@ -18,7 +18,8 @@ Solar Sibling is an online performance of shared loss and the complex pain that
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. It is a web play inviting you to navigate both of these feelings.
Good Pie is a great big play of pies, a performance that took a year to bring together. It had three phases. First, as my friends left, I baked each of them a goodbye pie. Then I hosted two performances. In the first, I asked participants to eat cake, sitting facing or away from each other and sharing their stories about cake and the Internet. In the second I predicted participants' future lives on the Internet using felted archetypes and received stories from their Internet past in return. This website is a reflection of all these experiences. Each Good Pie has a filling that tells a story, merging the bodily with the digital and making a mess of it all.
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 perfomances I hosted. In the 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 perfomance 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 love you and hope you see what I saw in these stories.
Talking Documents are performative bureaucratic text inspections using auto-ethnographical means that intend to create temporal public interventions through performative readings.
While I had this inherent concern about borders and bureaucratic structures in relation to migration, I decided to start zooming in and explore my own bureaucratic surroundings through my personal lens. As a student, I was eager to understand and dig into the educational institutions’ bureaucratic mechanisms being driven by smaller-scale bureaucratic struggles and peers’ narratives, stories and experiences. My starting point were concerns and a need to explore potential bureaucratic dramaturgies within the educational institution I am currently part as a student. However, unexpected emergencies placed centrally my personal bureaucratic struggles that were being unfolded in parallel with the making period. Accordingly, this project was dynamically being reshaped due to the material constraints of the bureaucratic timeline. 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 mechanism of regulation that reflects narratives, ideologies, policies of the state.
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.
The scenario
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 due my recent eviction on the 31st of January 2024. 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 that 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. I perceive the document as a unit and the primary interface of the bureaucratic network. The embedded performativity of “real” bureaucratic rituals establishes and empowers (bureaucratic) institutions through repetitive acts. The transformation of the materiality of a document into a scenario to be enacted collectively in public attempts to examine these artifacts and highlight the shrouded performative elements of these processes.
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.
The public readings of the scenario
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 am particularly interested in the site-specificity of these “acts”. I organized a series of performative readings of my own bureaucratic literature in different spaces and contexts, pubic and semi-public, like Leeszaal, WDKA, Art Meets Radical Openness Festival in Linz, the City Hall of Rotterdam where I invited people to perform the play together, like a theater.
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.
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.
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.
I documented and recorded these public acts and I re-created the collectively vocalised and transformed scenario. This audio piece is a constellation of different recordings and soundscapes of these public moments that I edited and collaged into a single story that could constitute a vocal archive.
I am inviting past and future applicants, traumatized students, injured bearers, bureaucratic border crossers, stressed expired document holders to share, vocalize, read out loud, amplify, (un)name, dismantle the injurious words of these artifacts.
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.
[images]
[Leeszaal West Rotterdam - 7th of November 2023 – People queuing to receive their documents]
[WDKA- Winjhaven Building- 5th of February 2024- reading of act0 “” and act1 “”]
[Art Meets Radical Openness Festival – Linz, Austria - 11th of May 2024 - Reading act 2”” and act3 “” in the tent] x2
[City Hall Rotterdam- 30th of May 2024 - Reading of act 5 “” and act 6 “”] x2
[XML at XPUB studio - January 2024 - Passport Reading Session]
[BOOKLET 1]
[BOOKLET 2]
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.
@ -216,7 +216,9 @@ Description: During the first public moment at Leeszaal, I decided to embody and
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.
[ Participants, during Leeszaal event, are waiting in a queue (18) to collect the application forms and sign1 ]
[Leeszaal West Rotterdam - November 2023 – People queuing(18) to receive their documents and sign ]
[ One of the forms that the audience had to fill out during the Lesszaal event ]
Vulnerable Interfaces is a catalogue of work producted within the context of the Master of Arts in Fine art and Design: Experimental Publishing (XPUB) at the Piet Zwart Insititute, Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam.
Special thanks goes to the XPUB staff whose expert help and guidance helped.
More information available at vulnerable-interfaces.xpub.nl
Vulnerable Interfaces is a catalogue of work producted within the context of the Master of Arts in Fine art and Design: Experimental Publishing (XPUB) at the Piet Zwart Insititute, Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam. Special thanks goes to the XPUB staff for their expert help and guidance. More information available at vulnerable-interfaces.xpub.nl
### Course Director of XPUB
Michael Murtaugh
### Administration
Leslie Robbins
### Course tutors
Manetta Berends, Joseph Knierzinger, Michael Murtaugh, Steve Rushton, Kimmy Spreeuwenberg
Manetta Berends, Simone Browne, Artemis Gryllaki, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Joseph Knierzinger, Michael Murtaugh, Martino Morandi, Lídia Pereira, Leslie Robbins, Steve Rushton, Kimmy Spreeuwenberg, Marloes de Valk.
### Research, editing and production
Ada, Aglaia, Stephen and Irmak Suzan (XPUB graduates year 2022-2024)
@ -37,37 +17,37 @@ Ada, Aglaia, Stephen and Irmak Suzan (XPUB graduates year 2022-2024)
### Print run
200 copies
### Printed and Bound at
Publication Station, Willem De Koonig Academy, Rotterdam
### Printed and bound at
Publication Station, Willem De Kooning Academy, Rotterdam
### Paper
Clairefontaine, dune (80g/m3), *cover paper*
Clairefontaine Dune 80gsm, *cover paper*
### Typefaces
Platypi by David Sargent.
### Photography and Illustration
### Photography and illustration
Unless otherwise stated, all photography, illustrations and other types of visualisations in this publication are created by the same authors as the text. That which is below is like that which is above, and that which is above is like that which is below, to do the miracle of one only thing.
### Digital Tools
Paged.JS, Git, Etherpad.
### Digital tools
Writing in Etherpad. Version control in git. Design in Inkscape. Layout in paged.js. Printing in Adobe Acrobat.
### Licensing Information
### Licensing information
This publication is free to distrubite or modify under the terms of the SIXX license as published by XPUB, either version one of the SIXX License or any later version. See the SIXX License for more details.
A copy of the license can be found on xpub.nl/vulnerable-interfaces/license
A copy of the license can be found on vulnerable-interfaces.xpub.nl/license
### Postal address
Master of Arts in Fine Art and Design: Experimental Publishing,
Piet Zwart Institute,
Master of Arts in FIne Art and Design: Experimental Publishing,
P.O. Box 1272,
3000 BG Rotterdam
3000 BG Rotterdam,
The Netherlands.
### Visiting address
Wijnhaven 61,
4th floor,
3011 WJ Rotterdam,
the Netherlands
The Netherlands.
### XPUB
XPUB is the Master of Arts in Fine Art and Design: Experimental Publishing of the Piet Zwart Institute. XPUB focuses on the acts of making things public and creating publics in the age of post-digital networks. XPUB’s interests in publishing are therefore twofold: first, publishing as the inquiry and participation into the technological frameworks, political context and cultural processes through which things are made public; and second, how these are, or can be, used to create publics.
Interfaces are boundaries that connect and separate. They're the spaces that fill the void between us. An interface can be an act, a story, a keyboard, a cake; It allows us to be vulnerable together, to share our stories with and through each other. I am a collection of these interfaces.
Interfaces are boundaries that connect and separate. They're the spaces that fill the void between us. An interface can be an act, a story, a keyboard, a cake; It allows us to be vulnerable together, to share our stories with and through each other. I am a collection of these interfaces.
the reader (confused):
What do you mean a collection, like a catalogue?
@ -22,10 +22,11 @@ the reader:
we?
the book:
...I mean the four of us, the students of Experimental Publishing at the Piet Zwart Institute. From 2022 until today, June 2024, we published three special issues together. We wrote four theses' and made four graduation projects. We grew our hair out and cut it and grew it again and dyed it. We cared and cried for each other, we brewed muddy coffee and bootlegged books. (the book tears up) Finishing a Master's is a bit of a heavy moment for us and this book is a gentle archive, a memory of things that have been beautiful to us.
...I mean the four of us, the students of Experimental Publishing at the Piet Zwart Institute. From 2022 until today, June 2024, we published three special issues together. We wrote four theses and made four graduation projects. We grew our hair out and cut it and grew it again and dyed it. We cared and cried for each other, we brewed muddy coffee and bootlegged books. (The book tears up) Finishing a Master's is a bit of a heavy moment for us and this book is a gentle archive, a memory of things that have been beautiful to us.
@ -2535,39 +2535,80 @@ 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</p>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/keylogger.jpeg"
alt="Keylogging research, recording the buttons a graphic designer presses while working." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Keylogging research, recording the
buttons a graphic designer presses while working.</figcaption>
alt="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." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">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.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>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?</p>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/email.jpg"
alt="Email answering performance using Google’s Gmail service. Leeszaal, Rotterdam, November 7th 2023." />
alt="Email answering performance using Google’s Gmail service. Leeszaal, Rotterdam, November 7th 2023" />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Email answering performance using
Google’s Gmail service. Leeszaal, Rotterdam, November 7th
2023.</figcaption>
2023</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/laziness.jpg"
alt="A performative tool that measures the laziness of the designer as they work and graphs it on a pen plotter. The less the designer uses the mouse, the longer a line the pen plotter draws." />
alt="A performative tool that measures the laziness of the designer as they work and graphs it on a pen plotter. 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." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">A performative tool that measures the
laziness of the designer as they work and graphs it on a pen plotter.
The less the designer uses the mouse, the longer a line the pen plotter
draws.</figcaption>
draws, it creates a record of the tiny moments between the
work.</figcaption>
</figure>
<blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Excerpt from xpub application letter, March 15th 2022.</p>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/peecee.jpg"
alt="Re-enacting dreams about work. Rotterdam, February 7th 2024." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Re-enacting dreams about work. Rotterdam,
February 7th 2024.</figcaption>
alt="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." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">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.</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/amro.jpeg"
alt="Re-enacting dreams about work. Art Meets Radical Openness festival. May 11th 2024." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Re-enacting dreams about work. Art Meets
Radical Openness festival. May 11th 2024.</figcaption>
alt="Collective dream re-enactment at Art Meets Radical Openness, Linz, Austria. Inside a tent, a group of people perform eachother’s dreams about work and discuss and analyse them together. We feel like impostors, we don’t know how to work these machines, we’re going to crash. March 11th 2024." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Collective dream re-enactment at Art
Meets Radical Openness, Linz, Austria. Inside a tent, a group of people
perform eachother’s dreams about work and discuss and analyse them
together. We feel like impostors, we don’t know how to work these
machines, we’re going to crash. March 11th 2024.</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/dizzy.jpeg"alt="Where do dreams come from?"/>
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Where do dreams come from?</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/form.png"
alt="do you ever dream about work? Online research and publication where we shared our dreams, worries, rants, designs. The answers to the question are published together as a collection of voices." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">do you ever dream about work? Online
research and publication where we shared our dreams, worries, rants,
designs. The answers to the question are published together as a
collection of voices.</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/wood-keyboard.jpeg"
alt="Keyboard of things designers have said. Our feelings about work." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Keyboard of things designers have said.
alt="Collective performative dream re-enactment at Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, Netherlands. February 5th 2024." />
<imgsrc="imagename.png"
alt="Collective performative dream re-enactment at Art Meets Radical Openness, Linz, Austria. March 11th 2024." />
<imgsrc="imagename.png"
alt="Keyboard of things designers have said." /> <img
src="imagename.png"
alt="do you ever dream about work? online research" /></p>
<p>An investigation into the practices and ideologies of graphic design
in 2023–24 though practice-led artistic research and ethnographic
methods. I held graphic design in my hands using ethnography, toolmaking
and performance as research methods. I examined how a designer spends
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?</p>
<p><em>What do graphic designers do all day and why do they do it and
what does “graphic design” even mean?!????!!1!?</em> is an assessment of
what the term “graphic design” means to its practitioners today. Through
experimental ethnographic research methods and the development of
reflexive tools, the project highlights and questions the boundaries
that exist around this apparent category. The research focuses on my own
practices as well as other people and groups that identify with “graphic
designer” as a label. The research was both conducted by and shared with
interested parties in the form of the tools themselves, as well as a
series of performances. There is no strict distinction between the
research and its publication. The tools were released in an iterative
cycle throughout the process of the project, and the research is
conducted through the performative use and development of these
tools.</p>
<p>This research is carried out in three intersecting methods:
experimental ethnographic research, reflexive tools, and performative
research. Keylogging, performance of personal work habits, interviews
about the manual work of “immaterial labourers”, and dream analysis are
combined in order to uncover less obvious and less discussed aspects of
what a designer is and does in their daily life, as entry points to
their worldviews, belief systems, mythologies or ideologies. The methods
were developed in an iterative process that reflected on findings from
the previous prototypes. The research took into account its own
publication as part of one process.</p>
<oltype="1">
<li><p>Experimental ethnographic research methods: I documented my own
practices as a graphic designer for nine months. Sometimes based on
technical observations of my interaction with my tools, primarily my
laptop computer and the software on it. I conducted interviews with
designers. I recorded the interviews. I had prompts to open the
discussion such as reading material and weird tools to try with them. I
will carry out auto-ethnographic research using experimental methods
such as mouse tracking and unusual annotation methods. I shared the
results of this research as a series of interactive publications (tools)
with a small but selected audience of people who are involved in these
processes and who would benefit from it.</p></li>
<li><p>Reflexive tools: Software and hardware tools that explore the
boundaries of “graphic design” as a category. For example at the
boundaries between graphic design and other disciplines. At the
boundaries between work and play, or between design and art. These tools
malfunction in order to explore what it even means to be working. The
tools aim to highlight what a graphic designer does by interacting with
their user in ways that the designers standard tools do not (for example
an interface to connect musical instruments to the designers workflow),
or conversely by amplifying how the designer usually interacts with
their tools (for example a keylogger to celebrate and focus on the use
of the keyboard). The tools are digital in nature and involve software
and hardware interventions into the graphic designers work.</p></li>
<li><p>Performative research: I see all the methods above as having a
performative element. For example the ethnographic-slash-performative
act of answering my emails on a large screen in front of an audience,
research which was carried out as part of this project at Leeszaal,
Rotterdam West on November 7th 2023. By showing directly the work
practices of graphic designers to an audience, or their interaction with
the tools mentioned above, I am publishing through performance the daily
activities of designers and my aim is to show these practices without
the conventional lenses they are seen through. To be contrasted for
example with how graphic design is presented on behance.net or in a
bookshop, this performative approach will highlight the mythologies and
practices of the graphic designer.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I made this to explore why designers make design, based on Clifford
Geertz’s ideas of why humans make culture: “to affirm it, defend it,
celebrate it, justify it and just plain bask in it” (Geertz, 1973). This
exploration will also involve less constructive actions like
participating, dissociating, questioning, protesting, destroying and
disregarding. There is a disconnect between the narratives about
“graphic design” and the effects it is known to have on its audiences,
practitioners, and society in more general terms. I am attempting to
“loosen the object” of graphic design (Berlant, 2022), to make the
definition less defined and maybe more useful or easier to engage with.
This shit could be better. Its urgent for the people being exploited by
it, to break the inequalities it serves to maintain, to expose what it
hides, to improve things that are definitely working but not in a good
way. Design can hide and reproduce inequalities in its output and also
dominate workers in its practices. This research starts primarily from
the bodies and actions of the practitioners so will primarily engage
with the effects on and by these bodies.</p>
<!-- # felt cute might delete later
*What do graphic designers do all day and why do they do it and what does "graphic design" even mean?!????!!1!?* is an assessment of what the term "graphic design" means to its practitioners today. Through experimental ethnographic research methods and the development of reflexive tools, the project highlights and questions the boundaries that exist around this apparent category. The research focuses on my own practices as well as other people and groups that identify with "graphic designer" as a label. The research was both conducted by and shared with interested parties in the form of the tools themselves, as well as a series of performances. There is no strict distinction between the research and its publication. The tools were released in an iterative cycle throughout the process of the project, and the research is conducted through the performative use and development of these tools.
This research is carried out in three intersecting methods: experimental ethnographic research, reflexive tools, and performative research. Keylogging, performance of personal work habits, interviews about the manual work of "immaterial labourers", and dream analysis are combined in order to uncover less obvious and less discussed aspects of what a designer is and does in their daily life, as entry points to their worldviews, belief systems, mythologies or ideologies. The methods were developed in an iterative process that reflected on findings from the previous prototypes. The research took into account its own publication as part of one process.
1. Experimental ethnographic research methods: I documented my own practices as a graphic designer for nine months. Sometimes based on technical observations of my interaction with my tools, primarily my laptop computer and the software on it. I conducted interviews with designers. I recorded the interviews. I had prompts to open the discussion such as reading material and weird tools to try with them. I will carry out auto-ethnographic research using experimental methods such as mouse tracking and unusual annotation methods. I shared the results of this research as a series of interactive publications (tools) with a small but selected audience of people who are involved in these processes and who would benefit from it.
2. Reflexive tools: Software and hardware tools that explore the boundaries of "graphic design" as a category. For example at the boundaries between graphic design and other disciplines. At the boundaries between work and play, or between design and art. These tools malfunction in order to explore what it even means to be working. The tools aim to highlight what a graphic designer does by interacting with their user in ways that the designers standard tools do not (for example an interface to connect musical instruments to the designers workflow), or conversely by amplifying how the designer usually interacts with their tools (for example a keylogger to celebrate and focus on the use of the keyboard). The tools are digital in nature and involve software and hardware interventions into the graphic designers work.
3. Performative research: I see all the methods above as having a performative element. For example the ethnographic-slash-performative act of answering my emails on a large screen in front of an audience, research which was carried out as part of this project at Leeszaal, Rotterdam West on November 7th 2023. By showing directly the work practices of graphic designers to an audience, or their interaction with the tools mentioned above, I am publishing through performance the daily activities of designers and my aim is to show these practices without the conventional lenses they are seen through. To be contrasted for example with how graphic design is presented on behance.net or in a bookshop, this performative approach will highlight the mythologies and practices of the graphic designer.
I made this to explore why designers make design, based on Clifford Geertz's ideas of why humans make culture: "to affirm it, defend it, celebrate it, justify it and just plain bask in it" (Geertz, 1973). This exploration will also involve less constructive actions like participating, dissociating, questioning, protesting, destroying and disregarding. There is a disconnect between the narratives about "graphic design" and the effects it is known to have on its audiences, practitioners, and society in more general terms. I am attempting to "loosen the object" of graphic design (Berlant, 2022), to make the definition less defined and maybe more useful or easier to engage with. This shit could be better. Its urgent for the people being exploited by it, to break the inequalities it serves to maintain, to expose what it hides, to improve things that are definitely working but not in a good way. Design can hide and reproduce inequalities in its output and also dominate workers in its practices. This research starts primarily from the bodies and actions of the practitioners so will primarily engage with the effects on and by these bodies.
@ -15,20 +15,23 @@ Libraries as complex social infrastructures.
The release of the Special Issue 19 was a momentary snapshot of the current state of a library seen through the metaphor of gardening; pruning, gleaning, growing, grafting and harvesting. Garden Leeszaal is an open conversation; a collective writing tool, a cooperative collage and an archive. We asked everyone to think of the library as a garden. For us, being a gardener means caring; caring for the people and books that form this space.
During the collective moment in Leeszaal people started diving into recycle bins, grab books, tear pages apart, drawing, pen plotting, weaving words together, cutting words, removing words, overwriting, printing, scanning. It was magical having an object in the end. A whole book made by all of us in that evening. Stations, machines, a cloud of cards, a sleeve that warms up THE BOOK.
During the collective moment in Leeszaal people started diving into recycle bins, grabbing books, tearing pages apart, drawing, pen plotting, weaving words together, cutting words, removing words, overwriting, printing, and scanning. It was magical having an object in the end. A whole book was made by all of us that evening. Stations, machines, a cloud of cards, a sleeve that warms up THE BOOK.
@ -10,18 +10,16 @@ Console is an oracle; an emotional first aid kit that helps you help yourself. C
Special Issue XX was co-published by xpub and Page Not Found, Den Haag. With guest editors Lídia Pereira ♈︎and Artemis Gryllaki ♐ we unraveled games and rituals, mapping the common characteristics and the differences between games and rituals in relation to ideology and counter-hegemony. We practiced, performed and annotated rituals, connected (or not) with our cultural backgrounds while we questioned the magic circle. We dived into the worlds of text adventure games and clicking games while drinking coffee. We talked about class, base, superstructure, (counter)hegemony, ideology and materialism. We discussed how games and rituals can function as reproductive technologies of the culture industries. We annotated games, focusing on the role of ideology and social reproduction. We reinterpreted bits of the world and created stories from it (modding, fiction, narrative) focusing on community, interaction, relationships, grief and healing.
do graphic designers do all day and why do they do it and what does
“graphic design” even mean?!????!!1!?</h1>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/its-ok.jpg"
alt="Custom keyboard mapping for efficient design practice." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Custom keyboard mapping for efficient
design practice.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>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
@ -33,114 +39,486 @@ 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
third doesn’t make sense. I’m trying to type but I don’t think I can get
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
the kids in the morning and I was thinking about you and I was in the
same place as a friend of mine and I was in the car park and we were in
the car park and we were in the car park and we were in the car park and
we were in the</p>
<p><imgsrc="imagename.png"
alt="The result of a tool that connects musical instruments to a pen plotter, using an arduino module. I created this tool to cross the boundary of “graphic design” as a discipline separate from music." />
<imgsrc="imagename.png"
alt="A performative tool that measures the laziness of the designer as they work and graphs it on a pen plotter. The less the designer uses the mouse, the longer a line the pen plotter will draw." />
<imgsrc="imagename.png"
alt="A performative autoethnographic research of graphic design practices, in this case answering emails using Google’s Gmail service. Leeszaal, Rotterdam West, November 7th 2023" />
<imgsrc="imagename.png"
alt="Collective performative dream re-enactment at Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, Netherlands. February 5th 2024." />
<imgsrc="imagename.png"
alt="Collective performative dream re-enactment at Art Meets Radical Openness, Linz, Austria. March 11th 2024." />
<imgsrc="imagename.png"
alt="Keyboard of things designers have said." /> <img
src="imagename.png"
alt="keylogging research, recording the buttons a graphic designer presses while working" />
<imgsrc="imagename.png"
alt="do you ever dream about work? online research" /></p>
<p>An investigation into the practices and ideologies of graphic design
in 2023–24 though practice-led artistic research and ethnographic
methods. I held graphic design in my hands using ethnography, toolmaking
and performance as research methods. I examined how a designer spends
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?</p>
<p><em>What do graphic designers do all day and why do they do it and
what does “graphic design” even mean?!????!!1!?</em> is an assessment of
what the term “graphic design” means to its practitioners today. Through
experimental ethnographic research methods and the development of
reflexive tools, the project highlights and questions the boundaries
that exist around this apparent category. The research focuses on my own
practices as well as other people and groups that identify with “graphic
designer” as a label. The research was both conducted by and shared with
interested parties in the form of the tools themselves, as well as a
series of performances. There is no strict distinction between the
research and its publication. The tools were released in an iterative
cycle throughout the process of the project, and the research is
conducted through the performative use and development of these
tools.</p>
<p>This research is carried out in three intersecting methods:
experimental ethnographic research, reflexive tools, and performative
research. Keylogging, performance of personal work habits, interviews
about the manual work of “immaterial labourers”, and dream analysis are
combined in order to uncover less obvious and less discussed aspects of
what a designer is and does in their daily life, as entry points to
their worldviews, belief systems, mythologies or ideologies. The methods
were developed in an iterative process that reflected on findings from
the previous prototypes. The research took into account its own
publication as part of one process.</p>
<oltype="1">
<li><p>Experimental ethnographic research methods: I documented my own
practices as a graphic designer for nine months. Sometimes based on
technical observations of my interaction with my tools, primarily my
laptop computer and the software on it. I conducted interviews with
designers. I recorded the interviews. I had prompts to open the
discussion such as reading material and weird tools to try with them. I
will carry out auto-ethnographic research using experimental methods
such as mouse tracking and unusual annotation methods. I shared the
results of this research as a series of interactive publications (tools)
with a small but selected audience of people who are involved in these
processes and who would benefit from it.</p></li>
<li><p>Reflexive tools: Software and hardware tools that explore the
boundaries of “graphic design” as a category. For example at the
boundaries between graphic design and other disciplines. At the
boundaries between work and play, or between design and art. These tools
malfunction in order to explore what it even means to be working. The
tools aim to highlight what a graphic designer does by interacting with
their user in ways that the designers standard tools do not (for example
an interface to connect musical instruments to the designers workflow),
or conversely by amplifying how the designer usually interacts with
their tools (for example a keylogger to celebrate and focus on the use
of the keyboard). The tools are digital in nature and involve software
and hardware interventions into the graphic designers work.</p></li>
<li><p>Performative research: I see all the methods above as having a
performative element. For example the ethnographic-slash-performative
act of answering my emails on a large screen in front of an audience,
research which was carried out as part of this project at Leeszaal,
Rotterdam West on November 7th 2023. By showing directly the work
practices of graphic designers to an audience, or their interaction with
the tools mentioned above, I am publishing through performance the daily
activities of designers and my aim is to show these practices without
the conventional lenses they are seen through. To be contrasted for
example with how graphic design is presented on behance.net or in a
bookshop, this performative approach will highlight the mythologies and
practices of the graphic designer.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I made this to explore why designers make design, based on Clifford
Geertz’s ideas of why humans make culture: “to affirm it, defend it,
celebrate it, justify it and just plain bask in it” (Geertz, 1973). This
exploration will also involve less constructive actions like
participating, dissociating, questioning, protesting, destroying and
disregarding. There is a disconnect between the narratives about
“graphic design” and the effects it is known to have on its audiences,
practitioners, and society in more general terms. I am attempting to
“loosen the object” of graphic design (Berlant, 2022), to make the
definition less defined and maybe more useful or easier to engage with.
This shit could be better. Its urgent for the people being exploited by
it, to break the inequalities it serves to maintain, to expose what it
hides, to improve things that are definitely working but not in a good
way. Design can hide and reproduce inequalities in its output and also
dominate workers in its practices. This research starts primarily from
the bodies and actions of the practitioners so will primarily engage
with the effects on and by these bodies.</p>
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</p>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/keylogger.jpeg"
alt="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." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">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.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>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?</p>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/email.jpg"
alt="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." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">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.</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/laziness.jpg"
alt="A performative tool that measures the laziness of the designer as they work and graphs it on a pen plotter. 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." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">A performative tool that measures the
laziness of the designer as they work and graphs it on a pen plotter.
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.</figcaption>
</figure>
<blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Excerpt from xpub application letter, March 15th 2022.</p>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/peecee.jpg"
alt="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." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">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.</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/amro.jpeg"
alt="Collective dream re-enactment at Art Meets Radical Openness, Linz, Austria. Inside a tent, a group of people perform eachother’s dreams about work and discuss and analyse them together. We feel like impostors, we don’t know how to work these machines, we’re going to crash. March 11th 2024." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Collective dream re-enactment at Art
Meets Radical Openness, Linz, Austria. Inside a tent, a group of people
perform eachother’s dreams about work and discuss and analyse them
together. We feel like impostors, we don’t know how to work these
machines, we’re going to crash. March 11th 2024.</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/dizzy.jpeg"alt="Where do dreams come from?"/>
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Where do dreams come from?</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/form.png"
alt="do you ever dream about work? Online research and publication where we shared our dreams, worries, rants, designs. The answers to the question are published together as a collection of voices." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">do you ever dream about work? Online
research and publication where we shared our dreams, worries, rants,
designs. The answers to the question are published together as a
collection of voices.</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/wood-keyboard.jpeg"
alt="Keyboard of things designers have said. Our feelings about work." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Keyboard of things designers have said.
Our feelings about work.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>2023-11-24 17:52:55,103 - Key.tab<br/>
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2023-11-24 17:52:58,239 - Key.tab<br/>
2023-11-24 17:52:59,055 - Key.cmd<br/>
2023-11-24 17:52:59,208 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:51:56,169 - Key.alt_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:51:56,273 - Key.tab<br/>
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2024-06-06 15:52:04,257 - Key.alt_l<br/>
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2024-06-06 15:52:05,041 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:52:05,281 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:52:39,050 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:52:39,443 - ‘’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:52:53,985 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:52:54,363 - ‘’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:52:57,545 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:52:57,761 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:52:57,921 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:52:58,057 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:52:58,201 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:52:58,337 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:52:58,585 - Key.shift<br/>
2024-06-06 15:52:58,682 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:52:58,785 - Key.right<br/>
2024-06-06 15:52:59,121 - Key.right<br/>
2024-06-06 15:52:59,417 - Key.right<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:00,530 - ‘k’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:00,626 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:00,890 - ‘y’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:01,370 - ‘l’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:01,546 - ‘o’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:01,754 - ‘g’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:01,882 - ‘g’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:01,994 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:02,162 - ‘r’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:02,778 - ‘.’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:03,146 - ‘j’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:03,394 - ‘p’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:03,562 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:03,818 - ‘g’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:05,569 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:06,079 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:06,110 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:06,140 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:06,172 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
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2024-06-06 15:53:07,196 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:07,228 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:07,250 - ‘’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:08,753 - Key.enter<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:08,881 - Key.enter<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:08,937 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:09,058 - ‘’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:10,218 - Key.up<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:10,441 - Key.backspace<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:10,970 - Key.down<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:11,169 - Key.down<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:11,577 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:11,777 - Key.enter<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:11,921 - Key.enter<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:27,769 - Key.alt_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:27,882 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:28,585 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:28,833 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:31,809 - ‘z’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:32,090 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:32,682 - ‘n’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:32,753 - ‘o’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:38,450 - Key.space<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:38,713 - ‘q’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:38,858 - ‘u’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:38,937 - ‘o’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:39,082 - ‘t’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:39,129 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:39,201 - Key.enter<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:44,858 - ‘w’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:44,953 - ‘i’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:45,129 - ‘k’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:45,250 - ‘i’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:48,817 - Key.enter<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:55,257 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:55,513 - ‘’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:56,418 - ‘z’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:56,642 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:56,882 - ‘n’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:53:56,946 - ‘o’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:05,473 - Key.alt_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:05,609 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:08,185 - Key.shift<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:08,693 - Key.shift<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:08,723 - Key.shift<br/>
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2024-06-06 15:54:08,983 - Key.shift<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:09,010 - ‘A’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:09,177 - Key.space<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:09,778 - ‘s’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:09,842 - ‘a’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:10,026 - ‘n’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:10,130 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:10,242 - Key.space<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:10,634 - ‘p’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:10,754 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:10,850 - ‘r’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:11,281 - ‘s’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:11,442 - ‘o’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:11,538 - ‘n’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:13,689 - Key.shift<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:13,818 - ‘“’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:14,225 - Key.left<br/>
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2024-06-06 15:54:15,513 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:15,625 - Key.shift<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:15,705 - ‘“’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:16,009 - Key.right<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:16,514 - Key.right<br/>
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2024-06-06 15:54:16,916 - Key.right<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:17,289 - Key.space<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:18,058 - ‘s’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:18,130 - ‘a’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:18,314 - ‘y’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:18,394 - ‘s’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:19,242 - Key.space<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:19,409 - Key.shift<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:19,634 - ‘Z’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:19,866 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:20,034 - ‘n’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:20,114 - ‘o’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:20,336 - Key.alt_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:20,441 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:21,433 - Key.alt_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:21,521 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:22,586 - ‘,’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:22,665 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:23,177 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:23,207 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:23,239 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:23,270 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:23,301 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:23,332 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:23,378 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:23,409 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:23,440 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:23,577 - Key.left<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:23,826 - ‘,’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:23,937 - Key.right<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:24,446 - Key.right<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:24,477 - Key.right<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:24,508 - Key.right<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:24,539 - Key.right<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:24,570 - Key.right<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:24,616 - Key.right<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:24,648 - Key.right<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:24,889 - Key.right<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:25,049 - Key.right<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:25,289 - Key.right<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:25,425 - Key.space<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:25,737 - Key.alt_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:25,825 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:26,554 - Key.alt_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:26,617 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:26,993 - Key.shift<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:27,506 - Key.shift<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:27,537 - Key.shift<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:27,568 - Key.shift<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:27,599 - Key.shift<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:27,610 - ‘“’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:27,946 - ‘d’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:28,090 - ‘o’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:28,218 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:28,322 - ‘s’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:28,394 - ‘n’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:28,897 -”’”<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:28,978 - ’t’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:29,105 - Key.space<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:29,274 - ‘a’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:29,418 - ‘n’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:29,522 - ‘a’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:29,850 - ‘l’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:30,090 - ‘y’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:30,241 - ‘s’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:30,394 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:30,609 - Key.space<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:30,930 - ‘h’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:31,002 - ‘i’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:31,137 - ‘m’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:31,322 - ‘s’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:31,458 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:31,633 - ‘l’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:31,730 - ‘f’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:32,241 - Key.alt_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:32,353 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:33,737 - Key.alt_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:33,833 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:34,442 - ‘,’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:34,585 - Key.space<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:34,834 - ‘d’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:34,954 - ‘o’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:35,090 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:35,170 - ‘s’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:35,298 - ‘n’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:35,898 -”’”<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:35,954 - ‘t’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:35,978 - ‘t’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:36,209 - Key.space<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:36,378 - ‘l’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:36,546 - ‘o’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:36,666 - ‘o’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:36,730 - ‘k’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:36,881 - Key.space<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:37,034 - ‘i’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:37,090 - ‘n’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:37,257 - Key.space<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:37,410 - ‘t’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:37,482 - ‘h’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:37,586 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:37,681 - Key.space<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:37,874 - ‘m’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:38,017 - ‘i’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:38,233 - ‘r’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:38,562 - ‘r’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:38,898 - ‘o’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:39,210 - ‘r’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:39,945 - Key.shift<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:40,448 - Key.shift<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:40,478 - Key.shift<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:40,525 - Key.shift<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:40,556 - Key.shift<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:40,587 - Key.shift<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:40,594 - ‘“’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:41,033 - Key.alt_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:41,137 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:42,545 - Key.alt_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:42,650 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:44,257 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:44,466 - ‘’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:45,105 - Key.alt_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:45,217 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:46,361 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:46,537 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:46,729 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:48,706 - ‘g’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:48,770 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:48,914 - ‘n’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:49,034 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:49,140 - ‘r’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:49,570 - ‘a’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:49,786 - ‘t’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:49,866 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:50,785 - Key.backspace<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:51,295 - Key.backspace<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:51,325 - Key.backspace<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:51,356 - Key.backspace<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:51,388 - Key.backspace<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:51,418 - Key.backspace<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:51,450 - Key.backspace<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:51,497 - Key.backspace<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:51,527 - Key.backspace<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:51,558 - Key.backspace<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:51,589 - Key.backspace<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:51,620 - Key.backspace<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:51,651 - Key.backspace<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:51,682 - Key.backspace<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:51,728 - Key.backspace<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:52,162 - ‘p’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:52,649 - ‘y’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:52,970 - ‘t’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:53,082 - ‘h’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:53,122 - ‘o’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:53,265 - ‘n’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:53,817 - Key.space<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:54,410 - ‘g’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:54,442 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:54,609 - ‘n’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:54,714 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:54,810 - ‘r’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:55,073 - ‘a’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:55,202 - ‘t’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:55,306 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:55,809 - ‘-’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:56,465 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:54:58,945 - Key.enter<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:06,353 - Key.alt_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:06,473 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:07,265 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:10,985 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:11,492 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:11,523 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:11,554 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:11,586 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:11,630 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:11,642 - ‘’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:15,457 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:15,730 - ‘’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:16,210 - ‘z’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:16,434 - ‘e’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:16,626 - ‘n’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:16,714 - ‘o’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:20,953 - Key.alt_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:21,049 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:22,681 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:22,881 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:23,113 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:26,001 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:26,338 - ‘’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:27,760 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:28,267 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:28,298 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:28,330 - ‘1a’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:28,665 - Key.ctrl_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:28,834 - ‘’<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:29,441 - Key.alt_l<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:29,545 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:29,945 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:30,353 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:30,561 - Key.tab<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:33,281 - Key.cmd<br/>
2024-06-06 15:55:33,617 - ‘e’</p>
<!-- # felt cute might delete later
*What do graphic designers do all day and why do they do it and what does "graphic design" even mean?!????!!1!?* is an assessment of what the term "graphic design" means to its practitioners today. Through experimental ethnographic research methods and the development of reflexive tools, the project highlights and questions the boundaries that exist around this apparent category. The research focuses on my own practices as well as other people and groups that identify with "graphic designer" as a label. The research was both conducted by and shared with interested parties in the form of the tools themselves, as well as a series of performances. There is no strict distinction between the research and its publication. The tools were released in an iterative cycle throughout the process of the project, and the research is conducted through the performative use and development of these tools.
This research is carried out in three intersecting methods: experimental ethnographic research, reflexive tools, and performative research. Keylogging, performance of personal work habits, interviews about the manual work of "immaterial labourers", and dream analysis are combined in order to uncover less obvious and less discussed aspects of what a designer is and does in their daily life, as entry points to their worldviews, belief systems, mythologies or ideologies. The methods were developed in an iterative process that reflected on findings from the previous prototypes. The research took into account its own publication as part of one process.
1. Experimental ethnographic research methods: I documented my own practices as a graphic designer for nine months. Sometimes based on technical observations of my interaction with my tools, primarily my laptop computer and the software on it. I conducted interviews with designers. I recorded the interviews. I had prompts to open the discussion such as reading material and weird tools to try with them. I will carry out auto-ethnographic research using experimental methods such as mouse tracking and unusual annotation methods. I shared the results of this research as a series of interactive publications (tools) with a small but selected audience of people who are involved in these processes and who would benefit from it.
2. Reflexive tools: Software and hardware tools that explore the boundaries of "graphic design" as a category. For example at the boundaries between graphic design and other disciplines. At the boundaries between work and play, or between design and art. These tools malfunction in order to explore what it even means to be working. The tools aim to highlight what a graphic designer does by interacting with their user in ways that the designers standard tools do not (for example an interface to connect musical instruments to the designers workflow), or conversely by amplifying how the designer usually interacts with their tools (for example a keylogger to celebrate and focus on the use of the keyboard). The tools are digital in nature and involve software and hardware interventions into the graphic designers work.
3. Performative research: I see all the methods above as having a performative element. For example the ethnographic-slash-performative act of answering my emails on a large screen in front of an audience, research which was carried out as part of this project at Leeszaal, Rotterdam West on November 7th 2023. By showing directly the work practices of graphic designers to an audience, or their interaction with the tools mentioned above, I am publishing through performance the daily activities of designers and my aim is to show these practices without the conventional lenses they are seen through. To be contrasted for example with how graphic design is presented on behance.net or in a bookshop, this performative approach will highlight the mythologies and practices of the graphic designer.
I made this to explore why designers make design, based on Clifford Geertz's ideas of why humans make culture: "to affirm it, defend it, celebrate it, justify it and just plain bask in it" (Geertz, 1973). This exploration will also involve less constructive actions like participating, dissociating, questioning, protesting, destroying and disregarding. There is a disconnect between the narratives about "graphic design" and the effects it is known to have on its audiences, practitioners, and society in more general terms. I am attempting to "loosen the object" of graphic design (Berlant, 2022), to make the definition less defined and maybe more useful or easier to engage with. This shit could be better. Its urgent for the people being exploited by it, to break the inequalities it serves to maintain, to expose what it hides, to improve things that are definitely working but not in a good way. Design can hide and reproduce inequalities in its output and also dominate workers in its practices. This research starts primarily from the bodies and actions of the practitioners so will primarily engage with the effects on and by these bodies.
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.
"A sane person", says Zeno, "doesn't analyse himself, doesn't look in the mirror"
2023-11-24 17:52:55,103 - Key.tab
2023-11-24 17:52:57,175 - Key.alt_l
2023-11-24 17:52:57,368 - Key.tab
@ -402,14 +412,7 @@ I cut my thumb so every time I type i can feel it in my nerve endings. Not true,
2024-06-06 15:55:33,281 - Key.cmd
2024-06-06 15:55:33,617 - 'e'
An investigation into the practices and ideologies of graphic design in 2023–24 though practice-led artistic research and ethnographic methods. I held graphic design in my hands using ethnography, toolmaking and performance as research methods. I examined how a designer spends 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?
<!-- # felt cute might delete later
*What do graphic designers do all day and why do they do it and what does "graphic design" even mean?!????!!1!?* is an assessment of what the term "graphic design" means to its practitioners today. Through experimental ethnographic research methods and the development of reflexive tools, the project highlights and questions the boundaries that exist around this apparent category. The research focuses on my own practices as well as other people and groups that identify with "graphic designer" as a label. The research was both conducted by and shared with interested parties in the form of the tools themselves, as well as a series of performances. There is no strict distinction between the research and its publication. The tools were released in an iterative cycle throughout the process of the project, and the research is conducted through the performative use and development of these tools.
@ -422,4 +425,4 @@ This research is carried out in three intersecting methods: experimental ethnogr
3. Performative research: I see all the methods above as having a performative element. For example the ethnographic-slash-performative act of answering my emails on a large screen in front of an audience, research which was carried out as part of this project at Leeszaal, Rotterdam West on November 7th 2023. By showing directly the work practices of graphic designers to an audience, or their interaction with the tools mentioned above, I am publishing through performance the daily activities of designers and my aim is to show these practices without the conventional lenses they are seen through. To be contrasted for example with how graphic design is presented on behance.net or in a bookshop, this performative approach will highlight the mythologies and practices of the graphic designer.
I made this to explore why designers make design, based on Clifford Geertz's ideas of why humans make culture: "to affirm it, defend it, celebrate it, justify it and just plain bask in it" (Geertz, 1973). This exploration will also involve less constructive actions like participating, dissociating, questioning, protesting, destroying and disregarding. There is a disconnect between the narratives about "graphic design" and the effects it is known to have on its audiences, practitioners, and society in more general terms. I am attempting to "loosen the object" of graphic design (Berlant, 2022), to make the definition less defined and maybe more useful or easier to engage with. This shit could be better. Its urgent for the people being exploited by it, to break the inequalities it serves to maintain, to expose what it hides, to improve things that are definitely working but not in a good way. Design can hide and reproduce inequalities in its output and also dominate workers in its practices. This research starts primarily from the bodies and actions of the practitioners so will primarily engage with the effects on and by these bodies.
<!-- Can this list be turned into li's like above please?
3 Introduction 7 Making: 9 Backplaces 19 Talking Documents 31 Wink 39 What do graphic designers do all day. and why do they do it. and. what does "graphic. design" even mean????!!1!? .49 Writing: 51 <?water bodies> 103 Performing the Bureaucratic. Border(line)s 157 Fair Leads 201 ⊞ 253 Special Issues: 255 Garden Leeszaal 267 Console 273 TTY -->
