th floor
Who: XPUB 1,2,3, tutors, Leslie

-

Description: This scenario is the first part of a series of small -episodes that construct a bureaucratic story unfolding the processes of -my communication with the government. The body of the text of the -“theatrical” script is sourced from the original documents as well as -recordings of the conversation I had with the municipality throughout -this process. I preserved the sequence of the given sentences and by -discarding the graphic design of the initial form, I structured and -repurposed the text into a scenario. The main actors were two +

Description: This scenario is the first part of a +series of small episodes that construct a bureaucratic story unfolding +the processes of my communication with the government. The body of the +text of the “theatrical” script is sourced from the original documents +as well as recordings of the conversation I had with the municipality +throughout this process. I preserved the sequence of the given sentences +and by discarding the graphic design of the initial form, I structured +and repurposed the text into a scenario. The main actors were two bureaucrats vocalizing the questions addressed in the form, in turns and sometimes speaking simultaneously like a choir, three applicants answering the questions similarly while a narrator mainly provided the @@ -784,24 +797,29 @@ standing still behind them while they were surrounded by the audience. The main documentation media of the act were a camera on a tripod, a recorder in the middle of the table and myself reconstructing the memory of the re-enactement at that present - 6 days later.

-

Reflections-Thoughts: Vocalizing and embodying the bureaucratic -questions was quite useful in acknowledging the government’s voice and -presence as something tangible rather than a floating, arbitrary entity. -It was interesting observing the bureaucrats performing their role with -confidence and entitlement, contrasting with the applicants who appeared -to be more stressed to respond convincingly and promptly. There is a -notable distinction between performativity and performance. Performing -consciously and theatrically amplifying real bureaucratic texts by -occupying roles and overidentifying with them can constitute a -diffractive moment, a tool itself. From bureaucratic text to -performative text scenarios to speech. The embedded (but rather +

Reflections-Thoughts: Vocalizing and embodying the +bureaucratic questions was quite useful in acknowledging the +government’s voice and presence as something tangible rather than a +floating, arbitrary entity. It was interesting observing the bureaucrats +performing their role with confidence and entitlement, contrasting with +the applicants who appeared to be more stressed to respond convincingly +and promptly. There is a notable distinction between performativity and +performance. Performing consciously and theatrically amplifying real +bureaucratic texts by occupying roles and overidentifying with them can +constitute a diffractive moment, a tool itself. From bureaucratic text +to performative text scenarios to speech. The embedded (but rather unconscious) performativity of “real” bureaucratic rituals establishes and empowers (bureaucratic) institutions through repetitive acts. These theatrical moments attempt to highlight the shrouded performative elements of these processes.

-

A6 booklet of the first chapter of the +

+ + +
+

conclusion

next @@ -842,8 +860,10 @@ future applicants, traumatized students, injured bearers, bureaucratic border crossers, stressed expired document holders or just curious people to share, vocalize, talk through, read out loud, amplify, (un)name, unplace, dismantle the injurious words of these artifacts.

-

+
+

+

“we didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us”(20)

As I sit in the waiting area at the gate B7 in the airport preparing @@ -856,6 +876,7 @@ multifaceted borders and get crossed and entrenched by them, but on the contrary we start interrogating and shouting at the contexts and the frameworks that construct them and render them invisible, natural and powerful.

+

references

Agamben, G. (2000) Means without end: Notes on politics. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

diff --git a/aglaia/thesis.md b/aglaia/thesis.md index 6294452..1550730 100644 --- a/aglaia/thesis.md +++ b/aglaia/thesis.md @@ -6,7 +6,8 @@ author: Aglaia # Performing the Bureaucratic Border(line)s - +--- + ## introduction This thesis is an assemblageI live somewhere in the margins of scattered references, footnotes, citations, examinations embracing the inconvenience of talking back to myself, to the reader and to all those people whose ideas gave soul to the text. I shelter in the borderlands of the pages my fragmented thoughts, flying words, introspections, voices. Enlightenment and inspiration given by the text “Dear Science” written by Katherine McKittrick. of thoughts, experiences, interpretations, intuitive explorations of what borders are, attempting to unleash a conversation concerning the entangled relation between material injurious borders and bureaucracy. I unravel empirically the thread of how borders as entities are manifested and (de)established. How does the lived experience of crossing multiple borders change and under what conditions? @@ -29,6 +30,8 @@ In the second chapter, I unpack bureaucracy and focus on its bordering function. In the third and last chapter, I bridge the written text with the ongoing project that runs simultaneously as part of my graduation work in Experimental Publishing, where I mainly speak through my prototypes. Talking documents(5) are performative bureaucratic text inspections, vocal and non-vocal, that intend to create temporal public interventions through performative readings. The intention is to underline how the vocalization of bureaucracies as a tool can potentially reveal their territorial exclusive function and provide space for the invisible vulnerability. +--- + > “on the other side is the river > and I cannot cross it > on the other side is the sea @@ -91,6 +94,8 @@ According to Hannah Arendt, the right to have rights and claim somebody else’ > “…This is a transcribed recording of my phone during a protest on migration at Dam Square in Amsterdam. I insert part of the speech of a Palestinian woman addressing the matter of undocumentedness. Date and time of the recording 18th of June 2023, 15:05. I am here for the rights of the children which haven't be in the taking part in the education since they have undocumented mothers and they are more than *“*” means undecipherable years. I am here to represent mothers who are looking for a place to have a sense of belonging or how long are you trying to continue humiliating them and the female gender. I am here to express my frustration with INDImmigratie- en Naturalisatiedienst - Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service. So frustrated. And I will not stop talking about democracy. Democracy is the rule of law where everybody feels included. Democracy is a rule of law where everybody feels * We, undocumented people, we don't feel a sense of belonging from the system." +--- + ## bureaucracy as immaterial border Apart from the rigid visible borders, bureaucracy related to migrants, refugees and asylum seekers can also constitute an in-between less visible borderland. I used to perceive bureaucracy as an immaterial and intangible entity. However, now I can claim that this assumption is not true. Bureaucracy is material and spatial and can be seen as an apparatus, a machine, a circuitry, an institution, a territory, a borderland, a body, a zone – a “dead zone of imagination” as Graeber claims. It can be inscribed on piles of papers, folders, drawers, booklets, passports, IDs, documents, screens, tapes, bodies, hospital corridors, offices, permissions to enter, stay, work, travel, exist, come and go, leave, visit family, bury a friend. @@ -164,6 +169,8 @@ How performing a collection of small bureaucratic stories can function as an ins I started working and engaging more with different bureaucratic material that my peers and I encountered regularly or appeared in our (e)mail (in)boxes and are partly related to our identities as foreign students coming from different places. I chose to start touching and looking for various bureaucracies that surround me as a personal filter towards it. From identification documents and application forms to rental contracts, funding applications, visa applications, quality assurance questionnaires related to the university, assessment criteria, supermarket point gathering cards, receipts. A sequence of locked doors to be unlocked more or less easily via multiple bureaucratic keys. The methods and tools used to scrutinize the administrative artifacts are not rigid or distinct. It is mainly a “collection” of small bureaucratic experiments - closely related to language as well as the performative “nature” of these texts themselves. I was intrigued by how transforming the material conditions of a piece of text could influence the potential understandings and perceptions of its meaning. +--- + ## prototypes #### 1. @@ -180,6 +187,8 @@ These 'rituals' are components of a larger “culture of evidence”, serving as ![The linguistic experiment of the Quality Assurance Questionnaire Document](../aglaia/quality.jpg) +--- + #### 2. **Title:** “Department of Bureaucracy and Administration Customs Enforcement” **When:** November 2023 @@ -195,6 +204,8 @@ The provided context of this “play” was a social library hosting a masters c ![One of the forms that the audience had to fill out during the Lesszaal event](../aglaia/mitsi.jpg) +--- + #### 3. **Title:** “Passport Reading Session” **When:** January 2024 @@ -214,6 +225,8 @@ We read the embedded signs, symbols, categories, texts, magical numbers in our p ![ ](../aglaia/passport2.png) +--- + #### 4. **Title:** “Postal Address Application Scenario” **When:** February 2024 @@ -228,6 +241,8 @@ The first and the last moment of the performance was during a semi-public tryout ![A6 booklet of the first chapter of the “theatrical” scenario created out of the Postal Address Application documents and performed by XPUB peers](../aglaia/postal.png) +--- + ## conclusion ### next chapters of the case with reference number A.B.2024.4.03188 @@ -238,14 +253,19 @@ My case has finished by this time. I withdrew my objection [7/03/2024] and I de- My intention is to facilitate a series of collective performative readings of bureaucratic scenarios or other portable paperwork stories as a way of publishing and inspecting bureaucratic bordering infrastructures. The marginal voices of potential applicants are embodying and performing a role. “The speech does not only describe but brings things into existence” (Austin, 1975). I would like to stretch the limits of dramaturgical speech through vocalizing a document in public with others and turn an individual administrative case into a public one. How do the inscribed words in the documents are not descriptive but on the contrary “are instrumentalized in getting things done” (Butler, 1997). Words as active agents. I am inviting past and future applicants, traumatized students, injured bearers, bureaucratic border crossers, stressed expired document holders or just curious people to share, vocalize, talk through, read out loud, amplify, (un)name, unplace, dismantle the injurious words of these artifacts. +--- + ![ ](../aglaia/objection1.png) ![ ](../aglaia/objection2.png) +--- #### “we didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us”(20) As I sit in the waiting area at the gate B7 in the airport preparing to come back to the Netherlands, I am writing the last lines of this text. I am thinking of all these borders and gates that my body was able to pass through smoothly, carrying my magical object through which I embody power- at least within this context. However, I yearn for a reality where we stop looking at those bodies that cross the multifaceted borders and get crossed and entrenched by them, but on the contrary we start interrogating and shouting at the contexts and the frameworks that construct them and render them invisible, natural and powerful. +--- + ## references Agamben, G. (2000) Means without end: Notes on politics. 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backplaces/css/Redaction/Redaction_35-Italic.woff2 diff --git a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_35-Regular.woff2 b/backplaces/css/Redaction/Redaction_35-Regular.woff2 similarity index 100% rename from backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_35-Regular.woff2 rename to backplaces/css/Redaction/Redaction_35-Regular.woff2 diff --git a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_50-Bold.woff2 b/backplaces/css/Redaction/Redaction_50-Bold.woff2 similarity index 100% rename from backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_50-Bold.woff2 rename to backplaces/css/Redaction/Redaction_50-Bold.woff2 diff --git a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_50-Italic.woff2 b/backplaces/css/Redaction/Redaction_50-Italic.woff2 similarity index 100% rename from backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_50-Italic.woff2 rename to backplaces/css/Redaction/Redaction_50-Italic.woff2 diff --git a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_50-Regular.woff2 b/backplaces/css/Redaction/Redaction_50-Regular.woff2 similarity index 100% rename from backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_50-Regular.woff2 rename to backplaces/css/Redaction/Redaction_50-Regular.woff2 diff --git a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_70-Bold.woff2 b/backplaces/css/Redaction/Redaction_70-Bold.woff2 similarity index 100% rename from backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_70-Bold.woff2 rename to backplaces/css/Redaction/Redaction_70-Bold.woff2 diff --git a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_70-Italic.woff2 b/backplaces/css/Redaction/Redaction_70-Italic.woff2 similarity index 100% rename from backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_70-Italic.woff2 rename to backplaces/css/Redaction/Redaction_70-Italic.woff2 diff --git a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_70-Regular.woff2 b/backplaces/css/Redaction/Redaction_70-Regular.woff2 similarity index 100% rename from backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_70-Regular.woff2 rename to backplaces/css/Redaction/Redaction_70-Regular.woff2 diff --git a/backplaces/css/fonts.css b/backplaces/css/fonts.css index ed9c1ef..18abd7c 100644 --- a/backplaces/css/fonts.css +++ b/backplaces/css/fonts.css @@ -1,75 +1,47 @@ @font-face { font-family: 'Redaction-Regular'; - src: url('../css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction-Regular.woff2') format('opentype'); + src: url('./Redaction//Redaction-Regular.woff2')format('opentype'); font-weight: normal; - font-style: normal; + font-style: normal; } @font-face { font-family: 'Redaction_10-Regular'; - src: url('../css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_10-Regular.woff2') format('opentype'); + src: url('./Redaction//Redaction_10-Regular.woff2') format('opentype'); font-weight: normal; - font-style: normal; + font-style: normal; } @font-face { font-family: 'Redaction_20-Regular'; - src: url('../css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_20-Regular.woff2') format('opentype'); + src: url('./Redaction//Redaction_20-Regular.woff2') format('opentype'); font-weight: normal; - font-style: normal; + font-style: normal; } @font-face { font-family: 'Redaction_35-Regular'; - src: url('../css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_35-Regular.woff2') format('opentype'); + src: url('./Redaction//Redaction_35-Regular.woff2') format('opentype'); font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; } @font-face { font-family: 'Redaction_50-Regular'; - src: url('../css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_50-Regular.woff2') format('opentype'); + src: url('./Redaction//Redaction_50-Regular.woff2') format('opentype'); font-weight: normal; - font-style: normal; + font-style: normal; } @font-face { font-family: 'Redaction_70-Regular'; - src: url('../css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_70-Regular.woff2') format('opentype'); + src: url('./Redaction/Redaction_70-Regular.woff2') format('opentype'); font-weight: normal; - font-style: normal; + font-style: normal; } @font-face { font-family: 'Redaction_100-Regular'; - src: url('../css/fonts/Redaction/webfonts/Redaction_100-Regular.woff2') format('opentype'); - font-weight: normal; - font-style: normal; -} - -@font-face { - font-family: 'Karrik-Regular'; - src: url('../css/fonts/karrik_fonts-main/WOFF/Karrik-Regular.woff') format('opentype'); - font-weight: normal; - font-style: normal; -} - -@font-face { - font-family: 'VG5000-Regular'; - src: url('../css/fonts/vg5000-master/webfonts/VG5000-Regular_web.woff') format('opentype'); - font-weight: normal; - font-style: normal; -} - -@font-face { - font-family: 'WorkSans-Thin'; - src: url('css/fonts/worksans/WorkSans-Thin.woff') format('opentype'); - font-weight: normal; - font-style: normal; -} - -@font-face { - font-family: 'WorkSans-Medium'; - src: url('../css/fonts/worksans/WorkSans-Medium.woff2') format('opentype'); + src: url('./Redaction//Redaction_100-Regular.woff2') format('opentype'); font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; } diff --git a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/.DS_Store b/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/.DS_Store deleted file mode 100644 index 2ae1f63..0000000 Binary files a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/.DS_Store and /dev/null differ diff --git a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction-Bold.otf b/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction-Bold.otf deleted file mode 100644 index 064330a..0000000 Binary files a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction-Bold.otf and /dev/null differ diff --git a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction-Italic.otf b/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction-Italic.otf deleted file mode 100644 index 410e5d5..0000000 Binary files a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction-Italic.otf and /dev/null differ diff --git a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction-Regular.otf b/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction-Regular.otf deleted file mode 100644 index e5d27db..0000000 Binary files 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b/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction50-Regular.otf deleted file mode 100644 index 60f983d..0000000 Binary files a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction50-Regular.otf and /dev/null differ diff --git a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction70-Bold.otf b/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction70-Bold.otf deleted file mode 100644 index c4175d3..0000000 Binary files a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction70-Bold.otf and /dev/null differ diff --git a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction70-Italic.otf b/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction70-Italic.otf deleted file mode 100644 index e58917b..0000000 Binary files a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction70-Italic.otf and /dev/null differ diff --git a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction70-Regular.otf b/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction70-Regular.otf deleted file mode 100644 index 5118996..0000000 Binary files a/backplaces/css/fonts/Redaction/OTF/Redaction70-Regular.otf and /dev/null differ diff --git a/backplaces/css/style_index.css b/backplaces/css/style_index.css index c54c921..8595a17 100644 --- a/backplaces/css/style_index.css +++ b/backplaces/css/style_index.css @@ -1,6 +1,11 @@ body { background-color: rgb(53, 67, 196); - min-height: 100vH; + min-height: 100vh; + font-family: 'Redaction-Regular', serif; + padding: 0.2rem; + display: flex; + justify-content: center; + align-items: center; } .container { @@ -13,7 +18,6 @@ body { font-family: 'Redaction_35-Regular', serif; color: #FCF6F1ff; font-size: 8rem; - flex: 0 0 auto; text-align: left; margin-bottom: 20px; } @@ -39,33 +43,52 @@ body { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; justify-content: center; - padding: 20px; + align-items: center; } -.photos, img { - height: 250px; +.img-container { + flex: 0 0 250px; + display: flex; + flex-direction: column; + align-items: center; margin: 10px; - margin-top: 10px; - flex: auto; + text-decoration: none; } -.img-container { - position: relative; - margin: 10px; +.img-container:nth-child(2) { + order: 3; } -.img-container img { - display: block; +.img { + height: 250px; + width: auto; } -.img-container .caption { - position: absolute; - left: 0; - width: 100%; - text-align: center; +.caption { + display: flex; + align-items: center; + justify-content: center; + padding-top: 1rem; + font-size: 2rem; + font-family: 'Redaction-Regular'; color: #FCF6F1ff; - font-size: 20px; + opacity: 0; + transition: opacity 0.3s ease; +} + +.img-container:hover .caption { + opacity: 1; +} + + +.caption { + display: flex; + align-items: center; + justify-content: center; + padding-top: 1rem; + font-size: 2rem; font-family: 'Redaction-Regular'; + color: #FCF6F1ff; opacity: 0; transition: opacity 0.3s ease; } @@ -74,13 +97,30 @@ body { opacity: 1; } +/* Ensures the second image is vertically aligned */ .img2 { - margin-top: 250px; + margin-top: 10px; +} + +.caption { + display: flex; + align-items: center; + justify-content: center; + padding-top: 1rem; + font-size: 2rem; + font-family: 'Redaction-Regular'; + color: #FCF6F1ff; + opacity: 0; + transition: opacity 0.3s ease; +} + +.img-container:hover .caption { + opacity: 1; } .letterBox { line-height: 150%; - font-size: 17px; + font-size: 1.3rem; padding: 30px; margin: 60px; max-width: 99%; @@ -95,7 +135,7 @@ body { flex-wrap: wrap; justify-content: right; position: absolute; - font-family: 'WorkSans-Medium'; + } .letterContents { @@ -126,6 +166,7 @@ body { .container { flex-direction: column; align-items: center; + flex-wrap: nowrap } .title { @@ -138,28 +179,31 @@ body { .title-full { display: none; } + .subtitle { + display: none; + } .title-mobile { display: block; font-family: 'Redaction_35-Regular', serif; color: #FCF6F1ff; - font-size: 5rem; /* Adjust font size */ + font-size: 5rem; + position: relative; + left: -3rem; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: -40px; - margin-left: -20px; line-height: 100%; } - .subtitle { + .sub-mobile { font-size: 1rem; + display: inline-block; width: 50px; - right: 140px; - text-align: left; - position: absolute; - top: 50px; + line-height: 1.5rem; + } - .images img { + .photos img { margin: 20px; margin-top: 20px; height: 200px; @@ -176,7 +220,7 @@ body { .letterBox { line-height: 130%; - font-size: 11px; + font-size: 1rem; padding: 30px; margin: 30px; max-width: 99%; @@ -191,7 +235,11 @@ body { flex-wrap: wrap; justify-content: right; position: absolute; - font-family: 'WorkSans-Medium'; + + } + + .letterBox p { + margin-top: 0 ; } .img-container .caption { diff --git a/backplaces/hermit/hermit.html b/backplaces/hermit/hermit.html index 644898c..f9a4390 100644 --- a/backplaces/hermit/hermit.html +++ b/backplaces/hermit/hermit.html @@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ - + home diff --git a/backplaces/hermit/script.js b/backplaces/hermit/script.js index b20b25b..9fd0ee2 100644 --- a/backplaces/hermit/script.js +++ b/backplaces/hermit/script.js @@ -84,12 +84,18 @@ document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', (event) => { event.target.src = '../photos/home-closed.png'; }); }); - //audio document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function() { const audioElement = document.getElementById('background-audio'); const muteButton = document.getElementById('mute-btn'); + // Function to set the volume + const setVolume = () => { + audioElement.volume = 0.1; // Set volume to 10% + }; + + setVolume(); // Set initial volume + // Set initial mute state from localStorage let isMuted = localStorage.getItem('mute') === 'true'; audioElement.muted = isMuted; @@ -98,6 +104,7 @@ document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function() { // Start audio playback on user interaction const startAudio = () => { audioElement.play(); + setVolume(); // Ensure volume is set after play document.removeEventListener('click', startAudio); }; @@ -110,3 +117,4 @@ document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function() { muteButton.textContent = isMuted ? "SOUND ON" : "MUTE"; }); }); + diff --git a/backplaces/hermit/styles.css b/backplaces/hermit/styles.css index 84610ca..ba1de89 100644 --- a/backplaces/hermit/styles.css +++ b/backplaces/hermit/styles.css @@ -161,7 +161,7 @@ body { @media only screen and (max-width: 767px) { body { - font-size: 13px; + font-size: 14px; } #about { diff --git a/backplaces/index.html b/backplaces/index.html index eea01e1..2038906 100644 --- a/backplaces/index.html +++ b/backplaces/index.html @@ -20,25 +20,25 @@
BackPlaces - Back Places + Back a play by ada
Places
a play by ada
-
- + + Sunrise
act one
-
-
- + + + Hand
act two
-
-
- + + + Pie
act three
-
+
- +
about
diff --git a/backplaces/js/script.js b/backplaces/js/script.js index 595a578..fc3990c 100644 --- a/backplaces/js/script.js +++ b/backplaces/js/script.js @@ -1,21 +1,21 @@ -document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', () => { - const title = document.querySelector('.title'); - const fonts = [ - 'Redaction-Regular', - 'Redaction_10-Regular', - 'Redaction_20-Regular', - 'Redaction_35-Regular', - 'Redaction_50-Regular', - 'Redaction_70-Regular', - 'Redaction_100-Regular' - ]; - let currentFontIndex = 0; +// document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', () => { +// const title = document.querySelector('.title'); +// const fonts = [ +// 'Redaction-Regular', +// 'Redaction_10-Regular', +// 'Redaction_20-Regular', +// 'Redaction_35-Regular', +// 'Redaction_50-Regular', +// 'Redaction_70-Regular', +// 'Redaction_100-Regular' +// ]; +// let currentFontIndex = 0; - title.addEventListener('click', () => { - currentFontIndex = (currentFontIndex + 1) % fonts.length; - title.style.fontFamily = fonts[currentFontIndex]; - }); -}); +// title.addEventListener('click', () => { +// currentFontIndex = (currentFontIndex + 1) % fonts.length; +// title.style.fontFamily = fonts[currentFontIndex]; +// }); +// }); function openLetter() { $('#letterContents').html(` @@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ function openLetter() {

I created three backplaces for you: Solar Sibling, Hermit Fantasy, and Cake Intimacies. Each represents a unique performance or project. Some stories may evoke memories of pain. As you sit in the audience, know I am with you, holding your hand through each scene. If it feels overwhelming, you can step out, take a break, or leave. This isn't choreographed, and I care deeply for you.

- I hope you see what I saw in these stories. Safe dreams now. I'll talk to you soon. + I hope you see what I saw in these stories. Safe dreams now, and I'll talk to you soon.
ada

diff --git a/backplaces/sunrise/form.json b/backplaces/sunrise/form.json index a9cd7c5..a4dccce 100644 --- a/backplaces/sunrise/form.json +++ b/backplaces/sunrise/form.json @@ -1 +1 @@ -[{"name":"test","post":"test"},{"name":"ddwdede","post":"ada"},{"name":"test","post":"test"},{"name":"work?","post":"this"},{"name":"hello ada! thanks for this amazing website. welove you too","post":"fofi"},{"name":"hello ada! thanks for this amazing website. welove you too","post":"fofi"},{"name":"my brother is autistic","post":"mati"},{"name":"","post":""},{"name":"vv","post":"vv"},{"name":"vv","post":"vv"},{"name":"","post":""},{"name":"vv","post":"vv"},{"name":"","post":""},{"name":"","post":""},{"name":"c","post":"c"},{"name":"f","post":"f"},{"name":"f","post":"f"},{"name":"f","post":"f"},{"name":"","post":""},{"name":"","post":""},{"name":"siblings are real","post":"f"},{"name":"","post":""},{"name":"","post":""}] \ No newline at end of file +[{"name":"test","post":"test"}] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/backplaces/sunrise/sunrise.html b/backplaces/sunrise/sunrise.html index 00564da..e45e1b9 100644 --- a/backplaces/sunrise/sunrise.html +++ b/backplaces/sunrise/sunrise.html @@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ - + home diff --git a/backplaces/sunrise/sunrise.js b/backplaces/sunrise/sunrise.js index e4da062..8b5a7d0 100644 --- a/backplaces/sunrise/sunrise.js +++ b/backplaces/sunrise/sunrise.js @@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ getdata(); //write async function writeData(post_number){ - var url = 'write.php?post='+ post_number; + var url = './write.php?post='+ post_number; let response = await fetch(url); console.log(response); console.log(response.text()); @@ -62,7 +62,7 @@ async function writePost(){ var post = document.getElementById('username2').value; var name = document.getElementById('user-message2').value; console.log(post,name); - var url = 'writepost.php?post='+ post + '&name=' + name; + var url = './writepost.php?post='+ post + '&name=' + name; let response = await fetch(url); console.log(response); console.log(response.text()); diff --git a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Italic[wght].woff2 b/fonts/Platypi-Italic[wght].woff2 similarity index 100% rename from fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Italic[wght].woff2 rename to fonts/Platypi-Italic[wght].woff2 diff --git a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi[wght].woff2 b/fonts/Platypi[wght].woff2 similarity index 100% rename from fonts/webfonts/Platypi[wght].woff2 rename to fonts/Platypi[wght].woff2 diff --git a/fonts/variable/Platypi-Italic[wght].ttf b/fonts/variable/Platypi-Italic[wght].ttf deleted file mode 100644 index 82be21e..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/variable/Platypi-Italic[wght].ttf and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/variable/Platypi[wght].ttf b/fonts/variable/Platypi[wght].ttf deleted file mode 100644 index ebcd999..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/variable/Platypi[wght].ttf and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Bold.woff2 b/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Bold.woff2 deleted file mode 100644 index e698e53..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Bold.woff2 and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-BoldItalic.woff2 b/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-BoldItalic.woff2 deleted file mode 100644 index 570033b..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-BoldItalic.woff2 and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-ExtraBold.woff2 b/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-ExtraBold.woff2 deleted file mode 100644 index 7c9fda6..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-ExtraBold.woff2 and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-ExtraBoldItalic.woff2 b/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-ExtraBoldItalic.woff2 deleted file mode 100644 index 269daf0..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-ExtraBoldItalic.woff2 and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Italic.woff2 b/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Italic.woff2 deleted file mode 100644 index c04d21d..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Italic.woff2 and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Light.woff2 b/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Light.woff2 deleted file mode 100644 index f50c620..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Light.woff2 and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-LightItalic.woff2 b/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-LightItalic.woff2 deleted file mode 100644 index 9db81ca..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-LightItalic.woff2 and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Medium.woff2 b/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Medium.woff2 deleted file mode 100644 index 1019aaf..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Medium.woff2 and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-MediumItalic.woff2 b/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-MediumItalic.woff2 deleted file mode 100644 index 5a3090c..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-MediumItalic.woff2 and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Regular.woff2 b/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Regular.woff2 deleted file mode 100644 index b6d68c7..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Regular.woff2 and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-SemiBold.woff2 b/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-SemiBold.woff2 deleted file mode 100644 index be2ebca..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-SemiBold.woff2 and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-SemiBoldItalic.woff2 b/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-SemiBoldItalic.woff2 deleted file mode 100644 index 0dae05c..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/webfonts/Platypi-SemiBoldItalic.woff2 and /dev/null differ diff --git a/index.html b/index.html index 2ec1b0f..9ed11b5 100644 --- a/index.html +++ b/index.html @@ -41,13 +41,13 @@
-

xpub 22–24

-

vulnerable interfaces

+

xpub
22–24

+

vulnerable
interfaces

-

Introduction

+

Act 1.

Scene 1.

Internal. A visitor holds a website in their hands. The first page of diff --git a/introduction/index.html b/introduction/index.html index d4237f4..702aadd 100644 --- a/introduction/index.html +++ b/introduction/index.html @@ -5,27 +5,29 @@ +

diff --git a/irmak/index.html b/irmak/index.html index 6009576..1cc0aa0 100644 --- a/irmak/index.html +++ b/irmak/index.html @@ -5,27 +5,29 @@ + @@ -40,13 +42,26 @@ consumerism and low attention span is a rising issue especially amongst young readers, this was an important task to tackle. The thought of Wink emerged to find a more sustainable and creative way of reading for elementary school children.

-

A tag made by a participant in the public moment at XPUB studio. Trying to understand different approaches to certain emotions/states for a bee - From the event at Leeszaal West, experimenting with knots and poetry. How can we see movement in text? - From the event at Leeszaal West. Some of the results of knotting text. -

+
+ + +
+
+ + +
+
+ + +

Working as a children’s literature editor for years, I came to a realisation that picture books were turning into another object that kids read and consume on daily basis. At least this is what I observed @@ -57,11 +72,18 @@ for children as there is for adults; such as ebooks, audiobooks etc. But moreover a “book” that can be redefined, reread or be interacted with. So I revisited an old story I wrote, translated to English and named it, “Bee Within”.

-

Example page from the print version of the picture book. - Example page from the print version of the picture book. -

+
+ + +
+
+ + +

Bee Within, is a story about grief and it is based on my experiences throughout the years. I erased it, rewrote it, edited it, destroyed it multiple times over the past years, simultaneously with new experiences @@ -71,30 +93,51 @@ to the fear of forgetting which I now think is a great and sweet battle between death and life. I think it is an important subject to touch upon, especially for children dealing with trauma in many parts of the world.

-

Example page from the print version of the picture book. - Example page from the print version of the picture book. -

+
+ + +
+
+ + +

Over the past two years, experimenting with storytelling techniques, interactivity options and workshops with children and adults, around reading and doing various exercises on Bee Within, I improved the story to be a more playful and interactive one which can be re-read, re-played -and eventually re-formed non digitally to be reachable for all children. -

-

The twine map of text based story, reachable from Bee Within by clicking to hear more about Gray the tree. - Click game story of the Queen Bee that is reachable within Maya's main storyline. -

-

-Here is some documentation from the beggining of this journey towards -making accesible interactive narratives…

-

A small sequence of onclick animation for Bee Within. - Fiction Friction cards from SI20, working on storytelling of collective traumas. -

+and eventually re-formed non digitally to be reachable for all +children.

+
+ + +
+
+ + +
+

Here is some more documentation from the beggining of this journey +towards making accesible interactive narratives…

+
+ + +
+
+ + +
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/irmak/thesis.html b/irmak/thesis.html index b17b6f4..ba2b7ce 100644 --- a/irmak/thesis.html +++ b/irmak/thesis.html @@ -5,33 +5,36 @@ +

Fair Leads

-

-Fair leads or Fair winds is a saying sailors and knotters use to greet each +

Fair +leads or Fair winds is a saying sailors and knotters use to greet each other. It comes from the working end of a string that will soon be forming a knot.

I would like to clarify and introduce some terms for you in order to @@ -41,11 +44,6 @@ on how interactive picture books can be used to foster curiosity for reading and creativity for children. I am building a web platform called Wink that aims to contain a children’s story I wrote and am making into an interactive experience, in relation to my research.

-
- knot words from Leeszaal - -

Through this bight of the thesis, I feel the necessity to clarify my intention of using knots as a “thinking and writing object” throughout my research journey. Although knots are physical objects and technically @@ -120,11 +118,12 @@ past years, where you think with the object and imagine it vividly during the process and address meanings to it as you read or write along. This way it’s easier to compartmentalize or attribute certain parts of a text to an imagined or real physical item which makes the -mind at ease with complex chains of thought.

-

Imagine you are reading a story… What if you think of the string itself -as the journey and the slip knot (which is a type of stopper knot) as a -representation of an antagonist because of its specific use in hunting, -would this change your approach to reading this story? I believe so…

+mind at ease with complex chains of thought.

+

Imagine you are reading a story… What if you think of the string +itself as the journey and the slip knot (which is a type of stopper +knot) as a representation of an antagonist because of its specific use +in hunting, would this change your approach to reading this story? I +believe so…

What if instead of a slip knot a Bowline was on the string, would that represent something else in the story because of its usage in practice. A Bowline is commonly used to form a fixed loop at the end of @@ -147,10 +146,9 @@ camelid string that would be knotted in a specific way to record, store and transmit information ranging from accounting and census data to communicate complex mathematical and narrative information (Medrano, Urton, 2018). Another example is the Yakima Time Ball, which was used by -North-American Yakama people to show life events and family aff airs. -

-

-This is why I humbly decided to document my research process with a +North-American Yakama people to show life events and family aff +airs.

+

This is why I humbly decided to document my research process with a Quipu of my own. I am trying to symbolize the twists, decisions and practices throughout this year with knots of my choosing. I was inspired by Nayeli Vega’s question, “What can a knot become and what can become a @@ -161,13 +159,12 @@ option to have a mode of reading, where you will be guided by strings to start reading from a certain section according to the type of reader you are and read the loops one by one until the end, weaving through the text. To determine the string or mode of reading, there are some simple -questions to answer.

-

The three modes of reading are combine, slide, -build . After you discover the starting point with the yes or no map in -the upcoming pages, you will continue the reading journey through the -strings of diff erent colors that will get you through the text. This -way, the linear text will become in a way, non-linear by your personal -experience.

+questions to answer.

+

The three modes of reading are combine, slide, build . After you +discover the starting point with the yes or no map in the upcoming +pages, you will continue the reading journey through the strings of diff +erent colors that will get you through the text. This way, the linear +text will become in a way, non-linear by your personal experience.

Bear in mind that you can choose to read this thesis from beginning to end as a single string too if you wish so.

Combine mode of reading is for readers who are more interested in the @@ -652,7 +649,8 @@ it is winter. Trees didn’t move at all and the bees were buzzing all around. “The kid” usually sat near the tree, on the tree (as in the other performers’ lap or hugged them).

Overall only 2 groups used the option to say a sentence which were, -“I want to go on an adventure” “I don’t wanna leave Gray(the tree)”

+> “I want to go on an adventure”
+> “I don’t wanna leave Gray(the tree)”

This was a good feedback for me because I realized they are very perceptive of actions and facial expressions rather than words. The workshop we did in the studio with XPUB 2 students was harder than the diff --git a/print/index.html b/print/index.html index eb9b3bd..c2ae8b7 100644 --- a/print/index.html +++ b/print/index.html @@ -22,42 +22,42 @@ -

  • <?water bodies>
    • +
  • Backplaces
    • -
  • Backplaces
    • +
  • <?water bodies>
    • -
  • Performing the Bureaucratic Border(line)s
    • +
  • Talking Documents
    • -
  • Talking Documents
    • +
  • Performing the Bureaucratic Border(line)s
    • -
  • Fair Leads
    • +
  • Wink!
    • -
  • Wink!
    • +
  • Fair Leads
    • -
  • ⊞
    • +
  • What do graphic designers do all day and why do they do it and what does “graphic design” even mean?!????!!1!?
    • -
  • What do graphic designers do all day and why do they do it and what does “graphic design” even mean?!????!!1!?
    • +
  • ⊞


    • @@ -139,6 +139,118 @@ touched.

    +

    Backplaces

    +

    adadesign.nl/backplaces
    +

    +

    Hi.
    +I made this play for you. It is a question, for us to hold together.

    +

    Is all intimacy about bodies? What is it about our bodies that makes +intimacy? What happens when our bodies distance intimacy from us? This +small anthology of poems and short stories lives with these +questions—about having a body without intimacy and intimacy without a +body. This project is also a homage to everyone who has come before and +alongside me, sharing their vulnerability and emotions on the Internet. +I called the places where these things happen backplaces. They are +small, tender online rooms where people experiencing societally +uncomfortable pain can find relief, ease, and transcendence.
    +

    +

    I made three backplaces for you to see, click, and feel: Solar +Sibling, Hermit Fantasy, and Cake Intimacies. Each of these is the +result of its own unique performance or project. Some of the stories I +will share carry memories of pain—both physical and emotional. As you +sit in the audience, know I am with you, holding your hand through each +scene. If the performance feels overwhelming at any point, you have my +full permission to step out, take a break, or leave. This is not +choreographed, and I care deeply for you.
    +

    +
    + + +
    +

    Solar Sibling is an online performance of shared loss about leaving +and siblings. This project used comments people left on TikTok poetry. I +extracted the emotions from these comments, mixed them with my own, and +crafted them into poems. It is an ongoing performance, ending only when +your feelings are secretly whispered to me. When you do, by typing into +the comment box, your feelings are sent to me and the first act closes +as the sun rises.
    +

    +
    + + +
    +
    + + +
    +

    Hermit Fantasy is a short story about a bot who wants to be a hermit. +Inspired by an email response from a survey I conducted about receiving +emotional support on the Internet, this story explores the contradiction +of being online while wanting to disconnect. As an act it’s a series of +letters, click by click.
    +

    +
    +The first letter. + +
    +
    +The second letter. + +
    +

    Cake Intimacies is a performance that took a year to bring together. +It is a small selection of stories people told me and I held to memory +and rewrote here. The stories come from two performances I hosted. +First, I asked participants to eat cake, sitting facing or away from +each other and sharing their stories about cake and the Internet. The +second performance was hosted at the Art Meets Radical Openness +Festival, as part of the Turning of the Internet workshop. For this +performance, I predicted participants’ future lives on the Internet +using felted archetypes and received stories from their Internet past in +return. Now the stories are here, each of them a cake with a filling +that tells a story, merging the bodily with the digital and making a +mess of it all.
    +

    +
    + + +
    +
    + + +
    +

    The play ends as all plays do. The curtains close, the website stays +but the stories will never sound the same. For the final act, I give you +the stories. It’s one last game, one last joke to ask my question again. +Digital intimacies about the digital, our bodies and the cakes we eat. +For the last act, I ask you to eat digital stories. To eat a comment, to +eat a digital intimacy. Sharing an act of physical intimacy with +yourself and with me, by eating sweets together. Sweets about digital +intimacies that never had a body. There is no moral, no bow to wrap the +story in. A great big mess of transcendence into the digital, of +intimacy and of bodies. The way it always is. Thankfully.
    +

    +
    + + +
    + +
    + + + +

    <?water bodies>

    A narrative exploration of divergent digital intimacies

    @@ -850,121 +962,108 @@ University of Nebraska Press.

    -
    -

    Backplaces

    -

    adadesign.nl/backplaces
    -

    -

    Hi.
    -I made this play for you. It is a question, for us to hold together.

    -

    Is all intimacy about bodies? What is it about our bodies that makes -intimacy? What happens when our bodies distance intimacy from us? This -small anthology of poems and short stories lives with these -questions—about having a body without intimacy and intimacy without a -body. This project is also a homage to everyone who has come before and -alongside me, sharing their vulnerability and emotions on the Internet. -I called the places where these things happen backplaces. They are -small, tender online rooms where people experiencing societally -uncomfortable pain can find relief, ease, and transcendence.
    -

    -

    I made three backplaces for you to see, click, and feel: Solar -Sibling, Hermit Fantasy, and Cake Intimacies. Each of these is the -result of its own unique performance or project. Some of the stories I -will share carry memories of pain—both physical and emotional. As you -sit in the audience, know I am with you, holding your hand through each -scene. If the performance feels overwhelming at any point, you have my -full permission to step out, take a break, or leave. This is not -choreographed, and I care deeply for you.
    -

    -
    - - -
    -

    Solar Sibling is an online performance of shared loss about leaving -and siblings. This project used comments people left on TikTok poetry. I -extracted the emotions from these comments, mixed them with my own, and -crafted them into poems. It is an ongoing performance, ending only when -your feelings are secretly whispered to me. When you do, by typing into -the comment box, your feelings are sent to me and the first act closes -as the sun rises.
    -

    -
    - - -
    +
    +

    Talking Documents

    +

    - - + +
    -

    Hermit Fantasy is a short story about a bot who wants to be a hermit. -Inspired by an email response from a survey I conducted about receiving -emotional support on the Internet, this story explores the contradiction -of being online while wanting to disconnect. As an act it’s a series of -letters, click by click.
    -

    +

    This project appeared as a need to explore potential bureaucratic +dramaturgies within the educational institution I was part as a student. +I was curious about educational bureaucratic mechanisms being driven by +smaller-scale paperwork struggles and peers’ narratives, stories and +experiences. However, unexpected emergencies - due to my eviction on the +31st of January 2024 - placed centrally my personal struggles unfolded +in parallel with the making period. I ended up conducting accidentally +auto-ethnography as the project was dynamically being reshaped due to +the material constraints of the bureaucratic timeline.

    +

    Talking Documents are performative bureaucratic text inspections that +intend to create temporal public interventions through performative +readings. I utilized the paperwork interface of my smaller-scale story +in order to unravel and foreground questions related to the role of +bureaucracy as less material border and as a regulatory mechanism +reflecting narratives, ideologies, policies.

    +

    Central element of this project is a seven-act scenario that +construct my personal paperwork story, unraveling the actual struggles +of my communication with the government. The body of the text of the +“theatrical” script is sourced from the original documents, email +threads as well as recordings of the conversations with the municipality +of Rotterdam I documented and archived throughout this period. I +preserved the sequence of the given sentences and by discarding the +graphic design of the initial forms, I structured and repurposed the +text into a playable scenario.

    -The first letter. - + +
    +

    -The second letter. - + +
    -

    Cake Intimacies is a performance that took a year to bring together. -It is a small selection of stories people told me and I held to memory -and rewrote here. The stories come from two performances I hosted. -First, I asked participants to eat cake, sitting facing or away from -each other and sharing their stories about cake and the Internet. The -second performance was hosted at the Art Meets Radical Openness -Festival, as part of the Turning of the Internet workshop. For this -performance, I predicted participants’ future lives on the Internet -using felted archetypes and received stories from their Internet past in -return. Now the stories are here, each of them a cake with a filling -that tells a story, merging the bodily with the digital and making a -mess of it all.
    -

    +

    +

    I perceive the document as a unit and as the fundamental symbolic +interface of the bureaucratic network. The transformation of the +materiality of a document into a scenario to be enacted collectively in +public aims to examine these artifacts and highlight the shrouded +performative elements of these processes.

    +

    I see the collective readings of these scenarios as a way of instant +publishing and as a communal tool of inspecting bureaucratic bordering +infrastructures. How can these re-enactments be situated in different +institutional contexts and examine their structures? I organized a +series of performative readings of my own bureaucratic literature in +different spaces and contexts, pubic and semi-public WDKA, Art Meets +Radical Openness Festival in Linz, the City Hall of Rotterdam where I +invited people to perform the play together, like a tiny theater.

    - - + +
    +

    - - + +
    -

    The play ends as all plays do. The curtains close, the website stays -but the stories will never sound the same. For the final act, I give you -the stories. It’s one last game, one last joke to ask my question again. -Digital intimacies about the digital, our bodies and the cakes we eat. -For the last act, I ask you to eat digital stories. To eat a comment, to -eat a digital intimacy. Sharing an act of physical intimacy with -yourself and with me, by eating sweets together. Sweets about digital -intimacies that never had a body. There is no moral, no bow to wrap the -story in. A great big mess of transcendence into the digital, of -intimacy and of bodies. The way it always is. Thankfully.
    -

    - - +The garden of Gemeente +
    +

    The marginal voices of potential applicants are embodying and +enacting a role. “The speech does not only describe but brings things +into existence”(Austin, 1975). My intention was to stretch the limits of +dramaturgical speech through vocalizing a document and turn individual +administrative cases into public ones. How do the inscribed words in the +documents are not descriptive but on the contrary “are instrumentalized +in getting things done”(Butler,1997). Words as active agents. Bodies as +low-tech “human microphones”. A group of people performs the +bureaucratic scenario in chorus, out loud, in the corridor of the +school’s building, in the main hall, at the square right across, outside +of the municipality building.

    +

    I documented and recorded these public acts and I re-created the +collectively voiced scenario. This audio piece is a constellation of +different recordings and soundscapes of these public moments, a vocal +archive, published in the graduation exhibition of XPUB in 2024.

    -
    +

    Performing the Bureaucratic Border(line)s

    +

    introduction

    This thesis is an assemblageI live somewhere in the margins of scattered references, footnotes, citations, @@ -1064,6 +1163,7 @@ through performative readings. The intention is to underline how the vocalization of bureaucracies as a tool can potentially reveal their territorial exclusive function and provide space for the invisible vulnerability.

    +

    “on the other side is the river
    and I cannot cross it
    @@ -1267,6 +1367,7 @@ where everybody feels included. Democracy is a rule of law where everybody feels * We, undocumented people, we don’t feel a sense of belonging from the system.”

    +

    bureaucracy as immaterial border

    Apart from the rigid visible borders, bureaucracy related to @@ -1565,6 +1666,7 @@ experiments - closely related to language as well as the performative “nature” of these texts themselves. I was intrigued by how transforming the material conditions of a piece of text could influence the potential understandings and perceptions of its meaning.

    +

    prototypes

    1.

    Title: “Quality Assurance Questionnaire @@ -1606,6 +1708,7 @@ alt="The linguistic experiment of the Quality Assurance Questionnaire Document"

    +

    2.

    Title: “Department of Bureaucracy and Administration Customs Enforcement”
    @@ -1652,6 +1755,7 @@ alt="One of the forms that the audience had to fill out during the Lesszaal even

    +

    3.

    Title: “Passport Reading Session”
    When: January 2024
    @@ -1695,6 +1799,7 @@ alt="Part of the A6 booklet of the transcription of the passport readings sessio transcription of the passport readings session

    +

    4.

    Title: “Postal Address Application Scenario”
    When: February 2024
    @@ -1744,6 +1849,7 @@ alt="A6 booklet of the first chapter of the “theatrical” scenario created ou “theatrical” scenario created out of the Postal Address Application documents and performed by XPUB peers +

    conclusion

    next @@ -1784,8 +1890,10 @@ future applicants, traumatized students, injured bearers, bureaucratic border crossers, stressed expired document holders or just curious people to share, vocalize, talk through, read out loud, amplify, (un)name, unplace, dismantle the injurious words of these artifacts.

    +

    +

    “we didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us”(20)

    As I sit in the waiting area at the gate B7 in the airport preparing @@ -1798,6 +1906,7 @@ multifaceted borders and get crossed and entrenched by them, but on the contrary we start interrogating and shouting at the contexts and the frameworks that construct them and render them invisible, natural and powerful.

    +

    references

    Agamben, G. (2000) Means without end: Notes on politics. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

    @@ -1855,15 +1964,12 @@ and solidarity in the wake of Europe’s refugee crisis. London: Rowman
    - - -
    -

    Wink!

    -

    A Prototype - for Interactive Children’s Literature

    -

    Wink is a prototype for an interactive picture book platform. This + +

    +

    Wink!

    +

    A Prototype +for Interactive Children’s Literature

    +

    Wink is a prototype for an interactive picture book platform. This platform aims to make reading into a mindfull and thought provoking process by using interactive and playful elements, multiple stories within one narrative and sound elements. Especially today where @@ -1871,15 +1977,25 @@ consumerism and low attention span is a rising issue especially amongst young readers, this was an important task to tackle. The thought of Wink emerged to find a more sustainable and creative way of reading for elementary school children.

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    A tag made by a participant in the public moment at XPUB studio. Trying to understand different approaches to certain emotions/states for a bee - - From the event at Leeszaal West, experimenting with knots and poetry. How can we see movement in text? - - From the event at Leeszaal West. Some of the results of knotting text. - +
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    Working as a children’s literature editor for years, I came to a realisation that picture books were turning into another object that @@ -1891,929 +2007,17 @@ for children as there is for adults; such as ebooks, audiobooks etc. But moreover a “book” that can be redefined, reread or be interacted with. So I revisited an old story I wrote, translated to English and named it, “Bee Within”.

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    Example page from the print version of the picture book. - - Example page from the print version of the picture book. - -
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    Bee Within, is a story about grief and it is based on my experiences -throughout the years. I erased it, rewrote it, edited it, destroyed it -multiple times over the past years, simultaneously with new experiences -of loss. In the end, I believe the story turned out to be an ode to -remembering or might I say an ode to not being able to forget or an ode -to the fear of forgetting which I now think is a great and sweet battle -between death and life. I think it is an important subject to touch -upon, especially for children dealing with trauma in many parts of the -world.

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    Example page from the print version of the picture book. - - Example page from the print version of the picture book. - -
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    Over the past two years, I've been experimenting with storytelling techniques, - interactivity options and workshops with children and adults, around - reading and doing various exercises on Bee Within. I improved the story - to be a more playful and interactive one which can be re-read, re-played - and eventually re-formed non digitally to be reachable for all children. It - serves as a beginning for a longer research. -

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    - The twine map of text based story, reachable from Bee Within by clicking to hear more about Gray the tree. - - Click game story of the Queen Bee that is reachable within Maya's main storyline. - -
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    -Here is some more documentation from the beggining of this journey towards -making accesible interactive narratives…

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    - A small sequence of onclick animation for Bee Within. - - Fiction Friction cards from SI20, working on storytelling of collective traumas. - -
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    Fair Leads

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    - Fair leads or Fair winds is a saying sailors and knotters use to greet each - other. It comes from the working end of a string that will soon be - forming a knot.

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    I would like to clarify and introduce some terms for you in order to - read this text in the desired way. For a while, we will stay in the - bight of this journey as we move into forming loops, theories and ideas - on how interactive picture books can be used to foster curiosity for - reading and creativity for children. I am building a web platform called - Wink that aims to contain a children’s story I wrote and am making into - an interactive experience, in relation to my research.

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    - knot words from Leeszaal - -
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    Through this bight of the thesis, I feel the necessity to clarify my - intention of using knots as a “thinking and writing object” throughout - my research journey. Although knots are physical objects and technically - crucial in many fields of labor and life, they are also objects of - thought and are open for wide minds’ appreciation. Throughout history, - knots have been used to connect, stop, secure, bind, protect, decorate, - record data, punish, contain, fly and many other purposes. So if the - invention of flying -which required a wing that was supported using - certain types of knotswas initiated with the knowledge of how to use - strings to make things, why wouldn’t a research paper make use of this - wonderful art as an inspiration for writing and interactive reading?

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    KNOTS AS OBJECTS TO THINK WITH

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    There is a delicate complexity of thinking of and with knots, which - ignites layers of simultaneous connections to one’s specific experience; - where one person may associate the knots with struggles they face, - another may think of connecting or thriving times. In a workshop in - Rotterdam, I asked participants to write three words that comes to mind - when they think of knots. There were some words in common like strong, - chaotic, confusing and anxious. On the other hand, there were variations - of connection, binding, bridge and support. Keeping these answers in - mind or by coming up with your words on knots and embodying them in the - practice of reading would make a difference in how you understand the - same text.

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    - knot words from Leeszaal - -
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    - knot words from Leeszaal - -
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    Seeing how these words, interpretations of a physical object were so - different to each other was transcendental. In this thesis, I am - excited to share my understanding of knots with you. My three words for - knots are resistance, imagination and infinity. Keeping these in mind, I - experimented with certain reading modes as you will see later on.

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    Knots are known to be used 15 to 17 thousand years ago for multiple - purposes. These purposes were often opposing each other. For example, it - could be used to let something loose or to restrain it; for pleasure or - pain; for going high above or down below… I believe this diversity of - uses can also be seen in how people approach knots as an idea or a - metaphor. One can think it represents chaos where someone else might see - it as a helpful mark. Essentially, this diversity is what got me - interested in knots years ago and since then, I have found ways to - implement this “loop of thought” in my daily life and research - methods.

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    There are two main reasons to why I chose to write this essay in a - “knotted” format. One is that I would like to share my process and - progress of research on this project and this involves “thinking with an - object”, in this case types of knots. In Evocative Objects, Sherry - Turkle, who is a sociologist and the founder of MIT initiative of - technology and self, refers to the object in the exercise of thinking as - emotional and intellectual companions that anchor memory, sustain - relationships and provoke new ideas. I completely agree with this - statement through personal experience. The second reason is that I see - this as an opportunity to experiment if I can use knots as an - interactive (which is not in knots’ nature since they are mainly - practiced in solo) and playful element in writing. This is also why I - would like to take a moment to mention what happens to the interplay of - processes in which we call thought when we think with knots in - specific.

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    For Turkle and Seymour Papert, who is a mathematician, computer - scientist and educator that did remarkable research on constructivism, - being able to make a reading experience tangible, or even physically - representable makes the process of thought more concrete. Concrete - thinking in this sense is a way of thinking that I adapted to in the - past years, where you think with the object and imagine it vividly - during the process and address meanings to it as you read or write - along. This way it’s easier to compartmentalize or attribute certain - parts of a text to an imagined or real physical item which makes the - mind at ease with complex chains of thought.

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    Imagine you are reading a story… What if you think of the string itself - as the journey and the slip knot (which is a type of stopper knot) as a - representation of an antagonist because of its specific use in hunting, - would this change your approach to reading this story? I believe so…

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    What if instead of a slip knot a Bowline was on the string, would - that represent something else in the story because of its usage in - practice. A Bowline is commonly used to form a fixed loop at the end of - a string; it’s strong but easy to tie, untie. Due to these qualities, we - can imagine the bowline to represent the conclusion in a story. What if - we have a Square Knot, how would that change the course of a narrative? - Square knot is used to bundle objects and make the two ends of the same - string connect. From just this, we can use it to represent the - connection between the beginning and end of a story. My point is, there - are limitless implementations on how to use knots in literature because - of their versatile purposes and the narrative vocabulary they create. - Topologists are still trying to identify seemingly infinite numbers of - combinations which we simply call “knots” and I see this as an - inspiration to keep writing.

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    One example of the wondrous versatility and potential of knots is how - they are used to archive and encrypt information. Incan people from the - Andes region recorded information on Quipus, dating back to 700 CE. - Quipus are textile devices consisting of several rows of cotton and/or - camelid string that would be knotted in a specific way to record, store - and transmit information ranging from accounting and census data to - communicate complex mathematical and narrative information (Medrano, - Urton, 2018). Another example is the Yakima Time Ball, which was used by - North-American Yakama people to show life events and family aff airs. -

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    - This is why I humbly decided to document my research process with a - Quipu of my own. I am trying to symbolize the twists, decisions and - practices throughout this year with knots of my choosing. I was inspired - by Nayeli Vega’s question, “What can a knot become and what can become a - knot?”

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    WEAVING INTO THE TEXT

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    This thesis expects participation from its reader. You have the - option to have a mode of reading, where you will be guided by strings to - start reading from a certain section according to the type of reader you - are and read the loops one by one until the end, weaving through the - text. To determine the string or mode of reading, there are some simple - questions to answer.

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    The three modes of reading are combine, slide, - build . After you discover the starting point with the yes or no map in - the upcoming pages, you will continue the reading journey through the - strings of diff erent colors that will get you through the text. This - way, the linear text will become in a way, non-linear by your personal - experience.

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    Bear in mind that you can choose to read this thesis from beginning - to end as a single string too if you wish so.

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    Combine mode of reading is for readers who are more interested in the - journey and the connections between process and result. Slide mode of - reading is for more laid back readers who aren’t looking to connect - ideas but are more focused on the motivation and purpose of the project. - Build readers are detail oriented and academic readers who would prefer - a “traditional” lead to reading.

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    Alongside the different strings to follow the text, there will be - little drawings in the margins as seen above, which will have diff erent - representations like in a Quipu. Certain knots represent the experiences - that raise interesting opportunities for research and distinct events I - went through while making the project and underneath the drawing you can - find the relation to the knot itself explained. For example if I - couldn’t manage to do something I planned to do, this will be - represented with a broken knot. Bend knots which are used to connect two - strings, will be representing the relation between theories and my - ownexperiences/motivations. Hitches which are knots that are formed - around a solid object, such as a spar, post, or ring will be - representing the evidence or data I have collected on the subject. We - move on now with the working end and make some loops!

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    HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR STRING?

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    This map will reveal your mode of reading. The order of reading will - be indicated with a loop sign Please hold a string in your hand as you - read the text and make knots or loops as you weave through the reading - as an exercise for concrete thinking. See you at the standing end! and a - number on top of the sign with a color. This is the numeric order you - should follow to read the thesis, if you choose to read with a mode. - Every reader starts from 1 and continues until 12, with a consecutive numeric - order, according to their color/mode.

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    - knot words from Leeszaal -
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    Working End

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    Why am I doing this?

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    My desire to write a children’s book about grief and memory ignited - when I was studying in college and doing an internship in a publishing - house in Ankara. I was struggling to process a loss I experienced at the - time and to find something to cling to on a daily basis. Then one day I - started hearing a buzzing sound in my bedroom at my family’s house. I - searched everywhere but couldn’t find the source for this noise. I asked - my father and he started searching too. A couple of days passed and the - buzzing was still there.

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    One day I found a bee on the floor in my bedroom and realized that - the bees nested on the roof and were coming inside my room through a gap - in the lamp. I was terrified because I have an allergy to bees and - thought they might sting me in my sleep. This moment was when I realized - I was so determined to find this buzzing sound for some time that I - forgot about dealing with the loss I was experiencing. This made me feel - very guilty and I remember thinking I betrayed the person I lost.

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    As funny as it may appear, I felt like I was sabotaged by these bees - that I thought were here to hurt me but in the end they made me - understand that its ok to let things go and every being does what it has - to do to find its way of survival. The little habitat that they chose to - create in my room seemed like a calling or a sign that I can aff ect - another living being significantly without being aware of it. This goes - for everything, no matter if some people leave us in this world, they - have living matter in us that keeps pulsing. So then I started - researching bees and their ecosystems. I read Alan Watts, Alan Lightman, - Emily Dickinson, Maurice Sendak, Meghan O’Rourke, Oliver Sacks, Joanna - Macy, Rilke, Montaigne and theories on order in chaos, correlative - vision, harmony of contained conflicts and the mortality paradox. I - wrote a lot and erased a lot and fairly figured out the wisdom of not - knowing things.

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    Years passed and I wrote and deleted and rewrote the story that I am - working on to make interactive today so many times and was waiting on it - because it always felt incomplete. In a way it will always be incomplete - because of the natural ambiguity the topic carries. Years later, grief - was back in my life with the loss of my grandfather. So therefore, the - story I wrote and abandoned changed again as I attempted to rewrite it - as a diff erent version of myself with a diff erent understanding of - death. And this went on… The story remained hidden and I forgot why it - ever existed in the first place.

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    Last year when two earthquakes hit Syria and Turkey, I was drowned - like everyone I know, by a collective trauma and grief. Then this - horrible feeling flared up by neglect and desperation. It was and still - is impossible to mourn so many strangers at the same time. I lost two - dear friends, I was furious, away from home, mostly alone and remembered - vividly my failed attempt to understand or place grief in one of the - piles in my mind.

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    Previous months, I was working on this story (yes, again) but didn’t - know how to tackle the text because it was so diff erent to what I was - experiencing now, when compared to the last time I rewrote it. A tutor - asked me why I wrote this story in the first place and I couldn’t - remember. I kept tracing back to 2016 and step by step, remembered why, - as told above. The consciousness that this story is actually a personal - history of how I went through grief in diff erent stages of my life, - made me realise that it doesn’t have to be or even can be a perfect - story.

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    In the end with the experience I had with loss, I believe the story - turned out to be an ode to remembering or might I say an ode to not - being able to forget or an ode to the fear of forgetting

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    Loop 2

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    The effect of storytelling knowledge on kids’ development and - creativity. What can we learn from open ended and multiple ending - stories?

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    ability to form basic stories or to express their emotions through - fictional characters or events. Children are not born with a wide - vocabulary of emotions and expressions. They learn how to read, mimic - and express their feelings over time. The more children read, write and - are exposed to social environments, the more they widen their sense and - ability of expressing themselves. The language gained as kids comes in - many forms and storytelling plays a crucial role in this development. - The exposure to stories prepares the kids to the era of reading and - writing. Children come to understand and value feelings through - conversation (Dettore, 2002). When children are off ered to read or - share stories, they also learn to understand people around them better - and gain emotional literacy.

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    Storytelling has been a means of communicating with others for many - centuries. It is not only a way to discuss important events, but also a - way to entertain one another (Lawrence & Paige, 2013). Stories have - been told orally, in writing or with drawings for thousands of years and - some of these stories are still alive. This is because language is a - living thing that travels through time and still remains brand new. When - necessary, it just adapts form, evolves and blends in with the changing - world. Children comprehend the idea that they have a story to tell by - hearing other stories and this ignites the imagination. We tend to - forget many things but almost everyone remembers one small story they - heard or read when they were a kid, this moment we remember is the - moment a certain story sparked for us.

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    Nowadays storytelling takes many forms. For example, some readers’ - story might even begin from here although it isn’t the beginning. - Interactivity is one of the storytelling forms that can signifi- cantly - improve children’s creativity. This is mainly because children as - readers or listeners get to contribute and aff ect the story. This of - course requires and improves creative and active thinking. Getting the - chance to choose a path for a fictional character gives the child the - freedom and confi dence of constructing a world, a character or an - adventure. Although this is essentially “writing” as we know it, - children think of this as a game, yet to discover they are actually - becoming writers. What kind of reward can we expect from active - participation in a story? Narrative pleasure can be generally described - in terms of immersions (spatial, temporal, emotional, epistemic) in a - fictional world (Ryan, 2009). When we are set to create or co-create a - world, the narrative has eff ects on us such as curiosity, suspense and - surprise. At this point, we start creatively producing ideas to keep - these three emotions.

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    Interactive storytelling reminds everyone but especially children - that there are limitless endings to a story that is solely up to the - maker’s creation. Learning to think this way instead of knowing or - assuming an end to a story, I think influences the children’s decision - making abilities and sense of responsibility towards their creations. It - is basically the same in theatre where if an actor chooses to create an - imaginary suitcase on stage, they can’t simply leave this object they - created on stage and exit the scene because the audience will wonder why - the actor didn’t take the imaginary suitcase as they left. In this case, - when kids decide to choose a path or item or any attribute for a - character in a story, they feel responsible and curious to see it - through to the end or decide what to do with it. This interactivity - therefore creates a unique bond between the reader/writer and the - text.

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    There are many theories on how to approach interactive literature for - children. Multi-literacy theory and digital literacies are some of the - theories which I find relevant to my aim with Wink. Multiliteracy theory - in a nutshell is an education oriented framework that aims to expand - traditional reading and writing skills. This theory was developed by the - New London Group. They were a collective of scholars and educators who - addressed the changing nature of literacy in an increasingly globalized, - digital world. The theory explores multiple modes of communication - consisting The sense of storytelling settles for kids, starting from age - three. By this time, children have the of multimodal communication, - cultural and social contexts, critical inquiry, socio-cultural learning - theory and pedagogical implications. Multimodal communication focuses on - the variety of communication techniques. This was groundbreaking in the - 90s because of its acknowledgment of a diverse range of literacies and - its departure from traditional approaches to literary texts. This theory - includes new media and communication studies such as visual, digital, - special and gestural literacies.

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    I kept this theory in mind as I chose the interactivity elements to - use in the picture book. I think the usage of multiple media such as - sound, image and games is a good way to start and diff erentiate from a - regular interactive e-book. The fact that this theory has an educational - perspective and is taking the rapidly changing qualities of literature - seriously, made me consider it as a guide in designing the - prototype.

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    Looking through the perspective of multiliteracies, questions come up - for me that lead to the rest of this thesis: What is an interactive - picture book? Is it a book? Is it a game? Is it an exercise?

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    What is it defined as? How can we design an interactive reading - environment without confusing children?

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    Loop 3

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    Diff erences and similarities between interactive e-books and - storytelling games

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    Storytelling games and interactive e-books have many things in - common. To begin with, they both centralize the narrative to engage the - audience. While both of these formats are storytelling tools, e-books - tend to stay more in a linear narrative and format when compared to - storytelling games where the audience is commonly the main character. - Reading experiences are also a way to be in the shoes of the narrator or - the character but in a storytelling game, you embody the mission and the - experience overrules the story most of the time. In the specific example - of a child, storytelling games are complicated and puzzle driven where - the player has missions to complete. Whereas in an interactive e-book, - the missions are solely based on the interactive elements implemented in - the text and images.

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    Another diff erence is that the visual world in an interactive e-book - is less cinematic and has limited movement. The imagery plays a massive - role in a storytelling game where the world created is off ered to the - player. In an interactive e-book, the text itself is designed to be - playful and ready for readers to discover.

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    The main diff erence in my opinion that separates these two methods - of storytelling is the reward. In a game, we expect to be rewarded by a - victory, passing a level or unlocking something throughout the - experience. In an interactive e-book, we work with the story and in - return we expect a good experience and there is no reward other than - that. But, the whole design of interactivity involves aspects of a game - where the reader –not the player- is captured by surprise eff ects or - elements that come up on the pages. This ignites curiosity but not - ambition, which is a good start to foster the love for reading.

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    Loop 4

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    Ways of using interactivity in digital platforms

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    CASA theory, also known as the Cognitive-Aff ective-Social Theory of - Learning and Development, is a framework used in educational psychology - to understand how learning occurs within the context of cognitive, aff - ective, and social factors. Research on cognitive learning with keeping - in mind the limited attention span and memory factors. For children in - specific, I think these are very important factors to keep in mind when - trying to design an interactive experience. This is because children get - bored very easily and can be disengaged because of failure of - solving/understanding something in a story. This is something I kept in - mind as I wrote for children and chose the interactive elements in the - story.

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    Finding the balance between making the interactive element surprising - and making it easy to interact with is the key to designing for kids in - this scenario. We don’t want to make them struggle and use the limited - attention span in a non-engaging way but we want to keep the reading - interesting enough so they want to continue.

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    Digging deeper into how to do this, I found Children Computer - Interaction (CCI) study very useful. This study examines how children of - diff erent ages and developmental stages interact with digital devices - and how these interactions can support their growth. This made me think - about digital gestures; how they change through generations and how to - use these to design a platform where children can navigate easily and - freely. CCI suggests that when introducing a new media to children its - better to start easy and clear when they try it. Through this I think - the best easy interaction is the tap or click for children. It is easy - to do, instinctive and common. So I decided to base the interactive - elements on click animations.

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    There are multiple ways to use digital gestures in storytelling to - make the experience more intriguing. These are usually elements such as - sound, animations, voice-overs that are ignited with a click or tap by - the reader. For children younger than 5, its usually just tapping over - the page and experiencing an action-reaction. For older kids between the - ages 6-8, I made some workshops to figure out which types of interactive - elements are most useful in engaging them in the reading process.

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    It is true that sound and animations are very inclusive and it is - engaging for kids to find out which part of a page is interactive by - clicking on images. Another thing I found out is that kids enjoy being a - part of the story. For the prototype of Bee Within (the story I am using - to test interactivity also can be read in the appendix) I will focus on - color, sound and click based animations according to the results of my - research.

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    Loop 5

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    What is the target age group for the designated prototype and - why?

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    It is tricky when it comes to choosing the right age spectrum for - children’s interactive literature. Children between the ages 3-5, - referred to as preschoolers have more developed social skills and day by - day increasing interest in play. They can take on roles in imaginative - play scenarios. They can also share and take turns more, listen and - think about rules of a game. They can form friendships and connections - easily.

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    School age children are between the ages 6-12, which is Wink’s chosen - age group is a little diff erent. These kids can form more rooted - friendships and engage in more complex narratives. They learn to - negotiate and compromise around this time as well. This age group is - desired for Wink because kids this age are open to creative problem - solving, connecting events and comprehending slightly more complex - narratives. Moreover, this age group would benefit the most from the - interactive stories and the reading process because of the developmental - phase they are in.

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    The average amount of time children between these ages use on a daily - basis is depending on their parents and circumstances. But to be fair, - it is often not less than 2 hours. If a child isn’t very interested in - spending these hours reading a book, why not ask them: “Would you like - to be a part of a story?”

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    Today, kids from age 3 can use digital gestures successfully and - experience these as simple as flipping the page of a book. This is why - it is fairly easy to create an interactive picture book which kids can - navigate themselves and be able to browse through with or without their - parents. But for Wink, I chose to design for older kids because I want - to experiment on multi-leveled narratives and I want to avoid the risk - of confusing children.

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    Loop 6

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    Limits of interactivity in narratives for children and why do we have - less modes of reading and writing for children?

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    Although there are many upsides of creating digital environments for - children due to their advanced skills in technology from early ages, - there are also risks involved in this where the kid can be overwhelmed - and confused due to the autonomy they receive. Reading a story is - supposed to be eff ortless and a good free time activity but with - interactive picture books, it is slightly more than that and more - complicated as an experience.

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    First of all, with the story at hand, called Bee Within, there are - two other stories in one. Although the main story is about a little - girl’s journey, kids get the chance to hear the Queen Bee’s story and - the tree’s story as well. This is not a must but if they interact with - certain pictures on the page, they will be led to the bee’s perspective - or the trees. This is where the storyline can get a little bit - complicated for younger kids. The child reader at this point should be - able to follow the main storyline after visiting the side quests or - stories presented in the interactive book. To create this balance I - tried to limit the interactive elements I used in the main story. I - tried to keep the picture animations limited and focused more on the - storylines.

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    Another aspect I am concerned about after the workshop I did with the - kids, is the risk of confusion due to an undefined and multimodal design - for a “book”. Kids tend to be confused when they can’t define things or - are asked to improvise without knowing the purpose.They know what a book - is and that it is similar to what they encounter on the screen. But the - method of reading and interacting with Bee Within is diff erent than - what they are used to. This concerns me because they might prefer to - just read a book or play a game instead of discovering a new thing, - which they are exposed to daily because they are always in a process of - active learning. So one more thing to learn might come as exhausting. - Therefore, in designing, I want to make interactions as clear as - possible for them.

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    Loop 7

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    Interactive reading and writing examples and surveys done with kids - As an improvisation theater enthusiast myself, I tried to engage the - kids with the story through some exercises and games during the - workshops. My aim was to see how involved they want to be in - storytelling. Improvisation has a certain way of storytelling and - interaction where there are either too many options or none. You need to - have good empathy and harmony with the person you are acting with and - you are designated to be creative in your own way. I tried to use - several improv games and warmups to involve the kids in the story more - and see how they see certain characters from the picture book.

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    My first attempt was to make a survey at the end of workshops with - kids to whether they liked it or not, but when I researched further, - surveying with kids has very diff erent methods and complications.

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    Most kids either really like or really dislike things. Finding the in - between emotions with a survey, ends up being vague. Most surveys done - with kids use emoticons as representation of a good or bad or average - time. Instead, I chose to observe the environment and understand how - much empathy kids can off er in an interactive reading or playing - environment.

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    Loop 8

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    What does the joy of destruction and the awe eff ect have to do with - interactivity? Indeed, why did we ever start playing games? The most - important aspect of a game for me is that it surprises you and leaves - you in awe towards something you weren’t expecting happened. I feel like - every reaction I give when I’m surprised, is a mirror of what I felt - when I was playing freeze and had to stop moving at any given time or - when I found the last friend hiding somewhere in hide and seek. This - feeling of appreciation and unexpectedness is why most people remember - certain games, movies from their childhoods very vividly. Its an - introduction to a feeling we experience maybe for the first time because - we don’t necessarily learn from books how and when to feel surprised, - that is why it’s a surprise; we live it, experience it and it leaves and - impression with us.

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    In my opinion, what drives everyone as a common denominator is - amazement; because it takes us to our childhoods or distant memories - where we first felt that feeling of awe. This is the main purpose behind - any kind of interactive design and I think books can be an amazing - medium to experiment this with. Specifically because this ancient device - can take us to numerous worlds. For me as a millennial, books give me - enough amazement as it is. But as I worked in publishing through the - years and observed, I think kids today need something more to ignite - their interest. There are so many factors in a picture book such as the - image, the text and sound which can be played with to create an - experience that is more surprising. This is the main purpose behind my - research and protoype. Today’s world being visually stimulating and - serving very short attention spans with social media, it is a tough task - to insert a story or reading experience that requires full attention and - patience. There are examples of Tiktok stories, Instagram reels, audio - books and games that try to tell stories worth listening with attention. - Wink is also an attempt to do this and I believe the key is to make an - already engaging story enriched with interactive elements that appear to - you through a click if you choose to. I think this is also the key to - nourishing a new way of storytelling.

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    Loop 9

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    Interactivity in reading and writing in history. What changed?

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    Interactivity has always been an experimental area in literature from - inscriptions to narrative games then to playable stories and artificial - intelligence. I will expand some of these examples from the rich history - of interactive fiction. When I dig a little bit into the media - archaeology there are three still relevant aspects that strike me and - change/improve my approach to Wink. The first is the need to connect - that remains untouched through centuries of human communication, the - second is how there were multiple projects concerning interactive media - especially for kids that later turned into narrative games or remained - as prototypes and lastly how the integration of media and literature has - been such a grand topic even before information and technology era. Some - examples to this is music, masks, puppets, props used in - storytelling.

    -

    Ancient texts with annotations such as The Odyssey, The Mahabharata - are maybe the earliest written interactive experiences in a historical - context. They are published with notes and explanations, clarifications - which make the text inhabit diff erent opinions and approaches in an - engaging way where the reader can choose to hop on and off from the - annotation and margin texts. From the 70s to the present there have been - many examples but I will be focusing on a few here. One of them is, - Choose your own adventure books which allowed the reader to participate - in the plot. These still exist as picture books where you are directed - to certain pages according to the choices you make throughout the story. - Along with this were also board games and cards that required - interactive inputs. Some examples to this is exploding kittens or cards - against humanity where the player has the autonomy to be creative and - fill in the blanks to win the game. Simultaneously, text-based adventure - games such as Zork and Adventure were popular. Early days of computing - off ered a wide space for exploring virtual worlds. In the early 80s, - hypertext fiction contributed to electronic literature. Hyperlinks were - used as a tool to navigate a text and choose paths of reading. This - inspired me to write this thesis with diff erent modes of reading as - well. After the 80’s, Interactive fiction gained popularity as a genre - of interacting with text based input. Dynabook by Alan Kay was - prototyped during this time as a promising reading and writing device - designed for children.

    -

    The 21st century off ers a combination of text and illustrations in - augmented reality books that have animations, sound and external - interactions. These are followed by digital storytelling platforms like - Wattpad and Storybird and interactive e-book apps such as Pibocco, Bookr - and Tiny Minies. Most of these apps are dedicated to education however - and not solely to creativity. Their aim is to use creative elements to - foster education for kids.

    -

    With Wink, I want to use a mainly educational tool (a book) to foster - creativity and expression. So I believe it is the opposite purpose as to - these examples in certain ways. I am trying to combine the delicacy of a - narrative where you can only be a reader and the excitement of - autonomous writing and experiencing.

    -

    This is because I think the understanding and usage of media changed - in the last years. Some tools that created the awe eff ect for users - faded and left their place to more compact designs. Although audio books - were very welcome at some point, younger users nowadays prefer book - summary apps or podcasts to them. Of course they are still used and not - outdated but there is certainly a visible change to where media is - heading.

    -

    Loop 10

    -

    Experimentation of creative exercises to be used in WINK. Exercises - of storytelling with words, images, drawing, sound and gestures.

    -

    Before I completed the prototype of Wink, I reached out to an - international school in Rotterdam to make a 20 minute workshop with kids - between ages 6-8. The aim here was to grasp the interactive elements in - the picture book to implement in the digital framework. I wanted to see - which parts of the story the children found exiting and which ones are - not so thrilling for them. It also helped me draw the pictures for the - book accordingly and edit the text with their reactions in mind. Due to - a privacy agreement, I couldn’t record or use any data from the workshop - but I made some helpful observations from my time there.

    -

    The first workshop I planned consisted of two main parts that made up - 20 minutes. The first 10 minutes we read Bee Within (attached in the - appendix) together in a circle and the last 10 minutes we played little - improvisation games, focused on the three main characters in the story - (the bee, the kid and the tree). I made three groups and gave these - groups the three characters. I asked them to embody a character - throughout the workshop and be loyal to it. Each group of three had 1 - minute on the stage to silently improvise their characters. They were to - use one sentence if they wanted to speak.

    -

    During the first part, I couldn’t observe as I was busy reading but - their teacher kindly took notes during this time, regarding the - children’ reactions to parts of the story. I inserted the bees and trees - narrative to the reading by tossing the paper I had in my hand and - picking up a new one as I kept reading the bees and trees story. This - was crucial because I wanted to see if this multiple stories in one - concept would be confusing for kids. The teacher told me that they were - excited about my gesture of juggling papers as I seemingly read one - story. They were intrigued and confused at first but they did keep up - with the storyline and understood all. Her notes basically said they - were very focused and less interested in the kids journey. They really - liked the bee and were a bit confused with the tree.

    -

    There were 12 international kids and 3 of them didn’t want to join - the workshop, they wanted to observe. I told them that they could paint - and draw what they see. The drawings they made were of their classmates - acting as trees or bees. They drew their classmate with a stinger and - the other was of a classmate as a tree with his hands wide open as he - was performing.

    -

    What struck me most on the second part of the workshop was how these - kids used the room so freely and in relation to their characters. - Because we read the story before the improvisation games, some of their - characters were influenced by how it is in the story we read. Next - workshop, I am planning to not tell the story but to talk about it - before and give context. This is because I want to see how their - understanding changes without a limitation of a story.

    -

    Bees in the classroom that day were all very active and they used - chairs, tables and windows to position themselves in a higher - perspective. Children who played the kid were usually standing closer to - the trees and looked very calm. Trees were all very diff erent. One of - the kids used postits as leaves. Some of them didn’t have leaves because - it is winter. Trees didn’t move at all and the bees were buzzing all - around. “The kid” usually sat near the tree, on the tree (as in the - other performers’ lap or hugged them).

    -

    Overall only 2 groups used the option to say a sentence which were, - “I want to go on an adventure” “I don’t wanna leave Gray(the tree)”

    -

    This was a good feedback for me because I realized they are very - perceptive of actions and facial expressions rather than words. The - workshop we did in the studio with XPUB 2 students was harder than the - session with the kids because everyone felt so restricted to obligations - and were not comfortable to let go of bodily control. No one actually - attempted in using objects from the room which is a huge diff erence - with the kids because they drew on their faces, used plastic bags as - wings for the bee and made sounds with their mouths as trees.

    -

    The next workshop was to discover how improv would work without - reading the story first. This workshop was fruitful because it helped me - realize how much information or guidance I have to off er for children - in order for them to be comfortable to participate and interact without - confusion. We made a circle and I summarized the story to the kids, - acting in the middle of the circle. This broke the ice completely - because I was a part of the workshop and they thought I was funny. For - the next part, I divided the group in three and assigned a character to - them. After this, I asked them to decide on an attitude, pop in the - middle and tell or act out their character. I went first and they - followed easily. They were not under the influence of the story so the - performances were diff erent but they still got influenced by each - other, which in my opinion is inevitable. Some of the kids were - buzzing/running around, the “kids” were walking around, acting like they - are playing which I found very interesting. Some trees were small some - were mighty and old. It was helpful to see the diff erent attributions - they gave to the characters.

    -

    After the circle session, they separated in three groups: the kids, - the bees and the trees. I asked each group to come up, walk around - randomly, embodying the character they chose. Then as I rang the bell, I - asked them to change the character. I asked them to be a busy, tired, - injured, happy and scared bee one by one. They kept walking randomly and - acted these feelings out. For the “kids”, I asked them to be angry, sad, - scared, and curious. For the trees I asked them to be wise, mad, funny - and happy. The results were amazing. They adapted very quickly to the - changing of emotions which showed me that this age gap was good to work - with. The trees stopped walking as I changed the emotions and this was - an affirmation to not animate the tree with movement but more with - changing of color and tiny animations. They mostly used arms and face - expressions to show the emotions, some of them ducked or made sounds. As - I said mad, one of the kids ran and put her red jacket on. This made me - think about using color to show emotions for the tree. It was good to - see that they weren’t scared or discouraged by negative emotions as - well. We ended the workshop by drawing our characters. It was nice to - see them own their imaginary characters enough to draw them with - joy.

    -

    The last workshop was dedicated to discovering the sound aspect. The - tree in the story speaks in verses so I chose one verse and - read/performed it in a circle to begin with. Then I gave them some - instruments: a drum, a bell, aluminum folio, a balloon and a bubble - wrap. I asked for a few volunteers and they made sound eff ects as I - read the verse very slowly. This went good and I saw that they like to - dramatize the sounds and make them funny or unexpected. They used the - bubble wrap to make sounds for snowing or aluminum folio for the - volcano. They had great fun but I think I made a mistake by making a few - kids do foley at the same time because they didn’t know how to take - turns and were hesitant at first. Then quite impressively, they made - their own system where they took turns to make eff ects for each - sentence.

    -

    Then I made four groups of three. 3 kids as actors and 3 kids as - foley actors. They buddied up and made short scenes where one group made - sounds eff ects to the others acting on stage. This was the best part of - this workshop because they could lead the actors with the sounds they - made or vice versa. This I think is very important because it shows that - they like to be a part of or be eff ective to the story itself. They - were very creative in using the objects in the room and turning them - into a tool for sound. They enjoyed to foley the bee and the other - characters not so much. Which showed me that I should focus on the sound - of the bee in the prototype.

    -

    Overall, the workshops were very helpful for me to understand where - to focus on as I develop. I realized that some of the sound, color and - movement animations I planned were too complicated and I decided to make - them more simplistic. I decided to animate the tree with only color - because I was eff ected by this one participant who took the red jacket - to represent the tree was mad. For the bee I decided to focus on sound - more. For the kid I decided to use more visual animations to make it - more interesting.

    -

    One other thing the workshops helped me with is the multiple stories - I am planning to tell in one narrative. The book I have has two side - quest/stories so it nice to see that kids weren’t confused with these - narratives. I decided to make the story of the tree as a click game - where the lines appear by clicking and the bee’s story through a text - based game. I wanted to use click game with the tree because it seemed - like they needed more stimulation to be interested in that story and I - though a ‘reveal the story’ click game could keep them interested. For - the bee, knowing they like the character, I wanted to make it more like - a game to give the kids a chance and autonomy to be a part of the story - itself.

    -

    Loop 11

    -

    The diff erences of these exercises in WINK than the already existing - interactive e-book platforms The interactive e-book apps existing today, - made especially for children, are quite similar in both format and - purpose. If we take a look at Bookr, Piboco, and Kotobee, we can see - they seek a new way to tell a story but have one mode of reading. The - stories are linear and can be read once, without side quests. This is - the main diff erence with what I am trying to design. Wink acts as a - tool to play with and choose paths. The story isn’t linear in the - traditional way where you interact with the pictures and finish the book - but there are side stories to the main story that they can discover or - choose not to. I think this is a solid diff erence. This makes it a - playable narrative, diff erent from a book.

    -

    This prototype is a good start to see how far I can get with the - interactive elements and side stories without confusing or discouraging - the children. There are many other aspects that can be implemented to - this design such as writing elements and drawing but for the meantime, - also in correspondence with the workshops, I choose to test the sound - and image along with one main and two small narratives.

    -

    For future prototypes, I envision space to draw and write as a - contribution to the story and maybe turning Wink into a hybrid format - with more autonomous features. For me, at this point, it’s valuable and - essential to see if my technique of combining narratives is working or - not.

    -

    Loop 12

    -

    Standing End

    -

    After many loops of thought, we are here at the standing end of the - thesis. There is room for more loops and knots in the future to secure - this string of thought but for now, we have come to the dock and rest - ashore.

    -

    Reading this thesis with a string, using concrete thinking as a - technique to go through a research and text was a helpful exercise for - me and helped me mark my thoughts and ideas. The overarching theme of - knots and experimental approach to modes of reading was valuable for me - to share and try as an enthusiastic young writer. I like that I asked - the reader to interact with the thesis and follow paths accordingly.

    -

    It was enlightening to see the results of working with kids and be - able to see from their point of view and alter everything according to - these encounters. Using CCI and Multiliteracy theory as a guide to - approach the design and prototype was helpful in understanding how to - approach and tackle the desire of making something for children.

    -

    Now from where I stand, I feel more rooted and have a clearer idea of - what works and doesn’t work. Some features that I think would work very - well like the choice of writing didn’t go as planned because multiple - narratives is already too much. I realized I underestimated the eff ect - of introducing a new media to children. This is why I decided to take it - step by step with the interactivity.

    -

    Taking a step to make Wink and using the story I wrote and feel is - important in my personal history as a prototype was a breakthrough. I - feel like my interest and desire to discover new ways of writing, - reading and experiencing literature is ongoing and it was a beautiful - journey so far. I am looking forward to making more knots on this long - and mysterious string at hand.

    -
    -

    Bibliography:

    - Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (2009) ‘“multiliteracies”: - New Literacies, new learning’, Pedagogies: An International Journal, - 4(3), pp. 164–195. doi:10.1080/15544800903076044. -
    - Dettore, E. (2002) “Children’s emotional GrowthAdults’ role as emotional archaeologists,” - Childhood education, 78(5), pp. 278–281. doi: - 10.1080/00094056.2002.10522741. -
    - Ingold, T. (2015) The life of lines.London, England: Routledge. -
    - Lawrence, R. L. and Paige, D. S. (2016) “What our ancestors knew: Teaching and learning through storytelling: - What our ancestors knew: Teaching and learning through storytelling,” - New directions for adult and continuing education, 2016(149), pp. 63–72. - doi: 10.1002/ace.20177. -
    - Papert, S. and Papert, S. A. (2020) Mindstorms - (revised): Children, computers, and powerful ideas. London, England: - Basic Books. -
    - Ryan, M.-L. (2009) “From narrative games to playable - stories: Toward a poetics of interactive narrative,” StoryWorlds A - Journal of Narrative Studies, 1(1), pp. 43–59. doi: 10.1353/stw.0.0003. -
    - Smeets, D. and Bus, A. (2013) “Picture Storybooks Go Digital: Pros and - Cons,” in Quality Reading Instruction in the Age of Common Core - Standards. International Reading Association, pp. 176–189. -
    - Strohecker, C. (ed.) (1978) Why knot? MIT. -
    - The Effect of Multimodality in Increasing Motivation and Collaboration among - 4th CSE EFL Students (no date). -
    - Turkle, S. (ed.) (2014) Evocative objects: Things we think with. MIT - Press. -
    - Urton, M. M. &. (2018) The khipu code: the knotty mystery of - the Inkas’ 3D records, aeon. Available at: https:// - aeon.co/ideas/the-khipu-code-the-knotty-mystery-of-the-inkas-3d-records. -
    - Vega, N. (2022) Codes in Knots. - Sensing Digital Memories, The Whole - Life. Available at: https://wholelife.hkw.de/ - codes-in-knots-sensing-digital-memories/. -

    - -
    - - - -
    -

    Wink!

    -

    A Prototype -for Interactive Children’s Literature

    -

    Wink is a prototype for an interactive picture book platform. This -platform aims to make reading into a mindfull and thought provoking -process by using interactive and playful elements, multiple stories -within one narrative and sound elements. Especially today where -consumerism and low attention span is a rising issue especially amongst -young readers, this was an important task to tackle. The thought of Wink -emerged to find a more sustainable and creative way of reading for -elementary school children.

    -
    - - -
    -
    - - -
    -
    - - -
    -

    Working as a children’s literature editor for years, I came to a -realisation that picture books were turning into another object that -kids read and consume on daily basis. At least this is what I observed -in Turkey. Teachers and parents were finding it difficult to find new -books constantly or were tired of rereading the same book. As a young -person in the publishing sector, I believe there should be more options -for children as there is for adults; such as ebooks, audiobooks etc. But -moreover a “book” that can be redefined, reread or be interacted with. -So I revisited an old story I wrote, translated to English and named it, -“Bee Within”.

    -
    - - -
    -
    - - +
    + + +
    +
    + +

    Bee Within, is a story about grief and it is based on my experiences throughout the years. I erased it, rewrote it, edited it, destroyed it @@ -2874,1066 +2078,887 @@ working on storytelling of collective traumas” +

    +

    Fair Leads

    +

    Fair +leads or Fair winds is a saying sailors and knotters use to greet each +other. It comes from the working end of a string that will soon be +forming a knot.

    +

    I would like to clarify and introduce some terms for you in order to +read this text in the desired way. For a while, we will stay in the +bight of this journey as we move into forming loops, theories and ideas +on how interactive picture books can be used to foster curiosity for +reading and creativity for children. I am building a web platform called +Wink that aims to contain a children’s story I wrote and am making into +an interactive experience, in relation to my research.

    +

    Through this bight of the thesis, I feel the necessity to clarify my +intention of using knots as a “thinking and writing object” throughout +my research journey. Although knots are physical objects and technically +crucial in many fields of labor and life, they are also objects of +thought and are open for wide minds’ appreciation. Throughout history, +knots have been used to connect, stop, secure, bind, protect, decorate, +record data, punish, contain, fly and many other purposes. So if the +invention of flying -which required a wing that was supported using +certain types of knotswas initiated with the knowledge of how to use +strings to make things, why wouldn’t a research paper make use of this +wonderful art as an inspiration for writing and interactive reading?

    +

    KNOTS AS OBJECTS TO THINK +WITH

    +

    There is a delicate complexity of thinking of and with knots, which +ignites layers of simultaneous connections to one’s specific experience; +where one person may associate the knots with struggles they face, +another may think of connecting or thriving times. In a workshop in +Rotterdam, I asked participants to write three words that comes to mind +when they think of knots. There were some words in common like strong, +chaotic, confusing and anxious. On the other hand, there were variations +of connection, binding, bridge and support. Keeping these answers in +mind or by coming up with your words on knots and embodying them in the +practice of reading would make a diff erence in how you understand the +same text.

    +

    Seeing how these words, interpretations of a physical object were so +diff erent to each other was transcendental. In this thesis, I am +excited to share my understanding of knots with you. My three words for +knots are resistance, imagination and infinity. Keeping these in mind, I +experimented with certain reading modes as you will see later on.

    +

    Knots are known to be used 15 to 17 thousand years ago for multiple +purposes. These purposes were often opposing each other. For example, it +could be used to let something loose or to restrain it; for pleasure or +pain; for going high above or down below… I believe this diversity of +uses can also be seen in how people approach knots as an idea or a +metaphor. One can think it represents chaos where someone else might see +it as a helpful mark. Essentially, this diversity is what got me +interested in knots years ago and since then, I have found ways to +implement this “loop of thought” in my daily life and research +methods.

    +

    There are two main reasons to why I chose to write this essay in a +“knotted” format. One is that I would like to share my process and +progress of research on this project and this involves “thinking with an +object”, in this case types of knots. In Evocative Objects, Sherry +Turkle, who is a sociologist and the founder of MIT initiative of +technology and self, refers to the object in the exercise of thinking as +emotional and intellectual companions that anchor memory, sustain +relationships and provoke new ideas. I completely agree with this +statement through personal experience. The second reason is that I see +this as an opportunity to experiment if I can use knots as an +interactive (which is not in knots’ nature since they are mainly +practiced in solo) and playful element in writing. This is also why I +would like to take a moment to mention what happens to the interplay of +processes in which we call thought when we think with knots in +specific.

    +

    For Turkle and Seymour Papert, who is a mathematician, computer +scientist and educator that did remarkable research on constructivism, +being able to make a reading experience tangible, or even physically +representable makes the process of thought more concrete. Concrete +thinking in this sense is a way of thinking that I adapted to in the +past years, where you think with the object and imagine it vividly +during the process and address meanings to it as you read or write +along. This way it’s easier to compartmentalize or attribute certain +parts of a text to an imagined or real physical item which makes the +mind at ease with complex chains of thought.

    +

    Imagine you are reading a story… What if you think of the string +itself as the journey and the slip knot (which is a type of stopper +knot) as a representation of an antagonist because of its specific use +in hunting, would this change your approach to reading this story? I +believe so…

    +

    What if instead of a slip knot a Bowline was on the string, would +that represent something else in the story because of its usage in +practice. A Bowline is commonly used to form a fixed loop at the end of +a string; it’s strong but easy to tie, untie. Due to these qualities, we +can imagine the bowline to represent the conclusion in a story. What if +we have a Square Knot, how would that change the course of a narrative? +Square knot is used to bundle objects and make the two ends of the same +string connect. From just this, we can use it to represent the +connection between the beginning and end of a story. My point is, there +are limitless implementations on how to use knots in literature because +of their versatile purposes and the narrative vocabulary they create. +Topologists are still trying to identify seemingly infinite numbers of +combinations which we simply call “knots” and I see this as an +inspiration to keep writing.

    +

    One example of the wondrous versatility and potential of knots is how +they are used to archive and encrypt information. Incan people from the +Andes region recorded information on Quipus, dating back to 700 CE. +Quipus are textile devices consisting of several rows of cotton and/or +camelid string that would be knotted in a specific way to record, store +and transmit information ranging from accounting and census data to +communicate complex mathematical and narrative information (Medrano, +Urton, 2018). Another example is the Yakima Time Ball, which was used by +North-American Yakama people to show life events and family aff +airs.

    +

    This is why I humbly decided to document my research process with a +Quipu of my own. I am trying to symbolize the twists, decisions and +practices throughout this year with knots of my choosing. I was inspired +by Nayeli Vega’s question, “What can a knot become and what can become a +knot?”

    +

    WEAVING INTO THE TEXT

    +

    This thesis expects participation from its reader. You have the +option to have a mode of reading, where you will be guided by strings to +start reading from a certain section according to the type of reader you +are and read the loops one by one until the end, weaving through the +text. To determine the string or mode of reading, there are some simple +questions to answer.

    +

    The three modes of reading are combine, slide, build . After you +discover the starting point with the yes or no map in the upcoming +pages, you will continue the reading journey through the strings of diff +erent colors that will get you through the text. This way, the linear +text will become in a way, non-linear by your personal experience.

    +

    Bear in mind that you can choose to read this thesis from beginning +to end as a single string too if you wish so.

    +

    Combine mode of reading is for readers who are more interested in the +journey and the connections between process and result. Slide mode of +reading is for more laid back readers who aren’t looking to connect +ideas but are more focused on the motivation and purpose of the project. +Build readers are detail oriented and academic readers who would prefer +a “traditional” lead to reading.

    +

    Alongside the different strings to follow the text, there will be +little drawings in the margins as seen above, which will have diff erent +representations like in a Quipu. Certain knots represent the experiences +that raise interesting opportunities for research and distinct events I +went through while making the project and underneath the drawing you can +find the relation to the knot itself explained. For example if I +couldn’t manage to do something I planned to do, this will be +represented with a broken knot. Bend knots which are used to connect two +strings, will be representing the relation between theories and my +ownexperiences/motivations. Hitches which are knots that are formed +around a solid object, such as a spar, post, or ring will be +representing the evidence or data I have collected on the subject. We +move on now with the working end and make some loops! ## HOW TO CHOOSE +YOUR STRING This map will reveal your mode of reading. The order of +reading will be indicated with a loop sign Please hold a string in your +hand as you read the text and make knots or loops as you weave through +the reading as an exercise for concrete thinking. See you at the +standing end! and a number on top of the sign with a color. This is the +numeric order you can follow to read the thesis.

    +

    Working End

    +

    Loop 1

    +

    Why am I doing this?

    +

    My desire to write a children’s book about grief and memory ignited +when I was studying in college and doing an internship in a publishing +house in Ankara. I was struggling to process a loss I experienced at the +time and to find something to cling to on a daily basis. Then one day I +started hearing a buzzing sound in my bedroom at my family’s house. I +searched everywhere but couldn’t find the source for this noise. I asked +my father and he started searching too. A couple of days passed and the +buzzing was still there.

    +

    One day I found a bee on the floor in my bedroom and realized that +the bees nested on the roof and were coming inside my room through a gap +in the lamp. I was terrified because I have an allergy to bees and +thought they might sting me in my sleep. This moment was when I realized +I was so determined to find this buzzing sound for some time that I +forgot about dealing with the loss I was experiencing. This made me feel +very guilty and I remember thinking I betrayed the person I lost.

    +

    As funny as it may appear, I felt like I was sabotaged by these bees +that I thought were here to hurt me but in the end they made me +understand that its ok to let things go and every being does what it has +to do to find its way of survival. The little habitat that they chose to +create in my room seemed like a calling or a sign that I can aff ect +another living being significantly without being aware of it. This goes +for everything, no matter if some people leave us in this world, they +have living matter in us that keeps pulsing. So then I started +researching bees and their ecosystems. I read Alan Watts, Alan Lightman, +Emily Dickinson, Maurice Sendak, Meghan O’Rourke, Oliver Sacks, Joanna +Macy, Rilke, Montaigne and theories on order in chaos, correlative +vision, harmony of contained conflicts and the mortality paradox. I +wrote a lot and erased a lot and fairly figured out the wisdom of not +knowing things.

    +

    Years passed and I wrote and deleted and rewrote the story that I am +working on to make interactive today so many times and was waiting on it +because it always felt incomplete. In a way it will always be incomplete +because of the natural ambiguity the topic carries. Years later, grief +was back in my life with the loss of my grandfather. So therefore, the +story I wrote and abandoned changed again as I attempted to rewrite it +as a diff erent version of myself with a diff erent understanding of +death. And this went on… The story remained hidden and I forgot why it +ever existed in the first place.

    +

    Last year when two earthquakes hit Syria and Turkey, I was drowned +like everyone I know, by a collective trauma and grief. Then this +horrible feeling flared up by neglect and desperation. It was and still +is impossible to mourn so many strangers at the same time. I lost two +dear friends, I was furious, away from home, mostly alone and remembered +vividly my failed attempt to understand or place grief in one of the +piles in my mind.

    +

    Previous months, I was working on this story (yes, again) but didn’t +know how to tackle the text because it was so diff erent to what I was +experiencing now, when compared to the last time I rewrote it. A tutor +asked me why I wrote this story in the first place and I couldn’t +remember. I kept tracing back to 2016 and step by step, remembered why, +as told above. The consciousness that this story is actually a personal +history of how I went through grief in diff erent stages of my life, +made me realise that it doesn’t have to be or even can be a perfect +story.

    +

    In the end with the experience I had with loss, I believe the story +turned out to be an ode to remembering or might I say an ode to not +being able to forget or an ode to the fear of forgetting

    +

    Loop 2

    +

    The effect of storytelling knowledge on kids’ development and +creativity. What can we learn from open ended and multiple ending +stories?

    +

    ability to form basic stories or to express their emotions through +fictional characters or events. Children are not born with a wide +vocabulary of emotions and expressions. They learn how to read, mimic +and express their feelings over time. The more children read, write and +are exposed to social environments, the more they widen their sense and +ability of expressing themselves. The language gained as kids comes in +many forms and storytelling plays a crucial role in this development. +The exposure to stories prepares the kids to the era of reading and +writing. Children come to understand and value feelings through +conversation (Dettore, 2002). When children are off ered to read or +share stories, they also learn to understand people around them better +and gain emotional literacy.

    +

    Storytelling has been a means of communicating with others for many +centuries. It is not only a way to discuss important events, but also a +way to entertain one another (Lawrence & Paige, 2013). Stories have +been told orally, in writing or with drawings for thousands of years and +some of these stories are still alive. This is because language is a +living thing that travels through time and still remains brand new. When +necessary, it just adapts form, evolves and blends in with the changing +world. Children comprehend the idea that they have a story to tell by +hearing other stories and this ignites the imagination. We tend to +forget many things but almost everyone remembers one small story they +heard or read when they were a kid, this moment we remember is the +moment a certain story sparked for us.

    +

    Nowadays storytelling takes many forms. For example, some readers’ +story might even begin from here although it isn’t the beginning. +Interactivity is one of the storytelling forms that can signifi- cantly +improve children’s creativity. This is mainly because children as +readers or listeners get to contribute and aff ect the story. This of +course requires and improves creative and active thinking. Getting the +chance to choose a path for a fictional character gives the child the +freedom and confi dence of constructing a world, a character or an +adventure. Although this is essentially “writing” as we know it, +children think of this as a game, yet to discover they are actually +becoming writers. What kind of reward can we expect from active +participation in a story? Narrative pleasure can be generally described +in terms of immersions (spatial, temporal, emotional, epistemic) in a +fictional world (Ryan, 2009). When we are set to create or co-create a +world, the narrative has eff ects on us such as curiosity, suspense and +surprise. At this point, we start creatively producing ideas to keep +these three emotions.

    +

    Interactive storytelling reminds everyone but especially children +that there are limitless endings to a story that is solely up to the +maker’s creation. Learning to think this way instead of knowing or +assuming an end to a story, I think influences the children’s decision +making abilities and sense of responsibility towards their creations. It +is basically the same in theatre where if an actor chooses to create an +imaginary suitcase on stage, they can’t simply leave this object they +created on stage and exit the scene because the audience will wonder why +the actor didn’t take the imaginary suitcase as they left. In this case, +when kids decide to choose a path or item or any attribute for a +character in a story, they feel responsible and curious to see it +through to the end or decide what to do with it. This interactivity +therefore creates a unique bond between the reader/writer and the +text.

    +

    There are many theories on how to approach interactive literature for +children. Multi-literacy theory and digital literacies are some of the +theories which I find relevant to my aim with Wink. Multiliteracy theory +in a nutshell is an education oriented framework that aims to expand +traditional reading and writing skills. This theory was developed by the +New London Group. They were a collective of scholars and educators who +addressed the changing nature of literacy in an increasingly globalized, +digital world. The theory explores multiple modes of communication +consisting The sense of storytelling settles for kids, starting from age +three. By this time, children have the of multimodal communication, +cultural and social contexts, critical inquiry, socio-cultural learning +theory and pedagogical implications. Multimodal communication focuses on +the variety of communication techniques. This was groundbreaking in the +90s because of its acknowledgment of a diverse range of literacies and +its departure from traditional approaches to literary texts. This theory +includes new media and communication studies such as visual, digital, +special and gestural literacies.

    +

    I kept this theory in mind as I chose the interactivity elements to +use in the picture book. I think the usage of multiple media such as +sound, image and games is a good way to start and diff erentiate from a +regular interactive e-book. The fact that this theory has an educational +perspective and is taking the rapidly changing qualities of literature +seriously, made me consider it as a guide in designing the +prototype.

    +

    Looking through the perspective of multiliteracies, questions come up +for me that lead to the rest of this thesis: What is an interactive +picture book? Is it a book? Is it a game? Is it an exercise?

    +

    What is it defined as? How can we design an interactive reading +environment without confusing children?

    +

    Loop 3

    +

    Diff erences and similarities between interactive e-books and +storytelling games

    +

    Storytelling games and interactive e-books have many things in +common. To begin with, they both centralize the narrative to engage the +audience. While both of these formats are storytelling tools, e-books +tend to stay more in a linear narrative and format when compared to +storytelling games where the audience is commonly the main character. +Reading experiences are also a way to be in the shoes of the narrator or +the character but in a storytelling game, you embody the mission and the +experience overrules the story most of the time. In the specific example +of a child, storytelling games are complicated and puzzle driven where +the player has missions to complete. Whereas in an interactive e-book, +the missions are solely based on the interactive elements implemented in +the text and images.

    +

    Another diff erence is that the visual world in an interactive e-book +is less cinematic and has limited movement. The imagery plays a massive +role in a storytelling game where the world created is off ered to the +player. In an interactive e-book, the text itself is designed to be +playful and ready for readers to discover.

    +

    The main diff erence in my opinion that separates these two methods +of storytelling is the reward. In a game, we expect to be rewarded by a +victory, passing a level or unlocking something throughout the +experience. In an interactive e-book, we work with the story and in +return we expect a good experience and there is no reward other than +that. But, the whole design of interactivity involves aspects of a game +where the reader –not the player- is captured by surprise eff ects or +elements that come up on the pages. This ignites curiosity but not +ambition, which is a good start to foster the love for reading.

    +

    Loop 4

    +

    Ways of using interactivity in digital platforms

    +

    CASA theory, also known as the Cognitive-Aff ective-Social Theory of +Learning and Development, is a framework used in educational psychology +to understand how learning occurs within the context of cognitive, aff +ective, and social factors. Research on cognitive learning with keeping +in mind the limited attention span and memory factors. For children in +specific, I think these are very important factors to keep in mind when +trying to design an interactive experience. This is because children get +bored very easily and can be disengaged because of failure of +solving/understanding something in a story. This is something I kept in +mind as I wrote for children and chose the interactive elements in the +story.

    +

    Finding the balance between making the interactive element surprising +and making it easy to interact with is the key to designing for kids in +this scenario. We don’t want to make them struggle and use the limited +attention span in a non-engaging way but we want to keep the reading +interesting enough so they want to continue.

    +

    Digging deeper into how to do this, I found Children Computer +Interaction (CCI) study very useful. This study examines how children of +diff erent ages and developmental stages interact with digital devices +and how these interactions can support their growth. This made me think +about digital gestures; how they change through generations and how to +use these to design a platform where children can navigate easily and +freely. CCI suggests that when introducing a new media to children its +better to start easy and clear when they try it. Through this I think +the best easy interaction is the tap or click for children. It is easy +to do, instinctive and common. So I decided to base the interactive +elements on click animations.

    +

    There are multiple ways to use digital gestures in storytelling to +make the experience more intriguing. These are usually elements such as +sound, animations, voice-overs that are ignited with a click or tap by +the reader. For children younger than 5, its usually just tapping over +the page and experiencing an action-reaction. For older kids between the +ages 6-8, I made some workshops to figure out which types of interactive +elements are most useful in engaging them in the reading process.

    +

    It is true that sound and animations are very inclusive and it is +engaging for kids to find out which part of a page is interactive by +clicking on images. Another thing I found out is that kids enjoy being a +part of the story. For the prototype of Bee Within (the story I am using +to test interactivity also can be read in the appendix) I will focus on +color, sound and click based animations according to the results of my +research.

    +

    Loop 5

    +

    What is the target age group for the designated prototype and +why?

    +

    It is tricky when it comes to choosing the right age spectrum for +children’s interactive literature. Children between the ages 3-5, +referred to as preschoolers have more developed social skills and day by +day increasing interest in play. They can take on roles in imaginative +play scenarios. They can also share and take turns more, listen and +think about rules of a game. They can form friendships and connections +easily.

    +

    School age children are between the ages 6-12, which is Wink’s chosen +age group is a little diff erent. These kids can form more rooted +friendships and engage in more complex narratives. They learn to +negotiate and compromise around this time as well. This age group is +desired for Wink because kids this age are open to creative problem +solving, connecting events and comprehending slightly more complex +narratives. Moreover, this age group would benefit the most from the +interactive stories and the reading process because of the developmental +phase they are in.

    +

    The average amount of time children between these ages use on a daily +basis is depending on their parents and circumstances. But to be fair, +it is often not less than 2 hours. If a child isn’t very interested in +spending these hours reading a book, why not ask them: “Would you like +to be a part of a story?”

    +

    Today, kids from age 3 can use digital gestures successfully and +experience these as simple as flipping the page of a book. This is why +it is fairly easy to create an interactive picture book which kids can +navigate themselves and be able to browse through with or without their +parents. But for Wink, I chose to design for older kids because I want +to experiment on multi-leveled narratives and I want to avoid the risk +of confusing children.

    +

    Loop 6

    +

    Limits of interactivity in narratives for children and why do we have +less modes of reading and writing for children?

    +

    Although there are many upsides of creating digital environments for +children due to their advanced skills in technology from early ages, +there are also risks involved in this where the kid can be overwhelmed +and confused due to the autonomy they receive. Reading a story is +supposed to be eff ortless and a good free time activity but with +interactive picture books, it is slightly more than that and more +complicated as an experience.

    +

    First of all, with the story at hand, called Bee Within, there are +two other stories in one. Although the main story is about a little +girl’s journey, kids get the chance to hear the Queen Bee’s story and +the tree’s story as well. This is not a must but if they interact with +certain pictures on the page, they will be led to the bee’s perspective +or the trees. This is where the storyline can get a little bit +complicated for younger kids. The child reader at this point should be +able to follow the main storyline after visiting the side quests or +stories presented in the interactive book. To create this balance I +tried to limit the interactive elements I used in the main story. I +tried to keep the picture animations limited and focused more on the +storylines.

    +

    Another aspect I am concerned about after the workshop I did with the +kids, is the risk of confusion due to an undefined and multimodal design +for a “book”. Kids tend to be confused when they can’t define things or +are asked to improvise without knowing the purpose.They know what a book +is and that it is similar to what they encounter on the screen. But the +method of reading and interacting with Bee Within is diff erent than +what they are used to. This concerns me because they might prefer to +just read a book or play a game instead of discovering a new thing, +which they are exposed to daily because they are always in a process of +active learning. So one more thing to learn might come as exhausting. +Therefore, in designing, I want to make interactions as clear as +possible for them.

    +

    Loop 7

    +

    Interactive reading and writing examples and surveys done with kids +As an improvisation theater enthusiast myself, I tried to engage the +kids with the story through some exercises and games during the +workshops. My aim was to see how involved they want to be in +storytelling. Improvisation has a certain way of storytelling and +interaction where there are either too many options or none. You need to +have good empathy and harmony with the person you are acting with and +you are designated to be creative in your own way. I tried to use +several improv games and warmups to involve the kids in the story more +and see how they see certain characters from the picture book.

    +

    My first attempt was to make a survey at the end of workshops with +kids to whether they liked it or not, but when I researched further, +surveying with kids has very diff erent methods and complications.

    +

    Most kids either really like or really dislike things. Finding the in +between emotions with a survey, ends up being vague. Most surveys done +with kids use emoticons as representation of a good or bad or average +time. Instead, I chose to observe the environment and understand how +much empathy kids can off er in an interactive reading or playing +environment.

    +

    Loop 8

    +

    What does the joy of destruction and the awe eff ect have to do with +interactivity? Indeed, why did we ever start playing games? The most +important aspect of a game for me is that it surprises you and leaves +you in awe towards something you weren’t expecting happened. I feel like +every reaction I give when I’m surprised, is a mirror of what I felt +when I was playing freeze and had to stop moving at any given time or +when I found the last friend hiding somewhere in hide and seek. This +feeling of appreciation and unexpectedness is why most people remember +certain games, movies from their childhoods very vividly. Its an +introduction to a feeling we experience maybe for the first time because +we don’t necessarily learn from books how and when to feel surprised, +that is why it’s a surprise; we live it, experience it and it leaves and +impression with us.

    +

    In my opinion, what drives everyone as a common denominator is +amazement; because it takes us to our childhoods or distant memories +where we first felt that feeling of awe. This is the main purpose behind +any kind of interactive design and I think books can be an amazing +medium to experiment this with. Specifically because this ancient device +can take us to numerous worlds. For me as a millennial, books give me +enough amazement as it is. But as I worked in publishing through the +years and observed, I think kids today need something more to ignite +their interest. There are so many factors in a picture book such as the +image, the text and sound which can be played with to create an +experience that is more surprising. This is the main purpose behind my +research and protoype. Today’s world being visually stimulating and +serving very short attention spans with social media, it is a tough task +to insert a story or reading experience that requires full attention and +patience. There are examples of Tiktok stories, Instagram reels, audio +books and games that try to tell stories worth listening with attention. +Wink is also an attempt to do this and I believe the key is to make an +already engaging story enriched with interactive elements that appear to +you through a click if you choose to. I think this is also the key to +nourishing a new way of storytelling.

    +

    Loop 9

    +

    Interactivity in reading and writing in history. What changed?

    +

    Interactivity has always been an experimental area in literature from +inscriptions to narrative games then to playable stories and artificial +intelligence. I will expand some of these examples from the rich history +of interactive fiction. When I dig a little bit into the media +archaeology there are three still relevant aspects that strike me and +change/improve my approach to Wink. The first is the need to connect +that remains untouched through centuries of human communication, the +second is how there were multiple projects concerning interactive media +especially for kids that later turned into narrative games or remained +as prototypes and lastly how the integration of media and literature has +been such a grand topic even before information and technology era. Some +examples to this is music, masks, puppets, props used in +storytelling.

    +

    Ancient texts with annotations such as The Odyssey, The Mahabharata +are maybe the earliest written interactive experiences in a historical +context. They are published with notes and explanations, clarifications +which make the text inhabit diff erent opinions and approaches in an +engaging way where the reader can choose to hop on and off from the +annotation and margin texts. From the 70s to the present there have been +many examples but I will be focusing on a few here. One of them is, +Choose your own adventure books which allowed the reader to participate +in the plot. These still exist as picture books where you are directed +to certain pages according to the choices you make throughout the story. +Along with this were also board games and cards that required +interactive inputs. Some examples to this is exploding kittens or cards +against humanity where the player has the autonomy to be creative and +fill in the blanks to win the game. Simultaneously, text-based adventure +games such as Zork and Adventure were popular. Early days of computing +off ered a wide space for exploring virtual worlds. In the early 80s, +hypertext fiction contributed to electronic literature. Hyperlinks were +used as a tool to navigate a text and choose paths of reading. This +inspired me to write this thesis with diff erent modes of reading as +well. After the 80’s, Interactive fiction gained popularity as a genre +of interacting with text based input. Dynabook by Alan Kay was +prototyped during this time as a promising reading and writing device +designed for children.

    +

    The 21st century off ers a combination of text and illustrations in +augmented reality books that have animations, sound and external +interactions. These are followed by digital storytelling platforms like +Wattpad and Storybird and interactive e-book apps such as Pibocco, Bookr +and Tiny Minies. Most of these apps are dedicated to education however +and not solely to creativity. Their aim is to use creative elements to +foster education for kids.

    +

    With Wink, I want to use a mainly educational tool (a book) to foster +creativity and expression. So I believe it is the opposite purpose as to +these examples in certain ways. I am trying to combine the delicacy of a +narrative where you can only be a reader and the excitement of +autonomous writing and experiencing.

    +

    This is because I think the understanding and usage of media changed +in the last years. Some tools that created the awe eff ect for users +faded and left their place to more compact designs. Although audio books +were very welcome at some point, younger users nowadays prefer book +summary apps or podcasts to them. Of course they are still used and not +outdated but there is certainly a visible change to where media is +heading.

    +

    Loop 10

    +

    Experimentation of creative exercises to be used in WINK. Exercises +of storytelling with words, images, drawing, sound and gestures.

    +

    Before I completed the prototype of Wink, I reached out to an +international school in Rotterdam to make a 20 minute workshop with kids +between ages 6-8. The aim here was to grasp the interactive elements in +the picture book to implement in the digital framework. I wanted to see +which parts of the story the children found exiting and which ones are +not so thrilling for them. It also helped me draw the pictures for the +book accordingly and edit the text with their reactions in mind. Due to +a privacy agreement, I couldn’t record or use any data from the workshop +but I made some helpful observations from my time there.

    +

    The first workshop I planned consisted of two main parts that made up +20 minutes. The first 10 minutes we read Bee Within (attached in the +appendix) together in a circle and the last 10 minutes we played little +improvisation games, focused on the three main characters in the story +(the bee, the kid and the tree). I made three groups and gave these +groups the three characters. I asked them to embody a character +throughout the workshop and be loyal to it. Each group of three had 1 +minute on the stage to silently improvise their characters. They were to +use one sentence if they wanted to speak.

    +

    During the first part, I couldn’t observe as I was busy reading but +their teacher kindly took notes during this time, regarding the +children’ reactions to parts of the story. I inserted the bees and trees +narrative to the reading by tossing the paper I had in my hand and +picking up a new one as I kept reading the bees and trees story. This +was crucial because I wanted to see if this multiple stories in one +concept would be confusing for kids. The teacher told me that they were +excited about my gesture of juggling papers as I seemingly read one +story. They were intrigued and confused at first but they did keep up +with the storyline and understood all. Her notes basically said they +were very focused and less interested in the kids journey. They really +liked the bee and were a bit confused with the tree.

    +

    There were 12 international kids and 3 of them didn’t want to join +the workshop, they wanted to observe. I told them that they could paint +and draw what they see. The drawings they made were of their classmates +acting as trees or bees. They drew their classmate with a stinger and +the other was of a classmate as a tree with his hands wide open as he +was performing.

    +

    What struck me most on the second part of the workshop was how these +kids used the room so freely and in relation to their characters. +Because we read the story before the improvisation games, some of their +characters were influenced by how it is in the story we read. Next +workshop, I am planning to not tell the story but to talk about it +before and give context. This is because I want to see how their +understanding changes without a limitation of a story.

    +

    Bees in the classroom that day were all very active and they used +chairs, tables and windows to position themselves in a higher +perspective. Children who played the kid were usually standing closer to +the trees and looked very calm. Trees were all very diff erent. One of +the kids used postits as leaves. Some of them didn’t have leaves because +it is winter. Trees didn’t move at all and the bees were buzzing all +around. “The kid” usually sat near the tree, on the tree (as in the +other performers’ lap or hugged them).

    +

    Overall only 2 groups used the option to say a sentence which were, +> “I want to go on an adventure”
    +> “I don’t wanna leave Gray(the tree)”

    +

    This was a good feedback for me because I realized they are very +perceptive of actions and facial expressions rather than words. The +workshop we did in the studio with XPUB 2 students was harder than the +session with the kids because everyone felt so restricted to obligations +and were not comfortable to let go of bodily control. No one actually +attempted in using objects from the room which is a huge diff erence +with the kids because they drew on their faces, used plastic bags as +wings for the bee and made sounds with their mouths as trees.

    +

    The next workshop was to discover how improv would work without +reading the story first. This workshop was fruitful because it helped me +realize how much information or guidance I have to off er for children +in order for them to be comfortable to participate and interact without +confusion. We made a circle and I summarized the story to the kids, +acting in the middle of the circle. This broke the ice completely +because I was a part of the workshop and they thought I was funny. For +the next part, I divided the group in three and assigned a character to +them. After this, I asked them to decide on an attitude, pop in the +middle and tell or act out their character. I went first and they +followed easily. They were not under the influence of the story so the +performances were diff erent but they still got influenced by each +other, which in my opinion is inevitable. Some of the kids were +buzzing/running around, the “kids” were walking around, acting like they +are playing which I found very interesting. Some trees were small some +were mighty and old. It was helpful to see the diff erent attributions +they gave to the characters.

    +

    After the circle session, they separated in three groups: the kids, +the bees and the trees. I asked each group to come up, walk around +randomly, embodying the character they chose. Then as I rang the bell, I +asked them to change the character. I asked them to be a busy, tired, +injured, happy and scared bee one by one. They kept walking randomly and +acted these feelings out. For the “kids”, I asked them to be angry, sad, +scared, and curious. For the trees I asked them to be wise, mad, funny +and happy. The results were amazing. They adapted very quickly to the +changing of emotions which showed me that this age gap was good to work +with. The trees stopped walking as I changed the emotions and this was +an affirmation to not animate the tree with movement but more with +changing of color and tiny animations. They mostly used arms and face +expressions to show the emotions, some of them ducked or made sounds. As +I said mad, one of the kids ran and put her red jacket on. This made me +think about using color to show emotions for the tree. It was good to +see that they weren’t scared or discouraged by negative emotions as +well. We ended the workshop by drawing our characters. It was nice to +see them own their imaginary characters enough to draw them with +joy.

    +

    The last workshop was dedicated to discovering the sound aspect. The +tree in the story speaks in verses so I chose one verse and +read/performed it in a circle to begin with. Then I gave them some +instruments: a drum, a bell, aluminum folio, a balloon and a bubble +wrap. I asked for a few volunteers and they made sound eff ects as I +read the verse very slowly. This went good and I saw that they like to +dramatize the sounds and make them funny or unexpected. They used the +bubble wrap to make sounds for snowing or aluminum folio for the +volcano. They had great fun but I think I made a mistake by making a few +kids do foley at the same time because they didn’t know how to take +turns and were hesitant at first. Then quite impressively, they made +their own system where they took turns to make eff ects for each +sentence.

    +

    Then I made four groups of three. 3 kids as actors and 3 kids as +foley actors. They buddied up and made short scenes where one group made +sounds eff ects to the others acting on stage. This was the best part of +this workshop because they could lead the actors with the sounds they +made or vice versa. This I think is very important because it shows that +they like to be a part of or be eff ective to the story itself. They +were very creative in using the objects in the room and turning them +into a tool for sound. They enjoyed to foley the bee and the other +characters not so much. Which showed me that I should focus on the sound +of the bee in the prototype.

    +

    Overall, the workshops were very helpful for me to understand where +to focus on as I develop. I realized that some of the sound, color and +movement animations I planned were too complicated and I decided to make +them more simplistic. I decided to animate the tree with only color +because I was eff ected by this one participant who took the red jacket +to represent the tree was mad. For the bee I decided to focus on sound +more. For the kid I decided to use more visual animations to make it +more interesting.

    +

    One other thing the workshops helped me with is the multiple stories +I am planning to tell in one narrative. The book I have has two side +quest/stories so it nice to see that kids weren’t confused with these +narratives. I decided to make the story of the tree as a click game +where the lines appear by clicking and the bee’s story through a text +based game. I wanted to use click game with the tree because it seemed +like they needed more stimulation to be interested in that story and I +though a ‘reveal the story’ click game could keep them interested. For +the bee, knowing they like the character, I wanted to make it more like +a game to give the kids a chance and autonomy to be a part of the story +itself.

    +

    Loop 11

    +

    The diff erences of these exercises in WINK than the already existing +interactive e-book platforms The interactive e-book apps existing today, +made especially for children, are quite similar in both format and +purpose. If we take a look at Bookr, Piboco, and Kotobee, we can see +they seek a new way to tell a story but have one mode of reading. The +stories are linear and can be read once, without side quests. This is +the main diff erence with what I am trying to design. Wink acts as a +tool to play with and choose paths. The story isn’t linear in the +traditional way where you interact with the pictures and finish the book +but there are side stories to the main story that they can discover or +choose not to. I think this is a solid diff erence. This makes it a +playable narrative, diff erent from a book.

    +

    This prototype is a good start to see how far I can get with the +interactive elements and side stories without confusing or discouraging +the children. There are many other aspects that can be implemented to +this design such as writing elements and drawing but for the meantime, +also in correspondence with the workshops, I choose to test the sound +and image along with one main and two small narratives.

    +

    For future prototypes, I envision space to draw and write as a +contribution to the story and maybe turning Wink into a hybrid format +with more autonomous features. For me, at this point, it’s valuable and +essential to see if my technique of combining narratives is working or +not.

    +

    Loop 12

    +

    Standing End

    +

    After many loops of thought, we are here at the standing end of the +thesis. There is room for more loops and knots in the future to secure +this string of thought but for now, we have come to the dock and rest +ashore.

    +

    Reading this thesis with a string, using concrete thinking as a +technique to go through a research and text was a helpful exercise for +me and helped me mark my thoughts and ideas. The overarching theme of +knots and experimental approach to modes of reading was valuable for me +to share and try as an enthusiastic young writer. I like that I asked +the reader to interact with the thesis and follow paths accordingly.

    +

    It was enlightening to see the results of working with kids and be +able to see from their point of view and alter everything according to +these encounters. Using CCI and Multiliteracy theory as a guide to +approach the design and prototype was helpful in understanding how to +approach and tackle the desire of making something for children.

    +

    Now from where I stand, I feel more rooted and have a clearer idea of +what works and doesn’t work. Some features that I think would work very +well like the choice of writing didn’t go as planned because multiple +narratives is already too much. I realized I underestimated the eff ect +of introducing a new media to children. This is why I decided to take it +step by step with the interactivity.

    +

    Taking a step to make Wink and using the story I wrote and feel is +important in my personal history as a prototype was a breakthrough. I +feel like my interest and desire to discover new ways of writing, +reading and experiencing literature is ongoing and it was a beautiful +journey so far. I am looking forward to making more knots on this long +and mysterious string at hand.

    +

    Bibliography

    +

    Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (2009) ‘“multiliteracies”: New Literacies, +new learning’, Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4(3), pp. 164–195. +doi:10.1080/15544800903076044.
    Dettore, E. (2002) “Children’s +emotional GrowthAdults’ role as emotional archaeologists,” Childhood +education, 78(5), pp. 278–281. doi: 10.1080/00094056.2002.10522741.
    +Ingold, T. (2015) The life of lines.London, England: Routledge.
    +Lawrence, R. L. and Paige, D. S. (2016) “What our ancestors knew: +Teaching and learning through storytelling: What our ancestors knew: +Teaching and learning through storytelling,” New directions for adult +and continuing education, 2016(149), pp. 63–72. doi: +10.1002/ace.20177.
    +
    Papert, S. and Papert, S. A. (2020) Mindstorms (revised): Children, +computers, and powerful ideas. London, England: Basic Books.
    Ryan, +M.-L. (2009) “From narrative games to playable stories: Toward a poetics +of interactive narrative,” StoryWorlds A Journal of Narrative Studies, +1(1), pp. 43–59. doi: 10.1353/stw.0.0003.
    Smeets, D. and Bus, A. +(2013) “Picture Storybooks Go Digital: Pros and Cons,” in Quality +Reading Instruction in the Age of Common Core Standards. International +Reading Association, pp. 176–189.
    Strohecker, C. (ed.) (1978) Why +knot? MIT.
    The Effect of Multimodality in Increasing Motivation and +Collaboration among 4th CSE EFL Students (no date).
    Turkle, S. +(ed.) (2014) Evocative objects: Things we think with. MIT Press.
    +Urton, M. M. &. (2018) The khipu code: the knotty mystery of the +Inkas’ 3D records, aeon. Available at: https:// +aeon.co/ideas/the-khipu-code-the-knotty-mystery-of-the-inkas-3d-records. +
    Vega, N. (2022) Codes in Knots. Sensing Digital Memories, The Whole +Life. Available at: https://wholelife.hkw.de/ +codes-in-knots-sensing-digital-memories/.

    + +
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    -

    ⊞

    -
    -

    Stephen Kerr

    -

    ⊞

    -

    Thesis submitted to the Department of Experimental Publishing, Piet -Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy, in partial fulfilment of the -requirements for the final examination for the degree of Master of Arts -in Fine Art & ⊞: Experimental Publishing.

    -

    Adviser: Marloes de Valk
    -Second Reader: Joseph Knierzinger
    -Word count: 7828 words

    -

    To de-sign design, I -will assign a sign: ⊞

    -

    This symbol represents design in this writing in an attempt to avoid -the assumed meaning of the word and examine it as something unknown, to -mystify it, to examine its structure. The label ⊞ is a functional part -of a belief system involving order, structure, and rationality and I -want to break it. Removing the label is part of loosening the object, -making it avilable to transition (Berlant, 2022).

    +

    What +do graphic designers do all day and why do they do it and what does +“graphic design” even mean?!????!!1!?

    -The Cadaster of Orange, unknown ⊞er, c. 100 CE. - + +
    +

    I cut my thumb so every time I type i can feel it in my nerve +endings. Not true, it’s my left thumb so I don’t type with it. Not true, +I feel it anyway. Why are most of the function keys on the left of the +keyboard. What’s so functional about pressing buttons. Stephen Kerr is a +designer and musician based in. Have you ever loved an instrument? The +Ctrl key broke like four times since I moved here. I have one more +replacement because I bought a bunch of them but at some point I gave up +and use an external keyboard. I dunno I’m more confused than ever. It +was something to do with dreams and working. It’s the middle of the +night I’m writing this on my phone. If I had a dream this is when I +would be writing it. The memory is fuzzy: either I don’t remember or it +didn’t make sense in the first place. It was something to do with +fuzziness and memory no wait. Phones don’t have keyboards in real life +this doesn’t make sense. I’m trying to type but I don’t think I can get +it on the way to the office for the weekend and I think it was a good +idea to do it and I was thinking about you and I was thinking of you and +I was thinking about you and I was in the same place as a friend of mine +and I was in the studio and we were in the studio and we were in the +studio and we were in the studio and we were in the

    -Grid Systems in Graphic ⊞, Josef Muller-Brockmann, 1981. - + +
    +

    Practice-led artistic research into the 21st century phenomenon of +the graphic designer. I held graphic design in my hands using +ethnography, toolmaking and performance as research methods. I examined +how designers spend their time in everyday life, this designer, me, as +well as you, what are we doing? What are our worldviews, belief systems, +mythologies and ideologies?

    - - + +
    - - + +
    +
    +

    Secondly, during my studies at XPUB, I plan to combine different +strands of my practices (design, music, programming, theatre). Being a +designer is an important part of my identity, and I am keen to make work +true to who I am.

    +
    +

    Excerpt from xpub application letter, March 15th 2022.

    - - + +
    - - + +
    -The Po Valley, The Roman Empire, 268 BCE. - +Where do dreams come from? +
    -Monogram, Piet Zwart, c. 1968. - -
    -
    -

    Introduction

    -

    This document is a collection of fragments exploring beliefs about -labour in the creative industries, in particular graphic ⊞. Each -fragment focusses on the social, cultural, political, spiritual or -religious aspects of these beliefs through an ethnographic lens. They -record, celebrate and question the meaning that ⊞ers give to their -actions and how those meanings affect the world they live in. And it’s -about how ⊞ers feel when we live with these beliefs: we feel a bit funny -and I want to talk about it. 

    -

    I use various modes of address and different lenses to further -fragment the definition of ⊞. The origin of the word thesis is to set or -to put, but I am trying to show you something liquid that can’t be -placed but shimmers and disappears through the sand. I document some ⊞ -activities, in my own work and the work and writings of others who -identify with the label of ⊞er. The writing dissolves and reintegrates -definitions of ⊞ from different voices to show the multiplicity of -beliefs from practitioners, and to explore what it means to acknowledge -these beliefs beside eachother: the tensions and harmonies, some -lineages and some breaks. What is going on here in this thing we call -⊞? 

    -

    This is a collection of stories about living life with particular -working conditions, located at certain points in social, economic and -cultural webs. In my practice-based research I gather and tell these -stories through (auto)ethnographic methods: documenting how ⊞er’s work, -conducting interviews, improvising communal performances and exploratory -tool-making. This document collates and reflects on this research. 

    -

    What is a ⊞er?

    -
      -
    1. A ⊞er is a person who wakes up at 5am but refuses to open their -eyes. There are birds talking outside, it’s probably getting bright -already. Something is wrong, not sure what. They finally open their eyes -and there’s the ceiling again. When the light comes in sideways over the -curtains this early you can see all the little ripples and imperfections -in it. Nothing. Ribcage. Stomach. The front of the ⊞er’s legs ache. It -would be better to sleep again. Have to pay taxes again next week. A ⊞er -is someone who wonders if that invoice will come through I need to -follow up on it. The birds are so loud. 
      2. -
    2. The role of the ⊞er is to count back from five to two and -realise that was only three hours same as yesterday. They use ⊞ thinking -to never get back to sleep. They need excellent time management skills -to make this short moment feel like an eternity, several times a week. -⊞ers have an acute spatial awareness and an eye for detail: although the -ceiling seems miles away they focus on each tiny ripple for hours. A ⊞er -is someone who will work the whole waking day today, but it’s better -than last week when there was no work. ⊞ers look at their phone and see -their alarm is going to go off in ten minutes, so they switch it off and -get up.
      3. -
    -

    The precarity of working in the creative industries, in particular as -a freelancer or within a small studio, induces anxiety. There is a -belief that the ⊞er as freelancer is empowered by their autonomy, but in -fact the ⊞er as worker is trapped by it. ⊞ is work and this work is -believed to be inherently good. Work in our society is understood as “an -individual moral practice and collective ethical obligation” which -shapes the worker’s identity in positive ways (Weeks, 2011). The ⊞er -believes they are a skilled or talented worker, someone who possesses -spatial awareness, time management skills, and the capacity to carry out -work effectively and efficiently. 

    -

    ⊞ers are entangled in the Protestant religious underpinnings of the -European work ethic (Pater, 2022). ⊞ is seen as a vocation which -expresses and creates the ⊞er’s identity, and the process or its results -make a valuable contribution to society. People understand the world and -interact with it smoothly, thanks to the work of ⊞ers. ⊞ers pick the -right materials to save the planet and increase efficiency and whatever -else it is people find important. But the ⊞er becomes anxious despite -meeting these goals and becoming this person. In reality, the ⊞er is a -bot, the ⊞er is software. Value is extracted from their time, creativity -and expertise which makes them stressed. ⊞ers are a creative cloud, a -service to be tapped into, a cpu being run too hot. There is something -to be learnt from the revelation that being replaced by machines proves -we were being treated as machines all along. 

    -

    Geestelijk

    -

    There was a belief that ⊞ could be a crystal goblet (Warde, 1913), -something unbiased, clear and, in more recent versions of the theory, -serving the context it fits within. But the foundations of this belief -in functionality and rationality dont seem to come themselves from -something functional or rational. 

    -

    De Stijl members, such as Piet Mondriaan and Theo van Doesburg -(Figure 6), in their 1917 manifesto described a “new consciousness of -the age […] directed towards the universal”. There was a drive towards -universal standardisation or pureness of culture from the rich white -men. Purity is a concept that turns up a lot in Mondriaan’s writings, eg -Neo-Plasticism in Pictorial Art (1917). They claimed a shared -spirit was driving this universalisation. A later paragraph of the -manifesto is translated into english as:

    -
      -
    • “The artists of to-day have been driven the whole world over by the -same consciousness and therefore have taken part from an intellectual -point of view in this war against the domination of individual -despotism. They therefore sympathize with all who work for the formation -of an international unity in Life, Art, Culture, either intellectually -or materially.”
      • -
    -

    In this translation it appears the authors believed in an emerging -consciousness of the age, something collective which would bring an -international unity. The members of De Stijl were neither aligning -themselves with the capitalists or socialists but believed in an inner -connection between those who were joined in the spiritual body of the -new world (De Stijl, Manifesto III, 1921). The word intellectual, or -geestelijk in the original Dutch, can also be translated as “spiritual, -mental, ecclesiastical, clerical, sacred, ghostly, pneumatic”. The -choice to translate as intellectual seems to be the most rational -interpretation of this sentence, an effort to make the theories of De -Stijl appear more materialist without the spiritual element. Compare -with this translation:

    -
      -
    • “The artists of today, all over the world, impelled by one and the -same consciousness, have taken part on the spiritual plane in the world -war against the domination of individualism, of arbitrariness. They -therefore sympathise with all who are fighting spiritually or materially -for the formation of an international unity in life, art and -culture.”
      • -
    -

    In this translation it is clearer that the members of De Stijl saw a -link between the effects of what they made materially and their attempts -to be fighting spiritually against the domination of individualism. I -care about this story because of how it contextualises contemporary ⊞ -practice. Is contemporary ⊞ practice still involved in this spiritual -battle? Did the new consciousness of 1917 survive the past century, did -it procreate? Can aesthetics have generational trauma? William Morris, -Constructivism, De Stijl, Bauhaus, International Style, International -Typographic Style, Swiss Style, then what happened. Modernist artists -had spiritual beliefs, and again I care about these people from a -hundred years ago because of the effect they have on the present. 

    -

    Imagine I could trace this thought from Mondriaan all the way to -myself, wow, cool thesis. Swiss style became corporate identity ⊞ and -encouraged minimalism in ⊞. 21st century Flat ⊞, such as Metro ⊞ -language from Microsoft and Material ⊞ (Google, 2014), claim direct -descendance from the International Typographic Style and that pretty -much brings us up to date. I wonder about the use of the word Material -in Google’s ⊞ strategy, I wonder about the ghostly absence of the -geestelijk fight of De Stijl. Is Google’s choice of name another -example, as with the subtle change in the translation above, that the -spiritual element is no longer as important a part of the ⊞er’s -worldview as it was a hundred years ago? 

    -

    Excerpt -from an interview with Conor Clarke, 1st December 2023

    -

    Conor Clarke is a Director of ⊞ Factory, independent Irish ⊞ -agency based in Dublin. His work has featured in international -publications such as Who’s Who in Graphic ⊞, Graphis, Novum -Gebrauchsgrafik, and the New York Art Directors Club Annual. He was the -recipient of the Catherine Donnelly Lifetime Achievement Award for his -contribution to ⊞ in Ireland and is the Course Director of ⊞ West, an -international summer ⊞ school located in the beautiful village of -Letterfrack on the West Coast of Ireland. (⊞west.eu, 2023)

    -
    -
      -
    • SK: What do you think is the best shape?
      • -
    • CC: Oh yeah, good god. square.
      • -
    • SK: Square? how come?
      • -
    • CC: Dunno, it just, it just seems resolved. I don’t like spheres. -Circles I sometimes like.
      • -
    • SK: Yeah, squares, do you use grids?
      • -
    • CC: Sometimes. Not always.
      • -
    • SK: Once you have grids squares make sense. But you like squares -maybe because you like logos?
      • -
    • CC: If I’m in an art gallery and I see, you know Joseph Albers -(Figure 5) or something I just kind of feel, I just like, or Malevich i -just like that stuff. If I see a Kandinsky and all those squiggles and -circles it just, that just kind of upsets me a little bit.
      • -
    • SK: That’s a bit chaotic?
      • -
    • CC: Yeah. And even if I’m looking at Vermeer I can see some kind of -square structure and logic, for some reason that always appeals to -me.
      • -
    • SK: Things are a bit organised when there’s squares around?
      • -
    • CC: Yeah. And really great artists who don’t work that way I look at -their stuff and think well that’s just beyond me.
      • -
    • SK: Its something else?
      • -
    • CC: Yeah. so yeah.
      • -
    • SK: At least you didn’t say triangle.
      • -
    • CC: Oh good god. Good god no.
      • -
    - -

    Maths and grids

    -

    Why not choose a spiral or a circle if you dream of ⊞ers as shamans? -Why the grid of squares? There are strong links beween ⊞ and -mathematics, Josef Muller-Brockmann’s Grid Systems (Figure 2) -for example or Karl Gerstner’s ⊞ing Programmes (1964). I read -these ⊞ theorists as you might comparatively read religious texts. What -were or are the beliefs of the authors and their audiences?
    -    
    -    
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    -    
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    -    
    -    
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    -
      -
    • “To describe the problem is part of the solution. This implies: not -to make creative decisions as prompted by feeling but by intellectual -criteria. The more exact and complete these criteria are, the more -creative the work becomes.”
      • -
    • (Gerstner, 1964)
      • -
    • “This is the expression of a professional ethos: the ⊞er’s work -should have the clearly intelligible, objective, functional and -aesthetic quality of mathematical thinking.”
      • -
    • (Muller-Brockman, 1981)
      • -
    -

    These texts present a worldview where ⊞ can be mathematical, -objective or problem-solving. In Muller-Brockman’s text the focus is on -the formal qualities of the ⊞ in particular the use of grids and -typographic systems. Gerstner’s focus is more on the effect of the ⊞, -and the ability of ⊞ to solve a problem. Rationality and creativity are -presented as proportional to eachother. He makes space for the -intellectual by pushing aside feelings. 

    -

    The graphic ⊞er is presented as a functional actor in society who -makes the world better. Gerstner seems to be implying that creative ⊞ -comes from following the intellect and some rational cause and effect -process. I find it interesting that ⊞ claims this rational basis in the -same historical period when science and mathematics, its supposed -foundations, became much less rational and predictable, for example in -chaos theory. It makes me think that the rationality serves some other -purpose.

    -

    The ⊞ grid and the written -word

    -

    Why do ⊞ers believe in using a grid to present the written word, and -where did this belief come from and how did it develop? It can be -materially traced back to Guthenberg and metal type but that’s boring. -Magic squares have been used in astrology books and grimoires throughout -history (Figure 3). French poet Stéphane Mallarmé is sometimes quoted as -a precursor to modernist typography (Muller-Brockmann, 1981). Why did -Steve McCaffrey include the manifesto of De Stijl with CARNIVAL -(1973)? De Stijl is best known for its painters and architects, and -theories from both of these fields affected later ⊞ theories. But they -also were poets and had literary theories similar to the german -expressionists. Man’s attempt to find oneness with the whole of creation -through a cosmic hybris. 

    -
      -
    • “An artists’ book featuring a series of typewriter concrete poems -printed on perforated pages meant to be torn out and arranged into a -square of four. Complete with instructions, a reproduction of a de Stijl -manifesto from 1920, an errata slip, and publisher’s promotional -postcard.”
      • -
    • Description of Steve McCaffrey’s CARNIVAL
      -(The Idea of the Book, 2024)
      • -
    -
    -

    The developments of the written word and its relationship to form in -the 20th century is very much a part of the history of ⊞. I care about -this story because it affects contemporary practitioners. I believe -there is something magical in graphic composition and the layout of -typography, something that can’t be grasped in the words alone. They’re -non-canonical for ⊞ers but how have people who put words on pages like -Mallarmé and McCaffrey influenced my beliefs about the written word? -What makes one thing fit in the category of art, another ⊞ and yet -another concrete poetry?

    -

    Mystically -assigning or finding meanings in ⊞

    -

    This autoethnographic annotation attempts to really miss as many -cultural and technical cues as possible. It’s watching the ⊞er, me, and -being totally mystified by their behaviour. 

    -
    -
      -
    1. A rhythm exists and I wonder why. There is music and there are -voices, and my fingers press the keys and the colours of the screen -flicker and morph. There appears to be a life or energy flowing -somewhere between these things and I am curious about it.
      2. -
    2. The screen shimmers between different symbols, letters, images. -The colours are symbolic. White means the ground, although sometimes it -switches to white symbols on a dark ground. They are full of meaning and -relationship. I press two buttons to the left of the keyboard and the -screen answers with a flicker.
      3. -
    3. I count out loud to 40. It symbolises both the number of pages -to be made and the enormity of the task. It represents a period in the -desert, long but with an end in sight. What is the relationship of the -desert to the stars? If the screen can flicker from a dark to a light -ground, is it possible for the sky to also switch from day to -night?
      4. -
    4. I have taken three of the forty steps.
      5. -
    5. I have taken seven of the forty steps.
      6. -
    6. ⊞ is a series of movements and reconfigurations. It is a -creative act and one of elision. I use the keyboard to communicate my -will to the machine with commands such as “Ctrl+C” and “Ctrl+V”. I -firstly inform the computer that I wish to control it. Each letter has a -deep and layered meaning. CVCVCVCVCVCVCVCVCV. “Alt+Tab” asks the screen -to flicker. The computer must match my multithreading. It must be -prepared to follow my changing demands in our shared focus. FAVCV. F is -to seek, but it is optimistically labelled to find. I enter the -incorrect combination of symbols (“samle”) the incantation is useless -and I will not find what I seek. I try again “sample” and the computer -gives me what I desire. Why does the machine demand perfection? Why does -it value perfection in me, what is it trying to teach me? Why wont it -leave me alone?
      7. -
    7. I have taken eleven of the forty steps. I will rest.
      8. -
    -

    What -does ⊞ do? What is the ⊞er trying to do by pressing all these buttons -and making the screen vibrate?

    -
      -
    • “⊞ only generates longing”
      • -
    • (Van Der Velden, 2006)
      • -
    -

    I wasn’t trying to generate longing, I was trying to make an annual -report. It was a corporate job I was working on, a nice one to have -because it’s fairly well paid and not too complicated. A bit boring and -kinda repetitive, but you can just put your headphones on and get stuck -into it. I was pretty happy with the results in the end, but for sure -not the type of work you’re supposed to be proud of as a ⊞er.

    -
      -
    • “I found myself way over my head with, believe it or not, a -catalogue and price list for bathroom equipment. Nothing I’ve done since -has seemed as difficult.”
      • -
    • Michael Bierut (creativechair.org, 2018)
      • -
    -

    And of course Piet Zwart’s (Figure 8) famous electrical cable -catalogues. ⊞ is just work, chill. Is a ⊞er a user or a server? Maybe ⊞ -is an example of our general belief in this dichotomy not quite making -sense or fitting reality. The ⊞er is working for whom? Themselves? Their -clients?

    -
    -
      -
    • “attempts to undo the privileged position of the agentive -subject can help us understand the strange status of repetitive and -quasi-robotic labour in today’s digital age.”
      • -
    • (Hu, 2022)
      • -
    -

    This quote relates to freelancing generally in some way, and -deconstructing the work or worker. Are workers things? Yeah, kinda. ⊞ers -don’t have super powers, contrary to some beliefs within the industry. -For example on what⊞cando.com it is suggested that we should “re⊞ -everything!”. Let’s actually not do that. ⊞ers are mostly just humans -working on computers like so many other bots. ⊞ers try to create -clarity, to assign meaning and understand: “Confusion and clutter are -failures of ⊞, not attributes of information” (Tufte, 1990, p.53). What -if the sounds of my fingers and my keyboard are not noise but music: we -are quasi-robots and maybe its good to listen to our little Taylorist -finger tappings and see what else is being said.

    -

    Excerpt -from an interview with the members of Distinctive Repetition on 1st -December 2023.

    -

    Distinctive Repetition is an award-winning graphic ⊞ studio based in -Dublin, Ireland. Principal ⊞er and Institute of Creative Advertising and -⊞ past-president, Rossi McAuley, is joined in this interview by ⊞ers -Jenny Leahy and Ben Nagle. This interview was carried out around a table -with the interviewer in the bottom right corner (◲) and the three -members of the studio in the other three seats.

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      -
    • ◲: whats your favourite colour?
      • -
    • ◰: red.
      • -
    • ◲: red.
      • -
    • ◱: really? thats it? are you fucking kidding me?
      • -
    • ◰: do i fill it in?
      • -
    • ◳: they’re warm up questions obviously they’re to get you -comfortable answering questions.
      • -
    • ◳: yellow
      • -
    • ◲: if the seat of your consciousness was in your hands, like all of -your feelings and your thoughts and your desires and your emotions come -through your hands, can you describe to me the day that you’ve had so -far please?
      • -
    • ◳: jelly that’s not quite solid
      • -
    • ◳: not quite solidified in the fridge yet
      • -
    • ◳: and its just oozing through my fingers
      • -
    • (redacted sentence)
      • -
    • ◳: that’s what today has been like but its my brain thats oozing out -of me
      • -
    • ◲: yes. that’s a good answer. ok will we keep going in a -circle?
      • -
    • ◱: whatever you like bro.
      • -
    • ◲: do you ever dream about work?
      • -
    • ◱: all the time.
      • -
    • ◲: would you care to share one of those dreams?
      • -
    • ◱: they’re always angst-ridden, never, they’re never eh, they’re -never positive solution-solved things, we’ve always like lists and lists -and lists of things to do they’re never resolved they’re always like -shit we’ve, its, its always problematic, and its all the time.
      • -
    • ◳: weren’t you taking grids out of drawers in a dream recently?
      • -
    • ◱: yeah yeah.
      • -
    • (obscured)
      • -
    • ◲: why were you taking grids out of drawers?
      • -
    • ◱: emm recently I had a dream where I was giving out to ◳ about not -having things done, this ◳, participant two, about not having things -done, and i was opening up drawers in my office and I was like, just use -this grid and the drawers were full of grids and I was giving them to -her and saying just fucking use those grids for fucks sake why don’t we -use those grids.
      • -
    • (section redacted by request of interviewees)
      • -
    - -

    About the interview

    -

    Before meeting them in person, I mailed a small booklet to the -interviewees entitled Enthusiasm to give context to the -conversation. The word enthusiasm originally meant inspiration or -possession by a god. The booklet recounted three mystical dreams René -Descartes had which he credited as a moment of inspiration or enthusiasm -that influenced his later work on rationalism, and related to his work -on geometry and grids (Figure 4). As well as the content of the dreams, -the booklet described their relevance:
    -    

    -
      -
    • “404 years ago on the night of the 10th November 1619, three dreams -were dreamt. A 23-year old man is “filled with enthusiasm” and enters a -feverish sleep in Ulm, Germany. In this process of enthusiasm and -dreamwork, he discovers the foundations of a wonderful science. The -Method of Properly Guiding the Reason in the Search of Truth in the -Sciences will be suppressed by the churches, both Calvinist and -Catholic. They are a threat to the world view, and a threat to religion. -The cartesian grid uses measurements to estabish relationships. -Cartesian geometry has let us fly spaceships and zone and divide land. -Some things have happened. Some good things, some bad things. The link -is broken or breaking or should be broken. It’s rotting. Maybe there’s a -better way we can interpret these dreams now.”
      • -
    -

    Descartes felt that interpreting his dreams was an appropriate method -to develop a rational theory of skepticism, which led to some of the -philosophical foundations of modern scientific and mathematical -theories. The booklet also drew parallels with Martin Luther’s -scrupulous doubt, “Only God and certain madmen have no doubts!”. Like -Descartes, Luther’s new theories helped to give the basis for the -structure of thought for the following centuries. These stories were -presented together to direct the focus of the conversation towards -belief, rationalism and grids. The fact that rationalism is a belief -system, as pervasive as it may be, and suggestively hinting through its -relationship with grids that there -is a relationship with ⊞.

    -
      -
    • ◳: jelly that’s not quite solid, not quite solidified in the fridge -yet and its just oozing through my fingers
      • -
    - -

    They seem so sad it hurts to hear them talk about the oozing. Are you -supposed to put jelly in the fridge, it just needs time to settle right? -My nana used to put the jelly in the freezer. There’s an instability in -how they talk in the interview for sure, or more a desire for stability. -Was it ever stable? Do you really want it to be? Its gooey and not the -way it should be but its still jelly and thats fun and its probably -delicious. Their hands are there as something that is for grasping and -jelly is there as something that can’t be grasped. Is it terrifying, are -they resigned to it? 

    -
      -
    • ◱: they’re always angst-ridden, never, they’re never eh, they’re -never positive solution-solved things, we’ve always like lists and lists -and lists of things to do they’re never resolved they’re always like -shit we’ve, its, its always problematic, and its all the time.
      • -
    -

    I can’t explain the angst they are feeling but I can describe it -because I’ve felt it too. It feels like I’m having a heart attack. It -feels like I’m about to black out. It got to a stage where I couldn’t -talk to other people without being completely frozen jelly. It is the -feeling of lists and lists and lists. It’s the feeling of never -resolved, all the time. We believe we are busy and under pressure and -struggling to survive. That makes us anxious and stressed.

    -
      -
    • ◱: just fucking use those grids
      • -
    - -

    The grids are not being used, the grids are useless. Drawers full of -them, all useless. Whats the point of sitting here in this studio. They -dont fit, they dont make sense, they’re trying to order something that -can’t be ordered. Or possibly shouldnt be ordered, the ordering is -misplaced and there is a human urge to stop, just stop.

    -

    Modern work

    -
      -
    • “A cause becomes unmodern at the moment when our feelings revolt, -and as soon as we feel ourselves becoming ridiculous”
      • -
    • Adolf Loos, On Thrift, 1924 (Loos, 2019)
      • -
    -
    -

    Adolf Loos was a modernist architect whose writings such as -Ornament and Crime in 1910 influenced modernist ideals of -functionalism and minimalism. He rejected ornament and favoured the use -of good materials which showed “God’s own wonder”. I wonder what is the -relation of Loos’ ideas to Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the -Spirit of Capitalism (Weber, 1905) that was published five years -earlier. Work as a duty which benefits the individual and society as a -whole, do ⊞ers still believe this today? I like taking Loos’ quote out -of context here, instead in the context of the feelings of the -interviewees, revolting the supposedly modern cause they are working -with. 

    -

    But also Loos was found guilty of pedophelia and it feels kind of -aggressive to include his voice here at all. This is part of the point -of what I’m getting at: there’s this tradition of ⊞ and so many parts of -it make me uncomfortable or really disgusted and I don’t know what to do -with all that. I just wanted to go to art school and draw circles and -maybe thats the problem and sure simple materials are pretty, but yeah -jelly is exactly what it feels like, you’re right.

    -

    Graphic ⊞ is often performed by paid professionals in what is known -as the creative industry: as a profession and an activity, ⊞ is -considered to be creative. There are some positive preconceptions about -the creative industry and what it does, but I see it as an assimilation -of cultural activity into a neoliberal economic framework. Creativity in -this context is used to reproduce the status quo and and grow capital -(Mould, 2018). But maybe we can profit from examining the margins -created by this terminology: ⊞ is less functional than it seems. People -in creative jobs are stressed and this is reflected in their dreams. -Workers have rights and those rights are systemically undermined. Being -self employed or part of an independent studio brings anxiety and -challenges. Some ⊞ers try to structure the world around them and like -things to be neat and tidy, which makes us uncomfortable existing in -precarious work conditions.

    -

    The Roman grid

    -

    The Roman grid was a land measurement method used in the Roman -colonies for example in the Po Valley (Figure 7). With a surveying tool -called the groma, the colonisers would divide the land from north to -south and east to west, resulting in a square grid of roads and land. At -Orange, France, a cadaster has been found which shows the division of -land in a geometric way, helping the colonisers to privatise the land -and allocate it to roman veterans (Figure 1). The name groma, as well as -referring to the surveying tool, describes the central point of the -grid, the origin. Is making grids just a way to control and colonise? Do -all grids have origins? In Descartes’ use of the grid there was also an -attempt to order and structure chaos:

    -
      -
    • “the grid allowed an embrace of complexity: curved lines that could -be described by mathematical formulas, and thereby were not a sign of -chaos but an expression of the divine mathematical order assumed to be -underlying nature.”
      • -
    • Descartes was Here, Clemens Driessen, 2020
      • -
    -

    A part of the belief systems of ⊞ers is that the world is chaotic and -their role is to order it or even simplify it. This belief may be -inherited from a wider cultural belief of the same general drive: to -order and simplify. Humans try to make sense of the world. ⊞ers make -sense of ⊞ briefs and structure them into something understandable to an -audience or target market. 

    -
    -
      -
    • ◱: for fucks sake why don’t we use those grids
      • -
    - -

    Is there an answer to this question, do they know the answer to this -question? I get the impression they have a gut feeling about the answer -but are afraid of it.

    -

    An -analysis of a joke about ⊞ in the early 21st century

    -

    When reviewing the AIGA Next conference in Denver Colorado, 2008, ⊞ -critic Adrian Shaughnessy tells a joke:

    -
      -
    • “The venue was shared with a beer festival, but it was easy to tell -the ⊞ers from the beer fans. The beer fans were more serious.”
      • -
    • (Shaughnessy, 2013)
      • -
    -

    This joke is funny because in the setup where it is easy to tell them -apart, the reader should assume the beer fans are drunk and therefore -raucous, misbehaving or maybe just having a lot of fun. But then he -unexpectedly suggests that they were in fact more serious than the ⊞ers. -This gives the reader a problem to address: is he claiming the ⊞ers were -even more outrageous than what we assumed of the beer fans, or the beer -fans were in fact taking their own conference seriously? As both seem -unbelievable the true funniness of the joke hits home in it’s implied -meaning: ⊞ers are boring as fuck.

    -
    -

    An -annotation of my practices as a graphic ⊞er on a typical working day, -23rd October 2023

    -
      -
    1. I read an email
      2. -
    2. and
      3. -
    3. I type
      4. -
    4. Alt tab alt tab alt tab alt tab alt tab alt tab alt tab ctrl c -ctrl v ctrl c ctrl v ctrl c ctrl v ctrl c ctrl v ctrl v ctrl v ctrl v -ctrl v ctrl v ctrl v
      5. -
    -
    -

    ⊞ers interact with the computer through keyboard and mouse usage. -Compared to other computer users, my interaction involves lots of -pressing of function keys, something common with other technical -computer users and not so much with other creative workers. What is -creative in the repetitive and low level operation of a computer? Is a -pianist creative? What’s the difference, I think they are being creative -in different ways. ⊞ers and other specialists like video editors or -photo colourists are using a computer as a tool, the musician is -performing on an instrument. Maybe this distinction doesn’t have to be -so clear though. I am questioning this here because I think there is -some fairly complicated belief system about artists and their tools that -has had an effect on ⊞ers. ⊞ gives itself a history of conflict and -harmony between artisans and industrialisation, for example in Bauhaus -founder Walter Gropius claiming William Morris as a precursor (Bayer, -1975). 

    -

    I think it is important to show that ⊞ers are workers with tools, -their repetitive tasks are a form of labour as are their creative -processes. In the annotation opposite my aim is to mystify the manual -and digital labour, rather than demystify the creative ideation -part. 

    -

    Following this annotation I made a digital tool to record all -keystrokes on my computer. Then I printed them out with a pen plotter to -celebrate the labour that had taken place. It took several hours to plot -the keylogging data from just a few minutes of the ⊞er’s labour. 

    -

    LibreOffice

    -
      -
    1. I have no idea what any of this structuring does. And I don’t -care. But I would like to remove the page title from the export. It is -in another tab called User Interface. I also select only page 1 to save -to PDF. Now I run into a software issue in this workflow: the best -software for the next part of the job is Adobe Acrobat Pro. How -aggressively do I want to remove this software from my workflow? Not -aggressively enough I guess because here I am still using it. I don’t -know any other software that really gives me details of how a document -will print or lets me edit PDFs on such a useful level.
      2. -
    2. For example the title still exported (it always does, is this a -LibreOffice bug or just I don’t know what to do with the new software -yet?). It takes two seconds to remove in edit mode in Acrobat. I also -delete the page number, I don’t even know how to turn that off from -LibreOffice. The print dialogue in Acrobat is also so powerful, its so -easy to print actual size which is important to me. It is structured and -reliable. 
      3. -
    -

    Like many other ⊞ers, I was trained to only use Adobe products. I try -to switch to open source alternatives because I believe in using -software developed and maintained by a community rather than a private -company, and as a worker believe I should be in control of my tools. In -this annotation, I was trying to ⊞ and export a single page document in -LibreOffice, an open source desktop publishing software. The -documentation reflects on my frustrations and struggles to switch to a -workflow that relies less on proprietary software for print ⊞. 

    -

    Proprietary software from big mean tech corporations is based on a -model of society and economy where a few people own things and everybody -else has a hard time. I believe the internet gives an opportunity for -knowledge (including software code) to be shared. I like the idea of -modifying my tools, this is easier technically and legally with open -source software. I would prefer my tools to be developed by me and my -peers. These are some of my beliefs as a ⊞er about my work and my tools. -They’re a bit idealistic but also optimistic in a good way.

    -
      -
    • my god im trying to use scribus to prepare a booklet
      -im going crazy
      -im going crazy
      • -
    • Correspondance with kamo, 2024
      • -
    -

    Transitioning to open source software sucks. I spent years learning -other tools and its like starting all over again. There is a dual -commitment in my beliefs about how my tools should be built and my -desire to get things done in a reasonable amount of time. My action of -fumbling with open source programs reflects my belief that they are -worthwhile, and my action of still using Adobe Acrobat Pro reflects my -belief that there are better things to do with my time than restarting -software when it crashes again. Some parts of graphic ⊞ have become so -entangled in capitalist ways of working, it can be immobilising to try -to act without engaging with the icky parts. Our dependencies on -ecosystems of tools and workflows are not enforced, but it can be -difficult to exist outside them, or more specifically, beside them.

    -
      -
    1. “And I don’t care.” 
      2. -
    -

    It’s so obviously not true. The conflict of wanting to change my -workflow with wanting to complete my work tasks efficiently doesn’t keep -me up at night, but it is important to me and other ⊞ers. Open source ⊞ -software is unreliable and unstandardised, it takes longer to do things -and then when they are nearly done the program crashes and I’ve lost all -my work. The standards of open source software have not been widely -embraced by the ⊞ community. To fit into a workflow with peers you have -to use Adobe products. Even web ⊞ers who engage with open standards can -find the need to work with proprietary software, because these tools are -deeply integrated into the workflows of their peers. Can you send me -that in a normal file format please, I can’t open it. 
    - 

    -

    Work Sans

    -
      -
    1. The font is Work Sans SemiBold and it is set in 10pt, colour -“automatic”. I think even if it wasn’t automatic I would make it black, -because I want to print it clearly and cheaply. I use Work Sans because -I am trying to switch to using Open Font Licence and open source fonts -more generally. Previously I would have used Helvetica Now or some other -proprietary font. There is a visual difference between these fonts too -which is also relevant buuuuut this description is getting very detailed -maybe not right now.
      2. -
    -
    -

    Similarly to the software changes, this documentation of my practice -sees me choosing open source fonts. I’m really ambivalent about this. I -do like the idea of being able to modify a font when needed, but I have -done so regardless of whether the font licence allows it. I’m more -comfortable ethically with a font being open source. Buying fonts is -expensive for freelancers and small studios, and open source fonts are -more commonly free of charge. Many ⊞ers pirate fonts rather than buy -them, or are locked into a font subscription. In Adobe software, Adobe -subscription fonts don’t load unless a connection to the creative cloud -is verified.

    -

    For my work, fonts are also a tool, one that I need to practice with -and one that needs to be suitable for the job. So changing font is a -little like a ceramicist changing clay. Work Sans is good for online use -because Google Fonts serves it as a web font for free, the open source -font I want to use is served most reliably by a large corporation I have -issues with. This balancing act of practical considerations and -idealistic beliefs is kind of ironic and reminds me again that my values -can be inconsistent and to me a bit funny. 
    - 
    -The use of fonts as tools is full of tensions from ⊞ers’ belief systems. -Like many ⊞ers, I want to use open source fonts. I also want to use -fonts that will load quickly from a content delivery network for web -projects. I also want fonts to be cheap and well made and I am -interested in fonts that are free. The internet is full of illegal and -pirated copies of fonts that are not supposed to be free of charge. I -sometimes receive or am asked to send font files outside of their -licence. I dont have a huge amount of respect for some of these -licences. But at the same time font ⊞ers are my friends and colleagues, -I have ⊞ed fonts. What does a ⊞er’s actual use of fonts say about their -beliefs around copyright? Do ⊞ers believe in intellectual property? What -value do ⊞ers, specifically typographers, see in their work and that of -their close peers, the font ⊞ers, and how does copyright relate to these -values?

    -
    -

    Follow up questions for -Conor

    -

    Hey Conor, hope you’re keeping well these days? I’ve been going -through the interview from back in December and was wondering if you -would mind me including this piece in my thesis:

    -

    I guess the thesis has become a lot about ⊞ers and the beliefs they -have about their work, and its effect on the world around them. I was -really interested in your answer to this question because I think it -shows something a lot of other ⊞ers including me feel too; some desire -to structure the world around us, to have things be resolved, organised, -fitting together. And not just a desire but maybe even a belief that -this is really what our job is for? Maybe I’m reading too much into it, -but to me this maybe hints at part of the reason we’re am drawn to a -field like graphic ⊞? Curious to know what you think.

    -

    And if youre uncomfortable with being included in this way, Im -totally fine with anonymising, removing, or editing.  

    -

    Thanks,
    -Stephen

    -
    -

    Follow up questions for ◱

    -

    Yo ◱, hope all’s good with you these days? 

    -

    I’ve been piecing together the interviews from December and I’d love -to include this section about your dream if that’s alright with you? It -seems to get at something I feel as well: this system that we’ve built -up and these drawers full of grids, sometimes there’s an angst or -unresolved feeling that they’re not going to work, they dont fit as an -answer to the problem. 

    -

    For me I think it might be something to do with order and chaos if -that doesn’t seem too much of a stretch, I’ve this need to structure -things and fit them in a form, and the dream seems to get at that fear -that it’s not going to work. The grid is solid but reality turns out to -be jelly at best, but very often custard and little bits of tinned -strawberry and soggy sponge. 

    -

    I assumed the dream is about the pressure or anxiety of running a -studio? I wonder for you, do you see it more relating to the work itself -or the management around that, or are these things that you consider -separate from eachother? I’m curious to know if you think of it the same -way, or maybe it’s something else to you and I’m projecting :)

    -

    And if youre uncomfortable with being included in this way, Im -totally fine with anonymising, removing, or editing.

    -

    Thanks,
    -Stephen

    -
    -

    Follow up questions for ◳

    -

    Hey ◳, hope youre good! 

    -

    I’m thinking of putting this section of the interview we did back in -december in my thesis. Is that ok with you? I want to include it because -I think it really captures some emotions that ⊞ers feel quite often, -some stress or anxiety or an attempt to grab onto something more stable. -But I also find it really interesting that you were talking about jelly -slipping through your hands, any idea why you didn’t say sand or mud or -gold but jelly? To me it seems like a fun and cute material to pick, -even though its a bit lumpy and maybe even kinda gross sometimes. 

    -

    I’ve been really interested in foods made of gelatin recently and -there’s something so mesmerising about them even though they’re never -the most appetising, and for sure unnatural or over-processed. Maybe you -just said it off hand, but it makes sense to me as well about being a -⊞er in some way? Something enjoyable and lovable about the jelly despite -its weird unnatural wiggliness. Really interested to know if you have -any thoughts or maybe you meant something completely different.

    -

    And if youre uncomfortable with being included in this way, Im -totally fine with anonymising, removing, or editing.  

    -

    Thanks,
    -Stephen

    -

    Conclusion

    -

    The title of this document, ⊞, was borrowed from the mathematical -theory of free probability where it symbolises free additive -convolution, a way of relating terms that is more nuanced than -traditional ideas of cause and effect. In the fragmented look at ⊞ in -this document, which we’ve reached the end of now, I hope to have done -something similar: a convoluted addition, freely placing things together -to be held for a moment. 

    -

    ⊞ involves a wide range of activities; typing, drawing grids, -communicating with other specialists, quoting, drinking coffee, working -out of office hours, having panic attacks, arguing, building myths, -personal expression, keyboard shortcuts, dreaming, rubbing paper and -exhaling, tilting your head and looking at the screen. We have examined -when and how these actions happen, and more importantly, why they do, -according to the ⊞ers carrying them out. 

    -

    These stories were gathered through various modes of describing, -listening and understanding. It is important that these are different -from conventional ways to frame the discipline, as I think a shift in -viewpoint is needed. So not “⊞er as Author” (Rock, 1996), “⊞er as -salesperson” (Pater, 2021) but instead ⊞er “sitting at the machine, -thinking” (Brodine, 1990) or “⊞er without qualities” (Lorusso, 2023). -The fragments have been situated and subjective rather than objective, -they have been outside of categories because the categories are broken -anyway. 

    -
    -

    Conclusion

    -

    Last night I dreamt I was standing on a hill in the Swiss Alps and -you were there and all of our friends and the hill was covered in little -fields but not like a grid like lots of different shapes and sizes and -the sky opened in two and a ring of light so bright it nearly blinded me -came out of my chest and yours and they all merged into eachother and -everyone opened their mouths to sing and the air was filled with so many -sounds and one ⊞er walked up to me and smiled and said 

    -
      -

    • “I dunno, I’m more confused than ever”

      • -

    • and they said 

      • -

    • and then you said

      • -

    • “a funny feeling its a bit weird”

      • -

    • “I’m just trying to touch it gently and acknowledge it” 

      • -

    • “live the gap between where you are and where you could -be” 

      • -
    -

    and then I was them and you were me and we laughed and fell over and -the hill turned into a bright pink jelly ocean the whole sky was this -sort of green-blue and we all surfed wobbly waves and some people’s -surfboards were Quiksilver and some they had built themselves from a git -repository but the sun was a walnut and it was definitely moving but I -couldnt tell was it rising or setting but it didn’t matter to us the -surf was great and everything smelled like magnolias.

    -
    -
    -
    -

    Acknowledgements

    -

    Thanks to Ada, Aglaia, Ben, Chae, Conor, Irmak, Jenny, Joseph, kamo, -Leslie, Manetta, Marloes, Michael, Rossi.

    -

    Bibliography

    -

    Bayer, H. et al. (1975) Bauhaus, 1919-1928. New -York: Museum of Modern Art. 

    -

    Berlant, L. (2022) On the Inconvenience of Other People, -Durham: Duke University Press.

    -

    Brodine, K. (1990) Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking: -Poems. Seattle: Red Letter Press.

    -

    creativechair (2018) ‘Michael Bierut’ [Interview], Creative -Chair. Available at: creativechair.org/michael-bierut (Accessed: 15 -April 2024).

    -

    Design West (2024) Design West. Available at: -designwest.eu (Accessed: 16 April 2024).

    -

    Driessen, C. P. G. (2020). Descartes was here; In Search of the -Origin of Cartesian Space’. In R. Koolhaas (Ed.), Countryside, A -Report (pp. 274-297)
    - 
    -Gates, B (2004) Remarks by Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software -Architect, Microsoft Corporation [speech transcript] University of -Illinois Urbana-Champaign February 24, 2004 Available at: -web.archive.org/web/
    -20040607040830/https://www.microsoft.com/billgates/speeches/2004/02-24UnivIllinois.asp -(Accessed: 13 April 2024)

    -

    Gerstner, K. and Keller, D. (1964) Designing Programmes. -Teufen (AR): Niggli. 

    -

    Google (2014) Introduction, Material Design. -Available at: m1.material.io (Accessed: 16 April 2024). 

    -

    Hu, T.-H. (2024) Digital Lethargy: Dispatches from an age of -disconnection. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 

    -

    The Idea of the Book (2024) CARNIVAL: the first panel -1967–70 [book description] Available at: theideaofthe
    -book.com/pages/books/529/steve-mccaffery/carnival-the-first-panel-1967-70 -(Accessed: 13 April 2024)

    -

    Loos, A. (2019) Ornament and Crime. London: Penguin. 

    -

    Lorusso, S. (2023) What Design Can’t Do: Essays on design and -disillusion. Eindhoven: Set Margins. 

    -

    Mondriaan , P. et al., (1917) ‘Neo-Plasticism in Pictorial Art’, -De Stijl, Nov. 

    -

    Mould, O. (2018) Against Creativity. London: Verso.

    -

    Müller-Brockmann, J. (1981) Grid systems in graphic ⊞. -Stuttgart: Hatje. 

    -

    Pater, R. (2021) Caps Lock. Amsterdam: Valiz.

    -

    Rock, M., (1996) The ⊞er as Author. Available at: -2x4.org/ideas/1996/⊞er-as-author (Accessed: 16 April 2024). 

    -

    Shaughnessy, A. (2005) How to Be a Graphic ⊞er, without Losing -Your Soul. Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press.

    -

    Shaughnessy, A. (2013) Scratching the Surface. London: Unit -Editions.

    -

    Tufte, E (1991) The Visual Display of Quantitative -Information. Cheshire: Graphics Press.

    -

    Van der Velden, D., (2006) ‘Research & Destroy: A Plea for ⊞ as -Research’, Metropolis M 2, April/May 2006.

    -

    Van Doesburg, T. et al. (1917) ‘Manifesto I’, De Stijl, -Nov. 

    -

    Van Doesburg, T. et al. (1921) -‘Manifesto III’, De Stijl, Aug.

    -

    Warde, B. (1913) ‘Printing Should be Invisible’ The Crystal -Goblet, Sixteen Essays on Typography, London: The Sylvan Press.

    -

    Weber, M., (1905) “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of -Capitalism”, Archiv für Sozialwissenschaften 20, no. 1 (1904), -pp. 1–54; 21, no. 1 (1905), pp. 1–110.

    - -
    - - - -
    -

    What -do graphic designers do all day and why do they do it and what does -“graphic design” even mean?!????!!1!?

    -
    - - -
    -

    I cut my thumb so every time I type i can feel it in my nerve -endings. Not true, it’s my left thumb so I don’t type with it. Not true, -I feel it anyway. Why are most of the function keys on the left of the -keyboard. What’s so functional about pressing buttons. Stephen Kerr is a -designer and musician based in. Have you ever loved an instrument? The -Ctrl key broke like four times since I moved here. I have one more -replacement because I bought a bunch of them but at some point I gave up -and use an external keyboard. I dunno I’m more confused than ever. It -was something to do with dreams and working. It’s the middle of the -night I’m writing this on my phone. If I had a dream this is when I -would be writing it. The memory is fuzzy: either I don’t remember or it -didn’t make sense in the first place. It was something to do with -fuzziness and memory no wait. Phones don’t have keyboards in real life -this doesn’t make sense. I’m trying to type but I don’t think I can get -it on the way to the office for the weekend and I think it was a good -idea to do it and I was thinking about you and I was thinking of you and -I was thinking about you and I was in the same place as a friend of mine -and I was in the studio and we were in the studio and we were in the -studio and we were in the studio and we were in the

    -
    - - -
    -

    Practice-led artistic research into the 21st century phenomenon of -the graphic designer. I held graphic design in my hands using -ethnography, toolmaking and performance as research methods. I examined -how designers spend their time in everyday life, this designer, me, as -well as you, what are we doing? What are our worldviews, belief systems, -mythologies and ideologies?

    -
    - - -
    -
    - - -
    -
    -

    Secondly, during my studies at XPUB, I plan to combine different -strands of my practices (design, music, programming, theatre). Being a -designer is an important part of my identity, and I am keen to make work -true to who I am.

    -
    -

    Excerpt from xpub application letter, March 15th 2022.

    -
    - - -
    -
    - - -
    -
    -Where do dreams come from? - -
    -
    - - + +
    +

    ⊞

    +
    +

    Stephen Kerr

    +

    ⊞

    +

    Thesis submitted to the Department of Experimental Publishing, Piet +Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy, in partial fulfilment of the +requirements for the final examination for the degree of Master of Arts +in Fine Art & ⊞: Experimental Publishing.

    +

    Adviser: Marloes de Valk
    +Second Reader: Joseph Knierzinger
    +Word count: 7828 words

    +

    To de-sign design, I +will assign a sign: ⊞

    +

    This symbol represents design in this writing in an attempt to avoid +the assumed meaning of the word and examine it as something unknown, to +mystify it, to examine its structure. The label ⊞ is a functional part +of a belief system involving order, structure, and rationality and I +want to break it. Removing the label is part of loosening the object, +making it avilable to transition (Berlant, 2022).

    +
    +The Cadaster of Orange, unknown ⊞er, c. 100 CE. + +
    +
    +Grid Systems in Graphic ⊞, Josef Muller-Brockmann, 1981. + +
    +
    + + +
    +
    + + +
    +
    + + +
    +
    + + +
    +
    +The Po Valley, The Roman Empire, 268 BCE. + +
    +
    +Monogram, Piet Zwart, c. 1968. + +
    +
    +

    Introduction

    +

    This document is a collection of fragments exploring beliefs about +labour in the creative industries, in particular graphic ⊞. Each +fragment focusses on the social, cultural, political, spiritual or +religious aspects of these beliefs through an ethnographic lens. They +record, celebrate and question the meaning that ⊞ers give to their +actions and how those meanings affect the world they live in. And it’s +about how ⊞ers feel when we live with these beliefs: we feel a bit funny +and I want to talk about it. 

    +

    I use various modes of address and different lenses to further +fragment the definition of ⊞. The origin of the word thesis is to set or +to put, but I am trying to show you something liquid that can’t be +placed but shimmers and disappears through the sand. I document some ⊞ +activities, in my own work and the work and writings of others who +identify with the label of ⊞er. The writing dissolves and reintegrates +definitions of ⊞ from different voices to show the multiplicity of +beliefs from practitioners, and to explore what it means to acknowledge +these beliefs beside eachother: the tensions and harmonies, some +lineages and some breaks. What is going on here in this thing we call +⊞? 

    +

    This is a collection of stories about living life with particular +working conditions, located at certain points in social, economic and +cultural webs. In my practice-based research I gather and tell these +stories through (auto)ethnographic methods: documenting how ⊞er’s work, +conducting interviews, improvising communal performances and exploratory +tool-making. This document collates and reflects on this research. 

    +

    What is a ⊞er?

    +
      +
    1. A ⊞er is a person who wakes up at 5am but refuses to open their +eyes. There are birds talking outside, it’s probably getting bright +already. Something is wrong, not sure what. They finally open their eyes +and there’s the ceiling again. When the light comes in sideways over the +curtains this early you can see all the little ripples and imperfections +in it. Nothing. Ribcage. Stomach. The front of the ⊞er’s legs ache. It +would be better to sleep again. Have to pay taxes again next week. A ⊞er +is someone who wonders if that invoice will come through I need to +follow up on it. The birds are so loud. 
      2. +
    2. The role of the ⊞er is to count back from five to two and +realise that was only three hours same as yesterday. They use ⊞ thinking +to never get back to sleep. They need excellent time management skills +to make this short moment feel like an eternity, several times a week. +⊞ers have an acute spatial awareness and an eye for detail: although the +ceiling seems miles away they focus on each tiny ripple for hours. A ⊞er +is someone who will work the whole waking day today, but it’s better +than last week when there was no work. ⊞ers look at their phone and see +their alarm is going to go off in ten minutes, so they switch it off and +get up.
      3. +
    +

    The precarity of working in the creative industries, in particular as +a freelancer or within a small studio, induces anxiety. There is a +belief that the ⊞er as freelancer is empowered by their autonomy, but in +fact the ⊞er as worker is trapped by it. ⊞ is work and this work is +believed to be inherently good. Work in our society is understood as “an +individual moral practice and collective ethical obligation” which +shapes the worker’s identity in positive ways (Weeks, 2011). The ⊞er +believes they are a skilled or talented worker, someone who possesses +spatial awareness, time management skills, and the capacity to carry out +work effectively and efficiently. 

    +

    ⊞ers are entangled in the Protestant religious underpinnings of the +European work ethic (Pater, 2022). ⊞ is seen as a vocation which +expresses and creates the ⊞er’s identity, and the process or its results +make a valuable contribution to society. People understand the world and +interact with it smoothly, thanks to the work of ⊞ers. ⊞ers pick the +right materials to save the planet and increase efficiency and whatever +else it is people find important. But the ⊞er becomes anxious despite +meeting these goals and becoming this person. In reality, the ⊞er is a +bot, the ⊞er is software. Value is extracted from their time, creativity +and expertise which makes them stressed. ⊞ers are a creative cloud, a +service to be tapped into, a cpu being run too hot. There is something +to be learnt from the revelation that being replaced by machines proves +we were being treated as machines all along. 

    +

    Geestelijk

    +

    There was a belief that ⊞ could be a crystal goblet (Warde, 1913), +something unbiased, clear and, in more recent versions of the theory, +serving the context it fits within. But the foundations of this belief +in functionality and rationality dont seem to come themselves from +something functional or rational. 

    +

    De Stijl members, such as Piet Mondriaan and Theo van Doesburg +(Figure 6), in their 1917 manifesto described a “new consciousness of +the age […] directed towards the universal”. There was a drive towards +universal standardisation or pureness of culture from the rich white +men. Purity is a concept that turns up a lot in Mondriaan’s writings, eg +Neo-Plasticism in Pictorial Art (1917). They claimed a shared +spirit was driving this universalisation. A later paragraph of the +manifesto is translated into english as:

    +
      +
    • “The artists of to-day have been driven the whole world over by the +same consciousness and therefore have taken part from an intellectual +point of view in this war against the domination of individual +despotism. They therefore sympathize with all who work for the formation +of an international unity in Life, Art, Culture, either intellectually +or materially.”
      • +
    +

    In this translation it appears the authors believed in an emerging +consciousness of the age, something collective which would bring an +international unity. The members of De Stijl were neither aligning +themselves with the capitalists or socialists but believed in an inner +connection between those who were joined in the spiritual body of the +new world (De Stijl, Manifesto III, 1921). The word intellectual, or +geestelijk in the original Dutch, can also be translated as “spiritual, +mental, ecclesiastical, clerical, sacred, ghostly, pneumatic”. The +choice to translate as intellectual seems to be the most rational +interpretation of this sentence, an effort to make the theories of De +Stijl appear more materialist without the spiritual element. Compare +with this translation:

    +
      +
    • “The artists of today, all over the world, impelled by one and the +same consciousness, have taken part on the spiritual plane in the world +war against the domination of individualism, of arbitrariness. They +therefore sympathise with all who are fighting spiritually or materially +for the formation of an international unity in life, art and +culture.”
      • +
    +

    In this translation it is clearer that the members of De Stijl saw a +link between the effects of what they made materially and their attempts +to be fighting spiritually against the domination of individualism. I +care about this story because of how it contextualises contemporary ⊞ +practice. Is contemporary ⊞ practice still involved in this spiritual +battle? Did the new consciousness of 1917 survive the past century, did +it procreate? Can aesthetics have generational trauma? William Morris, +Constructivism, De Stijl, Bauhaus, International Style, International +Typographic Style, Swiss Style, then what happened. Modernist artists +had spiritual beliefs, and again I care about these people from a +hundred years ago because of the effect they have on the present. 

    +

    Imagine I could trace this thought from Mondriaan all the way to +myself, wow, cool thesis. Swiss style became corporate identity ⊞ and +encouraged minimalism in ⊞. 21st century Flat ⊞, such as Metro ⊞ +language from Microsoft and Material ⊞ (Google, 2014), claim direct +descendance from the International Typographic Style and that pretty +much brings us up to date. I wonder about the use of the word Material +in Google’s ⊞ strategy, I wonder about the ghostly absence of the +geestelijk fight of De Stijl. Is Google’s choice of name another +example, as with the subtle change in the translation above, that the +spiritual element is no longer as important a part of the ⊞er’s +worldview as it was a hundred years ago? 

    +

    Excerpt +from an interview with Conor Clarke, 1st December 2023

    +

    Conor Clarke is a Director of ⊞ Factory, independent Irish ⊞ +agency based in Dublin. His work has featured in international +publications such as Who’s Who in Graphic ⊞, Graphis, Novum +Gebrauchsgrafik, and the New York Art Directors Club Annual. He was the +recipient of the Catherine Donnelly Lifetime Achievement Award for his +contribution to ⊞ in Ireland and is the Course Director of ⊞ West, an +international summer ⊞ school located in the beautiful village of +Letterfrack on the West Coast of Ireland. (⊞west.eu, 2023)

    +
    +
      +
    • SK: What do you think is the best shape?
      • +
    • CC: Oh yeah, good god. square.
      • +
    • SK: Square? how come?
      • +
    • CC: Dunno, it just, it just seems resolved. I don’t like spheres. +Circles I sometimes like.
      • +
    • SK: Yeah, squares, do you use grids?
      • +
    • CC: Sometimes. Not always.
      • +
    • SK: Once you have grids squares make sense. But you like squares +maybe because you like logos?
      • +
    • CC: If I’m in an art gallery and I see, you know Joseph Albers +(Figure 5) or something I just kind of feel, I just like, or Malevich i +just like that stuff. If I see a Kandinsky and all those squiggles and +circles it just, that just kind of upsets me a little bit.
      • +
    • SK: That’s a bit chaotic?
      • +
    • CC: Yeah. And even if I’m looking at Vermeer I can see some kind of +square structure and logic, for some reason that always appeals to +me.
      • +
    • SK: Things are a bit organised when there’s squares around?
      • +
    • CC: Yeah. And really great artists who don’t work that way I look at +their stuff and think well that’s just beyond me.
      • +
    • SK: Its something else?
      • +
    • CC: Yeah. so yeah.
      • +
    • SK: At least you didn’t say triangle.
      • +
    • CC: Oh good god. Good god no.
      • +
    + +

    Maths and grids

    +

    Why not choose a spiral or a circle if you dream of ⊞ers as shamans? +Why the grid of squares? There are strong links beween ⊞ and +mathematics, Josef Muller-Brockmann’s Grid Systems (Figure 2) +for example or Karl Gerstner’s ⊞ing Programmes (1964). I read +these ⊞ theorists as you might comparatively read religious texts. What +were or are the beliefs of the authors and their audiences?
    +    
    +    
    +    
    +    
    +    
    +    
    +    
    +    
    +    
    +    
    +    
    +    
    +    
    +    

    +
      +
    • “To describe the problem is part of the solution. This implies: not +to make creative decisions as prompted by feeling but by intellectual +criteria. The more exact and complete these criteria are, the more +creative the work becomes.”
      • +
    • (Gerstner, 1964)
      • +
    • “This is the expression of a professional ethos: the ⊞er’s work +should have the clearly intelligible, objective, functional and +aesthetic quality of mathematical thinking.”
      • +
    • (Muller-Brockman, 1981)
      • +
    +

    These texts present a worldview where ⊞ can be mathematical, +objective or problem-solving. In Muller-Brockman’s text the focus is on +the formal qualities of the ⊞ in particular the use of grids and +typographic systems. Gerstner’s focus is more on the effect of the ⊞, +and the ability of ⊞ to solve a problem. Rationality and creativity are +presented as proportional to eachother. He makes space for the +intellectual by pushing aside feelings. 

    +

    The graphic ⊞er is presented as a functional actor in society who +makes the world better. Gerstner seems to be implying that creative ⊞ +comes from following the intellect and some rational cause and effect +process. I find it interesting that ⊞ claims this rational basis in the +same historical period when science and mathematics, its supposed +foundations, became much less rational and predictable, for example in +chaos theory. It makes me think that the rationality serves some other +purpose.

    +

    The ⊞ grid and the written +word

    +

    Why do ⊞ers believe in using a grid to present the written word, and +where did this belief come from and how did it develop? It can be +materially traced back to Guthenberg and metal type but that’s boring. +Magic squares have been used in astrology books and grimoires throughout +history (Figure 3). French poet Stéphane Mallarmé is sometimes quoted as +a precursor to modernist typography (Muller-Brockmann, 1981). Why did +Steve McCaffrey include the manifesto of De Stijl with CARNIVAL +(1973)? De Stijl is best known for its painters and architects, and +theories from both of these fields affected later ⊞ theories. But they +also were poets and had literary theories similar to the german +expressionists. Man’s attempt to find oneness with the whole of creation +through a cosmic hybris. 

    +
      +
    • “An artists’ book featuring a series of typewriter concrete poems +printed on perforated pages meant to be torn out and arranged into a +square of four. Complete with instructions, a reproduction of a de Stijl +manifesto from 1920, an errata slip, and publisher’s promotional +postcard.”
      • +
    • Description of Steve McCaffrey’s CARNIVAL
      +(The Idea of the Book, 2024)
      • +
    +
    +

    The developments of the written word and its relationship to form in +the 20th century is very much a part of the history of ⊞. I care about +this story because it affects contemporary practitioners. I believe +there is something magical in graphic composition and the layout of +typography, something that can’t be grasped in the words alone. They’re +non-canonical for ⊞ers but how have people who put words on pages like +Mallarmé and McCaffrey influenced my beliefs about the written word? +What makes one thing fit in the category of art, another ⊞ and yet +another concrete poetry?

    +

    Mystically +assigning or finding meanings in ⊞

    +

    This autoethnographic annotation attempts to really miss as many +cultural and technical cues as possible. It’s watching the ⊞er, me, and +being totally mystified by their behaviour. 

    +
    +
      +
    1. A rhythm exists and I wonder why. There is music and there are +voices, and my fingers press the keys and the colours of the screen +flicker and morph. There appears to be a life or energy flowing +somewhere between these things and I am curious about it.
      2. +
    2. The screen shimmers between different symbols, letters, images. +The colours are symbolic. White means the ground, although sometimes it +switches to white symbols on a dark ground. They are full of meaning and +relationship. I press two buttons to the left of the keyboard and the +screen answers with a flicker.
      3. +
    3. I count out loud to 40. It symbolises both the number of pages +to be made and the enormity of the task. It represents a period in the +desert, long but with an end in sight. What is the relationship of the +desert to the stars? If the screen can flicker from a dark to a light +ground, is it possible for the sky to also switch from day to +night?
      4. +
    4. I have taken three of the forty steps.
      5. +
    5. I have taken seven of the forty steps.
      6. +
    6. ⊞ is a series of movements and reconfigurations. It is a +creative act and one of elision. I use the keyboard to communicate my +will to the machine with commands such as “Ctrl+C” and “Ctrl+V”. I +firstly inform the computer that I wish to control it. Each letter has a +deep and layered meaning. CVCVCVCVCVCVCVCVCV. “Alt+Tab” asks the screen +to flicker. The computer must match my multithreading. It must be +prepared to follow my changing demands in our shared focus. FAVCV. F is +to seek, but it is optimistically labelled to find. I enter the +incorrect combination of symbols (“samle”) the incantation is useless +and I will not find what I seek. I try again “sample” and the computer +gives me what I desire. Why does the machine demand perfection? Why does +it value perfection in me, what is it trying to teach me? Why wont it +leave me alone?
      7. +
    7. I have taken eleven of the forty steps. I will rest.
      8. +
    +

    What +does ⊞ do? What is the ⊞er trying to do by pressing all these buttons +and making the screen vibrate?

    +
      +
    • “⊞ only generates longing”
      • +
    • (Van Der Velden, 2006)
      • +
    +

    I wasn’t trying to generate longing, I was trying to make an annual +report. It was a corporate job I was working on, a nice one to have +because it’s fairly well paid and not too complicated. A bit boring and +kinda repetitive, but you can just put your headphones on and get stuck +into it. I was pretty happy with the results in the end, but for sure +not the type of work you’re supposed to be proud of as a ⊞er.

    +
      +
    • “I found myself way over my head with, believe it or not, a +catalogue and price list for bathroom equipment. Nothing I’ve done since +has seemed as difficult.”
      • +
    • Michael Bierut (creativechair.org, 2018)
      • +
    +

    And of course Piet Zwart’s (Figure 8) famous electrical cable +catalogues. ⊞ is just work, chill. Is a ⊞er a user or a server? Maybe ⊞ +is an example of our general belief in this dichotomy not quite making +sense or fitting reality. The ⊞er is working for whom? Themselves? Their +clients?

    +
    +
      +
    • “attempts to undo the privileged position of the agentive +subject can help us understand the strange status of repetitive and +quasi-robotic labour in today’s digital age.”
      • +
    • (Hu, 2022)
      • +
    +

    This quote relates to freelancing generally in some way, and +deconstructing the work or worker. Are workers things? Yeah, kinda. ⊞ers +don’t have super powers, contrary to some beliefs within the industry. +For example on what⊞cando.com it is suggested that we should “re⊞ +everything!”. Let’s actually not do that. ⊞ers are mostly just humans +working on computers like so many other bots. ⊞ers try to create +clarity, to assign meaning and understand: “Confusion and clutter are +failures of ⊞, not attributes of information” (Tufte, 1990, p.53). What +if the sounds of my fingers and my keyboard are not noise but music: we +are quasi-robots and maybe its good to listen to our little Taylorist +finger tappings and see what else is being said.

    +

    Excerpt +from an interview with the members of Distinctive Repetition on 1st +December 2023.

    +

    Distinctive Repetition is an award-winning graphic ⊞ studio based in +Dublin, Ireland. Principal ⊞er and Institute of Creative Advertising and +⊞ past-president, Rossi McAuley, is joined in this interview by ⊞ers +Jenny Leahy and Ben Nagle. This interview was carried out around a table +with the interviewer in the bottom right corner (◲) and the three +members of the studio in the other three seats.

    +
      +
    • ◲: whats your favourite colour?
      • +
    • ◰: red.
      • +
    • ◲: red.
      • +
    • ◱: really? thats it? are you fucking kidding me?
      • +
    • ◰: do i fill it in?
      • +
    • ◳: they’re warm up questions obviously they’re to get you +comfortable answering questions.
      • +
    • ◳: yellow
      • +
    • ◲: if the seat of your consciousness was in your hands, like all of +your feelings and your thoughts and your desires and your emotions come +through your hands, can you describe to me the day that you’ve had so +far please?
      • +
    • ◳: jelly that’s not quite solid
      • +
    • ◳: not quite solidified in the fridge yet
      • +
    • ◳: and its just oozing through my fingers
      • +
    • (redacted sentence)
      • +
    • ◳: that’s what today has been like but its my brain thats oozing out +of me
      • +
    • ◲: yes. that’s a good answer. ok will we keep going in a +circle?
      • +
    • ◱: whatever you like bro.
      • +
    • ◲: do you ever dream about work?
      • +
    • ◱: all the time.
      • +
    • ◲: would you care to share one of those dreams?
      • +
    • ◱: they’re always angst-ridden, never, they’re never eh, they’re +never positive solution-solved things, we’ve always like lists and lists +and lists of things to do they’re never resolved they’re always like +shit we’ve, its, its always problematic, and its all the time.
      • +
    • ◳: weren’t you taking grids out of drawers in a dream recently?
      • +
    • ◱: yeah yeah.
      • +
    • (obscured)
      • +
    • ◲: why were you taking grids out of drawers?
      • +
    • ◱: emm recently I had a dream where I was giving out to ◳ about not +having things done, this ◳, participant two, about not having things +done, and i was opening up drawers in my office and I was like, just use +this grid and the drawers were full of grids and I was giving them to +her and saying just fucking use those grids for fucks sake why don’t we +use those grids.
      • +
    • (section redacted by request of interviewees)
      • +
    + +

    About the interview

    +

    Before meeting them in person, I mailed a small booklet to the +interviewees entitled Enthusiasm to give context to the +conversation. The word enthusiasm originally meant inspiration or +possession by a god. The booklet recounted three mystical dreams René +Descartes had which he credited as a moment of inspiration or enthusiasm +that influenced his later work on rationalism, and related to his work +on geometry and grids (Figure 4). As well as the content of the dreams, +the booklet described their relevance:
    +    

    +
      +
    • “404 years ago on the night of the 10th November 1619, three dreams +were dreamt. A 23-year old man is “filled with enthusiasm” and enters a +feverish sleep in Ulm, Germany. In this process of enthusiasm and +dreamwork, he discovers the foundations of a wonderful science. The +Method of Properly Guiding the Reason in the Search of Truth in the +Sciences will be suppressed by the churches, both Calvinist and +Catholic. They are a threat to the world view, and a threat to religion. +The cartesian grid uses measurements to estabish relationships. +Cartesian geometry has let us fly spaceships and zone and divide land. +Some things have happened. Some good things, some bad things. The link +is broken or breaking or should be broken. It’s rotting. Maybe there’s a +better way we can interpret these dreams now.”
      • +
    +

    Descartes felt that interpreting his dreams was an appropriate method +to develop a rational theory of skepticism, which led to some of the +philosophical foundations of modern scientific and mathematical +theories. The booklet also drew parallels with Martin Luther’s +scrupulous doubt, “Only God and certain madmen have no doubts!”. Like +Descartes, Luther’s new theories helped to give the basis for the +structure of thought for the following centuries. These stories were +presented together to direct the focus of the conversation towards +belief, rationalism and grids. The fact that rationalism is a belief +system, as pervasive as it may be, and suggestively hinting through its +relationship with grids that there +is a relationship with ⊞.

    +
      +
    • ◳: jelly that’s not quite solid, not quite solidified in the fridge +yet and its just oozing through my fingers
      • +
    + +

    They seem so sad it hurts to hear them talk about the oozing. Are you +supposed to put jelly in the fridge, it just needs time to settle right? +My nana used to put the jelly in the freezer. There’s an instability in +how they talk in the interview for sure, or more a desire for stability. +Was it ever stable? Do you really want it to be? Its gooey and not the +way it should be but its still jelly and thats fun and its probably +delicious. Their hands are there as something that is for grasping and +jelly is there as something that can’t be grasped. Is it terrifying, are +they resigned to it? 

    +
      +
    • ◱: they’re always angst-ridden, never, they’re never eh, they’re +never positive solution-solved things, we’ve always like lists and lists +and lists of things to do they’re never resolved they’re always like +shit we’ve, its, its always problematic, and its all the time.
      • +
    +

    I can’t explain the angst they are feeling but I can describe it +because I’ve felt it too. It feels like I’m having a heart attack. It +feels like I’m about to black out. It got to a stage where I couldn’t +talk to other people without being completely frozen jelly. It is the +feeling of lists and lists and lists. It’s the feeling of never +resolved, all the time. We believe we are busy and under pressure and +struggling to survive. That makes us anxious and stressed.

    +
      +
    • ◱: just fucking use those grids
      • +
    + +

    The grids are not being used, the grids are useless. Drawers full of +them, all useless. Whats the point of sitting here in this studio. They +dont fit, they dont make sense, they’re trying to order something that +can’t be ordered. Or possibly shouldnt be ordered, the ordering is +misplaced and there is a human urge to stop, just stop.

    +

    Modern work

    +
      +
    • “A cause becomes unmodern at the moment when our feelings revolt, +and as soon as we feel ourselves becoming ridiculous”
      • +
    • Adolf Loos, On Thrift, 1924 (Loos, 2019)
      • +
    +
    +

    Adolf Loos was a modernist architect whose writings such as +Ornament and Crime in 1910 influenced modernist ideals of +functionalism and minimalism. He rejected ornament and favoured the use +of good materials which showed “God’s own wonder”. I wonder what is the +relation of Loos’ ideas to Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the +Spirit of Capitalism (Weber, 1905) that was published five years +earlier. Work as a duty which benefits the individual and society as a +whole, do ⊞ers still believe this today? I like taking Loos’ quote out +of context here, instead in the context of the feelings of the +interviewees, revolting the supposedly modern cause they are working +with. 

    +

    But also Loos was found guilty of pedophelia and it feels kind of +aggressive to include his voice here at all. This is part of the point +of what I’m getting at: there’s this tradition of ⊞ and so many parts of +it make me uncomfortable or really disgusted and I don’t know what to do +with all that. I just wanted to go to art school and draw circles and +maybe thats the problem and sure simple materials are pretty, but yeah +jelly is exactly what it feels like, you’re right.

    +

    Graphic ⊞ is often performed by paid professionals in what is known +as the creative industry: as a profession and an activity, ⊞ is +considered to be creative. There are some positive preconceptions about +the creative industry and what it does, but I see it as an assimilation +of cultural activity into a neoliberal economic framework. Creativity in +this context is used to reproduce the status quo and and grow capital +(Mould, 2018). But maybe we can profit from examining the margins +created by this terminology: ⊞ is less functional than it seems. People +in creative jobs are stressed and this is reflected in their dreams. +Workers have rights and those rights are systemically undermined. Being +self employed or part of an independent studio brings anxiety and +challenges. Some ⊞ers try to structure the world around them and like +things to be neat and tidy, which makes us uncomfortable existing in +precarious work conditions.

    +

    The Roman grid

    +

    The Roman grid was a land measurement method used in the Roman +colonies for example in the Po Valley (Figure 7). With a surveying tool +called the groma, the colonisers would divide the land from north to +south and east to west, resulting in a square grid of roads and land. At +Orange, France, a cadaster has been found which shows the division of +land in a geometric way, helping the colonisers to privatise the land +and allocate it to roman veterans (Figure 1). The name groma, as well as +referring to the surveying tool, describes the central point of the +grid, the origin. Is making grids just a way to control and colonise? Do +all grids have origins? In Descartes’ use of the grid there was also an +attempt to order and structure chaos:

    +
      +
    • “the grid allowed an embrace of complexity: curved lines that could +be described by mathematical formulas, and thereby were not a sign of +chaos but an expression of the divine mathematical order assumed to be +underlying nature.”
      • +
    • Descartes was Here, Clemens Driessen, 2020
      • +
    +

    A part of the belief systems of ⊞ers is that the world is chaotic and +their role is to order it or even simplify it. This belief may be +inherited from a wider cultural belief of the same general drive: to +order and simplify. Humans try to make sense of the world. ⊞ers make +sense of ⊞ briefs and structure them into something understandable to an +audience or target market. 

    +
    +
      +
    • ◱: for fucks sake why don’t we use those grids
      • +
    + +

    Is there an answer to this question, do they know the answer to this +question? I get the impression they have a gut feeling about the answer +but are afraid of it.

    +

    An +analysis of a joke about ⊞ in the early 21st century

    +

    When reviewing the AIGA Next conference in Denver Colorado, 2008, ⊞ +critic Adrian Shaughnessy tells a joke:

    +
      +
    • “The venue was shared with a beer festival, but it was easy to tell +the ⊞ers from the beer fans. The beer fans were more serious.”
      • +
    • (Shaughnessy, 2013)
      • +
    +

    This joke is funny because in the setup where it is easy to tell them +apart, the reader should assume the beer fans are drunk and therefore +raucous, misbehaving or maybe just having a lot of fun. But then he +unexpectedly suggests that they were in fact more serious than the ⊞ers. +This gives the reader a problem to address: is he claiming the ⊞ers were +even more outrageous than what we assumed of the beer fans, or the beer +fans were in fact taking their own conference seriously? As both seem +unbelievable the true funniness of the joke hits home in it’s implied +meaning: ⊞ers are boring as fuck.

    +
    +

    An +annotation of my practices as a graphic ⊞er on a typical working day, +23rd October 2023

    +
      +
    1. I read an email
      2. +
    2. and
      3. +
    3. I type
      4. +
    4. Alt tab alt tab alt tab alt tab alt tab alt tab alt tab ctrl c +ctrl v ctrl c ctrl v ctrl c ctrl v ctrl c ctrl v ctrl v ctrl v ctrl v +ctrl v ctrl v ctrl v
      5. +
    +
    +

    ⊞ers interact with the computer through keyboard and mouse usage. +Compared to other computer users, my interaction involves lots of +pressing of function keys, something common with other technical +computer users and not so much with other creative workers. What is +creative in the repetitive and low level operation of a computer? Is a +pianist creative? What’s the difference, I think they are being creative +in different ways. ⊞ers and other specialists like video editors or +photo colourists are using a computer as a tool, the musician is +performing on an instrument. Maybe this distinction doesn’t have to be +so clear though. I am questioning this here because I think there is +some fairly complicated belief system about artists and their tools that +has had an effect on ⊞ers. ⊞ gives itself a history of conflict and +harmony between artisans and industrialisation, for example in Bauhaus +founder Walter Gropius claiming William Morris as a precursor (Bayer, +1975). 

    +

    I think it is important to show that ⊞ers are workers with tools, +their repetitive tasks are a form of labour as are their creative +processes. In the annotation opposite my aim is to mystify the manual +and digital labour, rather than demystify the creative ideation +part. 

    +

    Following this annotation I made a digital tool to record all +keystrokes on my computer. Then I printed them out with a pen plotter to +celebrate the labour that had taken place. It took several hours to plot +the keylogging data from just a few minutes of the ⊞er’s labour. 

    +

    LibreOffice

    +
      +
    1. I have no idea what any of this structuring does. And I don’t +care. But I would like to remove the page title from the export. It is +in another tab called User Interface. I also select only page 1 to save +to PDF. Now I run into a software issue in this workflow: the best +software for the next part of the job is Adobe Acrobat Pro. How +aggressively do I want to remove this software from my workflow? Not +aggressively enough I guess because here I am still using it. I don’t +know any other software that really gives me details of how a document +will print or lets me edit PDFs on such a useful level.
      2. +
    2. For example the title still exported (it always does, is this a +LibreOffice bug or just I don’t know what to do with the new software +yet?). It takes two seconds to remove in edit mode in Acrobat. I also +delete the page number, I don’t even know how to turn that off from +LibreOffice. The print dialogue in Acrobat is also so powerful, its so +easy to print actual size which is important to me. It is structured and +reliable. 
      3. +
    +

    Like many other ⊞ers, I was trained to only use Adobe products. I try +to switch to open source alternatives because I believe in using +software developed and maintained by a community rather than a private +company, and as a worker believe I should be in control of my tools. In +this annotation, I was trying to ⊞ and export a single page document in +LibreOffice, an open source desktop publishing software. The +documentation reflects on my frustrations and struggles to switch to a +workflow that relies less on proprietary software for print ⊞. 

    +

    Proprietary software from big mean tech corporations is based on a +model of society and economy where a few people own things and everybody +else has a hard time. I believe the internet gives an opportunity for +knowledge (including software code) to be shared. I like the idea of +modifying my tools, this is easier technically and legally with open +source software. I would prefer my tools to be developed by me and my +peers. These are some of my beliefs as a ⊞er about my work and my tools. +They’re a bit idealistic but also optimistic in a good way.

    +
      +
    • my god im trying to use scribus to prepare a booklet
      +im going crazy
      +im going crazy
      • +
    • Correspondance with kamo, 2024
      • +
    +

    Transitioning to open source software sucks. I spent years learning +other tools and its like starting all over again. There is a dual +commitment in my beliefs about how my tools should be built and my +desire to get things done in a reasonable amount of time. My action of +fumbling with open source programs reflects my belief that they are +worthwhile, and my action of still using Adobe Acrobat Pro reflects my +belief that there are better things to do with my time than restarting +software when it crashes again. Some parts of graphic ⊞ have become so +entangled in capitalist ways of working, it can be immobilising to try +to act without engaging with the icky parts. Our dependencies on +ecosystems of tools and workflows are not enforced, but it can be +difficult to exist outside them, or more specifically, beside them.

    +
      +
    1. “And I don’t care.” 
      2. +
    +

    It’s so obviously not true. The conflict of wanting to change my +workflow with wanting to complete my work tasks efficiently doesn’t keep +me up at night, but it is important to me and other ⊞ers. Open source ⊞ +software is unreliable and unstandardised, it takes longer to do things +and then when they are nearly done the program crashes and I’ve lost all +my work. The standards of open source software have not been widely +embraced by the ⊞ community. To fit into a workflow with peers you have +to use Adobe products. Even web ⊞ers who engage with open standards can +find the need to work with proprietary software, because these tools are +deeply integrated into the workflows of their peers. Can you send me +that in a normal file format please, I can’t open it. 
    + 

    +

    Work Sans

    +
      +
    1. The font is Work Sans SemiBold and it is set in 10pt, colour +“automatic”. I think even if it wasn’t automatic I would make it black, +because I want to print it clearly and cheaply. I use Work Sans because +I am trying to switch to using Open Font Licence and open source fonts +more generally. Previously I would have used Helvetica Now or some other +proprietary font. There is a visual difference between these fonts too +which is also relevant buuuuut this description is getting very detailed +maybe not right now.
      2. +
    +
    +

    Similarly to the software changes, this documentation of my practice +sees me choosing open source fonts. I’m really ambivalent about this. I +do like the idea of being able to modify a font when needed, but I have +done so regardless of whether the font licence allows it. I’m more +comfortable ethically with a font being open source. Buying fonts is +expensive for freelancers and small studios, and open source fonts are +more commonly free of charge. Many ⊞ers pirate fonts rather than buy +them, or are locked into a font subscription. In Adobe software, Adobe +subscription fonts don’t load unless a connection to the creative cloud +is verified.

    +

    For my work, fonts are also a tool, one that I need to practice with +and one that needs to be suitable for the job. So changing font is a +little like a ceramicist changing clay. Work Sans is good for online use +because Google Fonts serves it as a web font for free, the open source +font I want to use is served most reliably by a large corporation I have +issues with. This balancing act of practical considerations and +idealistic beliefs is kind of ironic and reminds me again that my values +can be inconsistent and to me a bit funny. 
    + 
    +The use of fonts as tools is full of tensions from ⊞ers’ belief systems. +Like many ⊞ers, I want to use open source fonts. I also want to use +fonts that will load quickly from a content delivery network for web +projects. I also want fonts to be cheap and well made and I am +interested in fonts that are free. The internet is full of illegal and +pirated copies of fonts that are not supposed to be free of charge. I +sometimes receive or am asked to send font files outside of their +licence. I dont have a huge amount of respect for some of these +licences. But at the same time font ⊞ers are my friends and colleagues, +I have ⊞ed fonts. What does a ⊞er’s actual use of fonts say about their +beliefs around copyright? Do ⊞ers believe in intellectual property? What +value do ⊞ers, specifically typographers, see in their work and that of +their close peers, the font ⊞ers, and how does copyright relate to these +values?

    +
    +

    Follow up questions for +Conor

    +

    Hey Conor, hope you’re keeping well these days? I’ve been going +through the interview from back in December and was wondering if you +would mind me including this piece in my thesis:

    +

    I guess the thesis has become a lot about ⊞ers and the beliefs they +have about their work, and its effect on the world around them. I was +really interested in your answer to this question because I think it +shows something a lot of other ⊞ers including me feel too; some desire +to structure the world around us, to have things be resolved, organised, +fitting together. And not just a desire but maybe even a belief that +this is really what our job is for? Maybe I’m reading too much into it, +but to me this maybe hints at part of the reason we’re am drawn to a +field like graphic ⊞? Curious to know what you think.

    +

    And if youre uncomfortable with being included in this way, Im +totally fine with anonymising, removing, or editing.  

    +

    Thanks,
    +Stephen

    +
    +

    Follow up questions for ◱

    +

    Yo ◱, hope all’s good with you these days? 

    +

    I’ve been piecing together the interviews from December and I’d love +to include this section about your dream if that’s alright with you? It +seems to get at something I feel as well: this system that we’ve built +up and these drawers full of grids, sometimes there’s an angst or +unresolved feeling that they’re not going to work, they dont fit as an +answer to the problem. 

    +

    For me I think it might be something to do with order and chaos if +that doesn’t seem too much of a stretch, I’ve this need to structure +things and fit them in a form, and the dream seems to get at that fear +that it’s not going to work. The grid is solid but reality turns out to +be jelly at best, but very often custard and little bits of tinned +strawberry and soggy sponge. 

    +

    I assumed the dream is about the pressure or anxiety of running a +studio? I wonder for you, do you see it more relating to the work itself +or the management around that, or are these things that you consider +separate from eachother? I’m curious to know if you think of it the same +way, or maybe it’s something else to you and I’m projecting :)

    +

    And if youre uncomfortable with being included in this way, Im +totally fine with anonymising, removing, or editing.

    +

    Thanks,
    +Stephen

    +
    +

    Follow up questions for ◳

    +

    Hey ◳, hope youre good! 

    +

    I’m thinking of putting this section of the interview we did back in +december in my thesis. Is that ok with you? I want to include it because +I think it really captures some emotions that ⊞ers feel quite often, +some stress or anxiety or an attempt to grab onto something more stable. +But I also find it really interesting that you were talking about jelly +slipping through your hands, any idea why you didn’t say sand or mud or +gold but jelly? To me it seems like a fun and cute material to pick, +even though its a bit lumpy and maybe even kinda gross sometimes. 

    +

    I’ve been really interested in foods made of gelatin recently and +there’s something so mesmerising about them even though they’re never +the most appetising, and for sure unnatural or over-processed. Maybe you +just said it off hand, but it makes sense to me as well about being a +⊞er in some way? Something enjoyable and lovable about the jelly despite +its weird unnatural wiggliness. Really interested to know if you have +any thoughts or maybe you meant something completely different.

    +

    And if youre uncomfortable with being included in this way, Im +totally fine with anonymising, removing, or editing.  

    +

    Thanks,
    +Stephen

    +

    Conclusion

    +

    The title of this document, ⊞, was borrowed from the mathematical +theory of free probability where it symbolises free additive +convolution, a way of relating terms that is more nuanced than +traditional ideas of cause and effect. In the fragmented look at ⊞ in +this document, which we’ve reached the end of now, I hope to have done +something similar: a convoluted addition, freely placing things together +to be held for a moment. 

    +

    ⊞ involves a wide range of activities; typing, drawing grids, +communicating with other specialists, quoting, drinking coffee, working +out of office hours, having panic attacks, arguing, building myths, +personal expression, keyboard shortcuts, dreaming, rubbing paper and +exhaling, tilting your head and looking at the screen. We have examined +when and how these actions happen, and more importantly, why they do, +according to the ⊞ers carrying them out. 

    +

    These stories were gathered through various modes of describing, +listening and understanding. It is important that these are different +from conventional ways to frame the discipline, as I think a shift in +viewpoint is needed. So not “⊞er as Author” (Rock, 1996), “⊞er as +salesperson” (Pater, 2021) but instead ⊞er “sitting at the machine, +thinking” (Brodine, 1990) or “⊞er without qualities” (Lorusso, 2023). +The fragments have been situated and subjective rather than objective, +they have been outside of categories because the categories are broken +anyway. 

    +
    +

    Conclusion

    +

    Last night I dreamt I was standing on a hill in the Swiss Alps and +you were there and all of our friends and the hill was covered in little +fields but not like a grid like lots of different shapes and sizes and +the sky opened in two and a ring of light so bright it nearly blinded me +came out of my chest and yours and they all merged into eachother and +everyone opened their mouths to sing and the air was filled with so many +sounds and one ⊞er walked up to me and smiled and said 

    +
      +

    • “I dunno, I’m more confused than ever”

      • +

    • and they said 

      • +

    • and then you said

      • +

    • “a funny feeling its a bit weird”

      • +

    • “I’m just trying to touch it gently and acknowledge it” 

      • +

    • “live the gap between where you are and where you could +be” 

      • +
    +

    and then I was them and you were me and we laughed and fell over and +the hill turned into a bright pink jelly ocean the whole sky was this +sort of green-blue and we all surfed wobbly waves and some people’s +surfboards were Quiksilver and some they had built themselves from a git +repository but the sun was a walnut and it was definitely moving but I +couldnt tell was it rising or setting but it didn’t matter to us the +surf was great and everything smelled like magnolias.

    +
    +
    +
    +

    Acknowledgements

    +

    Thanks to Ada, Aglaia, Ben, Chae, Conor, Irmak, Jenny, Joseph, kamo, +Leslie, Manetta, Marloes, Michael, Rossi.

    +

    Bibliography

    +

    Bayer, H. et al. (1975) Bauhaus, 1919-1928. New +York: Museum of Modern Art. 

    +

    Berlant, L. (2022) On the Inconvenience of Other People, +Durham: Duke University Press.

    +

    Brodine, K. (1990) Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking: +Poems. Seattle: Red Letter Press.

    +

    creativechair (2018) ‘Michael Bierut’ [Interview], Creative +Chair. Available at: creativechair.org/michael-bierut (Accessed: 15 +April 2024).

    +

    Design West (2024) Design West. Available at: +designwest.eu (Accessed: 16 April 2024).

    +

    Driessen, C. P. G. (2020). Descartes was here; In Search of the +Origin of Cartesian Space’. In R. Koolhaas (Ed.), Countryside, A +Report (pp. 274-297)
    + 
    +Gates, B (2004) Remarks by Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software +Architect, Microsoft Corporation [speech transcript] University of +Illinois Urbana-Champaign February 24, 2004 Available at: +web.archive.org/web/
    +20040607040830/https://www.microsoft.com/billgates/speeches/2004/02-24UnivIllinois.asp +(Accessed: 13 April 2024)

    +

    Gerstner, K. and Keller, D. (1964) Designing Programmes. +Teufen (AR): Niggli. 

    +

    Google (2014) Introduction, Material Design. +Available at: m1.material.io (Accessed: 16 April 2024). 

    +

    Hu, T.-H. (2024) Digital Lethargy: Dispatches from an age of +disconnection. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 

    +

    The Idea of the Book (2024) CARNIVAL: the first panel +1967–70 [book description] Available at: theideaofthe
    +book.com/pages/books/529/steve-mccaffery/carnival-the-first-panel-1967-70 +(Accessed: 13 April 2024)

    +

    Loos, A. (2019) Ornament and Crime. London: Penguin. 

    +

    Lorusso, S. (2023) What Design Can’t Do: Essays on design and +disillusion. Eindhoven: Set Margins. 

    +

    Mondriaan , P. et al., (1917) ‘Neo-Plasticism in Pictorial Art’, +De Stijl, Nov. 

    +

    Mould, O. (2018) Against Creativity. London: Verso.

    +

    Müller-Brockmann, J. (1981) Grid systems in graphic ⊞. +Stuttgart: Hatje. 

    +

    Pater, R. (2021) Caps Lock. Amsterdam: Valiz.

    +

    Rock, M., (1996) The ⊞er as Author. Available at: +2x4.org/ideas/1996/⊞er-as-author (Accessed: 16 April 2024). 

    +

    Shaughnessy, A. (2005) How to Be a Graphic ⊞er, without Losing +Your Soul. Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press.

    +

    Shaughnessy, A. (2013) Scratching the Surface. London: Unit +Editions.

    +

    Tufte, E (1991) The Visual Display of Quantitative +Information. Cheshire: Graphics Press.

    +

    Van der Velden, D., (2006) ‘Research & Destroy: A Plea for ⊞ as +Research’, Metropolis M 2, April/May 2006.

    +

    Van Doesburg, T. et al. (1917) ‘Manifesto I’, De Stijl, +Nov. 

    +

    Van Doesburg, T. et al. (1921) +‘Manifesto III’, De Stijl, Aug.

    +

    Warde, B. (1913) ‘Printing Should be Invisible’ The Crystal +Goblet, Sixteen Essays on Typography, London: The Sylvan Press.

    +

    Weber, M., (1905) “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of +Capitalism”, Archiv für Sozialwissenschaften 20, no. 1 (1904), +pp. 1–54; 21, no. 1 (1905), pp. 1–110.

    + +
    + + +

    Special Issues

    Special Issues are publications thrice released by first-year XPUB diff --git a/print/print_style.css b/print/print_style.css index 223169b..d51ef4f 100644 --- a/print/print_style.css +++ b/print/print_style.css @@ -11,13 +11,15 @@ @font-face { font-family: 'Platypi'; - src: url('../fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Regular.woff2'); + src: url('../fonts/Platypi[wght].woff2'); + font-weight: 300 800; font-style: normal; } @font-face { font-family: 'Platypi'; - src: url('../fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Italic.woff2'); + src: url('../fonts/Platypi-Italic[wght].woff2'); + font-weight: 300 800; font-style: italic; } notes{ @@ -105,7 +107,8 @@ body .margin-note{ white-space: pre-wrap; } body{ - font-family: 'Platypi-Regular','platypi' ; + font-family: 'Platypi',serif ; + font-synthesis: none; line-height: 1.3; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: -0.1px; diff --git a/reviews/martino.png b/reviews/martino.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..36a50fc Binary files /dev/null and b/reviews/martino.png differ diff --git a/specialissue19/index.html b/specialissue19/index.html index 6d80c10..0ec0d37 100644 --- a/specialissue19/index.html +++ b/specialissue19/index.html @@ -5,27 +5,29 @@ +

    diff --git a/specialissue20/index.html b/specialissue20/index.html index 2a66246..7d09bab 100644 --- a/specialissue20/index.html +++ b/specialissue20/index.html @@ -5,27 +5,29 @@ + diff --git a/specialissue21/index.html b/specialissue21/index.html index 0ab4408..774b869 100644 --- a/specialissue21/index.html +++ b/specialissue21/index.html @@ -5,27 +5,29 @@ + diff --git a/specialissuesintro/index.html b/specialissuesintro/index.html index 1b57612..5c5974f 100644 --- a/specialissuesintro/index.html +++ b/specialissuesintro/index.html @@ -5,27 +5,29 @@ + diff --git a/stephen/index.html b/stephen/index.html index ded08d3..98f5d1b 100644 --- a/stephen/index.html +++ b/stephen/index.html @@ -5,40 +5,58 @@ + -

    What -do graphic designers do all day and why do they do it and what does -“graphic design” even mean?!????!!1!?

    -
    - - -
    +

    do you ever dream about work?

    +

    Stephen Kerr

    +

    Practice-led artistic research into the 21st century phenomenon of +the graphic designer. I held graphic design in my hands using +ethnography, toolmaking and performance as research methods. I examined +how designers spend their time in everyday life, this designer, me, as +well as you, what are we doing? What are our worldviews, belief systems, +mythologies and ideologies?

    +

    Stephen Kerr is a designer, musician, bread-baker and occasional +tent-builder based in Rotterdam. He fidgets between making graphic +design and performances, questioning and playing with methods and tools. +Coming from a serious and realistic background in a big city on a big +island (Dublin), he is interested in making people out of designers and +a wizard out of himself. Currently he is very very busy making +technologies sillier, inefficienter, questionabler, questioneder and +collaborativer.

    +

    https://stephenkerrdesign.com/

    +
    +
    +

    Secondly, during my studies at XPUB, I plan to combine different +strands of my practices (design, music, programming, theatre). Being a +designer is an important part of my identity, and I am keen to make work +true to who I am.

    +
    +

    Excerpt from xpub application letter, March 15th 2022.

    +

    I cut my thumb so every time I type i can feel it in my nerve endings. Not true, it’s my left thumb so I don’t type with it. Not true, I feel it anyway. Why are most of the function keys on the left of the @@ -59,6 +77,12 @@ I was thinking about you and I was in the same place as a friend of mine and I was in the studio and we were in the studio and we were in the studio and we were in the studio and we were in the

    + + +
    +
    Keylogging research. I recorded the buttons a graphic designer (me) presses while working, as an autoethnographic research method into what exactly it is that designers do. To celebrate this labour, I then used a pen plotter to make a series of posters. Three minutes of the designers keypresses took about eight hours to plot. October 24th 2023.
    -

    Practice-led artistic research into the 21st century phenomenon of -the graphic designer. I held graphic design in my hands using -ethnography, toolmaking and performance as research methods. I examined -how designers spend their time in everyday life, this designer, me, as -well as you, what are we doing? What are our worldviews, belief systems, -mythologies and ideologies?

    Email answering performance using Google’s Gmail service. To reveal the work of the designer clearly, I performed the designer’s task of answering email in front of an audience. Due to the performance happening at 7pm, out of office hours, there was extensive use of the Scheduled Email feature. Some stories emerged about our precarity including overdue rent and invalid payment information for Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions. Leeszaal, Rotterdam, November 7th 2023. @@ -95,13 +113,6 @@ The less the designer uses the mouse, the longer a line the pen plotter draws, it creates a record of the tiny moments between the work.
    -
    -

    Secondly, during my studies at XPUB, I plan to combine different -strands of my practices (design, music, programming, theatre). Being a -designer is an important part of my identity, and I am keen to make work -true to who I am.

    -
    -

    Excerpt from xpub application letter, March 15th 2022.

    Re-enacting dreams about work at Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, Netherlands. Participants use felt dolls to tell stories of our dreams on the small and squishy stage. We’re trying to balance design labour with other labour like making food for our loved ones, we can’t stop brushing our teeth, brushing, brushing, brushing. February 5th 2024. @@ -139,388 +150,391 @@ alt="Keyboard of things designers have said. Our feelings about work." />
    +

    ⊞

    -

    empty title

    +

    Stephen Kerr

    ⊞

    Thesis submitted to the Department of Experimental Publishing, Piet @@ -95,7 +97,7 @@ The Po Valley, The Roman Empire, 268 BCE.

    -

    empty title

    +

    Introduction

    This document is a collection of fragments exploring beliefs about labour in the creative industries, in particular graphic ⊞. Each @@ -144,7 +146,6 @@ than last week when there was no work. ⊞ers look at their phone and see their alarm is going to go off in ten minutes, so they switch it off and get up. -

    empty title

    The precarity of working in the creative industries, in particular as a freelancer or within a small studio, induces anxiety. There is a belief that the ⊞er as freelancer is empowered by their autonomy, but in @@ -243,7 +244,7 @@ recipient of the Catherine Donnelly Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to ⊞ in Ireland and is the Course Director of ⊞ West, an international summer ⊞ school located in the beautiful village of Letterfrack on the West Coast of Ireland. (⊞west.eu, 2023)

    -

    empty title

    +
    • SK: What do you think is the best shape?
    • CC: Oh yeah, good god. square.
      • @@ -341,7 +342,7 @@ postcard.”
    • Description of Steve McCaffrey’s CARNIVAL
      (The Idea of the Book, 2024)
    -

    empty title

    +

    The developments of the written word and its relationship to form in the 20th century is very much a part of the history of ⊞. I care about this story because it affects contemporary practitioners. I believe @@ -356,7 +357,7 @@ assigning or finding meanings in ⊞

    This autoethnographic annotation attempts to really miss as many cultural and technical cues as possible. It’s watching the ⊞er, me, and being totally mystified by their behaviour. 

    -

    empty title

    +
    1. A rhythm exists and I wonder why. There is music and there are voices, and my fingers press the keys and the colours of the screen @@ -415,7 +416,7 @@ catalogues. ⊞ is just work, chill. Is a ⊞er a user or a server? Maybe ⊞ is an example of our general belief in this dichotomy not quite making sense or fitting reality. The ⊞er is working for whom? Themselves? Their clients?

      -

      empty title

      +
      • “attempts to undo the privileged position of the agentive subject can help us understand the strange status of repetitive and @@ -563,7 +564,7 @@ misplaced and there is a human urge to stop, just stop.

        and as soon as we feel ourselves becoming ridiculous”
      • Adolf Loos, On Thrift, 1924 (Loos, 2019)
      -

      empty title

      +

      Adolf Loos was a modernist architect whose writings such as Ornament and Crime in 1910 influenced modernist ideals of functionalism and minimalism. He rejected ornament and favoured the use @@ -621,7 +622,7 @@ inherited from a wider cultural belief of the same general drive: to order and simplify. Humans try to make sense of the world. ⊞ers make sense of ⊞ briefs and structure them into something understandable to an audience or target market. 

      -

      empty title

      +
      • ◱: for fucks sake why don’t we use those grids
      @@ -647,7 +648,7 @@ even more outrageous than what we assumed of the beer fans, or the beer fans were in fact taking their own conference seriously? As both seem unbelievable the true funniness of the joke hits home in it’s implied meaning: ⊞ers are boring as fuck.

      -

      empty title

      +

      An annotation of my practices as a graphic ⊞er on a typical working day, @@ -660,7 +661,7 @@ annotation of my practices as a graphic ⊞er on a typical working day, ctrl v ctrl c ctrl v ctrl c ctrl v ctrl c ctrl v ctrl v ctrl v ctrl v ctrl v ctrl v ctrl v

    -

    empty title

    +

    ⊞ers interact with the computer through keyboard and mouse usage. Compared to other computer users, my interaction involves lots of pressing of function keys, something common with other technical @@ -764,7 +765,7 @@ proprietary font. There is a visual difference between these fonts too which is also relevant buuuuut this description is getting very detailed maybe not right now. -

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    Similarly to the software changes, this documentation of my practice sees me choosing open source fonts. I’m really ambivalent about this. I do like the idea of being able to modify a font when needed, but I have @@ -798,7 +799,7 @@ beliefs around copyright? Do ⊞ers believe in intellectual property? What value do ⊞ers, specifically typographers, see in their work and that of their close peers, the font ⊞ers, and how does copyright relate to these values?

    -

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    Follow up questions for Conor

    Hey Conor, hope you’re keeping well these days? I’ve been going @@ -817,7 +818,7 @@ field like graphic ⊞? Curious to know what you think.

    totally fine with anonymising, removing, or editing.  

    Thanks,
    Stephen

    -

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    +

    Follow up questions for ◱

    Yo ◱, hope all’s good with you these days? 

    I’ve been piecing together the interviews from December and I’d love @@ -841,7 +842,7 @@ way, or maybe it’s something else to you and I’m projecting :)

    totally fine with anonymising, removing, or editing.

    Thanks,
    Stephen

    -

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    +

    Follow up questions for ◳

    Hey ◳, hope youre good! 

    I’m thinking of putting this section of the interview we did back in @@ -887,7 +888,7 @@ thinking” (Brodine, 1990) or “⊞er without qualities” (Lorusso, 2023). The fragments have been situated and subjective rather than objective, they have been outside of categories because the categories are broken anyway. 

    -

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    +

    Conclusion

    Last night I dreamt I was standing on a hill in the Swiss Alps and you were there and all of our friends and the hill was covered in little @@ -912,9 +913,9 @@ surfboards were Quiksilver and some they had built themselves from a git repository but the sun was a walnut and it was definitely moving but I couldnt tell was it rising or setting but it didn’t matter to us the surf was great and everything smelled like magnolias.

    -

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    -

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    -

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    +
    +

    Acknowledgements

    Thanks to Ada, Aglaia, Ben, Chae, Conor, Irmak, Jenny, Joseph, kamo, Leslie, Manetta, Marloes, Michael, Rossi.

    diff --git a/style.css b/style.css index b3a25d2..bd9d144 100644 --- a/style.css +++ b/style.css @@ -1,87 +1,101 @@ +:root{ + --spot-color-1: 009;; +} @font-face { - font-family: 'Platypi-Regular'; - src: url('./fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Regular.woff2'); + font-family: 'Platypi'; + src: url('../fonts/Platypi[wght].woff2'); + font-weight: 300 800; font-style: normal; } @font-face { - font-family: 'Platypi-Bold'; - src: url('./fonts/webfonts/Platypi-Bold.woff2'); - font-style: bold; + font-family: 'Platypi'; + src: url('../fonts/Platypi-Italic[wght].woff2'); + font-weight: 300 800; + font-style: italic; +} +a { + color: inherit; + text-decoration: none; +} +blockquote{ + background: linear-gradient(to top left, white, rgba(255, 153, 150, 0), #c048ff), linear-gradient(to top right, #c9f183, rgba(255, 153, 150, 0), #f13d2b) hsl(36deg 100% 50%); + + /* background: linear-gradient(320deg, #2bce3e, #ce512b, #5e2bce, #cace2b); */ + background-size: 200% 200%; + -webkit-background-clip: text; + -webkit-text-fill-color: transparent; + + -webkit-animation: gradientanimator 3s ease infinite; + -moz-animation: gradientanimator 3s ease infinite; + animation: gradientanimator 3s ease infinite; } +@-webkit-keyframes gradientanimator { + 0%{background-position:0% 70%} + 50%{background-position:100% 31%} + 100%{background-position:0% 70%} +} +@-moz-keyframes gradientanimator { + 0%{background-position:0% 70%} + 50%{background-position:100% 31%} + 100%{background-position:0% 70%} +} +@keyframes gradientanimator { + 0%{background-position:0% 70%} + 50%{background-position:100% 31%} + 100%{background-position:0% 70%} +} body { background-color: #fffdfb; - font-family: 'Platypi-Regular', serif; - font-size: 41px; - line-height: 3.5rem; + font-family: 'Platypi', serif; + font-size: 1.3125rem; + font-synthesis: none; + line-height: 1.3; margin: 0; - padding: 0 70px; + padding: 4rem; box-sizing: border-box; } .content-list { - max-width: 633px; + font-size: 41px; + max-width: 40rem; margin: auto; margin-right: 0; - margin-top: 50px; -} + line-height: 3.5rem; -.content-list a { - color: black; - text-decoration: none; -} -.content-list img { - width: 35px; - height: auto; - vertical-align: middle; - filter: saturate(2); + img { + width: 2rem; + height: auto; + vertical-align: middle; + filter: saturate(2); + } + + a:hover img, img:hover { + animation: wiggle 0.6s infinite; + cursor: pointer; + } } .container { margin: 50px 0; -} - -h1 { - font-family: 'Platypi-Bold', serif; - font-size: 50px; - max-width: 20%; - margin: 0; -} + line-height: 3.5rem; + h1 {font-style: normal} -.container h2 { - font-family: 'Platypi-Regular', serif; - font-size: 40px; - max-width: 30%; - margin: 0; - margin-bottom: -0.5rem; + h2 { + font-size: 40px; + max-width: 30%; + margin: 0; + margin-bottom: -0.5rem; + } } #content { - font-size: 22px; - line-height: 1.7rem; - max-width: 633px; + max-width: 40rem; margin: auto; margin-right: 0; } - -#content p { - margin-left: 25mm; -} - -#content h1 {display: none;} -#content h2, #content h3 { - text-decoration: underline; - text-align: center; -} - -#content strong { - position: absolute; - margin-left: -44mm; - width: 44mm; -} - @keyframes wiggle { 25% { transform: scale(0.8, 1.3); @@ -93,70 +107,90 @@ h1 { transform: scale(0.7, 1.2); } } - -.content-list a:hover img, -.content-list img:hover { - animation: wiggle 0.6s infinite; - cursor: pointer; +.gummies{ + display: flex; + margin: 2rem 0; +} +.gummy .caption{ + opacity: 0; + transition: opacity 0.5s ease; +} +.gummy:hover .caption{ + opacity: 1 +} +.gummy img{ + width: 4rem; + filter: saturate(2); +} +h1 { + font-weight: 700; + font-size: 50px; + font-style: italic; + margin: 0 0 0.5rem; +} +img{ + max-width: 100%; +} +figcaption{ + font-size: 0.85rem; + margin-top: 0.5rem; +} +figure{ + width: 100%; + margin: 0 0 2rem; +} +nav{ + position: fixed; + h1{font-style: normal;} +} +#script{ + + max-width: 40rem; + margin: auto; + margin-right: 0; + p{ + margin-left: 12rem; + } + p:first-of-type{ + margin-left: 0; + } + h2, h3 { + text-decoration: underline; + text-align: center; + } + strong { + position: absolute; + margin-left: -12rem; + width: 11rem; + } } - @media (max-width: 768px) { body { - font-size: 21px; - line-height: 1.5rem; - padding: 0 50px; + line-height: 1.3; + padding: 2rem; } .container { - margin-left: 0; line-height: 2rem; margin: 70px 0; /* Adjusted for mobile */ - } - - .container h1 { - font-size: 30px; - max-width: 200px; - } - - .container h2 { - font-size: 20px; - max-width: 70px; + + h1 { + font-size: 30px; + font-style: normal; + } + + h2 { + font-size: 20px; + margin-bottom: -0.25rem; + } } .content-list { - max-width: 90%; - margin-top: 30px; - margin-right: -20px; - } - - .content-list img { - width: 25px; - } - - #content { - font-size: 15px; - line-height: 1.2rem; - max-width: -webkit-fill-available; - margin: auto; - margin-right: 0; - margin-top: 90px; - margin-bottom: 90px; - } - - #content p { - width: 220px; - margin-left: 20mm; - } - - #content h1 {display: none;} - #content h2, #content h3 { - text-decoration: underline; - text-align: center; - } - - #content strong { - position: absolute; - margin-left: -20mm; - width: 14mm; + font-size: 22px; + line-height: 2rem; + img{ + margin: -50px 0; + overflow-y:visible; + } } } diff --git a/webpage.template.html b/webpage.template.html index 9c9b655..b7066aa 100644 --- a/webpage.template.html +++ b/webpage.template.html @@ -3,29 +3,31 @@ {{ title }} - + +